BIO:  Elijah F. DIEHL, Oxford Township, Adams County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 493-494

ELIJAH F. DIEHL, P. O. Leesburg, Kosciusko County, Ind., son of Daniel and Leah 
Diehl, whose family history is given in the sketch of the latter, was born near 
New Oxford, Adams Co., Penn., March 13, 1841.  He attended the schools of the 
neighborhood, supplemented by several terms in Dr. Pfeiffer’s College, at New 
Oxford.  At the age of seventeen he began teaching in Mountpleasant Township, 
which occupation he followed until 1862.  In August of the year he enlisted in 
Company B, One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer 
Infantry, and served in the Army of the Potomac.  After his service in the army 
he went to Leesburg, Kosciusko Co., Inc., and there taught school one term; 
thence he went to St. Joseph, Mo., where he was again for a time engaged in 
school-teaching.  He then returned to Leesburg, where, in 1867, he was married 
to Miss M. Annie Berst, and to them have been born the following named 
children:  Willis Edwin, Leah Hulda, Miriam Alice, Henry Albert, Mary, Laura 
Kate, Ruth (deceased) and Carl Sanford.  After his marriage Mr. Diehl took 
charge of one of his father-in-law’s farms, and for several years during the 
winter months, in connection with farming, was employed in teaching school.  
Since 1880 he has served as assessor, and during that year and in 1886 was land 
appraiser, and is now filling his third term.  Conrad Berst, paternal 
grandfather of Mrs. Diehl, was born near Strasburg, Germany, in 1779, and 
immigrated to America in 1798, and in 1807 married Catherine Gunther, of 
Lancaster County, Penn., whose birth occurred in that county in 1785.  Her 
father was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and died of wounds received at 
the battle of Bunker Hill.  Henry Berst, the fourth of thirteen children and 
father of Mrs. Diehl, was born in Lancaster County August 28, 1814.  In 1829 
the family moved to Butler County, and in 1832 to Erie County, Penn.; thence 
Henry went, in 1836, to Kosciusko County, Ind., where he purchased a large 
tract of land on Big Turkey Creek prairie and adjoining it.  In 1837 his 
parents, two brothers and two sisters, located in this locality, where the 
mother died in 1849, and the father in 1859.  Henry Berst’s marriage with Mary 
A. James occurred June 14, 1840, and to them were born eleven children, of whom 
Mrs. Diehl is the fifth, born June 17, 1848.  Her maternal ancestors came to 
America prior to the war for independence, the Jameses from England, the Wards 
from Ireland.  Her grandfather, James Ross James, was born in Sussex County, 
Del., in 1796, and his wife, nee Lavina Ward, in the same county in 1797.  They 
were married in 1817, moved to Pickaway county, Ohio, in 1822, and to Kosciusko 
County, Ind., in 1837.  Mrs. James died in 1864, and her husband in 1871.  Mary 
A. James, mother of Mrs. Diehl, was born January 31, 1819, in Sussex County, 
Del.  The Berst and James families stand high in the estimation of the people 
of their respective communities, and members of both families filled important 
official positions in the war of the Rebellion.