Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Rupp, Israel Daniel

RUPP, Israel Daniel, author, b. in Cumberland county, Pa., 10 July, 1803; d. in Philadelphia, 31 May, 1878. He was born upon a farm and had few educational advantages, but at the age of twenty he had mastered eight languages, and became a teacher. In 1830 he translated into and from the German a large number of religious works, the principal of which was the “Blutige Schau-Platz, oder Geschichte der Martyren” (Cincinnati, 1830), which was originally published in German by the Ephrata brethren. About 1827 he began the preparation of the “History of the Germans of Pennsylvania,” which was not completed at his death. While gathering materials for this work he collected a large amount of data relating to the early history of the different counties in Pennsylvania. In 1836 his first historical compilation was issued from the press, while other volumes of local history followed in rapid succession. He was an indefatigable worker, an excellent German scholar, with good conversational powers, and in his lifetime collected much historical material. He had the peculiar faculty of obtaining facts that few possessed, and hence all his local histories are repositories of zeal and industry. He was not a polished writer, and lacked method in his historical arrangement. He translated, wrote, compiled, and prepared for the press about thirty volumes, but the great work of his life, “The History of the Germans of Pennsylvania,” remains unpublished. Apart from his translations, Mr. Rupp's historical writings are “Geographical Catechism of Pennsylvania” (1836); “History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania” (1844); “History of Religious Denominations of the United States” (Philadelphia, 1844); “History of Berks and Lebanon Counties” (Lancaster, 1844); “History of York County” (1845); “Events in Indian History” (1842); “History of Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, and Schuylkill Counties” (Harrisburg, 1846); “History of Western Pennsylvania” (1846); “History of Dauphin, Cumberland, Franklin, Bedford, Adams, and Perry Counties” (Lancaster, 1848); “History of Somerset, Cambria, and Indiana Counties” (1848); “History of Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Centre, Union, Columbia, Juniata, and Clinton Counties” (1847); “Collection of Names of Thirty Thousand German and other Immigrants to Pennsylvania from 1727 to 1776” (Harrisburg, 1856); “Genealogy of the Descendants at John Jonas Rupp” (1874).