BIO: Rufus E. Shapley, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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 XXXIX. 

                        BOROUGH OF MECHANICSBURG.

434  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

  RUFUS E. SHAPLEY, jeweler, Mechanicsburg, was born in Hummelstown, 
Dauphin Co., Penn., December 23, 1840, son of Edmunds and Eliza 
(McElrath) Shapley, whose family consisted of eight children, four sons 
and four daughters.  Edmunds Shapley, a cabinet-maker by trade, lived 
for a time in Carlisle, and died in Mechanicsburg in May, 1876, in the 
sixty-fifth year of his age.  Rufus E., the eldest son, attended school 
in Hummelstown until, when twelve or thirteen years of age, he moved 
with his parents to Uniontown, Carroll Co., Md., where he attended 
school until he was eighteen, when he began to learn the trade of 
cabinet-maker with his father.  This was of brief duration, however, as 
he commenced an apprenticeship to the jeweler's and watch-maker's craft 
in Uniontown in 1859, at which he remained until, while on a visit to 
Hummelstown, he enlisted in Company C, One Hundred and Twenty-seventh 
Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, in 1862.  While a volunteer in 
Pennsylvania he was also drafted in Maryland, and although himself a 
soldier and not able to be in two places at the same time, was 
compelled to pay $300 commutation on account of the Maryland draft.  
After ten months' service, on the disbandment of his company, he was 
mustered out, receiving honorable discharge, and in 1863 located in 
Shippensburg, where he first engaged in the jewelry business upon his 
own account.  Two years afterward he came to Mechanicsburg, and here, 
after a brief partnership of two years with the late J. W. Swartz, an 
old resident jeweler of the place, he established his present business 
in April, 1867.  Our subject was married February 14, 1864, to Emma E. 
Landis, born in Cambridge, Lancaster Co., Penn., daughter of Isaac and 
Catharine (Wademan) Landis, both of Pennsylvania.  To this union were 
born two children:  Laura C., born May 8, 1865, and Edith R., born 
January 8, 1874.  Mr. Shapley is a member of Eureka Lodge, No. 215, F. 
& A. M., Lodge No. 215, I. O. O. F., Col. H. I. Zinn Post, No. 415, G. 
A. R., Mechanicsburg.  He is one of the enterprising representative 
citizens of Mechanicsburg.  The family, of English and Irish descent, 
is among the oldest of the early settlers of the county.