DAVID HAGERTY, a well-known agriculturist of the county, but now retired from active labor, having his residence in the borough of Washington, was born in 1822 in Canton township, three miles from Washington. Joseph Hagerty, his father, came from Ireland and married Mrs. Hannah Blair Fleming, a widow, whose first husband, who was a merchant, died in New York State. Mr. and Mrs. Hagerty came to Washington county in 1812; just as the war of that period had broken out, and the Indians were very hostile. Some of them were encamped on the farm on which Mr. Hagerty had settled, and on which two former settlers had been taken prisoners. The nearest fort was at Taylorstown. Mr. and Mrs. Hagerty were the parents of children, as follows: John, Joseph, Robert, Blair and William, all deceased; Joseph and David (twins), of whom Joseph is living in Kansas, and David is our subject; Nancy, deceased wife of James Van Kirk; Mary, deceased wife of Samuel Wilkey; Betsey, deceased, unmarried; and one that died at the age of three years. The father died in 1825, at the age of sixty years; the mother passed away in 1850, at the home of her son, David, when aged ninety-three years. David Hagerty, whose name opens this sketch, helped, when a boy, to clear the farm which he now owns. The subscription school which he attended, three miles from his home, was a primitive structure, 24x40 foot in area, made of cut logs, the windows being simply greased paper pasted over openings in the wall. The benches were made of split logs without backs. The only books then used were the United States Speller, the English Reader, the Western Calculator and the Bible. Our subject attended school three months in the year. Mr. Hagerty was married to Mrs. Jennie Griffith Farrer, of Buffalo township, this county, who died in 1873, leaving daughters, viz.: Sarah Jospehine (wife of Samuel Thompson, of Holton, Kans.), Letitia M. (Wife of Francis Moore, of Buffalo township) and Anna Virginia (living with her father). The old home farm of Mr. Hagerty is where the sons of Joshua Russell were taken captive by the Indians. They were traced as far as the Ohio river, where the pursuers found that the boys had escaped while the Indians slept. On the farm there are nineteen oil- producing wells. In 1890 Mr. Hagerty came to Washington to live retired the rest of his days. Politically he is a Democrat, and has held several offices.

Text taken from page 887 of: Beers, J. H. and Co., Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893). Transcribed March 1997 by Neil and Marilyn Morton of Oswego, IL as part of the Beers Project. Published April 1997 on the Washington County, PA USGenWeb pages at http://www.chartiers.com/.

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