Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county", by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1893, page 213.

"JOHN FINKBINER, one of the oldest and most highly respected citizens of Spring City, and who was successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits in East Vincent township for nearly fifty years, is a son of Jacob and Mary (Christman) Finkbiner, and was born in East Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 8, 1818.

"John Finkbiner was reared on the paternal acres in his native township, and received his education in the elementary schools of his neighborhood and Trappe boarding school of Montgomery county.  At eighteen years of age he left the farm and became a clerk in the general mercantile store of James Rogers and others of Springville (now Spring City), where he remained about nine years.  At the end of that time he engaged in farming for Miss Eliza Yost and Susanna Finkbiner, which he followed successfully in East Vincent township until 1887, when he retired from active life.  Since then he has been a resident of Spring City, whose borough limits now include the larger part of the above farm of Yost and Finkbiner.  This valuable farm of seventy-five acres of land has all been sold in building lots, with a number of houses on it.

"John Finkbiner is a prohibitionist in politics, and believes that the old parties have outlived the days of their usefulness, and that political action alone can remove the curse of intemperance from the land and bring lasting prosperity to the country.  He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Spring City, and ranks as one of the substantial and reliable citizens of the borough.  When Mr. Finkbiner first came to Spring City in 1837, it contained but four houses, and has lived to see it grow from a small and obscure hamlet to a thrifty and flourishing borough of nearly twenty-five hundred population."