BIO:  Robert Ralston BLYTHE, Hamiltonban Township, Adams County, PA

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Page 441

ROBERT RALSTON BLYTHE, retired farmer, P.O. Fairfield, is a grandson of David 
Blythe, who emigrated from Fifeshire, Scotland, in the first half of the last 
century and settled on “Carroll’s Tract,” in Hamiltonban Township, this county 
(then York County), where he built a log house, which is yet standing.  His wife 
was Elizabeth, a daughter of William Finley, a brother of the then president of 
Princeton College.  Both died in the house he had built-David Blythe in 1831, 
and his widow several years later.  The names of their children are James, Ann, 
Calvin, Samuel, Ezra, Tirza, David and Finley.  Ezra was a member of the 
Assembly, afterward senator, and Calvin was a judge of the Mifflin and Dauphin 
Counties’ Circuit, and afterward was collector of the port of Philadelphia.  
James, father of Robert R., was always a farmer, living at home until his 
marriage, when he removed to the stone house built for him by his father, where 
the subject of this sketch was born, and which he owns now.  He was born in 
1771, and died in April, 1857, in his eighty-seventh year.  He was married May 
30, 1809, to Rebecca Slemmons, who was born in 1778, and died in 1845, in her 
sixty-eighth year.  They were the parents of the following named children:  
Washington, married to Sarah Culbertson, removed to Alexandria, Va., where he 
died, and where his widow now lives; William, married to Eveline Webb, now 
living in St. Louis Mo.; Robert Ralston (first), who died in infancy; Robert 
Ralston (second), the subject of this sketch; Elizabeth, wife of Robert 
McCormick, now living in Emporia, Kas.; David B., married to Margaret Finley, 
after whose decease he married a lady in Kirkwood, Ill., where his is now 
living.  Robert R. was born July 6, 1817, and until eight years ago lived on the 
place of his birth.  He worked for his father until his marriage, after when he 
and his brother, David B., farmed the place until the latter went to Fairfield 
to keep store, when Robert R. took the farm alone, and, after his father’s 
decease, bought it.  In 1878 he gave up active life, rented his farm, and 
retired to Fairfield.  November 20, 1849, he was married to Sarah D. Hagey, who 
died January 8, 1858, leaving two children:  Elizabeth, wife of James 
Cunningham, of Highland Township, this county, and Sarah Dinwidie, wife of W. D. 
Clark Marshall, of this township.  January 8, 1861, Mr. Blythe married Rachel E. 
Culbertson, born May 8, 1842, in Franklin County, Penn., daughter of Hugh 
Culbertson, then living in Hamiltonban Township, Adams County, and to this union 
one child was born, who died in infancy.  Mr. and Mrs. Blythe are members of 
Lower Marsh Creek Presbyterian Church, of which he has been an elder for twelve 
years.