Husband Peter Moore Speer 1
Born: 29 Dec 1862 - Oakland Twp, Venango Co, PA 1
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Father: Alexander Speer (1827-Aft 1879) 2 3
Mother: Grizzey Ann Hays ( -Bef 1919) 2 3
Marriage: 1891 3
Wife Isabella Paul 3
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Children
1 M Stuart Paul Speer 3
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2 F Katharine S. Speer 3
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Spouse: Thomas M. Brown ( - ) 3
Marr: 1916 - ? Venango Co, PA
General Notes: Husband - Peter Moore Speer
He received his early education in the country schools and at the age of fifteen began teaching school. Continuing to teach for several years, he thus earned the money to attend college, meanwhile preparing for college by private study. He entered Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, as a freshman, attending there one year; also studied at Westminster College, New Wilmington, one term, and afterward entered the senior class of Washington and Jefferson College, at Washington, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1887 with the degree of A. B., being awarded the honor of a commencement oration. In 1890 he delivered the master's oration and was awarded the degree of A. M. He read law at Oil City, and was admitted to the bar of Venango County, in 1889, immediately beginning the practice of law at Oil City. He was unusually successful in cases before the Supreme Court of the State, involving the construction of the Constitution and Statutes, frequently reversing the lower courts. Among such cases in which the lower court was reversed are Canavan vs. City, where he established the right of a city to maintain uncovered gutters at street crossings; City of Franklin vs. Hancock, sustaining the constitutionality of the city charter allowing the city to sue in assumpsit for paving assessments; Pettit vs. R. R. Co., holding the railroad company liable for damages to oil properties from a slide caused by excavating the railroad right of way; and recently the case of City vs. Postal Telegraph Company, sustaining the right of the city to compel the telegraph company to put its wires underground, thus enabling the city to remove from its streets the menace of a mass of wires. Perhaps the most notable case won by him was that of Simpson vs. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a suit for personal injuries in which he obtained a verdict for plaintiff of $41,500, the largest verdict but one ever obtained in Pennsylvania in such a case.
In 1891 Mr. Speer was elected on the Republican ticket as district attorney for Venango County, and served one term of three years, during which time he personally conducted the prosecutions, with an unusually large percentage of convictions. He convicted several of a gang of horse thieves and burglars operating through several of the adjoining counties, and effectively broke up their organization. In 1895 he was elected city solicitor for the city of Oil City, and re-elected for five successive terms\emdash eleven years in all. He was elected on the Republican ticket and served as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature in 1897. During this session he spoke against and was instrumental in defeating an obnoxious bill known as the Electric Light Bill, which would have prevented cities from owning their own electric light plants. He also had charge of and procured the passage of a bill amending in many essential particulars the law relating to third-class cities, which among other things gave to such cities the right to construct conduits and compel electric wires to be placed underground. This beneficial act was vetoed by the governor, lest it might confiscate the poles of telegraph companies. In 1910 Mr. Speer was elected on the Republican ticket as a member of the Sixty-second Congress, and served one term. He was renominated in 1912, but was defeated by the split in the Republican Party. In Congress he was an earnest supporter of a Tariff Commission, of a Workmen's Compensation Law, of the enlargement of the navy and building of more battleships, and of a number of laws improving the conditions of labor. He spoke in favor of a Parcel Post Law, which was finally enacted by this Congress, after a struggle of more than a quarter of a century.
Mr. Speer was president of the Petroleum Telephone Company beginning at its organization. It was one of the most successful of the independent telephone companies operating in Oil City, Franklin, Titusville, and the surrounding territory. The policy of the company, under his presidency, was to make connections with farmers' telephone lines, so as to extend the telephone service throughout the country districts, with the result that practically every prominent farmer in the county had fairly good telephone service. [CAB, 496]
General Notes: Wife - Isabella Paul
from Titusville, Crawford Co, PA
She was a graduate of Westminster College with the degree of A. B. She was manager of the Women's Edition of the Oil City Derrick, which the ladies of Oil City published for some years with great success, and was active in and president of the Belles Lettres Club of Oil City, and was at one time a director of the State Federation of Women's Clubs of Pennsylvania.