USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 55
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" The travelled route through northwestern Pennsylvania was that estab- lished by the French in 1752,-water communication up the Allegheny River to the mouth of French Creek, then up that stream to Waterford, and from thence by an opened road to Erie. It was this route that was followed by Colonel Washington in 1753, when sent by Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia,
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to demand from the French an explanation of their designs in establishing military posts on the waters of the Ohio. This route left Mercer County en- tirely to the west, and may explain why settlements in Venango, Crawford, and Erie, which it traversed, preceded those formed in Mercer. There were no settlements made in it until after Wayne's victory over the Indians and the peace with them that followed in 1795. After this, in the fall of 1795, the surveyors began their labors, followed closely by the first settlers. Benjamin Stokely now occupies the farm on which his father thus commenced the settlement.
" Among the first settlers along the Shenango were the grandfathers of the present generations of the Quinbys, Budds, Carnes, Beans, McKnights, McGranahans, Campbells, Hoaglands, Mossmans, Leeches, Fells, Hunters, and Christys. In the Neshannock and Mahoning regions, the Byers, San- keys, Fishers, Watsons, Chenowiths, and Pearsons made their first settle- ment. In the centre, the Stokelys, Zahnisers, Garvins, Alexanders, Find- leys, Junkins, Dennistons, Mcculloughs, Pews, Rambos, Coulsons, and Hosacks. In the southeast corner, the Roses, McMillans, Breckenridges, McCoys, and Courtneys. In the Sandy Lake and French Creek region, the Gordons, McCrackens, DeFrances, Carnahans, Browns, Carmichaels, Car- rols, Kilgores, Riggs, Condits, and McCloskeys. In the way of startling adventure, these men were not history-makers. Their mission was to open up a wilderness for the use of civilized man, and secure to themselves and pos- terity comfortable homes. In striving to do this they underwent many priva- tions. It took time to open out fields and get them under cultivation, so that bread could be got without transportation on horseback from Pittsburg or the settlements in Washington County, and before they could provide properly for the keeping of their stock over winter. The first stock was only wintered by the felling of maple- and linwood-trees to enable the cattle to browse on the buds. The forest then afforded them bear meat, venison, and turkey in abundance, but their appetites tired of this as the only food, and " hog and hominy," diversified with mush and milk, was the first change they could hope to make in their diet. Wolves, panthers, and bears were by no means scarce, but as other game was plenty, these animals did not indulge in the more dangerous chase of man. A wolf scalp then brought a premium of eight dollars out of the county treasury, and was a source of profit to quite a number of hunters.
" In the war of 1812 the people of Mercer County were frequently called upon to give their aid in the defence of Erie, where the fleet of Commodore Perry was being built. On these alarms, which were about as frequent as a vessel of the enemy hove in sight in the lake offing, the whole county would be aroused by runners in a day, and in a very few hours most of the able- bodied male population, whether belonging to a volunteer company or the militia, would be on their march to Erie. On one occasion the news came
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to Mercer on a Sunday while the Rev. S. Tait was preaching in the court- house. The sermon was suspended, the startling news announced from the pulpit, the dismissing benediction given, and immediate preparations for the march commenced. On the next day the military force of the county was well on its way to Erie. At another time the news of a threatened invasion came in the middle of the grain harvest. This made no difference; the response was immediate. It was on this occasion that Mr. John Findley dropped the sickle in his tracks in the wheat-field, hastened to his house, and, seizing his gun, with such provisions as his wife had at hand to put in his haversack, started on his way to the defence of his country. On his return, six weeks afterwards, the sickle was found by him where it had been dropped. It was on one of these occasions that but a single man was left in the county town,-Cunningham Sample, an old lawyer, completely unmanned by age and obesity.
" The history of Mercer County schools is commensurate with the or- ganization of the county in 1800. Although at that time there were no school- houses in the county, the education of the children was not entirely neg- lected. At that time, we find in some localities, schools were organized in families, and teachers secured for seventy-five cents or one dollar per week. Five or six years passed away in this manner, when, in 1805, two school- houses were built in the western part of the county, one in Salem Township. in what is now known as the Fell settlement, another in the present Hickory Township; and in the same or following year, in the southern part of the county, one was built in the Henderson settlement, in the present Worth Township; also one near that time in Pine Township. These were round log cabins. For ceilings, poles were thrown across overhead and brush placed on these poles and covered with earth. Above this was a clapboard roof held down by weight poles. Some of the better class of houses had puncheon floors (the floors in many of the dwelling-houses were constructed in the same way) ; others had nothing but the green sward, as nature left it. For light. a log was left out of the building, and newspapers greased and pasted in this opening. Seats were rude benches made of split logs, and desks were con- structed by boring into the logs and placing a slit piece of timber on pins driven into these holes. The fireplace, made of stone, mortar, and sticks, in- cluded the entire end of the building. Wood for this huge fireplace was hauled from surrounding forests by neighbors, who would appoint a day. and all turn out with oxen and sleds, and thus the wood was brought to the door, and there cut in suitable lengths by the larger boys in turn. It was also the rule for the larger boys to build the fires in turn, which required very early rising. The distance to the school-house from many of their homes was often five or six miles, and even farther. The time taught was eight hours per day. Boys were seen winding their way at daybreak along the trackless paths, save the track of a wolf, or perchance that of a passing bear.
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"In 1800 Mercer County was divided into six townships,-Salem, Pyma- tuning, Neshannock, Wolf Creek, Cool Spring, and Sandy Creek. After- wards, twenty-five subdivisions were made, each independent in their local school affairs, containing a number of houses, ranging from three to twenty- three (boroughs excepted), Wolf Creek the least, and Hickory the greatest number.
" Before the ' free school system' the amount of subscription was about fifty cents per month for one scholar. The houses were built in a day. The site agreed upon, the neighbors would assemble on an appointed day, with axes and ox-teams, and erect a rude structure, considered ‘ good enough to keep school in.'
" No test of scholarship was required, further than an article of agree- ment for parents to sign was written by the proposed teacher, setting forth his terms, what he proposed teaching, and how far. A teacher who proposed in a winter school to teach as far as the 'double rule of three,' now called compound proportion, was considered quite proficient in mathematics. He who proposed to lead a class through ' tare and tret' (custom-house business ) was thought a master mathematician. This article of agreement was all the patrons had by which to judge his ability.
" No black-boards were used; no classes heard, except reading and spelling. Pupils were required to copy all their examples in a blank-book prepared for the purpose, for future reference.
" But little moral suasion was used in the schools. Corporal punishment was almost the sole remedy for all offences. One of the favorite modes was what is termed 'cut jackets.' This was resorted to in case two were to be punished. Each offender selected his rod, and, at a given signal, they began a most furious attack upon each other, and would continue in the most brute- like and wicked manner, until often the blood would trickle down on the floor, and clothes were lacerated by the infuriated contestants, and the boy with the most physical strength and endurance was the envy of the school, a terror to those who had to ' cut jackets,' and the boasted pride of his parents. Another barbarous mode of punishment was sometimes practised, taken, doubtless, from the old Indian mode of massacring the whites. A day was selected to carry the offender, on his back, in a prescribed circle, around the stove, and two or three boys selected to stand in convenient distances of the line, at regular intervals, with rod in hand, whose business it was to strike once at the offender as he was carried past. After he was carried a few times around the circle (according to the nature of the offence) he was considered suffi- ciently punished, which was often brutally severe. This was termed 'running the gauntlet.'"
The number of schools in the county in 1846 was two hundred and fourteen. Average number of months taught, five months and five days. Number of male teachers, one hundred and seventy. Number of female
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teachers, one hundred and forty-five. Average salary for males, thirteen dollars. Average salary for females, six dollars and nine cents. The pioneer school-teacher is not positively known. It may have been Thomas Rigdon, in 1800.
The pioneer Masonic Lodge was organized July 4, 1822. The Lodge grew until 1827, and its warrant was vacated February 6, 1837. The Lodge was known as Mercer Lodge, No. 182, A. Y. M.
INCORPORATION OF BOROUGHS
Sharon, October 6, 1841, M. C. Trout, pioneer burgess. Greenville, May 29, 1837. Clarksville, May 5, 1848.
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CHAPTER XXXV
POTTER COUNTY - ERECTION - LOCATION OF COUNTY SEAT - COURTS AND OFFICERS - SETTLERS - ROADS - HARDSHIPS - ANIMALS AND HUNTERS -ALLEGHENY RIVER, ETC.
POTTER COUNTY was separated from Lycoming, by the act of March 26, 1804. Length, thirty-seven miles; breadth, thirty miles; area, eleven hun- dred and six square miles. Population in 1810, 29; in 1820, 186; in 1830, 1265; in 1840, 3371.
The county comprises the high, rolling, and table-land, adjacent to the northern boundary of the State, lying on the outskirts of the great bituminous coal formation. Its streams are the sources of the Allegheny, the Genesee, and the west branch of the Susquehanna; and a resident of the county says that all these streams head so near together that a man in three hours may drink from waters that flow into the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Chesapeake, respectively. The names of these sources are the Allegheny, the Genesee, the east branch of the Sinnemahoning, Kettle Creek, Pine Creek, and Cowanesque. In the south part of the county bitu- minous coal is found.
Coudersport, the county seat, was in 1844 a small but thriving town, situated on the right bank of the Allegheny, at the crossing of the great east and west State road. Another road leads to Jersey Shore, on the West Branch. The place contains a stone court-house and jail, an academy, three stores, two taverns, a carding-machine, mills, and dwellings. Stated preaching, by ministers of different denominations, is regularly enjoyed on the Sabbath.
John Keating, Esq., of Philadelphia, who owned immense tracts of wild lands in this region, presented one-half of the town-plot for the use of the county, and five hundred dollars for the academy. He also gave fifty acres of land to each of the first fifty families that settled on his land; and many other benevolent acts of that gentleman are gratefully remembered by the early settlers.
The court-house was finished in September, 1835. Coudersport then contained forty-seven people.
The history of the early pioneers is one of extreme toil and hardship, yet health and competence have been their reward; and where they found naught but a howling wilderness, traversed only by the Indian, the bear, the wolf, the panther, the elk, and the deer. they now see cultivated fields, abounding
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
with cattle and sheep, and an industrious population, furnished with mills, schools, and manufactories. The following extracts are from the correspond- ence of respectable citizens of the county. An early settler, Benjamin Birt, Esq., says,-
" In the year 1808 an east and west road was opened through Potter County. Messrs. John Keating & Co., of Philadelphia, owning large tracts of land in the northwest part of the county, agreed with Isaac Lyman, Esq .. to undertake the opening of the road. In the fall of 1809 Mr. Lyman came in, with several hands, and erected a rude cabin, into which he moved in March, 1810. He then had but one neighbor in the county, who was four miles distant. I moved in on May 4, 1811, and had to follow the fashion of the country for building and other domestic concerns,-which was rather tough, there being not a bushel of grain or potatoes, nor a pound of meat. except wild, to be had in the county; but there were leeks and nettles in abundance, which, with venison and bear's meat, seasoned with hard work and a keen appetite, made a most delicious dish. The friendly Indians of different tribes frequently visited us on their hunting excursions. Among other vexations were the gnats, a very minute but poisonous insect. that annoyed us far more than mosquitoes, or even than hunger and cold; and in summer we could not work without raising a smoke around us.
"Our roads were so bad that we had to fetch our provisions fifty to seventy miles on pack-horses. In this way we lived until we could raise our own grain and meat. By the time we had grain to grind. Mr. Lyman had built a small grist-mill; but the roads still being bad. and the mill at some distance from me, I fixed an Indian samp-mortar to pound my corn, and afterwards I contrived a small hand-mill, by which I have ground many a bushel,-but it was hard work. When we went out after provisions with a team, we were compelled to camp out in the woods: and, if in the winter, to chop down a maple-tree for our cattle to browse on all night, and on this kind of long fodder we had to keep our cattle a good part of the winter.
"When I came here I had a horse that I called . Main Dependence,' on account of his being a good steady old fellow. He used to carry my whole family on his back whenever we went to a wedding, a raising, a logging-bec. or to visit our neighbors, for several years, until the increasing load comprised myself, my wife, and three children, five in all.
" We had often to pack our provisions eighty miles from Jersey Shore. Sixty miles of the road was without a house; and in the winter, when deep snows came on and caught us on the road without fire, we should have perished if several of us had not been in company to assist each other.
" The want of leather, after our first shoes were worn out, was severely felt. Neither tanner nor shoemaker lived in the county. But . necessity is the mother of invention.' I made me a trough out of a big pine-tree, into which I put. the hides of any cattle that died among us. I used ashes for
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tanning them, instead of lime, and bear's grease for oil. The thickest served for sole leather, and the thinner ones, dressed with a drawing-knife, for upper leather ; and thus I made shoes for myself and neighbors.
"I had fourteen miles to go in winter to mill with an ox-team. The weather was cold and the snow deep: no roads were broken, and no bridges built across the streams. I had to wade the streams, and carry the bags on my back. The ice was frozen to my coat as heavy as a bushel of corn. I worked hard all day and got only seven miles the first night, when I chained my team to a tree, and walked three miles to house myself. At the second night I reached the mill. My courage often failed, and I had almost resolved to return ; but when I thought of my children crying for bread, I took new courage."
Mr. John Peat, another old pioneer, in a communication in the Forester in 1834, says,-
" It will be twenty-three years the 23d day of May, 1834, since I moved into Potter County. Old Mr. Ayres was in the county at that time, and had been in the county about five years alone. In the fall before I came, three families-Benjamin Birt, Major Lyman, and a Mr. Sherman-moved to the county. The east and west State road was cut out the year before I moved in.
"It was very lonesome for several years. People would move in, stay a short time, and move away again. It has been but a few years since settlers began to stick. I made some little clearing, and planted some garden seeds, etc., the first spring. We brought a small stock of provisions with us. On the 3d day of July I started, with my two yoke of oxen, to go to Jersey Shore, to mill, to procure flour. I crossed Pine Creek eighty times going to, and eighty times coming from mill, was gone eighteen days, broke two axle-trees to my wagon, upset twice, and one wheel came off in crossing the creek.
" Jersey Shore was the nearest place to procure provisions, and the road was dreadful. The few seeds that I was able to plant the first year yielded but little produce. We, however, raised some half-grown potatoes, some tur- nips, and soft corn, with which we made out to live, without suffering, till the next spring, at planting time, when I planted all the seeds that I had left ; and when I finished planting we had nothing to eat but leeks, cow-cabbage, and milk. We lived on leeks and cow-cabbage as long as they kept green -about six weeks. My family consisted of my wife and two children; and I was obliged to work, though faint for want of food.
" The first winter the snow fell very deep. The first winter month it snowed twenty-five days out of thirty; and during the three winter months it snowed seventy days. I sold one yoke of my oxen in the fall, the other yoke I wintered on browse; but in the spring one ox died, and the other I sold to procure food for my family, and was now destitute of a team, and had nothing but my own hands to depend upon to clear my lands and raise pro- visions. We wore out all our shoes the first year. We had no way to get
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Potter County pioneer court-house and jail
HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
more,-no money, nothing to sell, and but little to eat,-and were in dreadful distress for the want of the necessaries of life. I was obliged to work and travel in the woods barefooted. After a while our clothes were worn out. Our family increased, and the children were nearly naked. I had a broken slate that I brought from Jersey Shore. I sold that to Harry Lyman, and bought two fawn-skins, of which my wife made a petticoat for Mary; and Mary wore the petticoat until she outgrew it; then Rhoda took it, till she outgrew it; then Susan had it, till she outgrew it; then it fell to Abigail. and she wore it out."-Day's Collections.
I here quote from Hon. M. E. Olmstead's Centennial speech :
'SINNEMAHONING COUNTY ORIGINALLY
" The Legislature whose act created this county assembled at Lancaster. then the seat of government. Propositions to create separate counties out of parts of Lycoming and Huntingdon had been considered, but failed of passage, at two preceding sessions. The matter having been referred to the members from those counties, Mr. Hugh White, of Lycoming, reported on the 13th of January, 1804, bill No. 47, entitled ' An Act to erect parts of Lycoming, Huntingdon, and Somerset Counties into separate county dis- tricts.
" It may surprise some of you, as it did me, to learn that the bill as it passed the House did not call this county 'Potter,' but gave it the beautiful Indian name, 'Sinnemahoning.' It created the six counties of Jefferson. Mckean, Clearfield, Sinnemahoning, Tioga, and Cambria. But in the Senate there was a determination to honor the memory of General James Potter. The attempt was first made by Senator Pearson, from Philadelphia, seconded by Senator McWhortor, from Luzerne, to change the name of Mckean to Potter. Had that prevailed our Mckean County friends would be living in Potter County to-day, and we should be celebrating the centennial of Sinne- mahoning County. But it was defeated by the friends and admirers of the popular governor after whom that county was named. Thereupon Senator Harris, of Centre, seconded by Senator Norton, of Beaver, moved to change Sinnemahoning to Potter. That motion prevailed and the House afterwards concurred in the change.
" A WILDERNESS IN 1804
" Within the limits of what was then declared to be Potter County, the bear, the wolf, the panther, the deer, and the fox walked forth by day and the horn of the hunter was not heard on the hill ; the panther's nightly screech fell on no human ear; beautiful, red-speckled, and gamey trout swarmed in every pool, and knew not the cast of the angler : wild-eyed pigeons built their nests in every tree; their countless thousands in morning and evening flight obscured the sun, and the share of the fowler was set for them not : the otter.
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the mink, and the musk-rat went forth by day and by night and feared no ' dead fall;' the soil had not known the plough, nor the tree the woodman's axe ; here was the forest primeval, unbroken, pathless, magnificent; the smoke from an occasional Indian camp-fire had from time to time curled its way upward through the evergreen branches of the pine and hemlock, but, so far as history records, no white man lived, or ever had lived, within the splendid wilderness which, by the statute of 1804, was set apart and designated as the county of Potter. In the history of the whole Commonwealth there is probably no other instance of the erection of a county in which no human being lived at the time of its erection.
" THE FIRST SETTLER
" Although Coudersport (so-called in honor of Coudere, the French friend of John Keating, who, with other extensive land-owners, contributed lands for public purposes and lands and money for the erection and support of an academy) was decreed by legislative act of 1807 to become the 'seat of justice,' nobody yet lived in it, nor in the county, unless we admit the claim that there settled in 1806, near the mouth of the Oswayo, the French- man named Jaundrie, who is said to have built the house, ' clap-boarded with shingles,' from which the place derived and retains the name of 'Shingle House.' The honor of being the first settler is usually accredited to William Avers, whose settlement in 1808 upon the Keating farm five or six miles east of Coudersport is well established. He brought with him his wife, three children, and a negro boy fifteen years old, named Asylum Peters, whom he purchased from General Brevost at Ceres for one hundred dollars, upon con- sideration that he give him a fair common education and set him free when of age. This negro, who lived to the age of eighty-seven, and died November 24, 1880, at the house of Walter Edgcomb in Homer Township, was the only slave ever owned in Potter County.
" Major Isaac Lyman, the agent of Keating, came in 1809 and founded Lymansville, where he built the first grist-mill constructed from lumber cut with a whip-saw on the Keating farm.
"Benjamin Burt settled in 1811 where Burtville now stands. In the same year there was a settlement at the mouth of Fishing Creek, and in 1812 Samuel Losey settled on Pine Creek and John Peet near Coudersport. Shortly after that came John Taggart and Daniel Clark. Among the prominent names in the history of the county from that time down until, say, two decades after its complete organization in 1835, I readily recall such as Ives, Sartwell, Nel- son, Cartee, Ross, Jones, Freeman, Lewis, Cushing, Raymond, Olmstead, Baker, Kilbourn, Austin, Cole, Stebbins, Reese, Hall, Knox, Mann, Benson, McDougall, Haskell, Butterworth, Armstrong, Colcord, Crosby, French, Stout, Colvin, and many others too numerous to be mentioned here-im- portant guiding characters in the early history of the county.
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'THE FIRST WEDDING
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