Mount Union borough

Kasan and Song, 1909

13. VIEW SHOWING CORNER OF JEFFERSON STREET AND PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE LOOKING WEST, SHOWING CONRAIL FREIGHT STATION AT FAR RIGHT, HOTEL IN CENTER AND STORES - Town of Mount UnionLibrary of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2822.photos.038897p

Mount Union in 1909 was more worldly than people imagine. Alley Kasan came to America in 1901 and by 1903 opened a grocery on West Shirley Street. Ye Hing Song, described in the town's own history book as a laundryman, kept his shop in the Welch building at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Jefferson Street. Both men appear in Charles Welch's 1909 History of Mount Union, Shirleysburg and Shirley Township as businessmen of the community, their livelihoods sketched with the same respect given to carpenters and merchants born here. A grocer born a day's journey from Beirut. A laundryman from China. Neighbors at the corner.

What the fact check confirmed and changed. Published without a source list. Both men are in Welch's 1909 history at pp. 512-513, with the dates, the trades and both addresses as the post gives them. Checked 1 September 2026. The post said Alley Kasan came from "a village near Beirut". Welch's 1909 history, the book the post is drawn from, says he was born in the vicinity of Beirut and places his birthplace "about a day's journey from Beirut in the region of the Lebanons" - it never calls it a village and a day's journey is not near. Corrected to what the source says. 1 September 2026.

Sources

Charles Howard Welch, History of Mount Union, Shirleysburg and Shirley Township (1909), pp. 512-513: Alley Kasan, in the grocery business since 1903 in the Cassady room on West Shirley Street, born in the vicinity of Beirut 25 December 1884, came to America in 1901, his birthplace "about a day's journey from Beirut in the region of the Lebanons"; and Ye Hing Song, laundryman, in the Welch building at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Jefferson Street, born in Hong Kong.

Checked 2026-10-01 · Historic Mount Union collection

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