Frank Semple Bissell (1833-1919)

Frank Semple Bissell, appears in the Guest Book of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1886. Bissell may simply have been a guest, as Club member Hilary Brunot's wife's maiden name was Bissell, but as of now, that is just conjecture.

The following is from the History of Allegheny County Pennsylvania, Volume II, Part I. It was discovered by researcher John Leach, who graciously forwarded it on to the Johnstown Flood National Memorial:

"FRANK SEMPLE BISSELL, manufacturer, Pittsburgh was born in that city, January 28, 1833. His father John Bissell, was a native of Connecticut, and a pioneer in the rolling mill business in Pittsburgh; his mother, Nancy Semple, was born in that city. Frank S. graduated at Williams College, Massachusetts, in 1854, and two years later embarked on the manufacture of stoves, in company with his brother Charles, now of Cleveland, as successors of Paine, Lee, & Co., on the rolling mill site, Allegheny City. For the last twenty years he has been sole proprietor, and the business is largely conducted by his eldest son. In 1884 he bought the house in Wilkinsburg built by Henry Harbaugh in 1843, and now resides here. The grounds extend on Penn Avenue from West to Alfred streets. Mr. Bissell is a vestryman in St. Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church of Pittsburgh; a member of the executive committee of Dixmont hospital, and one of the board of managers of the Exchange National Bank, Pittsburgh; politically he is a republican [sic]. His first wife, Martha H., daughter of Thomas Miller, bore him one son, Harry M. His present wife Anne M., daughter of George W. Jackson, of Pittsburgh, is the mother of two sons, George W.J. and John B."

Bissell died on July 3, 1919 and is buried in Allegheny Cemetery.