Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria County Pennsylvania, p.256

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256 BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

voted his attention chiefly to those branches essential to success in business. At sixteen years of age he left the school-room to enter the great school of business life as a clerk in a general mercantile establishment, where he so thoroughly fitted himself for his selected line of life-work that, in October, 1882, he received the position of purchasing agent for the Penn Iron and Mining company, whose plant was located at Vulcan, Michigan. Four years afterwards Mr. Hagey was made general manager of their mines, in which capacity he served until July, 1891, when he resigned to accept his present position as general manager of the Penn Traffic company, Limited, of Johnstown. The stores of this company are extensive, and Mr. Hagey has a regular force of one hundred employees under his personal control in the different departments, which owe a large part of their prosperous upbuilding and present prosperity to his efficient management and careful supervision.
    He is a republican in politics, and a regular attendant of the Presbyterian church. While not a politician in the generally accepted sense of that term, yet, when only twenty- one years of age, he was elected as auditor of Blair county, and held that office successfully for a term of three years. His early inclination toward business pursuits, instead of professional or political life, was not only characteristic of his special qualifications for industrial or commercial enterprises, but was indicative of the perseverance that is always the forerunner of success.
    On September 17, 1871, Mr. Hagey wedded Mary N. Brumbaugh, a daughter of Rev. G. W. Brumbaugh, of Fredericksburg, Blair county. Mr. and Mrs. Hagey have one child living, a daughter named Carrie. JACOB SINGER, one of the substantial farmers of Conemaugh township, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, is a well-known figure on the streets of Johnstown. Although he has passed the allotted three-score and ten he is still bright and active. Being born March 11, 1826, his memory extends back to pioneer times. In fact his maternal grandfather, Jacob Good, was one of the earliest settlers in this vicinity, having settled on the farm which our subject now occupies in the year 1796. This was four years before Joseph Johns laid out the “Town of Conemaugh” in the valley below the Good homestead.
    Our subject's father (David Singer) was born in York county, Pennsylvania, in 1790. When but two years of age his father died, and the family were thrown on their own resources. At the age of fifteen years he found his way to Cambria county, which was formed the same year by act of legislature, although the first court was not held until two years later, when the organization of the new county was completed.
    This lad of fifteen had to make his own way among entire strangers in a new country, but was successful. When he grew to manhood he married Mary Good, daughter of Jacob Good, and purchased the old Good homestead, where he resided until his death in 1850. He had learned the trade of a weaver, but followed farming all his life. His wife, the mother of our subject, survived until 1858. They were the parents of thirteen children: Christiana, wife of John B. Horner; John, who died at the age of sixty-three; Mary; Susan, wife of ex-Sheriff John Roberts; Elizabeth, wife of Morganza Brown; Barbara, Jacob, David, Samuel, Aaron, Sarah, wife of John Carrol; Catherine and Christian.
    Of these Mrs. Horner, Carrol, Aaron and

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