Jefferson County Pennsylvania
May 1852-August 1876, and February 1888-April 1888
Abraham RUDOLPH was born in Salem Township, Westmoreland Co., PA, the son of Jacob & Elizabeth VARNER RUDOLPH. About 1834 the family moved to Jefferson County where Abraham remained until 1876 when he moved to Southside Township in Wright Co. MN. Abraham and his wife, Emily (LEECH) made an extended visit back to Jefferson Co. in 1888. Entries for that period have been included here. Abraham died in Wright Co. on February 18, 1904.
During the time Abraham lived in Jefferson Co., he served as Justice of the Peace in Bell and Young Townships, as a member of the local school board, and in leadership positions in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was a Mason.
Abraham's journals date from May, 1852 through February 13, 1904, five days before his death, and fill 13 ledger books. Abraham wrote in his journals every day. The records are complete for that period except for a one-year period, August 1883 through August 1884. If a journal was kept during that year, it has been lost. The Journals were actually begun sometime prior to 1852 as he refers to earlier entries. However, these volumes have not been located.
I have extracted births, marriages, and deaths from the journal and indexed them. I then decided, before uploading them to the Jefferson Co. PA archives, to include several entries which I thought would be of general interest to researchers in that area - primarily entries regarding the Civil War. He also included the record of his family and of the marriages he performed while service as Justice of the Peace. I have included those.
Through the efforts of Mr. John Wilkins of Pittsburgh, PA, the Journals were microfilmed by the Hellman Library at the University of Pittsburgh in 1983 and are available there for research. A typewritten copy of the complete Journals is also on file at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library in Jefferson County. The originals are in the possession of Herb Rudolph, a great grandson of Abraham and he holds the copyright.
..Betty Rudolph
Great Great Granddaughter of Abraham Rudolph
Surnames A to K
Surnames L to Z
Years 1816 to 1859
Years 1860 to 1869
Years 1870 to 1888
Additional entries made after his move to Minnesota
Specials thanks to Betty Rudolph for transcribing and donating these excerpts.
1997 Betty RudolphContributed by Betty Rudolph for use by the Jefferson County Genealogy Project http://www.pa-roots.com/jefferson/)
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