BIO: Jacob AWL, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 174.
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  AWL, JACOB, was born August 6, 1727, in the north of Ireland; and 
died September 26, 1793, in Paxtang township, Dauphin county, Pa.  The 
name should properly be spelled Auld, and the first settler wrote it 
Aul, which the descendants have changed into Awl.  He learned the trade 
of a tanner; was a man of means when he came to America, and settled, 
at an early date, in Paxtang, near his relative, John Harris, of 
Harris' Ferry, where he took up a large tract of land, which he 
improved, erected a tannery, and on which he lived to the time of his 
death. He became a prominent personage in Paxtang, was an ensign and 
lieutenant in Col. John Elder's battalion of rangers in the frontier 
wars from 1756 to 1764, and at the outset of the war for independence, 
aided, by his counsel and his purse, in organizing the associated 
battalions of Lancaster county, which did such effective service in the 
Revolution. When the new county of Dauphin was erected, Mr. Awl was 
appointed one of the commissioners in the act relating thereto, and 
John Harris afterwards appointed him one of the trustees or 
commissioners for the public grounds ceded by him, at the laying out of 
the town of Harrisburg, for public uses.  He was a representative man, 
influential and potential in the county, yet preferred domestic 
retirement to the struggle for office, and when he was offered the 
nomination for representative in the General Assembly, he positively 
declined.  Jacob Awl married, July 26, 1759, by Rev. John Elder, Sarah 
Sturgeon, born September 1, 1739; died June 1809, in Paxtang, and with 
her husband there buried.  She was the daughter of Jeremiah Sturgeon, 
one of the first settlers.