Juniata sentinel. [volume] (Mifflintown, Pa.) 1846-1873, 1873-09-24

4 SKETCH OF TIE REPUBLICAN, CANDrDsTE FcR
THE SUPREME BENCH.
MS Elpyy JTEE

! 4 SKETCH OF TUE RLPUBLICAS CANDIDATE PcR
THE SUPREME BENCH.
HIS EARLY LIFE.
Judge Gordon was born in Lewis.
burg, Union county, Pa, December
%, 1919, and is consequently in the
Gfty- y-fourth year of his age, although
his face looks ten years younger. The
grandfather. John Gordon, who was OF
Scotch Irish origin, settled at an early
day in Northumberland county. The
father of Isaac g., whose name was
Iaccheus, settled at Lewisburg some
years before he birth of our candidate,
and for many years followed in that
place his trade Of coppersmithing. At
later date he came to Brookville,
where he died IN 1872, in the S3d year
of his age.
During childhood our hero had such
educational advantages as the country
then afforded, which, it is well known,
were not frst-class. His father, from
sickness and misfoI tune, was very poor,
and Ike, as he was familiarly called,
when only sixteen years old, found 1t
necessary 20 support, by the labor of
his hands, the whole family, consisting
of his father, mother, three sisters and
a brother. This heavy charge and re-
sponsibility, under which a moro timld
youth would have gwen way, had no
difficulties which could not be sur
mounted for young Gordon. The path
of duty, as he understood it, was plain
before him, and though hardships had
to be endured, struggles made, and
great self-denial practiced, he was found
equal to the task. Entering Nathan
Mitchelps iron foundry, in Lewisburg,
as a wane- cleaner, he afterwards learned
the trade of moulder, at which bust
ness he worked some seven or eight
years, part of the time in Danylllc, then
Columbia, now Montour comfy, and
part of the time in Marunsburg, Blair
county, about two miles from Altoona.
Being crippled in the Lewisburg foun-
dry by the molten iron filing the shoe
on the left foot, he was laid up for sew
eral months, which time was employed
in reading aud study, and during which
time he acquired a taste for literary as
well as scientific pursuits, which has ad-
hered to him through life.
BACK TO THE FOUNDRY.
As soon, however, as he could walk
without crutcbes, and long before his
foot was we'll, he was compelled, by
that stern necessity which knows no
law, to lay aside the books and take his
place in the foundry During these
long years of labor, and intimate asso-
citation with the hardy sons Of toll, he !
became familiar with their wants aud |
ideas. While being one OF them, :hen,
in fullest sympathy with the great army |
who earn their bread by the sweat of
their brow, it is not strange that he i'm
bibed those principles of protection to
home industry, general education, and
liberty which have since formed !
the principal features of his political |
creed. That he still retains h,s fond.
ness for mechanic arts, and is still! re. |
garded among the ~orkingmen of Brook
vile as a mechanic oe no mean order,
is fully attested by the fact that no
one Is more frequently consulted on all |
subjects in which they take an interest.
STUDYING LAW.
a classical educatlon being circum
vented by study daring intervals of
labor and at night, together with three
months at the Lewisburg Academy, Mr..
iordon entered the office Of James L.
Llnn, Of Lewisburg, in the year 1871,
IS a student of law. For bis first legal
preceptor Mr.. e. has ever entertained
ceilings of gratitude and respect. al
says referring to him as "roble man,
'nd a good, kind friend"
ADMITTED TO PRACTICE
n the courts Of Union county, April,
Sf3, the same year he removed to
,yrveDsvilIe C1ea I'D conutv ond fLa-i