JOHN A. BEST. John Best, Sr., was born in Benburb, County Armagh, Ireland, in May, 1780. From his early training and constant reading in the land of his nativity, he learned much of the United States, and her progress. He and his wife landed in Philadelphia in 1811, and thence journeyed over the Alleghany mountains in a wagon to Pittsburgh, and hearing of Washington county as a great wool-growing section, he concluded that the county seat, or its neighborhood, would be a proper place to settle in, and to that place he went, not by stage or railroad, but by wagon, then the only mode of conveyance. He purchased the property on the northeast corner of Beau and Franklin streets, and there erected and engaged in the wool-carding business, where the first stationary engine in Washington county was placed and owned by him. He remained as a prominent citizen of Washington till 1856, when his two sons, John and William, purchased farms near New Concord, Guernsey Co., Ohio. His wife being dead, and his daughter married to James S. Bushfield, he concluded to leave his adopted town and go and live with them. John Best, Sr., while still a resident of Washington was one of the committee to receive Gen. La Fayette on his last visit to this country when he was on his way over the old National pike to visit George Washington at Mount Vernon. John Best, Sr., was a Mason, having entered that order in Ireland, in Lodge No. 722, which Lodge was organized in 1788, his own father having procured its charter from the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and the meetings were held in his home. He died in 1878 at the advanced age of ninety-eight years, the oldest Mason at that time in the country. John Best had four sons to survive him: Samuel, James, John and William. Samual married Miss Isabella Dickson, to whom was born Isabella D., wife of John Woodcock, of McCune, Kan.; Ellen R., wife of R. A. Anderson of Claysville, Penn., and John A. Samuel Best died in New Orleans of yellow fever, and his wife died in Buffalo township, Washington county, in 1881 at the age of seventy-five years, a devout Christian, and a loving and beloved mother, esteemed by all who knew her. John A. Best, the son of Samuel and Isabella Best, was born in Washington, May 20, 1838. In 1853 he was a newsboy on the Examiner, a weekly-newspaper owned at the time by Thomas Grayson, shortly after which he learned the printing trade on the same paper. He worked at his trade on the Pittsburgh Dispatch, for some time, and then went to New York. After being there sometime he returned to Pittsburgh and started a steam job printing office, and branched out into the mercantile business, which he has been in ever since. On Thanksgiving Day, 1869, he moved to Washington, and opened a general store and printing office on the corner of Main and Chestnut streets, where the Washington Observer was first printed by him under the editorship of Horace Durant. During the financial panic of 1873, he failed and lost everything, leaving him in debt, but he has since paid every cent that he had ever owed, and now owns one of the largest businesses in the county, occupying No. 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83 and 85 North Main street, and constantly adding to it; he is not only progressive but aggressive, and that is the secret of his success. On September 3, 1863, Mr. Best married Jennie D., daughter of John E. Roberts, of Hartford, Conn., and there were born to them seven children, five of whom are still living; Gratten G., Nellie M., Albion E., Jennie I., and John A., Jr. Mrs. Best is an active worker in the W. C. T. U., of which she is president, and devotes a great deal of time to local charity and doing good. In 1879 Mr. Best, with some other public-spirited citizens, built the Washington Lead Works, which were destroyed by fire in 1883. He is a believer in Divine healing, and is president of the board of directors of Bethany Home, No. 113 Centre avenue, Pittsburgh, an institution for education of young men for the ministry and missionary field. Grattan G., son of John A., and Jennie D. Best, was born in Pittsburgh, Penn., June 9, 1864. He came in 1869 with his father to Washington, where he was educated, spending two years at Trinity Hall, being the first scholar enrolled in that institution, and then went to Washington and Jefferson College, class of 1885. He studied bookkeeping at Duff's Commercial College, Pittsburgh, and has ever since been in business with his father. Mr. Best is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, being past eminent commander of Jacques de Molay Commandery No. 3, the second oldest Commandery in the State, and is a thirty-second degree Mason. At the time Mr. Best was eminent commander he was the youngest commander in the State. On February 25, 1886, Grattan G. Best married Carrie, daughter of Jonathan Brownlee, of Buffalo township. Mr. Best is a practical printer, and now publishes the Weekly Financial Economist. He says he does not remember the time when he could not set a stick of type, as he was raised in a printing office. He is very much interested in the Sabbath-school work, and is superintendent of Jefferson Avenue M. E. Church Sunday-school, also president of the Epworth League.

Text taken from page 112 of: Beers, J. H. and Co., Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893). Transcribed April 1997 by Wilbur Frye of Pacifica, CA as part of the Beers Project. Published April 1997 on the Washington County, PA pages at http://www.chartiers.com/.

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