Lieutenant Philip L. Houck died on Saturday morning from heart disease, aged 76 years, 11 months, and 15 days. He was seized with pain of the heart at the meeting in St. James’ Lutheran Church on last Tuesday evening and was carried to his home on York Street and fears were entertained that he would not recover. He seemed to grow better and on Saturday morning seemed to have almost fully recovered when he was again seized with an attack and expired. He had been suffering for some months from the trouble.
Philip L. Houck was born in Butler Township on October 6, 1835, being a son of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Houck. On June 25, 1865 he was married to Miss Kate Group. Soon after their marriage they moved to Huntington Township where he engaged in farming. Later buying the Christian Benner farm east of this town in Straban Township, settling there and engaging in the dairy business. Several years later they moved to Gettysburg and that year bought the Andrew Shick property on York Street and remodeling it, made it almost a new house. Mr. Houck was a veteran of the Civil War, enlisting in the early part of the war and serving until wounded, and upon recovery from wound reinlisted, and at the end of the war was mustered out as a second lieutenant. He was a member of Corporal Skelly Post No. 9, G.A.R., and was an earnest an advocate of peace as he had been a soldier in war. During the recent discussion of a Lincoln Way he had enthusiastically supported the project and wrote to Washington last winter suggesting that at Mason and Dixon’s line along the road there should be erected an arch surmounted with figures of Grant and Lee in the act of shaking hands.
The funeral was held on Monday afternoon, services at his home by his pastor, Rev. J. B. Baker, and interment in the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. He is survived by his devoted wife, ten of the twelve children to whom he had been a father, and two sisters, Mrs. Daniel Merkley of York Springs, and Mrs. John Zinn, of East Middle Street, this place.
(From the GETTYSBURG COMPILER, Wednesday, September 25, 1912)
