A man of affairs whose celebrity extends far beyond the limits of his county is Warren Abbott Wilbur, of South Bethlehem, founder of the Bethlehem Foundry Machine Company, and for twenty years its president. Mr. Wilbur is officially identified with a number of financial and industrial organizations, and has been, for more than a quarter of a century, a leader in the business world of his city and county.

Warren Abbott Wilbur, son of Elisha Packer and Stella M. (Abbott) Wilbur, was born May 1, 1859, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and received his primary education in the parochial school of Bethlehem, passing thence to Mount Pleasant

Academy and then entering Swarthmore College. His business career began in September, 1877, when he entered the service of the Bethlehem Iron Works Company, afterward operating a blast furnace and carrying on coal operations. In 1880 he became a partner in the firm of E. P. Wilbur & Company. In 1887 he was made vice-president of E. P. Wilbur Trust Company, and in 1910, upon the death of his father, succeeded to the office of president. He was a partner and stockholder in the firm of J. W. Fuller & Company, afterward the Lehigh Car Wheel & Axle Company. Mr. Wilbur is now president and director of the following organizations: The Sayre Water Company; the First National Bank of Sayre; the Jefferson Coal Company; Connellsville & State Line Railroad Company; the Wilbur Coal & Coke Company; and the Valley Coal & Coke Company of West Virginia. He is president of the Jefferson Railroad Company, and a director in the Lehigh Foundry Company, the Lehigh Pulverizer Mill Company, the Lehigh Valley National Bank, the Western Maryland Railroad, the Lehigh Valley Traction Company, the Lehigh Coke Company and the Franklin Coal Company. He is also president of the Packer Coal Company, and a director of the Empire Steel and Iron Company. This long list of arduous and responsible positions would be simply astounding to anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Wilbur's character and career, but to those who know his capacity for work, his power of concentration and clearness and rapidity of judgment, it suggests nothing marvelous nor even unusual.

It is, however, a mistake to think of Mr. Wilbur solely as a business man. He is deeply interested in educational institutions and in charitable and benevolent work. He is chairman of the executive committee of the board of trustees of Lehigh University, and treasurer and also trustee of St. Luke's Hospital. In all municipal affairs he takes a public-spireted interest, and holds the office of treasurer of the borough of South Bethlehem. Politically he is a Democrat. He belongs to the Society of Mining Engineers, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the South Bethlehem, Bethlehem and Northampton Clubs, the Philadelphia Club and the Manufacturers' Club of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Society of New York. He affiliates with the Masonic fraternity, including the Knights Templar; also the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is a member of the Episcopal church.

Mr. Wilbur is a man who has caused his prosperity to minister to the general good. It is such men as he who, wherever they are found, impart an impetus to business and vitalize all the best interests of their communities.