WILLIAM
W. PARK - - During many years the Park family have been identified with
the life and interests of Mercer county, They are of Irish extraction,
and trace their ancestry in this country to John Park, who, with his
wife Eliza and their children, came from the Emerald Isle to the United
States in 1841, and locating first in the state of New York the lived,
there for about three years before coming to Mercer county,
Pennsylvania. They established their home in Springfield township, and
were farming people there for many years.
James Park, one of the
children of John and Eliza Park, was born in 1828, in county Tyrone,
Ireland. he married Elizabeth, a daughter of William Albin and a Miss
Walker, who for many years were numbered among the agricultural
residents of Findley township, Mercer county. William Albin being also
a local minister, a good and pious man and well and reverently known
throughout the county. James and Elizabeth (Albin) Park became the
parents of five children, namely:
William W., who is mentioned
below: Caroline Rebecca, the wife of John Johnson, a farmer in Cool
Spring township: John Asbury, deceased: Anna Maria, the wife of John
Ray, a farmer in Lake township; and James Ellis, who married Sarah
Fisher, from Lake township, and is now engaged in agricultural pursuits
in Liberty township. Both James Park and his wife were honored members
of the Irwin Presbyterian church, and in politics he was a Democrat.
William
W. Park, during many years one of the leading farmers and fruit growers
of Lake township and the proprietor of Pleasant View Fruit Farm, was
born on the 12th of August. 1856, on the farm in Wolf Creek township,
now owned by Gilbert Johnson. From the Gordon school in that vicinity
he passed to the Grove City College, and completed his training in the
New Wilmington College. After leaving the school room he was for two
years engaged in a mercantile business at New Wilmington, and going
from there to Kilgore he was similarly employed during another two
years, while during the four succeeding years he was in the mercantile
business in Bethel, and then for two years was a merchant at
Coitsville, Ohio. Returning at the close of that period to Mercer
county, he in 1887 purchased the Pleasant Valley Fruit Farm of one
hundred acres. This is excellent land, perhaps the best in Lake
township. and is admirably adapted to its present purposes. As a
representative of the Democracy. Mr. Park has always taken an active
part in political work, and was five times elected a justice of the
peace of Lake township, but twice he did not take out his commission.
He also served one term as a school director in Wolf Creek township,
one term as a member of the school board of Bethel borough and one term
as the auditor of Lake township.
He married on December 13.
1882, Lissa Sarah, a daughter of Oliver and Ann (Mulholand) Beach, of
Kilgore. and four children were born to gladden and bless their home,
but one. Anna Florence, has been called from this life to the higher
one. She was born on the 26th of January, 1885, and died on the 24th of
March, 1908, loved and revered not only in her own home but by the many
friends whom she had made in her short life. James Frank, the eldest of
the children, born November 29, 1883, pursued a course in the Ohio
Northern University at Ada, and is now in the employ of W. A. McKnight.
a druggist of Sharon. He has been thus connected during the past four
years. Roy Oliver. born on the 13th of November. 1891. is a student in
the Sandy Lake Institute. Merrill, born on February 1, 1893. is
attending the Stoneboro high school. Mr. Park is a member of the Royal
Arcanum at New Wilmington and of the Bethany Presbyterian church.
Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, pages 943-944
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