Leon C. Magaw    

LEON C. MAGAW, cheese manufacturer, Meadville, was born July 16, 1827, son of Col. William and Adeline (Chappotin) Magaw. The latter was a native of Rhode Island, of French descent; Col. William Magaw was born in Pennsylvania, and is of Scotch descent; came to Meadville in 1809; clerked for some time under Samuel B. Magaw (one of the early merchants); afterward became a prominent merchant himself, and also entered largely into the manufacture of straw paper, of which he was the inventor. Our subject, the elder son, was educated in Meadville, and at a private school, at Buffalo, N. Y. When twenty-two years of age he embarked in the grocery trade, and continued in the same for thirty years, fifteen years of which as a wholesale dealer. In the year 1880 he started a cheese factory, and at present has retired from the grocery trade, and owns and operates fourteen cheese factories. He is the most extensive cheese manufacturer in Pennsylvania; he sells his products throughout the United States and Mexico. Mr. Magaw has been twice married, on first occasion, in 1851, to Sophie M. Selden, of Pittsburgh (of French descent), who bore him the following children: Elizabeth S., wife of A. M. Fuller, merchant here; G. Selden, a merchant in Chicago; Adelaide Louise, wife of John I. Shryock, merchant here. His wife dying in 1864, our subject remarried, in 1866, Mrs. Susan E. Thorp, of Brooklyn, N. Y., formerly Miss Gray, of Newburyport, Mass. By this union are two daughters, Leona and Ethel, and two sons, I. Thorp, and Louis Deb. The entire family are members of the Episcopal Church.

History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania: containing a history of the county, its townships, towns, villages, schools, churches, industries, etc., portraits of early settlers and prominent men, biographies, history of Pennsylvania, statistical and miscellaneous matter, Chicago: Warner, Beers & Co., 1885, page 752-753

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