BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH OF HARRY ELDRED PACKER.
Pages 705 & 706
Page 705
Harry Eldred Packer, the
youngest son of Asa and Sarah Blakslee Packer, was born on the 4th
of June, 1850, at Mauch Chunk, Carbon Co., Pa., and named in honor of Hon.
Nathaniel B. Eldred, president 
judge
of Carbon County during his father’s official term as associate judge. He received his early education under the
direction of Professor Charles Bowman, and finished his studies at the Lehigh University,
so liberally endowed by Asa Packer.
Having spent his life at the home of his parents, he became thoroughly
conversant with the great interests which his father had so successfully
established, and received that training which eminently fitted him for the
prominent position he was called to fill on the death of the latter. At the age of twenty-nine he became actively
identified with the coal and railroad interests of the State; was elected a
director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company; appointed general
superintendent of a division of this prosperous corporation, and soon after
chosen to fill the office of vice-president.
In January, 1883, he was elected to the presidency of the railroad, and
in January of the following year re-elected to the same position. Mr. Packer succeeded his father as one of
the vestry of St. Mark’s Church, of Mauch Chunk. He was nominated for the office of associate judge of the county
by the Democratic party, of which he was an influential leader, and elected
without opposition from the opposing party.
He was commissioned on Jan. 1, 1882, by Governor Hoyt, and took his seat
upon the bench soon after. Mr. Packer
was largely interested in coal enterprises, and an important factor in the
development of this great product of the State. He evinced much attachment for the locality of his birth, and in
the erection of buildings and by generous contributions to worthy objects added
greatly to the growth and prosperity of Mauch Chunk. As a citizen he…
PAGE 706
… was
public-spirited and enterprising, as a friend, loyal and unselfish, traits that
inspired many tender memories on the occasion of his death, which occurred on
the 1st of February, 1884, in his thirty-fourth year. He was, on the 29th of August,
1872, united in marriage to Miss Augusta Lockhart, daughter of the late
Alexander Lockhart, who survives him.
END
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RETURN
TO THE MATHEWS & HUNGERFORD
INDEX
PAGE
From
The History of the Counties of Lehigh & Carbon, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
By
Alfred Mathews & Austin N. Hungerford
Published in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1884
Transcribed from the original in May 2003
by
Susan Gilkeson Sterling
Web page by
May 2003