USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 2 > Part 1
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 2 > Part 1
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 2 > Part 1
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 2 > Part 1
USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 2 > Part 1
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Gc 974.8 H624 v.2 pt.2 1927670
M. G.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01151 0291
Gc 974.8 H624 v. 2 pt.2 192767
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historyofthatpar02elli_1
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HISTORY
DE THAT PART OF THE
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SUSQUEHANNA AND JUNIATA VALLEYS, En.
EMBRACED IN THE
COUNTIES OF MIFFLIN, JUNIATA, PERRY, UNION AND SNYDER,
V. 2, at. 2
IN THE
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
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IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL U
PHILADELPHIAA : EVERTS. PECK & RICHARDS. 1886.
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inch, and, in case of fire, this water could be shut off' and the water pumped directly into the mains from the river at a pressure of one hun- dred and twenty-five pounds to the square inch. The works are in charge of S. C. Bates, super- intendent and engineer.
THE LEWISBURGH NATIONAL BANK is the snecessor of the Lewisburgh Savings Institu- tion, which was incorporated by an act of the Legislature, April 20, 1853, and which had as corporators William Cameron, George F. Miller, John Walls, William Frick, Peter Beaver, John Haughton, Alexander Ammons, Thomas Hayes, James S. Marsh, Eli Slifer, Jonathan Nesbit, Alexander MeClure, John Gundy, William F. Packer, David Reber, George Schnable and Jolm B. Packer. The author- ized capital was one hundred thousand dollars, and William Cameron was chosen president and II. P. Sheller treasurer. An office was fitted up in the residence of William Cameron, which has been the place of business of the bank ever since. President Cameron served until November 10, 1856, when he was sneceeded by William Frick, and Treasurer Sheller resigning, May 23, 1855, had as his successor David Reber.
An act of the Legislature, April 27, 1857, authorized a change of name to the Lewisburgh Bank, and under the State laws it became a bank of issue, with William Cameron as presi- dent and F. W. Pollock, cashier, being elected Jime 27th of that year. The latter served until May 4, 1859, when David Reber became his successor, and held that position until the change to a national bank, when he was re-elected cashier, and has since served in that capacity.
On the 28th of December, 1861, the stock- holders of the bank decided to organize under the National Banking Laws and applied for the necessary authority to make the change. The certificate was granted January 12, 1865, at which time the bank assumed its present title. The authorized capital is two hundred thousand dollars, but it has not yet been increased beyond the one hundred thousand dollars authorized to the Savings Institution. On the
expiration of the first certificate, Jannary 11, 1885, the bank continued business under a new certificate, extended for twenty more years. William Cameron was president of the National Bank until May 13, 1868, when he was succeeded by the present incumbent, Dr. i. C. Harrison, The bank is at present, controlled by the fol- lowing persons: President, F. C. Harrison ; Cashier, David Reber ; Teller, J. B. MeLaugh- lin; Directors, Eli Slifer, F. C. Harrison, John Walls, George Gross, J. B. Packer, Mark Halfpenny, G. B. Miller, D. B. Miller and Joseph Sanders. 1927670
WILLIAM CAMERON,1 ESQ .- Charles Came- ron was born at Inverness, Scotland, and came to this country in 1755, when he was five years old, with his father, Simon Cameron, who accompanied his minister, Colin MacFarquhar, and settled at the Donegal Church, in Lancaster County, on the farm uow owned by his son, Gen- eral Simon Cameron. After growing to maturity, and having married, he removed with his family first to Sunbury, in 1808, then to Washington- ville, and in 1810 to Lewisburgh, where he ap- pears in the assessment as following the ocenpa- tion of a tailor ; and there he died, on the 16th day of January, 1814, in his house on the corner of Front and St. John Streets, uow a vacant lot belonging to the estate of William Cameron.
IIe left to survive him a widow, Martha Cam- eron, who died in Lancaster County afterwards, on the 10th of November, 1830, while on a visit to her son, Colonel James Cameron, and sons and daughters of seniority in the order named, -William, John, Simon, James, Daniel, Eliza, Jane and Catharine.
William, the oldest, was born at Maytown, Lancaster County, Pa., on the 15th day of Or- tober, 1795, and had been taught his father's trade. This he worked at diligently, except that when the trade was dull, and the rivers raised their annual and seasonable floods, by which the produce of the country was carried by the fleets of boatsand arks to their markets below,
Contributed.
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Mm Cameron
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المطر
UNION COUNTY.
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he joined the rivermen, and many a time walked from the bay to his home, foot-sore and weary ; and except that when a regiment was raised for the war, some time in September, 1811, he vol- unteered as a private in the " Northumberland County Blues," attached to Colonel George Weirick's regiment, and marched to Marens Ilook. This regiment appears to have been di-charged in Philadelphia in the latter part of December, 1814. His reminiscence of their muster at Philadelphia shows its size then. They marched ont from the city, about Fourth Street, to the old "Brick Tavern," and en- camped on the Union Green.
He returned to Lewisburgh and followed his trade. The year that William went to war William Yong bought Gideon Smith's place- diddy Smith's, as Flavel Roan familiarly calls him in his journal, -and where he went of an evening to read a play-on Buffalo Creek, where one sees now a handsome old stone house, bravely done up with black pointing, with curving gateway and flowered lawn, and there came to live with him, when only the stone wing, with its shed roof, had yet been built, as his ward, Eleanor Melaughlin. Within the year that Charles Cameron had died, in (1815,) her father, Hugh MeLaughlin, also died. Ile lived in Lewisburgh in a log house, on the corner of Market and Fourth Streets, where William Nagle now lives, and owned several lots near there besides, and traded them (to the Grants, for whom John Lawshe was the agent,) for seventy acres of land, next adjoining William Clingan's, in Kelly town- ship. But death ent him short in his work. It had not been all paid for, and there were long minorities for some of the children. John Boal, who lived on G. F. Miller's place at the river, and Thomas Wilson were the exeentors. There were James, Eleanor, Mary (who died at twenty), Catherine MeFaddin (wife of the late Colonel Jackson MeFaddin), Hugh MeLaughlin and Margaret (who died ummarried). Here Win. woord and won his " Nelly," as he always fondly called her, and in the old stone house they were
married on the 5th day of Jannary, 1820, by the Rev. Thomas Hood, in the carly bloom of her girlhood-she was born on the 20th day day of June, 1803.
The first year of their married life was passed in the upper rooms of the old yellow house that stood where the Journal office now is; and the next two years, the second year after it was built, 1823, in the second story of the building of J. M. Lim's office. Two families lived there, and just back of it stood a log honse with an old-fashioned fire-place ; for two years both of the ladies occupied jointly the great hearth, each having their own fire, and never a word of brawl the " live-long time," as one of them phrased it.
Across the street, on the corner of the alley, where Mrs. A. MeClure now lives, there stood an old hatter's shop, which some time before had taken fire and was partially burued. Early oue spring morning, while William was pre- paring to take one of his trips ou the river, looking across from her second-story window, Mrs. Cameron wondered whether they could not get that place from Mr. Hayes on the same terms as the former parties had it. William wondered how they could ever pay for it. Martha, William's mother, said they should not venture on it. But. William said that Nelly inight try it if she wished, and perhaps in a few years they might buy it.
William started. Mrs. Cameron got the lease, cleaned up the place and made it habit- able, and when William came home and entered the door, she sat with her baby on her arm and Elizabeth by her knee. A gladder flush spread over his stern face, and a happier man he never was than on that evening. A lovable trait in his life, and it gives a glow to his great sombre face to think of it, -he bought all those places, the home of his father, the home of his Nellie in town, and the places where he woord her, ou either bank of the creek, which was hallowed by the light of his carly love.
They bought the site of the oldl hatter's shop,
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built as their means permitted, and this was the foundation of their fortune.
The act to provide for the commencement of a canal, to be constructed at the expense of the State, and to be styled " The Pennsylvania Canal," was passed on the 25th of February, A.D. 1826. Up to the Ist of JJune, 1829, four hundred and eighty-eight and one-half' miles were under contract and completed at a cost of ten million dollars. The West Branch Canal was completed as far as Muncy. General Abbott, Green and William Cameron had a contract, on the castern division from Duncan's Island to the month of the Swatara, to build the dam, still known as Green's Dam, and Section 2 of the canal, in the beginning of 1828, -- the contract was awarded November 24, 1827,-which were very heavy contracts ; and the next year, the largest contract on the West Branch, -Nos. 1 and 2, and the guard lock at Mmey Hill,- were let to Cameron, Ritner & Cameron. One said that William Cameron's profit on the latter was ten thousand dollars, and they went to Harrisburgh, together, to draw the money -- a snug fortune they thought it then, and thereafter they had money to lend. While he was " canaling " they bought the farm across the river from Daniel Bright, the father of Mrs. G. F. Miller, and Mrs. Cameron moved there with her little family, and commenced again in a cabin. It was a very forlorn place, swamps and great gully holes, and in the intervals of " canaling," the carts and horses and shovels and barrows went to the farm; it was ditched and drained, the holes filled and the land leveled, until it became a garden of a place. Thus was the fortime of Mr. Cameron founded, on pure hard work and careful management, the credit. of which latter he never failed to give to Mrs. Cameron, with a gleam that lighted his eyes and sent a glow over his iron-cast face.
February 19, 1827, Governor Schultz com- missioned him a justice of the peace, and he was known by the honored title of " The 'Squire" until his last day. And when one spoke of the
"'Squire " in Lewisburgh and its vicinity, it was well-known who was meant ; and whether the title carried with it the meaning of broad acres, or large influence, local or moneyed power, he was par excellence " The 'Squire."
It is remarkable that in the contracts that were awarded, as well as those above mentioned, as the many he afterwards had, they were such as required great administrative ability, good judgment and breadth of comprehension, as notably, the tummel of Elizabethtown, the rail- road bridge at Harrisburgh on the Cumberland Valley Railroad, the dams at Columbia and Lewisburgh.
In the years 1839, 1840 and 1841 he was engaged in the wholesale dry-goods business in Philadelphia, under the firm-name of " Welsh, Cameron & Co.," and was a leading member of a firm that first successfully operated the rail- road from Columbia to Philadelphia, then part of the public works. During the first year the road was not a success under State manage- ment, and was getting deeper and deeper in debt, when Mr. Cameron was solicited to take hold of it, and under him it became a success. In 1853 he was mainly instrumental in estab- lishing the " Lewisburgh Savings Institution," which grew into a chartered State bank, and then, under the National Banking Act, " The Lewisburgh National Bank." On the witness stand he gave his occupation as in the banking business and that bank was and is a synonym of credit.
Ifis wealth was of a varied and substantial character. Owning a large amount of the best property in Lewisburgh, he could ride from the east end of Limestone Ridge, north across the heart of Buffalo Valley, on his own land, away beyond the Buffalo Creek, over farms of the best quality, of rare beauty and fertility, and along the east bank of the West Branch of the Susquehanna to the border of Milton.
As has been said, his father was Scotch, his mother was German (Martha Pfontz), and his was a rare combination of the qualities of the
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two races,-shrewdness and thrift, painstaking cire, clear sagacity and indomitable energy. Hle controlled all matter that came within his power with an iron rod, and however severe it might have seemed, the result, in the prosperity of all those about him, signified his real benef- icence.
He remembered how much he owed to his wife, and at his death he gave all to her during her lifetime, or the great bulk of it.
It is a trite and common saying that with all the getting of a man in this world, he gets but his narrow six feet. It is as common and trite a thing that the wider and deeper and the more substantially a man's work is done in this world, the less does the world appreciate it. He was not in publie life, like his brother Simon, whose name appears in the prosperity of Pennsylvania and in the glory of his country, for a half- crutury ; nor like his brother James, who stood and fell at the head of the Seventy-ninth Highlanders of New York, in the first battle fought for the suppression of the Rebellion.
But in his more quiet walk of life, his energy, thrift, pluck and sturdy advance, while it led him to fortune, had a reflex influence on the community, and led them in that way, too. And all he acquired and touched was bright- ened and bettered. He took town properties and farms, dilapidated and running to waste, and under his careful hand and unsparing ex- penditure they became not only pleasant to behold, but in the fact that they were improved, and the methods by which it was done, the community was so much the richer, but far more the reflex influence of those very acts made the community wiser and better. He put no money in stately piles of gifted buildings for the weak honor of its name, but thousands upon thousands of dollars he put into the im- proving and draining of lands, and thus most materially educated the people of the valley in which he lived.
That was no doubt William Cameron's mis- sion, and he filled it. The people of Lewis- burgh and of Buffalo Valley can cast their eyes
over their well-built and prosperous town and their lands-a crowning glory of Pennsylvania's thrifty farming race -- and remember with a for- vent feeling of gratitude that William Cameron lived there.
He died at his home in Lewisburgh on the 10th of September, 1877, having almost com- pleted his eighty-second year.
Hle left to survive him his widow, Eleanor Cameron; his daughter Mary, intermarried with the Hon. John B. Packer; dane, intermarried with Dr. Francis C. Harrison, now president of the Lewisburgh Bank ; two granddaughters, children of his daughter Elizabeth, who was intermarried with John A. Green ; both of the latter are dead ; and William Cameron, Jr., and Nellie, married to Harry Marsh, children of a deceased son, William, who died in 1861, hav- ing been admitted to the bar, and already shown himself to be of' fine ability.
Not ostentations in the display of gifts, his real good gift was in the example of his life and the shape he dealt with what heacquired. One gift to his town was a steam fire-engine, at a cost of over ten thousand dollars, which is of that same practical turn as all his other acts. Hle never forgot his friends and in the commu- nity where he was the "'Squire" there were standing orders at the coal merchants, twice a year, they to see to it that uone were suffering, and from his own great store-houses were free- ly sent many seasonable and timely gifts.
C'uriously, gathered at his funeral were two dozen old acquaintances, aged from eighty-nine to seventy-seven years, two-thirds of them above eighty. They were a rare lot of old-timers; but looked at and known who they were-being the great, solid men of the community-it strongly illustrated the character of the man in his friends.
DAVID REBER is the son of John and Catherine (Moser) Reber, who came to Buffalo Valley in the year 1803. His father purchased land about the Lochiel-the farm of Solo- mon Betz, now owned by Samuel Miller-and added other land, and when he divided it among
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JUNIATA AND SUSQUEHANNA VALLEYS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
his sons there were two hundred and ninety aeres.
In 1830 he built the house, where his sou Thomas lives, in Lewisburgh, and moved there in 1831, and died there June 22, 1852, at the age of eighty-two. He was an energetic, thrifty, large-hearted man, putting his hand generously to all the affairs of the commity.
Ile had a family of tou children -John, Sammel (member of the Legislature in 1813), Elizabeth (married to Dr. Isaac S. Vorse), James, Mary (married to Jacob Dunkel), Susan (married to Michael Kleckner, of New Berlin), Margart (unmarried), Thomas (married to Mary, daughter of Henry Beck, now commis- sioner of Union County), David and Leah (married to Rev. D. Y. Heisler, a minister of the German Reformed Church).
David Reber was born June 19, 1817, and married to Margaret, daughter of John Musser, of Kelly, living at Colonel Slifer's place, on the 7th day of January, 1810, and had two children,-Dr. William M., a noted physician of Bloomsburg, Pa., and John.
David first entered the store of Walls & Geddes as a clerk, in 1834, and became a part- ner of Peter Nevins in 1837, and continued in the mercantile business and lumbering at various places until 1855, when he accepted the treasurership of the Lewisburgh Savings Institution, which was merged into the Lewis- burgh Bank, and succeeded by the Lewisburgh National Bank, which he served as cashier.
In this quiet walk of life he has filled his part with fairness, integrity, ability and faith- fulness, which gives him a substantial place in the community. With a liberality to- ward all those things which need the help of the citizen, and an enjoyment of all the pure anmsements, he gives a credit to the moneyed interest he manages, and brightens up the efforts of those who are looking after the welfare of the community.
UNION NATIONAL BANK. - This institution was incorporated March 30, 1860, with an authorized capital of thirty thousand dollars, as
the " Union Dime Savings Institution." On the 2 4th of August, of the same year, the stock- holders organized by electing Hugh P. Sheller, Martin Dreisbach, Philip Billmeyer, John II. Goodman, T. S. Black, James MeClure, Charles Penny, Levi Sterner and John Crossgrove as trustees. Peter Beaver was chosen president and Hugh P. Sheller cashier. Busines was transacted as a savings bank until the 15th of April, 1861, when the name was changed to the " Lewisburgh Deposit Bank," and the anthor- ized capital increased to sixty thousand dollars. A further change was made in 1865, when an organization was effected nuder the National Banking Laws, and the present name adopted. The certificate issned February 7, 1865, author- izes a capital of one Imindred thousand dollars. In January, 1865, the following officers were selected : President, Johnson Walls; Cashier, Hugh P. Sheller; Teller, Samuel C. Sheller; Directors, John Walls, John H. Goodman, Mar- tin Dreisbach, Levi Sterner, Philip Billmeyer, W'm. M. Van Valzah, Peter Beaver, Win. Jones William C. Duncan, Charles Gndykunst and Joseph M. Nesbit.
Since its first board of officers was elected the following changes have taken place by the election of Eli Slifer, president, May 19, 1868; Peter Beaver, president, November 9, 1869; William Jones, president, January 16, 1877; J. K. Kremer, cashier, and Isaac Dunkle, teller, May 28, 1878; W. C. Duncan, president, June 7, 1878 ; and James B. Farrest, teller, July 9, 1878.
The bank occupies a convenient office on Market Street and its affairs are in a prosperous condition.
THE PREss .- The history of the press in Lewisburgh is a record of numerous ventures in journalism and few instances of realized hopes. A long list has courted the favor of the public, creating a stir in its affairs for brief periods, then passed ant of existence, often in- honored and scarcely now remembered. A few only have survived to claim the tribute of the present age.
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UNION COUNTY.
The Ners-letter, the first paper published in the town, was established in 1821 by William Caruthers, and conducted by him about eighteen months, when it was suspended. He next pub- lished The Union Hickory, at New Berlin ; but, after issuing ten numbers of his weekly, trans- forred the office to Lewisburgh, where No. 11 was issued on the 12th of May, 1829. In : little less than a your he sold out The Union Hickory to Daniel Got-hall, April 3, 18:30, and at the close of the volume the paper ccused to exist. It was Democratie in politics.
On the first of May, 1830, the material was used in the publication of the Lewisburgh .Your- not, by Daniel Got-hall, who made it a vigor- aus Democratie sheet, and selected as its motto the well-remembered sentiment of Wolf' --- "Civil liberty never can flourish on the same "il with ignorance." February 18, 18:3, Col- Shall sold out to George M. Miller and Edward S. Bowen, who published it nutil February 22, 1831, as the Lerisburgh Journal and Union County .Idrovale, when it was also discontinued.
The Lewisburgh Democrat was the next call- didate for public favor. It was first issued line 20, 1835, by George R. Barrett, from an ofice on Market Street, between Front and Water Streets, and was a neat tive-column folio. Ile declared that " We will the people's right main- main -- aubonghit by gold, unbribed by gain." The people evidently did not appreciate his efforts, as, in his issue March 12, 1836, he en- treats them to bring in wood (on subscription) so that he could warm his fingers. Before the volume was full, in May, 1836, the paper passed away, even warnt fingers being insufficient to keep it alive when more substantial means were wanting.
Diellenbach removing to a neighboring comity to take charge of a paper there.
Meantime the publication of the first Whig or anti- Democratie paper had taken place, An- gust 7, 1838, as the People's .decorate ; and thus, for the first time, for a little more than a year, two papers were published in the borough. The printer was William C. E. Thomas, and Jonas Kelelmer was the editor. He had al-o the editorial charge of a paper at Milton, which was issued on Thursday, while the Advocate appeared every Saturday until April 12, 1811, when its publication ceased and the subscrip- tion-list was transferred to the Union Star, of New Berlin. In the lad is ne the announce- ment of the death of President Harrison was appropriately made, the whole paper appearing in monruing. Kelelmer was a young man of ability, but did not longsurvive his paper, dying at the age of thirty-five years.
The borough was now again withont a paper until September 1, 1811, when the Independent Press appeared under the proprietorship of S. K. Sweetman and D. O. E. Maze, with Sweetman as the editor. In 1812 he associated J. F. Busch with him as an editor, but their com- bined forces failed to keep the Independent alive, and its career was terminated December 16, 1812. This was the first attempt to publish a neutral paper, and was even less successful than a partisan sheet.
Another interval followed, in which no paper was published in the town, but the time was near at hand when the Press should become permanently established. September 23, 1843, the Lewisburgh Chronicle made its appearance as a Democratie sheet, edited by W. B. Shriner and S. A. Burkenbine; and although there have been changes of ownership and politics, the paper has since regularly appeared, affording a weekly record of events of this part of the country. Like the first pronounced Demo- cratic paper, it declared its purpose as follows: " Here shall the Press the people's rights main- tain, nawed by inthence and imbribed by gain." At the end of the first half-year Burk- enbine retired, and the paper was conducted by W. B. Shrineralone as the Lerisburgh Chron-
The next paper was the Lewisburgh Standard, December 7, 1837, and D. G. Fitch was the editor. In politics it professed to be neutral, but the following year advocated the election of Porter for Governor. September 1, 1839, the paper passed into the hands of 11. L. Diellou- bach, who changed the name to the Lewisburgh Standard and the Buffalo Democratic Farmer ; bnt even this long title could not keep it alive, amd at the end of three months, December 11, 1839, this Democratic paper ceased to exist, I icle, until June 26, 1817, when he added the
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