John L. Hoy, A Union soldier of the late war, and the proprietor of the well known Mansion house of Valley Forge, is a son of Bernard and Sarah (Curry) Hoy, and was born at Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, November 4, 1837. He received his education in the common schools of Valley Forge and Norristown, and then was engaged in farming and in the hotel business until 1861, when he enlisted in Co. H, 82d Pennsylvania infantry. He participated in the battles of the army of the Potomac on the Peninsula up to the last of the Seven day's fight, soon after which he contracted rheumatism and was sent to the hospital, where he remained some time. Returning to his company he was promoted to orderly sergeant, but was so afflicted with rheumatic trouble that on April 28, 1863, he was discharged from the service on account of disability. Returning from the army he was engaged for a short time in the hotel business at Mt. Claire, Montgomery county, and then went to Philadelphia, where he served as a conductor on a street car line for three years and a half. At the end of that time he returned to Norristown, Montgomery county, and was in the hotel business there until 1880, when he came to Valley Forge, where he opened his present hotel. Mr. Hoy is a popular landlord and a successful business man. He owns and tills the home farm of seventy-six acres of land. He is a democrat in politics, and formerly took an active part in political affairs.
In August, 1858, Mr. Hoy married Maria Morgan, who died in 1875, and left three children: Bernard, Elizabeth Hallowell, and Peter V., (proprietor of the Montgomery house at Norristown, Pennsylvania). For his second wife he married Elizabeth Coats, by whom he had one child, Annie. After his second wife's death (1887), he wedded Tillie, daughter of Chalkley Coats.
Bernard Hoy, sr. (paternal grandfather), was a native of county Antrim, Ireland, where he passed his life. He left two children to survive him, a son and a daughter: Bernard (father), and Bridget. Bernard Hoy, was born in Ireland in 1802, where he became a "loom boss," and after following that occupation for a short time in the factories of his native country, went in 1821 to England, where he married, and from which country he came, in 1835, to the United States. After spending some time in New York city he removed to Norristown, this State, which he left in 1851 to settle at Valley Forge, where he purchased a good farm and engaged in farming and in the hotel business. Bernard Hoy was a democrat in politics, and a Catholic in religion, an died in December 1858, aged fifty-six years. He married Sarah Curry, and reared a family of six children, three sons and three daughters: James F.; Peter; John L. (subject); Elizabeth, a sister of charity at St. Patrick's church in Philadelphia; Mary, who married Stanly Ogden, a cotton and woolen manufacturer of Valley Forge and Norristown; and Annie, who died in 1861. Mrs. Hoy was born and reared in England, and died at Valley Forge in March, 1879, when in the seventy-fifth year of her age.
Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania, Comprising a Historical Sketch of the County, by Samuel T. Wiley, Gresham Publishing Company, 1893