ELIAS ALBAUGH 1828-1922

To enter the dark valley and shadow in literal fulfillment of the words of Eliphas, counselor of Job, who said, "Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in its season", is an innate hope of every man, the experience of few men. Such fulfillment was the accomplishment in the life and death of Elias Albaugh. More than that, in fullness of years beyond those of his fellow man, and in maturity and ripeness of character that needed only to be garnered, he continued to live and to tarry for the deferred coming of the reaper.

Elias Albaugh was a son of John and Margaret (Schenck) Albaugh and was born in Allegheny county, NY., on November 25, 1828, and died as a result of general decrepitude after a few weeks of illness at his home on Albaugh Hill, December 27, 1922, aged 94 years, 1 month, and 2 days.

When the subject of the sketch was seven years of age, his parents moved to Sugar Creek, Crawford County, Pa., where he grew to manhood, and from this place the family came to this section.

On April 6, 1852, at Tylersburg, Elias Albaugh united in marriage with Mrs. Margaret Blanck, whose maiden name was Stanford, and the young couple began housekeeping at Crosse's Furnace on Little Hickory. The next year, in 1853, Mr. Albaugh purchased a tract of land which was covered with original timber and on which the woodsman's ax had not yet felled a single tree and started to clear up a farm.

He erected a log house, and in that the seven children of the family were born. On this same farm, Mr. Albaugh resided continuously during the rest of his natural lifetime, or for the period of 70 years, following only agricultural pursuits.

Mrs. Albaugh died 17 years ago, and surviving the husband and father are one son, A. W. Albaugh, steward of the county home, and two daughters, Mrs. George Atwell of Albaugh Hill and Mrs. Andrew Emert of Tionesta, Pa., also one brother, William Albaugh, and one sister, Mrs. Mart Taylor, both of East Hickory, Pa.

Soon after his marriage Mr. Albaugh was converted in a Methodist meeting held in a log school house on Church Hill. He united with that denomination, and later when the Evangelical Association became the leading church in his community he changed his church relationship in favor of the latter denomination. From his early Christian experience, Mr. Albaugh remained steadfast in the faith and died in the hope of eternal life.

He expressed himself a few weeks before the end came as desiring to live until Christmas, and shortly before he died had a dream or vision in which he saw and shook hands with his two daughters who had died in early childhood. Mr. Albaugh was a man of excellent moral qualities. He was a kind husband and father and a good neighbor, was truthful, honest and square in all his dealings, and was honored and esteemed as a grand old man by all who knew him.

Although having lived more than a score of years above the allotted period of man's lifetime, and having suffered privation and hardships incident only to the life of the pioneer of which present generations can form only a faint conception, Mr. Albaugh retained to the end of life his strong mentality and almost to the end a remarkable degree of physical vigor and animation. He possessed in unclouded memory a fund of anecdote and reminiscence relating to pioneer life and conversational proclivity and style that made him a most interesting and valuable character, one whose place in that respect must forever remain empty, and whose unwritten knowledge of early history and pioneer days must pass into oblivion.