BIO:  Lafayette M. Herman, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, Newberry Township, Pg 154

LAFAYETTE M. HERMAN was born in Newberrytown, York County, September 13, 1853, 
and is the second son of William P. Herman, of German descent, who was born in 
Fishing Creek Valley, York County, and was the father of eight children – two 
sons and six daughters – and of Jane, daughter of Joseph McCreary, who was of 
Irish ancestry, though native born, and who, during his life time, held the 
offices of supervisor, overseer of the poor, justice of the peace, and 
commissioner of the County of York, and under whose supervision the present 
county alms house was built.  William P. Herman, after the death of his father, 
Samuel Herman, residing in Fishing Creek Valley, among the friends of his mother 
(whose maiden name was Mary Prowell), until becoming of age, when he married and 
removed to Newberrytown, where he remained engaged in the manufacture of cigars, 
until the time of his death, which occurred September 25, 1868, in the forty-
eighth years of his age, leaving to survive him a wife, two sons, Clayton and L. 
M., and two daughters, Sadie E. and Eva.  L. M. Herman, at the time of his 
father’s death, was fifteen years of age, and had to support the remaining 
family, consisting of a mother and two sisters.  At the age of fifteen years he 
left the public schools and continued to work among the cigar factories for two 
years, at the end of which time, by his own exertions, and through the kindness 
of others, he attended a select school at Goldsboro, Penn., and was enabled to 
procure from W. H. Kain, county superintendent, a provisional certificate to 
teach in the common schools of the county for a year.  He applied to the 
directors of his township and they granted him a school, which he taught three 
successive terms.  During the summer vacations he attended the Cumberland Valley 
State Normal School until enable to procure a professional certificate, granted 
by county superintendent, D. G. Williams, and up to the present writing he was 
taught twelve successive years in his native township.  June 10, 1882, he 
received from Prof. E. E. Higbee, superintendent of public instruction, a 
permanent certificate.  In politics he is a Republican, and has held the office 
of the township clerk for seven successive terms.  At the expiration of his 
seventh term he was elected to the office of justice of the peace of Newberry 
Township for the term of five years, beginning on the first Monday in May, 1882.  
At various times he has been committeeman, and represented the district as 
delegate to county conventions.  January 1, 1883, he engaged in manufacturing 
cigars.  He is unmarried, and still remains at the old homestead, with the 
family, which consists of his mother and one sister, Eva – Sadie E. having died 
April 14, 1884, in Urbana, Ohio.  The family are members of the Bethel, or Church 
of God.