Given, Robert

ROBERT GIVEN.

Robert Given, Sr., emigrated from County Tyrone, North Ireland, and after the Revolution, in which he served in a Pennsylvania regiment, he located in Lancaster County. Some years after his arrival in America two of his brothers came to this country, of whom George settled in Chester County, and Oliver in Lancaster, near him. He married Mary Hawk, also an emigrant from North Ireland, and of the Presbyterian faith, while he adhered to the Established Church of England. He died in 1800, and his wife survived him until 1847. Of their children, three arrived to mature age,— George, who died in Johnstown in 1861; John, who died in Huntingdon County in 1872; and Robert. The latter was born April 17, 1799, near Sowdersburg, Lancaster Co., and in 1821 came to Westmoreland County and was several years engaged in teaching a subscription school in Derry township. Although he was not classically educated, he had received a thorough English education, and was one of the most popular and successful teachers in his day. He was married on Nov. 9, 1820, to Miss Mary Taylor, of Mifflin County, who died in 1835. The living children by her were John, now a leading merchant in Iowa City; Mary, married to William S. Lincoln, of Huntingdon County; Robert, residing in Fayette County; Martha, married to Wesley Rose, of Johnstown; and Elizabeth, married to Marshall Rose, of Sacramento City, Cal. In 1838 he married Eleanor Brown, of St. Clair township, in this county, who bore him the following children: Albert, George,

William, a prominent attorney at Greensburg; Milton, Anna Maria, Harvey, and Eleanor. His son John served throughout the Mexican war, and was commissary at Vera Cruz. His sons George and Milton were in the Union army in the late civil war, the latter, of Company F, First Pennsylvania Artillery, was killed at Gettysburg battle in July, 1863, in his nineteenth year. Robert Given was commissioned by Governor Wolf in 1831 as captain of the "Armagh Light Infantry," the best-drilled company in the Ninety-ninth Regiment of the Second Brigade, Fifteenth Division, Pennsylvania militia. On Feb. 14, 1835, he was appointed by Governor Wolf justice of the peace for Wheatfield township, Indiana Co., and in 1840 (under the constitution of 1838) was elected to the same position in the same township, receiving his commission from Governor Shunk. In 1857 he was elected magistrate for St. Clair township, of this county, in which he laid out the town of New Florence, and commissioned by Governor Pollock. In 1861 he was elected one of the two associate judges of the Court of Common Pleas of this county, and in 1866 was re-elected to the same judicial position, which was the first re-election in the county of any associate judge. Judge Given on tile bench won the esteem of the bar and the people for the ability and impartiality that characterized his rulings and course. When on the bench the president judge was often away, and here it was that his ability and judicial firmness were so signally noted. Judge Given has ever taken an active part in the politics of his country, and been for over half a century a leading man in the counsels of the Democratic party, with which he has been identified all his life. While a member of no church, his family has been connected with that of the United Presbyterians, but he has ever been a liberal contributor to all in his neighborhood. Since 1821 he has been a resident of either Indiana or Westmoreland County, but for the past twenty-three years has resided in the latter, in which he has owned property in all that time. For over twenty years he was connected with the public works of the State, and aided in the construction of the old Portage Railroad and Pennsylvania Canal, and as a contractor graded three miles of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1882 he sold his elegant farm in the southern part of Salem township, and in April of the same year removed to Greensburg, where he shortly after, very suddenly died, full of years and honors,— a noble example of a self-made man who under our free institutions had arisen from a poor boy to competence and high position among his fellow-men.