David Singer (1790 - 1850)

Born 1790 in Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Good) Singer — married 1815 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Biography

"David Singer was a very small man being about five feet six inches tall, but as active and lithe as a cat. One cold winter day as he was coming down the mountains with one of the ore-wagon teamsters, upon reaching the South Fork creek, he found it frozen over and apparently impassable. Being anxious to get home before night, however, Mr. Singer undertook its passage agreeing to ride the saddle horse and drive the team across. The ice was strong enough to bear the weight of a man, but the team broke through at every step and in the middle of the river, Mr. Singer's horse stumbled and went down throwing him into the water under the ice. With surprising agility, the other driver related, he swam out, regained control of the team, and got the whole outfit safely across. Then in his water-soaked clothes, he started to run up the hill to the home of Mrs. Smay, a woman noted for her great muscular strength and masculine feats, who used to feed the teamsters and their horses at that point. As David approached the house, his progress began to be greatly impeded by his freezing clothes and his vitality was well nigh exhausted; but Mrs. Smay saw him and running out into the road picked him up in her arms and carried him into the house, where he was thawed out."

Sources

• "History of a Good Family" by Mary Ellen Good, pub. 1978