Hon. William Blair McClure and Lydia S. Collins

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Husband Hon. William Blair McClure ^{1 2 3 4}

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           Born: Apr 1807 - Willow Grove, near Carlisle, Cumberland Co, PA 2
     Christened: 
           Died: 27 Dec 1861 2
         Buried: 

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         Father: Charles McClure (1739-      ) 1 5
         Mother: Rebecca Blair (1753-1826) 1 6 7 8

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       Marriage: 

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Wife Lydia S. Collins ^{1 3}

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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         Father: Thomas Collins (1774-1814) 9 10
         Mother: Sarah Lowrey (      -      )

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - Hon. William Blair McClure

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He was appointed and commissioned Judge of the Allegheny County courts by the governor January 31, 1850. That year a constitutional amendment was adopted, making the judiciary elective. The first election under it was in October of 1851. Judge McClure was elected and commissioned November 6, 1851, for ten years from December 1, 1851, the first judge elected in the county. He was re-elected in 1861, and commissioned for another period of ten years, but died in December, 1861.
He was born at Willow Grove, near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1827. He read law in Pittsburgh with John Kennedy, afterward a justice of the supreme court, and was admitted to the bar in 1829. From 1850 to 1859 Judge McClure was the only law judge in the common pleas, orphans' court, quarter sessions and oyer and terminer of the county. The amount of business was enormous for one man. He had scarcely a day's rest or vacation. He was a most laborious judge, frequently sitting on the bench from eight to ten hours a day. No man ever presided in a court more thoroughly in earnest or conscientious in the performance of his duties. The close confinement in the impure air of the criminal courtroom, and the excessive labors of his office, gradually exhausted the vital energies of a naturally vigorous constitution, and carried him to the grave when only fifty-four years of age. During the twelve years he sat on the bench he tried more criminal cases and more homicides than any other judge in the state. His fame as a criminal jurist became almost national. Spotlessly pure in his own character, intensely anxious for the public welfare, and profoundly impressed with the responsibilities of his office, he bent all his energies to the suppression of crime and the just punishment of criminals. He was justly a terror to evil-doers.

1 Editor, History of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Warners, Beers & Co., 1886), Pg 384.

2 Editor, The History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Part I (Chicago, IL: A. W. Warner & Co., 1889), Pg 255.

3 William Henry Egle, M.D., M.A., Pennsylvania Genealogies; Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1896), Pg 585.

4 —, Proceedings of the Celebration of the First Centennial of Venango County, Pennsylvania (Franklin, PA: The Venango County Bar Association, 1905), Pg 59.

5 William Henry Egle, M.D., M.A., Pennsylvania Genealogies; Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1896), Pg 584.

6 William Henry Egle, M.D., M.A., Pennsylvania Genealogies; Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1896), Pg 579.

7 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania (New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1911), Pg 985.

8 Blanche T. Hartman, Genealogy of the Nesbit, Ross, Porter, Taggart Families of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh, PA: Privately printed, 1929), Pg 18.

9 Editor, History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania. Its Past and Present (Chicago, IL: Brown, Runk & Co., Publishers, 1888), Pg 254.

10 —, Proceedings of the Celebration of the First Centennial of Venango County, Pennsylvania (Franklin, PA: The Venango County Bar Association, 1905), Pg 58.