USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > Silver Spring > Exercises in commemoration of the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the Silver Spring Presbyterian Church, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania ; Thursday, August 1909, 2.00 P.M > Part 3
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As early as 1747 and 1748 there was organized an Associated Regiment in Lancaster county, "over the river Susquehanna," and in which were two com- panies from the vicinity of the Silver Spring. one commanded by Capt. James Silver, and the other by Capt. James McTeer. Of the former Tobias Hen- dricks was the lieutenant, and Joseph Irvine the en- sign; and of the latter William Trindle was lieutenant and Moses Starr the ensign. The public records show that all these officers were citizens of East Pennsboro, and had the ecclesiastical records been kept with the same fidelity the civil records were it could also be shown that they were members of the Silver Spring Presbyterian Church. It does not any- where appear who constituted the rank and file of this associated regiment.
East Pennsboro township then extended from the Stony Ridge to the Susquehanna river and from the North to the South mountain and the Silver Spring congregation included in its membership persons from all parts of this large district and also some from beyond its bounds. In the aforesaid regiment was a company commanded by Captain Matthew Dill, who was an adherent of "Lower Pennsborough" -by which name the Silver Spring congregation was then known-but who lived where now is the town of Dillsburg, in York county.
Up to July, 1754, the regions to the north and the west of the Kittochtinny mountain range was Indian territory. This was well known to the whites, but not- withstanding their knowledge of the fact and not- withstanding the warnings of the authorities, white settlers pressed over the border and without right
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or title squatted .upon the choicest spots in those In- dian lands. They were on the Juniata, in the Sher- man's Valley, in the Path Valley, and in the far- away Big and Little Coves. The Indians repeatedly complained of these encroachments, but the trespass- ing continued till it looked as if it might become the cause of an Indian war. After the formation of Cumberland county it was decided to take steps to remove the trespassers. For this purpose a confer- ence was held in May, 1750, at the house of George Croghan, at which were present James Galbreath, William Wilson, Hermanus Alricks, Benjamin Cham- bers, Matthew Dill and John Finley, who were jus- tices of the peace; and Richard Peters, secretary to the Proprietaries, and Conrad Weiser, interpreter and Indian agent; also five Indians, three from Shamokin, and two from the Ohio. One of the Ohio Indians was Andrew Montour, a half breed who was much in the employ of the Province. At this conference it was agreed that the offending settlers should be removed promptly and permanently, and that the Indians present should accompany the magistrates to the dif- ferent settlements and see that it was done in good faith. It was done promptly and in good faith, and the Indians were pacified. Taking into consideration the character of the persons present and the char- acter of the business transacted, this meeting at George Croghan's was undoubtedly the most im- portant conference which up to this time had been held between the whites and the Indians west of the Susquehanna river and it is a part of the history of the Silver Spring.
George Croghan, at whose house this memorable conference was held, was an extraordinary man. He was born in Ireland and educated at the University of Dublin. He came to America while yet a youth, and as carly as 1744 was already a licensed Indian trader. In 1765 a petition was presented to the Pennsylvania Assembly in behalf of the members of the Church of England in Cumberland county, asking for assistance to complete a church in Carlisle, which they had in part erected but from the smallness of their number and distressed state of the country consequent upon the Indian wars, were unable to
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finish; and among the names to this petition were those of George Croghan and Robert Callender.
Croghan's business required him to move much from place to place, and he consequently nearly al- ways had several places that he could truthfully call his home. At the Silver Spring he at one time owned over 800 acres of land, but the French and Indians captured such large quantities of his goods, and the Indians to whom he had sold on trust went off with- out paying him, which losses so involved him financial- ly that he was compelled to surrender his Penns- borongh property to liquidate his debts. One of the points on the frontier at which he lived and traded was Aughwick, which was situated on the celebrated Kittanning Path, in what is now Huntingdon county. This path crossed the mountain at what is now Ster- rett's Gap, and was so much used in going to and coming from Croghan's, at Aughwick, that that familiar notch in the mountain came to be known as Croghan's Gap, which name it bore for years before it became Sterrett's Gap.
George Croghan enjoyed the implicit confidence of the Provincial authorities. In August, 1749, Gov. James Hamilton sent him from Silver Spring to the Ohio to inform the Indians there that hostilities be- tween Great Britain and France had ceased, and to inquire of them why they permitted Celeron de Bien- ville to march through their country. That was more than four years before Gov. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent George Washington into that region to ask of the Frenchmen there to explain their presence and conduct. In April, 1751, Gov. Hamilton sent him a second time to the Ohio, this time with a present of goods for the Indians. On this occasion one of the Indian chiefs warmly expressed to him the wish that the Governor of Pennsylvania would build a fort on the Ohio to protect the Indians and the Indian traders from the insults of the French. This wish, no doubt, was the origin of the idea of the fort which after- wards was built at the forks of the Ohio.
On the frontier Croghan met and became ac- quainted with George Washington. In the spring of 1754 he had a large store of flour at his post at Aughwick, preparatory to trading with the army as
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well as with the Indians. Washington, with a com- pany of Virginia soldiers, was on the march towards the forks of the Ohio, and contracted with Croghan for a supply of flour, but Croghan, for some cause not mentioned in history, failed to deliver the flour at the place designated. At one time the troops were for six days without flour, and Washington wrote urgent- ly to Croghan to forward all he could furnish, but notwithstanding the admonition no flour came. In the following year, when Braddock was preparing to go upon his ill-fated expedition to Fort Duquesne, the Pennsylvania Assembly appointed commissioners to explore the country and lay out the required roads. At the head of this body of commissioners was George Croghan, who, with all his knowledge of the country, failed to please the vain and haughty British officers. Later, at the instance of Gov. Morris, he enlisted a company of fifty Indians to meet Gen. Braddock and on his march render him assistance as scouts. He also secured the services of Capt. Jack, "the Wild Hunter of the Juniata," and his band, all resolute men, well acquainted with the country and inured to hardships. Of Capt. Jack's men Croghan wrote : "They require no shelter for the night, they ask no pay. If the whole army were composed of such men there would be no cause of apprehension. I shall be with them in time for duty." And these men, secured by George Croghan, of the Silver Spring, were the only troops from the Province of Pennsylvania that were with the Braddock expedition at any stage of its progress.
When in the fall of 1770 Washington made a trip to the West in behalf of the Virginia soldiers who had land claims pending, he was entertained at Fort Pitt. at a dinner at which he met George Croghan. Crog- han was then Col. Croghan, deputy-agent to Sir Wil- liam Johnson, and had a pretentious plantation on the banks of the Allegheny river about four miles from the fort, where Washington on the following day visited him. When Washington and his party took their departure Croghan engaged for their service two Indians and an interpreter. They proceeded down the river in a large canoe, Croghan and some officers of the garrison accompanying them as far as Logstown,
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where they breakfasted together, after which they separated, Col. Croghan and his companions cheer- ing the voyagers from the shore as the canoe floated upon the current down the beautiful Ohio.
Croghan had figured in many capacities and ex- perienced many vicissitudes on the frontier. He had suffered at the hands of the white man and the savage. Once, while convoying presents from Sir Wil- liam Johnson to the Delawares and Shawanese, his caravan was captured by a band of backwoodsmen dressed in the garb and habits of Indians. At another time a band of Kickapoo Indians shot and killed sev- eral of his men and wounded him, believing his party to be a party of Cherokees with whom the Kickapoos were at bitter enmity. Pontiac, the celebrated chief of the Ottowas, suspected Croghan of coming into his eonntry to win from him with presents the sachems who had joined with him in his famous con- spiracy against the whites. As a warning that great chieftain significantly declared that he had a large kettle boiling in which he intended to seethe Croghan for his pernicious interference. Subsequently, when Pontiac's spirits were broken by reverses, the two met and smoked the pipe of peace together, and Crog- han claimed the credit of having persuaded Pontiac to bury the hatchet.
George Croghan and William Trent were much as- sociated in business and cannot well be disasso- ciated in history. The story of the one in a large measure includes the story of the other. When Capt. Trent-largely through his association with Croghan -had established for himself a reputation of having great influence with the Indians, he was engaged by Gov. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, to attend a council of the Ohio Indian tribes as agent for Virginia. He was also to see the French commander and expostulate with him for encroaching upon territory that be- longed to the King of England. He proceeded to Logstown and from there to the Indian country, which lad twice been visited by Croghan, but wherever he went he found the aspect of affairs so threatening that he lost heart and returned home without seeing the offending French commander, which was the most important part of the errand upon which he had been
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sent. Gov. Dinwiddie then selected George Washing- ton, and on October 30, 1753, sent him upon the mis- sion in which Trent had failed.
In January, 1754, Gov. Dinwiddie commissioned Trent to raise a company of one hundred men and march with all speed to the forks of the Ohio and finish as soon as possible the fort which had there been commenced. Capt. Trent was selected for this service- it was said-chiefly because he was brother- in-law to George Croghan, who had grown to be a person of great consequence on the frontier and was supposed to have such influence with the western tribes as to be able to persuade them to take up the hatchet for the English. Trent promptly raised his company and in it, as ensign, was Edward Ward, a young man who also had lived at the Silver Spring. At the same time that Trent was authorized to raise a company for service at the Ohio, Washington was empowered to raise a like force at Alexandria, Va., for the same service. He was ordered to forward munitions and supplies for the projected fort, and, when the two companies were joined, was to have command of both. When on the frontier he was to take council of George Croghan and Andrew Mon- tour, the interpreter, in all matters relating to the In- dians, they being considered perfect oracles in that department.
On the 17th of February, 1754, in the angle formed by the meeting of the Monogahela and Allegheny rivers, under the auspices of the Ohio company, was begun the erection of a fort. Two months afterwards the French in overwhelming force, came down the Allegheny river and captured the fort before it was completed. Capt. Trent's company was in charge, but he and his lieutenant being absent at the time, it fell to Ensign Ward (of Silver Spring) to make the sur- render. Trent at the time was at Wills Creek, to which point he had been ordered to provide pack horses, and await the arrival of Washington. He failed to have the pack horses in readiness, and while the troops were waiting for wagons to come up from Winchester and supply the deficiency, Ensign Ward and his men arrived in camp, the French, on the sur-
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render of the fort, having permitted them to depart and take with them their working implements.
While lying at Wills Creek, Capt. Trent's men were the cause of much complaint. They had enlisted as volunteers and considered themselves as exempt from the rigors of martial law, and their refractory conduct threatened to demoralize Washington's entire com- mand. He tolerated them as best he could till he was ready to march, and then ordered them to re- main in camp and await the coming of Colonel Fry, the chief officer of the expedition. They. however, did not remain, but in the true spirit of volunteers from the back woods soon dispersed to their homes. Trent then returned to his home at Carlisle and for nearly two years served as a member of the Provincial Council. In 1757 he was again in the employ of Vir- ginia, but in the summer of that year acted as secre- tary to George Croghan at a council with the In- dians at Easton. In 1758 he accompanied General Forbes' expedition to Fort Duquesne, and in the fol- lowing year entered the service of Sir William John- son, British Agent for Indian Affairs in America. He speculated much in land and for some years, in various parts of the Province, was assessed with large tracts, sometimes aggregating more than eight thousand acres. Being extensively engaged in the In- dian trade he was financially ruined through the depredation of the Indians. To reimburse him for his losses the Indians, at the treaty of Fort Sanwix, ceded to him a large tract of land lying on the Kanawha river, in what is now West Virginia.
Owing to the character of his business, he (Captain Trent), like Croghan, found it necessary to frequently change the place of his abode. He lived longer at Carlisle than anywhere else, having been there con- tinuously from shortly after the town was laid out till 1769. In 1770 and 1771 he is missing from Car- lisle, and it is probable that in those years he was on his lands on the Kanawha, as it is known that he was located there for a short time. In 1772 and 1773 he lived in Middleton township, on a tract of land lying in what is now called Holly Gap, which he owned from a very early date. That gap as early as 1757 was known as Trent's Gap, and the broken mountain
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range which separated Cumberland from York county, was known as Trent's Hills. Broken in fortune, health and spirit he figured but little in the war of the Revolution, and that little only in the western depart- ment. While on a trip to the east in 1778 he took ill at his old home and died, and, it is said, "was buried in an old graveyard not far from the Silver Spring churchyard, if not in that identical burial ground."
Edward Ward, the ensign who surrendered the fort at the forks of the Ohio, is likewise entitled to special mention in a history of the Silver Spring. When Trent's company disbanded at Wills Creek, Ward also returned to his home, but only for a brief period. In the spring of 1756 he was again in the service of the Province, this time as captain under Lient .- Colonel John Armstrong. Robert Callender, of Silver Spring, Rev. John Steel, Hugh Mercer, John Potter, Hance Hamilton and Joseph Armstrong were also captains in the same battalion, while William Thompson, James Potter, Edward Armstrong and others whose names have since been familiar in Pennsylvania's history, were lieutenants. Capt. Ward was with Armstrong in his memorable expedition against Kittanning, and accounts agree that his company suffered severely in the attack upon that Indian stronghold. After the defeat of Braddock the Provincial anthorities ordered the construction of a chain of forts, extending in a semi-circle from near the Maryland line in what is now Fulton county around to the Delaware river. One of these frontier posts was located on the Juniata river, one mile west of where Lewistown now stands, and was named Fort Granville. In July, 1756, Fort Granville was garrisoned by Capt. Edward Ward's company. The settlers in the Tuscarora Valley want- ing a guard while harvesting their grain, Capt. Ward, with about half his men, marched to their protection, and after they were gone the French and Indians cap- tured the fort, killing Lieut. Armstrong and taking prisoners the entire garrison. It will be proper to here state that the Lieut. Armstrong that was killed at Fort Granville was Edward Armstrong, a brother of Col. John Armstrong; and also, that with Capt. Ward, as ensign of the company, was Johu London,
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whose brother, Matthew Loudon, lies buried at the Silver Spring.
Edward Ward continued in the military service of the Province while soldiers were needed, which then was all the time. Through the years 1757 and 1758 his company was stationed to the westward of the Susquehanna, at the forts which were scattered along the edge of the frontier, rendering the terrified and distressed inhabitants what protection they could. In the fall of 1758 he joined Forbes' expedition against Fort Duquesne, and when possession was taken of its abandoned ruins he was privileged to stand in triumph on the very spot where in April, 1754, he had been humiliated in defeat.
Like Capt. Trent, Edward Ward dealt extensively in lands and in 1769 was assessed with nearly 6,000 acres within the present bounds of Bedford county; also a large traet in the Juniata Valley. He lived longer at Carlisle than at any other place, but in 1767 he settled in Allen township, and on the Cedar Run, where now is the village of Eberly's Mills, built the first mills that were ereeted in the eastern end of Cumberland county. There he continued until 1771 when his name disappears from the records, and of his subsequent history nothing is known. He was a married man, his wife being a Silver, in all probability a daughter of James Silver, the pioneer of the Silver Spring. He stands in history as Major Edward Ward, and as a man with a elean record.
Another early patriot of the Silver Spring was Robert Callender, who was a native of Maryland but came into Pennsylvania to engage in the Indian trade. At the commencement of hostilities in 1755 he en- listed as a soldier and upon the organization of his company was commissioned captain-lientenant, and in the following September was with Col. Armstrong at the storming of Kittanning. A month later he was made a captain in the same battalion in which Ed- ward Ward had been commissioned a captain in May of that year. He continued in the military service till after the fall of Fort Duquesne, and worked out for himself a most distinguished and honorable eareer. He was not only a soldier but also a business man, and did much to promote the settlement and develop-
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ment of the country. He located on the Silver Spring about the year 1763, and in 1764 or '65 built the first grist mill on the Silver Spring. A year or so afterwards he also built a saw mill. Be- ing rich and enterprising he in 1769 bought the mills located at the mouth of the Letort Spring, after which the grist mill on the Silver Spring is designated on the records as "Callender's lower mill."
Robert Callender also was a great land owner. In 1770 his assessments in Cumberland and Bedford counties, and in the Juniata Valley, aggregated 3,300 acres. He also at the same time owned a tract of two thousand acres lying on the east side of the Missis- sippi river below Natchez, in what is now the State of Mississippi, but at the time he acquired the land was yet in the Province of West Florida.
While Robert Callender lived at the Silver Spring he was a slave holder. In 1766 he owned five negroes, in 1767 two, in 1768 four, and in 1769 one. Slavery then was permitted under the laws of Pennsylvania and many leading citizens in the vicinity owned negro slaves. At the time Robert Callender numbered among his goods and chattels five negroes, James Gal- breath owned four, Tobias Hendricks two, Francis McGuire one, John Orr one, and John Sample one. Later David Hoge, John Carrothers, "of the creek," Matthew London, Robert Whitehill, Robert and Wil- liam Patterson, John Buchanan, John Waugh, John Galbreath, John Quigley, Henry Quigley, William Mc- Teer, William Harkness, Moses Starr and Robert Galbreath owned negro slaves. These were all good citizens and patriots, and, with the exception of Robert Callender, were also all Presbyterians. Slave owning then was not considered the great wrong that it was afterwards. It does not appear that the Sil- vers, the Walkers, the McCormicks and the Clendenins at any time owned negro slaves.
Robert Callender lived only a few years after he removed from the Silver Spring. He died at Middle- sex in June, 1776, at the age of fifty years. His first wife died at the Silver Spring, aged thirty-four, and both are buried in the Old Graveyard at Carlisle. For his second wife he married Frances Gibson. He had seven children, three by his first marriage and four
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by his second. His daughter, Ann, married Gen. Wil- liam lrvine, of the Revolution; Elizabeth married Rev. John Andrews, D. D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania; Isabella married William Neill, a lead- ing merchant of the city of Baltimore; Robert-the only son-became a lawyer and settled at Pittsburg. He married Harriet Butler, a daughter of Gen. Wil- liam Butler, one of the five famous Butler brothers, who in the Revolution were known as "the fighting Butlers." Catharine married William Noland, of Vir- ginia ; Martha married Thomas Duncan, a brilliant Carlisle lawyer who became a judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ; and Mary, the youngest, mar- ried George Thompson, son of the Gen. William Thompson, who was colonel of the first regiment that Pennsylvania sent to the war of the Revolution.
James Hendricks is another man who deserves honorable mention in this connection. He was a son of Tobias Hendricks, and was a captain in the First Pennsylvania battalion in Col. Henry Bouquet's ex- pedition in 1764, and Richard Butler, afterwards so celebrated as an officer of the Revolution, was his Ensign. To James Hendricks belongs the distinction of engaging in the Provincial wars and also in the Revolution, yet history has hardly been just to him, for very little concerning him can be found recorded in its pages.
There were in the Silver Spring section families who, though not distinctively and prominently asso- ciated with the military affairs of the country, per- formed civic duties with a fidelity that entitles them to be classed with the patriots of the land. On what was then the "Big Road," a short distance west of where now is the village of Hogestown, in the colonial days, lived William Walker. He long kept a tavern at that point, as did also his son Jolin after him. Wil- liam Walker was a son-in-law of the first John Hoge, being married to John Hoge's daughter Elizabeth. Among the children of William Walker and Elizabeth Hoge was a son Jonathan, who, although he did not tarry long at the place of his birth after he had fitted himself for the sober realities of life, is yet entitled to honorable mention in this connection, because of the high distinction he himself achieved, and because
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of a great and honored son he gave to the world. Jonathan Walker graduated from Dickinson College in 1787, in the first class that that institution graduated. He studied law, was admitted to the bar at Carlisle and began the practice of his profession at Northum- berland, Pa. In 1806 he was appointed president judge of the judicial district composed of Center, Mifflin, Huntingdon and Bedford counties. He then removed from Northumberland to Bellefonte and later to Bedford. While living at Bedford he was appointed Judge of the United States Court for the western district of Pennsylvania. He then removed to Pitts- burg, where he died in 1824. Jonathan Walker mar- ried Lucy Duncan, a sister of Judge Thomas Duncan, and on the 23d of July, 1801, there was born to them, at Northumberland, a son whom they named Robert John Walker, who for forty years of his life was one of the most able and conspicuous public men of the nation. He graduated from the University of Penn- sylvania with the first honors of a large class; began the practice of law at Pittsburg, but in a few years went South and settled at Natchez, Mississippi, where he rose to high distinction professionally and political- ly. He was elected and re-elected United States Sena- tor; was appointed Secretary of the United States Treasury by President Polk; Minister to China by President Pierce, and Governor of the Territory of Kansas by President Buchanan. From the very first he strenuously opposed nullification and secession, and had much to do with shaping the policy of the government during the war between the States. In 1863 he was appointed financial agent of the United States in Europe, and succeeded in negotiating abroad $250,000,000 in government bonds. He died in Wash- ington city on November 11, 1869. A lineal descendant of old Silver Spring. The Silver Spring of to-day honors his memory with filial pride and rejoices in his greatness.
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