USA > Pennsylvania > Blair County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Blair County, Pennsylvania > Part 70
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On April 25, 1854, Mr. Layman was united in marriage with Anna Kauffman, a daughter of Frederick Kauffman, of Bed- ford county, Pennsylvania.
William Layman is a republican in poli- ties, and a member of the Reformed church. ILis farm of one hundred and twenty acres of good land lies east of Curryville, which is his postoffice. He has one hundred and ten acres under cultivation and the other
ten acres in woodland. Mr. Layman is a thrifty farmer, a good neighbor, and a re- spected citizen.
GEORGE FLECK, of Montgomery county, who had served in the revolu- tion, came to Sinking valley after that struggle, and settled on the farm afterward occupied by his grandson, Gabriel, He died about 1830, having reared a large fam- ily. Of these, George lived on the Watson Isett place until his death, when the family removed; Conrad lived on the present Jacob Fleck place. IIe was married to Mary Moore, and they were the parents of Jacob, Perry, and Aaron Fleck, of the township. Their daughters married Robert Stewart, Jacob Hosler, Perry Orr, and O. E. Crissman, the latter of Roaring Spring. Henry, a third son, was married to Cath- erine Ramey, and lived on the place now owned by Israel Fleck. He was the father of John G., of Illinois, Israel, Henry, a Lutheran minister, and of daughters who married John Burket, Jacob Cortwright, William Bouslough, and David Crawford. Jacob, another son of George Fleck, was the father of Henry, Daniel, David, Conrad, George, Martin, Susan, Margaret, Cather- ine, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, and Caroline. David, a fifth son, was the husband of Mary Ramey, and lived on the farm afterward occupied by his son Gabriel, where he died in 1870, aged seventy-seven years. Their sons were Gabriel and Luther, and the daughters were married to George Lutz, Robert Crawford, John Carl, and John Keatley. The daughters of George Fleck were : Elizabeth, who was married to Abram Crissman, and died near Bedford; Mar- garet, married to John Fleck, of Mont-
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gomery' county ; Catherine, who was the wife of Daniel Crissman, of the valley ; and Mary, the wife of Peter Burket.
SAAC FISHER was a lawyer noted in the whole profession along the Juniata valley. In person, mind and manners he was peculiar. He was a member of the Huntingdon bar, and during the first years after the organization of the county at- tended all the courts. In person he was huge, weighing about three hundred pounds, generally neat in dress, seldom appearing in court without gloves; of very extensive reading, with no end of research in the particular case on trial. He was the horror of the court, because of his unlimited cita- tion of authorities. Always bland and re- spectful, but having a secret contempt for any lower one than the supreme court, he frequently said he would rather have one or two "good exceptions" in the court below than a verdict.
He was a thorn in the side of Judge Burn- side, and was about the only lawyer he was afraid of. While a law student Judge Black was present at the trial of several cases in which he was counsel. One case, between John Dougherty and Jack, Wigdon & Co., about the year 1853, was on trial. Mr. S. S. Blair and Mr. Fisher were counsel for Dougherty. A legal question arose during the trial, which was likely to prove dis- astrous to Dougherty's case. Mr. Blair was on his feet arguing the point with his usual force; the judge seemed to be against him, when Mr. Dougherty said, somewhat excitedly, to Fisher, "Why don't you say something, Mr. Fisher?" "Why, my dear sir," he replied, "whenever I attempt it, that young man of yours takes the words
right out of my mouth." He was the man who, after the jury had rendered a verdict against him, and in face of the charge of the court, moved at once for a new trial, which was instantly granted, when he turned to the jury, who had not yet left the box, and with a wave of his hand, said, " You twelve lawyers can now go home!"
He died about the year 1857. His last appearance was in the court at Hunting- don, on the hearing of a motion for a new trial. He always seemed to be moving for new trials. Ile had argued his reasons; the court's intimations were strong against him. Mr. Fisher suggested that the jury must have totally misapprehended the evi- dence. Judge Taylor said, "I see, Mr. Fisher, you have but little confidence in modern juries." Said Mr. Fisher, with a bow, and utmost blandness, " And very little more in modern courts." And with this parting shot at courts and juries, he left the court room, never to enter it again.
( OL. JOHN HALFPENNY removed
from Oak Hall, Centre county, Penn- sylvania, to the vicinity of Bell's Mills, in 1853. He had operated a woolen mill at Oak Hall for nine years. Ile at once began the manufacture of carpets, woolen cloths, and yarn, near Bell's Mills, which opera- tions were continued until 1867. During that year he built new mills, which, fur- nishing employment to some ten or twelve men and women, were successfully operated until December 13, 1875, when they burned, and were never rebuilt. Colonel Halfpenny died January 8, 1882. IIe had served six years as commissioner of Blair county, also on the staff of Governor Pollock, hence the title of colonel.
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OF BLAIR COUNTY.
ALCOLM McINTOSH came from Ireland, and settled on the farm in Juniata township now occupied by his grandson, Michael McIntosh, about 1802. The children who accompanied him on his migration from the old to the new world were John and Jane. Subsequently there were born to him and wife eight others: Alexander, Archibald, James, Mary, Mar- garet, Catharine, Ann, and Bridget. Of these, James learned the carpenter's trade with Baltzer Conrad, married Jane, the daughter of Henry McConnell, and settled in Newry prior to the year 1830. To them this teen children were born, of whom nine are living : Henry, a merchant of Newry; James, ex-county commissioner of Blair . county ; Franklin, a merchant at Newry; William, formerly an engineer at the Penn- sylvania railroad shops, Altoona; Benjamin, in machine shop at Philadelphia; Margaret, wife of William Douglass, Oil City, Pennsyl- vania; Emeline, at Newry; Matilda, wife of Samuel Roeloff, Gaysport, Pennsylvania ; and Amanda, wife of Mr. Conrad, Pitts- burg, Pennsylvania.
JAMES CRAWFORD came from Ire- land some time before the revolutionary wat in quest of a home. Hle settled, it is thought, in the eastern part of the State of Pennsylvania. He married a Miss Jordan, who was also a native of the Emerald Isle, and soon after moved to what was then Bedford county, and near where Hollidays- burg now stands, where he bought a tract of wild land. He made some improve- ments, and built a house, from which he was driven by the Indians, and compelled to take refuge in the fort. On his return he found only a bed of ashes where he had
left a comfortable home. He next located near the village of Newry, in Huntingdon county, then Bedford, where he cleared and improved a farm, on which he died. Wil- liam Crawford, son of James, was born on the Newry farm on the 4th day of May, 1786. Arrived at manhood, he married Miss Fan- nie Moore, and commenced life on his own account as a farmer. In 1829 he sold out and moved into Sinking valley, locating on the farm now owned by Reuben Fox, on which he died in 1833. They reared a family of eight sons and one daughter; their average height was six feet and a quarter of an inch, average weight two hundred and two pounds. Their third child, Robert Crawford, was born near Newry, September 3, 1818. Ile was eleven years of age when his father moved into Sinking valley, which from that time until his death was his permanent home, save three years in Canoe valley, and a season spent in traveling. His educations was, like the farmer boys of that time, such as could be obtained by a few weeks' attend- ance at the district schools during the win- ters of his early boyhood. On the 18th day of February, 1847, he was joined in mar- riage to Miss Mary Fleck, daughter of David and Mary ( Ramey) Fleck. She was born in Sinking valley, December 24, 1826. Her grandfather, George Fleck, who was of German origin, was an early settler in the valley. He had a family of eight children, of whom David was the seventh. In 1843 Mr. Crawford went to Missouri, where his brother David had already gone, but, not liking the country, he returned to Sinking valley, making the entire distance on horse- back. ITis start in life was made when but eighteen years of age, working on a farm at eight dollars per month during the
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
summer. After his marriage he bought, in partnership with one of his brothers, a farm in the upper end of the valley. In 1849 he sold his share to his brother, and then for a couple of years worked at what- over he could get to do; then for three years worked a rented farm in Canoe valley. He then bought the farm now owned by John Isett, on which he remained eleven years, then sold out and bought the farm now owned by his heirs, and on which he died July 21, 1882. The farm was cleared when he bought it, and became, under his management, one of the fine farms for which the valley is noted, the buildings, fences, etc., being improvements made by him. He was a republican in politics, and held some of the township offices, but not at his request. For many years he was a member of the Lutheran church, and was many years an officer therein. He died full of years, mourned and regretted by a large circle of friends and acquaintances. To Mr. and Mrs. Crawford were born the following children : Amanda J., died Sep- fember 29, 1856; David W .; William, died January 29, 1852; Mary F., died June 21, 1853; Elizabeth, Olivia A., Luther F., John R., and Elmer.
OLLIDAY FAMILY. The Holliday family was founded by William and Adam Holliday, who came from the north of Ireland in 1750, and became the founders respectively of Gaysport and Hollidaysburg. They were in all the relations of life good and highly respected citizens. Each attained to a ripe old age, and when at last they successively laid down the cares and burdens of this life, when their eyes had closed in the sleep that knows no waking, their re-
mains were reverently borne to the "Holli- daysburg Burying Ground," and there (be- side the children who were massacred in 1781) were placed beneath the mold of the valley they were the first to improve. True, no marble slab or granite column marks their last resting place, but a more imper- ishable monument than could be produced with either exists in the fact that a beautiful little town, standing where the Holliday brothers stood on that memorable day in 1768, still perpetuates their name.
William Holliday, although he devoted much time to the cultivation of his farm, was (with his sons) also active in the work of repelling the attacks of the ruthless savages. His family consisted of his wife, his sons John, James, William, Patrick, Adam, and another ( a lunatic) whose name is not remembered, and a daughter named Janet. Soon after the revolutionary war commenced James joined the Continental army. He was a noble looking young fel- low, and obtained a lieutenant's commis- sion. He was engaged in several battles, and conducted himself in such a manner as to merit the approbation of his superior officers, but in the thickest of the conflict at Brandywine he fell, pierced through the heart by a musket ball. A Hessian, ander cover, had fired the fatal shot, but it was his last, for a young Virginian, who stood by the side of Holliday, rushed upon the mercenary and hewed him to pieces with his sword.
With the Holliday family, however, as with many others, time has wrought num- erous changes. The lands of both the old pioneers passed out of the hands of their descendants many years ago, and but few of the name even are found in this vicinity. After the revolutionary war, as previously
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mentioned, the general government pur- chased of Adam Holliday his tract of one thousand acres, and presented it to Henry Gordon, in restitution of what was consid- ered an unjust confiscation during that war. This transaction made Adam Holliday a wealthy man during the remainder of his days. He died in 1801, leaving but two heirs, his son John and a daughter named Jane, who married William Reynolds, of Bedford county.
. After the estate was settled it was found that John Holliday was the richest man in this part of the county, if not, in- decd, in the whole extent of the old county of Huntingdon. Born December 18, 1780, John Holliday married Mary, daughter of Lazarus Lowry, in 1802. In 1807 he re- moved to the present site of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where he purchased a farm and all the land upon which the town now stands from Doctor Anderson, of Bedford. Although a town was laid out there, and christened Johnstown in his honor, it seems that he had no faith in its future greatness, for after a few years he sold his lands to Peter Livergood for eight dollars an acre, and returned to Hollidaysburg. He there erected a two-story building of hewn logs, and occupied it as a hotel, also for the sale of general merchandise.
About 1827-28 Mr. Peter Hewit, father of James M. Hewit, lately deceased, pur- chased this hotel and store property from John Holliday, and occupied it as a hotel, store, and postoffice until the year 1839, when it was torn down, and on the same site was erected the brick building now known as the American house.
John Holliday continued to reside here until his death, which occurred December 20. 1843. To him and Mary, his wife, were
born ten children : Adam, born November 9, 1804, and now resides in Oil City, Penn- sylvania; Mary, born April 23, 1806, married Andrew Bratton, of McVeytown, and now resides in Lewistown, Mifflin county, Penn- sylvania; Sarah, born December 11, 1807, married Solomon Filler, a prominent builder of Bedford Springs, both dead; Lazarus L., born November 5, 1809, died in Missouri, July 17, 1846; John, jr., was born Decem- ber 8, 1811, and after having fought by the side of Gen. Sam Houston, and other heroes, for Texan independence, died on shipboard, on his way from Vera Cruz to Galveston, August 2, 1842; Alexander L., born May 7, 1814; Jane, born August 27, 1816, became the wife of J. L. Slentz (she died in Pitts- burg about the year 1869); Caroline, born July 12, 1818, married D. MeLeary ; William R., born September 16, 1820, now resides in the State of Massachusetts; Fleming, the youngest of the family, was born May 25, 1823, and is now a resident of the west.
Jane Holliday, the daughter of Adam, was born October 10, 1783, and died May 10, 1865. She married William Reynolds, of Bedford county, who, as proprietor of the Bedford Springs hotel for many years, be- came well known. Among their children were William, Holliday, James, Henry, Mary, and Ruth. Henry, the only sur- vivor, is now a resident of one of the south- ern States.
H ON. JACOB ROHRER, who repre- sented Blair county in the State legis- lature, was born in Mifflin county, Pennsyl- vania, August 10, 1838. His father, Jacob (a native of Lancaster county), moved to Mifflin county about 1836, and for many years was a well known millwright. Of his nine children, eight are now living.
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Jacob A. Rohrer was early in life appren- lived to the saddlery business in Me Vey- town, his school education having been obtained in the common schools and at the Lewistown academy. In 1858 he began the study of dentistry with Dr. John Locke, of Lewistown, and in 1860 he embarked in dentistry practice, his field being in Mifflin and Huntingdon counties. In 1862 he en- tered the military service as a private in Co. D, 131st Pennsylvania volunteers. He was wounded at the battle of Fredericks- burg, and after a five months' sojourn in hospital at Washington, was discharged with his regiment. Returning home he resumed his dentistry practice in McVey- town, whence, in 1864, he removed to Hol- lidaysburg.
In 1882 he was put forward by the Re- publican party as a candidate to represent Blair county in the State legislature, and gained his election by a handsome majority. He became a Free Mason in 1856, and three years later united with the Presbyterian church. In 1865 Mr. Rohrer married Susan, daughter of Col. John Huyett, of Huntingdon county.
W ILLIAM M. WHEATLEY was born August 22, 1827. Ilis grandfather, John Wheatley, a native of Nottingham, England, was for a long time a well known merchant in that city, but by reason of his openly avowed sympathy for the French revolutionists, in 1788, coming into home disfavor, resolved to emigrate to America. Hle carried a stock of goods with him, and located in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, whither his friends, Doctor Priestly and Doctor Cooper, had preceded him. IIe traded his goods for a farm near the town,
was a justice of the peace and scrivener during the later years of his life, and died at Northumberland in 1840, aged eighty- eight years. IIe had five children, of whom John Wheatley, jr., was the second. The latter, who was born in Northumberland, married Harriet, daughter of Martin With- ington, died in 1873, aged seventy-seven years. William M., his second child and oldest son, remained at home until he reached his twenty-fifth year.
Ile tarried awhile in Missouri, and in the summer of 1857 married Mildred, daugh- ter of William Humes ( formerly of Rock- bridge county, Virginia, but then of Mor- gan county, Missouri ), whose father, John IIumes, a famous master mechanic of his day, was the builder of the Harper's Ferry arsenal.
On July 10, 1882, with A. R. Whitney, of New York, he founded the Portage Iron Company (limited). They purchased the old Portage Iron works at Duncansville, and at once enlarged the property to its present proportions.
JOHN HENSHEY ( father of Deacon David Henshey, of Davidsburg) was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1776. After residing there and in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, for some years, he removed to Sinking valley in the spring of 1813, where, on the 2d of August of the same year, his son David was born. In all, his family consisted of four sons and four daughters. In 1824 he sold his inter- ests in Sinking valley, and purchased of Thomas Ricketts three hundred and fifteen acres of land in Antis township, or the premises now occupied by the village of Davidsburg and the farm of David Hen- shey. He died in January, 1856.
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OF BLAIR COUNTY.
G EORGE A. COFFEY removed to Philadelphia in 1855. He was a dis- triet attorney of the county from 1852 to 1854, acting instead of Joseph Kemp, who had been elected. He was the United States district attorney for the Eastern district, at Philadelphia, during the war, and died about the year 1865. His acquirements Were very extensive, and his talents of the highest order. Fluent, poetical, imagina- tion unsurpassed, his addresses to a jury were intellectual treats. ITis talents, how- ever. seemed better fitted for the rostrum than the court room. As an orator, he was learned, eloquent and instructive; but he lacked that practical force, that homely illustration, which is so convincing with a jury.
JACOB AKE, the founder of Williams- burg, was of German parentage, his father having been an early emigrant from Germany to the Conococheague country. Ile died at Williamsburg, in April, 1838, at the age of eighty-four years. Many of his descendants still reside here.
'The earliest elementary school in the an- nals of his district was established about 1790 by Mr. Ake, who was the owner of the land on which the village of Akestown (now Williamsburg) was laid out. Seeing the necessity of educational training among the young, Mr. Akes secured teachers and defrayed all expenses from his private purse. His word was regarded as law with the youth, and when he issued a com- mand the parentage acquiesced and the children rendered obedience. Thus it was when the pioneer resident established his first school. He visited village household- ers, brandished his staff, and the children hied away to school.
JACOB GEESEY was an honored resi-
dent of Franktown township. The old Geesey homestead in Frankstown township is one of the familiar landmarks of Blair county. Three generations of Geeseys have occupied and owned it since Conrad Geesey, the progenitor of the family in this county, came from York county to make a new home on the blue Juniata. Conrad Geesey was a sturdy German pioneer, and came of the hardy stock that first peopled the now rich and populous county of York, in Pennsyl- vania. Of his sons, Jacob married Mar- garet, daughter of Christian Gast, of the village of. Frankstown, and shortly after his marriage removing to Williamsburg. He there carried on for some years the business of wagon making. Later he re- moved to a farm near by, and about 1838 he purchased of his father, Conrad, the old homestead in Frankstown township. Upon that place Jacob Geesey died in 1856, after a life of industry and usefulness, leaving behind him a name that was honored and an example that commended itself as worthy of imitation.
JAMES IRWIN, a hardy and ambi- tious young son of Ireland, left his native land for America about the middle of the eighteenth century. Chester county, in Pennsylvania, soon became his adopted home and farming his occupation. He married a member of the well and widely known Carson family, of Chester county, and in due time rose to notice as a thrifty and prosperous tiller of the soil. In 1793 he moved to what is now Blair county, and settled in Frankstown township. There he lived and farmed until his death, leaving the farm to his son Robert ( born in Chester
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county in 1776), who died on the home- stead in 1849. Robert was the father of seven daughters and four sons, all of whom grew to be men and women.
T THOMAS COLEMAN was emphatically
an Indian hater, the great aim and ob- ject of whose life appeared to be centered in the destruction of Indians. For this he had a reason-a deep-seated revenge to gratify, a thirst that all the savage blood in the land could not slake, superinduced by one of the most cruel acts of savage atrocity on record.
It appears that at an early day the Cole- man family lived on the west branch of the Susquehanna. Their habitation was remote from the settlements, and their chief occu- pation was hunting and trapping in winter, boiling sugar in the spring, and tilling some ground they held during the summer months. Where they originally came from was rather a mystery, but they were evidently tolerably well educated, and had seen more refined lije than the forest afforded. Nevertheless, they led an apparently happy life in the woods. There were three brothers of them, and what is not very common nowadays, they were passionately attached to each other.
Early in the spring, probably in the year 1763, while employed in boiling sugar, one of the brothers discovered the tracks of a bear, when it was resolved that the elder two should follow, and the younger remain to attend to the sugar boiling. The brothers followed the tracks of the bear for several hours, but not overtaking him, agreed to return to the sugar camp. On their arrival they found the remains of their brother boiled to a jelly in the large iron kettle-a sad
and sickening sight, truly ; but the authors of the black-hearted crime had left their sigu-manual behind them, an old tomahawk, red with the gore of their victim, sunk into one of the props which supported the kettle. They buried the remains as best they could, repaired to their home, broke up their camp, abandoned their place a short time after, and moved to the Juniata valley.
Their first location was near the mouth of the river, but gradually they worked their way west until they settled somewhere in the neighborhood of the mouth of Spruce creek, on the Little Juniata, about the year 1770. A few years after the two brothers, Thomas and Michael, the survivors of the family, moved to the base of the mountain, in what now constitutes Logan township, near where Altoona stands, which then was included in the Frankstown district.
These men were fearless almost to a fault, and on the commencement of hostilies, or after the first predatory incursion of the savages, it appears that Thomas gave him- self up solely to hunting Indians. He was in all scouting parties that were projected, and always leading the van when danger threatened; and it has very aptly, and no doubt truly, been said of Coleman, that when no parties were willing to venture out, he shouldered his rifle and ranged the woods alone, in hopes of occasionally pick- ing up a stray savage or two.
That his trusty rifle sent many a savage to eternity there is not a shadow of a doubt. HIe, however, never said so. IIe was never known to acknowledge to any of his inti- mate acquaintances that he had ever killed an Indian ; and yet, strange as it may seem, he came to the fort on several occasions with rather ugly wounds upon his body, and his knife and tomahawk looked as if they
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