Silas Engles Jr., son of Silas Engles Sr. and Ann Patterson, was born in 1781 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He married Ann Maria Hauer on December 14, 1809 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fredericktown, Maryland.
In 1807, Silas became the owner of the weekly Republican Advocate in Fredericktown, Maryland. He was a printer at the Robert Patterson Esq. Pittsburgh Presbyterian Banner. He was considered an excellent scholar as well as a printer. He had the responsibility of prioritizing the publishing of manuscripts. In 1812, The Pioneer, a monthly newspaper in Pittsburgh, was run by Reverend David Graham, as editor and printed by S. Engles & Co.
In the first election for the city council in Pittsburgh, Silas was elected clerk of the Mayor’s Court. He was an alcoholic. He died after a short illness at age forty-six. Although deceased, he was associated with the theory that Sidney Rigdon stole the Spaulding Manuscript. Sidney had a small tannery on Penn Street in Pittsburg for the manufacturing of bookbinders. He would supply these to Silas’ office. The Silas Engles biography is found in Notable Printers of Early Pittsburgh.
The printing firm of S. Engles & Co. was located on Wood Street, between 3rd and 4th Streets. It was adjacent to the Pittsburgh bookselling firm of Patterson & Hopkins as well as the successor business of R. &. J. Patterson. Following the October 1815 fire, the firm of Silas Engles was temporarily relocated to Wood Street above Diamond Alley. Early in 1815, Silas moved to Liberty Street, “nearly opposite Fifth Street,” where he remained in business for the next four years.
Here is a curiosity: “[Silas Engles] informed Robert Patterson that a gentleman from the East originally, had put in his hands a manuscript of a singular work, chiefly in the style of our English translation of the Bible, and handed the copy to R. Patterson, who read only a few pages and finding nothing apparently exceptional, he said to Engles, he might publish it if the author furnished the funds or good security. He (the author) failing to comply with the terms, Mr. Silas Engles returned the manuscript as I suppose at that time.” What was the manuscript? Did Silas really return it?[1]
Silas Engles died on July 17, 1827 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was buried in Pittsburgh.
[1] Gregg, The Prophet of Palmyra, p. 455; “Beaver Baptist Association,” Pittsburgh Recorder, 5 vols., 4: 34; The Mercury, July 24, 1827; “Maryland Marriages, 1666–1970”; Sarah H. Killikelly, The History of Pittsburgh: Its Rise and Progress (Pittsburgh: B. C. & Gordon Montgomery Co., 1906); Virginia E. Luckhardt, Notable Printers of Early Pittsburgh (Pittsburg: Carnegie Library School, 1949), pp. 36–39