John Adam Longsdorff
(1795-1847)
Mary Senseman
(1803-1889)
Dr. William Henry Longsdorff
(1834-1905)

 

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Spouses/Children:
1. Lydia Haverstick

Dr. William Henry Longsdorff

  • Born: 24 Mar 1834, Silver Spring, PA
  • Marriage (1): Lydia Haverstick on 7 Apr 1857
  • Died: 22 May 1905, Camp Hill, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania at age 71
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bullet  General Notes:

Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, pages 703-704
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/cumberland/bios/zeamer/longsdorff-wm-h.txt:
WILLIAM H. LONGSDORFF, M. D., a successful practitioner of the medical profession, an honored veteran of the Civil war, a progressive and public-spirited citizen, of Camp Hill, Cumberland county, was born in that county March 24, 1834, of German descent.
Henry Longsdorff, his grandfather, came in an early day from Germany, locating in Cumberland county, Pa., on land two miles west of Mechanicsburg, purchased from the William Penn estate.
Adam Longsdorff, son of Henry, was born in Silver Spring township, Cumberland county. His educational advantages were limited, and on reaching manhood he engaged in farming in his native township. In 1844 he was elected sheriff of the county, serving three years. Returning to Silver Spring township at the close of his term of office, he died at the age of fifty-one years, just six months afterward. He married Mary Senseman, who was born in Cumberland county, daughter of John and Hannah Senseman, and of the children born of this union only Dr. William H. is yet living. The mother died at the age of eighty-five years.
William H. Longsdorff remained on the old homestead in Silver Spring township until he was fifteen, except during his father's term as sheriff, when the family lived in Carlisle. He entered Dickinson. College, and at the end of three years' study there, having determined to enter the medical profession, he placed himself under the instruction of Dr. Dale. In 1856 he was graduated from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and in 1857 from the Pennsylvania Dental School. His first location for the practice of medicine was in Bellevue, Neb., but after about a year there he went to Denver, Colo., then a mere hamlet of three or four cabins and less than fifty men. He spent something like a year and a half practicing medicine and prospecting, and then returned to Cumberland county. In August, 1861, he became first lieutenant of Company I, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and was afterward promoted until he attained the rank of major. He was discharged Jan. 19, 1864, with both legs broken at the ankles. During his enlistment the Doctor participated in some eighty engagements, among them being the hard-fought battles of Perryville, Ky., and Chickamauga, Ga. Returning to Cumberland county after his discharge, he entered upon a general practice of his profession, and built up a large clientele, continuing thus actively engaged until 1881, when he was elected county treasurer for a term of three years. When he went out of office he located in Carlisle, where he soon reached the front rank of successful physicians. In 1897 he made a lengthy visit to the New England States, and on his return to Pennsylvania located at Camp Hill. The following year he erected his present comfortable residence, where he and his family dispense a liberal hospitality.
On April 7, 1857, Dr. Longsdorff was married to Lydia R. Haverstick, daughter of Benjamin and Lydia (Mylin) Haverstick, old settlers of Cumberland county. To this union came the following children: Harold H., a physician practicing in Penn township; Ernest, who died in 1881, aged twenty-one years; Zatae L., who is married to Dr. A. G. Straw, and living in Manchester, N. H., where she is practicing her profession, having graduated at the Woman's Medical College in 1890; Hildegarde H., of Carlisle, where she is practicing medicine, having graduated at the Woman's Medical College in 1891; Jessica W. D., who also took a course in medicine, now married to Rev. H. R. Bozorth, and living in Downingtown, Pa.; and Persis M., who is married to E. W. Sipple and living in Montrose, Susquehanna county. All of the children graduated from Dickinson College, where all alike were distinguished for their high grade of scholarship. All are members of the Presbyterian Church. Politically Dr. Longsdorff has always been an uncompromising Democrat, and it was as a representative of that party that he was elected treasurer, an office he filled with such signal ability that he won high praise from men of all parties. He has also served as township auditor and school director. Whatever responsibility he accepts, he endeavors faithfully to shoulder it well, and he is one of the most useful citizens in his town.
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http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/l/ed_longsdorfWH.htm:
William Henry Longsdorff
(1834-1905)
William H. Longsdorff was born in Silver Spring Township, near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania on March 24, 1834. He was the fourth of seven children born to Adam and Mary Senseman Longsdorff. His father was a farmer and later served as Cumberland County sheriff during which time the family lived at the county seat of Carlisle. The younger Longsdorff entered Dickinson College there with the class of 1856 after education at Dickinson's preparatory school. While there, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society, but withdrew before he took his degree. Longsdorff instead studied medicine and then dentistry in Philadelphia, graduating from the Jefferson Medical College in 1856 and from the Philadelphia Dental School the following year.
Longsdorff then went west and joined a cousin, Henry A. Longsdorff of the Dickinson class of 1851, in Bellevue, Nebraska, where he practiced medicine and served as an alderman in the new city council in 1858. He spent some time in Denver, Colorado prospecting and doctoring, but finally returned to Cumberland County to set up practice there before the outbreak of the Civil War. At the onset of war, Longsdorff mustered in during the autumn of 1861 in Harrisburg as a first lieutenant of Company I of the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry Volunteers. His war was an eventful one, as his regiment fought in scores of engagements, mostly in the departments of the Cumberland and Tennessee, including Perryville, Stone River, Chickamauga, Knoxville, and Keneshaw Mountain. Longsdorff was promoted to captain in June 1862 and moved to the regimental staff as provost major in August 1864. After injury, he was discharged in January 1865 and returned to Carlisle, Pennsylvania and his medical and dental practice. Longsdorff interrupted his services when he became Cumberland County treasurer for a three-year term between 1881 and 1884. He was also a founding member of the County Medical Society.
Longsdorff married Lydia R. Haverstick of Cumberland County in April 1857. The couple had two sons and four daughters. The family had an historic impact on the future of Dickinson College when Longsdorff volunteered his daughters as qualified students for his alma mater's experiment in co-education in 1884. His eldest son, Harold, born in Nebraska, had already graduated from Dickinson in 1879. His eldest daughter, Zatae, became the first female student to graduate from the century-old institution in 1887. Sisters Hildegarde, in the class of 1888, Jessica, class of 1891, and Persis, class of 1894, all attended Dickinson in turn. Their father practiced medicine in the area, working from the same office he opened in 1859. He was an enthusiastic Mason and an active member of the Second Presbyterian Church in Carlisle. William Henry Longsdorff died in nearby Camp Hill on May 22, 1905. He was seventy-one years old.


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William married Lydia Haverstick on 7 Apr 1857. (Lydia Haverstick was born on 7 Mar 1836 in Silver Spring, PA.)




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