USA > Indiana > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong counties, Pennsylvania > Part 40
USA > Pennsylvania > Armstrong County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong counties, Pennsylvania > Part 40
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D. E. Carnahan was reared on his father's White township farm, where he was carefully trained in the work and management of a farm. He attended the public schools, in which he obtained a good business education. Leaving
297
INDIANA COUNTY.
school, he was engaged in farming and stock- raising until 1889, when lie concluded to embark in the general mercantile business. He formed a partnership with E. G. Orr, and they pur- chased the mercantile establishment of G. J. Jones, at Shelocta, which they successfully con- ducted until February, 1890, under the firm- name of E. G. Orr & Co. He then purchased Mr. Orr's share in the store and associated his father with himself in the business, under the firm-name of Carnahan & Son. They have a large and conveniently arranged establishment which is well filled with a stock of goods worth in the neighborhood of $7,000. Their trade is
such that their yearly sales average $12,000 and are constantly increasing. They study the wants of their customers and aim to select goods to suit the tastes of the public, which they have been very successful in satisfying since entering into the mercantile business.
D. E. Carnalian is a prominent and active member of the Junior Order of the United American Mechanics and was principally instru- mental in starting the council of that order, which was organized at Shelocta in the summer of 1890. He has won commercial success and the position he holds in the confidence of the public, through his own efforts and his correct business methods.
In September, 1890, he united in marriage with Belle Ralston at Niagara Falls, New York.
-
TTON. JOHN YOUNG, after whom Young township was named, was the first pres- ident judge of the courts of Indiana county. He was born in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, July 12, 1762, and was a member of an ancient Scottish family, distinguished for its wealth, learning and high rank, branches of it having been ennobled before the reign of the unhappy Mary, Qucen of Scots. His father, Jolin Young, was a wealthy merchant of Glasgow,
John young
and gained a reputation for great liberality and kindness of heart, which qualities his son, Judge Young, inherited in an eminent degree. John Young bailed his brother for a large amount, for which debt his property was all sold, and he died in ten days afterwards in consequence of the anxiety of mind which that event caused him. He had five children : Judge John, Thomas, Douglas, William and Mary.
At the time of his father's death, Judge Young was a student at law and clerk in the office of Sir Walter Scott's father. After pro- curing places for liis younger brothers, lie came to Philadelphia, where he read law withi Judge Wilson, and was admitted to the bar January 8, 1786. The high character of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish settlements in this part of the State and their great prosperity induced Judge Young, in 1789, to leave his practice in Phila- delphia and open an office at Greensburg, Westmoreland county. He soon gained a large
298
BIOGRAPHIES OF INDIANA COUNTY.
practice in that and adjoining counties by rea- son of his ability as a lawyer and his absolute integrity of character. His participation in the negotiations between the contesting partics in the " Whiskey Insurrection" added largely to his popularity and materially increased his cli- entage. In 1791 he served as captain of a company that was raised to protect the western frontier from Indian raids; but when the dan- ger was past he declined all further offer of military command, and returned to the prac- tice of his profession, which he pursucd with eminent success until 1805. In that year a vacancy occurred in the president-judgeship of the Tenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, then composed of the counties of Somerset, Cambria, Indiana, Armstrong and Westmore- land, and Gov. McKean appointed Mr. Young to fill that vacancy on March 1, 1806. Judge Young held the office until the latter part of 1837, when, admonished by bodily infirmities, he resigned and retired to private life, to enjoy the repose appropriate to advanced age, and sweetened by the retrospections of a long and successful career of distinguished activity and usefulness. He survived his resignation but a little over three years. He died October 6, 1840, and his remains lie entombed in the old St. Clair cemetery at Greensburg, Pa.
In 1794 he married Maria Barclay, by whom he had eight children : Hetty, who married E.
N. Clopper, and whose daughter is the wife of William M. Stewart, of Philadelphia (see his sketch); Frank B., Ellen M., wife of Ephraim Douglass, of Uniontown, Pa .; Sta- tira, Joseph J .; Elizabeth Forrester, wife of J. F. Woods; Mary Y., wife of R. C. Bur- gess; Edward D., and a daughter who died in infancy. Mrs. Young died in 1811, and Judge Young married, some two years later, Statira Barclay, who bore him two children: Mary J., wife of Hon. Henry D. Foster, and Ste- phen B.
Judge Young was well versed in many lan- guages, speaking some seven tongues, one of which he acquired after retiring from the bench. Of him are existing many pleasing legends, going to demonstrate his possession of the attributes of an unusually lofty and tender character. After coming to this country, Judge Young became the hereditary laird of For- rester, succeeding to the entailed estate of Ester Culmore, in the county of Stirling, Scot- land, and thereafter in that country was known as Hon. John Young Forrester, while in the United States he was Hon. John Young. A romantic interest- is attached to the story of this inheritance, uniting as it does in the same individual the republican simplicity of a new world and the ancestral pride of the old, and thus John Young was an American judge and Scottish laird at the same time.
GEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
ARMSTRONG COUNTY.
Boundaries and area - Geology - Surface features -
Indians- Armstrong's expedition - Battles of Kit- tanning and Blanket Hill - Brady's fight at the mouth of Big Mahoning creek - Early settlers - County formation and official lists - Assessment lists of 1807 - Distilleries, salt wells and furnaces - Railroads - Great civil war- Religious - Educational - Jour- nalism- The bar - Political history - Census statis- tics - Oil excitement - Progress and development - Miscellaneous.
A
RMSTRONG COUNTY, Pennsylvania,
lies between the seventy-ninth and eighti- eth meridians of west longitude and the. fortieth and forty-second parallels of north latitude- It is an irregular pentagon in shape and con- tains six hundred and twenty-five square miles of territory, which is divided into twenty-four townships. Armstrong county is bounded on the northi by Clarion county ; on the east by Jefferson and Indiana counties ; on the south by Westmoreland county and on the west by Butler county.
The Kiskiminetas river is its southern bound- ary from Indiana county to the Allegheny river-15 miles in a straight line ; whence to Butler county, two miles more, the Allegheny
river is the boundary. The western boundary line is a straight line running due north from where it crosses Buffalo creek at Freeport, to where it intersects the Allegheny river near Foxburg, a distance of 332 miles. The north- ern boundary line follows the Allegheny river from Butler county to the mouth of Red Bank creek, 14} miles in a direct line, but nearly double that distance as the stream runs ; thence up Red Bank creek to Jefferson county-18 miles. The east boundary line runs due south from Jefferson county 18 miles to the top of the divide overlooking the north fork of Plum creek ; whence to the Kiskiminetas river, 20} miles.
Armstrong county was a part of the follow- ing counties for the respective times specified :
Chester, from 1682 to May 10, 1729.
Lancaster, May 10, 1729, to Jan. 27, 1750.
Cumberland, Jan. 27, 1750, to March 9, 1771.
Bedford, March 9, 1771, to Sept. 26, 1773.
From 1773 to 1800 its territory was parts of the counties which are named on page 307 of this work.
299
300
GEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
Geology .- Prof. Leslie describes the geologi- cal structure of Armstrong county as follows :
" The whole surface is sculptured in all di- rections by the erosion of the Barren measures, lying almost horizontally, although several wide and gentle rolls traverse it from northeast to southwest, bringing the Lower Productive coal measures above water level along the Allegheny river and its great branches from the east, the Kiskiminetas, Crooked, Cowanshannock, Pine, Mahoning, and Redbank creeks; and on the western side, along Buffalo creek, Glade run and other small streams descending from Butler county. The Pittsburgh coal bed occupies only a short and narrow basin in the southeast corner of the county. The Barren measures are 600 feet thick, including the Mahoning sand- stone at the bottom, the long horizontal out- crops of which edge all the valleys of the county with cliffs, and rough their steep slopes with fallen rocks. Two coal beds, each with a limestone bed beneath it, are mined near water level at Freeport, and rise slowly nortlı- ward until they merely cap the highest liills. The three next coals are mined at Kittanning, the highest one having a limestone bed under it, and the lowest one overlying the Ferrifcrous Limestone, which appears at the surface in southern Armstrong only where Crooked creek is crossed by the Paddy's Run axis. It has isolated outcrops from three to five miles long at Greendale on Cowanshannock; on both forks of Pine creek from Echo to Pine P. O., and near Goheenville ; and an unbroken outcrop along both sides of the Allegheny river and Mahoning and Redbank creeks from Kittanning north- ward. It varies from 4 to 18 feet in thickness, and carries the famous " buhrstone" brown hematite iron-ore on which ran in early years the old Rock, Bear Creek, Allegheny, Buffalo, Ore Hill, Cowanshannock, Mahoning, America, Phoenix, Pine Creek, Olney, Stewardson, Mon- ticello, and Great Western cold-blast charcoal furnaces (with their forges and rolling-mills),
some of which were changed to hot-blast coke furnaces. The two Clarion coal beds (beneath the limestone) only appear above water level in the northern townships; and the Pottsville con- glomerate No. XII shows its upper massive layers where the anticlinal lines cross the prin- cipal river valleys, but nearly the whole forma- tion (300 feet thick) lias been cut through by the river at Parker City, where the Clarion oil belt crosses the valley. Here on the flat beneatlı its vertical cliffs and on the terraces above, hun- dreds of derricks once stood, thick as trees in a forest, draining the Third Oil sand from a depth of 800 feet beneath the river. At Brady's Bend this third oil sand lies 1,000 feet beneath the river. In all other parts of this county the wells, some of them 2,000 feet deep, have . yielded no petroleum."
The carboniferous system occupies the wliole surface of the county. The Upper Productive Coal measures are in the southeastern corner of the county, the Lower Barren measures spread over the uplands and the Lower Productive Coal measures are in the sides of the valleys, while the Pottsville conglomerate comes to daylight in the deep and rocky ravines.
The geological structure of Armstrong coun- ty consists of a series of anticlinal and synclinal flexures arranged in nearly parallel order from southwest to northeast. By the geologists of the First Survey, nearly the whole of Arm- strong county was included within what was called the Fifth Great basin, which had for its southeast boundary the Fourth Great axis, cross- ing the Kiskiminetas at the mouth of Roaring run; and for its northwest boundary, the Fifth Great Axis, which, coming southward from Clarion county, was thought to cross the Alle- gheny river between the mouths of Red Bank and Mahoning creeks. This great basin is twenty miles wide.
The anticlinal axes and synclinal basins from the southeast to the northwest corner of tlie county are as follows :
301
ARMSTRONG COUNTY.
1. Lisbon West Lebanon Synclinal.
2. Maysville Anticlinal
3. Perrysville Anticlinal S Lisbon Basin.
4. Smicksburg Synclinal.
5. Waynesburg Anticlinal (Fourth Axis of the First Survey).
6. Port Barnet Anticlinal.
7. Waynesburg or Apollo Synclinal.
8. Apollo Anticlinal.
9. Glade Run Anticlinal.
10. Leechburg Synclinal.
11. Pinhook or Brookville Anticlinal.
12. Fairmont Synclinal.
13. Anthony's Bend Anticlinal.
14. Centreville Synclinal.
15. Kellysburg Anticlinal.
16. Lawsonham Synclinal.
17. Brady's Bend Anticlinal (Fifth Axis of the First Survey.
18. Millerstown Anticlinal.
Surface Features .- Of the topography of Armstrong county, Prof. Platt says :
" The topography of Armstrong county con- sists of easy-rolling hill and valley surface, in great variety of aspect, but without especially commanding features. There are here no ridges of mountain land, and no extensive gorges similar to those which control the to- pography in the counties to the east and south- east. It belongs, in fact, to the open country of Western Pennsylvania-a region of deep valleys with broad, undulating uplands be- tween ; a broken table-land, upon which the erosive agencies have acted unceasingly since Palæozoic times.
"The main valleys are, for the most part, narrow and tortuous. Their sides range from 300 to 600 feet in heiglit, sometimes steep and precipitous, and having long lines of cliffs ; at other times the slopes are gentle, and rise slow- ly towards the dividing water-sheds. In this respect, moreover, the topography often unmis- takably reveals the geological structure; but only in the valleys. There the steep and nar-
row stretches of surface indicate the anticlinals, and the more open country with gentle declivi- ties, the synclinals. On the uplands this dis- tinction is obliterated, and the arrangement of the hills fails, in every case, to give expression to the geology.
" The glacial age, wiiose effect upon the topo- graphical features of the northwest counties was to exert a radical change there, straighten- ing the valleys and planing down the hills, modified but little if any of the then existing outlines of Armstrong. The great sheet of south ward-moving ice, which, coming from far- distant northerly regions, crossed northwest Pennsylvania during that time, passed close to Armstrong county, but wholly west of it. No marks of glacial action therefore appear in any of its valleys ; and no rolled pebbles on its up- lands; the crystalline pebbles of the northern drift in the bottom lands of the Allegheny river liave come from the abundant masses of morainic matter which the receding ice left about the heads of that stream at the close of the glacial age.
" Referred to ocean level, the elevation of the upland region ranges from 1500 to 1600 feet. Occasionally an isolated kuob or 'round top,' as, for example, Concord Hill, rises from 75 to 100 feet still higher, and stands forth then as a prominent feature in the landscape. The ele- vations along some of the principal lines of drainage are shown in the following tables :
1. West Pennsylvania R. R .; Kiskiminetas Valley.
Feet above Tide.
Helena 1017
Salina
955
North-West 894
Roaring Run
Apollo 827
823
Townsend's . 887
Grinder's 827
Bagdad 780
A. V. R. R. crossing 791
Freeport
770
(NOTE .- The elevations are of the top of the rail,
1
302
GEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
which is located on the left bank of the river, from 20 to 30 feet above the channel of the stream.)
2. Allegheny Valley R. R .; Allegheny Valley. Feet above Tide.
West Penn Junction 791
Aladdin Station . 793
White Rock 782
Kelly
781
Logansport
785
Rosston
788
Manorville
798
Kittanning
810
Cowanshannock
809
Pine creek
812
Templeton
824
Mahoning
824
Reimerton 837
Red Bank Junction (B. B. R. R.) . 851
Phillipsburg
855
Brady's Bend . 857
Catfish 859
Sarah Furnace 861
Hillville 865
Montery
875
889
Parker City
3. Bennett's Branch Extension R. R .; Red Bank Valley.
Feet above Tide.
Red Bank Junction (as above) 851
Mortimer run 848
Lawsonham 919
Buck-Lick run
939
Rock run . 964
Leatherwood 1027
Anthony's Bend (west end of tunnel) 1051
Bostonia Junction (Bostonia Branch R. R) . 1074
New Bethlehem .
1080
Fairmount 1086 Indiantown run 1090
Millvill
1093
Pine run
1101
Maysville
1108
Patton's
1131
4. Bostonia Branch R. R .; Bostonia Valley.
Feet above Tide.
Bostonia Junction (as above) . 1074
Bridge . 1075
2000 feet . 1100
3000 feet .
1122
4000 feet .
1143
5000 feet .
1153
6000 feet .
1186
The Allegheny river, flowing from north to south through Armstrong county, and dividing it into two unequal parts, receives all of tlie sur- face water. The drainage system of the county is thus greatly simplified, consisting in brief, of two sets of tributary streams, of which one flows west, and the other east to join the main river flowing south.
The eastern tributary streams are Kiskimin- etas river and Crooked, Cowanshannock, Pine, Mahoning and Red Bank creeks; while its western affluents are Buffalo creek, Glade run. Limestone run, Sugar creek and Bear creek.
The soils of the county are good, and are the product of the disintegration of local rocks, ex- cepting the Allegheny river bottom lands, which were formed from drift material.
Indians .- The Delaware and Shawanee tribes settled on the Allegheny river as early as 1719. Their principal town or village was Kittanning, from which war parties went forth to harass the white settlers east of the Alleghenies, but it is unnecessary to speak further of this town, as a full description of it will be found in the ac- count of Gen. Armstrong's expedition.
The Delawares and Shawanees were tenants at will of the Six Nations (see page 23) and had few villages in the county which will be noticed in the history of the townships. They had one great trail or war path which ran from the forks of the Ohio up the Allegheny river and passed into New York. This path was sometimes called the "Warriors' Road." An eastern trail was the noted " Kittanning Path," which run from Kit- tanning to Huntingdon. There were many branch paths of which to-day all trace seems to be lost.
Armstrong's Expedition .- After examining several accounts of this campaign we have found R. M. Smith's description to be the most accurate and give it below in full :
303
ARMSTRONG COUNTY.
"Eight companies of soldiers, constituting the second battalion of the Pennsylvania regi- ment, under the command of Lieut .- Col. John Armstrong, were stationed at the forts on the west side of the Susquehanna. For the purpose of carrying out the expedition against Kittan- ning, planned as above stated, Col. Armstrong, with a part of the force assigned to him, consisting of three hundred and seven men, marched upon Fort Shirley, Monday, September 3, 1756, and joined his advanced party at Beaver Dam, near Frankstown, which they left on the 4th and advanced to within fifty miles of Kittanning on the 6th, whence an officer, one of the pilots, and two soldiers were sent forward to recon- noiter the town. These men returned on the 7th and informed Col. Armstrong that the roads were entirely clear of the enemy, but it appeared from what else they said that they had not ap- proached near enough to the town to learn its situation, the number of persons in it or how it might be most advantageously attacked. The march was continued on the 8th with the inten- tion of advancing as near as possible to the town that night. A halt was, however, made about nine or ten o'clock on account of infor- mation received from one of the guides that he had seen a fire by the roadside a few perchies from the front, at which were two or three In- dians. The pilot returned again in a short time and reported that from the best observations he could make there were not more than three or four Indians at the fire. It was determined not to surround and cut them off immediately, lest, if only one should escape, he might communi- cate their presence to his people in the town, and thus their well-laid plan of attack would be, in a measure at least, frustrated. Lieut. James Hogg, of Capt. Armstrong's company, with twelve men and the pilot who first discov- ered the fire, was ordered to remain, watch the enemy until the break of day, on the 9th, and then cut them off, if possible, at that point, which was about six miles from Kittanning.
"The tired horses, the blankets and other bag- gage were left there, and the rest of the force took a circuit off the road, so as not to be heard by the Indians at the fire, which route they found to be stony. That condition of the route and the fallen trees along the way greatly re- tarded their march. Still greater delay was caused by the ignorance of the pilots, who, it seems, knew neither the real situation of the town nor the paths leading to it.
" After crossing hills and valleys, the front reached the Allegheny river shortly before the setting of the moon on the morning of the 9th, about a hundred rods below the main body of the town, or about that distance below Market street, at or near the present site of the poor- house, on lot number 241, in modern Kittan- ning. They were guided thither by the beat- ing of the drum and the whooping of the In- dians at their dances, rather than by the pilots. It was necessary for them to make the best pos- sible-use of the remaining moonlight, but in this they were interrupted for a few moments by the sudden and singular whistling of an Indian, about thirty feet to the front, at the foot of a cornfield, which was at first thought by Col. Armstrong to be a signal of their approach to the rest of the Indians. He was informed by a soldier by the name of Baker that it was the way a young Indian called his squaw after the dance. Silence was passed to the rear and they lay quietly until after the going down of the moon. A number of fires soon flashed up in various parts of the cornfield, which, Baker said, were kindled to keep off the gnats, and would soon go out. As the weather was warm that night, the Indians slept by the fires in the corn- field.
"Three companies of Col. Armstrong's force had not, at daybreak on the 9th, passed over the last precipice. Their march of thirty miles had wearied them and most of them were asleep. Proper persons were dispatched to rouse them ; a suitable number, under several officers, were
304
GEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
ordered to take the end of the hill at which they then lay, and to march along to the top of it at least one hundred perches, and so much farther as would carry them opposite the upper part, or at least the body of the town. Col. Armstrong, presuming that the Indian warriors were at the lower end of that hill, kept the larger portion of his men there, promising to postpone the at- tack eighteen or twenty minutes, until the de- tachment along the hill should have time to advance.to the point to which they had been ordered. They were somewhat unfortunate in making that advance. The time having elapsed, a simultaneous attack was made as expeditiously as possible, through and upon every part of the cornfield. A party was dispatched to the houses, when Capt. Jacobs and several other Indians, as the English prisoners afterward stated, shouted the war-whoop and yelled : 'The white men are come at last and we will have scalps enough,' at the same time ordering their squaws and children to flee to the woods."
Battle of Kittanning .- " Col. Armstrong's men rushed through and fired into the cornfield, where they received several returns from the Indians in the field and from the opposite side of the river. A brisk fire commenced soon after among the houses, which was very reso- lutely returned from the house of Capt. Jacobs, which was situated on the north side of Market, a short distance above Mckean street, on Jacobs' Hill, in the rear of the site at the north- ern end of the stone wall in the garden, on which Dr. Jolin Gilpin built, in 1834-35, that large two-story brick mansion now owned and occupied by Alexander Reynolds. Thither Col. Armstrong repaired and found that several of his men had been wounded, and some had been killed from the port-holes of that house and other advantages which it afforded to the Indians within it. As the returning fire upon that houses proved ineffectual, he ordered the adjoining house to be fired, which was quickly done, the Indians seldom failing to wound or
kill some of their assailants when they presented themselves. Col. Armstrong, while moving about and giving the necessary orders, received a bullet-wound in his shoulder from Capt. Jacobs' house. It is stated in 'Robinson's Narrative' that Col. Armstrong said : 'Are there none of you that will set fire to these ras- cals that have wounded me and killed so many of us ?' John Ferguson, a soldier, swore he would. He went to a house covered with bark and took a strip of it which had fire on it, aud rushed up to the cover of Jacobs' house and held . it there till it had burned about a yard square. Then he ran and the Indians fired at him. The smoke blew about his legs and the shots missed him. That house contained the magazine, which for a time caused it to be observed, to see whether the Indians, knowing their peril, would escape from it. They, as we say now-a- days, ' held the fort' until the guns were dis- charged by the approaching fire.
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