John Spearman - Early Life

Early Life

He was born in Mc Kee’s Gap, Blair County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Francis and Elizabeth (Ambrose) Spearman. His father was born in Kent county, Maryland, of English origin. His mother was born near McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania. They came to Mercer, Pennsylvania in 1852, where the father died. The mother died at Middlesex and was buried in Mercer. By occupation, the father was a miller. This couple reared a family of eight children, of whom two were sons and six were daughters.

Very early in life Spearman was thrown on his own resources. At the age of fourteen he became a clerk in the mercantile establishment of David Puterbaugh, of Woodbury, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Here he remained for three years, and then accepted employment in 1841 with Dr. Peter Shoenberger, a prominent manufacturer of iron in those days, at the Rebecca and other furnaces, and Maria forges, in Blair county, Pennsylvania. Here Spearman gained his first practical experience in the manufacture of iron, and he spent six years there.