DANIEL
BACKUS, farmer, post-office North's Mills, was born August 1845,
in Mercer County, Penn., to Daniel and Mary A. (Kauffman) Backus,
natives of Allegheny County, and of Scotch extraction. The parents
settled in Delaware Township, this county, about 1837, and there the
father died in 1845, and his widow subsequently removed to Fredonia
where she died in 1884. She was the mother of two children: Mary J.,
married James White, and resides in Fredonia, and Daniel. The father
was a farmer and owned 200 acres of land before his death. He belonged,
with his wife, to the Presbyterian Church. Our subject was educated in
the common schools, and worked on a farm until 1881, when he sold his
farm and bought a saw-mill in Perry Township. This he operated for five
months, sold and bought another mill in Cool Spring, ran it four
months, then operated a mill in Butler County for six months, thence to
Cool Spring, and pursued the same business for nearly two years, after
which he ran another mill in Lake Township for two months, and then
went to Fredonia and cut a large amount of staves, afterward going to
Butler County, and operating a mill, which he sold June 10, 1887, and
on December 1, 1887, he located on his farm of fifty-six acres, in Cool
Spring Township, which he had purchased in 1884. He married Cyrena
Keen, daughter of Reuben and Paulina (Mitchell) Keen, and by her has
three children: Mintie, Mary P. and Fred. He was a member of the
council of Fredonia Borough for three years, auditor and street
commissioner of the same for two years each. He is a Republican, a
member of the I. O. O. F., and, with his wife, belongs to the Methodist
Episcopal Church.
Source: History of Mercer County, 1888, pg. 975
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