History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 1887



Castlebury Family - FRANK F. CASTLEBURY, M. D Biography

Dr. Frank Follmer Castlebury, a successful physician and prominent citizen at Roaring Branch, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, was born in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, May 24, 1862, son of John and Elizabeth (Follmer) Castlebury.

The Castlebury family is of long residence in Pennsylvania, and its members have preserved an unblemished record. The tradition is that its progenitor in America was a youth who came to Pennsylvania with a colony of Quakers from near London, England. The early generations were all members of the Society of Friends. Jacob, greatgrandfather of Dr. Castlebury, lived and died in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, where he was a farmer by occupation. He married Mary Cleaver, of that village. Because of his religious scruples he did no fighting in the Revolutionary war, but with his own teams conveyed supplies for the American army from place to place.

Isaiah, son of Jacob and Mary (Cleaver) Castlebury, was born on the family homestead, and died in Loyalsock, Lycoming county. He married Hannah Breech, a native of Catawissa, whose parents, Charles Breech and Mary Barger Breech, came from Devonshire, England. After their marriage, Isaiah and Hannah Castlebury settled upon a farm in Fairfield township, Lycoming county, where they reared a family of eleven children.

John Castlebury, youngest son of Isaiah and Hannah (Breech) Castlebury, was born in Fairfield Center, Lycoming county, in 1924. After his marriage he settled in Spring Garden Mills, Loyalsock township, Lycoming county. For about nineteen years he followed farming, and also operated a grist mill. He then removed to Montoursville, and there resided until 1894, carrying on a contracting and building business. In 1894 he located in Williamsport, where he is living a retired life in "Vallamont," a suburb of the city. He married Elizabeth Follmer, who was born in Loyalsock township, a daughter of David and Catherine (Dietrich) Follmer, farmers there. Her father, son of Adam and Rosanna Boone Follmer, was born in Milton, Pennsylvania ; and her mother, a daughter of Frederick and Susan (Knorr) Dietrich, was born in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Adam Follmer was descended from Jacob Follmer, who came from Germany. It was a prominent family, and had several representatives in the Revolutionary war. The Dietrichs also came from Germany.

John and Elizabeth (Follmer) Castlebury were the parents of three children, of whom two are physicians, and a third is the wife of a physician-Alzine, Caroline, and Frank F. Castlebury.

Alzine Castlebury received her early education in the public schools 250 LYCOMING COUNTY in Loyalsock township and in the Lycoming County Normal School. She prepared for the medical profession at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and served for one year as resident physician in the Woman's Hospital there. Since her graduation she has practiced her profession in Williamsport. Caroline Castlebury became the wife of Dr. C. E. Heller, a practicing physician in Williamsport. Frank Follmer Castlebury was reared upon a farm in Loyalsock township, and began his education in the district schools. He then attended in turn the Lycoming County Normal School at Montoursville, and the Williamsport Commercial College, from which he graduated with the class of 1886. He was so apt a student that, at the age of seventeen years, he was engaged as teacher in the Pine Run school in Wolf township, Lycoming county, and later taught for six terms in Loyalsock, his native township, the same county, and five terms in the borough of Montoursville. For one year he taught school in what was then known as the Everett building in Williamsport, and at the end of that time was elected principal of the Washington school. While thus teaching he had never ceased to be a student himself, and he was so well equipped for educational work that he would undoubtedly have risen to high rank in the teaching profession had he persisted in it. He however had a predisposition for medicine, and in 1893 he resigned the principalship of the Washington school to begin his professional studies under the tutorship of Dr. C. E. Heller, of Williamsport. He subsequently entered the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, from which lie was graduated with the class of 1896. He practiced his profession in Williamsport for two years, and then removed to Roaring Branch, which has since been his residence, and where he has built up a large practice, which he has conducted with great success. He is a member of the Lycoming County Medical Society. He is a Republican in politics. Dr. Castlebury married, August 30, 1888, Miss Annie Lichtenthaler, of Montoursville, a daughter of David and Caroline (Lunger) Lichtenthaler, whose families were of German extraction. Two children have been born of this marriage-Galen D., born December 22, 1892, and John Kenneth, born August 17, 1899.


Source: Genealogical and Personal History of Lycoming County, John W. Jordan, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1906.










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