BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO "History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Vol. II, 1890. Presented by Linda Fluharty from hard copies provided by Mary Staley & Phyllis Slater. Page 523. JOSEPH BIRD, of Martin's Ferry, general manager of the blast furnace at that place, was born at Briher Hill, Staffordshire, England, in April, 1827. He is the son of Stephen Bird, who was an iron worker by occupation, and did a great deal of work by contract, employing workmen, and also owned and managed a small farm. He died from cholera in 1832. He was twice married and had twelve children. His second wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was Maria (Shakspeare) Shakspeare. Joseph Bird had no educational advantages. In his childhood and when quite young began working at an iron furnace, and continued to be so employed until he came to the United States in 1851. He landed at New Orleans after a voyage of three months, and then came up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where he found employment at Brennan's iron mills a short time. Proceeding then to eastern Pennsylvania, he settled in the Lehigh valley, where he remained some five years. Subsequently he went to Rochester, N. Y., where he blew the first furnace in that city, thence went to Pittsburgh and remained two years, and in 1875 came to Steubenville, Ohio, which was his residence until 1879, when he settled at Martin's Ferry, and entered the employment of the Benwood iron company, as manager of the blast furnace at this place. He is an acknowledged master of his important business in all its many details, and is a competent and successful manager. He was the first to make iron exclusively from cinders, and though the process he discovered was no source of great profit to him, he was the means of bringing about a great change in iron working. He and wife are members of the Presbyterian church, and he is in politics a republican. Mr. Bird was married in 1850 to Susannah Scriven, who started with him from England, and died on ship board and was buried in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1852 he was married to Mary Jones, of Pennsylvania, and they have had ten children, of whom these survive: Mary J., Hanna and Clara.