Reverend Abraham Ramsey Anderson

Reverend Abraham Ramsey Anderson was born 3 February 1832 in Chartiers Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, married Nancy Jane Shaw on 11 October 1860 in Washington, Pennsylvania, and served as a Presbyterian minister for over fifty years. He died 17 July 1919 in Venice, Washington County, Pennsylvania, and was buried there. Age 87.

Maggie Eesley’s catalogue note on his young-man cabinet card — an oval portrait pasted on sepia-colored card stock, about 1⅜” by 1⅞”, dated around 1860:

Sepia-toned photo shows a serious expression on this young man with pronounced sideburns, modeled after General Burnside of the Civil War. Abraham went on to become the beloved minister for over 50 years of the Presbyterian Church.

He and Nancy Jane raised six children — Anna Janett (b. May 1862, m. William Kelso 1891, d. 1949), John Wallace (b. 21 June 1864, m. Mary Ellen Lloyd 1888 in Kansas, m. Inez Keefer 1900, d. 1953), Mary Belle (b. 6 October 1866, no marriage or death date documented), Margaret Florence (b. 23 March 1869 — the recipient of the 1894 letter), Alice Gertrude (b. 9 July 1871, m. Robert T. McMaster, d. 1962, Chuck’s great-grandmother through Peggy McMaster Eesley), and William James (b. 9 February 1875, no marriage or death date documented). Two of the four sisters married, only one son left a documented descendant line, and only one daughter — Alice — connects forward to the present. ## The 1860 wedding-year double portrait

The double portrait of Abraham and Nancy Jane — she standing in a dark bell-sleeved dress with a white collar at the throat, hair pulled up; he seated in a dark suit and vest, long beard with a clean-shaven upper lip in the period Presbyterian-clerical style, hand resting on his knee — arrived in this archive in June 2026 from Chuck’s keeping. The portrait sits at the 11 October 1860 marriage moment, the studio frame a recently-married couple in Washington County, Pennsylvania would have sat for in the first months of the Civil War.

Maggie’s caption on the same frame recorded the family memory of them as a couple:

My great-grandparents were known for their sense of humor, kindness, and love of children.

The 1894 letter

On Monday, 21 May 1894, he wrote a long letter to his daughter Margaret Florence Anderson on stiff lined paper, 7¾” by 10”. The letter is one of two surviving multi-page letter primary sources in this archive — the other being Charlie Eesley’s Vietnam letters seventy-five years later. The full document and partial transcription: Letter from Rev. Abraham Anderson to his daughter Margaret, 21 May 1894.

He is Chuck’s great-great-grandfather through Alice → Peggy McMaster Eesley → Charles McMaster Eesley → Chuck.

Sources: Maggie Eesley, Four Generations of the Eesley Family (PowerPoint archive); deck IDs AAR002 en (young portrait), ARA_NJSA001 en (with wife, 1860), MALetterSide A 001 en and MALetterSide B 001 en (1894 letter).