| Notes |
- On the eastern edge of the Allegheny Plateau, near the Appalachian
Highlands in the State of Pennsylvania is the County of Cambria.
Fifteen miles due north of the County seat, Ebensburg, is the village
of Carrolltown, center of a farming community. On a farm, about a
mile and a half from town lived Charles and Regina Abt Poss. Here, on
September 30, 1864, was born a son, Anthony. There were other
children in the family, four girls and a boy. From what we can
gather, they were all older than Anthony. His brother's name was
Charles, and his sisters were, Lizzie (Mrs. Fred Hufnagel), Mary
(Mrs. Len Farnbaugh), Catherine (Mrs. Fred Farnbaugh) and Lena, who
never married. Charles and Regina, Anthony's parents, were
Pennsylvania Dutch and they lived on the farm with their children
until 1870, when they moved into Carrolltown, where Charles plied his
trade as a stonecutter. Some two years after leaving the farm, when
Anthony was eight years old, his father died. The year before, 1871,
Lizzie and Mary had left the family home and moved to Beaver Falls,
Minnesota. Not long after Charles' death, Anthony's mother, Regina,
married a man by the name of Hiller. In 1873, the other two girls,
Catherine and Lena, followed Lizzie and Mary to Beaver Falls. Anthony
and Charles continued to live with their mother and stepfather until
1874, when they and their parents left Carolltown to join the girls
in Beaver Falls.
As Anthony was nearly ten years old when the family left
Pennsylvania, he had already started to school. He continued his
education in Beaver Falls and also attended school in Bird Island for
two years. After leaving school, Anthony began working in the
hardware store of Conklin and Clark in Bird Island, remaining there
until he was twenty years old. He then moved on to Long Prairie to
work for Richard Handy in his hardware and tin shop. After four
years, when he was twenty-four, he decided to go to St. Paul to take
a short business course and work in the manufacture of tin. He
remained in St. Paul for almost a year, and in 1888 moved to Morton
and began working for Keefe, Heing and McClure. Anthony was an
ambitious young man who had saved his money, and so in September of
the following year, 1889, he bought out the hardware store of J. M.
Johnson in Franklin, and changed the store's name to Poss Hardware.
In 1895 he took his brother-in-law, Charles Freeman in as a partner,
and this parnership lasted until 1915 when it was dissolved by mutual
consent. Poss Hardware is now owned and operated by Anthony's oldest
son, Harold, and it is one of the oldest active businesses in
Franklin.
While Anthony, or as he was affectionately known to his many friends,
Tony, worked in Morton during the year 1888, he met a young lady,
Mary Ann Brown, who was waiting table at the Railroad Hotel. Mary Ann
wanted to open a millinery Store, and no doubt it was Anthony, who
persuaded her to come to Franklin and open a store in the rear room
of Poss Hardware. Just when Mary Ann came to Franklin is not know,
but it is a fact that Anthony and Mary Ann were married in 1894.
Mary Ann Brown was born on July 5, 1865 in Tinwich (or as it is also
spelled, Tingwick) Province of Quebec, Canada. Tingwick is about
seventy-five miles south and west of the city of Quebec and eighty
miles north and east of Montreal. Arthabaska County in which Tingwick
is situated was the center of an area devoted almost exclusively to
farming. From the Prologue, we know that Mary Ann was the eldest
daughter and the second child of James Brown and Mary Anne Goggin,
and that the family migrated from Canada and finally settled on a
farm near Birch Cooley in Norfolk Township, Minnesota.
Anthony and mary Ann spent their entire lives in Franklin and the
following children were born to them; Irene, Harold, Edward,
Genevieve, Mary, John and Dorothy. All the children are still living
except Edward who was called to his reward on September 15, 1958.
After a long and happy life, Anthony died on november 12, 1951 at the
age of eighty-seven, and eight years later at the age of ninety-four,
his wife, Mary Ann joined him.
Written by Thomas J. Shay February, 1963
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1865 - 1959 (93 years)