USA > Pennsylvania > Franklin County > Chambersburg > Historical sketch of Franklin County, Pennsylvania : prepared for the centennial celebration held at Chambersburg, Penn'a, July 4th, 1876, and subsequently enlarged by I. H. M'Cauley John M. Pomeroy, publisher. To which is added a valuable appendix by J. L. Suesserott, D. M. Kennedy and others, and embellished by over one hundred lithographic illustrations, drawn by W. W. Denslow > Part 2
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In order to understand properly this long vexed question, a brief recurrence to the history of the early settlements made on our Atlantic coast will be necessary.
The knowledge of American geography, in those days, was very imperfect. It embraced little beyond the great headlands, bays and rivers, and their true positions were not reliably known. But the monarchs of the Old World, who cared little about their undevel- oped possessions in the New World, and who executed conveyances
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
which covered the larger parts of a continent, assumed that they knew all about the localities of capes, bays, islands, and rivers and towns, and that the distances they placed them apart were reliable. They were less precise in the location of points, and in the use of terms which were to define the boundaries of future States, than we are now in describing a town lot. The consequences were conflict- ing grants, leading to long and angry dispute, such as that which grew out of the conflicting claims arising out of the boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
It appears that a certain Captain John Smith, a bold navigator of the early part of the 17th century, had been employed by the com- panies to whom King James I. of England had granted the greater part of his American possessions, to explore our coast and make a map of the true location of its capes, bays, rivers, &c. Having finished his surveys, he returned to England in 1614 and made out a map and an account of his explorations, which he presented to the King's son, afterwards Charles I., who thereupon named the terri- tory New England.
In June, 1632, King Charles I. granted to Cecilius Calvert ( Lord Baltimore) all the land from thirty-eight degrees of north latitude "unto that part of Delaware Bay which lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude, where New England terminates; and all that tract of land, from the aforesaid bay of Delaware, in a right line, by the degree aforesaid, to the true meridian of the first foun- tain of the river Potomac "
At that time the whole territory within this grant, with the exception of a small settlement upon Kent's Island, in the Chesa- peake bay, was a wilderness, uninhabited by a single white man. Captain John Smith's map was relied upon in fixing the boundaries of Maryland, and for years afterwards Lord Baltimore and his heirs paid no particular attention to where those boundaries really were: The grant to them was undoubtedly intended to carry Maryland up to New England, and out to the banks of the Delaware eastward, and to the sources of the Potomac.on the west.
In -1638 the first Swedish colonists landed in the Delaware, and bought from the natives they found there rights to settle along the western shore of the bay and the river up as high as the Trenton Falls. They were unwittingly trespassing upon Lord Baltimore's territory. They multiplied rapidly in numbers, built forts and towns, and were very successful in cultivating the soil and in obtaining and retaining the good will of the surrounding Indians. In 1655 the Dutch conquered the Swedes, and annexed their little State to their possessions at New York.
In 1664 King Charles II. granted New York, the greater part of New Jersey and Delaware, to his brother, the Duke of York, after- wards James II. So far as this grant purported to give away the
13
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
territory embraced in the present State of Delaware, it was un- doubtedly a violation of the grant made by King Charles I., in 1632, to Lord Baltimore. His successor endeavored, without success, to have this grant annulled.
In 1681 William Penn obtained his grant from Charles II. When he petitioned for it, in 1680, it was stated that it was desired to lie west of the Delaware river, and north of Maryland. It is well known that Lord Baltimore's charter was the model used by Penn when he drafted his own charter for Pennsylvania. He had thus express notice that Maryland reached to the Delaware bay, and included all the land abutting thereon " which liceth under the fortieth degree of north latitude, where New England terminates." A degree of latitude is not a mere line, but is a definite quantity, or belt, upon the earth's surface, of sixty-nine and a-half statute miles in width, and nothing short of the northern end of those sixty-nine and a-half miles will complete a degree of latitude. Therefore, the end of the northern boundary of Maryland undoubtedly was where the forty- first degree of north latitude commenced, for the New England grant was from the fortieth degree.
But where was the fortieth degree of north latitude believed to be in 1632, when Lord Baltimore's grant was made; and in 16s1, when William Penn received his grant? In making these grants, history says Captain Smith's map of 1614 was used, and was believed to be correct. By that map the fortieth degree is laid down as crossing the Delaware a little below where New Castle stands, whilst its true location is now known to be a little over nineteen miles north of that point, and above the city of Philadelphia.
This error was not discovered until in the year 1682. Its conse- quences upon their respective claims and rights was at once seen and duly estimated by the parties most deeply interested-Penn, Lord Baltimore and the Duke of York. The former was most deeply dis- appointed-Lord Baltimore was elated-the Duke of York was rather indifferent. He was near the throne, being the next heir to it, and feared not the result. Besides, he was in possession. It was thus power against parchment as far as he was concerned. Penn concluded that might would eventually become right. He bought the Duke of York's title. A long contest of eighty years followed. King Charles died in 1685, and the Duke of York succeeded him as James II. Lord Baltimore had nothing to expect in that quarter. In June, 1691, William III. annulled the charter of Maryland, and constituted the colony a royal province, of which he appointed Sir Lionel Copley Governor. In 1715 Benediet Charles Calvert, the fourth Lord Baltimore, obtained from King George I. a restora- tion of his rights. In 1718 William Penn died, and the boundary line contest went on year after year, each party claiming authority over, and granting lands in the disputed territory, until the year
-
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
1738, when the heirs of Penn and Lord Baltimore made an agree- ment whereby the lines between the two provinces, known to sur- veyors and in history as the "Temporary Line," was established. That agreement provided that East of the Susquehanna river the line should be, until finally settled, fifteen and one-quarter miles south of the most southern part of the city of Philadelphia, and West of the Susquehanna to the western end of the line, at a point fourteen and three-quarter miles south of the most southern part of the said city ; and that the holders of lands on either side of the line should not be disturbed in their titles, whether granted by the Penns or Lord Baltimore. This agreement quieted disputes about all previous grants of land north and south of the disputed line, but did not determine exactly where the true line should be fixed for the future ; and over that the contest went on until the 4th of July, 1760-116 years ago, when a compromise, as I have already stated, was effected, which settled the true boundary and saved to Pennsyl- vania a strip of territory along her southern line, from the Dela- ware to the Laurel Hills, over nineteen miles in width, embracing hundreds of thousands of aeres of the best and most beautiful and productive lands of the State. To that great compromise are we as Pennsylvanians indebted that Philadelphia, Chester, Media, West Chester, York, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, and a hundred other towns and villages are not Maryland towns, and we citizens of the South, and perhaps rebels-hoping yet for the ultimate triumph of the "Lost Cause," and hoping also that Congress will soon pay us for our slaves emancipated by the late war for the Right.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
The precise dates at which settlers began to locate in the neighbor- hood of Greeneastle, Welsh Run, Mercersburg, Loudon, Strasburg, Rocky Spring, Shippensburg, Middle Spring, Big Spring, Silvers' Spring, and other points towards the Susquehanna are not known, as in many cases the earlier records of even the churches of the valley are lost ; but they must have been commenced between the years 1730 and 1735, for within a few years afterwards Presbyterian congregations were organized at nearly all these places. Wherever the Scotch-Irishman went, one of his first efforts, after loeating, was to secure the stated preaching of the gospel, (through the organiza- tion of a congregation of his faith), and by the year 1740 Presby- terian churches were found dotted over the broad bosom of this valley, almost invariably in a grove of shady trees, and near a spring of pure, crystal water.
"Their pews of unpainted pine, straight-backed and tall ;
Their gal'ries mounted high, three sides around ; Their pulpits goblet-shaped, half up the wall,
With sounding-board above, with acorn crowned."
MONTGOMERY MILLS OF F & S. S. SPECK, MONTGOMERY TP., FRANKLIN CO.PA.
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Page 259.
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MERCERSBURG COLLEGE.
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LAHT
SISTERHOOD RES. OF MRS. S. A. BRADLEY, MONTGOMERY TP., FRANKLIN CO., PA.
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
FIRST TOWNSHIPS IN THE VALLEY.
In 1735, the "North Valley," embracing all the territory from the Susquehanna to the Maryland line, was divided, by order of the Court of Lancaster county, into two townships, by a line crossing the valley at the "Great Spring," now Newville-the eastern town- ship to be called "Pennsborough" and the western one "Hopewell," and a Justice of the Peace and a Constable were appointed for each.
On the 4th of November of the same year an order was granted by the same Court for the laying out of a public road from Harris' Ferry towards the Potomac river, and strange to say it was "opposed by a considerable number of the inhabitants on the west side of the Susquehanna, in those parts." As the people had no public roads down the valley at that time, and such conveniencies were certainly much needed in the new country, I can conceive of no reason for this opposition other than, perhaps, that the road did not pass near the settlements of those who desired a review of its route.
Our whole county, except the present townships of Warren, Metal and Fannett, and a considerable part of the present county of Cum- berland, was at this date, 1735, in "Hopewell" township, Lancaster county. Of the number of the population then in either township I have not been able to obtain any data. The following is a state- ment of the taxes assessed for several years thereafter, viz. :
1736. Hopewell, £ 5 2s.
Penusborough, £ 13 17s. 6d.
1737.
19
66
13 9 9
1738.
7 7 9d.
20
14 ()
1789.
* 11 8 1
66
16 8
1740. 4 ,
3
1-1
18 7
FORMATION OF ANTRIM TOWNSHIP.
In 1741 Hopewell township was divided by the Courts of Lancas- ter county by a line "beginning at the 'North Hill'-or North Monn- tain, at Benjamin Moore's House, thence to Widow Hewry's and Samuel Jameson's, and on a straight line to the 'South Hill,' or South Mountain-the western division to be called 'Antrim,' and the east- ern 'Hopewell.'" Where this line ran I cannot say positively, but I believe that it was about where the division line now is between the counties of Cumberland and Franklin. The new township thus embraced all of our present county, except the territory in the townships of Fannett, Metal and Warren, which never was within the township of Antrim.
EARLY TAXES.
The following taxes were assessed in Antrim township, Lancaster county, for the following years-viz. :
-P
-
16
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
1741.
£ 9
3s. 2d.
1742.
8
2
1743.
19
7
17-44.
22
16
14 S
1746.
14
13
8
1747.
11
2
1748.
7
4
1749.
21
8
FORMATION OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.
On the 29th day of January, 1750, the county of Cumberland was formed. It embraced all the lands in the State westward of the Susquehanna and the South Mountain, and included all of Fulton and Bedford counties. There were then in the Cumberland Valley between eight hundred and one thousand taxables, and the whole population was between three and four thousand. The courts were first held at Shippensburg, but were removed to Carlisle in 1751, after that town was laid out. All the settlements in the valley were of inconsiderable size-mere straggling villages-containing each but a few houses and a small number of people.
According to "Rupp's History of the Six Counties," the taxables in the various townships of Cumberland county, now embraced in our county, were then as follows -viz :
In Lurgan,
" Antrim,
174 183
. " Peters,
167
" Guilford,
31
". . Hamilton, .
Total, 547
The settlers were at their various "improvements" scattered all over the country, busily engaged, each for himself, in erecting his necessary buildings and bringing the soil under fence and cultiva- tion. The Indians had removed beyond the western mountains, and only occasionally returned in small numbers to see their for- mer possessions and trade off their peltries with its possessors. Peace and friendship had reigned for time beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the land.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR OF 1744-56.
But this desirable condition of things was fast hastening to a close. War had existed between England and France for six years, having been declared by both nations in 1744. The settlers of this valley had not yet feltany of its disastrous consequences because of their inland location. It is true that in 1748 they had associated then-
10 4 1 19 18 18
7
1745.
-
17
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
selves together for the support of their home and foreign govern- ments, and had elected Benjamin Chambers, Esq., their Colonel, Robert Dunning, their Lieutenant Colonel, and William Maxwell, their Major. Loyalty to King and country filled every bosom.
But their danger was not to come from the east, but from the far west. The cruel Indian, at the instigation, and often under the leadership of equally cruel and crafty Frenehmen, who had repudi- ated every common characteristic of their nationality, were to lay their homes in ashes and slaughter their helpless wives and innocent children, in the hope that the pathway of American em- pire westward might thereby be stayed. Vain hope ! Though their ontrages commenced by isolated abductions and murders in 1752, they became more fearful and more horrible in 1753 and 1754, and culminated in 1755, by the disastrous defeat and slaughter of Gen- eral Braddock and the flower of the English army-and though the hills and valleys of this fair land, from the Susquehanna to far down beyond the Potomac, were swept by fire and drenched with blood-yet the hardy settlers rallied to the contest, and after sending their families to places of safety, under the leadership of Col. Arm- strong, Col. Potter, Captain Smith, Rev. John Steele, and other gal- lant spirits, gave back blow for blow. Hundreds of lives were lost, and the greatest distress everywhere prevailed. Says Gordon, in his history of Pennsylvania: "In the fall of 1755 the country west of the Susquehanna had 3,000 men in it fit to bear arms, and in Au- gust 1756, exclusive of the Provincial forces, there were not one hundred left.
EARLY FRONTIER FORTS.
The war raged for twelve years. During this period the following forts were built in this and the adjoining valleys, viz. :
Fort Louther, at Carlisle,
1753
Le Tort, " - 1753
" Crogan, in Cumberland county,
1754
" Morriss, at Shippensburg,
1755
" Steele, at the "White Church,".
66
Loudon, near Loudon,
1756
M'Dowell, near Bridgeport,
M'Cord, near Parnell's Knob,
66
Chambers, at Chambersburg,
Davis, near Maryland line, at Davis' Knob,
Franklin, at Shippensburg,
66
" Lyttleton, in Fulton county, .
1764
Diekey, Cumberland county,
Ferguson, 66 16
M'Callister, near Roxbury,
M'Connell, south of Strasburg, 3
66
- Armstrong, north-east of Loudon,
18
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
besides a number of other private fortifications at various other points, of which very little is now known.
A brief description of one of these forts (Louther, at Carlisle) will give a fair idea of the manner in which they were nearly all constructed :
Around the area to be embraced within the fort a ditch was dug to the depth of about four feet. In this oak logs-or logs of some other kind of timber not easily set on fire-or cut through, and about seventeen or eighteen feet long, pointed at the top, were placed in an upright position. Two sides of the logs were hewn flat, and the sides were brought close together and fastened securely near the top, by horizontal pieces of timber spiked or pinned upon their inner sides, so as to make the whole stockade firm and staunch. The ditch having been filled up again, platforms were constructed all around the inner sides of the enclosure some four or five feet from the ground, and upon these the defenders stood, and fired through loop holes left near the top of the stockade, upon those who were investing or attacking the fort. A few gates were left in the stockade for ingress and egress, and they were made as strong and secure, and as capable of defence as the means of those within would enable them to make them. Within these forts the people of the surrounding districts of country were often compelled to fly for protection from the tomahawks and scalping knives of the savages when they made their forays into the frontier settlements of this and the neighboring valleys. One of these forts in our county (Mc- Cord's, near Parnell's Knob) was captured by the Indians on or about the 4th of April, 1756, and burned, and all the inmates, twenty- seven in number, were either killed or carried into captivity.
SCOTCH-IRISH.
In 1755 instructions were given by the proprietaries to their agents that they should take especial care to encourage the emigration of Irishmen to Cumberland county, and send all the German emi- grants, if possible, to York county. The mingling of the two races in Lancaster county, they said, had been productive of bad consequen- ces by causing ill feelings and serious riots, when they came together at elections. Nearly all the people in this valley then were Irish, and those known as Scotch-Irish, and hence, perhaps, it was the part of wisdom in the proprietaries to desire to have those of one blood, and nationality, and religious feeling, together. They were also, almost all of them, Presbyterians of the real "blue-stocking" type.
The term "Scotch-Irish" originated in this wise. In the time of James I. of England, who, as is well known, was a Scotch Presby- terian, the Irish Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell conspired against
19
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
his government, fled from Ireland, were outlawed, and their es- tates, consisting of about 500,000 acres of land, were seized by the crown. King James divided these lands into small tracts and gave them to persons from his own country (Scotland) because they were Protestants, on the sole condition that they should cross over into Ireland within four years and locate upon them. A second insur- rection soon after gave occasion for another large forfeiture, and nearly six counties in the province of Ulster were confiscated, and taken possession of by the officers of the government. The King was a zealous sectarian, and his primary object was to root out the native Irish, who were all Catholics, hostile to his government, and almost constantly engaged in plotting against it, and to re-people the country with those whom he knew would be loyal. The distance from Scotland to the county Antrim, in Ireland, was but twenty miles. The lands thus offered free of cost were among the best and most productive in the Emerald Isle, though blasted and made barren by the troubles of the times and the indolence of a degraded peas- antry. Having the power of the government to encourage and pro- tect them, the inducements offered to the industrious Scotch could not be resisted. Thousands went over. Many of them, though not Lords, were Lairds, and all of them were men of enterprise and energy, and above the average in intelligence. They went to work to restore the land to fruitfulness, and to show the superiority of their habits and belief to those of the natives among whom they settled. They soon made the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Caven, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone (names all familiar to Pennsylvania ears) to blossom as the rose.
These were the first Protestants introduced into Ireland. They at once secured the ascendancy in the counties in which they settled, and their descendants have maintained that ascendancy to the pres- ent day against the efforts of the Government Church on the one hand, and the Romanists on the other. They did not intermarry with the Irish who surrounded them. The Scotch were Saxon in blood and Presbyterian in religion, whilst the Irish were Celtic in blood and Roman Catholic in religion, and these were elements that would not readily coalesce. Hence the races are as distinct in Ireland to-day, after a lapse of two hundred and fifty years, as when the Scotch first crossed over. The term "Scotch-Irish" is purely American. In Ireland it is not used, and here it was given to the Protestant emigrants from the north of Ireland simply because they were the descendants of the Scots, who had in former times taken up their residence there.
But in after times persecutions fell upon their descendants, under Catholic governments, and during the century preceding the date of which I am speaking-or from 1664 to 1764-large numbers had emigrated from the north of Ireland and settled in New Jersey, Mary-
.
20
Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
land and North Carolina; and when William Penn founded his government here, and offered free lands, free opinions, free worship, and freedom to choose their own rules, and make their own laws, and regulate their own taxes, to all who would come hither, thou- sands upon thousands, often embracing nearly whole neighborhoods, for the reasons given, and because of the high rents demanded by their landlords, as fast as they could get away, hastened to accept the invitation, and year after year the tide rolled westward, until it almost looked as if those parts of Ireland were to be depopulated. In September, 1736, alone, one thousand families sailed from Belfast. because of their inability to renew their leases upon satisfactory terms, and the most of them came to the eastern and middle coun- ties of Pennsylvania. They hoped by a change of residence to find a freer field for the exercise of their industry and skill, and for the enjoyment of their religious opinions. They brought with them a hatred of oppression, and a love of freedom in its fullest measure, that served much to give that independent tone to the sentiments of our people which prevailed in their controversies with their home and foreign governments years before they seriously thought of in- dependence.
They filled up this valley. They cut down its forests, and brought its fair lands under cultivation. They fought the savage and stood as a wall of fire against his farther forays eastward. Between 1771 and 1773, over twenty-five thousand of them (all Presbyterians) came hither, driven from the places of their birth by the rapacity of their landlords. This was just before our revolutionary war, and whilst the angry controversies that preceded it were taking place between the American colonies and the English government, and these emigrants, npon their arrival here, were just in that frame of mind that was needed to make them take the part they did with the patriots in favor of liberty and independence of the mother country.
The Scotch-Irish, in the struggle for national independence, were ever to be found on the side of the colonies. A tory was unheard of amongst them. I doubt if the race ever produced one. Pennsyl- vania owes much of what she is to-day to the fact that so many of this race settled within her borders as early as they did. They were our military leaders in all times of danger, and they were among our most prominent law-makers in the earliest days of the colony, and through and after the long and bitter struggle for freedom and human rights. They helped to make our constitutions and to frame onr fundamental laws; they furnished the nation with five Presi- dents, and our State with seven Governors, many United States Senators, Congressmen, Judges, and others eminent in all the avo- cations of life. The names of these patriots and wise men, as well as the names of many of their descendants, are familiar words, not only here but throughout the Union ; and none of the many diverse
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BELFAST FARM. PROPERTY OF HON. SIMON LECRON, WASHINGTON TP. FRANKLIN CO. PA. (NEAR WAYNESBORO).
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