Individual Details

FRANCIS LAIRD STEWART, the founder of the well-known "Laird Institute" scientest and inventor, was born in Murrysville, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, June 12, 1831, a son of Dr. Zachariah Gammill and Jane (Laird) Stewart, and a descendant of a Scotch-Irish and English lineage.
Dr. Zachariah G. Stewart (father) was born at Alexandria, Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, in 1805. He received his literary and medical education in the institutions of that county, and later removed to Pittsburgh, same state, where he practiced medicine for a few months. He then took up his residence in Murrysville, where he was actively engaged in the practice of his profession for about three decades, and then removed to Canonsburg, Washington county, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of giving his children better educational advantages. He was united in marriage to Jane Laird, born in 1805, eldest daughter of the Rev. Francis and Mary (Moore) Laird, and among the children born of this union were the following: Francis L., eldest son, of whom later; Dr. Thomas H., who resided in Trumbull county, Ohio: Rev. Robert L, of Danville, Virginia, who served in the civil war and was wounded at Gettysburg. Rev. Francis Laird, D. D., father of Mrs. Stewart, was the youngest son of William Laird, of Adams county, Pennsylvania, who married Jane McClure, and his father, William Laird, Sr., was the son of John and Martha (Russel) Laird, of Scotch-Irish and English lineage, respectively, and who emigrated from Ireland to Adams county, Pennsylvania, about 1760. Rev. Francis Laird was a man of unusual ability, a fine classical scholar and linguist, especially in Hebrew and Greek, a highly esteemed minister of the Presbyterian faith. His wife, Mary (Moore) Laird, was a daughter of Hon. John Moore, the first president judge of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. Dr. Zachariah G. Stewart died at his home in Canonsburg, August 30, 1863, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. His wife passed away February 23, 1879, aged seventy-four years.
Francis L Stewart was educated at Jefferson College, from which institution he was graduated in the summer of 1852. At first he served as teacher in an academy at Hunterstown, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and later went to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he followed the vocation of teaching three years, 1856 to 1859, returning to Pennsylvania in the latter year. For a short period of time he was a teacher in the Female Seminary at Canonsburg, but on account of impaired health was obliged to resign from this position. About March, 1861, he returned to Murrysville, Pennsylvania, where he formed and instructed a few classes and founded "Laird Institute," an academv of the highest grade, in the northern part of the county. This school numbers its alumni in the thousands, located in all parts of the United States. He was the original projector and promoter of the Turtle Creek Valley Railroad, and to his energy and perseverance the road owes its existence. Mr. Stewart, being especially interested in the departments of chemistry, geology and botany, between the years 1865-68, conducted a course of experiments to ascertain the true value for sugar manufacture, of the then recently introduced sugar millet, or sorghum, ending in the discovery of a process, still known by his name, which has been the foundation of all practical work for producing sugar from that source. About 1870, as the result of private experiments to determine the nature and properties of natural gas obtained as it escaped from the earth near Murrysville, he published a statement calling attention for the first time to the great value of the gas for fuel for manufacturing purposes. He was led to form a theory of the origin of the gas which in some of its main features is essentially the same as that which was published by Professor Mendelief, of Russia, and which now meets with general acceptance in Europe. This theory asserts the production of the gas to be continuous, and the result of well-known chemical and physical causes. The flow from the Murrysville field fully establishes the proof of this theory.
Mr. Stewart is also interested in the salt, soda and other chemical industries, and has made important improvements in processes and machinery connected therewith. In 1885 he undertook the most laborious and exacting work of his life; the practical demonstration of a discovery which he made that the development of sugar in the juice of the stems of maize or Indian corn can be largely increased by an artificial mode of treatment, so that the per cent of sugar which it then contains exceeds that of any other plant grown, outside the tropics, not excepting the sugar beet, and only qualled by the southern cane. A paper bearing upon this subject was read by Mr. Stewart at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Toronto, Canada, which received marked attention, both in this country and in Europe. At the St. Louis Exposition he exhibited the "New Uses of Indian Corn by the Stewart Proceses," and received from the International jury its highest award, a gold medal. When these processes are fully established in the great "Corn Belt," it is confidently claimed that the United States will produce all the sugar we consume. The by-products of the stalk are also to be utilized in the manufacture of paper pulp and for other uses. The utilization of all the properties of our wonderful Indian corn plant and Mr. Stewart's process of increasing the quantity of its valuable juices will add untold millions to the wealth of our nation. Mr. Stewart is the author of two on the chemistry of sugar production, and of several papers and reports, some of which have been embodied in government publication of the United States and Great Britain, and republished in Europe and in the English Colonies. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania. He is well informed in everything relating to the local history of his section of the county. He is a member of the Murrysville Presbyterian church, in which body he has served as elder. He is a Democrat in his political affiliations. In 1856 Mr. Stewart married Margaret (Harris) Stewart, of the Juniata Valley, who bore him six children: John F., William L, Nettie, Alice, Charles, deceased; and Harrie, deceased.
(Source: History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Vol III; Boucher, John N.; New York: Lewis Pub. Co., 1906, pp. 93-4.)

Birth	12 JUN 1831	Murrysville, Westmoreland Co., PA
Marriage	13 MAY 1856	Westmoreland Co., PA, - Margaret Harris STEWART

Spouse	Margaret Harris STEWART (1838 - 1903)
Child	Charles STEWART (1857 - 1876)
Child	John Fraser STEWART (1859 - )
Child	William L. STEWART (1862 - )
Child	Jane E. "Nettie" STEWART (1865 - )
Child	Harry STEWART (1869 - 1887)
Child	Alice G. STEWART (1875 - )

Father	Dr. Zachariah Gemmill STEWART (1805 - 1863)
Mother	Jane LAIRD (1805 - 1879)
Sibling	Jennie Eliza STEWART (1848 - 1893)