Early Life and Legal Practice
"Wes" Gephart, as he was known to his contemporaries, was born in Millheim, Pennsylvania, a town in Penns Valley. His parents were John P. Gephart, a well-to-do local farmer, and Mary (Swartz) Gephart. He was educated at the Bellefonte Academy and Princeton University. Gephart paid his way through college in part by working as a printer, having learned the trade at the Bellefonte Watchman in his youth. He graduated from Princeton with honors in 1874, and was named a Boudinot fellow in history.A
Gephart returned to Bellefonte to study law under James A. Beaver, and was admitted to the bar on December 13, 1876. A contemporary newspaper account praised his diligence and "retentive memory." On January 7, 1877, he joined Beaver's law practice, thereafter conducted under the name of Beaver and Gephart.B John M. Dale joined the partnership ten years later, around the time of Beaver's election as governor. Gephart enjoyed an excellent income from his law practice, and was highly regarded as a lawyer and orator. He took part in the local civic life as an officer of the Centennial Temperance Club, and as a member of the local Presbyterian church, where he was Sunday school superintendent. Gephart married Ella M. Hays on October 23, 1879 in Bellefonte. They had three children: Wallace Hays, William Wilson, and Elizabeth.
In 1884, he reported himself to be a "Conservative Democrat," but unlike his law partner, Beaver, did not aspire to political office. Gephart also declared himself in favor of a tariff "adjusted so as to protect and encourage industries needing it, but not to foster monopolies." The twin themes of encouraging industry and antipathy to monopoly would color much of his later career. His support for a protective tariff led him to publicly break with the Democratic Party in 1888 and endorse Benjamin Harrison's candidacy for president, much to the discomfiture of Centre County Democrats. In 1889, Governor Beaver appointed Gephart one of the Commonwealth's commissioners to the Exposition Universelle.
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