USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 54
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" Port Allegheny is on the Allegheny River, ten miles east of Smeth- port, near the confluence of the Portage branch. The Canoe Place is about two miles above. It was here that the early settlers of Warren County came about the year 1795, constructed a canoe, and floated down to the mouth of the Conewango.
" Bradford is a small village recently started in the forks of Tunenguant, on land purchased from the United States Land Company, better known as the Boston Company.
"Ceres, formerly King's settlement, is a smart and flourishing village, inhabited by New York and Yankee lumbermen, on Oswaya Creek, in the northeastern corner of the county. It contains a Methodist church, several stores, mills, etc.
" Teutonia is the name of the new German town, situated on the right bank of Stanton Creek, five miles southwest of Smethport. This town is the property of 'The Society of Industry.' It was started in March, 1843, on the plan and by the enterprise of Mr. Henry Ginal, a German now residing in Philadelphia, and agent of the Society. It contains at present about four hundred and fifty inhabitants. A school-house is built, but no church. Some seventy or eighty log houses have been erected, besides a steam saw-mill, a large tannery, and a store furnished with every article necessary for food and clothing. The Society is in possession of forty thousand acres of land, a considerable part of which is already cleared, and they keep from forty to fifty hands at chopping, all of them members of the Society. Excellent bituminous coal, iron ore, limestone, brick-clay, etc., abound on the lands. The soil is generally of good quality. The Society is founded on the prin- ciple of community of property, money and furniture excepted, and is sus- tained by the co-operation of its members ; an equal distribution of the profits being made half-yearly. In its fundamental principles it differs from Fourier's system. The Society has about forty thousand dollars capital; some sixteen thousand dollars of which is invested in land. This stock is divided into six hundred and sixty shares, of which three hundred and sixty are already sold. When the balance is sold the number will be limited, and shareholders will be admitted only by buying out others. The shares are now worth about two hundred dollars; originally they were only worth one hundred dollars, but have risen with the improvements. The land is divided into several districts ; in the centre of each there is to be a town, with houses built in
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BRANDON. MITSPA.
Paul Darling, born in Smethport, November 5, 1823, school-master, financier. philanthropist, now deceased
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
uniform style, and the stables and barns will be outside of the village. Mar- riage is not only allowed, but encouraged, and each family resides in its separate house, possessing its own furniture and money. Clothing of a plain and uniform kind, provisions, fuel, etc., are regularly distributed by rations from the society's common stores. An individual becomes a member by pur- chasing a share of stock, going on the ground, and working with the rest. The society will build him a house if married; or furnish him or her with a lodging if single. Children, when grown up, become members by conforming to the rules of the Society. Married women are not obliged to work for the community, but devote their attention to the care of their own families."
" Near Port Allegheny the earliest settlers were Judge Samuel Stanton, Jonathan Foster, and Dr. Horace Coleman. Judge Stanton and Dr. Coleman were active and public-spirited men, did all in their power to help on the settlement of the country, and were highly esteemed by the then few settlers of the county. Judge Stanton died many years ago while absent at Belle- fonte upon some public business. Mr. Foster was accidentally shot by his son. He and his son were out hunting wolves. Each wore a wolf-skin cap. and each was ignorant of the vicinity of the other. It was the custom with wolf-hunters to howl in imitation of the wolf, and thus decoy their prey to within rifle-shot. After being out some time one howled; the other, think- ing that he had heard a wolf, answered; both were deceived, and each began cautiously to creep toward his supposed prey. A succession of calls and counter-calls were kept up with sufficient accuracy of imitation to keep both deceived as to the real character of the other. Finally, after much manœuvring on both sides, and conducted after the known habits of the wolf. they ap- proached very near each other, when the quick eye of the younger man caught sight of the wolf-skin cap of the elder as he' raised his head to peer over a log, and he instantly fired. What must have been the feelings of that son as he walked triumphantly up to his prey, and found lying before him, not the body of the savage wolf, but that of his dying father! Could life be sufficiently long or busy to eradicate that scene from his memory? Dr. Cole- man lived to ripe old age, and died respected by all, and surrounded by a large family, who do ample credit to the efforts of their sire in their behalf." -Egle's History of Pennsylvania.
The pioneer court held in Mckean County was presided over by Hon. Edward Herrick, on September 25, 1826. The Associates were Joseph Otto and Joel Bishop. The court was held in the court-house, which had been completed. The jail was in process of erection at that time, and was com- pleted soon after. Up to that time the courts of MeKean County had been held in Coudersport, Potter County.
The prominent pioneer hunters were Eben Burbanks, Samuel Beckwith. Daniel Corneline, Rufus Cory, Ralph Hill. Nathan White. Henry Willard. Arthur Young, and Stephen Young.
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
The first coal found in the county was at Instanter, in 1815. Prior to 1840 wild lands were assessed at fifty cents per acre. Asylum Peters was born at what is now the city of Bradford in 1793. He was a negro slave, sold to William Ayres for one hundred dollars, who moved to Potter County in 1808. Peters's father and mother must have been slaves in what is now Mckean County.
The pioneer physician was Dr. George Darling at Smethport, in 1827. The pioneer school was at Instanter, in 1809.
Indian names for streams were, Kinzua, fish; Tunnanguant, bull-frog ; Nien-un-dah, potato creek. Marvin Creek took its name from the pioneer who settled on its banks. The second story of the pioneer court-house was used for religious services until after 1830. Up to that date there was not a church structure in the county.
The panther-hunters in 1827 were Joseph Silverkeel, an Indian, Dan. Killbuck, an Indian, Simon Beckwith, William and Dan. Lewis, and Ralph Hill. Panthers were killed years after this, but not so many.
The first mention of petroleum oil in history was by Herodotus, four hundred and forty years before Christ. The Cuba Oil Spring in New York was discovered July 18, 1627. In 1806 Nathaniel Carey established a busi- ness on Oil Creek, Venango County. In 1819 John Gibson struck oil on the Conemaugh River near Georgetown, Westmoreland County, at a depth of two hundred and seven feet. He was boring for salt.
The pioneer school in Smethport was in the Eastman building, in 1823-24; Ira H. Curtis, master. The pioneer school in Port Allegheny, under the law of 1834, was taught by Miss Eliza Manning.
CHAPTER XXXIV
MERCER COUNTY-FORMATION OF COUNTY-LOCATION OF COUNTY SEAT- SETTLERS - COURTS - OFFICERS - MAILS - COUNTY ROADS - DOCTORS - INDUSTRIES-SCHOOLS-CHURCHES-TOWNSHIPS-SOLDIERS OF 1812- MASONRY-BOROUGHS
MERCER COUNTY is one of the range contiguous to the western boundary of the State. It was taken from Allegheny County by the act of March 12, 1800. Length, thirty-two miles; breadth, twenty-six miles; area, seven hun- dred and sixty-five square miles. Population in 1800, 3228; in 1810, 8277 : in 1820, 11,681 ; in 1830, 19,729; in 1840, 32,873.
Mercer County was a wilderness until several years after the passage of the celebrated land law of April, 1792, providing for the survey and settle- ment of all the lands " north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers and Conewango Creek." Soon after peace was restored to the frontier, in 1795, settlements were made extensively about the southern end of Mercer County, in the forks of Mahoning, Shenango, and Neshannock Creeks.
The adventures of these worthy pioneers were few, and of little general interest. The county was for many years retarded in its growth, and the actual settlers were greatly harassed by the various and conflicting titles to land growing out of the acts of 1785 and 1792.
The pioneer settlers were principally Scotch-Irish, and all Presbyterians.
"The surface of the county is undulating, but little broken, and pecu- liarly well watered. It is covered with springs and small streams running into the larger creeks. These creeks consist of the Big Shenango on the west, which rises in Crawford County; Neshannock in the centre, with heads all over the northern central portion of the county, and Wolf Creek on the east. These streams all run in a southerly direction, and eventually are swallowed up in the Big Beaver, that empties itself into the Ohio River at Rochester. In addition to these there is the Little Shenango, that runs across a portion of the northern end of the county from east to west, rising six or seven miles east of the central line from south to north, and that empties into the Big Shenango at Greenville; and also Sandy Creek, that takes its rise in Crawford County, and, running diagonally through the northeast quarter, empties itself into the Allegheny River about twelve miles below Franklin. Sandy Lake, a sheet of water about a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, situated near the centre of the northeast quarter of the
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
county, discharges its surplus water into Sandy Creek. The character of its general surface, its bountiful supply of water, and richness of soil was well calculated to make it the foremost agricultural county in this part of the State; nor has it disappointed the anticipations of its early settlers, for it is now not only a fine agricultural, but a heavy and prosperous mining and iron county, notwithstanding that it lost nearly a fourth of its territory in the erection of Lawrence County.
The territory comprising Mercer County was filled with Indians and wild animals before the white man's advent, and for several years after. The Indians were Senecas and popularly called Cornplanters. They lived by hunting and fishing.
There were three large Indian towns, one where Mercer is now, con- taining seventy lodges; one at the big bend, and the other at Pine Swamp, what is now Jackson Township.
About 1804 a noted hunter, James Jeffers, entered this region. " There are a number of incidents related concerning his hostility to the Indian race, which had been aroused on account of the cruelty with which some of his relatives had been treated by the savages. Whether these are true or not cannot now be determined. They belong, however, to the folk-lore of the county, and as such deserve recital. It is said that on one occasion, while roaming through the forest, he suddenly met two Indians. They instinctively knew him to be a foe, and both at once dodged behind the cover of friendly trees. Jeffers perceived that the contest of one against two would be an unequal one, if carried on squarely, so he resorted to artifice to overcome the odds. Taking off his cap he placed it over the muzzle of his rifle, and exposed it, apparently incautiously, to the view of his antagonists. This had the desired effect. Thinking it was his head which they saw, one of them instantly shot and sent a ball through the empty cap. Jeffers dropped the cap to the ground, giving a death-like groan as he did so. The two Indians at once sprang from cover, and were rushing forward to secure the scalp of their supposed victim, when the latter stepped forth, cocked his rifle and prepared to shoot. He was at first at a loss to know which of the two had the loaded rifle, but perceiving one of them lift his weapon to his shoulder, he surmised that he was the dangerous foe, and accordingly shot him. The remaining savage sprang forward with a huge knife and engaged in a hand to hand conflict, but the superior cunning of the white man caused victory to perch on his side. As the savage was about to make a final thrust, Jeffers deflected the course of the knife, and it sheathed itself in the breast of the Indian himself, instantly killing him."
The wild animals in what is now Mercer County were the usual kind that inhabited this region, and the following story will give you an idea of the snake inhabitants.
About 1800, or 1803, John Johnson lived on a piece of land near the
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CRAWFORD Sq. Miles- 666- Acres- 426,240-
Jamestownn
Middletown
Georgetown
O
Little
she
ango
G
Greenville
1
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Pymatuning
Orangeville
. Delaware Grove.
STATE.
HSV UB
Henderson
-ville
T
Sharpeburg
RIVER
awang
CT CAPITAL
Centretown
Charlestown
CAN
Janësvite
V
wilkinsville
O
Middlesex
pine
Grove
New London
Resburg
LER.
OUTLINE MAP - 1850 -
North
Liberty
1
March - 12 - 1800
A
C
Rys
N
Otter
EN
Sharon
CI.
MERCER
Coolspring
6
Sandy Cr
Sandy Lake
Mills
OZ
Hamburg
Brown's
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-LINE
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BE A
Fayetteville
--
10
Neshanocz
LAWRENCE
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
Asa Arnold farm. This farm is situated on the west of Yankee Ridge. Johnson's wife went out from her cabin early one morning to get her cows. She had not gone far until she found herself surrounded with rattlesnakes. They were in such numbers that she was compelled to climb a dogwood that stood near by. Her cries for help reached her husband, and he came to her relief. In excitement, he said, "Polly, I can't relieve you myself, there are too many snakes;" and then running to his neighbor, Asa Arnold, he came back with new courage. With hickory poles, these two men cut their way through the snakes until Mrs. Johnson was relieved. Both men sickened in this work and had to rest for a time, and then go at the destruction again. The yellow rattlesnakes were counted and piled, two hundred in number, while there were many black and other snakes left on the ground uncounted. Some of the rattles counted as many as twenty-five. The rattlers of North- western Pennsylvania are the banded variety, called timber rattlers.
Mercer, 1843
In the fall of the year 1806 several families came in from Westmoreland, Allegheny, and Washington Counties, and made an opening. The only one remaining over that winter was John Findley, but the others came back in the spring. John Findley's neighbors at that time were John Pugh, James Braden, John Garvin, William Alexander, Mr. Hawthorn, and Mr. Mc- Cullough.
" Mercer, the county seat, is situated near the Neshannock Creek, on elevated ground, fifty-seven miles northwest from Pittsburg by the turnpike. It was laid out in 1803 by John Findley, William Mortimore, and William McMillan, trustees, on two hundred acres of land given to the county by John Hoge, of Washington County, who owned large tracts of land in the vicinity. The hill on which it is situated was formerly a dense hazel thicket. The first courts were held in an old log court-house. The court and county officers are now accommodated in elegant public buiklings of brick, sur- rounded by a verdant lawn planted with trees, and enclosed by a neat white
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
fence. In 1807 there were only two or three houses in the place. In 1840 it had a population of seven hundred and eighty-one. The dwellings are neat and substantial, and display a pleasing variety of architectural embellishment. Besides the county buildings, there are in the town an academy, Methodist, Union, Seceder, Old and New School Presbyterian churches, a foundry, and the usual stores and taverns. Daily lines of stages pass through on the Pittsburg and Erie turnpike.
" West Greenville is situated in the northwestern part of the county, on the Shenango River, and is surrounded by large bodies of fine land. The Erie Extension Canal passes through the town, affording every facility to commerce. There are in the immediate vicinity extensive beds of iron ore and mines of very superior coal, which will form an important article of export to the lake. The rapid growth of the town, and the taste and beauty exhibited in its embellishments, indicate the advantages of its location. Seven years since the population was not more than three hundred; it numbered in 1840, six hundred and twenty-six. The Shenango River affords a very ample water-power, which drives several large mills, and is still not all occupied."-Day's Collections.
In 1840 there were twelve churches in the county, and special attention was paid to common school education.
The public road from Pittsburg to Erie, through Mercer, Meadville, etc., was authorized and laid out when the territory was under the control of Crawford County.
In 1817 the Mercer and Meadville Turnpike Company was chartered. In 1821 the company opened the line for general traffic. The streams of the county at first had to be forded, but later temporary wooden bridges were erected.
BEAVER AND ERIE CANAL
In 1822-23 the Legislature authorized a survey. In 1824 the United States government did the same. In 1827 the Legislature passed an act for the construction. Ground was broken on the French Creek feeder at Mead- ville, August 24, 1827, and it was completed to Conneaut Lake in 1834.
In 1843 ninety-seven miles of the main line had been finished, and four million dollars had been expended on the improvement by the State. The work was now turned over without cost to the Erie Canal Company, and was finished by the company December 5, 1844, when the first two boats, the " Queen of the West," a passenger packet, and the "R. S. Reed," loaded with Mercer County coal, passed through to Erie.
William Fruit, of Clarksville, was a pioneer in the coal business, and made this his first shipment of coal to Erie. The canal-boat held twenty-seven tons of coal.
At Erie his new fuel was not in demand. He eventually sold it at two dollars per ton.
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
Other coal operators were General James Pierce and Rev. George McCleery.
SOME PIONEER POST-OFFICES AND POSTMASTERS
In 1806 a weekly mail was established from Pittsburg to Erie by the way of Mercer,-a horseback route; a semi-weekly in 1818; a tri-weekly in 1824.
In 182I a stage route was opened, and a daily mail line was authorized in 1827.
Mercer, July 1, 1805, Cunningham S. Semple. Sharon, August 11, 1819. Elias Jones. Greenville, January 9, 1828, Alexander P. Waugh. James- town, April 3, 1833, John Williamson, Jr. Clark, July 14, 1833, John Fruit. New Vernon, July 20, 1837, John M. Montgomery. Perrine, February 16, 1833, William H. Perrine. Salem, March 6, 1832, William Leech. Sandy Lake, January 30, 1833, Thomas J. Brown. North Liberty, January 15, 1840, Robert Shaw. West Middlesex, August 30, 1839, Robert B. Young. Grove City, July II, 1844, William Fleming. Centretown, January 9, 1840, John Tumelson. Leesburg, December 3, 1836, Arthur Johnston. London, March 16, 1848, David Gilson. New Lebanon, December 17, 1849, James A. Leech.
IRON FURNACES
In 1846 there were ten iron furnaces in Mercer County.
The pioneer agricultural society was in existence as early as January 5. 1828. Joseph Justice was president, Nathaniel McElevey, secretary, and Joseph Emery, treasurer.
The Mercer Whig began June 15, 1844, John B. Butler, editor. In 1830 the West Greenville Gazette was started by Richard Hill. In 1848 J. W. Mason started the Weekly Express. In 1852, the paper was purchased by the Rev. William Orvis, and was published as an antislavery educator. This antislavery paper was in Greenville.
PIONEER DOCTORS
Who the pioneer doctor was in Mercer County is not known. Among the early ones were Dr. Clark, the two Cossitts, Dr. Magoffin, Sr., Dr. Ma- goffin, Jr., and two Mehards.
The antislavery agitation began in Mercer County about June 15. 1835. by the Rev. Nathaniel West and others.
THE PIONEER JUSTICE
Alexander Dumars was appointed justice of the peace in 1810. Allan Hill prosecuted Joseph Nesbit before Squire Dumars for damages done by Nesbit's cows to Hill's cornfield.
" The parties to the suit appeared. Nesbit claimed that it was Hill's
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
fault ; that he would not keep up a fence around his field; that he had himself worked to repair and put up his fence, and had also sent hands for that purpose, but that Hill would do nothing to preserve his own grain. The Squire said, ' If that is the kind of a man Hill is, he ought to be loaded with powder and blown to hell.' The wily Irishman, Nesbitt, immediately said, ' If that is the judgment of your honor, please give us an execution, and let us have it carried out at once.'"
INDUSTRIES
The pioneer industries were saw-mills, grist-mills, and whiskey distil- leries, built as early as 1801-02, and flaxseed oil-mills in 1812.
A fulling-mill was erected in 1803 by Benoni Tuttle.
"In 1849 the townships of Mahoning, Neshannock, and Slippery Rock, together with a strip of territory of about half a mile in width taken from the southern sides of the townships of Springfield, Wilmington, and She- mango, were detached from Mercer to contribute to the erection of Lawrence County. In these townships were the villages of Harlansburg, New Wil- mington, Pulaski, New Bedford, Hillsville, Edenburg, Eastbrook, and the borough of New Castle, containing altogether quite a third of the population of the county. And thus stand the bounds of Mercer County, with its sub- divisions into townships in the one hundred and twelfth year of independence, and the eighty-eighth year of its erection as a separate county by the Legis- lature of Pennsylvania."
The pioneer fire company of Mercer Borough was organized June 28, 1824.
The pioneer missionary society in Mercer County held its first meet- ing in Mercer on June II, 1834, Rev. Samuel Tait, president; Rev. J. L. Dinwiddie, secretary. It was a Presbyterian society.
The first school-house in the borough of Mercer was a one story brick about twenty feet square, heated by a ten-plate stove.
I copy the following from Egle's "History of Pennsylvania :"
" Although declared a county by act of Assembly in 1800, for all prac- tical purposes it constituted a part of Crawford until February, 1804, when the first and second courts were held at the house of Joseph Hunter, situated on Mill Creek, on the mill property near Mercer, now owned by the Hon. William Stewart, in February and May of that year. The commission of Hon. Jesse Moore, as president judge of the circuit composed of the counties of Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Crawford, and Erie, was read; also the com- missions of Alexander Brown and Alexander Wright as judges for Mercer County. The various commissions of John Findley (who was the eldest son of the historic William Findley that was so prominent in Congress in the support of Thomas Jefferson) as prothonotary, clerk of the courts, etc., was also read; so also that of William Byers as sheriff, James Braden as coroner,
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
and John W. Hunter as deputy prosecuting attorney. The sheriff and coro- ner, as well as a board of county commissioners, consisting of Robert Bole, Andrew Denniston, and Thomas Robb, it is presumed were elected in October, 1803.
The attorneys admitted to practice at the first court were- John W. Hunter, Joseph Shannon, C. S. Sample, S. B. Foster, A. W. Foster, Ralph Marlin, Edward Work, Patrick Farrelly, William Ayres, Henry Baldwin. and Steel Sample. The two Fosters, Farrelly, Ayres, Baldwin, and Steel Sample, all afterwards turned out to be men of mark and ability.
At the second term of court, held in May, the commission of William Amberson as an additional judge for Mercer County was read. This gave three associate judges. The writer of this, who, as a little boy, occasionally dropped into the court-house, along between 1814 and 1820, was indelibly impressed with the grand dignity of the president judge. He was a heavy, solemn-looking man, retaining the costume of the old-style gentleman,- small clothes, shoe-buckles, knee-buckles, bald head, but hair long behind and done up in a queue, and head and hair and collar of the black coat covered with a white powder sprinkled thereon. He has since seen the Supreme Court of the United States in session. The black gowns of the judges sitting in a row, the low colloquial tone in which causes are argued, and the quiet- ness enforced certainly gave it a very dignified aspect, but still there was lacking the grand old powdered head and queue that gave Judge Moore the advantage in solemn and imposing dignity.
It was with the funds arising from the sale of town lots that the first court-house, standing in the centre of the public square, was built. On the 19th of May, 1807, John Chambers, John Leech, and William McMillan, the then county commissioners, contracted with Joseph Smith and John McCurdy for the building thereof, for the sum of seven thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars. It was a square brick building, two stories high, with wings for the offices. In 1840, there was an addition put to it to get better office accommodations, at a cost of about two thousand dollars. The first court-house and jail, however, was a log structure on the ground now oc- cupied by the First National Bank, the lower story for a jail being built of squared logs let down flat and dove-tailed at the corners, and the court-room above, which was reached by stairs on the outside of the building. Until this construction was ready for prisoners, the county prison was a room in the house of James Braden, which the commissioners rented and fitted up for that purpose.
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