BIO: Wesley M. STANFORD, 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, pages 277-279.
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  STANFORD, BISHOP W. M., was born in Rockland township, Venango 
county, Pa., March 15, 1846.  Being a farmer's son he was raised to 
hard work on the farm till he was twenty years of age, and got but from 
three to four months schooling in a year.  When he was eighteen years 
of age he began teaching in the winter season for but $23 a month, 
teaching every winter thereafter till his twenty-fifty year.  He made 
his money in the winter by teaching, and spent it in the summer 
attending school, first at Greensburg Seminary, Summit county, Ohio, 
from the spring of 1865 to the fall of 1866, and then at Mount Union 
College, Stark county, Ohio, until the spring of 1871, when he 
graduated in the scientific and commercial courses.  The wages of his 
first winter's teaching not being sufficient to venture away from home 
to school, he worked for about three months on a railroad, digging and 
shoveling, to secure further funds.  Having to furnish all his own 
money, it took great frugality to get through the summer's schooling on 
the funds made by his winter's teaching.  He did his own cooking and 
house work in order to make ends meet.  Being ambitious in his studies, 
he nearly always stood at the head of his classes, and was a most 
formidable antagonist to meet in debate.
  Nearly one year before his graduation, on August 2, 1870, he was 
united in marriage with Miss Rosa A. Weimer, of the southern part of 
Stark county, Ohio, and then, with his wife, taught a graded school of 
two departments the following winter in Osnaburg, Ohio, and with the 
money thus made finished his collegiate course the next summer, and 
came out free of all debt.  In the spring of 1872 he entered the 
Pittsburg Conference of the Evangelical Association, and was sent for 
his first year in the ministry as a missionary to Franklin, Venango 
county, Pa.  Here he remained three years, having about sixty 
conversions a year as the fruits of his labors.  His next two years 
were spent at Homeworth, Ohio, where, in connection with his pastorate, 
he pursued the study of Greek and German again in his alma mater.  He 
next spent a most successful three years' pastorate in Pittsburgh, Pa.; 
thence for two years in Johnstown, Pa., and was then called to 
Cleveland, Ohio, as associate editor of the official English church 
organ, the Evangelical Messenger, his chief being Dr. H. B. Hartzler, 
afterwards one of Mr. D. L. Moody's co-workers in the great training 
schools at Northfield, Mass.  He remained on this paper for over six 
years, during which time said paper attained the highest circulation it 
ever had, either before or since.  In the memorable General Conference 
of 1887, in Buffalo, N. Y., which marked the beginning of a schism in 
said church, he, with his chief, being allied with the American 
spirited element of the church, as opposed to an ecclesiastical 
autocracy on the other side, and being at that time a little in the 
minority, were of necessity defeated.  The next spring he again took a 
pastorate in Canton, Ohio under the direction of his old conference.  
In about eighteen months he had gathered a harvest of over one hundred 
souls, when he was elected as editor and publisher of an independent 
church paper, known as the Evangelical, printed at Harrisburg, Pa., 
which paper he conducted most successfully during the stormy years of 
1890 and 1891, when, at the General Conference in Philadelphia, in the 
fall of 1891, he was elected to the Episcopacy, continuing until the 
special General Conference in the fall of 1894, held in Naperville, 
Ill., when he was re-elected to said office for a term of four years.  
This was the first General Conference of the American wing of the 
church, constituting about one-half of the whole of this country, and 
at which conference a new discipline was made and adopted, and a new 
name assumed, viz.:  The United Evangelical Church.
  During the course of his pastoral and editorial life, Bishop Stanford 
served six years as the secretary of his conference, and was sent for 
seven years as a delegate to the General Board of Missions.  He was 
also a member of the General Conference of 1883, 1887, 1891 and 1894.  
When he once became convinced that a certain course was right, he never 
stopped to think of policy, but set his course without hesitation, 
leaving all results with God. And when he started out to do a thing he 
knew no such word as fail, and this is largely the secret of whatever 
success he has attained in life.
  Bishop Stanford was one of four children, two boys and two girls, the 
other three all being married and following agricultural pursuits in 
Northwestern Pennsylvania.  His father, Abraham Stanford, was born in 
1817, was an industrious farmer of Scotch descent, and died in 1882. 
His mother was born of German parentage in 1826, and died in 1893.  His 
mother's maiden name was Domer, being one of a family of nine children, 
three girls and six boys.  Four of the boys were preachers; one, named 
Jacob, a member of the Church of God, attained to the assistant 
editorship of the official paper of his denomination, overworked 
himself, and died at the age of forty-one years.  Two, named 
respectively George and John, were both leading men in the same church 
with Bishop Stanford, having both of them served for four consecutive 
terms of four years each as presiding elders, and having been members 
of every successive General Conference from 1875 to 1891.  Abraham 
Domer, D.D. after graduating at Allegheny College, Meadville, early in 
his life, started out as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and attained also to the presiding eldership in his church, and thus 
forged to the front rank among his brethren.  A little further out in 
relationship on his mother's side were many more preachers and men of 
prominence, one of whom, the Rev. Samuel Domer, D.D., having been for 
many years pastor of the leading Lutheran congregation of Washington, 
D. C.  Bishop Stanford comes of a long-lived race of people on both his 
father's and his mother's side, some of them back in the third 
generation living to the ripe ages of from ninety to one hundred years.
  Mrs. Rosa A. Stanford, wife of the bishop, maiden name Weimer, was 
born in the southern part of Stark county, Ohio, March 3, 1845, of 
German parentage.  Being a farmer's daughter, she, too, got but from 
three to four months' schooling in a year, when, in 1863, at the age of 
seventeen, she attended a term of school at Greensburg Seminary, Summit 
county, Ohio, and in the following winter taught her first term.  In 
1864 she attended the spring and fall terms of Roanoke Academy, 
Huntington county, Ind., and in the winter of the same year taught the 
intermediate department of the same school. In the fall of 1865 she 
again attended at Greensburg, Ohio, and thereafter followed teaching 
until her marriage in the summer of 1870.  She was one of a large 
family of children, several of whom attained to prominence in their 
specific vocations.  Oliver Weimer, a brother, was a musician and 
vocalist, whose energy was greater than his body could bear, and so 
died at an early age, and Miss Katie Weimer, a younger sister, 
struggled with both health and other difficulties until she became a 
leading artist, and died before she had time to reap the returns of her 
sacrifice and toil.  Prof. Solomon Weimer, a younger brother, after a 
common school training, began his collegiate training at Mount Union 
College, Ohio, and finished it at Otterbein University, Westerville, 
Ohio.  Afterwards, for some years, he taught in Navarre, Ohio, and then 
stepped up to one of the highest positions in the Central high schools 
of Cleveland, Ohio, where he is still a much esteemed and successful 
educator.
  To Bishop and Mrs. Stanford there were born six children, two sons 
and four daughters.   The eldest, Orpha Blanche Stanford, was born near 
Beach City, Ohio, April 26, 1871.  After receiving a good common school 
education, she afterwards made a specialty of art and music, until she 
became a teacher of both, and on the 22d of May, 1895, was united in 
marriage with Mr. Frank S. Becker, teller of the leading bank in 
Lebanon, Pa.  Mr. Becker has also been president of the school board of 
Lebanon for a number of years.  The next is Vincent W., of whom a 
sketch appears elsewhere in this volume.  The next in age is Abraham 
LeRoy Stanford, who was born in Homeworth, Ohio, November 27, 1876.  
Aside from a common school education, he attended several terms at 
Schuylkill Seminary, at Fredericksburg, Pa., where he showed marked 
proficiency in the line of mathematics.  He afterwards went into 
training in Catasaqua, Pa., to become a machinist, in which work he 
shows marked adaptability.  Being yet young in years, his life work is 
not clearly chosen, but he bids fair to be able to hoe his own row.  
Next comes Zella Corine Stanford, born in Pittsburgh, Pa., June 20, 
1878; then Laura Eva Stanford, born in Johnstown, Pa., October 2, 1881, 
and lastly Mina Grace Stanford, born in Cleveland, Ohio, September 8, 
1887. Zella and Laura have already finished the ward schools, and are 
both now attending the high school of Harrisburg, and stand among the 
best in their classes.  Little Grace is fast on the same track in her 
studies, has an ambition to be at the head of her classes, and bids 
fair to overtake her older sisters by and by. 
  This family is also quite a musical family.  Blanch uses the piano, 
Vincent the banjo, Roy the guitar and the mandolin, Zella the mandolin, 
Laura the piano, and Grace is an admirer of all.  But of all the 
others, LeRoy seems to show the most natural adaptability for 
instrumental music.

Note: Wesley M. (54), Rose W. (55), Zella C. (21), Laura E. (18) and 
Grace M. (11) Stanford are listed in the 1900 Harrisburg Ward 6, 
Dauphin county census.