BIO:  Joseph A. Ramsay, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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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, Shrewsbury Township, Pg 180

REV. JOSEPH A. RAMSAY was born in Baltimore, April 5, 1815.  His father, Joseph 
Ramsay, came from Ireland to America in 1796, and stopped in York County, where he 
married Agnes Andrews, a native of York County.  He was a shipsmith, and worked in 
1812 under George Stiles, mayor of Baltimore, on the gun-carriages of Fort McHenry.  
Joseph A. was educated in St. Mary’s College, and lived in Baltimore fifty years.  
Having learned the trade of shipsmith he formed a partnership, at the age of twenty-
one, with Charles Hergisheimer, and continued four years; then engaged in the book 
business twenty-five years; bought a farm in 1865, on the Pennsylvania and Maryland 
line, on the Baltimore & York Turnpike; moved to it in 1866, and has resided there 
ever since.  He was a member of the Baltimore city council in 1840-41; was one of 
ten “Maine Law Delegates” to the house of delegates in the Maryland legislature in 
1853-54; was brought up in the Presbyterian Church, but united with the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in 1841; was licensed to preach in 1873, and has preached 
occasionally since that time; assisted by a liberal donation in building “Asbury 
Chapel,” at New Market, and preaches there.  He is an honorary member of the P. of 
H. and a member of the I. O. O. F.  He was married October 29, 1840, at Pimlico, 
Md., to Mary Agnes Shaw, a daughter of Daniel Shaw and a member of the Presbyterian 
Church.