He received his preliminary education in the public schools of Fryburg, Clarion County, Pennsylvania. He was further educated at the Edinboro State Normal School, after which he entered Baltimore College of Physicians and Surgeons, and later the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated from the medical department in 1892. His first practice was at Leeper, Pennsylvania, where for two and one-half years he was in partnership with the late Dr. Beatty, of Kane. In 1895 he removed to Kellettville, and at once built up a wide and lucrative practice.
He served eight years as secretary of the Board of Pension Examiners at Tionesta, and also one term as coroner of Forest County, which he considered an outstanding feature of his work in that county, even though he served fifteen consecutive years as a school director. In 1916 the doctor removed to Oil City, where he built up a large practice and came to be considered one of the city's leading physicians.
The doctor was a thirty-second degree Mason, and a Knights Templar. He was also a member of the American Medical Association, the Venango Medical Society, the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, the Oil City Lion's Club, and of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church.