BIO: GEORGE WASHINGTON HAUCK, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Joe Patterson OCRed by Judy Banja Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/cumberland/ _____________________________________________________________ >From Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, pages 200-203 _____________________________________________________________ NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/cumberland/zeamer/ GEORGE WASHINGTON HAUCK was born in Mechanicsburg, Pa., on the 6th day of May, 1841. He was the second son of Adam and Susannah (Wonderly) Hauck, being one of four children. Adam Hauck was a founder and iron manufacturer and manufacturer of stoves. He often took his son George, then a mere boy, with him, when he drove through the adjoining and more remote counties of the State, looking after his interest in the iron trade. When George was a boy fourteen years old, his father died. Mr. Hauck obtained his early education at the Mechanicsburg public schools. When he was eighteen, he went to the Cumberland Valley Institute, where he remained between one and two years, studying Latin and the higher branches, and displaying a high and rare order of talent. Being a natural and able mathematician, he finished higher algebra before he was twelve years old. Between the ages of fifteen and nineteen he learned the tinner's trade with his uncle, William Wonderly, and afterward formed a partnership with his uncle, Frederick Wonderly. Mr. Hauck worked at his trade in a number CUMBERLAND COUNTY. 201 of cities, among which were the following Cincinnati, Rochester, Wabash (Ind.), Washington (D. C.), and Harrisburg. In 1869 George Hauck and his brother Samuel formed a partnership in the stove and tin business, under the firm name of Hauck & Co. In August, 1878, George and Samuel Hauck and J. K. Seifert bought out the hardware stand of George Bobb, on West Main street, and formed the new firm of Seifert & Hauck. The Messrs. Hauck, Seifert and S. H. Coover, in 1881, organized the Huston Net Company, for the manufacture and sale of a high grade of leather flynets. Mr. Coover soon resigned from the flynet business, and several years later the Messrs. Hauck purchased Mr. Seifert's interests in both the flynet and the hardware business. Both of these the Haucks together conducted until the death of Mr. George W. Hauck, on the 15th of May, 1902. The flynet business continued under the old name, and the name of the hardware business, upon the resignation of Mr. Seifert, was changed to Hauck Brothers. Under the Haucks the hardware trade grew rapidly. In seven years the business had doubled. They became cramped for space, and they decided to erect a new, larger and finer building. In 1889 they built the commodious and imposing structure that now stands on West Main street. It is four stories high, 190 feet long and 44 feet wide, is built of brick with handsome Indiana limestone front; and, altogether, it, is one of the finest hardware houses in Pennsylvania. Three of the floors, besides several warehouses, are used for the hardware business, and the salesroom occupies the entire first floor. Hauck Brothers did an immense wholesale and retail business, the territory covered by their salesmen including the Cumberland Valley, southeastern Pennsylvania, and portions of Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. Mr. George Hauck managed the flynet business, and made the "Huston net" famous from Maine to California. He found a market for his flynet in almost every State of the Union, and had even shipped some of them to Australia. He personally inspected the materials and supervised the workmanship; and so successful was he in placing a good article upon the market that he commanded from five to fifteen per cent more than any other manufacturer and employed, in the busy season, more than a hundred work people. During the summer of 1892 George W. Hauck, in company with S. F. Huston and J. D. Landis, went to Howard, Centre county, Pa., to examine into the condition of a manufacturing concern with a view to its possible, or probable, removal to Mechanicsburg, if everything should prove satisfactory. The results of this trip were the location of the D. Wilcox Mfg. Co. (manufacturers of fifth wheels, carriage hardware, bicycle forgings, and other kinds of drop forgings) in Mechanicsburg and the recapitalization and complete reorganization of the company. To the untiring efforts of Mr. Hauck, aided by Messrs. Huston and Landis, is due the credit for bringing this, Mechanicsburg's largest, and foremost industry, into our midst, and securing the capital necessary to equip the plant properly. The people of Mechanicsburg had enough of confidence in the integrity, foresight and business ability of Mr. Hauck to believe that, when he said a thing was right, it was right, and to risk their capital in any venture in which he invested his capital, so that Mr. Hauck had no trouble to raise the funds necessary to bring the Wilcox plant to this place. The growth of the business of this company was phenomenal from the start, 202 CUMBERLAND COUNTY. and since its organization, its success has been unchecked. It worked through the last panic with a full force of workmen. Its business grew from a small beginning with great rapidity, and kept doubling itself every three or four years, until now it is the largest carriage-hardware factory in the United States, sends its forgings to every State in the Union and to many of the Provinces of Canada, and employs a small army of men. Darius Wilcox was its first president; Mr. Hauck was its first vice-president. When Mr. Wilcox died in 1896, Mr. Hauck became its president and was reelected to that office every year until his own death, in 1902. It is the able, shrewd, trained man of affairs that brings success to an undertaking of any kind, be it large or small, and not the man that does the mechanical part. Mr. Hauck was just such an able and trained business man. A lightning calculator, an expert mathematician, a quick, exact and able thinker, a man of broad experience in the iron industry, he possessed all the requisites for success in any business enterprise he might undertake. The whole history of the Wilcox Co. is essentially a part of the history of this man. He employed able assistants and trained men to take his place in the management of the concern when he no longer should be here to manage it himself. However, one of his ablest and proudest acts as its president was his purchase of a large quantity of steel, just before the price rose in 1898, on which he made for the company the great sum of $30,000. Mr. Hauck owned nearly a fourth of the capital stock at the time of his death, and was the largest single stockholder in the concern. Mr. Hauck was a director of the Mechanicsburg Gas & Water Company, and was its second largest shareholder. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Second National Bank, of the same place, up to the time of his death, and an honorary member of the Washington Steam Fire Engine Company. For many years he was the owner of a one-fourth interest in the large general store of H. H. Lamb & Co., at Shepherdstown, one of the largest and best equipped "country stores" in Cumberland county. He was also interested in many other enterprises of the town in which he lived, and he was sought by many of the town's business men for advice in their business affairs. In politics he was a stanch, strong and consistent Republican; and he believed thoroughly in the principles which dominate that great party. He was also a member of Col. H. I. Zinn Post, No. 415, G. A. R. George W. Hauck was of German descent principally, and, he possessed that quality, peculiar to the Germans, of continuing without intermission at the severest kind of mental labor. Mr. Hauck's great-grandfather resided at Ephrata during the Revolutionary war, and was a personal friend of George Washington, who often visited the Haucks at Ephrata while the American army was encamped at Valley Forge. Henry Hauck, deputy superintendent of public education for Pennsylvania, and Congressman Hauck, of Tennessee, are relatives of this family. In 1869 Mr. Hauck married Alice Starr, daughter of Reuben L. and Elizabeth (Lloyd) Starr, of Lewisberry, York county. Mrs. Hauck is of Quaker descent, and is a distant blood relative of Bayard Taylor, the great traveler and man of letters. She is the granddaughter of Hiram Starr, who in the ante-bellum days took an active part in running the "underground railway," whereby many slaves escaped into freedom. She is a woman of ability. She has always taken CUMBERLAND COUNTY. 203 an active part in temperance work, having filled a number of offices in the W. C. T. U. For many years she has been a member of the Womans Relief Corps, having filled the offices of department, instituting and installing officer; department patriotic instructor, and junior vice-president. In 1897 she was elected to the office of department president of Pennsylvania. On account of her fine executive ability and business experience more money was saved the department than in any previous year. She was also a director of the Brookville Memorial for two consecutive years, an institution maintained and supported by the W. R. C. of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Hauck is a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, having been a steward in the church for the past eighteen years. After the death of her husband, she was elected a member of the hoard of directors of the D. Wilcox Mfg. Co., to fill the place made vacant by his death. She is prominently identified with church and charitable work. Mr. and Mrs. Hauck had five children: Sylvan S., who died in infancy; Walter Lloyd, a graduate of Dickinson College and Dickinson School of Law, and an ex-secretary of the Republican standing committee of Cumberland county; Edwin Starr, who is a traveling salesman (he was also a student of Dickinson College) and Susanna Elizabeth and George Washington Hauck, who are attending the "Mechanicsburg Normal and Classical School," where they are preparing themselves for entrance to Dickinson College. Mr. Hauck owned a beautiful brick residence fitted up the most modern style, where his family now reside. George Washington Hauck was Mechanicsburg's ablest business man, as well as one of the ablest business men of the Cumberland Valley. He did more to aid the growth and prosperity of his native town than any other one man has ever done. He was the brains of every business undertaking with which he ever became identified; and to-day Mechanicsburg feels his loss keenly. He was a man possessed of a vast amount of knowledge on almost all subjects. He was a great reader, an able conversationalist, and a keen observer of men and affairs. Although he was unostentatious and of a somewhat retiring disposition, he was one of the most approachable of men. He had a kind heart, was liberal and charitable, and was one of the best of men and one of the best of citizens. He was a kind and loving father and husband, and he possessed the highest esteem of all who knew him.