Gilbert Leander Eberhart and Maria Smith
Husband Gilbert Leander Eberhart 1 2 3
Born: 15 Jan 1830 - North Sewickley Twp, Beaver Co, PA 1 2 3 Christened: Died: Buried:
Father: John Eberhart (1792-1858) 1 4 5 Mother: Sarah Power (Abt 1799-Abt 1831) 1 2 5 6
Marriage: 1852 7
Wife Maria Smith 3 7
Born: Christened: Died: Buried:
Father: Dr. Peter Smith ( - ) 7 8 9 Mother:
Children
1 F Georgiana Eberhart 10
Born: Christened: Died: Buried:Spouse: Dr. H. S. McConnel (1848- ) 8 10 Marr: 1879 11
General Notes: Husband - Gilbert Leander Eberhart
His education was received at the Mercer Academy and Washington College, in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He then engaged in civil engineering and teaching until the outbreak of the rebellion, when in April, 1861, he entered the army, and was later made Quartermaster of the 8th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, serving in 1862 on the staff of Gen. George G. Meade. After active service in the field, he received his discharge in May, 1864. In September he was appointed by Gen. Saxton, superintendent of education for the state of Georgia in connection with the Freedman's Bureau. He was admitted to the bar of Beaver county in 1870, and began the practice of law.
As a Republican he was an influential factor in local politics. He was superintendent of schools for Mercer County in the years 1856-57; member of the State House of representatives for 1877-78, and was twice elected mayor of New Brighton.
He was an Episcopalian in his religious belief, and a member of the church of that denomination in New Brighton.
His mother died when he was nineteen months old, and he was then taken into the care of his maternal grandfather's family. His first instructions in letters were received in a select school in the Beaver Academy, and the first public school-house built in Beaver. His first Sunday school lessons were given him in the old Presbyterian Church that stood on the public square in Beaver, while he was a member of an infant class. Later he received some wholesome drills in Kirkham's Grammar, the Western Calculator, the English Reader and the New Testament, in a log school-house which stood on the banks of Big Brush run in South Beaver township. In his later school-boy days, Mr. Eberhart was sent to the Academy at Mercer by his uncle, the Hon. James M. Power, who was then a merchant and iron manufacturer at Greenville, in Mercer County. Finally he entered Washington (Pa.) College, where he spent two years. Soon after he left that institution, he engaged in civil engineering on the Erie and Pittsburgh railway of which his uncle, Gen. Thomas J. Power, was then President. He pursued that profession some five years, when he engaged in teaching in Greenville, Mercer County, and soon became Superintendent of Public Schools of that county. A short time prior to the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion, he took charge of the Conneautville (Pa.) Academy, but resigned that position, and on April 17, 1861, he enlisted for a term of three months as a Sergeant in "D" Company in Col. John W. McLane's Erie Regiment. At the expiration of that term, he enlisted in the 8th Regt., Pa. Res. Vol. Corps, and was mustered in for three years at Washington City, July 28, 1861, as a member of the non-commissioned regimental staff. He served in that capacity until August 21, 1862, when Gen. Geo. G. Meade, then commanding the Second Brigade of the Pa. Reserves, assigned him to duty on his staff as his Commissary of Subsistence, and he remained in the Subsistence Department of the Army of the Potomac as long as that army was in the field, and afterward served at Beaufort, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, until October, 1865. During the Second Bull Run campaign, he served on the staff of Gen. John F. Reynolds, then commanding the third division (Pa. Reserves) of the Fifth army corps; and was honored and highly complimented by both Reynolds and Meade for the coolness and courage by which, on August 28, 1862, he saved the division trains from capture and destruction during a severe shelling by Rebel artillery. In that action Maj. Eberhart's horse was so badly injured by a shell in the left shoulder that he was obliged to abandon the poor animal to his fate. September 3, 1862, he received a commission as Quarter Master of the 8th Pa. Reserves, and was mustered to rank as such from July 1st, 1862. November 19, 1862, he became quite ill, and in a few weeks was reduced in weight from one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifteen pounds, as a result of the hard march through rain and snow from the battlefield of Antietam to Brooks Station, near Fredericksburg. Major Eberhart, however, in spite of his severe illness, was present on duty in the field at the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, where, by the discharge of a heavy cannon, near the muzzle of which he was standing, he lost his hearing for a time. When it gradually, but only partially returned, it was discovered that the drum of his right ear was perforated and the hearing totally destroyed. The disease contracted in November, 1862, resulted in chronic disease of the digestive organs, and muscular rheumatism, from which he was a constant sufferer; and not until the year 1890, did he regain the twenty-five pounds of flesh lost in the winter of 1862-3. Under date of September 15, 1865, while on duty at Jacksonville, Fla., he received a letter from Maj.-Gen. Rufus Saxton, then Asst. Commissioner of the Bureau of Freedmen and Abandoned Lands for the states of South Carolina and Georgia, in which was this sentence: "I am pleased to offer you the position of Superintendent of Freedmen's Schools for the state of Georgia." Maj. Eberhart accepted the offer, and under date at Charleston, South Carolina, October 2, 1865, he received Special Order No. 18 directing him to "report in person, without delay, to Brig.-Gen. Davis Tillson at Augusta, Ga." October 6, 1865, he was "assigned to duty as Superintendent of Freedmen's Schools for the State of Geor-gia." He remained on Gen. Tillson's staff until October, 1867, in the meantime having established, in the face of difficulties and menaces which only the military power of the Government could curb and resist, over two hundred and fifty schools for freedmen. In the City of Atlanta and, also, in Savannah, he secured the erection of a fine school-house - the first buildings of the kind ever erected in Georgia for negroes. On his return to civil life, he resumed teaching, and, in the autumn of 1867, became Superintendent of the public schools of Rochester. The next year, without his seeking, he was elected Superintendent of the Kittanning Schools, where he organized the first graded schools that City ever had. He held that position four years, when he resigned to enter on the practice of law, having in the meantime read with the late Judge Brown B. Chamberlin. He was admitted to the Beaver bar June 14, 1870, and soon after to Lawrence, Mercer and Butler, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. In November, 1876, he was elected to represent Beaver County in the lower house of the General Assembly, and served during the sessions of 1877 and 1878. In 1883, he was elected without any solicitation on his part, to the office of Chief Burgess of New Brighton, and re-elected to succeed himself; and, so well pleased were his fellow-citizens with his administration of the office, that they tendered him a third term, but his private business so engrossed his time he was obliged to decline the honor. In 1884, he was a prominent candidate for Congress, for which in all the counties of the district there were aspirants, producing a divisive and somewhat bitter rivalry; and, sub-ordinating his own desires to the good of his party, he withdrew, rather than jeopardize the success of his party. In 1891, he was elected a delegate to rep-resent the senatorial district composed of Bea-ver and Washington Counties in a proposed convention to amend the State constitution. His popularity in the district, as well as in his own County, was well attested by the fact that he received nine thousand, three hundred and fifty votes out of a total poll of thirteen thousand, one hundred and thirty-three. In 1879, at the earnest solicitation of a number of the young men of New Brighton, he organized a military company of which he was commissioned Captain and which was admitted to the National Guard of Pennsylvania as "B" Company, of the 15th Regiment of Infantry, in 1880, and the next year to the 10th Regiment,-the Hawkins regiment,-which became famous, as well for being the only volunteer regiment east of the Mississippi in the War with Spain in the Philippines, as for its heroism and gallant partici-pation in the battles about Manila after their capture by Admiral Dewey in 1898. Major Eberhart, ever since boyhood, has been a member of the Episcopal Church, and is one of the judges of the Ecclesiastical Court, and a trustee of the diocese of Pittsburgh. Among the fraternal orders, he was a Mason, Odd Fellow, and Knight of Pythias as well as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Union Veteran Legion, in all of which he passed through the highest chairs. He was twice President of the Law Association of Beaver County, and of the Soldiers and Sailors' Association of Beaver County. For some eight years Major Eberhart was owner and editor of the Daily and Weekly Tribune of Beaver Falls, and in that capacity distinguished himself as a brilliant writer on all current topics, and gave his paper a wide reputation. His most notable political articles were those on Protection by invitation of the N. Y. World during the Blaine campaign. He devoted much time to literature, and was the author of a large number of disquisitions on Philology and other scientific subjects. He established a good practice in his profession; and, as a public official, made a marked impression upon his constituents for his fidelity to their interests, and the unswerving tenacity with which he adhered to the principles of his party. As a public speaker and lecturer, he was fearless, as well as entertaining and instructive; and he attained considerable notoriety as a poet, his poems entitled "The Fife," and "Ruth and I," having given him a very wide reputation. A fine collection of his poems appeared in Herringshaw's "Poets of America," and many in other anthological publications.
1 Editor, History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Chicago: A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1888), Pg 646.
2 Editor, Book of Biographies, Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Buffalo, NY: Biographical Publishing Company, 1899), Pg 382.
3 Rev. Uriah Eberhart, History of the Eberharts (Chicago Lawn, IL: Donohue & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, 1891), Pg 170.
4 Editor, Book of Biographies, Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Buffalo, NY: Biographical Publishing Company, 1899), Pg 381.
5 Rev. Uriah Eberhart, History of the Eberharts (Chicago Lawn, IL: Donohue & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, 1891), Pg 168.
6 Rev. Joseph A. Bausman, A.M, History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (New York, NY: The Knickerbocker Press, 1904), Pg 228.
7 Editor, History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Chicago: A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1888), Pg 647.
8 Editor, Book of Biographies, Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Buffalo, NY: Biographical Publishing Company, 1899), Pg 385.
9 Rev. Uriah Eberhart, History of the Eberharts (Chicago Lawn, IL: Donohue & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, 1891), Pg 171.
10 Editor, History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Chicago: A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1888), Pg 647, 788.
11
Editor, History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Chicago: A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1888), Pg 788.
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