CHARLES BANFIELD. England has given to this country some of the most loyal, industrious, enterprising and thrifty citizens, an excellent representative of such being the subject of this sketch, who by hard work, thrift and honorable dealings has succeeded in accumulating, from absolutely nothing, a comfortable competence. Mr. Banfield was born in Somersetshire in 1815, a son of Joseph and Mary (Cook) Banfield the parents of twelve children, ten of whom grew to maturity, now all scattered; some came to America, one of whom lives in Johnstown, Penn., another in Belmont county, Ohio; Charles and John are in Washington county. While our subject was yet a child his parents took him to the Forest of Done, in Monmouthshire, England. His education was very limited, as we find him when but a lad of eight years acting in the capacity of "doorkeeper" at a coal mine, soon after which he commenced to work as a regular miner, digging from the bowels of the earth the black diamonds. In May, 1838, Mr. Banfield was married in England to Harriet Chevers, and in 1842 he set sail for the United States, landing in New York in the month of May with his wife and one child. His little savings being now gone, Mr. Banfield set about looking for work of any kind, and at last succeeded in securing a job on a farm in Washington county, during the summer of 1842, his wages being 31 1/4 cents per day. One of his hands being disabled through some cause, he had to do all the work with the other. In the fall of the year he returned to his old occupation of mining in Pittsburgh, receiving $1.10 per 100 bushels of coal. In 1846 he came to Chartiers township and bought a fifteen-acre farm which he continued to work until 1868, when he moved into Amwell township, where he lived until 1888, in which year he retired from the farm and came to the borough of Washington. Here he built himself an elegant residence, into which he moved in 1889. Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Banfield, of whom the following is a brief record: George died in England at the age of two years; Mary, born in England, is now the wife of Robert Thompson, of Houstonville, this county; John, Charles James, Joseph and George, all died young; one died in infancy, and Harriet Maria, "last, not least," the fifth in the family in the order of birth. She for many years, with true filial devotion, has taken care of her aged parents' home. The mother for the past twenty years has been in feeble health. In politics Mr. Banfield is independent; he has held various township offices, such as superintendent of the school board. He is a man of advanced ideas, gifted with a good mind coupled with sound judgment, and on a foundation laid with hardships and cares he has built a record that places him among the most successful men in Washington county, in which success he has been from the outset assisted by a good, sensible, faithful wife.

Text taken from page 264 of: Beers, J. H. and Co., Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893). Transcribed January 1997 by Neil and Marilyn Morton of Oswego, IL as part of the Beers Project. Published January 1997 on the Washington County,PA pages at http://www.chartiers.com/.

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