Individual Details

Death

Dr. Beriah Magoffin was also born in the city of Newry, Ireland, about the year 1800. He came with his father's family to this country, as already stated, in the year 1821, and settled first in the State of Kentucky. There
he studied medicine, graduating from the Transylvania University, located at Lexington, when that institution had on the roll of its professors the names of such eminent physicians and surgeons, as Daniel Drake and Benjamin Winslow Dudley. After receiving his degree he came to the State of Pennsylvania, and located for the practice of his profession in the town of Harmony, Butler County. He then succeeded in building up a large and lucrative practice, and established a fine reputation as a physician. In 1840 he was united in marriage to Miss Amanda Patterson, daughter of Robert Patterson, Esq., of Mercer, and shortly after removed from Harmony to Mercer, where he continued to live until the time of his death in August, 1877. Several children were born to him and his wife, but only one, James, lived to attain manhood. His wife Amanda died in 186-, and in 1867 he was again married, to Miss Maria Mitcheltree, of Pittsburgh, who survives him. His son James, in whom he had centered such high hopes, died in the fall of 1876. Dr. Beriah Magoffin did not practice his profession with any great energy after he came to Mercer to live. For the first ten or twelve years he took charge of his brother's drug store, preferring that kind of practice to the hardships incident to horseback riding through the country. He was a man of generous impulses, and although not possessed of the same positive, robust qualities as his brother James, he always commanded the respect of the Community as a man of sterling character.
(Source: History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Brown, Runk and Co., Chicago, Ill., 1888, Pages 676, 677)