Person:John Semple (57)

SEMPLE, John Bonner, Financier, Prominent Citizen.

The late John Bonner Semple, member of the banking firm of Semple & Jones, was for many years one of the leading representatives of the financial interests and prestige of the Iron City, and the elements which contained the nucleus of her future greatness were strengthened and fostered by no nobler or more loyal citizen.

John Bonner Semple, son of William and Annie (Bonner) Semple, was born September 24, 1815, in Pittsburgh, and received his education in the public and private schools of his native city. At an early age he entered upon a business career, and previous to the great fire of 1845 was senior partner in the firm of Semple & Parker, one of the leading wholesale drygoods houses of Pittsburgh. From 1846 to 1854 Mr. Semple was engaged in the hardware business in Louisville, Kentucky, and then went to Philadelphia, returning after a brief period to his native city. There he became associated with John B. Jones in the establishment of the banking house of Semple & Jones, and this connection he maintained to the close of his life. The firm of Semple & Jones was one of the pioneer banking houses of the Iron City. Thurston, in “Pittsburgh in 1876,” gives the number of private banking houses as five, the list including the following: N. Holmes & Son, established in 1826; R. Patrick & Company, 1850; Semple & Jones, 1859; Robinson Brothers, 1864; and T. Mellon & Son, 1870. The firm of Semple & Jones is thus conclusively shown to have been the third oldest private banking house in Pittsburgh.

In 1839 Emmet and John Sibbet, cousins of Josiah Copley (father-in-law of William Thaw by his second marriage), came from Philadelphia and established a banking house in Pittsburgh under the name of Cook & Sibbet, the two younger men conducting the actual business. On the death in 1845 of Emmet Sibbet, his brother took as partner John B. Jones, their brother-in-law, and in 1859 th bank again changed hands, becoming the firm of Semple & Jones, Mr. Semple (as will be shown hereinafter), being a brother-in-law of William Thaw’s first wife. Last of all, the style of the firm became Semple & Thompson, and so remained until 1889, when it was united with the banking house of Nathaniel Holmes’ Sons, thus forming in 1900 the Union National Bank, which still occupies the same site.

During the fourteen years which elapsed between the formation of the firm of Semple & Jones and the death of the senior partner it was to his excellent judgment and staunch adherence to sound, conservative and unquestionable methods of finance that the strength and prosperity of the bank were mainly due. First a Whig and later a Republican, he took a keen interest in political affairs. He was an active member of the old Third Presbyterian Church, and a liberal supporter of its work, in which he ever manifested a deep and sincere interest. In any assembly Mr. Semple would have been remarked as a man of fine presence and striking countenance. His face and manner both showed him to be a man of refined tastes and benevolent disposition.

Mr. Semple married, August 22, 1836, Mary Jane, daughter of Dr. Alexander and Louisa Blair, who was a niece of Robert Fulton and a sister of the first wife of William Thaw, Sr. The Blairs were residents of Washington, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Semple were the parents of three children; Louisa, who married Charles J. Clarke; Francis, deceased; and Mary, who became the wife of Rev. J. Henry Sharpe, D. D.

In the death of Mr. Semple, which occurred March 24, 1873, Pittsburgh lost one of its most influential citizens, and one who had ever labored for its welfare and prosperity. As we revert in thought to the Pittsburgh of “sixty years since,” and the commanding shades of the pioneers rise before our mental vision, we discern among them no grander figure than that of the man whose influence and example as the head of a great banking house largely inspired and molded the monetary institutions of the metropolis and made the name of Semple a synonym for financial honor.

FRANK SEMPLE, private secretary, Sewickley.

William Semple, grandfather of our subject, was born in 1771, near Dublin Ireland, came to America in 1795, and at Trenton N. J., learned architecture. He came to Pittsburgh about the year 1800, and worked on the old courthouse on the Diamond. He followed his trade till the latter part of his life, when he kept a hardware store. He died in 1829. He married Anna, daughter of Charles Bonner, who fought in all the principal battles of the Revolution, and they had nine children:

Nancy Semple
Alexander B. Semple
William M. Semple
Samuel W. Semple
Mary C. Semple
Charles Semple
Ellen Semple
John B. Semple
Frank Semple.

Of these, Samuel W. Semple was a retail dry-goods merchant in Louisville, and later was in the iron business in the Pennsylvania mountains.

Another son, John B. Semple, the father of FRANK SEMPLE, was born in Pittsburgh, where he was in the wholesale dry goods business, and afterward, and at the time of his death, a member of the firm of Semple & Jones, bankers. He married Mary J. Blair, of Washington, Pa., and they became the parents of three children:

Louisa Semple, m. Clarke
FRANK SEMPLE
Mary Semple, m. Sharpe

At his death, in 1873, his son FRANK SEMPLE continued the banking business, and in 1881 his partner, John B. Jones, sold his interest, the firm then being known as Semple & Thompson, who conducted the business till 1888, when our subject sold his interest to Mr. Thompson, and has since then been engaged in the railroad business. He was educated in Pittsburgh, clerked in a dry-goods store, and later in a bank, after which he entered Yale College. Later he accompanied Prof. Benjamin Silliman, of Yale College, as private secretary, inspecting mines in California. At present he is attending to the private business of William Thaw.