Husband Isaac Reese 1 2
AKA: Isaac Rees
Born: 29 Apr 1821 - Llanelly, near Abergavenny, south Wales 1 2
Christened:
Died: 1908 3
Buried:
Father: William Reese (1787-1892) 1 2
Mother: Elizabeth Joseph (Abt 1798-1874) 2
Marriage: 24 May 1844 4 5
• Family History: from Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Her People Past and Present (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1914).
To read a history of the Reese and Jones families and of his life and career, click here.
Wife Elizabeth Bebb Jones 4 5
Born: 21 Feb 1824 - Llanbrynmair, Wales 4 5
Christened:
Died: 2 Jun 1898 6
Buried:
Father: Robert Jones (Abt 1781-1865) 4 5
Mother: Mary Bebb (Abt 1789-1856) 4 5
Children
1 F Elvira Reese 3 5
Born:
Christened:
Died: Aft 1914
Buried:
2 F Emma Reese 3 5
Born:
Christened:
Died: Aft 1914
Buried:
Spouse: F. L. Snowden ( - ) 5 6
3 M George W. Reese 7 8
Born: 1858 - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 3
Christened:
Died: Aft 1914
Buried:
Spouse: Mary M. Donnelly ( -1885) 3
Marr: 1877 3
Spouse: Juanita "Nita" Truby ( - ) 5 9
Marr: 1894 3
4 M Benjamin F. Reese 6 8
Born: 16 Feb 1862 6
Christened:
Died: 4 Oct 1904 6
Buried:
Spouse: Eleanor Mathias ( - ) 6
5 M Walter Lawrence Reese 3 5
Born:
Christened:
Died: Aft 1914
Buried:
Spouse: Tirzah Thomas ( - ) 5 6
General Notes: Husband - Isaac Reese
He was born in Wales, and was brought to the United States, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when ten years old, and grew to manhood in that city.
When ten years of age he went to work to assist his father in support a large family. He entered the mills in Wales and was but eleven years old when his parents removed to America, where he worked with his father at Phoenixville. He was sixteen years old at the time the family came to Pittsburgh. By that time he had become a valuable workman and was efficient at the art of hammering, having learned the trade. At the age of seventeen he had two assistants under him and continued to work in this manner for ten years. He then embarked in the iron business as partner in a blast furnace in Clarion County, an unfortunate venture, the panic of 1849 soon after sweeping him from his feet. He returned to his trade, which was always lucrative, and after a few years had capital enough to embark in the coal business with his brother Abram. This enterprise was soon abandoned, the financial returns not being satisfactory. Mr. Reese was then, on account of his large acquaintance among the various iron mills and his known honesty and ability, invited to join the firm of Johnson, Taylor & Company in the manufacturing of fire-brick. Both Andrew and Thomas Carnegie were then interested in the firm with which he united. Mr. Reese knew nothing about brickmaking, but it was for his ability as a salesman of the brick to the large mills that he was invited to join the firm, which he did, and soon familiarized himself with every detail and became an expert in that business. He devoted his time and energy to the development of a better grade of brick, and discovered new clay from which, by a new process, he made better brick. Upon this brick he stamped the distinguishing word, "Woodland." This was a fire-brick for crucible furnaces superior to any which had previously been produced in Pittsburgh. He saw the possibilities of a great business, and he practically had the exclusive sale of fire-clay brick in and around Pittsburgh for crucible furnace purposes from the time he first discovered his process. Three years after entering the firm mentioned, he purchased all other interests of the concern and controlled the business for fourteen years.
Owing to the panic of 1873 he again failed, losing every dollar he had in the world as on other occasions; but, as he said to a friend: "I have failed several times in my life, but my credit never failed me once. I borrowed five thousand dollars at sixty years of age, with only forty dollars cash in the world." This last venture was the most successful of his business life. It was in 1878 that he saw the necessity of a brick which would offer a greater resistance to intense heat, especially for the heating furnaces for steel, so he invented and patented a brick called the "Reese Silica Brick," which stood the test of five thousand degrees, whereas no other brick was ever known to stand more than three thousand degrees. The new brick was especially adapted to the open-hearth furnaces for the smelting of steel, copper and glass. Through the discovery of this brick, the financial success of Isaac Reese was thereafter assured, a just reward of his inventive genius and studious research.
The following anecdote bears witness apropos: Judge Weir, of Montana, but formerly of the old law firm of Gibson & Weir, the famous civil law firm of Pittsburgh, which had managed Mr. Reese's affairs in bankruptcy proceedings, returned to Pittsburgh some years after and naturally inquired concerning Isaac Reese. Being told what he was doing, and meeting him on the street a few days after, he slapped him on the shoulder, saying: "Well, old warhorse, I hear that you have staggered to your feet, and there is not a man in Pittsburgh more deserving."
Mr. Reese established a large plant in Manorville, Pennsylvania, and later another plant in Cowanshannock, in the same county. These mills were called the Phoenix Fire-Brick Works, and Mr. Reese was the sole owner. He also made brick called "Phoenix" and "Globe," especially adapted for rolling-mill uses, and also for blast furnaces. In order to meet the great demand for his brick he added two other plants at Retort, Pennsylvania, in Centre County; these plants were called the "Retort Works." When his sons became of age, in about 1896, he took them into partnership with him. These sons were George W., Benjamin F. and Walter L. Reese, the firm being then changed to Isaac Reese & Sons, and later still to Isaac Reese & Sons Company. In 1900 the business was incorporated under the latter name, with Isaac Reese as president and general manager. This relation continued until 1902, when the firm sold out to the brick trust, but retained stock in the same. There were thirty-four brick plants merged into the trust known as the Harbison & Walker Refractories Company, into which the Reese plants entered. The Reese plants were the only ones to preserve their individuality and to retain their own offices and the firm name of Isaac Reese & Sons Company. The sons of Isaac Reese were associated with their father in all of his later important enterprises. George W., the eldest son, on the formation of the Harbison & Walker Refractories Company, was one of the vice-presidents of this combine, and was a member of the board of directors. Benjamin F., the second son, was considered an expert in the intricacies and details relating to gas and oil product, and was well versed in all that related to the manufacture of brick, mill construction and matters pertaining generally to the iron industry. At the time of his death in 1904 he was the largest individual stockholder in the Kittanning Plate Glass Company, a concern known throughout the country for its complete and modern equipment. The keen foresight, comprehensive knowledge and excellent management of this son were dominating influences many times in family council and affairs.
Isaac Reese was always a friend of the working man. No better proof of this can be furnished than the statement that he never had a strike.
The fraternal relations of Mr. Reese were with the Masons.
He looked upon the casting of his vote as a solemn duty, and, when over eighty years of age, traveled several hundred miles in order to deposit his ballot at the polls.
The family name Rees was changed to Reese in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on account of the confusion over the mail, there being another Rees family having a William among its members. Letters were frequently opened by mistake. Isaac Reese, the eldest son of William Reese, was the last of the family to take kindly to the "e." His naturalization papers were taken out "Rees", and all the births and deaths in the family Bible record written in his own handwriting "Rees" up to the date of the birth of his son Benjamin, in 1862, when he adopted the "e" for the first time.
Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Reese, six of whom died in childhood and early youth.
General Notes: Wife - Elizabeth Bebb Jones
She came to America with her parents when seventeen years old.
Concerning Elizabeth Jones Reese, her biographer, the Reverend B. Gwernydd Newton, in portraying the irresistible charm of her unsullied personal life and her unselfish devotion to family and friends, says:
"There was a majesty about her which impressed everyone. She possessed a religious nature, an inbred sympathy with truth and an innate proneness toward virtue. To do right was to be true to nature. She loved the beautiful and the pure as naturally as she breathed. She sought the invisible as by natural impulse and found the father in Heaven as by intuition. Endowed with an ardent and spiritual imagination she was a lifelong lover of nature. Her earliest recollection was sharing, when but four years of age, a morsel of bread with the birds that gathered around the old homestead, suggestive of her innate sympathy and the love of God's creatures which so beautifully characterized the whole of her after life. Glorious as was the sunrise, it did not compare with the sunset of her life. When the shadows were falling, the promise was indeed realized, 'At eventide it shall be light.' "