OBIT: Daniel Mack HOLSINGER, 1886, Fredericksburg, Blair County, PA

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REV. DANIEL M. HOLSINGER.
Death of One of Blair County's Most Useful and Excellent Citizens.

  To our correspondent at Martinsburg we are indebted for the 
following:
  Rev. Daniel Mack Holsinger, after a long and useful life, passed 
peacefully to his reward, at his home in Fredericksburg, Sunday morning 
last, as calmly as sinks the setting sun to rest in the great ocean of 
the west.
  Deceased was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, October 22, 1812, 
and received an education commensurate with the opportunities offered 
in those days.  August 12, 1832, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Polly Ritz.  Feeling the need of a better education, and being 
possessed of a mind capable of expansion and thirsting after knowledge, 
he attended a night school taught by Prof. John Miller.  This act 
seemed to change his course of life and shaped his ends and made him a 
man of note in his church and community in all the days of his after 
life.
  About the year 1833 he united with the German Baptist church and was 
elected to the ministry about 1841.  In 1863 he was elected to the 
office of elder or bishop, serving the church with honor and credit, 
performing duties faithfully until the Master said, "Enough, well done, 
good and faithful servant, come up higher."  By the district conference 
he was sent on a mission to the state of Maine, and by the annual 
conference to the states of Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois and Iowa, in 
the interest of his church.
  At the time of his admission to the ministry, he was about the only 
English speaking clergyman in this part of the vineyard and on account 
of this he was called upon to officiate at most of the burials that 
took place in the great Cove.
  The deceased was happily possessed of an exceedingly retentive memory 
and being a close student of the scriptures as well as a lover of a 
number of the poets, he had at his command almost the entire word of 
God, and could recite page after page of Milton's works.  During the 
last fifteen years he was almost totally blind, but this great store 
house of knowledge was a constant source of consolation to him and 
tended to lighten life's weary burdens and lighted his pathway to the 
tomb.
  The tenets of the German Baptist church are averse to a paid 
ministry.  Yet notwithstanding this doctrine of the church as well as 
the fact that the deceased was a skilled mechanic in the coopering art, 
his zeal for the church and his Christ led him to devote his time and 
talent to the work of the ministry, traveling all the long weary way 
through poverty's vale until he passed under the rod and went home to 
his God.  To Daniel Mack Holsinger, the German Baptist church, out of a 
debt of gratitude for his services and self-denials, that should be 
perpetuated in a monument of stone and marble erected to his memory.
  Four sons and four daughters are the result of his married life, all 
of whom are living: Elizabeth Maud, to Robert Riley; Hannah, to John D. 
Brumbaugh; Mary, to David Stover, and Rebecca, to Jacob D. Brumbaugh.  
Henry R., Ephraim, David and George are his sons.  Henry R. Holsinger 
followed the footsteps of his honored father, took an advanced position 
in the church and at once became a prominent factor in the 
deliberations of its body politic.
  About the year 1865 H. R. Holsinger founded the Tyrone Herald and 
subsequently founded the Christian Family Companion, the first weekly 
periodical published in his denomination.  He also published the first 
Tune and Hymn Book and Church Almanac.  These movements and advances in 
the church tended to open up a wider sphere for the church, and Henry 
at once took a decided stand and forward move in favor of an educated 
and paid ministry, and assisted by others, succeeded in founding what 
is now known as the Progressive Brethren church, who by these efforts 
and success has made the undertaking possible and have established a 
college at Ashland, Ohio, to which Mr. Holsinger devotes his time and 
energy. 
  The deceased adhered, during his lifetime, tenaciously to the 
conservative branch of the church; and so averse was he to any 
encroachments of its rules and doctrines that he could not have any 
sympathy or respect for the new departure; indeed his convictions were 
so deep rooted that he had no patience whatever with the Progressives.  
But in this respect as in all his convictions and deportment of life he 
was strictly honest, and having wronged no man he passed through life 
and crossed over and through the portals beloved by his immediate 
friends and respected by all who knew him.
  Thus at the ripe old age of 73 years, 3 months and 9 days the silver 
cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken at the fountain, and the 
wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returned to the earth as it 
was, and the spirit returned unto God who gave it.

Morning Tribune, Altoona, Pa., February 4, 1886