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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

study. In September of the same year he went to the Baltimore College of Dental surgery. Here he remained until 1891, when he graduated, after which he located in Morrellville, where he still practices his profession with conscientious zeal and fair prospects of material profit.     June 4, 1895, he married Miss M. Aggie Davis, a daughter of William Davis, of Indiana county.     Dr. Altemus is a member of the A. P. A. is a good republican, and his wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.     In addition to his professional work he has an interest in the grocery store of Altemus & Company, consequently we find him having business, professional and social pursuits which bring him close to his fellow citizens, and which will give him much strength in his work. ALBERT B. PETRIKIN, a merchant and business man, of Johnstown, and a well-known citizen of the county, is a son of Thomas J. and Martha (Park) Petrikin, and was born at St. Clairsville, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, August 11, 1838. He is in the third generation from his old-world ancestor, who was a native of Scotland, and who built the second cabin in Centre county, where he died at Bellefonte. This Scotch-Irish immigrant reared a family of useful and distinguished sons in his Centre county home. William A. was president of the Lycoming Insurance company; Dr. David was a member of congress during Jackson's administration; Henry, the first white child born at Bellefonte, Centre county, served as Secretary of State under Governor Shank, James was an able lawyer, of Central Pennsylvania; Thomas J., the father of the subject of this sketch, became prominent as an editor and educator.

Thomas J. Petrikin was born July 4, 1801, at Bellefonte, Centre county, where he received a good education, and became editor of the Bellefonte Gazette, which he made a power in the State for the election of Jackson. He battled bravely for Jackson and his policy as President, and supported the Democratic party up to 1856, when he turned to the Republican party, then just on the political stage. Although “born and cradled a democrat,” the issues of the new party set him firmly on the “rock of republicanism,” where he remained until his death, at Johnstown, 1881. He was a fine writer, being employed on different papers, and his articles were read throughout the State. He taught in Bedford county for several years, but after coming to Johnstown, in 1859, retired from teaching. He was a practical printer as well as an efficient editor, and ex-governor Packer served his apprenticeship as a printer under him. Mr. Petrikin married Martha Park, who lived to reach her sixty-fifth year, dying in 1881. She was a methodist, and her father, David Park, a native of Scotland, was in his day one of the largest wholesale grocers of Philadelphia. His marriage resulted in the birth of the following children: William, Henry, and James, now deceased, who both served in the Civil War; Martha and Lucy, both deceased; David, who has been in the employ of the Cambria Iron company for thirty years, is now a master mechanic, and has charge of the rolling machinery, and Albert B., the subject of this sketch.     Albert B. Petrikin was principally reared in Bedford county and Johnstown, and received but ten months' schooling, often studying his lessons at night by the light of a pine knot. At an early age he became a clerk in the large mercantile house of When & Walters, with whom he remained until 1861. In that year

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