BIO: Daniel G. May, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2010.  All rights reserved.
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http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.

                              CHAPTER XLV.

        EAST PENNSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP AND BOROUGH OF CAMP HILL.

471  EAST PENNSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP.

  DANIEL G. MAY, contractor, West Fairview, is a grandson of Joseph 
Gingrich, who lived near Middletown, Dauphin Co., Penn., in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century, and later removed to near Mifflin, in 
Juniata County, Penn.  Joseph Gingrich was twice married, having four 
children by his first wife and six by his second.  One of the first 
wife's daughters, Magdalena, married, in 1820, Frederick May, of 
Middletown, Dauphin Co. Penn., a farmer, born in that county.  They had 
nine children:  Joseph, Daniel G., Catharine, Elizabeth, John, Jacob, 
Frederick, David and Barbara.  They removed to Lancaster County, and 
later to West Fairview, this county, where Mr. May built the house in 
which our subject now lives, buying a farm of nearly one hundred acres, 
a large part of which is now occupied as town lots.  Besides farming he 
engaged in cabinet-making, following these occupations until his death 
in 1856.  His widow died in 1870, aged seventy-three years.  At this 
time but four of their children were living:  Joseph, in Philadelphia, 
Penn; Catharine, wife of Samuel Butner, of East Pennsborough Township, 
this county; Jacob, in West Fairview, and Daniel G.  The latter was 
born, February 2, 1825, in Lancaster County, Penn.  John Frederick, 
Barbara and Elizabeth are dead.  Another son, David, was captain of 
Company K, Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, and was killed while leading a 
charge at the battle of Chickamauga, in October, 1863.  His men were 
greatly attached to him, and, making three successive charges, 
recovered his body, which is interred in the National Cemetery, at 
Chattanooga.  Daniel G. worked for his father until he was twenty-one, 
when he married Mary, daughter of John Rupley, of East Pennsborough 
Township, this county.  To this union five children were born:  Luther, 
accidentally killed in his twelfth year; Joseph, Harry, Susan and 
Rebecca, who died in infancy.  In 1858 Mr. May married _____ Eshelman, 
by whom he has two daughters, Ellen E. and Fanny, living in Fairview, 
Penn.  After his first marriage he moved to a farm owned by his wife, 
but in 1863 came back to the homestead, which he took at the 
appraisement, and has lived there since.  At various times he was 
engaged in brick-making, lumber-dealing, and in grocery business, but 
subsequently adopted carpentering, which he now follows exclusively.  
He is a self-made man.  Without the advantages of school education he 
has raised himself to an honorable position, and is high-minded and 
honorable - a man who was never known to violate his promise.