Mount Union borough

Edward T. Postlethwaite, Pennsylvania Railroad Executive

Edward Thomas Postlethwaite was born near Newton Hamilton, in Mifflin County, on July 4, 1850, the third son of James Andrew Jackson Postlethwaite and Elizabeth Jane Gayton. The family settled in Huntingdon County in 1851 and moved to Mount Union in 1855, to the Shaver farm at the lower end of town, and Charles H. Welch's 1909 history of Mount Union says Edward's boyhood was spent there "to a large extent." On April 18, 1863, when he was twelve, he entered the service of the Canal Department of the Pennsylvania Railroad as a timekeeper.

He went on to clerk in the chief engineer's office at Harrisburg, served as assistant collector at Columbia and Lock Haven, and in 1872 began his railroad work as a shop clerk at the Northern Central Railway shops in York. In August 1873 he was transferred to the office of Frank Thomson, then superintendent of motive power at Altoona. When Thomson became general manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad lines east of Pittsburgh and Erie on July 1, 1874, Postlethwaite came with him to Philadelphia and served under him as chief clerk in the offices of the general manager, the second vice president and the first vice president.

On February 10, 1897, during Thomson's administration as president, he was appointed assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Welch's history still had him in that post in 1909, under President McCrea. The Harrisburg Telegraph reported in 1917 that he held the position up to his death, having been reappointed by subsequent presidents, and its headline called him assistant to President Rea.

The Telegraph said that in his later years he had charge of all matters relating to the handling of the mails by the railroad, that the work kept him much of the time in Washington, and that he brought about many changes in how the mails were handled. He married Eliza F. Denning of Harrisburg, and the paper noted that he had lived in that city for many years. He died of apoplexy in a Philadelphia hospital late on the night of November 14, 1917, ten days after being stricken. He was 67, and his widow survived him.

Checked against the record. We read the 1909 Mount Union history, the 1899 history of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Harrisburg Telegraph obituary of November 15, 1917 on the scanned pages, and the dates here match what those pages print. The 1909 history lists him with his brothers and sisters and gives the family's moves. A June 1894 wedding notice in the Democratic Watchman of Bellefonte calls the bride a sister of E. T. Postlethwaite of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which supports the family link. The sources differ on a few points. The Telegraph calls him a native of Mount Union, while both histories place his birth near Newton Hamilton, so we follow the histories. The Telegraph also gives a different early career, with a Harrisburg grocery and telegraph work before Thomson hired him, and we leave that account open. The histories have him moving to Thomson's office from within the company. His father's name appears as Andrew J. in one sketch and as James Andrew Jackson in another, and we use the fuller form. We did not see the railroad's own annual reports or officer lists for 1897 to 1917, so his unbroken service rests on the 1909 history and the 1917 obituary. We give no burial place. Find a Grave lists Oak Ridge Cemetery in Altoona but marks the burial details as unknown, and we have not seen a cemetery record.

Sources

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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