Barclay, Thomas J.

THOMAS J. BARCLAY.

Thomas J. Barclay, the greatest financier Westmoreland County ever produced, was born in 1824, in the same house in which he died, Aug. 24, 1881. For nearly half a century he was one of the chief business men of Greensburg. After the death of his father he was the oldest of the minor children, who were taken to the house of their grandfather, Alexander Johnston, at Kingston. They remained there, and Thomas attended the Greensburg Academy in its halcyon days, and completed his classical education at Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg. He then studied law under the late Hon. Henry Donnell Foster, and had the use of his deceased father’s large law library, his father having been a lawyer of prominence. At the August term of court in 1844 (in his twentieth year) he was admitted to the Westmoreland bar. In November following (when he had not yet reached his majority) he was appointed district attorney for the county, which position he held several years. He went to the Mexican war as second sergeant under Capt. John W. Johnston in the Second Pennsylvania Regiment. He was afterwards promoted to the first lieutenancy. After the war he was treasurer of the county for two years. In 1854 he abandoned the law and became a banker, becoming in a few years one of the leading bankers in Western Pennsylvania. On Sept. 5, 1854, he was married to Miss Rebecca, daughter of Hon. Joseph H. Kuhns, then residing in the Jack mansion in East Greensburg, by Rev. Fayette Derling, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, To this happy marriage there were ten children, all but one of whom are living. He was a great factor in the politics of the county, and while he never made any public demonstrations, yet his advice and counsel were always sought in an important political campaign, and in 1879 was chairman of the Democratic County Committee. His funeral was conducted by Rev. J.B. Jennings, of the Episcopal Church, with the following pall-bearers: John Armstrong, Jas. Gregg, J. A. Marchand, John W. Turney, Col. James Armstrong, Leopold Furtwangler, and Lewis Trauger.