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these children died September 24, 1881, and is buried in Singer graveyard. Mr. Cover married (second) November 20, 1833, Sarah Varner, who is, like himself, a devout member of the German Baptist church, of which she became a member in 1861. Notwithstanding his advanced age, having now entered his nintieth year, Mr. Cover is active and energetic both mentally and physically. He writes without glasses, and can partially dispense with their assistance in reading. His long record of integrity and usefulness, combined with his kind and charitable disposition, has won for him the well-deserved veneration and love with which he is regarded by all. Mrs. Cover was born March 31, 1842, in Conemaugh township, and until her marriage lived there and in Taylor township, at the home of her grandfather Goode. She is a daughter of Samuel Varner, who was born in Conemaugh township, son of George and Christina (Horner) Varner, both of German descent, and the former a well-known farmer. Samuel Varner married, and his children were: Sarah, wife of Amos Cover; Nancy, wife of Abraham Fyock, of Walnut Grove; Caroline, wife of Samuel Knabel, of Adams township; Jacob C., of Adams township, married Susannah Knabel; Lucinda, deceased, wife of Jacob Arthur; and Harriet Jane, died in childhood, Mr. and Mrs. Varner both died in Taylor township, at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Cover, the latter passing away in 1892, aged sixty-nine, and the death of the former occurring in 1893, he being then seventy-five years old.
SMILEY WILSON, of Johnstown, foreman in the Bessemer steel department of the Cambria Steel Works, was born April 20, 1845, in Brady's Bend, Armstrong county, his father and paternal grandfather having both borne the name of Andrew. The latter was a native of the north of Ireland, and when a young man emigrated to the United States, settling at Elizabeth, Allegheny county, on the banks of the Monongahela. He was among the early settlers, making his first home in the forest and becoming a very extensive landowner, the possessor of several fine farms, all underlaid with coal. In addition to this property he owned land in Pittsburg in the neighborhood of the Times building, and also the site of that structure, beside other real estate in different parts of the very best business section of the city. He was a member of the Presbyterian church. Andrew Wilson married, in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, Miss Elrod, a kinswoman of Henry Clay, and had a number of children. He died at his home in Elizabeth, leaving behind him the reputation of an honest, industrious man, respected by all who knew him.
Andrew Wilson, son of Andrew Wilson and his wife, was born on the home farm at Elizabeth, and obtained the limited education which was usually the portion of the children of pioneers of that period, being trained at an early age to assist his father in the labor of clearing land. Soon after his marriage he removed to Brady's Bend, where, for a number of years, he was employed in the salt mines. He went to Johnstown in 1856, making his home at the corner of Main and Union streets. He was employed in the Cambria Iron Works until five years before his death, when he had retired from active labor. In politics he was first a Whig and later a Republican. He was one of the founders of the Baptist church, of which he was a member until the close of his life. Andrew Wilson married Matilda, daughter of Hugh Sinclair West, a native of Baltimore, of English descent, and a pioneer in the making of earthenware in Clarion, Pennsylvania, whither he removed
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