From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, page 315.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


FRANK J. HEARNE

Frank J. Hearne, son of the William (see bio), who occupies the 
responsible position of general manager of the entire plant of the 
Riverside Iron works, the largest iron and steel manufacturing plant 
in the state, and one of the largest west of the Alleghanies, assumed 
that position at the age of twenty-nine years.  He possesses 
remarkable abilities of the order essential to the proper discharge 
of such a trust, and his grasp of the details of the business and 
executive power can best be characterized by simple reference to the 
immense establishment in whose management he has succeeded to so 
satisfactory a degree.  Born at Cambridge, Md., September 21, 1846, 
he was reared there until in his eleventh year he accompanied his 
parents to Missouri.  In 1861 he returned to the east and completed 
his education, attending schools at Sandwich, Mass., Norristown, 
Penn., and Brooklyn, N. Y., and in the fall of 1863, entering the 
sophomore class of the University of New York, and in February, 1865, 
the Troy Polytechnic Institute, where he was graduated in June, 1867.  
In the following month he returned to Hannibal, Mo., and became 
assistant engineer of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, a position 
he held until he came to Wheeling in May, 1872.  He then became 
assistant manager of the Rivers de furnace, was subsequently promote 
manager of the same, then assistant manager of the entire plant, and 
finally in 1875, assumed the position he now holds.  Mr. Hearne is a 
member and vestryman of the St. Matthew's Episcopal church.  He was 
married in Omaha, Neb., December 21, 1869, to Lillie Lee, and to this 
union one son, William  L. Hearne, Jr., was born in 1878. 


(Linda Fluharty)