Archie F Rairigh
ARCHIE F. RAIRIGH, a carpenter and contractor of Cowanshannock township, was born in that township, on a portion of the farm where he now resides, March 16, 1852, a son of William and Elizabeth (Knisley) Rairigh.
William Rairigh was born in 1796, in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, and became a pioneer of what is now Cownshannock township, Armstrong county, Pa. Here he cleared and improved a homestead, a portion of which is owned by his son Archie F., and died upon it in 1878, in his eighty-third year. He married twice his first wife being Barbara Brilhart, who bore him three children: Lavina, who married George Mealey; Moses, and Jesse. By his second marriage to Mrs. Elizabeth (Knisley) Zimmerman, born in Bedford county, Pa., he had four children: Catherine, who married George Clark; William K.; Solomon A. and Archie F. By her first marriage Mrs. Elizabeth Rairigh had three children: Elias; Esther, who married Robert Martin; and John.
Archie F. Rairigh was reared on his father�s homestead and sent to the public schools of the neighborhood. When only eighteen years old, in 1869, he began his business career as a painter, and followed that trade for fifteen years, in 1885 commencing to work as a carpenter. His business grew to such an extent that since 1892 he has been devoting himself to contracting and building, and with the exception of three years, when he was at Pittsburgh and Vandergrift, he has spent his life on the old homestead. Among other important contracts he has carried out have been the following: The erection of the Presbyterian Church at Rural Valley in 1892, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Yatesboro; the Appleby Manor Church, near Ford City, in 1891, and the reconstruction of the same edifice in 1908; the building of the Baptist Church of East Franklin township in 1893; the carpenter work in the Sagamore public school building in 1906 and the Scotdale public school building in Cowanshannock township in 1911; the designing of the public school building in Rural Valley in 1911; the designing and erection of the Rural Valley National Bank building in 1911, one of the best banks in the county; as well as other work of less importance.
In 1875 Mr. Rairigh married Catherine Nichols, daughter of Charles and Liddy (Forsythe) Nichols, of Pine township, this county. They have had children as follows: Winona who married Charles McKinley; Lenora, who married Ralph McKenny; Lawrence; Lucretia, who is deceased; Esmerelda, who married Woodford Rankin; Delcy B., who married Harry Gilmore, and Ruby M., who married George Keys. Mr. Rairigh is serving his second term as overseer of the poor of Cowanshannock township. In politics he is a Republican. In every relation of life he has proved himself a man of the highest integrity and his success has been attained along legitimate lines.
Source: Page 910, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed February 1999 by Nanci Michalkiewicz for the Armstrong County Beers Project
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