Only seven years old when his father died, John was sent to the Loysville Soldier Orphan School, a military academy for children of Civil War veterans. After graduation he worked as a coal miner and then a druggist. In 1896, he was hired as City Editor of the Evening Star in Mount Carmel, PA, a post he held until the paper closed Sept 1905. A month later he moved to Seattle, WA, where the Seattle Times took him on as a police and sports writer and eventually its golf editor, one of the nation's first, where he gained widespread notoriety with his column Dreher's Divots. He stayed with the paper for 30 years.

Five months before his death he shrewdly conned his way into an exclusive interview with just-released kidnap victim, 9-year-old George Weyerhaeuser. John's article, published as an Extra edition of the Seattle Times, garnered international attention and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1936.

John was Past Master of Mount Carmel Lodge No.378 AF&AM (1903).

Only seven years old when his father died, John was sent to the Loysville Soldier Orphan School, a military academy for children of Civil War veterans. After graduation he worked as a coal miner and then a druggist. In 1896, he was hired as City Editor of the Evening Star in Mount Carmel, PA, a post he held until the paper closed Sept 1905. A month later he moved to Seattle, WA, where the Seattle Times took him on as a police and sports writer and eventually its golf editor, one of the nation's first, where he gained widespread notoriety with his column Dreher's Divots. He stayed with the paper for 30 years.

Five months before his death he shrewdly conned his way into an exclusive interview with just-released kidnap victim, 9-year-old George Weyerhaeuser. John's article, published as an Extra edition of the Seattle Times, garnered international attention and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1936.

John was Past Master of Mount Carmel Lodge No.378 AF&AM (1903).