NAME(S) ON TILE:                 JOHN BISSELL AND FAMILY

DONOR NAME(S):                   DESCENDANTS OF JOHN BISSELL

This Iron tile commemorates the Bissell family, active participants in over a century of Pittsburgh’s past.

John Bissell’s forebears moved into the Western Reserve in Revolutionary times, and John as a young man found new opportunity in Pittsburgh when he arrived in 1812.  He married Nancy Semple, daughter of Washington County Pioneers, and began a sheet iron partnership two years later.  In 1835 he bought into the Juniata Rolling Mill, later Bissell and Semple.  In 1858 his son William Semple Bissell, who developed railroad and banking interests, married Eliza Shields Wilson, who was descended from other Washington County pioneer families of Daniel and Wilhelmina Leet, David and Maria Shields of Sewickley and John Wilson of Allequippa.  Altogether, six Bissell generations were closely intertwined in the Third Presbyterian Church memorialize the Bissells of 19th Century Pittsburgh.  Their business interests grew in downtown Pittsburgh, and David Shields Bissell’s Dunquesnes Forge stood at Rankin Station.  David, who later formed the Versailles Chemical Company, sold most of his interests after World War I and retired to upstate New York.  But his sisters, Nancy Semple and Sarah Eliza Bissell, and many relatives remained.  David’s own children, whose lives and careers took them elsewhere, continued to consider Pittsburgh their family home.  Two hundred years beyond their pioneer roots, John Bissell’s family, spread across the country, take pride in their Pittsburgh heritage.