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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

To complete the personnel of Mr. Hamm's family, his wife, who busily and gracefully presides with him over the fortunes of the Merchants' Hotel, was Miss Mollie M. Cover, youngest daughter of Mr. William Cover, the latter being now, at the venerable age of eighty years, among, the oldest members of one of Cambria county's first families, honored for his true worth and manliness, and loved by all who know him - our friend's best friends, and therefore linked with him in this brief and imperfect sketch. JOHN JORDAN, a grand-nephew of the celebrated General Jordan, of England, and a prosperous farmer of Richland township, is a son of Charles and Ann (Gibson) Jordon, and was born at Walsall, eight miles from Birmingham, England, February 14, 1830. The Jordan family is a very old English family, and Charles Jordan was a native of Appleby, Derbyshire, England. He was a member of the Episcopal church. He followed farming in connection with running a large livery stable. He was a nephew of General Jordan, of England, who left an estate of sixty thousand pounds in France, and lost his life in that country in 1839, while looking after his uncle's property.     Charles Jordan married Ann Gibson, who was a native of Peckleton, in Leicestershire, England, and an Episcopalian like himself. Mrs. Jordan died at Walsall in 1875, aged sixty-seven years. Her father, George Gibson, was likewise a native of Leicestershire, where he followed farming and lived a peaceful rural life. The Jordan and Gibson families in England were known as peaceable and industrious, a record that has been well sustained by their descendants in this and other countries.     John Jordan was reared at his native place

in the usual manner that English boys were, which consisted in careful training for agricultural or industrial pursuits. He received the limited education of that day that was imparted in the schools for the masses of the people, and at an early age went to work in the ore mines, where he became a subordinate overseer or assistant foreman. Then he was made charter master of mining under Thomas Hartland & Son, in Reedswood's colliery, and later held a similar position in the Deepmore colliery under John Bagnell & Son. After a number of years spent as a charter master in some of the leading and larger collieries of England he concluded to come to the United States, and in 1863 sailed for this country. After landing he came to Johnstown, where he was engaged in mining for seven years for the Cambria Iron company. At the end of that time, in 1870, Mr. Jordan opened a grocery store on Washington street, which he conducted until 1880, when he purchased a small farm of fourty-five acres in Richland township, on which he has resided ever since. He has from time to time made additions to this farm until it now contains two hundred acres of good farming land. The entire farm is underlaid with coal which has been leased by the Johnson Coal company at ten cents royalty per ton.     On March 1, 1852, Mr. Jordan married Sarah Bird, whose parents were Joseph and Sarah Bird, of Walsall, England. Mr. And Mrs. Jordan have two children, a son and a daughter: George, now engaged in the mercantile business in Johnstown, and Harriet, wife of Alfred Slater, of Lorain, Ohio.     He is a member of the Episcopal church, in which his wife also holds membership. Like most men who have won their own way in life, Mr. Jordan contended with adverse cir-

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