Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria County Pennsylvania, p.340

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340 BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

first-class work, and has a fine trade. It is run by water power. In connection with the mill Mr. Sybert owns a fine farm.
    Sebastian P. Sybert was married in 1861 to Miss Martha, daughter of Edward Bradley, of the district then comprising part of Allegheny, but now Dean township, Cambria county. Five sons and two daughters have been born to them, viz.: Edward, Mary, now the wife of Albert Nole, of Munster township; Pius A., William M., John G., Sarah J., and Gilbert S. The last-named died at the age of four years.
    Mr. Sybert has always enjoyed the confidence and respect of his neighbors. Once, as a mark of their esteem, they elected him a justice of the peace. Though appreciating the compliment he declined to serve, caring nothing for public office. He is a member of the Catholic church, is devoted to his family and friends, and prefers that others shall fill the offices and enjoy their honors and emoluments.

JAMES COSTLOW, a respected citizen of Wilmore, and an ex-county commissioner of Cambria county, is the eldest son of Henry and Susan (Lingenfelter) Costlow, and was born in Blair county, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1822. His paternal great-grandfather, James Costlow, was one of the brave little band that came with the noble Lafayette to America, when the colonial cause seemed almost hopeless, and fought on many a Revolutionary battlefield. After peace he remained in this country and settled in Lancaster county, where he died and left three children, one of whom was James, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch.
    James Costlow was bound out at five years of age and never saw any of his relatives from that day to this. When he became of sufficient
age he learned the trade of tanner, and after his marriage came to that part of Bedford which is now Blair county, where he started a tannery which he operated up to the time of his death. His son, Henry Costlow, was born in 1797, in Blair county, and died in what is now Adams township, this county, in April, 1850. He was principally self-educated, having attended but for a short time the old subscription schools, whose terms were in winter and from two to three months in length. He followed farming and operated a distillery in Blair county up to 1835, in which year he came to what is now Adams township, where he purchased a farm and devoted the remainder of his life to agricultural pursuits.
    Seven years after his death his children sold the farm. He was an old-line whig, held various township offices, and enjoyed the goodwill and respect of his neighbors. He was a Catholic, and married Susan Lingenfelter, who died in February, 1850. Their children. were: James; John, who lives near the old home farm in Blair county; David, a farmer of Adams township; Henry, who is a farmer and resides with his brother John; Mary, who resides with John; Rachel, now dead, who married John Shank, who was killed while serving as a Union soldier in the late Civil War, and Susan, who married Henry Kiper and is now deceased.
    James Costlow attended the early common schools when their annual term was but two months, and came, in 1835, with his father to Adams township, where he worked on the farm until it was sold in 1856, as previously mentioned. He then removed to Dunlo, and purchased a farm, which he sold in 1893 to remove to his present home in Summerhill township, where he is now living a retired life.

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