My Genealogy Hound

ESLINGER. The family of Jacob Eslinger, Sr., was born in the Susquehanna river town of West Fairview, Upper Precinct of East Pennsboro township, Cumberland county, Pa., during the first half of the decade following the close of the Civil war. The father died May 4, 1875, at the age of fifty-two years, leaving the widow, Mrs. Leah Jane (Megonnel) Eslinger, formerly of York county, to care for three small children, yet in their infancy, and without any financial support whatever. The mother’s desire was to rear these children in her own household, which she accomplished by extra good management, hard work and much self-denial and discomfort.

William Sherman Eslinger, the senior member of the family, was born June 17, 1865, and by occupation was a corrugator of flouring-mill rolls, in which work he was quite proficient. Prior to taking up this work he was an ironmaker in the nail department of the Harrisburg Nail Works, at West Fairview, Pa. On April 1, 1896, he entered the mercantile business in his native town, where he remained until April 28, 1902, when his mental faculties became debilitated, superinduced by an accident he was in on the Norfolk & Western Railway at Mondell Switch, near Hagerstown, Md., May 15, 1892, and after two years of suffering at the Cumberland County Home Hospital at Carlisle, he succumbed to peritonitis, which had pursued him continually from the very day of his misfortune until the time of his death, April 10, 1904.

Mary Elizabeth Eslinger, the second of the family, born March 7, 1869, is a piano and organ instructor, and fully master of this intricate art. She married George W. Bowman, Oct. 15, 1903.