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William Calder McConnell
Photo credit: Portrait: Genealogical and Biographical History of Northumberland County
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Biography
1860 -
1949
Born in Halifax, Dauphin County, April 4, 1860, the son of George Washington and Sarah (Marsh) McConnell. His father was an executive with Simon Cameron’s Northern Central Railroad; educated in public schools; Franklin and Marshall College; Cornell University; studied law under Cameron’s son-in-law, U.S. Attorney General Wayne McVeigh, 1880; moved to Shamokin; pursued the lumber, ice, and brick business; incorporator of the Roaring Creek Anthracite and Bear Gap Water Companies; president and treasurer of the Shamokin Water Co.; president of the Shamokin Banking Co.; president of the Northumberland Water Co.; director of the Edison Electric Illuminating Co. and the Arc Light Co.; delegate to Minneapolis Republican National Convention, 1892; delegate to numerous state conventions; Presidential Elector, 1904; Lt. Col. on staff of Gov. Hastings, 1895-1899; chaired a commission to build a state hospital for the care of those injured in the Treverton, Shamokin, and Mount Carmel Coal Fields; member of the Union League of Philadelphia; county chair, Pennsylvania Society of New York, 1919-1921; and prohibition administrator, Philadelphia. He married Ida V. Martz in 1881. William C. McConnell died in Shamokin on March 16, 1949.
Note: the McConnell Mansion (named for George) was the first home, in 1882, to use electric lights. None other than Thomas Edison, on a visit to Shamokin, was responsible for the improvement.