E. Howard Blackburn
Published: 2015-08-05
Total Pages: 640
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Excerpt from History of Bedford and Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania, Vol. 3: With Genealogical and Personal History Alexander H.Coffroth, for many years a leading figure in his profession and in the public life of the commonwealth during the dramatic period leading up to and culminating in the Civil war, was intensely active and broadly useful during his entire career. His abilities would undoubtedly have commanded his entrance upon highest places had not his inflexible devotion to principle held him to a political party which was constantly in the minority. General Coffroth was a native of Pennsylvania, born in Somerset, May 18, 1828. He was the youngest son of John and Mary (Besore) Coffroth, the father born in Hagerstown, Maryland, of German descent, and the mother born in Greencastle. Pennsylvania, of English ancestry. These parents removed in 1808 from Greencastle to Somerset, where the father was among the early settlers, and the first to set up a store, bringing his merchandise from the east on pack-horses. Mr. Coffroth was a man of excellent character, and his wife was a model of womanhood, whose kindliness of disposition, purity of conduct and energy of character were reflected in the son. Young Coffroth made of himself a fine exemplification of the truly self-made man in the best sense of that oft-abused term. Early thrown upon his own resources, he entered upon and waged the battle of life in such masterly fashion as to not only provide himself an ample equipment for the large duties which were to devolve upon him, but to also develop to their fullest his fine natural gifts of soul and intellect. He attended the common schools, and out of the fruits of his own labors defrayed the expenses of a more liberal education in the old Somerset Academy. For a time he served efficiently as a school teacher, and with the means thus earned supported himself while preparing for his chosen profession, the law. It was his great good fortune to attract the interest and friendship of the distinguished Jeremiah S. Black, in whose office and under whose preceptorship he read industriously for some years, meantime and for five years, beginning at the age of eighteen, serving as editor of the Somerset Visitor, a Democratic journal of no inconsiderable circulation and influence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.