Shirley township

John Hancock and the Hill Valley Gas Station

When John L. Hancock Sr. died on November 1, 2002, at 86, the obituary copied onto his Find a Grave memorial gave his working life one line: "He owned the Hill Valley Gas Station for 67 years." Count back from 2002 and you reach about 1935, when he would have been about 19, though the obituary gives no opening date and does not say whether he started the business or bought it. Hill Valley lies south of Mount Union, and Welch's 1909 history counts it as part of Shirley Township.

He was born on January 10, 1916, in Rockhill Furnace, the son of Tone and Edith (Bard) Hancock. His wife was the former Zelda McCartney, who outlived him; her memorial gives her death as December 25, 2004.

The 1950 census gives one look at him partway through those years. On a Shirley Township sheet dated April 4, 1950, John Lloyd Hancock, 34, is listed with his wife, Zelda, 29, and three children. He is entered as a storekeeper in a store, in his own business. The sheet says store rather than gas station, and it does not name Hill Valley. On another Shirley Township sheet, at his parents' farm, his brother Fred, 23, is entered as a service station attendant working for a private employer. That sheet does not say which station.

Among the places the obituary named for memorial gifts were Hill Valley Boy Scout Troop 284 and the camper's fund at Singer's Gap Church.

Checked against the record. We read a copy of John Hancock's obituary on his Find a Grave memorial. The copy does not name the newspaper or give a publication date, and we have not seen the printed notice, so the 67 years and the gas station rest on that copy. We read both 1950 census sheets from the page images. We take the census entry to be the same man because his full name, his age and his wife's name match the memorial. Still open: when the business opened, whether he started it or bought it, when it closed, and whether the store in the census and the gas station in the obituary were one place. The county histories we hold say nothing about the business. The county newspapers we can search stop in 1880, so finding nothing in them proves nothing. We have not read the Huntingdon Daily News of those years or checked the 1940 census, and either could settle some of this.

Sources

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

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