USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > Cambria County pioneers; a collection of brief biographical and other sketches relating to the early history of Cambria County, Pennsylvania > Part 4
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Now I am told that the library of sixty and seventy years ago no longer exists-that the boys and girls who attend the Presbyterian Sunday-school no longer carry home with them books of the character of those I have described. Instead I am informed that these boys and girls are compelled to rely mainly on the Cambria Library for
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reading matter, and that the books they obtain at the li- brary are largely modern works of fiction. What books, if any, little children can get at the Cambria Library that will take the place of the books that are printed especially for Sunday-school children I am not informed. Is the substitution of modern works of fiction for the well-select- ed books of the Presbyterian Sunday-school of long ago a change for the better or the worse ? Undoubtedly it is for the worse. No thoughtful person will say otherwise.
William F. Prosser, the son of David Prosser and about one year my junior, was one of the Presbyterian Sunday- school "scholars " in 1840, 1841, and 1842, and the only one except myself that I feel sure is now living. Growing to manhood elsewhere he made an honorable record in the civil war, at its close being colonel of a Tennessee regiment. He was subsequently a member of Congress from Tennes- see, a member of the Centennial Commission from that State, and postmaster of Nashville. He has long been a citizen of the new State of Washington and is at present city treasurer of Seattle.
As a general proposition I think that the old times in Johnstown were better than the new. If seventy years ago we did not have a homogeneous population we had a pop- ulation that was perfectly assimilated. Everybody spoke the English language. We had no class distinctions. There were no rich men. There were no long rows of drinking saloons. The Washingtonian temperance movement, which originated in Baltimore in 1840, gave a great blow to intem- perance in Johnstown in the early 40s, and it was followed in the same decade by the Sons of Temperance and the Cadets of Temperance. We had two literary societies, each
with a large membership of adults, which discussed regu- larly the leading questions of the day and of other days. There was marked literary taste and much literary culture in Johnstown from 1840 to 1850 and for a few years after 1850. There were no "Sunday morning papers" in those days. If we had no public library there were a few books in almost every home, and it was a common practice for the boys and girls to borrow books from one another. We had in those days two volunteer military companies, com-
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posed of our leading citizens. Military encampments, in which these companies participated, took place every year in Johnstown and neighboring towns, and they were great occasions for the boys and for others, as were also the pa- rades which occurred more frequently at home.
The decade from 1840 to 1850 embraced three very ex- citing Presidential campaigns, which greatly interested the men and women and also the boys and girls of Johns- town-the election of General Harrison and John Tyler over Van Buren and Johnson in 1840, the defeat of Hen- ry Clay in 1844 by James K. Polk, and the election of General Zachary Taylor over Lewis Cass in 1848. It wit- nessed the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the war with Mexico in 1846, the settlement in 1846 of the controversy with Great Britain over our northwestern boundary, the acquisition of California and other Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast territory in 1848, the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the Irish famine which so stirred the sympathies of the people of our country in 1846, 1847, and 1848, the passage of the tariff of 1842 and its repeal in 1846, and the great Pittsburgh fire in 1845.
I well remember the passage through Johnstown in 1846 of Philadelphia volunteer soldiers on their way to Mexico and the return of the Cambria county volunteers in 1848. The latter were welcomed and praised at a large meeting in their honor in Levergood's orchard, on which occasion Cyrus L. Pershing delivered an address which I heard. When the Philadelphia volunteers reached Johnstown over the Portage Railroad on their way to Mexico they were distributed in squads among the leading families and given a good supper. I remember standing in awe of these sol- diers with their new uniforms and bright muskets.
We had good public schools from 1839 to 1850, which were taught by Samuel Douglass, Orson H. Smith, David F. Gordon, Cyrus L. Pershing, Robert H. Canan, and oth- ers, all of whom were well qualified for their work. The schools were ungraded, which was a great advantage over the present system-the younger pupils learning from the recitations of their elders. The classes of boys and girls were required to toe the mark once or twice a day in
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spelling and reading, and they learned to spell and read correctly because they were taught correctly. Words were divided into syllables and so pronounced, and sentences received proper emphasis. The multiplication table was taught by a whole class reciting it in concert. Instruction in the schoolroom in those days was largely oral; now it is largely lacking in this most desirable feature. That I may not lose the thread and purpose of this letter reading aloud formed a part of the exercises of the Sunday-schools of that time in Johnstown, all of which were conducted in the same spirit and substantially upon the same lines as the one I have briefly described.
Johnstown itself was a beautiful town in my boyhood days. Its surrounding hills were covered with dense for- ests down to the very margins of the streams which then bounded it on nearly all sides. These streams were not polluted in any way. The water in their channels was as clear as crystal and there was a larger volume of water than now. Fish abounded in them; now there are none. Every spring boys and men organized a fishing party and swept the Stony creek with a brush net, securing hundreds of fish, which were fairly divided and carried home in tri- umph. In the town, here and there, were many apple or- chards which had been planted by Joseph Johns and the other native Pennsylvanians who were its first settlers, and many sycamores, black and white walnuts, and other native trees were still standing. There were many log houses, reminders of the pioneers, and a few brick houses. Every house had a garden attached to it, and there were lilacs, poppies, hollyhocks, sunflowers, and other old-fashioned
flowers everywhere. There were but two houses in all " Kernville" in 1840. There was no smoke of mill or fac- tory, but there was little want in any home. Nearly all the business of the town was dependent upon the Pennsyl- vania Canal and the Portage Railroad, which had given the town its business start only a few years before. As we all know, every town, like every country, has its golden age, and I candidly believe that the golden age of Johnstown was in the ten or fifteen years before 1850. I feel sure that my early friend, W. C. Lewis, will confirm my opinion.
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EDWIN AUGUSTUS VICKROY.
PIONEER FARMER, SURVEYOR, AND OLD-TIME MERCHANT OF JOHNSTOWN. WRITTEN IN 1896. REVISED IN 1910.
EDWIN AUGUSTUS VICKROY, son of Thomas Vickroy, was born at Alum Bank, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1801, and died at his home at Ferndale, a suburb of Johnstown, on May 1, 1885, aged over 84 years.
Thomas Vickroy was born in Cecil county, Maryland, on October 18, 1756. His father was Hugh Vickroy, a native of England, who commanded a vessel plying between Balti- more and Glasgow. His mother was Margaret Phillips, a native of this country. Thomas was the oldest of eight children. When he was about 15 years old his father was lost at sea and very soon afterwards his mother died. In 1772 Thomas moved to Bedford county and soon settled at Alum Bank. He had learned surveying in Maryland, and in Bedford county, which then embraced a large part of Western Pennsylvania, he found abundant opportunities to practice his profession. He was a noted surveyor in the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first part of the nineteenth century. He was so prominent in his pro- fession that he was selected, in conjunction with George Wood, deputy surveyor of Bedford county, to survey the town of Pittsburgh into streets, alleys, and lots in 1784. Vickroy street and Wood street were named in their honor.
Thomas Vickroy was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Francis, who was a half sister of the "sainted and lovely " Mrs. Emily Ogle, of Somerset, and also a sister of Mrs. Nancy Williams, of Schellsburg. At her death she left five children. Mr. Vickroy's second wife was Sarah Ann Atlee, a daughter of Judge William Augustus Atlee, of Lancaster, who was a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1777 to 1799 and was the founder of a distinguished family. Several of his descendants have been
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prominent in the legal and medical professions. The second wife of Thomas Vickroy was a woman of great beauty, who frequently graced the society of Bedford Springs in the old times. Her granddaughter, Mrs. Boyd, of Dublin, In- diana, tells us that she had heard her grandmother say that she had danced in the same set with Theodosia Burr, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Aaron Burr, on the occasion of Theodosia's last visit to Bedford Springs. She was lost at sea in the winter of 1812-13. After coming to Pennsylvania Thomas Vickroy always lived at Alum Bank. At the time of his marriage to Miss Atlee he had already accumulated considerable wealth. He died on June 9, 1845, in his 89th year, and was buried in the cemetery attached to Dunning's Creek meeting house of the Friends, or Qua- kers, near Alum Bank. A few years ago a monument was erected over his grave, bearing a suitable inscription com- memorating his services as a Revolutionary soldier.
Thomas Vickroy's name is prominently associated with the military movements of George Rogers Clark against the Indians and British in the West during the Revolution- ary war. In Albach's Annals of the West Thomas Vickroy has left an account of his connection with one of General Clark's expeditions. He says: "In April, 1780, I went to Kentucky, in company with eleven flatboats with movers. We landed on the 4th of May, at the mouth of Beargrass creek, above the Falls of the Ohio. I took my compass and chain along, to make a fortune by surveying, but when we got there the Indians would not let us survey." Mr. Vick- roy then gives some details of General Clark's movements against the enemy and adds : "On the 1st day of August, 1780, we crossed the Ohio river and built the two block houses where Cincinnati now stands. I was at the building of the block houses. Then, as General Clark had appointed me commissary of the campaign, he gave the military stores into my hands and gave me orders to maintain that post for fourteen days. He left with me Captain Johnston and about twenty or thirty men who were sick and lame. On the fourteenth day the army returned with 16 scalps, having lost 15 men killed." Joseph, a brother of Thomas Vickroy, was killed in the battle of Germantown.
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In 1896 Mrs. Boyd, who was one of the daughters of Edwin A. Vickroy, wrote us as follows: "When I was a little girl one of my aunts gave me a strand of beautiful dark brown hair out of the queue my grandfather sported in this expedition. Along with the hair of my other grand- parents I have worn it as a breastpin for 40 years. It was my first breastpin. I write with it on."
As already stated, Edwin A. Vickroy, in whose memory this sketch is written, was born at Alum Bank in 1801. He was the third child of Thomas Vickroy by his second marriage. Edwin was reared to manhood at Alum Bank. Here he went to subscription schools, one of which was taught by Robert Way. Under his father's instructions he became a skillful surveyor. When about 19 years old he went to Ohio with Robert Way, the latter remaining there. Ohio was then "the West," and like "the West " of later years it presented attractions to young men which were hard to resist. Edwin clerked in a store in Cincinnati for two years. While on a visit to Warren county, adjoining Hamilton county, in which latter county Cincinnati is lo- cated, he was fortunate in making the acquaintance of Judge George Harlan and his family, including his daugh- ter Cornelia, whom he subsequently married. She was born at the Harlan homestead, near Ridgeville, Warren county, on August 13, 1806. Her mother's maiden name was Esther Eulas. The Harlan family has been distinguished in the history of our country for many generations, contributing many prominent men to the bench and bar and to the po- litical arena. Judge Harlan came from North Carolina. He married Miss Eulas while living in Kentucky.
Edwin A. Vickroy and Cornelia Harlan were married at. the Harlan homestead on May 15, 1823, and immediately afterwards went to Schellsburg, Bedford county, not far from Alum Bank, where Mr. Vickroy became a country store- keeper and also postmaster. Schellsburg was then a place of some importance, as it was located on the leading turn- pike which connected the eastern and western parts of Pennsylvania. But in a short time Mr. Vickroy and his wife returned to Ohio, near Mrs. Vickroy's old home, where he again engaged in merchandising, for which occupation
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he seems to have always had a strong liking. In this busi- ness Mr. Vickroy continued for several years, but, owing to a great fall in the price of pork, in which product he dealt as a merchant, he concluded to return again to Pennsyl- vania. Those were the days when Ohio had few manufac- tures to create a home market for farm products. Mr. Vick- roy's father transferred to him a beautifully located tract of land on the left bank of Stony creek, near Johnstown, as a home, on which he soon built a two-story log house, weather-boarded, to which he subsequently added a substan- tial frame addition, with wide porches. This tract had not been improved as a farm. It embraced 160 acres of rich and level meadow and hilly woodland. It was then known as Horseshoe Valley, but Mr. Vickroy soon changed the name to Ferndale. A more charming rural home could not then have been found anywhere. On one side Horseshoe Valley was hedged in by the everlasting hills and on the other side it was bounded by the beautiful Stony creek. The primeval forest which formed a part of the 160 acres was alive with song birds and other birds. Pheasants and partridges, squirrels and rabbits, wild fowl on the bosom of the Stony creek, and an abundance of fish in its waters furnished food for the table. To this home Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy and their three children, Angeline, Louise, and Helen, came in 1831 and there Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy lived the remainder of their days, except about two years spent. in Johnstown from 1848 to 1850. Mr. Vickroy at once engaged in farming and at the same time returned to his profession as a surveyor. He also built a saw-mill on the Stony creek and for many years the mill sawed large quan- tities of lumber from the timber on the farm and from the neighborhood. John Barnes, wagon-maker, of Johnstown, obtained supplies of lumber from this mill for many years.
In a short time Mr. Vickroy could boast a large ac- quaintance among the people of Cambria and Somerset. counties, and because of his general intelligence, his dig- nified and courtly bearing, and his interest in the public welfare he was popular and greatly respected. He was an ardent friend of common schools and was often chosen a school director. Fruit growing became a special feature of
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Mr. Vickroy's farm work, and he soon had an orchard of choice varieties of apples and other fruits, of which he was very proud. Mrs. Vickroy added to the charm of the Fern- dale home by her enthusiasm in the cultivation of flowers.
It was not many years after Mr. Vickroy and his family took possession of the Horseshoe farm until he was elected a justice of the peace for Conemaugh township, Cambria county, a position that well fitted in with his profession as a surveyor, because both justices of the peace and surveyors in those days were accustomed to prepare articles of agree- ment and other documents relating to transfers of real estate. Mr. Vickroy possessed a judicial temperament, and being a remarkably neat and accurate penman he found much to occupy his time for many years both as surveyor and justice of the peace. He was now known as Squire Vickroy. He was at one time elected county surveyor. At first he was a Whig and afterwards a Republican.
But in a wider sense than as a farmer, surveyor, and justice of the peace Mr. Vickroy became known to the peo- ple of Cambria and Somerset counties. He was the head of one of the most intellectual families that have ever lived in either of these counties. Mrs. Vickroy was a woman of ex- ceptional intelligence. The Harlan blood ran in her veins. She had read much and thought much upon most of the subjects which then received the attention of thinking men and women, as did also Mr. Vickroy. They were both familiar with the best literature of the day. As their children grew up they shared the literary tastes and ac- quired many of the intellectual accomplishments of their parents. Books and newspapers were everywhere in the Vickroy home. The slavery question, the Mexican war, the merits and demerits of all the political policies and political leaders of the eventful period from 1840 to 1860 and after- wards, were topics of daily discussion on the Ferndale farm. Visitors to the Vickroy home, which was always one of old-time hospitality, at once found themselves in an atmos- phere which aroused and stimulated their own interest in public questions and in literary subjects. In their religious belief Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy were Swedenborgians, to which denomination Thomas Vickroy and his wife also belonged.
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And so the years rolled on. The Vickroy home became known throughout Cambria and Somerset counties as a centre of vigorous and independent thought and advanced views upon all subjects which were then attracting public attention. In the meantime the farm was not neglected and the Vickroy apples and other fruits took premiums at the county fairs and at the meetings of the American Pomo- logical Society at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Although a man of fine and commanding presence, straight as an In- dian, and with the address of a born leader of men Mr. Vickroy never sought political honors. He was, however, always ready to give a reason for the faith that was in him.
About 1848 the longing for an active mercantile life returned to Mr. Vickroy and he opened on Clinton street in Johnstown a general store in a building which he had built on a lot of ground he owned a few feet south of the corner of Washington and Clinton streets. Here he carried on for several years, and with varying fortune, a general store which was well patronized. But the times were hard, very little money was in circulation, the Cambria Iron Works had not been built, and again Mr. Vickroy was con- strained to quit storekeeping. Thenceforward to the end of his days he devoted his time to the work of the farm and to his books and the society of his friends, mingling but little with "the madding crowd" and its "ignoble strife."
Mrs. Vickroy died at the Vickroy homestead on August 30, 1880, and Mr. Vickroy died at the old home on May 1, 1885. Each lived to a good old age. Their remains now rest in Grand View cemetery. They were the parents of many children, both boys and girls.
We have mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Vickroy's three old- est daughters, Angeline, Louise, and Helen. Angeline and Louise became teachers, as did also Cornelia, another daugh- ter. All the children, with scarcely an exception, inherited the literary tastes of their parents. Louise established a wide reputation as a writer of graceful poetry and prose. She was a contributor to Grace Greenwood's Little Pilgrim and to Graham's Magazine in the old days and in later years to The Century and other periodicals. In 1860 she delivered a lecture on " The Poets and Poetry of America" before a
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large audience in the First Presbyterian church of Johns- town. Her poems were published in book form about the same time. Mr. Vickroy himself occasionally manifested a decided talent for poetic expression. Of the daughters referred to Helen (Mrs. Austin) is the only one now living. Her home is at Richmond, Indiana. To her and her sister Louise (Mrs. Boyd) and to another daughter, Laura, now living at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, we are indebted for many of the facts contained in this sketch.
As far back as 1850 we remember a bright new school- house which had been built on the edge of a wooded reser- vation at the top of Ben's Creek Hill. From this school- house a winding path led to the Vickroy home through a dense growth of oaks, maples, hickories, and other forest trees. There were no intervening houses or cultivated fields or gardens. Most if not all of the path was on the hillside of the Vickroy farm itself. The quietness, the restfulness, the peacefulness, and the sylvan beauty of the whole scene can never be effaced from the memories of those now liv- ing who often wended their way with trooping children from the attractive school-house down the winding path to the hospitable home that was built eighty years ago.
"The old road, the hill road, the road that used to go Through brier and bloom and gleam and gloom among the wooded ways.
Oh, now that we might follow it as once we did, you know ! The old road, the home road, the road of happy days."
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JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT.
JOHN ROYER, HUGUENOT.
FROM THE JOHNSTOWN DAILY TRIBUNE OF SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1899. REVISED IN 1910.
As ALL readers of Pennsylvania history know, the early settlers of William Penn's province were drawn from many European countries. Before the granting of his famous charter in 1681 emigrants from Sweden and Holland and a few Finns and some English had made settlements on the Delaware. After the charter had been granted England and Wales sent large numbers of Quakers and a few Episco- palians ; the Continent sent still larger numbers of Luther- ans and other Protestants and a few Roman Catholics ; Ire- land and France also sent a few Roman Catholics, chiefly to Philadelphia, and the North of Ireland sent many Scotch- Irish Presbyterians. Many Protestants came from Germany, France, Switzerland, and Holland. The French, Swiss, and Dutch immigrants have been confounded with the German immigrants because they usually spoke their South German dialect and were of similar religious convictions, and also because they sailed from the same ports and settled in the same localities as the more numerous Germans. They were thus very naturally regarded as forming a part of the great German wave of immigration to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. Thousands of these French, Swiss, and Dutch immigrants have left descendants who are known as Pennsylvania Germans but who are not Germans at all.
Most of the French Protestants who emigrated to Penn- sylvania came originally from the provinces of Alsace, Lor- raine, and Champagne, in Eastern France, although these emigrants had for some time previously, owing to religious persecution at home, lived in more friendly German, Dutch, and Swiss districts. These French Protestants were known as Huguenots. Other Huguenots came from other provin- ces in France, and these emigrated in large numbers to
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New York, South Carolina, and other colonies and provinces of the New World, including Pennsylvania. Some Hugue- nots had found an asylum in England and Ireland after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 before emi- grating to this country.
Among the Huguenot emigrants from Central France to Pennsylvania in the early days were three brothers named Royer. From one of these brothers came John Royer and his descendants. The brothers settled in Lancaster county. The Rev. Mr. Stapleton, of Lewisburg, Union county, an authority upon Huguenot emigration to Pennsylvania, says that Sebastian Royer came to Lancaster county in 1721. We next hear of the family name during the Revolution, when Samuel Royer, the father of John Royer, above men- tioned, was a commissary in the Revolutionary army. This Samuel Royer had a brother named Sebastian. In Baird's Huguenot Emigration to America I find mention made of Noe Royer, who emigrated to South Carolina between 1681 and 1686. He was the grandson of Sebastian Royer, a native of Tours, the principal town in the province of Tourraine, in Central France. Noe Royer himself was born in Tours. His father's name was also Noe Royer. I mention his an- cestry because of the coincidence in the name of his ances- tor, Sebastian Royer, and that of the Lancaster immigrant mentioned by Mr. Stapleton, and also of Sebastian, the brother of Samuel Royer. Samuel Royer's wife was Cathe- rine Laubshaw, a native of Switzerland. There are Royers still living in Lancaster county.
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