USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 41
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
In 1840 a woman could teach an A, B, C, or " a-b ab," school in summer ; but the man that desired to teach a summer school was a lazy, worthless. good-for-nothing fellow. Cyrus Crouch taught the first term in Brookville under the common-school law of 1834.
In the forties the school-books in use were the New England Primer. Webster's Spelling-Book, Cobb's Spelling-Book, the English Reader, the New England Reader, the Testament and Bible, the Malte Braun Geography, Olney's Geography, Pike's Arithmetic, the Federal Calculator, the Western Calculator, Murray's Grammar, Kirkham's Grammar, and Walker's Diction- ary. A scholar who had gone through the single rule of three in the Western Calculator was considered educated. Our present copy-books were unknown. A copy-book was then made of six sheets of foolscap-paper stitched together. The copies were set by the master after school hours, when he also usually made and mended the school-pens for the next day. Our pens were made of goose-quills, and it was the duty of the master to teach each scholar how to make or mend a goose-quill pen. One of the chief delights of a mischievous boy in those days was to keep a master busy mending his pens.
The first school-house in Brookville that I recollect was a little brick building on the alley near the northeast side of the American Hotel lot. Mrs. Pearl Roundy was the first teacher that I went to. She taught in this house. She was much beloved by the whole town. I afterwards went to Hamlin and others in this same house.
413
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
When the first appropriation of seventy-five thousand dollars was made by our State for the common schools, a debt of twenty-three million dollars rested on the Commonwealth. A great many good, conservative men op- posed this appropriation, and "predicted bankruptcy from this new form of extravagance." But the great debt has been all paid, the expenses of the war for the Union have been met, and now ( 1895) the annual appropriation for our schools has been raised to five and a half million dollars. This amount due the schools for the year ending June 5, 1893, was all paid on November 1, 1893, and our State treasurer had deposits still left, lying idle, in forty-six of our banks, amounting to six and a half million dollars, which should have been appropriated for school purposes and not kept lying idle. This additional appropriation would have greatly relieved the people from oppressive taxation during these hard times.
The act of May 18, 1893, completed the evolution in our school system from the early home, the church, the subscription, the 1809 pauper, the 1834 common, into the now people's or free school system.
This free school is our nation's hope. Our great manufacturing inter- ests attract immigrants to our land in large numbers, and to thoroughly educate their children and form in them the true American mind, and to prevent these children from drifting into the criminal classes, will task to the utmost all the energies, privileges, and blessed conditions of our present free schools. In our free schools of Pennsylvania the conditions are now equal. The child of the millionaire, the mechanic, the widow, and the day laborer all stand on the same plane. We have now, for the first time in the history of our State, in addition to the free school-houses, free desks, free fuel, free blackboards, free maps, free teachers, free books, free paper, free pens, free ink, free slates, free pencils, free sponges, and, in short, free schools.
In 1840 our houses and hotels were never locked at night. This was from carelessness, or perhaps thought to be unnecessary. But every store window was provided with heavy outside shutters, which were carefully closed, barred, or locked every night in shutting up.
Then every merchant in Brookville was forced, as a matter of protec- tion, to subscribe for and receive a weekly bank-note detector. These periodicals were issued to subscribers for two dollars and fifty cents a year. This journal gave a weekly report of all broken banks, the discount on other State bank-notes, as well as points for the detection of counterfeit notes and coin. The coin department in the journal had wood-cut pictures of all the foreign and native silver and gold coins, and also gave the value of each.
Money was scarce then, and merchants were compelled to sell their goods on credit, and principally for barter. The commodities that were ex- changed for in Brookville stores were boards, shingles, square timber, wheat, rye, buckwheat, flaxseed, clover-seed. timothy-seed, wool, rags, beeswax,
414
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
feathers, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, hides, deer-pelts, elderberries, furs, road orders, school and county orders, eggs, butter, tow cloth, linen cloth, axe- handles, rafting bows and pins, rafting grubs, maple-sugar in the spring, and oats after harvest.
In those days everybody came to court, either on business or to see and be seen. Tuesday was the big day. The people came on horseback or on foot. We had no book-store in town, and a man named Ingram, from Meadville, came regularly every court and opened up his stock in the bar- room of a hotel. An Irishman by the name of Hugh Miller came in the same way, and opened his jewelry and spectacles in the hotel bar-room. This was the time for insurance agents to visit our town. Robert Thorn was the first insurance agent who came here, at least to my knowledge.
In 1840 every store in town kept pure Monongahela whiskey in a bucket, either on or behind the counter, with a tin cup in or over the bucket for customers to drink free of charge, early and often. Every store sold whiskey by the gallon. Our merchants kept chip logwood by the barrel, and kegs of madder, alum, cobalt, copperas, indigo, etc., for women to use in coloring their homespun goods. Butternuts were used by the women to dye brown, peach-leaves or smartweed for yellow, and cobalt for purple. Men's and women's clothing consisted principally of homespun, and homespun underwear. Men and boys wore warmusses, roundabouts, and pants made of flannels, buckskin, Kentucky jean, blue drilling, tow, cloth, linen, satinet, bed- ticking, and corduroy, with coon-skin, seal-skin, and cloth caps, and in sum- mer oat-straw or chip hats. The dress suit was a blue broadcloth swallow- tail coat with brass buttons, and a stove-pipe hat. "Galluses" were made of listing, bed-ticking, or knit of woollen yarn. Women wore barred flannel, linsey-woolsey, tow, and linen dresses. Six or eight yards of " Dolly Var- den" calico made a superb Sunday dress. Calico sold then for fifty cents a yard. Every home had a spinning-wheel, some families had two,-a big one and a little one. Spinning-parties were in vogue, the women taking their wheels to a neighbor's house, remaining for supper, and after supper going home with their wheels on their arms. Wool-carding was then done by hand and at home. Every neighborhood had several weavers, and they wove for customers at so much per yard.
About 1840, Brookville had a hatter,-John Wynkoop. He made what was called wool hats. Those that were high-crowned or stove-pipe were wreath-bound with some kind of fur, perhaps rabbit-fur. These hatters were common in those days. The sign was a stove-pipe hat and a smoothing- iron. A Swiss in 1404 invented the hat. There was a standing contest between the tailors, hatters, and printers in drinking whiskey (doctors barred).
Then, too, coopers were common in every town. These coopers made tubs, buckets, and barrels, all of which were bound with hickory hoops. Our
415
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
cooper was a Mr. Hewitt. His shop was on the alley, rear of the Commercial Hotel lot. These are now two lost industries.
In 1840 there was but one dental college in the world,-the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, established in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1839,- the first dental college ever started. Up to and in that day dentistry was not a science, for it was practised as an addenda by the blacksmith, barber, watchmaker, and others. In the practice no anatomical or surgical skill was required. It was something that required muscular strength and manual dexterity in handling the "turnkey." With such a clumsy, rude condition of dentistry, is it any wonder that Tom Moore wrote these lines ?-
" What pity, blooming girl, that lips so ready for a lover, Should not beneath their ruby casket cover one tooth of pearl, But like a rose beneath a church-yard stone, Be doomed to blush o'er many a mouldering bone."
The pioneer native American dentist was John Greenwood.
All the great discoveries and improvements in the science and art of dentistry as it is to-day are American. Dentistry stands as an American in- stitution, not only beautified, but almost perfected upon a firm pedestal, a most noble science; and, through the invention, by Charles W. Peale, of Philadelphia, of porcelain teeth, our molars shall henceforth be as white as milk. If Moore lived to-day, under the condition of American dentistry, he might well exclaim, in the language of Akenside,-
" What do I kiss? A woman's mouth, Sweeter than the spiced winds from the south."
In 1796, when Andrew Barnett trod on the ground where Brookville now stands, slavery existed throughout all Christendom. Millions of men, women, and children were held in the legal condition of horses and cattle. Worse than this, the African slave-trade-a traffic so odious and so loudly reproved and condemned by the laws of religion and of nature-was carried on as a legal right by slave-dealers in and from every Christian nation. The horror with which this statement of facts must strike you only proves that the love of gold and the power of evil in the world is most formidable. The African slave-trade was declared illegal and unlawful by England in 1806-07, by the United States in 1808, by Denmark, Portugal, and Chile in 18II, by Sweden in 1813, by Holland in 1814-15, by France in 1815, and by Spain in 1822.
When Andrew Barnett first trod the ground where Brookville now stands the curse of slavery rested on Pennsylvania, for in that year three thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven human beings were considered " property" within her borders and held as slaves.
416
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
" Chains him and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps when she sees it inflicted on a beast."
In 1840 slavery still existed in Pennsylvania, the total number being 75, distributed, according to the census of that year, as follows: Adams County, 2; Berks, 2; Cumberland, 25; Lancaster, 2; Philadelphia, 2; York, I; Greene, I; Juniata, I; Luzerne, I; Mifflin, 31; Union, 3; Washington, 2; Westmoreland, I; Fayette, I.
It will be seen that no slave was held or owned in Jefferson County. There is not, to-day, a slave in all Christendom, after a struggle of nearly two thousand years.
" Little by little the world grows strong, Fighting the battle of Right and Wrong. Little by little the Wrong gives way ; Little by little the Right has sway ; Little by little the seeds we sow Into a beautiful yield will grow."
In 1840, according to the census, there were fifty-seven colored people and no slaves in Jefferson County. The most prominent of these colored people who lived in and around Brookville were Charles Southerland, called Black Charley; Charles Anderson, called Yellow Charley; John Sweeney, called Black John; and George Hays, the fiddler. Charles Southerland came to Jefferson County and settled near Brookville in 1812. He came from Virginia, and was said to have held General Washington's horse at the laying of the corner-stone of the national capitol at Washington. He was a very polite man, a hard drinker, reared a family, and died in 1852, at the advanced age of nearly one hundred years.
Charley always wore a stove-pipe hat with a colored, cotton handker- chief in it. He loafed much in Clover's store. The late Daniel Smith was a young man then, and clerked in this store. Mr. Smith in his manhood built the property now owned and occupied by Harry Matson. Charley Souther- land, if he were living now, would make a good Congressman, because he was good on appropriations. One day there was no. one in the store but Smith and Charley. There was a crock of eggs on the counter. Smith had to go to the cellar and left the store in the charge of Charley. On returning he glanced in the direction of the eggs, and discovered that Charley had pil- fered about a dozen of them. Where were they? He surmised they must be in Charley's hat ; so stepping in front of Southerland, he brought his right fist heavily down on his hat, with the exclamation, "Why the h-Il don't you wear your hat on your head?" Much to the amusement of Smith and the discomfort of Southerland, the blow broke all the eggs, and the white and yellow contents ran down over Charley's face and clothes, making a striking contrast with his sooty black face.
27
417
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
The lives of many good men and women have been misunderstood and clouded by the thoughtless, unkind words and deeds of their neighbors. Good men and women have struggled hard and long, only to go down, down, poisoned and persecuted all their days by the venomous and vicious slanders of their neighbors; while, strange to say, men and women who are guilty of all the vices are frequently apologized for, respected, and are great favorites with these same neighbors.
It is unfortunate enough in these days to have been painted black by our Creator, but in 1840 it was a terrible calamity. A negro then had no rights ; he was nothing but a " d-d nigger ;" anybody and everybody had a right to abuse, beat, stone, and maltreat him. This right, too, was pretty generally exercised. I have seen a white bully deliberately step up in front of a negro, in a public street, and with the exclamation, " Take that, you d-d
Western entrance to Brookville, 1840
nigger!" knock him down, and this, too, without any cause, word, or look from the negro. This was done only to exhibit what the ruffian could do. Had the negro, even after this outrage, said a word in his own defence, the cry would have been raised, " Kill the d-d nigger !" I have seen negro men stoned into Red Bank Creek, for no crime, by a band of young ruffians. I have seen a house in Brookville borough, occupied by negro women and chil- dren, stoned until every window was broken and the door mashed in, and all this for no crime save that they were black. It used to make my blood boil, but I was too little to even open my mouth. A sorry civilization, was it not?
The accompanying cut represents Brookville as I first recollect it,- from 1840 to 1843,-a town of shanties, and containing a population of two hundred and forty people. It is made from a pencil sketch drawn on the
418
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
ground in 1840. It is not perfect, like a photograph would make it now. To understand this view of Main Street, imagine yourself in the middle of the then pike, now street, opposite the Union or Mckinley Hotel, and looking eastward. The first thing that strikes your attention is a team of horses hauling a stick of timber over a newly-laid, hewed-log bridge. This bridge was laid over the deep gully that can now be seen in G. B. Carrier's lot. Looking to the left side of the street, the first building, the gable end of which you see, was the Presbyterian church, then outside of the west line of the borough. The next, or little house, was Jimmie Lucas's blacksmith-shop. The large house with the paling fence was the residence and office of John Gallagher, Esq., and is now the Judge Clark property. The next house was east of Barnett Street, and the Peace and Poverty Hotel. East of this hotel you see the residence and tailor-shop of Benjamin McCreight. Then you see a large two-story house, which stood where the Commercial Hotel now stands. This building was erected by John Clements, and was known as the Clements property. Then there was nothing until you see the court-house, with its belfry, standing out, two stories high, bold and alone. East of this and across Pickering Street, where Harry Matson now resides, was a large frame building, occupied by James Craig as a store-room for cabinet-work. Rev. Gara Bishop resided here for a long time. Next to this, where Guyther & Henderson's store now stands, were several brick business buildings belong- ing to Charles Evans. Next came Major William Rodgers's store, on what is now the Edelblute property. Then came Jesse G. Clark's home; then the Jefferson House (Phil. Allgeier's house), and the present building is the original, but somewhat altered. Then across the alley, where Gregg's barber- shop now is, was the Elkhorn, or Red Lion Hotel, kept by John Smith, who was sheriff of the county in 1840. The next house was on the Mrs. Clements property, and was the home and blacksmith-shop of Isaac Allen. Then came the Matson row, just as it is now down to the Brownlee house, northeast corner of Main and Mill Streets.
Now please come back and look down the right-hand side. The first building, the rear end of which only can be seen behind the tree, was the first foundry built in town. It stood near or on the ground where Fetzer's brick building, the rear end of which, only, can be seen behind the tree, was the first was afterwards the Evans foundry. When built it was outside the borough. The second house, with the gable next the street, was the house of Jamies Corbet, Esq., father of Colonel Corbet, and it stood where the gas-office now is. The next and large building, with the gable-end next the street. was called the James Hall Building, and stood on the ground now occupied by the Bishop Buildings. This building was used for day-school and singing- school purposes. I went to day-school here to Miss Jane Clark then, now Mrs. E. H. Darrah. It was also used by a man named Wynkoop, who made beaver hats. The next building was a house erected by a Mr. Sharpe, and
419
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
was located on the lot west of where the National Bank of Brookville now stands. The building having the window in the gable-end facing you was the Jack Building, and stood on the ground now occupied by McKnight & Son in their drug business. East of this, on the ground now occupied by R. M. Matson's brick, stood a little frame building, occupied by John Heath, Jr. It cannot be seen. East and across Pickering Street you see the Franklin House and its sign. Here now stands the Central Hotel of S. B. Arthurs. East of the Franklin House, but not distinctly shown on the picture, were the houses of Craig, Waigley, Thomas M. Barr, Levi G. Clover, Mrs. Mary McKnight, Snyder's row, and Billy Mccullough's house and shop, situate on the corner of Main and Mill Streets, or where the Baptist church now stands.
The buildings on each side of Pickering Street, cast of the court-house, you will see, are not very plain or distinct on the picture.
These recollections were published in 1895.
CHAPTER XXII
PIONEER PREACHERS AND CHURCHES IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
" Have we not all one Father ? Hath not one God created us?"
IN 1893 the Rev. Robert Audely Brown, D.D., of New Castle, Penn- sylvania, in writing of the United Presbyterian Branch of the Presbyterian Church of one hundred years ago, says,-
" We can only imagine the labors of these men as they worked after the ideal of the Scottish pastorate in the new part of the new world. We cannot doubt their fidelity. But no record, printed or written, remains of their visits from house to house and other kindred pastoral labors.
"More durable, however, than marble, is their influence among the living forces of to-day. To estimate their labors better, let us remember the contemporaneous civil and political events that embarrassed their pas- torates.
" The Indian wars had called for soldiers from their communities and congregations up till now. It was only this very year that Wayne's victory ended these wars. Sons, brothers, and fathers were many of them in the field. Fort Pitt was the rendezvous and point of departure of troops gathered from the surrounding counties of Western Pennsylvania. As late as 1791 St. Clair's defeat had brought sorrow to many families and terror to homes in prospect of bloody raids and massacres that might follow in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
" More distracting and injurious to religion than Indian wars was the Whiskey Insurrection, which from 1791 until 1794 filled men's minds, and which was crushed only in the latter year. The three Pennsylvania pastors were located in the very centre of the excitement; armed resistance, fire, and bloodshed, signalized ground only a few miles from where we are now met. The member who represented this district in Congress was an elder in the pastoral charge of Matthew Henderson. This was William Findley, of West- moreland County, grandfather of the late Dr. William Findley, long con- nected with Westminster College. Standing on the side of justice, law, and order, as our predecessors necessarily did, it cannot be doubted but that they felt the force of adverse currents where in the various communities in which they lived men rose to the point of insurrection against what was conceived to be a hardship and injustice in having that one industry taxed which brought them money, and that from far-off markets east, reached by rugged mountain
421
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
roads or by long and perilous voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.
" But these pastors found a worse enemy still to counteract their work. Worse than Indian wars, worse than the Whiskey Insurrection, was whiskey itself. Whiskey was the chief manufacture of the West and eminently of the two regions which this Presbytery occupied, and certainly this seems a sin- gular fact. Old Monongahela whiskey in Pennsylvania and Old Bourbon whiskey of Kentucky occupied the very centre of these fields which God had allotted the new Presbytery; and as the Prince of Persia withstood the Angel Michael, in Daniel's vision, so this agency of Satan impeded and impaired the sacred work of the laborers for the gospel. Many of the more well-to-do owners of the farms (nearly all were farmers), were the owners also of stills, and for themselves and less prosperous neighbors turned grain into whiskey, in which more portable form their harvests reached a distant market, and so commanded money. There was hard toiling amid the stumps. The belief that whiskey was ' a good creature of God' infested men's minds. So in prac- tice they were true to principle. What was good for others was certainly good also for themselves. They were consumers as well as producers. The farmer and his boys all drank. The store-keeper kept liquor free for his customers, on the counter. The guest in respectable homes was treated to it universally. The pastor was expected to drink it as a pledge of hospitality on entering a dwelling, and again to drink at his departure. If he made twelve visits in a day he had taken twenty-four drinks. It is a wonder that religion survived. Many members of the church were tipplers; some were often (in common phrase) 'the worse for liquor,' and some were confirmed drunkards and died such. How many of the baptized of the church and the unbaptized and those out of the church were lost, who can tell? But the loss was fearful. It included the loss of souls and bodies and standing. It changed the course of lives, it wasted fortunes. It ruined the individual, and doomed his family and friends to be losers by all the interests they had in him. And it inflicted a burden and a blight on the community and the church. These, indeed, grew, but it was not liquor made them grow, but the wonderful wealth of a new and virgin land rewarding the productive industry of a new people, and causing them to grow despite the fearful drain upon their resources. The church has gained even with the curse of the drinking usage its chief enemy. But what it might have achieved but for liquor no man can estimate. Even the ministry, in instances, became victims ; more than one wreck caused pain and shame later, and demanded discipline in the form of admonition, warn- ing, suspension, or deposition. But this statement does not apply to the fathers of the Presbytery; and only to a few of those who afterwards became members. It was no wonder some of them were drunkards; it is, on the contrary, a wonder they were not all drunkards. It is a proof of the grace of God and the truth of Christianity that it survived,-an evidence that the
422
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
church has a living power from God that it grew, though thus weighted down and fettered, until a time came when another principle became ascendant,- namely, that instead of the drinking of an intoxicant being a just use of 'one of God's good creatures,' the making and use of alcoholic poisons as beverages is an essential immorality."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.