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 4
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When, in 1769, Robert Callender moved to the mouth of the Letort Spring, he rented his Silver Spring mills to Ephraim Blaine, who operated them for five or six years. Ephraim Blaine's wife was Re- becca Galbreath, a niece of James Galbreath, and in locating on the Silver Spring he did not locate among
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strangers, but near his wife's relatives. By 1774 he had completed a mill on the Conodoguinet, on the site now occupied by the Carlisle water works, and removed from the Silver Spring to Middleton town- ship. Ephraim Blaine also had the distinction of serving both in the Provincial wars and in the Revo- lution. When only eighteen years of age he was appointed commissary sergeant, and served under Col. James Burd, while that officer was charged with building a road through the wilderness to the Monon- gahela river. Afterwards he shared in the dangers and triumphs of Col. Bouquet's first expedition to the Ohio.
When the Revolution broke upon the country Ephraim Blaine assisted in raising a battalion of as- sociators, in which he was made a lieutenant. In December, 1775, the Committee of Correspondence re- ported that in addition to the twelve companies Cum- berland county had already sent it had in readiness for the front another battalion. The battalion was ac- cepted and Ephraim Blaine was elected its lieutenant colonel. About the same time he was also appointed county lieutenant. The latter he declined and the former he did not hold very long. His remarkable executive ability coming to the knowledge of Congress that body, on April 1, 1776, appointed him Commissary of Provisions. He then resigned as lieutenant colonel and entered the Commissary Department, and from that time till American independence was achieved devoted all his energies to supplying the patriot army with food, largely from out of the Cumberland Val- ley. While Washington's army lay at Valley Forge his "barefoot and otherwise naked" soldiers were fed through the strenuous exertions of Col. Ephraim Blaine, who from 1769 to 1774, inclusive, operated the mills on the Silver Spring.
Ephraim Blaine had a brother named Alexander, who in 1770 and 1771 also lived at the Silver Spring. He was designated in the tax list as a "freeman," and being a single man we are justified in assuming that he had his home in the family of his brother, Ephraim. Alexander Blaine married Mary Hoge, oldest daughter of David Hoge, and of their deseendants much might be said if the scope of this paper permitted it. As
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early as 1768 Alexander Blaine was a licensed Indian trader, and during the Revolution was Assistant Com- missary of Issues under his brother, Ephraim.
The closing of the port of Boston by the British Parliament aroused to action the patriots of this part of the country, who held a meeting in the Presby- terian church at Carlisle on July 12, 1774, at which a committee was appointed to correspond with similar committees in other parts of the country. This committee consisted of thirteen members and three of the thirteen were Robert Callender, Ephraim Blaine and Jonathan Hoge. Jonathan Hoge was not a soldier, but along civil lines rendered service to his country that entitles him to be classed with the early patriots of Silver Spring. He was a member of the Constitu- tional Convention of July, 1776; a member of the As- sembly in 1776, and again from 1778 to 1783. He was a member of the Supreme Executive Council from March 4, 1777, to November 9, 1778, and again from November 3, 1784, to October 20, 1787. In 1777, after the Americans had been defeated at the Brandywine and the British were moving upon Philadelphia in triumph, he and John Loudon were appointed commis- sioners to remove the public loan office from Philadel- phia, so the records of that important department would not fall into the hands of the enemy. In 1777 he, for several months, was a member of the Council of Safety; also, in October, 1786, a member of the committee to superintend the drawing of the Dona- tion Land Lottery; also, in 1785-86, a member of the Board of Property, and in August, 1791, was ap- pointed a justice of the peace, in which capacity he acted as an associate judge of Cumberland county. He died on the 19th of April, 1800, and is the only Hoge buried in the Silver Spring cemetery whose grave now is marked.
Jonathan Hoge had a son, John, who enlisted in Col. William Irvine's battalion and was made a second lieutenant. In the second expedition against Canada he was captured at Three Rivers, June 8, 1776, and remained a prisoner for three years.
About the year 1778 there settled in the vicinity of the Silver Spring a young Irishman named David Red- dick, whose subsequent career entitles him to a refer-
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ence in the history of Silver Spring. He was an intelli- gent and ambitious youth and engaged at school teach- ing and surveying. He married Ann Hoge, oldest daugh- ter of Jonathan Hoge, and when his wife's unele, David Hoge, acquired large land interests in what is now Washington county, Pennsylvania, he went with him to that part of the country and surveyed his land for him. He then located there and rose to be one of the most distinguished and honored citizens of Western Pennsylvania. He became a member of the Supreme Executive Council of the Province, and was vice presi- dent of that body at a time when Benjamin Franklin was its president. He also held other important and responsible positions, and did much to settle the troubles of the Whiskey Insurrection, he and William Findley being delegated to wait on President Wash- ington at Carlisle and assure him that the insurgents had submitted to the laws.
Rachel Hoge, also a daughter of Jonathan Hoge, married Robert Bell, who served as a soldier in the war of the Revolution. Robert Bell lies in an un- marked grave at Pine Hill. [Editorial note :- Located in Silver Spring Township near Samples Bridge.]
Sarah Hoge, another daughter of Jonathan Hoge, married John Carothers, a man of exceptional ability, and long a central figure in the vicinity of the Silver Spring. In March, 1777, the Supreme Executive Coun- cil created the office of county lieutenant, a most arduous and responsible position. The county lieuten- ant, with the aid of his sub-lieutenants, was required to district the county, to enroll the militia and or- ganize them into companies, hold elections for officers, collect fines, purchase arms, munitions and sup- plies, and represent generally the State government in military matters. The office was first offered to John Armstrong, of Carlisle, who declined it. It was then offered to Ephraim Blaine, who also declined it. It was next offered to James Galbreath, who because of his age hesitated to undertake the task but without formal introduction into office performed its duties for a few months. John Carothers was then ap- pointed to it and for over two years discharged its trying duties very acceptably. While he was lieu- tenant, James Gregory and John Trindle, who also
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were of the Silver Spring congregation, were two of his sub-lieutenants.
The Hoges were a large, intelligent and eminently patriotic family. During the Revolution they were so active in the various lines of public duty that it is difficult for the historian to allot to each individual of them all the honor that is his due. David Hoge, the brother of Jonathan, had a son, John, who is apt to be confounded with Jonathan's son, John. David's son, John, when sixteen years old, entered the patriot army, and before the end of his term of service rose to the rank of lieutenant. At the close of the war he settled in Washington county, Pennsyl- vania, from which section, in 1789, he was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention. Subsequently he was a member of the State Senate, and also a member of Congress.
When, in 1774, Ephraim Blaine relinquished the mills on the Silver Springs, they passed into the possession of George Gibson. George Gibson was of a family which then already was distinguished for its enterprise and patriotism. He was at the Silver Spring only two years, but because of his honorable lineage, and because of his distinguished connections and distinguished personal career Silver Spring treasures his memory and gladly reserves for him a place in its history. On the breaking out of the hostilities with the mother country, George Gibson en- tered the service of the Province of Virginia at Fort Pitt, where was stationed his brother, John, who had preceded him into the service. The colonies being in great need of powder for the army, George Gibson was given command of a force of men and sent down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, which was then a Spanish possession, to there ob- tain a supply. The agents of the British government at New Orleans suspected Gibson and his men, and kept them under surveillance, and to deceive them Gibson was arrested and thrown into a Spanish prison. Through the assistance of Oliver Pollock a large quantity of powder was secured, part of which was loaded into a schooner that lay in the harbor, and the rest upon flat boats to be rowed up the river by the hardy men from the backwoods of Vir-
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ginia and Pennsylvania. Simultaneously with the de- parture of his men up the river Gibson mysteriously escaped from prison, got upon the powder-ladened schooner while the British spies slept, and sailed away. Both the flat boats and the schooner safely reached their destinations, the former at Fort Pitt and the latter at Philadelphia. After his return from this mission George Gibson became colonel of a Vir- ginia regiment, the men of which were so noted for good discipline, and orderly conduct that they were called "Gibson's lambs."
George Gibson was a brother-in-law to Robert Callender, Callender's second wife being a sister of George Gibson. In all probability it was this re- lationship that brought Gibson to the Silver Spring, for the mills which he here operated were then still the property of Robert Callender. While young Gib- son lived at the Silver Spring he was yet a single man, but was paying attention to Ann West, a daughter of Judge Francis West, of the Sherman's Valley, in what is now Perry county. A family tradition relates that in visiting his sweetheart George Gibson would go from the Silver Spring to the Sherman's Valley on horseback, which then was the most elegant method of travel young swains could avail themselves of. His way lay across the Sherman's creek, and there being no bridges he had to ford the stream whether deep or shallow. Upon one occasion he found the creek much swollen by heavy rains, and in attempting to ford it his horse plunged and threw him into the raging flood, where he would have drowned had he not luckily caught hold of his horse's tail and held on till the horse towed him out upon the bank on the other side. He married Miss West and from their union came Judge John Bannister Gibson, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and one of the most brilliant jurists that ever graced the American bench; also Gen. George Gibson, who for more than fifty years was at the head of the commissary department of the United States army. At the close of the Revolution George Gibson settled in the Sherman's Valley, on the West estate, which he acquired through his mar- riage into the family. There he engaged at milling
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and farming. In October, 1785, he was appointed county lieutenant, which office he held in 1791, when the Indians of the Northwest Territory became troublesome. Responding to the call of duty he raised a regiment in Cumberland county, went to assist in the efforts to subdue them, and in the dis- astrous battle on the Miami, known in history as St. Clair's defeat, he fell mortally wounded.
The James Galbreath, who was present at the con- ference held at the house of George Croghan in May, 1750, was for more than thirty years a central figure among the patriots of the Silver Spring. He was twice sheriff of Lancaster county before Cumberland county was taken from Lancaster, and after the creation of Cumberland was one of the new county's first justices of the peace. He died in 1786 and his remains, and the remains of his wife, are buried at the Derry Church, in what is now Dauphin county. When he came into the Silver Spring section he settled on the Conodoguinet on a tract of land of which the farm now owned by S. A. Basehore was a part. His advanced age prevented him from par- ticipating actively in the war of the Revolution, but the cause had his hearty sympathy and the active support of his six patriotic sons and two sons-in- law. His son, Bertram, who remained at Donegal, became lieutenant of Lancaster county, and his son, Andrew, who was probably the youngest, enlisted early and continued in the service to the very end of the conflict. In 1776 he was appointed a major in the organization known as the Flying Camp; was captured and confined in the famous Jersey prison ship, but exchanged, and for a time was on Gen. Washington's staff. After the war he came into possession of his father's estate on the Conodoguinet, where he lived to the end of his days. He died in March, 1806, and his remains rest in the burying ground of the Silver Spring church. After his death his widow removed to Carlisle where she lived out the rest of her days. She died in the city of Baltimore, but her remains were brought home and buried beside those of her husband.
Major Andrew Galbreath left surviving him six daughters, all of whom married into distinguished
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families, viz: Jane married Matthew Miller; Eliza- beth married Dr. Kelso, of Harrisburg; Mary married Michael Ege, of Middleton township, a famous iron manufacturer; Sarah married John Bannister Gib- son, the brilliant lawyer who became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; Barbara mar- ried Charles P. Gordon, of North Carolina, and Ann married Charles Hall, of Baltimore.
James Galbreath had a son, Robert, who mar- ried Mary Hendricks, a daughter of Tobias Hendricks, the pioneer. Robert's children, like those of his brother, Andrew, were all girls, and consequently neither perpetuated the Galbreath name beyond his own generation. Robert Galbreath lived at Lisburn, where for many years he owned a mill and carried on an extensive and prosperous business.
Probably the greatest distinction that can be claimed for patriotic services for any one from the vicinity of the Silver Spring belongs to Capt. Wil- liam Hendricks. On the 13th of July, 1775-less than a month after the battle of Bunker Hill was fought-Capt. Hendricks left Cumberland county for the war in command of a company of 90 men. At Reading it and eight other companies were organized into the First Rifle Regiment of Pennsylvania, with William Thompson, a veteran of the Provincial wars, as colonel. This regiment joined Washington's army at Boston early in August, but Capt. Hendricks' company was not permitted to long remain at Bos- ton. It was one of the companies that were selected by lot for the expedition against Quebec, through the woods of Maine, under Col. Benedict Arnold. After indescribable privations and hardships, the command of which it was a part arrived at Quebec on the 8th of December, and in the assault on that great strong- hold, in the early morning hours of January 1, 1776, Capt. Hendricks was killed, and he was the first officer from west of the Hudson river to fall in the canse of American liberty.
William Hendricks was not only brave and pa- triotic but exceptionally magnanimous. In years he was the youngest of all the captains on that memorable march through the wilderness, but held the oldest commission, which, according to military
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rule, entitled him to the command of the detachment, but for the sake of peace he acquiesced in the selec- tion of another, who had seen previous military service. And when John McClelland, the gallant lieutenant of his company, was dying and being car- ried through the wilderness on the shoulders of his men, this young captain from the vicinity of the Sil- ver Spring, bore a share of the burden and helped to care for him with the tenderness of a brother.
Judge Henry describes Capt. Hendricks as "a young man, tall in stature, of mild and beautiful countenance and a soul that was animated by a gen- uine spark of heroism." His remains were interred on the Plains of Abraham in the same enclosure with those of Gen. Montgomery, but to this day there is nowhere any memorial erected to Capt. William Hen- dricks, the first officer from west of the Hudson to fall in the Revolution.
Among the very prominent early Cumberland county families were the Pollocks. They were numerous, as well as prominent, and the name is a familiar one upon the early records. One Oliver Pollock while yet a young man, left this county to seek a field for his ambitions in the West Indies. For some time he engaged in the mercantile business in Havana, but later went to New Orleans, where he remained longer,
also engaged at merchandizing. He prospered and became very wealthy and influential. Although living under a foreign flag Oliver Pollock never lost his love for the land of his birth, and when the American colonies rebelled against British intolerance he joined them in the struggle and gave them the full benefit of his influence and fortune. He was the authorized agent for the colonies at New Orleans and it was he who so successfully helped George Gibson to a sup- ply of powder in that city. In his aid of the colonies Oliver Pollock ruined his business and impoverished himself. With the hope of recuperating pecuniarily he left New Orleans at the close of the Revolution and came to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia he, in 1791, came to the Silver Spring, where he purchased the large Silver estate and all it included. He then en- tered zealously into business, and also into politics, but the luck of his earlier years had changed and he
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failed in nearly everything he undertook. His debts hampered and harrassed him in season and out of season and in the year 1800 he for awhile was con- fined in the debtor's prison in Philadelphia. He three times was a candidate for Congress, but every time was defeated, twice by another Silver Spring Presby- terian, Robert Whitehill.
Oliver Pollock first married Margaret O'Brien, a representative of two distinguished Irish families. She was an intelligent, cultured, Christian woman --- pious, benevolent and kind. She died in January, 1799, and is buried at the Silver Spring, and her grave is not marked. A son, James, who was killed at the Silver Spring by being thrown from a horse, is buried by the side of his mother, also in an unmarked grave. Oliver Pollock for his second wife married a Baltimore woman, whom he also outlived. After the death of his second wife he removed to Pinkney- ville, Mississippi, where, in December, 1823, he died in the home of his son-in-law, Dr. Samuel Robinson, at a great age.
The story of the patriots of the Silver Spring is radiant with shining examples, and could be amplified indefinitely. Those who have been touched upon in this paper are only a few of the many whose deeds of valor and sacrifice deserve to be recorded. During the Revolution nearly every man who was capable of bearing arms, or in some way doing something for the cause, was at the front at some time or another. There were no Tories at the Silver Spring; all were patriots. They were in the Continental Line, in the Flying Camp, and especially numerous in the militia. There were Irvines, and Armstrongs, and Carothers, and Clendenins, and Hustons, and Humes, and Jun- kens, and Lambs, and Loudons, and Mateers, and Moors, and McCormicks, and Walkers, and Works, and Olivers, and Orrs, and Quigleys, and Scotts, and Starrs. Among the militia Silver Spring has to its credit a Capt. John Clendenin, a Capt. John Carothers, a Capt. John McCormick, a Capt. James Sample, a Capt. Alexander Trindle, a Capt. John Trindle, a Capt. John McTeer, a Capt. John Lamb, a Capt. Samuel Wallace, a Lieut. William Harkness, and
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others we know not of. Compiling history is not a matter of a week, or of a few weeks, but of years.
At the Donegal Presbyterian church stands a large granite monument, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, to the memory of the patriot- ism of Donegal. Upon its sides are inscribed the names of soldiers, from Donegal, who served in the Indian and the Revolutionary wars, and it is a gal- lant array of names and the monument is a tribute to their memory worthily bestowed. Some day the Daughters of the American Revolution will erect a similar monument to the memory of the patriots of the Silver Spring, and when they do they will erect one of great size and with ample sides, for the names that deserve to be inscribed upon it are many.
Mrs. Roy G. Cox, of Harrisburg, Pa., sang the fol- lowing solo: "But the Lord Is Mindful of His Own" (St. Paul), Mendelssohn.
The Chairman, introducing the next speaker, spoke as follows :
"The able and beloved pastor of Market Square Presbyterian church, and Moderator of the Presby- tery of Carlisle, Rev. J. Ritchie Smith, D. D., will now address us."
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ADDRESS OF REV. J. RITCHIE SMITH, D. D.
"Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: The occa- sion is one that calls for hearty congratulation. Men grow old with the flight of years, but institutions and churches may grow younger and stronger as time rolls by, ever recruiting their energies with fresh lives that are devoted to their service. We are in peculiar- ly fitting circumstances here to-day, because I sup- pose we are reproducing, in part, at least, the scene amid which the earliest worship on this spot was conducted. In that day, I presume there was no Gov- ernor present to grace the occasion; I presume there were no reporters to take down what they could and fill up the rest; and I am very sure that we entertain to-day no apprehension about that scarcity of pro- vision of which one of the first ministers called to this spot stood in fear and refused to come. But certainly under these beautiful trees and amid this magnificent scenery we are worshiping God to-day under somewhat similar circumstances to those under which the fathers of the valley worshiped here so long ago. Our imagination kindles when we think of the origin of this church. It was in the day when the American continent was divided between the Frenchman, the Spaniard and the Englishman, when the French held that great country of Canada and the great river, the father of waters; when the Spaniard held the southwest of this vast continent; and when the Englishman was shut up within a narrow fringe of territory along the shore of the Atlantic. It was the day when George the Second sat upon the throne of England, "Snuffy old drone from the Ger- man hive," as Oliver Wendell Holmes elegantly calls him; when George Washington was a babe in arms; before Wolfe climbed the heights of Abraham and un- der the walls of Quebec leveled to the dust the vast fabric of the French empire on this western continent.
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We are looking back to a time when the Indian roved far and wide.
I was in the city of Pittsburg not very long since and I visited some of the spots which modern in- dustry and art have made famous the wide world around, but I confess the most interesting thing I saw there was an old relic, a block house, built by the French, bearing upon it the date of 1763. That block house was the outpost of civilization on the western frontier of the continent, and that was nearly thirty years after this church had had its birth.
If we should go over to England we should discover that the bright lights in the literary firmament of that generation and the generation succeeding were Pope, Fielding, Gray, Goldsmith, Swift and other men asso- ciated with them and scarcely less renowned, and the dictator of the world of letters, old Samuel Johnson. And we are thus reminded that we are carried back in the history of this church to the Augustan age of English literature.
Now these things kindle the imagination, I say, when we remember through what an eventful period of time this church has lived. Back to the beginning of this republic, back to the generation beyond it, ex- tending to the frontier pioneer days when men fought the savage in the wilderness, through this vast period of history this church has held on the tenor-not, I suppose, always the even tenor-but the unbroken tenor of its way, and stands to-day still in un- diminished strength and vigor. This church has wit- nessed the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. It has seen some of the greatest wars in history. It has known revolutions of peace more significant than any conquest on the fields of battle, and among them all this church through vicissitudes of war and peace has held on its way. And I take it we have here the figure of the kingdom of God, and the church of God, which stands essentially unchanged amid all the changes of human affairs that are going on around it, the same church, here and everywhere essentially the same, in all the centuries, worshiping the same God, follow- ing the same Saviour and pointing men to the same heavenly home.
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