"Stewart Strickler, only son of Jacob Strickler, a farmer of Fayette county, was born at New Salem, near Uniontown, February 17, 1812, and received a common school education. When he was sixteen years old his mother died, and his father breaking up housekeeping, Stewart and his eight sisters, all younger than himself, were scattered among their relatives. In the spring of 1830 Stewart hired out to John Smiley, a farmer, at six dollars per month, and stayed with him till Christmas, after which he began peddling chickens and eggs, which he carried down along the Youghiogheny river in a very simply constructed boat made by himself of boards, giving away the boat when he had sold his merchandise, and walking back, making such a trip every few weeks during the year 1831. Early in 1832 he began working about for different persons at making rails and washing sand, which was taken to Pittsburgh to the glass makers. In the latter part of 1832, Jacob Strickler got his children together again, Stewart, with the rest, joining him on the old place known as the Jimtown farm, where Stewart remained until 1835, when he married Mary Newcomer, of Tyrone township, and bought a piece of land from his father at Jimtown, built thereon a house and barn, and commenced farming. In 1837 the great financial panic came and found Stewart badly in debt for his farm. He said "times were then so hard that I had to pay fifty cents in 'shin-plasters' to see a quarter in silver." He struggled on till 1840, when times began to improve, but farming being poor business, he found it necessary to exercise his ingenuity and began to conjure up ways to enable him to pull through and get out of debt. At an early day there had been an iron furnace at the mouth of Jacob's creek known as Turnbull Furnace, but then long abandoned and in ruin. Near it was a huge pile of cinders containing a great amount of iron unextracted from the ore. Mr. Strickler conceived the notion of taking the cinders to iron works in Pittsburgh, bought it for fifty cents a ton, built a large flatboat on which he carried the cinders to the city, and there sold it for four dollars and a half a tone, and afterward sold his boat, making something on it. This enterprise stimulated him to greater effort, and early in 1842 he bought ten acres of coal land on the Youghiogheny river at the point now called Sterling Coal Works, built six ovens and began making coke, which he shipped by flatboats to Cincinnati, Ohio. He carried on this business successfully for several yeras. At the same time there were others engaged in the business, but they were not successful and became discouraged and gave it up. About 1855 Mr. Strickler bought eighty acres of coal land, known as John Taylor farm, and began improving it with the intent to carry on the coal business as before, but on a larger scale. In 1857 the Pittsburgh & Connellsville railroad was completed, and Mr. Strickler put into operation on his farm eighty coke ovens. At this time he built a sidetrack from his works to the main line of the railroad for the purpose of shipping coke and coal to the Graff Bennett Company of Pittsburgh, keeping their furnace going from 1860 to 1864 with two thousand bushels per day. He then sold a third interest in his business to the above named firm for $35,000, a few months afterward selling the balance to Schoenberger & Company for $45,000. Somewhere between 1835 and 1840, Mr. Strickler bought all of his father's old farm, paying $30 per acre. In the spring of 1864 he sold it to J. K. Ewing for $200 per acre, the latter afterward selling it for over $400 per acre. In 1867 he removed with a portion of his family to middle tennessee, near the Cumberland mountains.

Children of Stewart Strickler: Caroline, married Alexander Hill, and died in 1879; Maria, married Richard Boyd (of previous mention); Lyman and Dempsey, both lived upon the John Smiley farm upon which their father worked in 1830; Martha, married Bowman Herbert; Harriet, married David Ramsey, of Tennessee; Kate, married Dr. James Thompson, of Tennessee; Dessie F., married Joseph G. Wilkinson, then of Tennessee, now of Texas; other children: Emily Hardy, George and Norman, died young. Mr. Strickler died aged over seventy years, and notwithstanding his serious labors in life and many dangers encountered, from some of which he barely escaped with his life, he kep his health and full possession of intellectual vigor until the last. He was respected by his wide circle of acquaintances as a man of strict integrity and nobility of heart. Not only could he look back upon a life well spent, triumphant over early and great difficulties, but he was also entitled to enjoy the reflection that through his excellent judgment, advice and influence not a few persons in the region where he spent his most ative years also were successful, enjoying may of them, the blessings of wealth."

Also--
"Stewart Strickler was a pioneer coke burner and large land owner at Jimtown, Fayette county. Later he moved to Tennessee with three of his daughters. He married Mary Newcomer. One of their sons was a soldier in the civil war, and while in Tennessee saw so much that pleased him that after the war he settled there and persuaded his father to also become a resident of Tennessee."

From Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania

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