William Calder McConnell

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.