USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Centennial biography : Men of mark of Cumberland Valley, Pa., 1776-1876 > Part 12
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means of silencing this intruder had failed, one of the officers of the congregation seized him, bore him through the midst of the assembly out of the house, and ordered him to begone and to cease disturbing the worship of God : Mr. Duffield then went on with his preaching, but on the next day, he was required to give bail before the Mayor's Court for his appearance on the charge of aiding and abetting a riot. He refused not only to give such bail but to permit any one, even the Mayor himself, to give it in his behalf. He protested that he stood on the ground of principle, and that he was resolved to maintain the right of a minister of Christ and a worshiping assembly to be undisturbed while they were violating no law. He was allowed to withdraw and take the matter under consideration, but under the assurance that he would be soon called upon for his answer. The excitement of the people became intense as the news of this threat of imprisonment, spread, and the "Paxton Boys" who had formerly known him assembled and resolved to hold themselves in readiness to march a hundred miles for his rescue.
When the Colonial Congress held its sessions in Philadelphia, Dr. Duffield was for some time its chaplain, and when the British held possession of Philadelphia, and his church was occupied by them as a stable, he accompanied the American Army and shared in its distresses. lle mingled with the soldiery, and by his ardent and patriotic addresses, did much to sustain their fainting spirits. During the dark period when Washington was in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and on Long Island, he was with the troops, and more than once came nigh being captured. He had been honoured from the commencement of the war by having a price put upon his head, and by being numbered with some leaders who were excluded from the offer of amnesty. As soon as circumstances permitted he returned to his congregation and continued the pastor of the Third church until the day of his death. He returned more than once to his former home in Carlisle, for which he always retained the warmest affection, and his name is mentioned several times as a corresponding member at the meetings of the Presbytery of Carlisle. He took a prominent part in the new organi- zation of the General Assembly, and in the formation of the new 'Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in ITS8. He was the Stated Clerk of the Assembly from the time of its organiza- tion until his death, which took place February 2d, 1790, when he was in his fifty-eighth year. Although a man of slight frame and of small stature, he possessed a firm constitution and was capable of much endurance. He continued his ministrations until about a week before
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his death, when a severe pleurisy contracted at a funeral prostrated him. He was remarkable for the strictness and fervour of his devotional habits and for liis valuation of the Sabbath. His confidence in the efficacy of prayer was such that he appeared to have no anxiety, though in the troubles of the time he more than once knew not where his day's bread was to come from. As he betook himself to prayer he would exclaim, "The Lord will provide," and his expectations were uniformly fulfilled. He was interred in the middle aisle of the church of which he was pastor, and his funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, from Rev. xiv, 13.
Some manuscript sermons are to be found among his descendants and others, but we are not aware of anything published from his hand, except an "Account of his Western Tour," and a "Thanksgiving Sermon" on the restoration of peace. He received the honourary degree of a Doctor in Divinity from Yale college, in 1785. As the fruit of his second marriage, he left two sons, (two others having died in infancy,) the youngest of whom (George,) was Register and Comptroller General of the State of Pennsylvania under Governor Thomas Mckean, and the father of Rev. George Duffield, D. D., for seventeen ycars the pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Carlisle.
MAJOR EBENEZER DENNY.
AJOR EBENEZER DENNY, first Mayor of Pittsburgh, was born in Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pa., March 11th, 1761, and was the eldest child of William and Agnes (Parker) Denny.
His father and uncle, Walter Denny, removed from Chester county to Cumberland county in 1745, the latter settling near Carlisle, where he was the possessor of a large tract of land ; subsequently he raised a company of volunteers for the Revolutionary conflict, and was killed at Crooked Billet. At this place also his son was taken prisoner. Another son, Rev. David Denny, was for many years pastor of the Presbyterian church at Chambersburg. William Denny resided in Carlisle, and was the first Coroner west of the Susquehanna, also a Commissary in the Revolutionary Army. His mother, a woman of unusual intelligence and energy, was the daughter of John Parker, and the grand-daughter of Richard Parker, who. as early as 1730, owned lands on the Conodoguinett, near Carlisle, which have remained in the possession of the family for three generations. Nearly all the male Parkers were participants in the struggle against the mother country, and throughout its progress were noted for their loyalty and heroism.
At the age of thirteen, Ebenezer was employed as a bearer of despatches to the commandant at Fort Pitt, and, though a mere lad, safely accomplished his journey over the Alleghenies, through a wilderness teeming with savage foes. He was afterwards employed in his father's store in Carlisle until he moved to Philadelphia, where he shipped as a volunteer in a vessel bearing a letter of marque and reprisal and bound for the West Indies. While acting in this capacity, for fidelity and valour, he was promoted to the command of the quarter- deck. Being tendered the position of supercargo for a second voyage, he decided to accept the offer, but, after crossing the Susquehanna en route to Philadelphia, received and accepted a commission of Ensign in the First Pennsylvania regiment. He participated in the action . near Williamsburg, Virginia, where his captain and lieutenant having been disabled at the first fire, the command devolved upon him. On the night of October 144th, he was in the advance at the siege of York, and won such merited distinction that he was selected to plant the first American flag on the British parapet. He afterwards served in the Carolinas, under General St. Clair, and at Charleston during its
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investment, and also after its evacuation. Later he became Adjutant to Harmer, and Aide-de-Camp to St. Clair, and was repeatedly selected as the bearer of important despatches where courage, shrewdness and daring were required.
After his resignation, Major Denny resided in Bedford county, which he represented in the Convention of 1777, which formed the first Con- stitution of Pennsylvania. In 1794, he was commissioned Captain, and commanded the expedition to Le Bœuf. In 1795-96, he resided at his farm and mill near Pittsburgh, and was there nominated for the State Legislature and defeated, but in the following year, and by an almost unanimous vote, was elected Commissioner of the county. In 1803, he was Treasurer of Allegheny county, his name appearing first on the list of County Treasurers, and again in 1808 filled that position. In 1804, he was appointed a Director of the Branch of the Bank of Penn- sylvania, established in that year at Pittsburgh, and which was the first institution of that nature west of the mountains. When this was merged into the office of the Bank of the United States he retained his Directorship, and was one of the few solvent mer during the panic of 1819. For several successive years he obtained from the War Department the contract for the supply of rations for the troops at Fort Fayette and Presque Isle, and filled them satisfactorily while prosecuting also his mercantile and commission business in Philadel- phia, on Market street. During the war of 1812, he successfully met the extraordinary demands upon him, and was appointed to furnish supplies to the North Western Army in addition to his own posts in Pennsylvania. At the close of the war he received a complimentary letter from General Harrison, in which he was cordially thanked for his valuable promptness, energy and ability.
When' Pittsburgh was incorporated by act of Legislature, March 18th, 1816, Major Denny was elected the first Mayor, and, at the expiration of his first term, declined a re-election. He was Director in the Branch of the Bank of the United States, and afterwards of the Bank of Pittsburgh, in which he was a large stockholder. While visiting Niagara Falls in the summer of 1822, he was attacked by a sudden illness, and with difficulty reached his home, where he died July 21st, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was married July Ist, 1793, to Nancy Williams, daughter of John Williams, Sr., formerly of Carlisle, who participated as a Captain in the battle of the Brandywine, sister of Quartermaster-General John Williams, Jr., Charles Williams, of Lexington, Kentucky, and Hon. William Williams, late of Home- wood; she died May Ist, 1806, leaving three sons, Harmer, William and St. Clair, and also two daughters.
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DAVID WATTS.
TAVID WATTS, lawyer, was born in Cumberland county, Penn- sylvania, October 29th, 1764.
His parents were Frederick Watts, a native of Wales, and Jane Murray, a niece of the celebrated David Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, a partisan of the Pretender, Charles Edward, who, after the successful battle of Culloden, fled into France. About 1760, they emigrated to Pennsylvania, then a province of Great Britain. After a short residence in Chester county, they moved westward, and built a cabin on the western shore of the Juniata, near its confluence with the Susquehanna, a locality, in that day, on the extreme verge of civiliza- tion. It was about twenty miles from Carlisle, where Great Britain had, at that early period, erected a large brick barrack for the comfort of the soldiers employed in repelling the attacks of the aboriginal Indians.
Frederick Watts must have enjoyed the advantages of education in the mother country, for he soon became prominent among the dis- affected of the colonists, and was an active partisan of the Revolution. He was appointed, and accepted the commission of General of a body of troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia, called " Minute Men," and served in that capacity during the war. When peace was declared, he became a member of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania-a pro- visional government formed prior to the adoption and establishment of the Constitution of the State. Under these unfavourable circum- stances, the education of their only son, David, was a subject of much interest and difficulty. The duty chiefly devolved upon the mother, whose strong traits of Scotch character seemed to be deeply impressed upon the immature mind of her son, and showed their bearing upon his conduct in after life. Dickinson college, in Carlisle, was founded in 1783, and there he received as finished a classical and general educa- tion as the state could, at that time, furnish. He graduated in the first class which left its halls, and bore away with him a taste for, and appreciation of, the literature of Greece and Rome, that he retained throughout his subsequent life.
Attracted to the legal profession, Mr. Watts went to Philadelphia, where he entered as a student the office of that eminent jurist, William Lewis, and was admitted to the bar after the usual course of reading.
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He then returned to his native county, and commenced the practice of his profession in Carlisle, where he soon obtained a large patronage, and took a prominent part in the political as well as in the legal ques- tions which, at that period, occupied public attention. One of the most celebrated of these was what led to the so-called " Whiskey Insurrection," of 1794. That spirit was distilled in large quantities by the farmers of western Pennsylvania, and constituted their principal source of revenue. Therefore, when the United States passed acts levying an excise duty on the liquor, the measure was so distasteful to this generally peaceful class of the community, that they rose in open resistance to the law. So serious was the trouble that General Washing- ton went to Carlisle, and reviewed there four thousand men under arms, preparatory to enforcing submission to the authority of the General Government. One of these was David Watts, who had joined a com- pany of local infantry. He was fully alive to the threatened danger to the commonwealth, and so resolute in his opposition to the " Whiskey Boys," that when they had planted a " liberty pole " near Carlisle, and threatened to shoot any one who would disturb it, he shouldered the axe, and alone and unarmed rode to the spot where it stood, and felled it to the ground.
Mr. Watts was distinguished for courage and energy, and these characteristics, united to a thorough education, soon placed him at the head of the bar in Cumberland county, the acknowledged equal of Thomas Duncan, who had been for years the recognised leader on that circuit. They were both men of extensive and varied acquire- ments in professional and general literature, and both were distin- guished for learning, polished manners and integrity. It is to be regretted that he should have passed away in the maturity of his intellectual powers, and left so few traces of his great ability beyond the printed volume of his arguments in the State Reports of Pennsyl- vania. In this early day, the lawyers were obliged to attend the cir- cuit, extending over several counties, often exposed to inclement weather, traveling on horseback, and provided with poor accommoda- tions. These exposures led to his early death, which occurred on September 25th, 1819.
He married, in September, 1796, Julia Anna Miller, daughter of General Henry Miller, an eminent soldier of the Revolution. They had twelve children, of whom the majority still survive. They were brought up in the doctrines of the Episcopal Church, of which their parents had been life long members.
COL. RICHARD M. CRAIN.
OL. RICHARD M. CRAIN, son of Joseph and Mary Crain, was born November, 1777, in West Hanover township, then Lancaster, now Dauphin county, and married Elizabeth, daugh- ter of the Hon. Robert Whitehill, of East Pennsborough township, Cumberland county. His father, Joseph Crain, was a gentleman of high standing in the community, and an active and exemplary member of the Presbyterian church of Hanover.
Col. Crain, though more thoroughly acquainted with the business of the Land Office than any other man in Pennsylvania, consented to accept of, and served for the greater part of half a century in the subor- dinate position of Deputy Secretary, as it was considered good policy by the successive administrations during that time to confer the appointment of Secretary of the Land Office on a citizen of one of the western counties. He was also, during that period, elected by the Legislature Treasurer of Pennsylvania, and, as colleague of Major David Nevin, chosen to represent Cumberland county in the Conven- tion which assembled May 2d, 1837, in the hall of the House of Representatives in Harrisburg, to propose amendments to the Consti- tution of the state, to be submitted to the people thereof for their ratification or rejection.
Of the esteem in which Col. Crain was held by his associates the following publication of their proceedings, on receiving information of . his death, furnishes very gratifying evidence :
A meeting of the Governor, heads of departments and clerks, was hekl at the office of the Surveyor General of Pennsylvania at 5 o'clock on Friday, the 17th day of Sep- tember, 1852, the object of which was stated by General J Porter Brawley, on whose motion Gov. Wm. Bigler was called to the chair, and, on motion of Major Thomas J. Rehrer, E. S. Goodrich was appointed secretary.
The following preamble and resolutions were then offered by L. G. Dimmock, Esq., which were read and, after a brief but eloquent address by Gen. E. Banks, were unani- monsly adopted :
WHEREAS, God, in his inscrutable wisdom, has removed from our midst Col. Richard M. Crain, late of the Surveyor General's office ; therefore be it
Resolved, That we deeply deplore the death of our esteemed associate and friend, Col. Richard M. Crain, who, during a long life of public service, sustained a character of unspotted integrity, and by his uprightness and affability, won the respect and confidence of all who knew him.
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Resolved, That we tender the family of the deceased our sincere and heartfelt sympathy in their afflictive bereavement.
Resolved, That out of respect for the deceased the Land Department shall be closed on the day of the funeral.
Resolved, That as a mark of regard for our departed friend we will attend his funeral in a body.
Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be published in the papers of this borough, and the officers of this meeting and the Surveyor General be appointed a com- mittee to present a copy thereof to the family of the deceased.
WILLIAM BIGLER,
E. S. GOODRICH, Secretary.
Chairman.
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REV. ROBERT CATHCART, D. D.
HE REV. ROBERT CATHCART, D. D., was born in 1759, near Colerain, in Londonderry, Ireland. He studied at the University of Glasgow, and was licensed by the Presbytery of Ronte, in Ireland. He came to the United States in 1790, when he joined the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the year after the formation of the General Assembly. In October, 1793, he was installed pastor of the congregations of York and Hopewell by the Presbytery of Carlisle. Of the latter he was pastor forty-two, and of the former, forty-four years, these being his only pastoral charges. During these forty-two years, though Hopewell was fifteen miles from York, he never failed, when at home, to preach, but on one Sabbath. For forty years he never missed attending Synod but once, and then he was ill. For nearly thirty years he was elected a Commissioner to the General Assembly every year, and for nearly twenty years he was Clerk of the Assembly. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Queen's (now Rutgers) college, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
For thirty years Dr. Cathcart was a Trustee of Dickinson college. and during all that time attended all their commencements. While a Trustee there, he obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity for Dr. Scott, the commentator. The Rev. D. H. Emerson, D. D., one of Dr. Cathcart's successors at York, in a published letter says: "I knew Dr. Cathcart as intimately as any man can know a father. I visited him every week during nearly five years, unless prevented by sickness, and, with the best opportunities for becoming acquainted with his character, my deliberate judgment is, that he was among the finest and best of our American clergymen. He was in the habit of reading, daily, at least two chapters in the Bible, in connection with Scott's Commentary. His reading, particularly for the last twelve years of his life, was immense. Having a strong constitution, unim- paired eye-sight, an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a wonderfully retentive memory, he would read everything valuable within his reach, and would delight his friends with the stores of information which he would pour forth during a social interview. This habit of reading and of constantly exercising his mental powers, continued to the last moment of life."
All Dr. Cathcart's successors at York were greatly attached to him.
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. He was an interesting man. His manner, dry at first, opened more and more as one knew him better, and the attachment of his younger brethren gradually grew into respectful affection. One of his suc- cessors thus wrote of him, in a contemporary newspaper, at the time of his death :
" The most prominent trait of Dr. Cathcart's character, as impressed upon me, was his gentlemanliness. Perhaps it is because this high quality is less common now than it used to be. A more perfect gentle- man at heart I never knew. His was not the polished exterior assumed for a purpose on an occasion, to veil selfishness, and then laid aside like a garment folded away to be used for a similar purpose. His character was genuine. Delicacy in regard to improper inter- ference with the station or duties of another, was one of his most prominent features. His long connection (forty-four years,) with the York church, as their pastor, would have enabled him, as it has others similarly situated, to give his successor much trouble. If he ever had the slightest disposition to do so, he never manifested it, but gave the strength of his influence, in public and private, to sustaining him. The same trait was seen in all his intercourse. Where he had rights he maintained them ; where he had not he was a law unto himself, in refraining from intermeddling. He was a 'gentleman of the old school,' nicely discriminating occasions, a principle of fine feeling running like a thread through his whole conduct.
" Dr. Cathcart was emphatically an honest man. His care and punctuality in pecuniary matters are well known. But this, which sometimes proceeds from mere regard to public opinion, was in him genuine honesty of heart. He was above suspicion. No man, even in his most secret thoughts, I suppose, ever took Dr. Catheart for a dis- ingenuous man. His sturdy and Puritan honesty made him almost uncharitable towards hypocrisy. He could not away with it. That a man should be genuine, that words and heart should agree, though he did not say as much about it as Carlyle, was to him the prime thing in a man. Indeed, it made him unsuspicious. Not feeling any movement of insincerity in himself, he was not apt to imagine it in others. And this was one of the sources of that tranquility of character for which he was remarkable. The 'mens conscia recti,' the straightforward- ness of his temper, made him an excellent exemplification of that noble passage of Scripture : . He that walketh uprightly, walketh surely.' If the bones of the prophet revived the dead by their touch, then could we wish the memory of the subject of this sketch to re-kindle in an age which mistakes hypocrisy for wisdom, and deceit for prudence, the
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pure, stern honesty which once characterized the Puritan of England and of Scotland. No one doubted the honesty of the Ironsides and the Covenanters. It will be a sad day for the Church if a Presby- terian's word ceases to be 'as good as his bond.'
"Dr. Cathcart's devotion to the best interests of the whole race of man. well entitles him to the name of philanthropist. No aspect of benevo- lent effort was uninteresting to him ; no man knew so well what was passing throughout the world ; no man's memory was so accurate a chronicle of the times. A thousand times has he sat down beside some friend, often some bright eyed youth or maiden-for he was one of those whose feelings never grew old-and given a complete review of everything contained in the newspapers of the week. But nothing interested him so much as the advance of religion in the world. He was devoted to the missionary cause, and contributed to the extent of, yea, and beyond his ability, as some thought, to the American Board. He watched its proceedings with intense interest, read every word of every Missionary Herald, and delighted to tell us how the missionary cause was progressing in every country where the messengers of the cross have gone. It is observable of some old men-and the same is true of ministers in more than one melancholy case -- that they grow selfish as they grow old ; animal appetites, as in original childhood. gain sensibly over intellectual and moral qualities, and they narrow down to a very minute sphere. Nothing of this kind was visible in Dr. Cath- cart. Beautiful as is the York valley-a perfect gem of rich cultivated scenery-entirely as he felt at home there, long as he had resided by its clear river, its hills never bounded his sympathies. The feeling of Terence, expressing kindred with all mankind, or the still grander feeling, . the field is the world, was the key-note to his constant habit of mind. He was devoted with singular attachment to the temperance cause, he watched with much anxiety the statistics of crime, he was deeply interested in all the aspects of politics, as connected, especially, with the onward progress of the human race, and while, to a considera- ble extent, a 'laudator temporis acti; he had yet ever a warm sym- pathizing feeling for anything that makes man wiser, better, holier, more active, industrious, or even comfortable.
"Dr. Cathcart was liberal, in the truest sense. Never was there a more thorough Presbyterian. Religion, in his mind, ever pursued its tranquil way along by Westmnister and Geneva, and he could hardly conceive of a connected or logical theology which was not Calvinistic. All other systems appeared to him defective, not indeed fundamentally erroneous, but defective in clearness, method and power. And as in
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