Jeremiah Seldomridge
Biography from Biographical Annals of Lancaster County, PA, page 486
Submitted by Suzanne NobleJEREMIAH SELDOMRIDGE, a retired farmer of Leacock township, Lancaster county, where he is spending the closing years of a long and useful life, was born in Salisbury township, this county, Jan. 4, 1827, son of Isaac and Rachel (Glauser) Seldomridge. His parents were born in Leacock and East Earl townships, respectively, and both died in Earl township.
Isaac Seldomridge was a farmer and an industrious man, but for fifteen years prior to his death he lived retired. He passed away in 1884, at the age of eighty-four, and his wife died in 1878, when seventy-six years old. Both were buried in Roland's cemetery, in Earl township. They were members of the Lutheran Church. The following named children were born to them: George, who died when about sixty-six years old; Jeremiah, mentioned below; Elizabeth, the widow of Amos Skiles, of Springville, Lancaster county; Isaac, who died at the age of fifty-eight; Catherine, the wife of Peter Dague, of Earl township; Jacob, a farmer of Earl township; Benjamin, a saddler living in Upper Leacock township; Rachel, deceased wife of Isaac Brubaker; Mary Ann, the wife of Jonathan Hildebrand, of Manheim township; Andrew, deceased; Amos, a retired farmer of Earl township.
George Seldomridge, the grandfather of Jeremiah, was born in Lancaster county, married there and there reared his family. His father was also George. He was the son of George and a grandson of Andrew, who, with his wife, came form Switzerland. The name was originally spelled Zeltenreich. This Andrew owned a tract of one and a quarter acres in Earl township known as Rolands cemetery, which he gave to the church for the nominal sum of five shillings. He was also one of the founders of the church there.
Jeremiah Seldomridge was married in Lancaster Sept. 2, 1852, to Susanna C. Eckert, by whom he had the following children: Jeminah, deceased wife of John Fenninger, a farmer of Leacock township, by whom she had six children; Eckert G., deceased; Mary Ann, who married George Knobb, of Leacock township, and who has two children.
Mrs. Susanna C. (Eckert) Seldomridge was born in Leacock township Feb. 14, 1828, daughter of Jacob K. and Hannah ( Varnes) Eckert, farming people of Leacock township, who are now numbered with the "great majority", he having died in 1864, at the age of sixty-four years, and Mrs. Eckert in 1871, at the age of sixty-eight years. Their ashes rest in Roland's cemetery. During his last years Mr. Eckert lived retired. To them were born the following children: Evaline, late wife of Josiah Zook; John V., deceased; George, a retired farmer in Lancaster; Susanna C., Mrs. Seldomridge; Mary Ann, deceased wife of Robert Hoar; Rebecca, married to Moses Hess, and now living retired in Perry county, Pa.; Elizabeth, married to Henry Rutter, and now living retired in Intercourse; Henry, deceased; C. Ludwig, in Philadelphia; Jemina, the widow of Henry Horst, living in Lancaster. George and Susan Eckert, the paternal grandparents of Mrs. Seldomridge, were farming people of Lancaster county.
Jeremiah Seldomridge remained with his parents on the farm until about the time of his marriage, when he set up for himself on a neighboring farm, in 1851 commencing farming in Upper Leacock township. There he remained until 1864, when he established himself and his family on a place in Leacock township, in the cultivation of which he was engaged until 1893. That year he removed to his present home, and has since lived retired. For nine years he has been school director, and he takes the side of the Republican party in all political questions. For the past thirty-nine years Mr. Seldomridge has been an elder of the Reformed Church, and still holds the office, and his clean and wholesome life, his industrious habits and his kindly disposition have given much strength and force to his religious labors. The family of seven sons, of which he is one, has the remarkable distinction that all are absolutely temperate in all things, not one of them having ever used tobacco, in any form, and all abstaining from intoxicants.
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