William Connell (Pennsylvania)

William Connell (September 10, 1827 – March 21, 1909) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Connell was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia and moved with his parents to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1844. He worked in the coal mines, and in 1856 he was appointed superintendent of the mines of the Susquehanna & Wyoming Valley Railroad & Coal Company, with offices in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Upon the expiration of that company’s charter in 1870 he purchased its property and became one of the largest independent coal operators in the Wyoming Valley region. He was one of the founders of the Third National Bank of Scranton in 1872, and in 1879 he was chosen its president. He was also identified with many other industries and commercial enterprises of Scranton, including the Scranton Button Company, one of the largest manufacturers of buttons in the United States, which branched out into the manufacture of telephone parts and phonograph records. He was a delegate to the 1896 Republican National Convention, and a member of the Pennsylvania Republican committee.

Connell was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, and Fifty-seventh Congresses. He successfully contested the election of George Howell to the Fifty-eighth Congress. The father of Charles Robert Connell, Connell died in Scranton in 1909.

His summer estate, Lacawac, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.^[1]

Sources

• William Connell at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• The Political Graveyard
• Kashuba, Cheryl A. (September 14, 2008). "At one time, Scranton had button industry sewn up". The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pa.). Retrieved March 31, 2009.