USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > Cambria County pioneers; a collection of brief biographical and other sketches relating to the early history of Cambria County, Pennsylvania > Part 1
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Gc 974.801 C14s 1204338
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01179 5504
GENEALOGY 974.801 C14S
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1
CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS
A COLLECTION
OF
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER SKETCHES RELATING TO THE EARLY HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
BY JAMES M. SWANK,
SECRETARY AND GENERAL MANAGER OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION FOR 38 YEARS, FROM 1872 TO 1910. AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON IN ALL AGES AND OF OTHER HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS.
Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not .- Proverbs xxvii. 10. Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths .- Jeremiah vi. 16.
PHILADELPHIA: No. 261 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 1910.
Printed by ALLEN, LANE & SCOTT, Nos. 1211-1213 Clover Street, Philadelphia.
.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface
7
The Founding of The Johnstown Tribune.
9
Peter Goughnour's Reminiscences
19
Revelations of an Old Ledger 23
Rev. Shadrach Howell Terry
29
Recollections of Early Johnstown
40
Edwin Augustus Vickroy
46
John Royer, Huguenot.
53
Major John Linton
57
The Building of the Cambria Iron Works
65
Hon. Daniel Johnson Morrell
71
Major George Nelson Smith 77
Dr. William Anthony Smith
85
Judge James Potts.
90
Judge Cyrus L. Pershing
99
Colonel Jacob M. Campbell. 108
Alexander Chesterfield Mullin 114
Samuel Bell McCormick
124
A Reminiscence of President Zachary Taylor.
129
John Fritz, Ironmaster
131
A Lesson from the Johnstown Flood
135
٦
PREFACE.
AT the outset I wish my friends who read this volume to under- stand plainly that it is not the result of a deliberate purpose to write a book of more or less historical value. It is a compilation entirely, with two exceptions, of twenty biographical and other sketches relating to Cambria county that were written years ago, some of them many years ago. It has fallen to my lot to prepare from time to time and publish biographical sketches of some of the prominent men of Cambria county in the old days, a few of whom were then living but most of whom had passed to the other side, and these sketches, now repro- duced, occupy the larger part of the following pages ; the remainder of the volume is devoted to subjects of historical interest relating to pio- neer days in Cambria county which I have had occasion to consider in years gone by. The names and the work of the pioneers of any com- munity should never be forgotten. Of the biographical sketches three relate to old and prominent citizens of Cambria county who have died in Philadelphia and with whom my old acquaintance had been renewed.
I have compiled these sketches not only to preserve the memory of prominent and worthy citizens of Cambria county who have had much to do with its early history but also to preserve many historical facts of local interest which otherwise might be wholly lost, some of which are interwoven with those of a purely personal character. That Johnstown was a shipping point of importance on the Conemaugh long before the Pennsylvania Canal or the Pennsylvania Railroad was ever dreamed of ; that there were many iron enterprises at and near Johnstown before the Cambria Iron Works were built; that an Ebensburg man was the pri- vate secretary of Governor Curtin during the civil war; that the editor of a Johnstown newspaper was in the battle of San Jacinto in 1836 ; that more than sixty years ago there was a volunteer military company at Summerhill called the Quitman Guards ; that a citizen of Johnstown was the chairman of the executive committee of the Centennial Com- mission, and that other citizens of Johnstown have occupied high offi- cial positions ; that there was no post office at Johnstown until 1811 ; that there were great floods in Johnstown in the early days-all these and many more facts of strictly historical value relating to the early days of Cambria county are certainly worthy of preservation.
The attention of the reader is called to the date of publication of each sketch, which will be found immediately under its title. I could not rewrite the sketches to adapt them to present conditions. They are reprinted substantially as they were originally written. If any errors of fact should be discovered I can only plead in explanation that all but one of the sketches were written away from my old home in the mountains.
PHILADELPHIA, December 26, 1910.
J. M. S.
CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE.
WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER, 1882, AND PUBLISHED IN THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY AND WEEKLY TRIBUNE.
THE main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with its leased connections, was completed to the latter city late in 1852. On the 10th of December of that year cars were run through from Phila- delphia to Pittsburgh for the first time. The construction of this great thoroughfare led to the development of exten- sive mining and manufacturing enterprises in many parts of Pennsylvania, and particularly in the western part. In the spring of 1853 the first spadeful of earth was removed at Johnstown to prepare for the foundations of the Cam- bria Iron Works, and on July 27, 1854, these works went into operation. Before they had made their first rail, how- ever, or had turned a single wheel, the writer of these lines, inspired perhaps by the hope of better days for Johnstown, but most likely ruled by a destiny which he did not un- derstand, issued on the 7th day of December, 1853, the first number of the Cambria Tribune, an enterprise worthy to be referred to on the same page, we trust, with the two more extensive enterprises already mentioned. We know, at least, that it had just as worthy an origin. But it had a very humble origin, and, unlike the man who gets up in the world and unwisely forgets the days of his poverty and dependence, we propose to-day to take the old friends and the new friends of the Tribune into our confidence and tell them how the little newspaper got its start.
There had been published in Cambria county since about 1825, sometimes at Johnstown and sometimes at Ebensburg, a Whig newspaper which had in turn many owners and
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CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
many names. The first copy of this paper which we have seen was styled the Cambria Gazette and was printed at Eb- ensburg in 1827. Subsequently it was called The Sky and afterwards again the Cambria Gazette. While bearing this . last name the press and fixtures of the office found their final resting place in Johnstown. But while they became stationary the name of the paper did not have the same good fortune, nor did the paper's ill-luck of having fre- quent changes of ownership come to an end. Finally, in the summer of 1853, one of those episodes in its history occurred which had frequently occurred before-the paper came to a dead stop.
It was under such circumstances as these that the press and fixtures of the office-subscription list and good will were of little value-came into my hands in November, 1853, with an understanding with a few prominent Whigs of the town, in whose custody I found the press and fixtures, that I was to publish a Whig newspaper if I could but that they were not to be responsible for my debts if I failed. With this encouragement, such as it was, I resolved to go ahead. I had not one dollar of capital but I had that which is better than capital, I had friends, and from them I borrowed about $150. With this money a new dress of long primer type was purchased and also a few bundles of paper. I found the office in a large room on Main street, on the first floor of a frame addition to the Mansion House. The room was unsuitable for a printing office, being low in height, poorly lighted with eight-by-ten glass, uneven upon the floor, and hugging the ground so closely that it was necessary to step down from the sidewalk to get into it. In the rear was the fragrant stableyard of the Mansion House. I recollect very well that the first thing I did on assuming possession was to have that office scrubbed and whitewashed. My landlord was John Dibert and the rent was $30 a year.
I can not, with equal certainty, recall the names of the printers who helped me to issue the first number of the new paper. I set some of the type for the first number myself, but I will say frankly that I did not set it very fast. My impression is that a young man named Hill from Indiana
11
1
THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE.
was the journeyman and that Joseph M. Horton and the present proprietor of the Tribune were the office boys, Joe also being the carrier. They all worked in the office dur- ing the first winter of the new paper's existence and I think that they worked on the first number. Andrew Jackson Hite also worked on the Tribune in its early days. Hite and Horton are dead and are buried among strangers. Joe Horton " finished his trade " in the Tribune office and be- came a rapid and correct compositor. Jack Hite was al- ready an accomplished printer, familiar with all the details of the typographic art. He had taken his first lessons in the art in 1846 from Henry C. Devine, the foreman of the Democratic Courier, a journalistic venture of our old friend General James Potts, who was assisted in its editorial man- agement by Major Thomas A. Maguire. Jack had for a fellow-apprentice in the Courier office John P. Linton, but John did not remain long at the case. Jack afterwards, and prior to the starting of the Tribune, acted for a time as the right-hand man of Captain George N. Smith in the publication at Johnstown of The Allegheny Mountain Echo.
When I resolved to try my luck as the editor and pub- lisher of a weekly newspaper in Johnstown I would have been glad to continue the name by which the old paper had longest been known, the Cambria Gazette. It was eupho- nious and appropriate, and, although associated with fre- quent failures, it had a certain hold upon the affections of the old Whigs of the county, who remembered that it had rejoiced with them when they were victorious and condoled with them when they were defeated. But I was persuaded that persistence in the use of the name would be ominous of further disaster, and I reluctantly abandoned it and substituted the Cambria Tribune. This name I afterwards changed, for obvious reasons, to The Johnstown Tribune. I was at the time the Tribune was started an admirer of Hor- ace Greeley, whose paper, the New York Tribune, was then, as it long had been, the leading Whig newspaper in the country. After it the Cambria Tribune was called. I re- member well that that ardent and brilliant young Whig, Abram Kopelin, protested warmly against my choice of a name. He said that Horace Greeley's paper was the organ
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CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
of the Abolitionists, as well as of the Whigs, and that the paper I proposed to start would also be identified in the public mind with the same treasonable faction, which would never, never do. But I had my way. At that time there were few papers in the country whose publishers dared to call them after the New York Tribune; now there are. hundreds of Tribunes. I have always been satisfied with my choice. My venerable friend Abraham Morrison did not strongly object to it, but hoped that I would call the paper The People's Advocate.
Well, we laid the new type for the new paper and I gave the boys plenty of copy. Up went the long rows of shining metal, brightening my eyes and gladdening my heart. And where do you think those rows were ? On brass galleys where type is now placed ? There was not one in the office. Our sticks were emptied on a long wooden galley nailed against the wall near the press. This galley would hold three rows of type, each row containing enough type to make about three columns of the paper. It re- mained in use for several years. When enough type had been set for one side of the paper it was carried directly from this galley to the bed of the press, a handful at a time. Imposing-stone there was none. When the pages. were locked up, and not until then, a proof was taken with the press, slips wide enough to take an impression of two- columns being used. Corrections were made on the press, and the printers who read this can imagine how disheart- ening the work would often be, especially when there would be " doublets " or "outs," and more especially when the corrections would have to be made at night by an imper- fect light.
Imperfect light ! What do you suppose that old Tribune office was lighted with ? Tallow candles, two for five cents,. set in low and narrow candlesticks made of lead to prevent them from tilting over. Many a page of the Tribune has. been corrected with the aid of candles set in these candle- sticks. When an accident would happen, and the tallow would make the acquaintance of the type in the form, the poor printer became an object of real pity. His task in making corrections was sufficiently hard before. When
13
FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE.
THE
composition had to be done at night, and it had to be pretty often, no other candles or candlesticks than those de- scribed were used. The candlestick was placed in the "e " box. In those days Johnstown had not been blessed with either gaslight or coal-oil lamps.
When the form for one side of the paper had been made ready, and the press had also been made ready, the hardest work in the office commenced. An edition of about five hundred copies was to be printed, and it invariably took a pressman and a roller-boy the whole of a half day, or from early in the evening until midnight, as the case might be, to print one side of that edition. The same amount of labor was of course required to print the other side.
What sort of a press did we have ? We had a press, reader, which we would gladly put in a glass case if we had it now. But the press is lost ; we really do not know what became of it. It was a two-pull Ramage press-that is, the platen was only large enough to cover one page of our lit- tle paper. The bed of the press was run in until the platen covered one page, when the lever was pulled and that page was printed ; then the bed was run in farther until the next page was covered, when it was printed and the bed was run out and the sheet taken off the tympan. It was a hand- press, of course. The operation was like that of printing a paper on a Washington press, except that two pulls were required instead of one. The work of printing even our small edition was exceedingly tedious and very laborious. The press itself was liable, too, to get out of order, and this was an additional drawback. The platen was a smooth- faced wooden block which was attached to the frame by four hooks and many strands of twine. Occasionally a hole would be punched in the face of the platen, the printing of handbills being the most frequent cause of this misfor- tune, and then the platen had to be untied from the hooks and taken, like a babe in arms, to Thompson R. Kimmell or Napoleon B. Haynes to be planed down until the hole would disappear. We remember nervously standing in front of these cabinet-makers-we generally called on them turn about-and coaxing them to drop all other work until our platen was attended to. When they had kindly given it a
14
CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
smooth face once more we carried it in our arms in triumph back to the office. The exercise of tying it to the hooks then followed. This was a work of no little delicacy, as the tying to the four hooks had to be very evenly done or else one corner of the platen would be sure to drag and the impression of the paper be blurred. The springs which returned the lever to its place, and which also helped to equalize the impression, were made of small pieces of leather.
It will be seen that our press was a very primitive affair. Benjamin Franklin might have worked with it, for it was almost identical in construction, and entirely so in princi- ple, with the one on which he printed The Pennsylvania. Gazette. We managed to do good work with it, except when something would get wrong with the twine or the bits of leather. Although not on our programme that we should do the presswork for the paper we found that we usually had it to do, editorial dignity counting for nothing when the paper had to come out.
Joe Horton applied the ink with a glue-and-molasses roller. I usually made the rollers myself. I was a fair pressman and a slow but sure compositor but a poor roller- maker. Theoretically I knew how to make a roller, and I always gave the mixture due attention, but often my labor came to naught. The composition would frequently refuse to harden sufficiently and then the work had to be done over again. Many an evening I have stood over the old cannon stove and stirred the mixture until I thought it had been sufficiently cooked, then poured it into the mould and gone home to find in the morning that I had missed it again ! I remember, and the present publisher of the Trib- une doubtless remembers, a heartbreaking experience in en- deavoring to make a roller in a glue-kettle which had little pin-holes in it that let in the water from the other kettle. After several failures, which were attributed first to the mo- lasses and next to the glue, almost every grocery in town being called upon for the former and every drug store for the latter, we finally discovered the cause of the trouble in the pin-holes and I bought a new glue-kettle. Then there was sunshine again and there was a good roller in the Tribune office.
15
THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE.
Did we ever pi a form in the old Tribune office ? We certainly did. It was this way : We did not have twin chases in those days, at least not in the Tribune office, and both pages were locked up in one chase. The lifting of so heavy a form to the press required the help, if not all the strength, of two persons. Late one night the present pub- lisher of the Tribune assisted me to place the form on its edge on the press and then left it in my hands, trusting me to lay it down properly. I was about to do this when a slip of some kind took place, the form came down all too suddenly, and there was a catastrophe. One page fell out of the form and into a good-sized heap but the other page was safe. We grieve to say that the present publisher of the Tribune deserted us that night in our trouble. He left by the front door, with the irreverent remark that we were no printer. We stuck to the wreck alone for several hours ; we were not sleepy enough to go home. In the morning our bad fortune did not look so bad as it did when it hap- pened ; time and patience will cure a printer's trouble as well as nearly all other troubles.
The first number of the Tribune made its appearance, as I have said, on the 7th day of December, 1853. Other numbers followed in regular order. I sent the paper to nearly all the householding Whigs in the town and to some Democrats. I also sent it to a few prominent persons at Ebensburg and at other points. But few farmers around Johnstown called to make the acquaintance of the new editor or his paper and I could not send it to their homes ; many of them in those days did not read English. Such farmers, however, as became subscribers for the paper were among its most appreciative readers, and no subscribers were more punctual in paying the printer. After marking off my temporary list the names of those who returned the pa- per, with the chilling word "refused " marked on its mar- gin, I had about five hundred names left, and it is a sin- gular fact that for several years afterwards the number of subscribers did not materially increase. The Cambria Iron Company failed twice soon after the paper was started and many other adverse circumstances operated against its pros- perity. The Whig party was dying, the Democrats were in
16
CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
power in Cambria county, money was scarce, and the times were hard. The same influences which operated against an increase of my subscription list also operated against the receipt of many cash-paying advertisements. Of job work there was not much to do, but what was offered was most thankfully received. Usually advertising is regarded as the life-blood of a country newspaper, but I found in the early days of the Tribune that without the job work of the office the paper could not have lived. All jobs were printed on the Ramage press.
The Tribune was a four-page paper, six columns to the page. It was exactly one-half as large as the present weekly edition of the Tribune. It was large enough, how- ever, for its day. While not what it ought to have been, and might have been under more favorable circumstances, it possessed some characteristics of a meritorious nature that I will be pardoned for referring to. I was my own editor ; the young lawyers and the Whig politicians of the town were not called upon, nor would they have been permitted, to help me with their superior editorial skill. The paper ap- peared regularly on the day of publication, even if we had to work half a night or all night to accomplish this object. The carrier's visits could always be looked for at about the same hour every week. I rarely if ever printed a half sheet, and no matter how serious an accident might happen in our office no edition of the Tribune was ever printed in any other office. I made it a rule that advertisements should never appear on the first page of the paper and they never did. I had a department for the farmers on the fourth page and it was rarely omitted. I had but little taste for local news, caring more for general news and general poli- tics ; consequently the early volumes of the Tribune con- tain only a brief record of the local events of the day and absolutely none of the gossip of the town. Country news- papers have greatly changed since those days in this par- ticular and I insist have changed for the worse. Better, far better, a bit of poetry, or a scrap of history or biography, or Congressional proceedings than many local items that are now published. I think that if I erred seriously as an edi- tor in those early days it was in devoting too much space
17
THE FOUNDING OF THE JOHNSTOWN TRIBUNE.
to long selections ; the paper was not sufficiently a reflex of the opinions and temper of the times.
It was hard up-hill work to keep the Tribune alive in its early days. As I have said money was scarce, and I will add that there was not then one really liberal mer- chant advertiser in the town. I had good friends among the merchants, but they did not understand the art of ad- vertising or have much faith in printer's ink. I had no offi- cial patronage of any kind. Many of my farmer subscrib- ers, although they paid me promptly, insisted that I must take "country produce " in lieu of money, and I had to do it. I have taken from them, on account of their subscrip- tions, cord-wood, poultry, pumpkins, butter, apples, potatoes, bacon, blackberries, and even chestnuts. Most of the mer- chants who advertised with me also insisted that I should trade out my advertising bills, and I had to do that.
I was often, as may easily be supposed, entirely out of money, yet I never after the paper was started borrowed a dollar to keep it going. I made it an inflexible rule that, when I needed a certain amount of money, I would collect it if possible from those who owed it to me. If I had not adopted and adhered to this rule I must have broken down. My debts, therefore, were always paid when due, and it was of great service to me that I established the reputation of being careful in my financial dealings. I was sometimes, however, most sorely pressed. Upon several occasions when I needed paper, and did not know where to look for even $10 to buy it with, I have taken advantage of my posses- sion of a free pass on the Pennsylvania Railroad and gone to Pittsburgh to solicit advertisements. I never failed to se- cure something for my advertising columns, and by making the price low I could get the cash in advance. With this I would go to a paper warehouse and buy a few bundles, or maybe only one bundle. If in immediate need of paper I have secured the services of a porter to take a bundle to the Pennsylvania Railroad depot, where I would get the baggage-master on my return train to carry it to Johns- town. In the evening, or possibly late at night, I would reach home all right. Better that day's work than to bor- row money. Let me add that I have frequently, at the end
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CAMBRIA COUNTY PIONEERS.
of a visit to Pittsburgh, but of course after night, for my pride was not proof against everything, carried a bundle of paper on my shoulder from the railroad station to the Tribune office and wet down a sufficient number of quires for the next edition.
I need not add to these reminiscenses, which I wish the reader to understand refer only to the first two years and a half in the life of the Tribune-from 1853 to 1856. My little enterprise has now grown to be twenty-nine years old, and it has grown in magnitude and power with its years. I look upon the fat advertising columns of the large daily and weekly editions of the paper, and then at the splen- did office in which it is printed, as if the transformation were all a dream. I see advertisements rejected because there is no room for them; the old Tribune had plenty of room in its advertising columns. I see paper hauled to the office by the wagon-load and I think of my poor little bundle. There is a big steam press and there are other presses in the place of the old Ramage and its wooden platen. There are tons of type. The proprietor is not asked to take blackberries and chestnuts in payment of subscriptions, for the farmers, thanks to the Cambria Iron Works, are now prosperous and have money in their pockets. It is all like a dream. But the early days of the Tribune, the hard struggle to give it a start, the dis- appointments, the heartaches and heartbreaks, the endless pinching to make both ends meet, the bitter first lessons in human selfishness-all this is a stern reality which I could not forget if I would.
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