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 7
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Josiah Ramage was charged with having killed his wife, Mary Ramage, on the 24th of March, 1785, in Letterkenny township, by striking her on the head with a pair of fire tongs. The names of the jurors who tried him were John Young, James M'Farland, James Withers, Robert Davidson, William Berryhill, Robert M'- Farland, John Lawrence, Daniel Miller, John Cunningham, Wil- ham Strain, Robert Wilson and Gean Morrow.
The cases of Hanna and Ramage were again before the Supreme Executive Council on the 6th of April, 1786, when it was ordered that they should be executed on Wednesday, the third day of May, of that year; and they were on that day hung by Jeremiah Talbot, the first Sheriff of the county, who was paid by the county in the year 1788, a fee of £9, 4 shillings therefor.
A negro slave, named Jack Durham, the property of Andrew Long, of this county, was convicted of the erime of rape, at a court of Over and Terminer, held on the 3d day of June, 1788, before Hon. Thomas M'Kean, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Wm. Augustus Atlee and George Bryan, his Associates, and on the 21st of June of that year the Supreme Executive Council ordered that his execution be "made and done" on Tuesday, the 8th day of July following. John JJohnston, the second Sheriff of our county exe- cuted Durham, and was paid by the county a fee of $7, 10 shillings therefor.
The crime was committed at Southampton township, upon the person of one Margaret Stall. The jury valued Durham at thirty pounds, Pennsylvania currency, or $80.00, which was paid his owner by the Commonwealth. The names of the jurors who tried him were John Ray, George King, Robert M'Culloch, James Erwin, Robert Parker, Edward Crawford, Robert Culbertson, John M'Mul- lan, Henry Pawling, John M'Clellan, William Henderson and Jo- seph Chambers.
On the 12th day of November, 1807, a man named John M'Kean was convicted of the murder of his wife, in Washington township, on the 30th of August previously, and was executed by Jacob Sny- der, Esq., Sheriff of our county, on the 22d day of December, 1807. He was the last man executed in this county.
The jury who tried M'Kean were Thomas Anderson, Henry
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
Davis, John Witherow, Christian Kryder, James Smith, David John, William Brewster, James M'Curdy, (of James), John Holli- day, David Kennedy, John Irvin and Jacob Smith, of Lurgan.
John Murtaugh, an Irish railroad hand employed in the making of the "Tape-worm," as the railroad leading from Gettysburg to- wards Hagerstown was called, was convicted at the April sessions, 1838, of the murder of one of his fellow workmen, named James M'Glinchey, and sentenced on the 7th of April, 1838, to be hung, but he became insane after his conviction, was several times respited, and finally died in prison.
Ramage and Hanna were hung on the hill north of the present residence of Jacob Nixon, and Durham and M'Kean east of the present residence of William M'Lellan, Esq., about where the new residence of James A. M'Knight has been built. Hence that hill was called for many years "Gallows Hill."
Much of the criminal business of our county for the last fifty years, indeed the most of it, even up to and including the present period, has been caused by the presence of the large number of colored peo- ple amongst us. Our Commonwealth having, as early as 1780, passed "An act for the gradual abolition of slavery" within her borders, it became a common occurrence for the free negroes of Maryland and Virginia to leave those States and remove to Pennsylvania, and our connty being immediately npon the dividing line between the free and the slave States, they were content, as soon as they got north of that line, to settle down and remain where they were safe from the oppressive laws of their former condition of servitude. In many instances the executors of deceased slave owners, who had manu- mitted their slaves, brought the new freedmen, sometimes number- ing thirty or forty in a lot, within the borders of our county, and there left them to provide for themselves. To these eanses it is ow- ing that we have had so many colored people amongst us. Some of them were sober, industrions and economical, but the greater part of them were improvident, lazy, and addicted to the use of strong drinks whenever they could get them. Hence they were quarrel- some and riotous, and through their improvidence and laziness were frequently before our courts for fighting or stealing, or were the in- mates of our poor house, from want, in all cases taxing our treasury for their punishment and support.
To Pennsylvania belongs the lasting honor of being the first one of the "United Colonies" to acknowledge before God and the na- tiens of the world, the duties and obligations resting upon her to do justice to the colored people within her borders, by providing for their equality before the law as men ; and by giving to them and their descendants the right to enjoy the inestimable privileges of life, liberty, and happiness, for which the war of the revolution was then being waged with Great Britain.
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Istorical Sketch of Franklin County.
On the 5th of February, 1779, when General Joseph Reed was President of the Supreme Executive Council of our State, George Bryan, Esq., Vice President, and James M'Lene, Esq., a Councilor from the county of Cumberland, the Council called the attention of the General Assembly of the State to the subject of the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania, in language so remarkable, because of its being so much in advance of the sentiments of the people of other sections of the land at that day, and so different from the views held even now by a great many of our people, both north and south, that I feel constrained to give it here.
"We think," said they, "we are loudly called on to evince our gratitude in making our fellow men joint heirs with us of the same inestimable blessings we now enjoy, under such restrictions and regulations as will not injure the community, and will impercepti- bly enable them to relish and improve the station to which they will be advanced. Honored will that State be in the annals of man- kind which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of man- kind; and the memories of those will be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance who shall pass the law to restore and establish the rights of human nature in Pennsylvania."
On the first day of March, 1780, the representatives of the Key- stone State of the Union, in General Assembly met, in the city of Philadelphia, close by the Congress of the United Colonies, then also in session there, passed Pennsylvania's aet for the gradual abo- lition of human slavery. The struggle for national independence was then still undetermined. Continental currency had depreciated so much that one dollar of specie would purchase three thousand of currency. The British on the east, and the savages on the west, pressed hard upon the struggling patriots. The national govern- ment was without credit; the army and the navy were without the material needed to conduct the war to a successful ending ; and all- army, navy, and people-were sadly straitened for the necessaries of life. And yet, Pennsylvania's representatives, undismayed by their surroundings, and unheedful what the representatives in Congress of the slave-holding States of the nation might think of their action, gave utterance to their views of slavery, and the conclusions they had come to about it, in language so beautiful and so foreible, that justice to their memory impels me to extract the Preamble to the law they then enacted, long though it be, as I am satisfied that the great majority of the people have never seen or read it.
I. "When," say they, "we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition, to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us ; when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been exposed, and how miraculously our wants, in many instances, have been supplied, and our deliverance wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being front whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, and release from that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to enquire why, in the creation of mankind, the in- habitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty hand. We find in the distribution of the human species, that the most fertile, as well as the most bar- ren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complexions differ- ent from ours, and from each other; from whence we may reason- ably, as well as religiously, infer, that He, who placed them in their various situations, hath extended equally His care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual, legal relief could be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience, from the narrow prejudices and parti- alities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations; and we conceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily called upon, by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profession, and togive a substantial proof of our gratitude."
II. "And whereas, the condition of those persons, who have here- tofore been denominated negro and mulatto slaves, has been attended with circumstances, which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature entitled to, but has east them into the deepest afflictions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from each other, and from their children, an in- jury, the greatness of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circamstanced, and who, having no prospeet before them wherein they may rest their sorrows and their hopes ; have no reasonable inducement to render their service to society, which they otherwise might, and also in grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state of unconditional sub- mission to which we were doomed by the tyranny of Great Brit- ain." Therefore be it enacted, &e.
How different these ideas and purposes from those entertained by
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ALTENWALD FARM. RESIDENCE OF JACOB B.COOK. QUINCY TWP.
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RES. OF JACOB MIDDOUR, QUINCY TP. FRANKLIN CO. PA. (P.O.WAYNESBORO)
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many persons, especially in the southern States, at the present day. Notwithstanding the fact that the constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, gives to all men, of every class and color, equal rights and privileges, its provisions are wholly disre- garded in many sections of the Union, to the everlasting disgrace of the nation and the States permitting it.
It is to be deplored that the criminal business of our county has so greatly increased of late years. It is now a vast and constantly increasing burthen to our people. Twenty-five years ago the office of Prosecuting Attorney was one that a lawyer in full practice cared not to accept, because, whilst it gave considerable trouble to the holder of the office, the fees received from it afforded no adequate compensation for the labor connected with the discharge of its duties. But now the office of District Attorney is amongst the most desira- ble and lucrative positions in the gift of our people, all things con - sidered. Much of the increased expenditure in our criminal courts is attributable to the indiscriminate entertainment by magistrates of charges for petty offences that should never have been dignified by being brought before a court and jury.
OUR MILITARY RECORD.
In the early days of the settlement of the Cumberland valley, whilst this part of it was yet in Lancaster and Cumberland counties, there were quite a number of our citizens who figured prominently in the military matters of the day. Indian forays, murders, pur- suits and fights were quite frequent, and numerous lives were lost in them. Of those brave and hardy pioneers, in most instances, we know nothing but their names. They were more active in making history than in writing it ; and of many of them we have no records except such as are traditional. Of others the historians have spoken here and there, and it is their deeds and fame that I wish to rescue from oblivion.
Among the earliest of these of whom we have any reliable account is Colonel James Smith, a native of Peters township, in our county. In May, 1755, whilst engaged with others in opening a road from Fort Loudon to Bedford, he was captured by the Indians. He was subsequently adopted into the Canghnewaga tribe, remained with them until 1759, then escaped to Montreal, and got home in 1760. In 1763 he was actively engaged against the Indians as a captain of rangers. He next served as an ensign in the English Provincial army. In 1764 he took service under General John Armstrong, and was a lieutenant in Bouquet's expedition against the savages. In 1765 he was the leader of a band of settlers who burnt the goods of some Indian traders because they had with them powder and lead, which they feared would be sold in the west to the Indians, and be
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
used against the frontier settlements. A number of the residents in the neighborhood of Mercersburg and Fort Loudon, who had noth- ing to do with this burning, were arrested by the British troops and confined at Fort Loudon. Smith and his "boys" rallied to the rescue, and soon took more of the soldiers ( Highlanders) prisoners than there were of their friends confined at the fort. An exchange was effected and Smith's neighbors were released.
In 1769 some settlers were arrested and confined in Fort Bedford for their alleged former participation in the destruction of the goods of the Indian traders. Smith raised a company, marched to Bedford, captured the fort and all its garrison, and liberated the men. Some time afterwards he was arrested for this act, and in the struggle his travelling companion was shot and killed. He was charged with the shooting, was arrested and imprisoned at Bedford, and subse- quently taken to Carlisle for trial, the offence having been com- mitted in Cumberland county. A body of six hundred of his old companions and neighbors assembled as soon as they heard of his arrest, marched to Carlisle and demanded his release. Smith refused to be released, made a speech to his friends, and counseled them to return home, which they did. He remained in prison for four months, was tried before the Supreme Court at Carlisle, in 1769, and acquitted. Shortly after he was elected and served for three years as a County Commissioner in Bedford county, then removed to Westmoreland county and served there three years in the same office. In 1774 he was captain of a company operating against the Indians. In 1776 he commanded a company of rangers in New Jersey, and with thirty-six men defeated a detachment of two hun- dred Hessians, taking a number of prisoners. In 1776 he was elected a member of the Convention of Pennsylvania from Westmoreland county. In 1777 was elected a member of the Assembly from that county, and re-elected as long as he desired to serve. In 1777 Gen- eral Washington offered him a commission as major, but not liking the colonel of the battalion, he declined it. Whilst serving in the Assembly he applied for and got leave of absence to raise a battalion of rifle rangers to serve against the British in New Jersey. James M'Cammont, of this county, was the major under him, and when, afterwards, Colonel Smith was taken siek, took the command of his troops and did good service. In 1778 he was commissioned a colonel, and served against the western Indians. In the expedition against the French Creek Indians he commanded a battalion of four hun- dred riflemen, and did good service. In the year 1788 he removed to Bourbon county, Kentucky, where he served in the State Conven- tion and in the Legislature continuously till 1799, and died about the beginning of the present century.
Major General James Potter was another of these ancient wor- thies. He was a son of John Potter, the first Sheriff of Cumberland
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
county. In 1758 he was a lieutenant in Colonel Armstrong's bat- talion from this and Cumberland counties. On the 26th of July, 1764, he appears in command of the company of settlers who were pursuing the Indians who murdered the schoolmaster and children at Guitner's school house, a few miles south-west of Marion. He subsequently removed to what is now Centre county, where he pur- chased a large body of land, and built a stockade fort, widely known in those days as "Potter's Fort." He was appointed a brigadier general April 5th, 1777, and a major general May 23d, 1782. He was Vice President of the State in 1781, and a member of the Coun- cil of Censors in 1784, and on one occasion came within one vote of being made President of the State. In the year 1789, having received an injury, he came to his daughter's, Mrs. Poe, near Marion, to have the advantage of the advice and attendance of Dr. John M'Lellan, of Greencastle. He died there in the fall of that year, and was buried in the Brown's Mill grave-yard. No monumental stone marks the place of his repose.
Major James M'Calmont (or M'Cammont, as he wrote his name) was another of the celebrated men of this region of our State in the last century. He was born in Letterkenny township, in this com- ty, near where the town of Strasburg now stands, in the year 1739. He grew up surrounded by all the dangers and excitements of a frontier life. With the hills and dales of his native district, and all the wild recesses of its neighboring monntains, he was perfectly familiar. His soul delighted in the free air of the woods. He was skilled in the use of the rifle, and fear was an emotion unknown to his nature. His swiftness of foot was most extraordinary, and obtained for him the cognomen of "Supple M'Cammont." He was generally selected as the leader of the parties called into service to pursue the savages whenever they made an incursion into the neighborhood of his place of residence ; and so successful was he in tracing the route of their retreat, or discovering their haunts; and so summary was the vengeance inflicted upon them through his efforts, that he soon became quite celebrated as an Indian scout, and was acknowledged by the savages as a daring and formidable foe. He was an ardent patriot, and when the revolution broke out hast- ened to enter the service of his country. When the British occu- pied Philadelphia he had command of a troop of rangers, whose business it was to prevent the Tories of the interior furnishing pro- visions to their friends in the city. Whilst on duty one time in New Jersey, he captured a number of Hessians, whom he induced to locate near Strasburg, and whose descendants are there yet He served as major of the sixth battalion of the Cumberland county troops in the revolutionary army, under command of Col. Samuel Culbertson of this county, and also as major of a battalion of rifle rangers, under Colonel James Smith, and was known as a brave
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and accomplished soldier. He was one of the trustees appointed by the Legislature to build a court house and jail for our county. He was a member of the House of Representatives from this county for the years 1784-'85, 1785-'S6, 1786-'87, and 1787-'S8; and in 1789 was appointed one of the Judges of our courts, and reappointed fourth Associate Judge, under the constitution of 1790, on the 17th of August, 1791, which position he held until his death, on the 19th of July, 1809. He was then seventy-two years of age, and lies buried at the Rocky Spring church.
Another of our ancient worthies, whose daring adventures have been pored over by every school boy in the land, was Captain Samuel Brady, the celebrated Indian scout. He was born at Ship- pensburg in 1756 or 1758. Though not a native of our county, yet on our soil many of his earlier days were spent in roaming our hills and dales.
"He knew each pathway through the wood, Each dell unwarmed by sunshine's gleam ; Where the brown pheasant led her brood, Or wild deer came to drink the stream."
The first drum-tap of the revolution called him to arms, and he commeneed his services at Boston, and was in most of the principal engagements of the war. At the battle of Princeton he served under Colonel Hand, and at the massacre of Paoli he barely escaped cap- ture. After the battle of Monmouth he was promoted to a captain- cy and ordered to Fort Pitt to join General Broadhead, with whom he became a great favorite, and by whom he was almost constantly employed in scouting. The murder of his father and brother in 1778-'79, by the Indians, turned the current of his hatred against the treacherous red man, and it never died out. A more implacable for never lived. Day and night, year in and year out, he lived only to kill the Indians. Being well skilled, in all the mysteries of wood- craft, he followed the trail of his enemies with all the tenacity, fierceness and silence of a slenth hound. Most of his exploits took place in Ohio, north-western Pennsylvania, and western New York. He was a dread terror to the Indians, and a tower of strength to the whites. He commanded the advance guard of General Broadhead's troops in the expedition against the Indians of the upper Allegheny in the year 1780, and he and his rangers aided greatly in defeating the savages under Bald Eagle and Corn Planter, at the place now known as Brady's Bend. Of his famous "leap" of more than twenty-five feet across the Cuyahoga river, and his other numerous and daring adventures and hair-breadth escapes, I will not speak. The books are full of them. He died at West Liberty, West Vir- ginia, about the year 1800.
Colonel Joseph Armstrong was an early settler in Hamilton town- ship, in this county. In 1755 he organized a company of rangers for
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
the protection of the frontier against the incursions of the Indians. The names of his subordinate officers are now unknown, but the following is the roll of the men who composed his company.
PRIVATES.
John Armstrong,
Robert M'Connell,
Thomas Armstrong,
John M'Cord,
James Barnet,
William M'Cord,
John Barnet,
Jonathan M'Kearney,
Joshua Barnet,
John Machan,
Thomas Barnet, Sr.,
James Mitchell,
Thomas Barnet, Jr.,
John Mitchell,
Samuel Brown,
Joshua Mitchell,
Samuel Brown,
John Boyd,
William Mitchell, Jon. Moore,
Alexander Caldwell,
James Norrice,
Robert Caldwell,
John Norrice,
James Dinney,
James Patterson,
William Dinney,
Joshua Patterson,
Robert Dixson,
William Rankin,
*William Dixson,
Jon. Rippey,
James Katon, John Eaton, Joshua Eaton,
Francis Scott,
*James Elder,
Patrick Scott,
George Gallery,
William Scott,
Robert Groin, James Guthrie,
Matthew Shields, Sr.,
John Hindman,
Matthew Shields, Jr.,
Abram Irwin,
Robert Shields, Sr.,
Christopher Irwin,
Robert Shields, Jr.,
John Irwin, John Jones,
Joshua Swan,
James M'Camant, Sr.,
William Swan,
James M'Camant, Jr.,
Charles Stuart,
Charles M'Camant,
Daniel Stuart,
James M'Camish,
John Stuart,
John M'Camish, William M'Camish,
Devard Williams,
Jon. Wilson.
He was a member of the Colonial Assembly in 1756-'57 and '58. He commanded a company of militia, (most likely the company of rangers above named) under General Broadhead at the destruction
Barnet Robertson,
James Scott,
David Shields,
Jon. Swan,
*Wm. Dixson was the grandfather of Col. W. D. Dixon, of St. Thomas town- ship, and James Elder was the grandfather of Col. James G. Elder of Cham- bersburg.
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Historical Sketch of Franklin County.
of the Indian town of Kittanning, on the Sth of September, 1756. Was paymaster of the Colony in the building of the great road from Fort Loudon to Pittsburg, and in December, 1776, raised a battalion of troops in the county of Cumberland (the 5th battalion) and marched with them to the defence of Philadelphia. The following persons commanded the companies of his battalion, viz. : John An- drew, Samuel Patton, John M'Connell, William Thompson, (after- wards a brigadier general), Charles Maclay, James M'Kee, John Martin, John Rea, (afterwards a brigadier general), John Murphy, George Matthews and John Boggs. This battalion was raised in Hamilton, Letterkenny and Lurgan townships, and tradition says that they were the flower of the valley, brave, hardy and resolute Presbyterians, nearly all members of the old Rocky Spring church. Captain Maclay's company numbered one hundred men, raised in old Lurgan township, each man over six feet in height. This com- pany suffered severely in the surprise of Brigadier General John Lacy's command at "Crooked Billet," in Bucks county, on the morning of the 4th of May, 1778. Captain Maclay and nearly one half of his men were killed, and many were wounded. General Lacy, in his report of the battle, says "that the wounded were butchered in a manner the most brutal savages could not equal ; even while living, some were thrown into buckwheat straw, and the straw set on fire and burnt up." And this report is borne out by the testimony of persons residing in the vicinity, who saw the partially consumed bodies in the fire.
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