Portrait from www.legis.state.pa.us
One-term Pennsylvania state representative Elymus Hackett served in the same legislative session as that of Pennell Coombe Evans, who was profiled here a few days ago. A New Yorker by birth, Hackett moved to Potter County while still a child and after attaining maturity operated a mercantile firm, lumbering business, and a foundry. Late in his life, Hackett removed from Pennsylvania to Washington state, where he died aged 93. Born on April 8, 1822, in Broome County, New York, Elymus Hackett was the son of John E. and Ruth (Baker) Hackett.
At age six Hackett relocated with his family to the town of Ulysses in Potter County, Pennsylvania, and would receive his education in schools local to that area. Little is known of Hackett's formative years, except notice of his residing on a farm during his youth. In the late 1840s, he is recorded as operating a mercantile business in Potter County with Daniel Baker, who would later become his brother-in-law. Elymus Hackett married in 1849 to Mary Monroe (1823-1868), and the couple would remain childless.
Towards the end of the Civil War, Hackett enlisted for service in Co. F., 210th Reg., Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which had been organized at Harrisburg in September 1864. Over forty years old at the time of his enlistment, the particulars of Hackett's service with this company remain largely unknown, although it is known the 210th Regiment took part in the Siege of Petersburg, and several lesser battles.
Honorably discharged in 1865, Hackett would suffer the death of his wife Mary in 1868 and in the succeeding years was engaged in the mercantile business in several different Potter County towns, including Genesee, Sweden Valley, and Borie. In 1873 he was awarded his first patent (for improvement in water wheels) and in 1884 made his first entrance on the Pennsylvania political stage, becoming a Republican candidate for the state house of representatives from Potter County. Hackett won the election in November of that year and during the 1885-87 session was a member of the house committees on Centennial Affairs, Elections, the Geological Survey, and Vice and Immorality. He would also have some oddly named company during this term, serving alongside Symington Phillips, Mungo Montgomery Dick, and Pennell Coombe Evans, the latter two being profiled here in years past.
Hackett left the legislature in 1887 and would attempt one further political candidacy in 1895, being the Populist candidate for Associate Judge of Potter County. In a Potter Enterprise writeup concerning his candidacy, Hackett took to riding a bicycle around the county to court voters, and was remarked as "an old soldier and deserves, and will have, the support of every battle scarred veteran in the county." He was defeated in that contest and around 1900 relocated to Washington state, later residing in North Yakima. While a resident of that town he was awarded a second patent in 1907 for an "amalgamator", and celebrated his 90th birthday in 1912.
A resident of the Washington Soldier's Home during his final years, Elymus Hackett suffered a debilitating fall in July 1914, breaking his shoulder. He survived for a year following this accident, dying at age 93 on August 2, 1915, in Orting, Washington. He was later interred at the Washington Soldier's Home Cemetery in Orting.
From the Whitehill Allegany County News, August 19, 1915.
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