Hettie belonged to the First Presbyterian Church of Homestead, Pa.

John and his siblings were orphaned when in 1845 their parents were drowned in an accident at Point Perry on the Monongahela River. At a young age he started a mercantile business and, despite losing everything in the Panic of 1857 and other setbacks, he and his brothers built a steamship, the J.S. Cosgrove, followed by the Brilliant, the Grey Eagle and the Albion. He was engaged in oil trasnport and expanded his intersts to coal mining, (leasing a tract to Andrew Carnegie for his steel mill) and finally banking. The brothers established the Duquesne National Bank. He became associated with Charles Schwab and the founding of U.S. Steel a few years before his death following an unsuccessful operation to treat his foot for gangrene, in 1904.