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Abner Lacock was born in 1770 of a British father and French mother who moved to Washington County shortly after his birth. Named in 1796 a magistrate in Allegheny County, he became Beaver County's first justice of the peace and its first legislator. In his tavern on Third Street was held the first court and the first church service. Appointed the county's first associate judge in 1803, he resigned after a year to serve four terms in the legislature, and in 1808 was elected to the state senate. In 1810 he became the county's first Congressman, and in 1813 its first U. S. Senator, a role in which he gained notice by his charge that President Jackson had violated the Constitution. He helped survey the canal system connecting the Delaware and the Ohio, and had charge of its construction between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Early in his career he moved to Rochester and played a major role in its development.