Eleanor Gillespie Darr

1864 - 1913

BiographyEleanor Gillespie Darr was the child of Asa Shinn Gillespie and Emma Palmer. Her paternal grandfather was J.J. Gillespie. The Gillespie Family was a prominent western Pennsylvania family whose members intermarried with other prominent families, including the Magee, Wray, and Darr families

Eleanor Gillespie was engaged to marry Hays King, a cousin of Mrs. R. B. Mellon, but King died shortly before the wedding was to have taken place. Eleanor subsequently married George Darr, a pioneer in the Western Pennsylvania oil industry who started in the oil brokerage business in 1874. Darr later became a stock and bond broker, president of Sharon Steel Company, and owner of coal lands.