15. GEORGE WILLIAM CASS, Mar. 23, 1855-Mar. 26, 1940
b. S. Harbor Creek, Pa. d. S. Harbor Creek, Pa.



LU ELLA COLE, Jan. 4, 1860-
b. Roseville, Ill.
Married Aug. 30, 1881 at the Cole home, S. Harbor Creek







22. Elizabeth Claire, Jan: 16, 1883 -
m. Alfred King ( 1877 - ), June 1, 1904
23. Ellsworth Axtell, June 5, 1884 -
m. Emma Thornton (1889- ), Dec. 27, 1906
24. Myrta Luella, Dec. 27, 1885 -
m. Ralph Burgess ( 1886 - ), July 2, 1908
25. Herbert Lee, Feb. 9, 1889 -
m. Mary Ellen Birley (1892- ), June2&, 1919
26. Harold John, June 12, 1896 -
m. Daisy McCiester ( - ), June 15, 1929

George Cass was born in the Cass home in Factory Gulch, a short distance below the woolen mill. He, and many other youngsters of his time, found the mill dam a handy place for swimming in the summer and for skating in the winter. During the Civil War the small children played soldier along the wooded banks of the Gulch.

His attendance at district school was notable for his excellence in arithmetic. He was generally a grade or two ahead of his class in this study, and delighted in solving the most difficult problems. After finishing the course of study available in the rural school, he attended the old Erie Academy in Erie Pennsylvania, where he studied mathematics and bookkeeping. He then returned to help his father in the woolen mill where he learned the entire process, but later turned to farming when the woolen business began to fall off.

His chief recreation, in addition to working problems in arithmetic, was playing the organ and the piano. He had frequently played for the church services, and for many years was Sunday School Superintendent, Teacher of the Men's Bible Class and a member of the Board of Trustees of the South Harbor Creek Methodist Church. Mrs. Cass was equally active and regular in attendance and teaching a Sunday School class. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cass were active workers in the prohibition movement, Mrs. Cass was corresponding secretary in the W. C. T. U. for many years.

George Cass was noted among his friends for his remarkably accurate memory. He had a great interest in people, both past and present, and due to his meeting so many while working in the woolen mill, he had an extensive knowledge of the lineage of most of the old settlers of his and the neighboring townships.

The descendants of Edward and Betty Cass have always cherished their kinship with the relatives in Beaver County and frequently drove to visit them, taking two days each way for the trip. On one of these visits when a child four years old, George Cass was rescued just in time as he was sitting on a hive of bees in the Smith orchard.

George Cass was one of the stockholders and a director of the local telephone company in his neighborhood when it was first organized in 1907. After several years operation they sold out to the Erie company.

A lean-to had been added to his barn about 1905, using timbers and material from the old woolen mill which had been abandoned. When the barn was struck and burned by lightning in May, 1913, he organized a crew to cut timber from his farm and had a new barn built on the old foundation by November of the same year, paying for hired labor with his insurance money.

George Cass was once probably the instrument in saving a woman's life in Erie when a team tan away with a sleigh in which she was sitting. One of the horses had kicked her husband down as he was unhitching them from the rack and before he could regain his feet the team had plunged down the street with their reins beyond his wife's reach. Mr. Cass emerged from a store door just as the runaway started and jumping for the bridle of the nearest horse managed to swerve them off the street to a stop.

He was very active physically until he reached an advanced age. He made a good showing in foot races when past seventy and at that time could hold a broom stick in both hands while jumping over it. He was familiarly known as, "Uncle George", by his neighbors for miles around. His death came from heart failure with advancing old age. He is buried in the Cass family lot in South Wales Cemetery.

Mrs. George Cass is a daughter of Samuel Spafford and Clarinda (Axtell) Cole. The Cole family were formerly of Mercer County and later of Warren, Pennsylvania, but at the time of her marriage were living on a farm in Harbor Creek Township. Mrs. Cass was born at Roseville, Illinois where her parents were living temporarily at the time.

The ancestry of her parents has been traced back to colonial days in America, and a book giving this record has been written by her youngest son, giving an interesting list of many who served their country in the earliest days of its existence. Among those were Captain Henry Cole, of the United States Army in the War of 1812 and Robert Treat, founder of Newark, New Jersey, who was Colonial Governor of Connecticut, presiding at the time of the Charter Oak incident.

Mrs. George Cass finished grade school and for two years attended High School at Warren, Pennsylvania. She later taught for several years before her marriage in the rural schools of Harbor Creek Township, near where her parents were living.

Mrs. Cass is still an ardent church worker, and very regular in attendance at Divine Service.

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