| John K. Hamblin, senior member of Hamblin, Sons & Co.,
proprietors of the Greenville Foundry and Machine Shops, was born in Wilmington,
Essex County, New York, March 2, 1809. He is a son of Samuel and Rhoda (Smith) Hamblin, natives of Connecticut, and grandson
of Simeon Hamblin, a native of Maine, and a pioneer of Essex County, New
York. Samuel removed with his family to Licking County, Ohio, early in the
thirties, where he died in 1838. His widow afterward came to Mercer County,
Pennsylvania, and here spent the remaining years of her life. In 1829 John
K. Hamblin came West, and located in Unionville
Lake County, Ohio, and taught school in that county two terms. He then, as
confidential clerk, took charge of a furnace store in the same county, which
position he filled three years, and then went to Cleveland, Ohio, to occupy a
similar position. In 1835, he went back to Wilmington, New York, and on the
20th of September was there married to Miss Elizabeth Hickok, a native
of Essex county, born September 10, 1810. Mr. Hamblin immediately returned to
Lake County, Ohio, and resided there until March, 1838, when he removed to
Greenville, Pennsylvania, and opened on Canal Street the first foundry operated
in the town, and one of the first in Mercer County. For the past fifty years,
excepting one short interval, he has been continuously engaged in the same
business, the present foundry being just across the street from the site of the
one he established half a century ago. Mrs. Hamblin died in November, 1846,
leaving a family of five children: Henry M., Mrs. Mary E. Thalimer,
of Greenville, Samuel, Mrs. Harriet Donaldson (deceased) and Mrs. Emeline
McClelland, of Warren, Ohio. Mr. Hamblin was again married in April, 1848,
to Mrs. Eunice B. Hunstable, who bore him three children: Albert, a
resident of North Carolina; Alice, wife of A. T. Kreps, of Hamblin, Sons and
Company, and J. Charles (deceased). Mrs. Hamblin died April 6, 1888. Our
subject is a Republican in politics, and the oldest surviving pioneer business
man of Greenville.
Ancestry.com. History of Mercer County,
Pennsylvania. Provo, UT. MyFamily.com, Inc.2004. History of Mercer County,
Pennsylvania, its past and present: including its aboriginal history, its early
settlement and development, a description of its historic and interesting
localities, sketches of its boroughs, townships and villages, neighborhood and
family histories, portraits and biographies of pioneers. |
