Biography:

Jacob Stouffer (1808–1880) was descended from Swiss immigrants who first moved to Pennsylvania in the early eighteenth century. Jacob's grandfather Abraham Stouffer (1747–1809), a son of Lancaster County inhabitants, moved to Stoufferstown, part of Guilford Township, Franklin County, in 1792. It was there that he built the Falling Spring Mill, where several generations of Stouffer men would live and work. Jacob was born there on March 4, 1808, one of fourteen children born to Abraham’s son Jacob (1773–1843). The younger Jacob inherited the mill one month before his father died on July 3, 1843.  Jacob married Eliza Ryder of Loudon, Pennsylvania in 1833.  Jacob and Eliza had five daughters: Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, Emma, and Annie; and two sons: Amos and Benjamin. Another boy died in infancy between the births of Catherine and Amos.