USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Centennial biography : Men of mark of Cumberland Valley, Pa., 1776-1876 > Part 21
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Just before he marched to New Jersey, viz: in June, 1776, a large assembly of the inhabitants of the valley met in the public square, in Carlisle, to confer about public affairs. The idea of independence had been broached in Congress a few weeks before, and it was proposed
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to discuss and decide this question in this meeting. An eminent lawyer of Carlisle, Mr. W., made an earnest address, setting forth the folly and madness of the attempt at independence. He portrayed the vast weath and military power of Great Britain, in contrast with the poverty, weakness, and want of military resources of the colonies. He urged that we should seek nothing beyond a reasonable redress of grievances, and assured his hearers that an attempt to gain indepen- dence would result only in disaster and ruin to the colonies. When he had closed, another lawyer, William Lyon, made a short address, con- troverting the views of his predecessor, and then proposed that all who favoured independence should move to the north side of the " dia- mond," and those opposed to it to the south side. The great mass of the people, young Junkin and his brothers John and Benjamin with them, moved to the north side, three or four remained in the centre, but none went to the south side.
A few days after this, there was a battalion drill near Silvers' Spring, at which nearly all the people of the lower end of the valley who were not already in the army, were present. Whilst the parade was in progress, (it was now the 7th of July,) and whilst the men were marching through the bushes, and many were putting green branches in their hats as a token that they were willing to volunteer, a horn was heard, and a courier dashed up the road at full speed, announcing that , independence had been declared at Philadelphia, three days before. A hand-bill copy of the declaration was given by the courier and read to the men, who unanimously and by acclamation ratified it on the spot. and a large company was at once raised and marched to the front.
Of that company Joseph Junkin was an officer. They were ordered to Amboy, in New Jersey, where they were employed in guarding the coast against the enemy, then in possession of New York. Such was the spirit of old Cumberland in that trying time.
His military engagements interfered seriously with his farm im- provements, and deferred his marriage till towards the close of the war. When the army went into winter quarters, in 1776-7, he returned home. Next year he again volunteered, and continued in active service till wounded and compelled to come home. His brother John marched to the front in the fall of 1777. In a letter to his son George, written in 1819, he says :
" The Battle of Brandywine was fought September 11th, 1777, in which 1 commanded a company. Our army was forced to retreat. Great confusion followed, both among the troops and in the surround- ing country. The dead found an asyhim, but there was none for the
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wounded. On the 16th, we had a sharp skirmish with the enemy near the White Horse tavern, in Chester county, in which I received a musket ball through my right arm, which shattered the bone. I could find no place to retire to for cure or subsistence. The army was in motion ; I could not go with them. A horse was procured by Captain Fisher; a rope was my bridle; a knapsack stuffed with hay was my saddle ; and thus equipped and wrapped in my bloody garments, I arrived at home-ninety miles-in three days. I then took boarding in Carlisle, put myself under the care of Dr. Samuel A. McCoskry* and paid all expenses attendant upon my cure, besides losing a full year of the prime of my life. I was urged to place myself upon the pension list, under the law of 1787, but, being in good circumstances, declined it."
He does not mention in the foregoing letter, what he sometimes detailed to his children, the fact of his escape from the British lines after he was wounded. Having fainted from loss of blood, the enemy passed him by, taking him for dead. Night came on. A shower of rain revived him. He arose, and dreading to fall into the enemy's bands, made his way across woods and fields. At nightfall he approached a farm house faint and weary. As he opened the kitchen door, a stout Quaker, the owner of the house, promptly approached him and gently pushed him back our, of the house. The Quaker had perceived at a glance that the new arrival was an American officer, and being a true patriot, desired to save him from capture and perhaps death. As he closed the door behind him, he whispered, "Friend, thee is in great danger ; my house is full of British officers, and there, in my meadow, is encamped a squadron of British horse; but I will try to save thee." He took him first to his barn and made him a bed of hay. But in a few minutes after leaving him, he returned saying, " Friend, thee must out of this; the officers have demanded hay, and doubtless will take it in spite of my refusal: come !" He took the wounded man to a spring-house loft, unbound some bundles of flax and made him a bed. Shortly afterwards, the worthy Quakeress came to the wounded officer with some warm milk and bread and some linen cloths, with which last she dressed his wound.
Before daybreak the next morning, the patriotic Friend came to the wounded man, assisted him to disguise himself by putting his fatigue dress, (the hunting shirt,) over his other dress, and conducted him down the ravine formed by the spring run to the main road, and pointed him the direction in which Washington's army had retreated.
Father of Bishop MeCoskry, of Michigan.
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The wounded soldier had made some progress by sunrise, and was full of hope of rejoining his regiment, when, as he was crossing a brook, two dragoons, dressed in British scarlet rode up, made him prisoner and ordered him to march between their horses' heads. They asked him if he belonged to the rebel army. A Covenanter could only tell the truth. They inquired what brigade and regiment he belonged to. He replied, "Gen. Jas. Potter's brigade, second regiment." They marched him about a mile, and he resolved not to endure the horrors of a British prison ship, but determined upon escape or death. He had fixed in his mind that, about the midst of a wood which they were approaching, he would make a spring into the forest, and hoped that he might escape the fire of his captors, and that they could not pursue him through the under brush. But just as his nerves were strung up to the effort, and within a few paces of the thicket into which he was resolved to plunge, his rude captors halted, pointed down a dim road through the forest, and said, " You will find your regiment encamped in a field just beyond this wood -- we are Americans in disguise." The revulsion of feeling had well nigh proved too much for the enfeebled man; he sank to the ground, but was soon able, with the assistance of the perpetrators of the rough jest, to reach his company. The captors were scouts dressed in British uniform, and sent out for intelligence of the enemy's movements ; and as young Junkin wore a hunting shirt over his uniform, they had mistaken him for a private. His descend- ants have never ceased to cherish gratefully the memory of the patriotic Quaker, GEORGE SMITH, and his gentle wife, who saved the life of the wounded soldier.
In 1778, the British Indians became troublesome on the head waters of the Juniata; and the subject of this sketch, although exempt from military duty, his wound not being fully healed, volunteered to repel them, and marched with the troops for that purpose. He assisted in building a fort near to where Hollidaysburg now stands.
In May, 1779, he was married to Eleanor Cochran, by the Rev. Alexander Dobbin, D. D., by whom he had fourteen children, ten sons and four daughters, all of whom, except the youngest, were born in the stone house built by him in 1775, and still standing. His youngest son was born in Mercer county, Pa. Eleven of his children reached adult life and married. Two of his sons, the fourth and the youngest, were ministers of the Gospel, two of his daughters were married to ministers, and, including these, with other sons and sons-in-law and grand-children, there have already been amongst his descendants fifteen ministers and sixteen ruling elders-in all thirty-one Pres-
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byters, and he was himself a ruling elder in the Associate Reformed Church.
He continued to live at his home in the valley until the spring of 1806. He was a Justice of the Peace and a practical surveyor, and was a highly esteemed citizen. In 1806, he removed with his family to "Hope Mills," in Mercer county, where he continued to reside until February 21st, 1831, when he died, in the eighty-second year of his age. He was self taught, but a man of solid and accurate English education. He was remarkable as a clear, consecutive reasoner, and wrote with a vigorous style. He was a Calvinist in religion, a Demo- crat in politics, and was somewhat ready to defend, with voice and pen both classes of opinion.
CAPTAIN JOHN JUNKIN,
HE son of the foregoing, was born in East Pennsboro township, Cumberland county, on the 12th of September, 1786. He was the oldest of ten sons, and was of eminent promise from early boyhood. He and his brothers, Joseph, George and Benjamin, received their earlier education in a schoolhouse which long stood on the border of their father's estate. In 1805, the father having pur- chased extensive lands in Mercer county, including the future family seat, at Hope Mills, John and Joseph were sent out to commence the opening of a farm and the erection of mills at that place. They erected a cabin, and built a mill dam on the Neshannock creek, and returned to Cumberland, to accompany, the next spring, the entire family to the new home in the west. This migration was effected in the spring of 1806. In the entire enterprise the subject of this sketch was his father's most efficient and wise helper, and when the new home was in process of being established, the father and mother found, in their elder son, at once a safe counsellor and an energetic leader in the work.
From 1806 to 18JI, John Junkin continued in his father's house, and ' in the energetic performance of the duties of an elder son ; building the family mansion, which is still standing; building mills; opening out the farm, and the various employments incident to frontier life.
Meantime he was attracting notice in the new settlement as a young man of fine talents, great probity, industrious habits and public spirit. He possessed more of the elements of popularity than perhaps any member of the family. He was a universal favourite amongst the young men of the county, and had he lived and remained in civil life he would have risen to any position which he desired, and which was in the gift of the people.
But before the family had been six years in their new home the storm clouds of war began to darken the horizon of our country, and in 1812 the conflict with Great Britain began. At the time war was declared the subject of this sketch was First Lieutenant of the "Mercer Blues," a company which had been organized in the town of Mercer and vicinity. The company, to the number of some eighty-four men, volunteered to march to the defence of the northwestern frontier, left defenceless by the surrender of Fort Detroit by General Hull. The
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Captain of the company resigned and sent a substitute, and Mr. Junkin was elected Captain and led the company, first to Pittsburgh, and thence, with Gen. Crook's brigade, to Fort Meigs, on the Maumee river, where they rendered effective assistance to General Harrison, in the defence of that fortress and frontier.
"The Mercer Blues" were a remarkable body of men-nearly all Presbyterians, and most of them professors of religion. They found their own uniform, rifles, bibles and psalm books; and morning and evening worship, unless interrupted by alarms or extra military duty, was kept up by the inmates in every tent with the exception of two, and in those two the Captain often officiated. But the company was remarkable as a model of drill and military morale. Gen. Harrison often commended them as models for imitation.
One of the most perilous expeditions of the campaign was as follows: . Gen. Harrison had heard that the brig Queen Charlotte (the same that was afterwards captured in Perry's victory) was lying ice-bound in Lake Erie, off Malden, and as it was known that she was laden with valuable military stores, in addition to her own armament, the General laid a plan to capture her, possess himself of her stores, and burn the vessel. He sent for Captain Junkin, and asked him to lead the expe- dition, offering him the choice of the men to accompany him. Junkin accepted the offer, and picked his men chiefly from his own company , and Captain Dawson's, from the same county. Provided with hand sleds to carry away the stores in case of success, and well armed and accoutred for the expedition, they set forth, reached the lake opposite " Malden, traversed its frozen bosom until they came in sight of the brig, but, to their great disappointment, found a quarter of a mile or more of open lake between the terminus of their icy bridge and the object of their search. Having no boats they were constrained to return, but the same ground swell that had caused the opening of the ice on the Malden side had begun to crack it in their rear, so that it was with extreme difficulty and peril that they reached the American shore, having often to take the planks off their sleds to bridge the chasms in the ice field. By great presence of mind and skilful engi- neering the entire command got safely to shore.
Walter Oliver,# a brother-in-law of Captain Junkin, (having married his sister,) was First Lieutenant of the company. Mr. Oliver was also a native of Cumberland valley, having been born near Big Spring, (Newville,) about 1780. A millwright by occupation, he had come to Hope Mills in that capacity, and when the war broke out he left his
* Brother of Isabella Oliver, the Poetess, afterwards Mrs. Sharp, of Newville.
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young wife and child and marched to the defence of his country. He was long a highly reputable citizen of Mercer county, represented her for many years in the Legislature of the Commonwealth, held other offices of trust, and was for several years the Captain of the "Blues," who kept up their organization for many years after the war was ended. Mr. Oliver died, as did also Eleanor, his wife, within a few days of cach other, in 1836. Captain Junkin had married in ISoo his cousin Martha, the daughter of Hon. Wm. Findley, of Westmoreland county, and who represented that district in Congress for twenty-two consecutive years. Thus, also, Capt. Junkin left a wife and daughter behind him when he marched to Fort Meigs. It pleased Providence that he was never again, in this life, to see his young wife. She died during his absence. The daughter still survives, the wife of the Hon. Wm. M. Francis, of Lawrence county, and mother of the Rev. John Junkin Francis, of Freeport, Pa.
Joseph Junkin, brother of the Captain, was ensign of the company, and bore an active part in the campaign. He was born at the same place in Cumberland where all of the family save one were born, and his numerous descendants live some in Pennsylvania and some in lowa.
The attention of General Harrison having been drawn to Captain Junkin, as a young man of marked military talent, he mentioned him favourably to the Secretary of War, and the result was that soon after returning from the northwestern campaign he received a Captain's commission in the regular army of the United States. Shortly after this commission issued, and whilst the Captain was away from home on business, east of the mountains, the people of Mercer county ad- hering to the Democratic party nominated him for a seat in the State Legislature. This nomination he declined, on account of his military engagements. He was ordered upon recruiting service in the town of Mercer, where his personal popularity soon drew into the service a large number of men; but before marching orders came a malignant fever broke out amongst the men in the barracks, and, in bestowing personal attentions upon the sick men, he contracted the disease, and died April 27th, IS14. The writer of this sketch has seen old men who had been under his command, shed tears to his memory long after his decease. One of these, nearly twenty years after the death of his beloved Captain, said, as he tearfully gazed upon his tombstone, "he was a father to his men."
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GEORGE JUNKIN, D. D., LL. D.,
ON of Joseph, above named, was born at the family seat in Cumberland, November ist, 1790. His godly mother had from his birth devoted him, in her thought and in her prayers, to the Gospel ministry. He received his primary education in the school-house mentioned in a former sketch; although the parents bestowed more than ordinary attention in assisting the education of their children. He removed, with the family, to Hope Mills, in 1806, and took an active and energetic share in the making of that new home. He entered Jefferson College, Pa., May, 1809 ; graduated in September, 1813 ; and shortly afterwards, viz: in the early part of October, set out from his home at Hope Mills, to repair to Dr. Mason's Theological Seminary in New York. He crossed the mountains on horse-back, the usual mode of traveling in that day. En route he visited his native place in Cumberland, and spent a short season there. He crossed the Susquehanna on a ferry flat at Harrisburg, and pro- ceeded to Philadelphia. There he met his life-long friend, the late Rev. John Knox, D. D., who was also on his way to the Seminary, having already been there one session. Dr. Knox was from Marsh Creek, Adams county. The young students, after a few days' tarry in Philadelphia, proceeded to New York, by the "Swift-Sure" line of stage coaches, and reached Somerville, N. J., the first day, and New York by the evening of the second. Now we can pass from city to city in two hours.
In passing through Pittsburgh, the student met his soldier brother, and spent the night with him. It was their last earthly interview.
On account of the fact that a voluminous biography of the subject of this sketch has been written by his younger brother, and extensively circulated, it is not deemed necessary to enter minutely into the details of his laborious, eventful and useful life. The prominent points of his history is all we can find space for, and those in but meagre outline.
He continued at the seminary until September, 1816. During his sojourn in New York city, he assisted in the organization of the first Sabbath school. At the date just mentioned he and three other students, his life-friend, Joseph MeElroy, and two others named Lee, set out for western Pennsylvania in a two-horse wagon, and by the 15th of that month arrived at Noblestown, in Allegheny county, where the
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Presbytery of Monongahela (Associate Reformed) was met. He was examined, and presented all his trials, which all proved satisfactory, except his opinions upon Catholic communion. He did not hold to close communion. The Presbytery did, and refused to license him to preach on that account. He then asked a dismission to put himself under the care of the Big Spring Presbytery, in his native valley. Upon this the Presbytery reconsidered their decision and licensed him to preach the Gospel.
His first sermon was preached in Butler, Pa., on the 17th of Sep- tember, 1816, and from that time till a few days before his death, he continued to preach, with scarce a Sabbath's intermission, and often dur- ing the week. His first ministerial settlement was as a missionary in the city of Philadelphia, where he began his labours in March, 1818. The centre of his operations was in Mrs. Duncan's church in Thirteenth street, an edifice erected in pursuance of the will of Mrs. Margaret Duncan, who had, during a storm at sea, vowed to build a house for God, if he would spare her life and the lives of her fellow voyagers. He was ordained as an Evangelist June 29th, 1818, by the Associate Reformed Presbytery of Philadelphia. The ordination took place in Gettysburg, in the very place where forty-five years afterwards he laboured amongst the wounded and the dying, the victims of the terri- ble battle fought at that place.
In October 1818, he visited Milton, Pa .. and preached to a con- gregation of the Associate Reformed Church in that vicinity. His visit resulted in a call, and he became the pastor of that people the , same year, and continued to serve them, and a congregation which he gathered in the borough of Milton, in connection with White Deer church, for eleven years.
On the ist of June, 1819, he was married by Dr. Mason to Miss Julia Rush Miller, of Philadelphia, a most estimatable lady, who for thirty-three years proved to him, indeed, a help-meet. He was in- stalled pastor at Milton in October, 1819. In 1822, steps were taken by the General Assembly and the Associated Reformed Synod for a union of the two bodies ; and this was so far consummated by IS24 that Mr. Junkin united with the Presbytery of Northumberland. He was cordially received; for his power had been felt from the time of his advent to that region, in the co-operative work of the church. He was soon recognized as the leader in the Bible, Sabbath School, and Tem- perance causes, and was much beloved and well sustained in his efforts, by his brethren in the ministry, and by all good people in that part of the state. Ile spent eleven years in pastoral and other labour in that
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field, and was the instrument of many great reforms in the churches, and in the community. He was a chief instrument in founding the Milton Academy, which, under the Presidency of that celebrated teacher, Dr. Kirkpatrick, has given so many distinguished men both to church and state, at home and abroad. As auxiliary to the Missionary, Bible, Education and Temperance causes, he established a paper called the Religious Farmer, the editorial work of which he added to his other toils. Being a practical and scientific agriculturalist, he did much to improve the style and methods of husbandry in that part of the state. His pronounced advocacy of the right, and opposition to the wrong, of course, roused the resentment of the bad, and whilst the wicked respected him for his consistency, zcal and public spirit, they hated him as cordially as he was warmly beloved by the friends of good order.
Whilst at Milton he was pressed into a controversy upon the opinions of Socinus. A learned and accomplished Unitarian minister, . an Englishman by birth, assailed the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity through the local press, and Mr. Junkin defended it with such ability and effect as to banish the errors and the errorist from that community.
In 1826, Mr. Junkin was seriously ill, and for a time his life was des- paired of. Mrs. Junkin had asked a pious carpenter, who was build- ing a barn for them, to conduct family worship in a room adjoining the one in which her sick husband lay, but in his hearing. On one occa- sion the carpenter, a Baptist, asked an apprentice of his to lead in ยท prayer. The youth did it with so much unction and earnestness, as deeply to impress the mind of the sick pastor, and when the worship .. was over, and the men had gone to their work, Mr. Junkin said to his wife : " If God spares my life, that young man shall enter the ministry." : , "He did recover speedily, and the pious Baptist generously released his apprentice from the remainder of his time, and Mr. Junkin assisted him to prosecute his studies. After attending the Milton Academy, the young carpenter graduated at Jefferson College and the Princeton Seminary, and was, together with the lovely John Cloud, the first Mis- sionary of the Church to Africa, where they fell, carly martyrs to the blessed cause. . Previous to this Mr. Junkin had assisted the writer of these lines and others, in their preparatory studies ; but it was MAT- THEW LAIRD, whose case awakened fully in the pastor's mind that interest in the cause of ministerial training which led him to enter the field of education, in which he spent the greater portion of his life.
In the summer of 1830, Mr. Junkin had been elected President of the "Pennsylvania Manual Labour Academy." located at Germantown. He accepted the appointment, and bade a tearful adieu to the people 13
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of his pastoral charge, who fully reciprocated his affection, and early in August of that year repaired to Germantown and entered upon his public duties. There he laboured assiduously until the spring of 1832, when having been elected President of Lafayette College, an institu- tion existing only on paper, he accepted, and removed to Easton and began the arduous work of founding a college. Most of the students of the Academy at Germantown accompanied him to Easton, and con- stituted the nucleus of the future college, an institution which under him and his successors, and especially under the present efficient Presi- dent, Cattell, has risen to be one of the best colleges of the land.
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