Jonas Faust died the following year, after acceptance of the farm, leaving to survive him a widow and seven children, the eldest, Paul Faust, the subject of our article, accepted, on Jan. 24, 1834, the land at the appraisement of fifty dollars per acre. He was at this time twenty-four years of age, and took upon himself a burden few, at that time of scarcity of money and poor markets, would undertake, and a less sturdier man would have despaired of retaining the land. For, in addition to the recognizances entered into to secure his brothers and sisters their share, there were those of his father's who had died soon after his acceptance of the land, and also three dowers, viz.: his great-grandmother, Catharine, widow of Henry Faust, who long lived on the place in a small house, long afterwards occupied by Jesse Brown, at the lower spring, now the site of F. W. Wint & Co.'s planing-mill, but who afterwards remarried to a farmer named Huth, and died at an advanced age in Moore township, near the Blue Mountain; the dower of his grand-mother, Barbara, who died Oct. 4, 1842, at the residence of her daughter, at the stone mansion still standing near the entrance of the bridge across the Lehigh from Cementon to Coplay ; the dower of his mother, who subsequently remarried Henry Breisch, and is remembered by the earlier residents, who occupied the farm of eleven acres and old stone house, lately destroyed, at corner of Third and Bridge Streets, which was owned and built at an early day by a farmer named Gross.

The late David Thomas came here in 1839, and the town of Catasauqua was commenced, but it was a half-mile across the fields from his farm to the works, with the Peter's farm between. There was no road where Front Street now is; the road led from the dam along the canal west of the house, crossed present Front Street where Chapel Street intersects, and was laid out at an early day in a direction due east, passing where the chapel of the First Presbyterian Church stands, and along north side of the Breisch farm-house to the Howertwnn road where it intersects with the road to Bethlehem, which passes the farm-house of Henry Kurtz.

Prior to 1860, Paul Faust had sold a lot to the Catholic Church, and a few others south of Chapel Street, on Front and Second Streets, which helped him, to pay off some of his liabilities; lots, however, were cheap, and it was not until 1865 that he was fairly out of debt. The last dower was paid off in 1870 upon the death of his mother, the widow of Henry Breisch, who died at Allentown, where he had removed with her husband at the time of sale of their land to the late David Thomas, about 1847, the previous year, at an advanced age.

By the rapid extension of the town northward, at the close of the war, the deceased sold about forty-five acres, besides the new canal tract, to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company for town lots, the greater portion lying in Northampton County, and at the time of his death bad accumulated considerable wealth, his land, prior to the panic of 1873, being valued by good judges at seventy-five thousand dollars.

He was the oldest of seven children, the others being Joseph Faust, South Whitehall; Reuben Faust, Catasauqua ; David Faust, president Union National Bank of Philadelphia; William Faust, of Allentown, lately deceased ; Elizabeth Laub, Kreidersville; and Maria Koch, of Allentown.

Mr. Faust was married, Jan. 6, 1835, to Amelia Brenig, who was born Sept. 7, 1816, in Long Swamp township, Berks Co., Pa., and was one of twelve children, having eight sisters and three brothers. She was the daughter of George Brenig and Polly Wetzell. His widow resides on the homestead, and the five children, viz., Amy Borger, at Peru, Ill.; Walter, on the farm; Jane Koehler, in Easton ; and M. Alice and Clara B., with their mother.

His form was a familiar one to all the residents here, and he possessed strong physical and mental characteristics, which, if fortune had smiled more kindly upon him in his earlier years, would have made him a successful man in any sphere of life he might have chosen. Of more than average size, a positive man of strong likes and dislikes, his confidence was slow to obtain, but when once gained it could not easily be shaken. His nature was too kind and easy, however, for that of a successful financier, and he was often imposed upon in monetary matters by designing, unscrupulous men, as he was loath to impute dishonesty to any one. He had strong domestic tastes, was retiring in his habits, and his life was a singularly pure one, — a man of few words, good judgment, and none can say that he was ever heard to speak disparagingly of or to his fellow-men. Of methodical habits, careful in all his transactions, leaving a record with his vouchers, and papers carefully kept and filed away, slow to make a promise, vet when once made, he thought it his conscientious duty to perform it, though at great pecuniary sacrifice.