Jonathan Taylor Updegraff (May 13, 1822 – November 30, 1882) was an American physician,

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

and politician who served as a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

from

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

from 1879 to 1882.

Biography

Born near

Mount Pleasant, Ohio Mount Pleasant is a village in Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. The population was 394 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Weirton–Steubenville metropolitan area. Founded in 1803 by anti-slavery Quakers, the village was an early center ...

, a descendant of the German and Dutch

Op den Graeff Op den Graeff () is a German and American family of Dutch origin. They were one of the first families of the Mennonite faith in Krefeld at the beginning of the 17th century. Various family members belonged to Original 13, the first organized imm ...

family, Jonathan was the son of David Benjamin Updegraff, a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

minister, and grandson of Nathan Updegraff, a delegate to Ohio's first constitutional convention. He was also a direct descendant of

Herman op den Graeff Herman op den Graeff, also ''Hermann'' (Kerken, Aldekerk, 26 November 1585 - Krefeld, 27 December 1642) was a Mennonite community leader from Krefeld. Biography Origin Herman op den Graeff was the first historically proven member of the Op ...

mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

leader of

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

, and his grandson

Abraham op den Graeff Abraham Isaacs op den Graeff, also ''Op den Graff'', ''Opdengraef'' as well as ''Op den Gräff'' (c. 1649 – c. 1731) was one of the so-called Original 13, the first closed group of German emigrants to North America, and an original founder of ...

, one of the founders of Germantown and in 1688 signer of the first protest against slavery in colonial America. Jonathan attended private schools and Franklin College. He studied medicine. He was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1845 and later from medical schools in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Although he practiced his profession, he devoted a large share of his time to agricultural pursuits. He served as a surgeon in the Union Army during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. He served in the State senate in 1872 and 1873, and as a

Presidential elector In the United States, the Electoral College is the group of presidential electors that is formed every four years for the sole purpose of voting for the president and vice president in the presidential election. This process is described in ...

for Grant/ Wilson in 1872. He served as delegate to the Republican State convention in 1873 and to the

1876 Republican National Convention The 1876 Republican National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held at the Exposition Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 14–16, 1876. President Ulysses S. Grant had considered seeking a third term, but with various scandals, a ...

. Updegraff was elected as a Republican to the Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses and served from March 4, 1879, until his death in

, November 30, 1882. More than 2000 people viewed his corpse at the Friends Meetinghouse. He served as chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor (Forty-seventh Congress). Updegraff had been reelected to the Forty-eighth Congress prior to his death, and his position was filled by Joseph D. Taylor. He was initially interred in Updegraff Cemetery, near

but was later reinterred in Short Creek Cemetery, west of Mount Pleasant, in 1926. The house built by Updegraff in 1856 remains in Mount Pleasant.

Coat of arms

There is a reference about the Op den Graeff glass paintings of

with a description of Herman op den Graeffs possible, but not proven coat of arms was found in the estate of W. Niepoth (op den Graeff folder) in the archives of the city of Krefeld, who noted a letter dated November 17, 1935 from Richard Wolfferts to Dr Risler: ''Saw the Coat of Arms glass pane in the old museum: 'Herman op den Graeff und Grietgen syn housfrau' or the like. Coat of Arms - In the sign a silver swan in blue. Helmet decoration (I think): Swan growing''.History of the Op Den Graef/Updegraff Family, p 22; by June Shaull Lutz, 1988 (Original at University of Wisconsin - Madison)

References

Retrieved on 2009-05-13 * *

External links

Updegraff Family papers
held b
Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Updegraff, Jonathan Taylor 1822 births 1882 deaths People from Mount Pleasant, Ohio Republican Party Ohio state senators Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Franklin College (New Athens, Ohio) 1872 United States presidential electors Union army surgeons Physicians from Ohio American Quakers Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio Abolitionists from Ohio 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century members of the Ohio General Assembly

Biography

Coat of arms

See also

References

External links