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WHO WAS WHO in PLUM TOWNSHIP
~ Titusville Herald ~
By H. W. Strawbridge

Fred Bumpus

Fred Bumpus Had Many Skills, Built Several Area Landmarks

The Bumpus family can be traced back to at least the early part of the 17th Century when Edward Bompass, a native Leydener, left Holland and boarded the ship “Fortune” at London to sail for America. Included in the group was Jonathan Brewster. They landed at Plymouth, Mass., on Nov. 11, 1621. Edward lived at Duxbury, and later at Marshfield. He died in 1693, and had fathered eight children. His first son was John Bumpas, born in 1636. The spelling of the name gradually changed through the years.
One of John’s great grandsons was Simeon Bumpus who was born in 1739 in Wareham, Mass., and was a Revolutionary War veteran. He moved to New York State in later years.
His grandson was Rev. Erastus Sterling Bumpus, born probably at Lorraine, N.Y., on May 31, 1815. He was a Free Will Baptist minister and elder. He was married July 2, 1839, to Ann Faneta Shirley who was a milliner.

Minister Moves to Area

They removed to Jackson Township, Venango county, where they lived several years before moving to Mercer County where he preached, did some shoe repairing and fruit raising. About 1875 they sold their place to a neighbor whose house had burned, and removed to Bradleytown, Plum Township. Here the respected man of god died on Jan. 23, 1880.
While he lived in Jackson township on the present property of Mrs. Martha Deeter, record states that the first oil well in the township was put down on his farm. It was drilled to a depth of 400 feet, then abandoned. In 1862 it was completed and proved to be a two-barrel well.
During his times of residence in Jackson and Plum townships he was actively associated with the former Plum Free Will Baptist Church located between Bradleytown and Cooperstown.

First Called Fritz

His youngest son was Frederick Rufus Bumpus, born Sept. 29, 1859, in Jackson Township. The old family Bible states his first name was Fritz, but he always accepted Fred as his name. Sometimes he went by a nickname, “Rick”.
Fred grew up with a real sense of responsibility. He served as a foreman over a telegraph crew when in his late teens. The crew strung a line from Titusville to Warren. One day the superintendent happened along and wanted to see the foreman to congratulate him on installing one of the straightest lines in the state. He was vastly surprised when he learned that the foreman was still in his teens.
Fred also learned the carpenter’s trade when very young under an area resident, Milton Rieb. He worked with Rieb until the latter’s death in 1878.
Fred once worked as an off-bearer at the Stratton-McQueen sawmill located near the line of the Williams and Lamberton properties above Bradleytown. While he was there the boiler blew up. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
As a young fellow he owned a nice sorrel horse named “Tip.” This horse was very lively and smart. Once it was standing behind Fred in the yard, apparently begging for oats. Something scared it and it jumped entirely over Fred without hurting him. Just a whistle and a joggle of the lines was all that was necessary to get him to pass any other horse on the road.

Six-Year Courtship

Fred had a courtship of around six years with Miss Elma Elizabeth Davison of Bradleytown. Their marriage took place in Franklin on April 19, 1888, by a Baptist minister. Elma had wanted to be married by a minister of the Presbyterian Church, her faith, but at that particular time the church in Sunville was without a minister, and the pastor in Franklin couldn’t be located due to it being Presbytery Week. After their wedding they had their photograph, shown here, taken in Titusville.
Elma was born April 25, 1866, a daughter of James F. and Lucinda Matthews Davison. She was one of four children. She attended the Sunville Academy, then taught in the schools of south Troy, Gates (Jackson Township) and Bradleytown. She also took part in the oldtime singing schools and literary societies in her community.
She and Fred had been in the large circus tent which had blown down in Titusville in 1885 and caused great confusion.
The couple began housekeeping in the home of his widowed mother who died a year and a half later. In the yard he had a shop in which he filed and fixed buggy wheels, made wagon boxes, axles, spindles and even boats.
During the first two summers Fred and Elma ran the hotel at Sugar Lake, and spent their winters at Bradleytown.
Fred and J.W. Morse of Chapmanville made a steamboat and Fred piloted it on Sugar Lake for two seasons, one of which was 1892. Fred towed a flatboat on nice evenings, and a number of couples held square dances on it. After the boat was dismantled Fred took the boiler and engine and sawed wood.
In 1895-96 Fred and Elma lived in a small house which once stood north of the large house of Elma’s parents.
They then lived in Callery Junction and Evans City, Butler County, where he constructed derricks and built walking beams and bull-wheels. After building a derrick he would climb the derrick and stand on his head as sort of a “grand finale”.
He once built an entire bull-wheel, installed the spokes, rim, etc., and hung it in one day. This took some busy hours.

First Central Power

He installed the first central power in the oil fields there to pump the lines. One Bob Irwin owned the large lease on which this work was done. Following the Butler County work, Fred then worked in the Lake Creek oil fields building rigs for Billy Thompson. Around 1898 he worked in Sharon in the carpentry and construction business. He built and repaired houses for the steel mill company there.
In 1900 the family moved to Rocky Grove and remained there for nine years. He helped to build the Park Hotel, worked at the Eclipse and constructed the lower plant of the Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company.
Fred and Elma were the parents of 10 children as follows: Leo Shirley Bumpus, May 10, 1889; James Maxwell Bumpus, Feb. 25, 1891; Leonard Davison Bumpus, Sept. 29, 1893; Bernice Irene Bumpus, Sept. 4, 1895; two infant girls probably 1897 and 1898; Theodore Dalton Bumpus, July 23, 1900; Nellie Marie Bumpus, July 8, 1904; Ferne Elizabeth Bumpus, Aug. 6, 1908; and Norris Bumpus, April 1910.

Six Children Survive

Leo was married to Miss Nora Brown of Rockland on Feb. 19, 1916. They lived at Bradleytown where she died in 1936. On Sept. 25, 1939, he was married to Mrs. Marie Riddle of Barkeyville, and they presently live at Bradleytown. He was employed as a machinist and a farmer prior to his retirement. He also served 30 years on the Plum Township school board. By the first marriage there were four children: Mrs. Bernice Noel of Bradleytown, Mrs. Margaret McBride of Slippery Rock, Fred W. Bumpus, deceased and Mrs. Florence Smith of Black Ash.
Maxwell was married in October 1934, to Bertha Lindberg of Johnsonburg at Ridgway. Max was a carpenter and is now retired living at Johnsonburg. They have one daughter, Mrs. Gertrude Walters of Pelahatchie, Miss.
Leonard remained single. He had worked in the carpentry and construction business prior to his retirement. He presently lives in Bradleytown.
Bernice married Clyde Pringle of Oakland Township in April, 1918, in her home. She died of burns received when an oil can exploded in Sedan, N.M., in March 1919. Mr. Pringle was a customs officer and is now retired and living along Lake Ontario. No children were born to this union.
The next two children, the infant girls, died in infancy. One, Catherine, lived two days.
Theodore was married in August 1927, to Miss Lillian Cannon, a schoolteacher of Aliquippa. She died in 1960. He was married in 1961 to Florence Marquart of Rochester, N.Y. Theodore is an inspector in the Pennsylvania Railroad yards at Pitcairn. There is one daughter by his first marriage, Mrs. Jean Miller of near Pittsburgh.

Son is Carpenter

Nellie was married on Oct. 2, 1926, at Franklin to Clyde Shadle of Fairview. Nellie was a schoolteacher and Clyde farmed at Emlenton, then at Bradleytown. He is presently a carpenter, and they reside on the old Bumpus place in Bradleytown. They have six children: Lewis Shadle of Erie, Mrs. Anna Crawford of Townville, James Shadle of Greensboro, N.C., David Shadle of near Bradleytown, Mrs. Shirley Sterns of Franklin and First Lt. Donald Shadle of the Air Force in Turkey.
Ferne was married in August 1926, at Mayville, N.Y. to Victor McCurdy of Fairview. He carpentered and farmed. He died at Fairview in December, 1936. They had one son, Bruce McCurdy now of Zelienople, who was later adopted by her second husband and named Welsh. Ferne remarried on Sept. 1, 1939, to William Welsh Sr., and they live west of Chapmanville. He is an electrician. They had two sons, William Welsh Jr., of Meadville and Frederick Welsh at home.
Norris died in September, 1910 of a summer complaint at the age of five months.
Family historians have stated that Fred’s family was the first family of the Bumpus line to have more than two boys.
Fred Bumpus weighed around 200 pounds in his younger day, but had fallen to around 160 pounds in his late years. He was six feet tall.

Hair Changes Color

He had white curly hair when a boy, and an interesting anecdote is recalled in this respect. While someone was cutting his hair one day, a lady who lived a distance south of the Bumpus home and who was noted (and feared too) as a witch woman, called upon the Bumpus family. She told them without any hesitation that the boy’s hair was being cut in the wrong sign. Indeed, it never curled again, and his hair turned black. He was gray, though, during the greater portion of his adult life. He also sported a mustache.
He was quite jovial. A member of the family also said that one could hear him sneeze “a mile away!”.
Fred was a member of the former Free Will Baptist Church in Bradleytown, the Cooperstown IOOF lodge and the Carpenter’s Union in Franklin, which he joined in 1900.
During the 1880’s he was a member of Company E of the 16th Regiment of National Guard in Cooperstown. He was one of four squads of eight men apiece, or 32 men all of whom were six feet or more tall in their stocking feet. Fred had referred to them as “four sets of fours”. They comprised what was said to be the tallest squads of guardsmen in the state at that time.
Elma was a longtime member of the former Sunville Presbyterian Church with which she united on May 24, 1884 under Rev. J. L. Robertson. She was installed as an elder on Sept. 28, 1939.

Designed Floor Sander

Sometime during the early 1900’s Fred had completed plans for a floor sander. He wrote to the patent office in Washington to get a patent, but he never carried out the plans for manufacturing it. Some man in Franklin whom Fred had approached about the plans became rather untrustworthy in Fred’s opinion, so he abandoned his intentions of completing the patent.
Fred carpentered a number of local buildings. He helped to build the Valley schoolhouse in 1889, both the Free Will Baptist (1892) and Methodist (1910) churches in Bradleytown, the Diamond church belfry in 1909, the back part of the Conrad Rice home near Wallaceville, the raising of Dr. Richey’s small barn in Chapmanville, the large part of the Clyde Armstrong house at Chapmanville, the shingling of the Presbyterian horse sheds at Sunville, and he, Leonard and Theodore assisted Bill Robinson in constructing the large barn belonging to J.M. Shriver at Diamond in 1922.
Fred, Leonard and Maxwell started construction of a new home on their place and they moved into it, still unfinished, in August, 1925, though Fred was in failing health then.
Fred died March 26, 1926, following an illness of about a year’s duration. He was buried from his home on March 30 with the Methodist pastor, Rev. W.H. Turner, officiating. Interment was in the Plum Cemetery, Jackson Township.
Elma died in the same home on Oct. 19, 1958, at the age of 92, having been Plum township’s oldest resident at that time. Although she had been failing gradually, she was seriously ill for only a day.

Transcribed by Paula Harry
dharry@pa.rr.com

Disclaimer:there may be errors due to transcription of information from both early and late (current contributors) work.