Nicholas Priest

Quick Facts

Significance:

1838

Place of Birth:

Kildalkey, Meath County, Ireland

Nicholas Priest was a brakeman on the Allegheny Portage Railroad. 

He was born in Ireland and was educated there until his family emigrated to American. Nicholas then attended school in Johnstown. He worked in several different brick yards; one in Hollidaysburg and one with James Raab. He also worked as a boatman on the Main Line Canal and then went on to work at the Cambria Mills as a puddler in the puddling mills for thirty years. While working in the Gautier Works on May 31, 1889, he narrowly survived the Johnstown Flood. 

Nicholas married Anna in 1868, and had one child that died in infancy and later adopted a son, Edward P.