BIO:  Hon. Edman W. STAHLE, Franklin 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 412-413

HON. EDMAN W. STAHLE, P.O., Mummasburg, was born in the borough of York, Penn., 
July 28, 1819, to John and Sarah (Small) Stahle, who reared a family of twelve 
children:  Jacob S., Edman W., Catharine, Sarah, Henry J., James A., Barbara, 
William, Ellen, Isabel, Virginia and Agnes.  The sons have all been men of 
distinction.  Jacob S. was a graduate in law, a prominent lawyer of York; at 
eighteen years of age captain in the Pennsylvania militia, and died a bachelor, 
with the rank of major-general; Henry J. has been the editor and publisher of 
the Gettysburg Compiler for forty-three years; James A. was a merchant tailor, 
of York, and when the war broke out formed Company A, Eighty-seventh Regiment 
Pennsylvania Volunteers, and returned after his term of service a colonel by 
brevet, and for twenty years was deputy collector of internal revenue for York 
County; William was a druggist of York, and was noted as an orator in both 
English and German; was also a prominent Mason; Edman W., who is a finished 
printer, learned the trade in the office of the York Republican.  He was at the 
same time editor of the Democratic Press, of York, and afterwards of the 
Columbia Spy, at which time he was clerk, along with Thomas A. Scott, in the 
collection office on the main line of public improvements at Columbia.  In 1843 
he came to Gettysburg and took charge of the Compiler for three years, when he 
was appointed deputy sheriff; in 1850 he went to Washington, and, in company 
with A. Boyd Hamilton, took the contract for printing the proceedings of the 
Thirty-second Congress and the government printing, and two years later assumed 
the superintendency of the State printing office at Harrisburg.  In 1854, tired 
of public life and desiring to live at ease, he purchased his present farm and 
settled into an easy-going existence, but the people were not yet ready to allow 
him to retire, and, in 1871, he was appointed a commissioner to help adjust the 
claims of the people of Adams County for damages received during the war.  In 
1874 he was elected a member of the Legislature, serving in 1875-76.  He was 
chairman of the printing committee and is the originator of the present laws 
regulating the public printing of the State, conceded to be the best of any 
State in the Union.  Previous to and succeeding his election as representative, 
Mr. Stahle was elected to and has filled nearly every office in the township, 
elected alike by Republicans and Democrats.  In 1842 he married Margaret 
Haughey, of Columbia, who bore him five children:  John H., married to Sarah J. 
Spahr; Francis R. S., killed February 9, 1865, while on picket duty at Hatcher’s 
Run; Sarah C., a prominent school-teacher, of Franklin Township, and Mary, the 
wife of Henry J. Brinkerhoff, Jr; Edman died during childhood.  Mrs. Stahle died 
in 1871, and in 1873 Mr. Stahle married Mary McGrew, a teacher in the High 
School of Gettysburg who bore him three daughters:  Teena W., Louisa B. and Jane 
McGrew-the last deceased.  As a public man Mr. Stahle has been one of the most 
prominent in Adams County in his day; as a private citizen his acts are above 
reproach, and his associations have given him a knowledge of the political and 
business world possessed by few.  Courteous, social and generous, his house has 
been for many years as noted for its hospitality as he is for his Democracy.  
Jacob Stahle, his grandfather, served as a captain during the entire 
Revolutionary war, and was in charge of some of the boats which carried Gen. 
Washington’s army across the Delaware.  His great-grandfather came from 
Neufchâtel, Switzerland, with the Palatinates, in 1683.  John Stahle, father of 
E. W., was a volunteer during the war of 1812, was mustered out of the service 
at York, and remained there engaged in mercantile business, and later was 
appointed register and recorder, to which office he was afterward elected for 
two successive terms.