ROBERT MEHAFFEY (deceased) was an example of the success which may be won by frugality and industry, coupled with business sagacity. His father, Robert Mehaffey, was a native of Ireland, who emigrated, in early life, to America, where he was married to Eleanor Mitchell of Scotch- Irish parentage. Their children were: James, Joseph, Robert (the subject of this sketch), Mitchell, Jane, John and Eleanor. Robert Mehaffey was born December 4, 1810, in Donegal township. His boyhood was passed near his birthplace. His education was limited to two or three months' attendance each year at a log schoolhouse provided with rude wooden benches, a puncheon floor, and in the absence of a door a sheet covered the vacancy. When Robert was thirteen years of age, their home was darkened by a sudden calamity. It was in the harvest-field, and the father had just completed a stack of hay, and was sliding to the ground, when a wooden fork which had been placed, prongs upward, against its side, penetrated his bowels. He was carried to the shade of a tree, and in a few hours the strong man, in the prime of life, was dead. The mother, left with seven children, the youngest but a little over one year old, on a small farm, managed not only to exist, but to live well, and there her children acquired those sterling principles and practical knowledge which formed the basis of most successful business lives. As the years rolled on the family dispersed. James purchased and removed to a farm a few miles distant, where he resided until his death, March 16, 1858. Joseph, being of a more roving disposition than his brothers, "pitched his tent" southward, making his home near Vicksburg, Miss. After an absence of twenty-one years he returned, purchased land near the old homestead, and continued to reside there until his death, May 22, 1891. Mitchell and Jane married. The mother died in 1846; the sister, Eleanor, a few years later; and Robert and John were left alone on the home farm. They needed not the admonition which Joseph gave his brethren, "See that ye fall not out by the way," for in all their daily intercourse and business transactions they never had a dispute as to "which should be the greater." On June 22, 1858, Robert married Mary McCoy, daughter of Kenneth and Jane (Brownlee) McCoy. To them three children were born: Jennie E. (wife of Rev. W. R. Jamison, a U. P. minister of Frankfort, Beaver county), Joseph B., (one of the leading and progressive farmers of Independence township, living on the home farm of which he has charge) and Lizzie M. (residing with her mother and brother). In 1864, Mr. Mehaffey removed to Independence township, having purchased the "Jackson Spriggs" farm, situated two miles northeast of Dunsfort, where he resided the remainder of his life. In politics he was a stanch Republican, and in religion a valued member of the U. P. Church of Mt. Hope. At the time of his death, August 17, 1890, Mr. Mehaffey owned 864 acres of unusually good farm land, besides a comfortable income. Though he almost reached four-score years, yet the infirmities of age sat lightly upon him. His cheerful disposition and equable temper made him seem younger than he was. Diffident and retiring in disposition, his many excellencies were more appreciated in the home circle, and by those who were his neighbors, than by the noisy world around.

Text taken from page 870 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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