Isaac Pifer:

Isaac Pifer, of Henderson Township, now living retired, is a descendant of one of the earliest pioneers in what is known as the Paradise settlement, being a grandson of John Pifer. John Pifer came here with Frederick Kunley in 1828 or 1829, attracted by the big game then abundant in the heavy forests, and they were not disappointed, enjoying many a successful hunting expedition as well as the meat obtained thereby for the family larder. The facilities for sport, and the many beautiful flowers found in the neighborhood where they located, seemed to justify their choice of a name.

Among the pioneers who followed them were John Pifer’s nephew, Anthony Pifer, who also secured a farm; the Smith family, who soon settled to the north; Philipi Strouse, and Mr. Deemer. John Pifer was a native of Dauphin County, Pa., and was married in Westmoreland county to Charlotte Frye, whose ancestors were early settlers there. There they continued to live until their removal to Jefferson County, which was made in the most primitive fashion, by ox-team, with an old jumper sleigh bought especially for their son William, who was taken sick just before the time for starting. The weather was cold, and the trip took seven days. Mr. Pifer and Mr. Kunley had bought 202 acres in Henderson Township, at a dollar an acre, and divided it, Mr. Kunley’s portion including the farm now owned by Isaac Pifer, upon which an old hunters’ cabin stood at an opening above the pine timber. They lived in truly primitive fashion for many years, not even having access to a mill, grinding their corn and other grains in an old hand mill which broke a kernel of corn into about eight pieces.

Besides progressing well in the clearing and cultivation of the original tract, Mr. Pifer bought and partly cleared the place now owned by his grandson John Pifer. He was an intelligent man and took a leading part in local affairs, serving as county commissioner and justice of the peace. His death, in 1851, was very sudden, occurring a half mile from Brookville while he was returning home with his son George. He was sixty-two years old at the time, and his wife reached the age of seventy, dying in the early seventies. They are buried in the Rider graveyard one mile from their homestead, at the site of the old Paradise Lutheran Church, which was built a mile and a quarter distant from the present church of that congregation. It had been organized in the early days, and John Pifer assisted in building the log church first used.

Mr. and Mrs. John Pifer had a family of nine children, six sons and one daughter reaching maturity, and it is noteworthy that of those who grew up none died under the age of sixty-three years. Four sons are buried in the Lutheran cemetery near the old home. Jonas, the eldest, died in 1884, aged sixty-five; John F., a farmer of McCalmont Township, lived to be over eighty; Simon died in youth; William Elias, born Dec. 27, 1817, is deceased; George, who spent his last years in retirement in Henderson Township, is deceased; Elizabeth married James Dickey, of Winslow Township, Jefferson County, and lived to be over seventy; David was the father of Isaac Pifer; Mary A. died young; Thomas, the last survivor of the family, lived in retirement in Henderson township until his death, which occurred in 1908, when he was about seventy years old. The last named left no family. He was a very large man, weighing at one time 340 pounds. All this family remained in Jefferson County.

David Pifer, father of Isaac Pifer, was born in Westmoreland County in 1825 and was consequently very young when he accompanied his parents to Jefferson County. He lived on the farm where they settled or the adjoining part originally owned by Mr. Kunley all his life, never being absent from the place for more than two weeks at a time. Having bought the Kunley tract he continued clearing and cultivating on that place as well as on the paternal homestead, which came into his possession, and where he resided until he built a substantial frame house on part of the Kunley property, that portion now occupied by his daughters Lizzie and Mrs. Minnie C. Muth. It was there that his death occurred in November, 1908. David Pifer devoted considerable of his time to lumbering, working for himself and jobbing for others, making rafts of square timber which were sent down the neighboring streams to market.

Like his father he interested himself in matters of importance to his locality, served as supervisor, school director, and in other local positions, and was one of the active members of the Paradise Lutheran Church, doing his full share toward the erection of the present church building, erected in the early seventies. By his marriage to Elizabeth Hess, who died in 1882, he had eleven children: J.J., who lives on a farm in Henderson Township adjoining his brother Isaac’s home, married Lizzie Strouse, of Jefferson County and has three children, Albert, Lottie and Clair; Isaac was second in order of birth; Charlotte is the wife of Joseph Zufall, a farmer of Henderson Township, and has four children, David, Eldry, Clarence, and ____; Jonas married Mary Bonsal, of Brady township, Clearfield County, where he formerly lived on a farm, but now resides at DuBois; Sarah married Charles Scheffler, formerly of Center County, later a butcher at Big Run, now in DuBois, and they have one child, Willson; Lydia married Amos Strouse, of Winslow Township, this county, where they reside on the “Wash. Miller farm,” and they have six children, Lizzie, David, Minnie, Clarence, Gem and Nanie; David, a farmer of Henderson Township, married Ollie Ludwig, of Winslow Township, and they have two children, Ethel and Ivan; Mina, deceased, married Gilbert Fye, of Winslow Township, who has a farm at Big Soldier where they settled and they had six children, Minnie, Harry, Oscar, Laura, Ora and Clara; William T., who farms his father’s homestead where John Pifer settled, married Rachel Zufall, of Henderson Township; Lizzie lives at the home last occupied by her father, with her sister Mina C., who is now the wife of Thomas Muth.

The sons Isaac and William T. were executors of their father’s estate. The Paradise settlement, of which it forms a part, lies in the eastern part of Jefferson County, eighteen miles southeast of Brookville, four and a half miles north of Big Run, eleven miles northeast of Punxsutawney, and six miles south of Reynoldsville. It was here that Isaac Pifer was born Aug. 8, 1850. He grew up on the farm, and was educated in the neighboring public schools, and in his early manhood was occupied like most of the youths at agricultural work in the summer season and lumbering during the winters. In 1878 he began dealing in sheep, and carried on that business for a number of years, buying in Jefferson, Clearfield and Indiana Counties, and shipping to Philadelphia. For eight years his partner in this line was W.S. Dellett, of Milroy, Mifflin Co., Pa., who died in August, 1916. Having for two years bought cattle for John DuBois, of DuBois, he subsequently combined the handling of cattle with his transactions as a sheep trader. Then for some years he was engaged in buying fat cattle at the stockyards in East Liberty, Pittsburgh, shipping them to Reynoldsville and other points. 

In 1884 he became associated with Adam Miller in the purchase of a sawmill in Henderson Township, from A. Wineburg, and having purchased several pieces of timberland, including the William Pifer tract in McCalmont Township, they engaged extensively in cutting and sawing lumber. 

In 1901 Mr. Pifer became a stockholder in the Miller Lumber Company, named for Adam Miller, of Big Run, its chief member and promoter, whose operations were in South Carolina, between Columbia and Savannah. For four years Mr. Pifer acted as foreman of the company’s mill, while Milton Stahlman, of Sigel, Jefferson Co., Pa., was foreman in the woods. About twenty men were employed about the mill and yards. When operations at the mill ceased the company supplied timber to David E. Pifer, son of Isaac Pifer, who was selling logs to another lumber company, using a railroad for delivery. David E. Pifer was on a work train which was wrecked while going into the woods for logs, a storm having felled trees which lay across the track and derailed it, the engine being at the back of the cars, pushing them.

The accident caused his death, and his father, after having lived retired on his farm in Jefferson County for three years, took up the contracts made by the son and which required two years to complete. Having wound up the business satisfactorily, he returned to the farm, to which he has since devoted much of his attention, though his son Luther now carries on the work of cultivation. Luther Pifer also acted as administrator of his brother’s estate in South Carolina. Mr. Pifer was one of the original stockholders in the Citizens’ Bank of Big Run, and he and G.W. Miller are the only survivors of that group. The bank has since become the Citizens’ National Bank. Mr. Pifer was a director of the institution for some years. In his earlier life he took a close interest in the administration of the local government and held some offices, serving sixteen years as constable and tax collector of his township. Politically he has been a lifelong Democrat.

Mr. Pifer was married in 1876 to Susanna Bonsall, of Brady Township, Clearfield County, and the same year built a two-story residence of frame construction on his part of the old homestead, making a permanent home there. The large bank barn was built ten years later. Mrs. Pifer died in 1886, leaving five children, namely: Jacob K., born March 4, 1878, lives on a farm near his father’s; he married Minnie Muth, and has two children, Hugh and Lyle. Lydia, born Nov. 10, 1879, is the wife of John Rudolph, assistant superintendent at the Eleanor mines, and her children are David, John, Catherine, Fay and Herraugh. Luther, born Feb. 12, 1881, has operated the home farm for his father for ten years; he married Anna Keeler, and has three children, Susanna, Charles and Vere. David E., born Dec. 12, 1882, was thirty years old when he died, and was unmarried. Wilson, born in 1886, died one year after the mother. Mr. Pifer adheres to the Evangelical denomination, he and his wife joining the church at Paradise, to whose support he has contributed liberally.

Transcribed by Steven A. Stahlman from “Jefferson County, Pennsylvania – Her Pioneers and People”, Volume II, by Dr. William James McKnight, published in 1917 by the J. H. Beers & Company, Chicago, Ill. Page 261.