A Biography of Morris Ramsay (1848-1892)
Compiled from the following sources as cited below:
History of Westmoreland County: Genealogical Memoirs
Henry Clay Frick: an Intimate Portrait
The Mt. Pleasant Journal
"MORRIS RAMSAY, whose death occurred in Dr. Sutton's private hospital at Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, December 29, 1892, was a native of Dunfermline, Scotland, born June 4, 1848, the third son in the family of William and Elizabeth (Sharp) Ramsay, both natives of Scotland, and possessing in a large degree the excellent characteristics of that country. William Ramsay and his wife and family first came to the United States in 1852, but after a residence of four years here they returned to their native land. In 1863, however, they emigrated a second time to this country and settled at Larimer, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. Their deaths occurred April 16, 1885, and August 13, 1889, respectively, and their remains were interred in Irwin cemetery, Westmoreland county.
Morris Ramsay, after completing a common school education, began learning the trade of machinist at Dunfermline, his birthplace, and completed the same at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in which city his parents located upon their arrival in this country in 1852. From 1864 to 1869 he worked in the mines of the Westmoreland Coal Company, and in the latter year was appointed mining boss at the Shafton coal mines, in which capacity he served for ten years. He then removed to Houtzdale, Clearfield county, Pennsylvania, and was superintendent of the Kittanning Coal Company's mines for two years. In 1882 he became superintendent of mines at Morewood; he was transferred two years later to the position of mining engineer for the Frick Coke Company, his services in this capacity being of great value to his employers. In 1886 he was made superintendent by the above company of their coke plants at Morewood, Warden, Dillinger, Alice and Tarr's. The ovens at these works numbered 1151, of the eight thousand owned or operated by the Southwest Coal and Coke Company. These extensive mines and works are operated upon an intelligent and practical basis, and every improvement that engineering talent and long practiced experience could devise has been introduced by this company. Among the works of Mr. Ramsay's engineering in the Connellsville coke region are: The Rist tipple, the air shaft at Morewood, the Trotter plant and the new Henry Clay coke works near Broad Ford, Fayette county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Ramsay was a member of Hiram Lodge, No. 69, A.O.U.W. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Mount Pleasant, and one of the honorable, representative citizens of that borough, whom to know was to admire.
Mr. Ramsay married, March 15, 1870, Sadie Greer, a native of Larrimer, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, and a daughter of George A. Greer. Their children were as follows: William, born 1870, became general superintendent of the coal and coke works at Tinicum after his father's death. Sadie M., born March 16, 1873, widow of James H. Eaton, of Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Lizzie S., born August 14, 1874, died February 5, 1904; she was the wife of Emmor Saunders. Hannah G., born June 17, 1876, wife of John L. Shields. George M., born March 25, 1878, a resident of Oliver, Pennsylvania, employed by a coke company of that place. An infant, born January 29, 1880, died in infancy. Mary C., born April 13, 1881, wife of Harry M. Stahl, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Jeanet [Janet] R., born September 30, 1882, died at the age of nine years. Robert A., born September 16, 1884, a resident of Tennessee, a civil engineer.* Alice I., born March 13, 1886, resides at home with her mother. Nellie, born Oct 4, 1887, died at the age of four years. Infant, born January 3, 1890, died in infancy. Adelaide Frick, born February 3, 1892. She is one of the sweet singers of the land, and is gradually gaining an enviable reputation as a skillful and accomplished musician. Mrs. Sadie M. Ramsay, widow of Morris Ramsay, resides in a comfortable home in Mount Pleasant, is highly esteemed in the community, and enjoys the acquaintance of a wide circle of friends."
(Typed verbatim by Barbara Beck-Ramsay from History of Westmoreland County:
Genealogical Memoirs, John W. Jordan, ed., The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906, Volume II, pp. 334-35.)
*Robert A. Ramsay, Sr. later became the City Engineer of Greensburg, Westmoreland Co, PA.
In Henry Clay Frick: an Intimate Portrait, by Martha Frick Symington Sanger, the author notes about great-grandfather's death: "The H.C. Frick Coke Company's Morewood Superintendent, Morris Ramsay, who had named his infantdaughter after Frick's wife, Adelaide, was fatally injured in a carriage accident....Although Ramsay was sent by Frick to a Pittsburgh hospital, he died in surgery. Frick served as a pallbearer at Ramsay's funeral and offered financial aid to his devastated widow." (p. 231)
However, as Morris Ramsay’s death certificate and the following obituaries show, my great-grandfather died of cancer.
Obituaries for Morris Ramsay (June 4, 1848 - December 29, 1892)
From The Mt. Pleasant Journal, January 3, 1893
John L. Shields, Editor and Proprietor
EDITORIAL NOTES
“In his youth Morris Ramsay had few of the advantages enjoyed by even the poorest Mt. Pleasant boy and he was compelled to learn much in the often rough school of experience, but with courage, perseverance and honesty he pushed his way up from the barefooted scotch lad to the general management of one of the three largest coke companies in the world before an insidious disease cut him down in the very prime of life. His advancement was the reward of true worth, and while the nature of his position must have made him enemies, back of all that were the kind heart and generous disposition of one of nature’s noblemen; for he believed with his native land’s great bard [Robert Burns] that “A man’s a man for a’ that.”
MORRIS RAMSAY’S DEATH
QUICKLY FOLLOWS AN OPERATION DISCLOSING CANCER OF THE STOMACH
A Self-Made Man and How he Rose From a Poor Scotch Boy to the General Management of a Great American Coke Company.
Morris Ramsay, General Manager of the South West Connellsville Coke Company, died, shortly before midnight on Thursday last, at Dr. Sutton’s Allegheny City hospital. The body was brought to his late home in Morewood, Friday after noon and, following services at the house conducted by Rev. Dr. Elliott, of the Presbyterian Church of which the deceased was a member, was taken on the Fairchance Express, yesterday morning and laid to rest in the Irwin [Union] Cemetery.
His illness, which eventually proved fatal, began early last summer and was then attributed to overwork. At the earnest solicitation of his company and Mr. [Henry Clay] Frick, who permitted no expense to stand in the way of securing the best of medical attention and every comfort for his ever faithful employee, he took his wife and daughter and went to Scotland in September, but the eight week’s trip brought no change for the better. On his return home eminent Pittsburgh physicians consulted with the Drs. Marsh on the case which was then thought to be a phantom tumor.
In November he was taken in a private car to the Markleton Sanitarium for treatment. While there for three weeks a second examination was made and it was thought the trouble was caused by a floating kidney and a second examination was recommended. It was with this object that, after he had spent Christmas at home, he was taken in a special car to the hospital on Tuesday last. At noon on Thursday the patient was given an anesthetic under the direction of Drs. Sutton, Litchfield, Rodgers, Corbus and the Drs. Marsh, who performed the operation and learned the truth of what had so long baffled their skill. A large cancerous growth was found involving the pancreas and the lower border of the stomach. No further attempt was made to remove the tumor, as death in that event must have followed immediately.
When consciousness returned to the brave sufferer and he was told his hours of life were few he asked to look once more on the faces of those who were nearest and dearest to him. His wife, son Will, daughter Miss Hannah, and brother, Mr. Robert Ramsay, were at the bedside and they were soon joined by other members of the family who were called in by telegraph. He knew them all and spoke to each one ere came the end that brought that sleep which knows no earthly waking.
Rare indeed are the cases that presented such misleading symptoms to the physicians as did this one. The first examination was made by an eminent Scotch surgeon who pronounced it a phantom tumor caused by muscular contraction of the bowels. On Mr. Ramsay’s return from Europe his own physicians in consultation with leading Pittsburgh members of the profession were led to believe that diagnosis was correct as the lump disappeared under the influence of ether. When the Markleton Sanitarium doctors made still another examination and held the patient was suffering from a floating kidney, symptoms were not lacking to prove the good ground for the opinion. As a rule cancerous growths are fixed, but this one, through the action of the stomach covering it was movable, and while it was attached to that gland the pancreas continued to perform all its normal functions, so that it remained for the surgeon’s knife to disclose the truth.
Morris Ramsay was the third of four sons born of poor parents near Dunfermline, Scotland on June 4, 1848. He came to this country first with his parents when not five years of age, but did not remain long. Ten years later, after having become a machinist in Dunfermline shops, he returned and resided with his parents in Pittsburgh while working his trade on the South Side. Following this he hauled coal in Monongahela river mines.
On March 15, 1870, he was married to Miss Sadie Greer, of Larimer, this county [Westmoreland], a union in which were born thirteen children of whom nine are living. He was hoisting engineer at the Shafton shaft until 1869 when he was appointed mine boss for the Kittanning Coal Company whose headquarters were at Houtzdale, PA, and a year later he came to Latrobe to fill the position of superintendent for the Loyalhanna Coal and Coke Company.
Two years later he came here and became mining engineer for the Morewood Coke Company and in a few months superintendent. In 1886 the H.C. Frick Coke Company made him chief of its engineer corps and then he returned to Morewood as the superintendent for the South West Coal & Coke Company. As that corporation extended its holdings of both ovens and coal land every move was made under his careful management. Backed by wealth and a liberal policy, the Alice, Stonerville and Tarrs plants were added as well as a 2,500 acre coal field near Uniontown that was purchased by the South West people under the name of the Revere Coke Company of which Mr. Ramsay was superintendent and eventually general manager as he was of the South West Connellsville company, into which the old company was merged about a year ago.
If evidence were made to prove the confidence his employers had in him it can be found not only in the almost perfect freedom they gave him in the management of their interests but in the concern they felt when sickness befell him. A bill with his O.K. was sufficient guarantee that the expense had not been unnecessarily incurred, while they did not permit him even to see what it cost to provide him with every care and comfort. Morewood, and in fact, all the equipment, stand as fitting monuments of his ability and faithfulness alike to employer and employee.”
[Seven years after John Shields wrote this obituary, the editor married Morris Ramsay’s daughter, Hannah Greer Ramsay. The obituary which follows is unsigned, undated, but probably also appeared in The Mt. Pleasant Journal in a separate section.]
“HE PASSES AWAY
Morris Ramsay, of Morewood, Numbered Among the Dead
A USEFUL LIFE ENDS
HE WAS GENERAL MANAGER OF THE SOUTHWEST COKE COMPANY
A Tribute to His Life and Character, Such as Will Find an Echo in Every Heart That Enjoys His Friendship and Feels His Loss–His Death Caused by Cancer of the Stomach.
The announcement of the death of manager Morris Ramsay has occasioned universal regret among the many friends who knew him and this grief is intensified in those who knew him best. His death is a loss to the home circle which he adorned–to the business community in which he labored–to everyone who enjoyed the sunshine of his presence, and felt the influence of the high and honorable career of which he was a living exemplar.
He was one of the most modest men we ever met, He was reserved in his manners and there was something about him that led all to admire him and feel at home in his presence, We have met him under all circumstances and no man in the history of this county was more severely tried and no character more severely tested that was his. We met him when the thunders of adversity were muttering so low that their very lightnings singed his hair, and in the struggle at [the] Morewood [Mine riot of 1891], which has passed into history, he was the intrepid leader and his once pleasant home was invaded by the lawless, his faithful and loving wife made a partner of his woe. It was this indignity of the mob that hastened the harvest of death when the grim reaper gathered his sheaves on that memorable April morning,.
In that trial in which many would have faltered or fallen he was as fearless as a lion and yet as calm and modest as a maiden. No unkind word escaped his lips and a few hours after the struggle was over we accompanied him in a walk over the grounds where the conflict ended when he assured us that the memory of the carnage would remain as the most unpleasant recollection of his life, although it was unexpected to him and he had no share in it.
We knew him first in Shafton, twenty years ago, where he held a position under his older brother, Robert, the now poplar superintendent of the Standard mines near Mt. Pleasant. His rise was rapid and this was due to the fact that he was gifted with extraordinary talents suited to the calling he had chosen, to say nothing of his sobriety, energy and zeal for his work. He was the General Manager of the Southwest Coke Company at the time of his death. He was known for his skill as a mining engineer and he left the imprint of his genius in his work and built for him a monument more enduring than marble.
He was 44 years of age and leaves a widow and ten children to mourn his loss. His death resulted from cancer of the stomach, on Friday last, and his remains were laid to rest in the Shafton cemetery on Monday noon. A useful life is ended, a devoted friend is dead and our sympathy goes out with that of all, to those dear ones to whom this sadness is intensely bitter and who must seek consolation in the face of Him who mingled his tears with those who stood at the grave and wept over a departed friend.”
Submitted by: Barbara Beck-Ramsay (bbramsay1@aol.com)