William Armstrong ²

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Book: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia of Fayette County, 1889. ¹
William C Armstrong of Bridgeport is a son of Joshua Armstrong and Lydia Drum Armstrong. His father, Joshua Armstrong, was a native of New Jersey and came to Washington county, Penna, when about eighteen years of age. He remained there a short time, when he removed to Brownsville in 1818. He was a carpenter by trade, and built over one hundred houses in Brownsville and Bridgeport and vicinity. He was a prominent citizen of Bridgeport and died in 1881 at eighty three years of age.

The mother of W C Armstrong was a native of Maryland, and came to Fayette county with her parents when twelve years of age, and died September 1875 at the age of seventy two years. Her father came to the county in 1815 where he died in 1845.

William C Armstrong was born at Bridgeport, October 14, 1835, and where he grew to manhood. He attended the common schools. On leaving school he apprenticed himself to Alexander Moffit to learn carriage blacksmithing and remained there for four years. In 1856 he went to the river to learn steamboat engineering on the steam J M Converse. This boat was sunk by the ice in 1857 at Ferry Island, Mississippi river. Mr. Armstrong was on the boat from the time of starting until she sank.

He remained upon packet boats as engineer until 1861 when he was made First Assistant Engineer on the government boat Marmond, and took part in all of the principal naval battles along the Mississippi and its tributaries. He was at the fight at Vicksburg when the canal was cut across the strip of land in front of that city. He served in the navy all through the war, and was honorably discharged at Mound City, Illinois, in 1866.

He next became engineer on a Missouri river boat plying from Sioux City to Fort Benton, and remained till 1873 when he received a position on a tow boat at Pittsburgh which he held until 1875. At this time he and other built a tow boat called the Dauntless. He took charge of this boat as captain and pilot and ran the boat until 1883. He then left the river and settled at Bridgeport as manager of the large grocery and agricultural implement house, which he has successfully managed ever since and is still engaged in.

Mr. Armstrong was married in 1872 to Miss Ella Bugher, daughter of Captain Doyle Bugher of Brownsville who is an old steamboat captain. He is now a member of the council, having been elected on the democratic ticket against a republican majority of above one hundred votes in the borough.

William married Eleanor Bugher, daughter of Doyle Bugher and Sarah S. Winter, in 1872 in , Fayette, PA.¹