George Augustus Prugh
GEORGE AUGUSTUS PRUGH, late of Elderton, Armstrong county, was a member of the borough council at the time of his death and had held various other public positions in that place, of which he was long a highly respected citizen.
Mr. Prugh was born Feb. 13, 1839, in Westmoreland county, Pa., near Saltsburg, son of Abner and Elizabeth (Bortz) Prugh. His father always followed farming, and owned a tract of 135 acres in Plum Creek township, Armstrong Co., Pa., whither he removed when his son Augustus was three years old. He married Elizabeth Bortz, and they had a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters: Caroline married Robert Thompson, of Armstrong county, a teacher, and both are now deceased (they had eight children); Anna married Jacob Shewfler, a blacksmith, of Westmoreland county, who is now deceased, and they had ten children; James, who died at Greensburg, Pa., in 1907, had taught for fifty-two years without losing a term (he left a widow and seven children); George Augustus is mentioned below; William, who died July 3, 1911, was a teacher for forty years (his widow lives with Mrs. George Augustus Prugh at Elderton; by his first wife he had four children); Melissa married William Wyatt, a farmer, of Atwood, Armstrong county, and had six children; Michael, who died March 6, 1911, married Malvina Fryer, of South Bend township; Elizabeth married Robert McLanahan, a farmer, had two children, and died in August, 1895.
George Augustus Prugh (always known as Augustus Prugh) was just three years old when his father moved to Plum Creek township, where he passed the remainder of his life. He became one of the best known citizens of the borough of Elderton, which he served in various official capacities, holding the positions of school director, tax collector and member of the town council, in which latter office he was serving at the time of his death, which occurred June 29, 1912, in Elderton. He had been in poor health for three years. Mr. Prugh was a prominent member of the Presbyterian Church, which he served as elder for twenty-five years, and he was also deeply interested in the Sunday school of which he was superintendent for eleven years, missing but two days' attendance in that period.
On Sept. 10, 1862, Mr. Prugh married Sarah Elgin, who died in September, 1892, the mother of five children, two of who died in infancy. The other three are: Belle, born July 3, 1863, unmarried, who lives in Westmoreland county; Herbert, born in 1869, who works the farm that was occupied in turn by his grandfather and father (he married Agnes Rankin and has three children); and Pearl, who married Ed Sheffler, a wagon builder, of Westmoreland county, Pa., and has five children. For his second wife Mr. Prugh married, on July 2, 1895, Eva Bamwell, daughter of Robert Bamwell, a farmer of Blacklick township, Indiana county. Mrs. Prugh took a course at the Indiana (Pa.) State Normal School. No children were born to this union.
Source: Pages 793-794, Armstrong County, Pa., Her People, Past and Present, J.H. Beers & Co., 1914
Transcribed October 1998 by James R Hindman for the Armstrong County Beers Project
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