USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Commemorative biographical encyclopedia of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania : containing sketches of prominent and representative citizens and many of the early Scotch-Irish and German settlers. Pt. 1 > Part 46
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John George Pfuhl lived with his parents until he reached the age of fourteen, receiv- ing his primary education in the common schools of his native town. He also had instruction in Latin, Greek and French under a private tutor. In 1852 he was sent to a neighboring village pastor, who fully instructed him in the classics. With this preparation, he was sent to the college at Muehlhausen, where he spent three years. He afterwards entered the college at Halle, and was graduated from this institution in 1859. In 1860 he left his native land for America. Soon after his arrival in this country, he entered the Theological Semi- nary of Gettysburg, where he studied for two years. In 1862 he was licensed to preach the gospel and administer the saera- ments in the pastorate of Steubenville, Ohio.
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In May, 1864, he was ordained a minister of the German Lutheran Church, and installed as pastor at Steubenville by the Pittsburg Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was pastor of Zion Lutheran church in that city for fourteen years. In 1876 he was elected to the pastorate of St. Michael's Lutheran church in Harrisburg. For twenty years he has held this important pastorate, and has faithfully discharged its sacred and arduous duties.
His first wife was Miss Miranda, daughter of John and Regina (Bauer) Miller, of Bridgewater, Beaver county, Pa. Their marriage took place May 10, 1864. They had one son, Charles Augustus, now residing in Pittsburgh. Mrs. Pfuhl died at, Steuben- ville, Ohio, January 22, 1866. In his second marriage, which occurred at Baden, Beaver county, September 22, 1868, he was united to Sophia Marchand, a daughter of Fred- erick and Caroline (Ehrman) Marchand, born in Offenbach, near Frankfort-on-the- Main. They have had seven children; four died in infancy, Otto, George, Johanna and Louisa. Their living children are Sophie Augusta, born August S, 1875; Marie Dor- othy, July 7, 1878; and Paul Wilhelm, July 27, 1882.
. Pastor Pfuhl is a member of the Evangeli- cal Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the oldest Lutheran Synod in the United States.
-FORNEY, REV. CHRISTIAN HENRY, D. D., son of Christian T. Forney (1806-1860). and Barbara Strohm, was born October 17, 1839, in West Hanover township, Dauphin county, Pa. He was cducated in the com- mon schools, St. Thomas Institute, Miles- burg Normal School and Oberlin College, where he completed the course preparatory to the study of theology in 1860, and entered upon the ministry at Mount Ivy, Lancaster county, Pa., in November of that year, where he remained until April, 1863. He also preached at Chambersburg, Franklin county, Pa., from April, 1863, to April, 1866; at Harrisburg, Fourth street, from April, 1866, to April, .1868; Lancaster city, from April, 1868, to April, 1870, since which time he has been in charge of the editorial depart- inent of the church paper of his denomina- tion, preaching only on special occasions. He was chaplain of the House of Represen- tatives of l'ennsylvania in 1868, and has been twice speaker of the East Pennsyl-
vania Eldership of the Church of God ; once speaker of the General Eldership; almost a continuous member of the standing commit- tee of the East Pennsylvania Eldership since 1869; member of Board of Missions and Board of Incorporation of the East Pennsyl- vania Eldership ; member of the Executive Board of the General Eldership; continuous member of Board of Education of the Gen- eral Eldership until elected on the Execu- tive Board; a continuous member of the Board of Education of East Pennsylvania Eldership. In 1866 he was elected assistant editor of the Church Advocate, and upon the death of the editor, in 1869, became editor- in-chief, which position he still occupies. In June, 1881, Hillsdale College, Michigan, conferred upon him the degree of D. D.
- STANFORD, BISHOP W. M., was born in Rockland township, Venango county, Pa., March 15, 1846. Being a farmer's son he was raised to hard work on the farm till he was twenty years of age, and got but from three to four months schooling in a year. When he was eighteen years of age he began teaching in the winter season for but $23 a month, teach- ing every winter thereafter till his twenty- fifth year. He made his money in the winter by teaching, and spent it in the summer at- tending school, first at Greensburg Seminary, Summit county, Ohio, from the spring of 1865 to the fall of 1866, and then at Mount Union College, Stark county, Ohio, until the spring of 1871, when he graduated in the scientific and commercial courses. The wages of his first winter's teaching not being sufficient to venture away from home to school, he worked for about three months on a railroad, digging and shoveling, to secure further funds. Having to furnish all his own money, it took great frugality to get through the summer's schooling on the funds made by his winter's teaching. He did his own cooking and house work in order to make ends meet. Being ambitious in his studies, he nearly always stood at the head of his classes, and was a most formid- able antagonist to mect in debate.
Nearly one year before his graduation, on August 2, 1870, he was united in marriage with Miss Rosa A. Weimer, of the southern part of Stark county, Ohio, and then, with his wife, taught a graded school of two de- partments the following winter in Osnabnrg, Ohio, and with the money thus made fin- ished his collegiate course the next summer,
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and came out free of all debt. In the spring of 1872 he entered the Pittsburg Conference of the Evangelical Association, and was sent for his first year in the ministry as a mis- sionary to Franklin, Venango county, l'a. Here he remained three years, having about sixty conversions a year as the fruits of his labors. His next two years were spent at Homeworth, Ohio, where, in connection with his pastorate, he pursued the study of Greek and German again in his alma mater. He next spent a most successful three years' pastorate in Pittsburgh, Pa .; thence for two years in Johnstown, Pa., and was then called to Cleveland, Ohio, as associate editor of the official English church organ, the Evangelical Messenger, his chief being Dr. H. B. Hartzler, afterwards one of Mr. D. L. Moody's co- workers in the great training schools at Northfield, Mass. He remained on this paper for over six years, during which time said paper attained the highest circulation it ever had, either before or since. In the memorable General Conference of 1887, in Buffalo, N. Y., which marked the beginning of a schism in said church, he, with his chief, being allied with the American spirited element of the church, as opposed to an ecclesiastical autocracy on the other. side, and being at that time a little in the minor- ity, were of necessity defeated. The next spring he again took a pastorate in Canton, Ohio, under the direction of his old confer- ence. In about eighteen months he had gathered a harvest of over one hundred souls, when he was elected as editor and publisher of an independent chureh paper, known as the Evangelical, printed at Harris- burg, Pa., which paper he conducted most suceessfully during the stormy years of 1890 and 1891, when, at the General Conference in Philadelphia, in the fall of 1891, he was elected to the Episcopacy, continuing until the special General Conference in the fall of 1894, held in Naperville, Ill., when he was re-elected to said office for a term of four years. This was the first General Conference of the American wing of the church, con- stituting about one-half of the whole of this country, and at which conference a new discipline was made and adopted, and a new name assumed, viz. : The United Evangel- ical Church.
During the course of his pastoral and editorial life, Bishop Stanford served six years as the secretary of his conference, and was sent for seven years as a delegate to the
General Board of Missions. He was also a member of the General Conference of 1883, 1887, 1891 and 1894. When he once became convinced that a certain course was right, he never stopped to think of policy, but set his course without hesitation, leaving all results with God. And when he started out to do a thing he knew no such word as fail, and this is largely the secret of whatever success he has attained in life.
Bishop Stanford was one of four chil- dren, two boys and two girls, the other three all being married and following agricultural pursuits in Northwestern Pennsylvania. His father, Abraham Stanford, was born in 1817, was an industrious farmer of Scotch descent, and died in 1882. His mother was born of German parentage in 1826, and died in 1893. His mother's maiden name was Domer, being one of a family of nine chil- dren, three girls and six boys. Four of the boys were preachers; one, named Jacob, a member of the Church of God, attained to the assistant editorship of the official paper of his denomination, overworked himself, and died at the age of forty-one years. Two, named respectively George and John, were both leading men in the same church with Bishop Stanford, having both of them served for four consecutive terms of four years each as presiding elders, and having been mem- bers of every successive General Conference from 1875 to 1891. Abraham Domer, D. D., after graduating at Allegheny College, Mead- ville, early in his life, started out as a min- ister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and attained also to the presiding eldership in his church, and thus forged to the front rank among his brethren. A little further out in relationship on his mother's side were many more preachers and men of prominence, one of whom, the Rev. Samuel Domer, D. D., having been for many years pastor of the leading Lutheran congregation of Washing- ton, D. C. Bishop Stanford comes of a long- lived race of people on both his father's and his mother's side, some of them back in the third generation living to the ripe ages of from ninety to one hundred years.
Mrs. Rosa A. Stanford, wife of the bishop, maiden name Weimer, was born in the southern part of Stark county, Ohio, March 3, 1845, of German parentage. Being a farmer's daughter, she, too, got but from three to four months' schooling in a year, when, in 1863, at the age of seventeen, she attended a term of school at Greensburg Seminary,
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Summit county, Ohio, and in the following winter taught her first term. In 1864 she attended the spring and fall terms of Roanoke Academy, Huntington county, Ind., and in the winter of the same year tanght the intermediate department of the same school. In the fall of 1865 she again attended at Greensburg, Ohio, and thereafter followed teaching until her marriage in the summer of 1870. She was one of a large family of children, several of whom attained to prominence in their specific vocations. Oliver Weimer, a brother, was a musician and vocalist, whose energy was greater than his body could bear, and so died at an early age, and Miss Katie Weimer, a younger sister, struggled with both health and other difficulties until she became a leading artist, and then died before she had time to reap the returns of her sacrifice and toil. Prof. Solomon Weimer, a younger brother, after a common school training, began his collegiate training at Mount Union College, Ohio, and finished it at Otterbein University, Wester- ville, Ohio. Afterwards, for some years, he tanght in Navarre, Ohio, and then stepped up to one of the highest positions in the Central high schools of Cleveland, Ohio, where he is still a much esteemed and suc- cessful educator.
To Bishop and Mrs. Stanford there were born six children, two sons and four daugh- ters. The eldest, Orpha Blanche Stanford, was born near Beach City, Ohio, April 26, 1871. After receiving a good common school education, she afterwards made a specialty of art and music, until she became a teacher of both, and on the 22d of May, 1895, was united in marriage with Mr. Frank S. Becker, teller of the leading bank in Lebanon, Pa. Mr. Becker has also been president of the school board of Lebanon for a number of years. The next is Vincent W., of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. The next in age is Abraham LeRoy Stanford, who. was born in Homeworth, Ohio, November 27, 1876. Aside from a common school education, he attended sev- eral terms at Schuylkill Seminary, at Fred. ericksburg, Pa., where he showed marked proficiency in the line of mathematics. He afterwards went into training in Catasaqua, Pa., to become a machinist, in which work he shows marked adaptability. Being yet. young in years, his life work is not clearly chosen, but he bids fair to be able to hoe his own row. Next comes Zella, Corine Stan-
ford, born in Pittsburgh, Pa., June 20, 1878; then Laura Eva Stanford, born in Johns- town, Pa., October 2, 1SS1, and lastly Mina Grace Stanford, born in Cleveland, Ohio, September S, 1SS7. Zella and Laura have already finished the ward schools, and are both now attending the high school of Har- risburg, and stand among the best in their classes. Little Grace is fast on the same track in her studies, has an ambition to be at the head of her classes, and bids fair to overtake her older sisters by and by.
This family is also quite a musical family. Blanch uses the piano, Vincent the banjo, Roy the guitar and the mandolin. Zella the mandolin, Laura the piano, and Grace is an admirer of all. But of all the others, LeRoy seems to show the most natural adaptability for instrumental music.
- KREMER, REV. ELLIS N., was born in Cumberland county, Pa., October 27, 1846, son of Rev. A. H. and Rebecca (Keiffer) Kremer. Frederick Kremer, the paternal grandfather, was a cooper by trade, and later in life was engaged in farming. The maternal grandfather was also a farmer, and was an elder in the Reformed church for some years, which office he held at the time of his death. Rev. A. H. Kremer, the father, was born in November, 1814, and the mother was born at Little Washington, Lancaster county, Pa., in March, 1815. The father re- moved with his parents to York county, where he received his education in the high school at York and in Mercersburg College, and he was graduated from the Theological Seminary at Mercersburg in 1839. His first pastorate was at Shippensburg, in which he served seven years. He was called to Car- lisle in 1846, and remained there until the spring of 1861. He was then called to the First church at Lancaster, Pa., where he served until the fall of 1877, when he was recalled to his old church at Carlisle, where he remained until his death in 1894. Mr. Kremer was also president of the board of trustees of the Theological Seminary for a number of years. He was married to Miss Rebecca Keiffer, by whom he had eight children, one of whom, Stephen K., died in the active ministry at Greencastle, Pa., in 1876. The father died at the age of seventy- nine years; the mother is still living at the age of eighty-one years, and resides at Green- castle, Pa.
Ellis N. attended the schools of Cumber-
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land county until he was thirteen years of age, and then took the preparatory and col- legiate course at Franklin and Marshall Col- lege, from which he was graduated in 1865. After his graduation he was clerk in the bookstore of John Shaeffer, at Lancaster city, for three years, and in the fall of 1868 en- tered the Theological Seminary at Mercers- burg, from which he was graduated in 1871. The same year he settled as pastor at Bed- ford, Pa., being licensed to preach in the spring, and ordained to the ministry No- vember 11 following. This charge was com- posed of three congregations: Bedford, St. Paul's and Pleasant Hill. In 1881 the charge was divided and Rev. Kremer re- mained pastor of the Bedford congregation, in which relation he continned for sixteen years. During his pastorate there was great growth and improvement, the parsonage and the new church edifice having been erected in that time. Rev. Kremer resigned this pastorate to enter the wider field of use- fulness in Harrisburg, which he has since occupied with the same success that has at- tended his labors in other fields. In recog- nition of his scholarly attainments and devoted labors, he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by his alma mater in 1895. Dr. Kremer was married, November 23, 1871, at Lancaster, Pa., to Miss Sallie E. Swan, daughter of H. B. and Frances (Toby) Swan, to whom have been born seven children, of whom five are living. Dr. Kremer is now secretary of the board of home missions of the Reformed Church ..
-BAKER, REV. LEROY FRANKLIN, rector of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal church, Har- risburg, Pa., was born in Mount Pleasant, Wayne county, Pa., November 26, 1848. His father was a native of Orange county, N. Y., a descendant of one of the early settlers of Rhode Island. His mother was the daughter of Col. Harry Mumford, an officer in the militia, and a descendant of Thomas Mumford, who settled in Rhode Island, and married Sarah Sher- man, about the year 1650. From this family sprang Hannah Mumford, who be- came the mother of Bishop Scabury, the first bishop of the Anglican communion in America; Paul Mumford, successively chief justice and lieutenant governor of Rhode Island, and Augustus Mumford, adjutant, who was killed during the siege of Boston,
Mass., by a cannon shot, August 29, 1775, being the first Rhode Island officer who fell in the war of the Revolution ; also many prominent citizens of Rhode Island and Connecticut. There is evidence that the Mumford family descended from IIngh de Montfort; the line can be traced to Arnulph, bishop of Metz, who died A. D. 631.
Mr. Baker was graduated from the Ithaca Academy, Ithaca, N. Y., June 25, 1869, and spent two years in Cornell University, being president of his class during the sophomore year. He spent two years in teaching in his native place, and three years in study in the Divinity School, Philadelphia, Pa., gradu- ating therefrom June 21, 1876. He was or- dained to the diaconate, in Reading, Pa., June 11, 1875, by the Rt. Rev. M. A. De Wolfe Howe, bishop of Central Pennsyl- vania; and to the priesthood in Scranton, Pa., December 20, 1876, by the same bishop. Immediately after graduation from the Di- vinity School, Mr. Baker was sent to Great Bend, Susquehanna county, Pa., to take charge of Grace church in that place. He remained there three years, serving also St. Mark's church, New Milford, during the same time. He was called to St. Paul's church, Harrisburg, and took charge of that parish on July 13, 1879. From that time to the present writing (1896), he has re- mained in charge of St. Paul's parish. With a single exception he is the oldest resident minister in the city of Harrisburg, and with the same exception he is the oldest resident in the Archdeaconry of Harrisburg. Ile has been for several years examining chap- lain in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, and a member of the committee on canons. He was a deputy to the General Convention in Baltimore in 1892, the convention that com- pleted the revision of the Book of Common Prayer; he was also deputy to the General Convention in Minneapolis in 1895, the con- vention that inaugurated the revision of the constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
On June 4, 1877, he was married to Sarah E. Wortman, of Ithaca, N. Y. On her father's side Mrs. Baker is descended from German stock, having Hesse Cassel as its ancestral home. Some of her nearer paternal ancestors in this country are named among the Jerseymen in the Revolution; some were among the survivors of the Wyoming massacre. On her mother's side Mrs. Baker is a descendant of Dr. Comfort Starr, who
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was born in Ashford, England, and died in Boston, in 1659. Rev. and Mrs. Baker have one child, Auma May, born February 12, 1882.
-STINE, REV. MILTON HI., PH. D., pastor of Christ's Lutheran church, Harrisburg, Pa., was born in York county, Pa., September 4, 1853, son of Adam and Barbara (Schoen- berger) Stine.
Charles Stine, paternal grandfather of Rev. M. H. Stine, was a native of Wurtem- berg, Germany, and came to this country early in the present century. He was a musician and a teacher of music. He had a family of six children. Adam Stine, father of Rev. Milton H., was born in Ger- many, near Wittenberg, and came to this country when quite young. He learned the business of tailoring in New York City, and was engaged in that occupation until within a few years of his death, when he retired from active business. He was married Decem- ber 5, 1841; his wife Barbara, daughter of Henry Schoenberger, was also a native of Germany. Their children are: Rebecca, not married, resides at York, Pa .; Rev. M. II .; Henrietta, died October 23, 1851, aged nine years; Annie D., died October 24, 1857, aged two years. Mr. Stine and his family were members of the Lutheran Church. He died in York county, January 18, 1896, aged seventy-nine; his wife died at the same place, June 13, 1890, aged seventy-seven.
Milton H. Stine attended the public schools of York county until he was thirteen years of age, after which he was for three years a pupil in the York County Academy. He strongly desired a liberal education, in order to enter one of the learned professions, but having few resources to depend upon be- sides his own efforts, was obliged to plan and work to obtain it. He took a winter school when he was sixteen, employing the summer months in helping with the farm work, and studying during his leisure hours. After three terms of teaching, with inter- vening periods of study, he was prepared to enter college. In 1873 he began a classical course at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa., which he pursued for a short time, when, an opportunity to become a teacher in the academy being offered, he accepted, and became professor where he had formerly been a pupil, and for one year performed the duties of the position very creditably ; after
which he re-entered college, and was gradu- eted in 1877. He subsequently took the regular course at the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, which he completed in 1SSÒ, and in the same year was ordained to the ministry.
Mr. Stine's first charge was the church at Maytown, Lancaster county, Pa., where he continued with good success for two and a half years, during which time he received a call to the pastorate of a large Methodist congregation in New England, which he de- clined. On May 1, 18S3, he began his work as pastor of the Seventh Street church, Lebanon, Pa., in which his marked ability as preacher and pastor was manifest in the enlargement and general prosperity of the church. During the nine years of his con- nection with this congregation, the mem- bership was greatly increased, a new church edifice with a seating capacity of seven hun- dred was erected, and a commodious and beautiful parsonage was built. While in this pastorate, Rev. Mr. Stine made two trips to foreign countries; during the first of which he spent three months in visiting Europe, Egypt and Palestine, and seeing during the second the principal places of interest in England. He is the author of two interesting books, one published in 1SS8, entitled " Studies ou the Religious Problems of Our Country," and the second, published in 1890, entitled " A Winter Jaunt Through Historie Lands;" both of which disclose a high degree of literary talent. He is also a correspondent of several periodicals, for which his articles find ready acceptance.
In 1892 Rev. Mr. Stine took charge of the First English Intheran church, at Los An- geles, Cal., but at the end of three years, his pastorate in that beautiful city was termin- ated by the declining health of his father, which necessitated his return to the East. In 1895 he was called to his present pastorate, that of Christ Lutheran church, Harrisburg, at Thirteenth street and Thompson avenue, with parsonage at 1311 Derry street. Here he finds a promising field for the exercise of his best powers, and here abundant fruits begin to appear. In 1896 formal recognition of the scholarship and literary attainments of Mr. Stine was made by the bestowment upon him of the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Rev. Dr. Stine was married, at Mechanics- burg, Pa., June 26, 1880, to Miss Mary, dangh- ter of Daniel and Elizabeth (Shaeffer) Altland
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They have two sons; Charles, born October 18, 1882, and Walter, born March 18, 1888.
Dr. Stine is a member of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics and of the Knights of Malta.
Mrs. Stine, wife of Rev. Dr. Stine, was born December 15, 1860. Her father, Daniel Altland, was born August 19, 1834. In his younger days he taught school, but the greater part of his business life was spent in mercantile pursuits. He was married, in July, 1856, to Elizabeth, dangliter of George and Elizabeth Shaeffer. Besides Mary (Mrs. Stine) they had two sons, Alfred D. and F. M., both in mercantile pursuits, in Dillsburg, York county, Pa.
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