Western Pennsylvania Genealogy
Compiled by Douglas H. Lusher


Family Group Record



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Orville Hurd Allerton and Eliza Adelaide Dean




Husband Orville Hurd Allerton 1

           Born: 17 Apr 1817 - Amenia, Dutchess Co, NY 1
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 


         Father: Samuel Waters Allerton (1785-1885) 2
         Mother: Hannah Hurd (1788-      ) 2


       Marriage: 15 Jan 1845 3



Wife Eliza Adelaide Dean 3

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 


Children
1 M Clarence Allerton 3

           Born: 1849 3
     Christened: 
           Died: Abt 1850
         Buried: 
         Spouse: Did Not Marry


2 M Orville Hurd Allerton 3

           Born: 3 Oct 1851 - Newark, NY 3
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 
         Spouse: Ida C. Leggett (      -      ) 3
           Marr: 3 Jun 1874 3



General Notes: Husband - Orville Hurd Allerton


At the age of ten years he began life's active career by working in a comb factory, which trade he designed to learn, but a few months later his life was turned in another channel by his employer selling out and moving away. He then worked for a time on a farm, doing what a lad of his tender years could, for which he received the sum of three cents a day. He had an uncle, who was chiefly engaged in buying and driving to the New York markets large droves of fat cattle, and when Orville was but eleven years old he had him leave school and help him drive his droves the distance of one hundred miles to New York City, but on the first trip, and when only out about twenty miles, he became very homesick and could not be induced to go farther on the long journey. He turned face homeward and covered the whole distance following behind two men on horseback who were going part way. He hurried on and arrived at home the same evening, having averaged five miles an hour for the four hours. This trait of his character was always a predominating one in his life-he dearly loved his own home and its hallowed influences.
From time to time he assisted in driving stock to New York, always having to trudge along on foot. He received twenty-five cents a day for his services and his steamboat fare to Poughkeepsie, thirty miles from his home, and this distance on his return trips he always walked, unless fortunate enough to find teamsters going his way. Up to fourteen years of age he was educated at the district schools, at the select school of Dr. Leonard and the Amenia Seminary.
At the age of thirteen he commenced to clerk in a store at Nassau, New York, and later at Dover Plains, New York. Subsequently he went to Elmira, New York, and clerked in a drug store. In 1839 he went to Dubuque, Iowa, where he had a brother, Henry Allerton, who was a farmer, living out but twenty miles. He made his way by a fearful perilous voyage over the great lakes to Chicago, Illinois, and by stage two hundred miles to Dubuque, and from there made the twenty miles on foot. There he was to clerk in a store in which the chief stock of merchandise was plug tobacco, clay pipes and whisky. Five weeks was a sufficient time for him 'midst such surroundings, and at the end of that period he retraced his steps to his native state. He went to Elmira, New York, and was engaged as clerk and bookkeeper for about twelve years, this giving him a practical business schooling, which was the real foundation for the success he finally achieved.
In 1842 he went to Newark, New York, where he began the mercantile business in earnest and continued for twenty-five years. After thirty-seven years of indoor work he found it necessary to change on account of his health, and so, in 1868, he accepted a position tendered him by his brother, Samuel W. Allerton, as superintendent of the Pennsylvania Central Stock Yards at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It was a place of more than ordinary responsibility, but the compensation was equal to the labor and so he continued for seventeen years, when he retired, after having been fifty-four years engaged in active business pursuits. He retired to a beautiful home at Newark, New York, where he also owned a well improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres. This was but a fragment of the sum he was enabled to accumulate in his long career. He made many good investments, including western railroad stocks, and numerous deals of a purely legitimate nature. His measure of success in life was mainly due to his order, care, promptness, and integrity of character. He is an able writer and speaker, always being logical in his conclusions and concise in his expression.


General Notes: Wife - Eliza Adelaide Dean

from Dresden, Yates Co, NY

She was a natural self-taught painter of portraits and landscape scenes, although she never cultivated her artistic tendencies to any great extent. It was said of her: "As a wife, no more true, noble or trustworthy heart ever beat in human breast."

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Sources


1 John W. Jordan, LL.D, A Century and a Half of Pittsburg and Her People, Vol. III (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1908), Pg 128.

2 John W. Jordan, LL.D, A Century and a Half of Pittsburg and Her People, Vol. III (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1908), Pg 127.

3 John W. Jordan, LL.D, A Century and a Half of Pittsburg and Her People, Vol. III (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1908), Pg 129.


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