History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Part 123

Author: Smith, Robert Walter
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Waterman, Watkins
Number of Pages: 790

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* Prepared by Capt. Robert G. Heiner.

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HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY.

thirty-three days, through a wilderness without a road. Gen. Brodhead received thie thanks of congress for this expedition, and the following acknowledgment from Gen. Washington : "The activity, perseverance and firmness which marked the conduct of Gen. Brodhead, and that of all the officers and men of every description in this expe- dition, do them great honor, and their services entitle them to the thanks and to this testimonial of the general's acknowledgement."

A great number of the thrilling Indian stories of which we read in the present day occurred under Gen. Brodhead's command. The famous Capt. Brady was a captain in Gen. Brodhead's eighth regiment, and seldom ever went out on a scout but by orders from the general. Gen. Brodhead's devotion to the cause of liberty was untiring. He never doubted the result of the war, and his letters of encouragement to Gen. Washington and others are part of the history of our country. In one, lamenting the coldness of some former patriots, he writes : " There is nothing I so much fear as a dishonorable peace. For heaven's sake, let every good man hold up his hands against it. We have never suffered half I expected we should, and I am willing to suffer much more for the glorious cause for which I have and wish to bleed."

Gen. Brodhead had a treble warfare to wage- a warfare which required the genius and daring of a soldier, the diplomacy of a statesman and the good, hard sense and clear judgment of an inde- pendent ruler over an extensive country composed of a variety of elements. He waged war upon the unfriendly Indians, and held as allies in friendship several friendly nations. He watched and con- trolled, to a great extent, the British influence upon the Indians in the direction of Detroit. He kept in subjection a large tory element west of the mountains in sympathy with Great Britain, and punished them by confiscating their surplus stores and provisions for the benefit of his starving soldiers, when they had refused to sell to his com-

· missary officers on the credit of the government ; but he never resorted to this punishment until his starving soldiers paraded in a body in front of his quarters and announced they had had no bread for five days.

On June 24, 1779, Gen. Brodhead issued his famous order directing Col. Bayard to proceed to Kittanning and erect a fort at that point for the protection of all settlers desiring to settle in that vicinity, and for the better protection of the frontier.

After the erection of this fort settlers took up land and built their houses around and in the vi-

cinity of this fort, under its protection, until the accumulation of houses and homes in the vicinity transformed the Indian town of Kittanning into the present thriving capital of Armstrong county, which can only justly and truthfully be acknowl- edged the result of the fort erected by command of Gen. Brodhead, and which he was too modest to have called after himself, regardless of the impor- tunate efforts of Col. Bayard, whom history shows to have earnestly entreated Brodhead to permit him to call it Fort Brodhead.

Gen. B.'s untiring watchfulness of the settle- ments along the Allegheny, the building of his fort at Kittanning, his protection of the inhabi- tants in its vicinity until they became numerous enough to defend themselves, his modesty in not permitting the fort to be called after himself, justly entitle him to the credit of being the founder of Kittanning, just as the erecting of every fort on our western frontier from that day to this has been the foundation of a city or town which invariably sprang from such a planting, as Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, Leavenworth, Fort Dodge, Detroit, for never until that time had Kittanning any white inhabitants, and never from that time until the present has it been without white inhabitants.

In 1781 Gen. B. was given command of the 1st Pa. Colonial regt., and during that year received his full commission as general. His services ex- tended through the entire war of the revolution, and at its close he was elected by the officers assembled at the cantonment of the American army on the Hudson River, May 10, 1783, as one of a committee to prepare the necessary papers for the organization of the Society of the Cincinnati. In '1789 Gen. Brodhead was elected by the Pennsyl- vania assembly surveyor-general of the State of Pennsylvania, which position he held for nearly twelve years.

For his services in the revolution Gen. B. re- ceived several thousand acres of land, which he located in Western Pennsylvania. Besides this he purchased largely of land through Western Penn- sylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. . He located much land in the vicinity of Kittanning and on the Allegheny, the scenes of his former exploits, which he never ceased to love. His second mar- riage was to the widow of Gen. Samuel Mifflin. He had but one child, Ann Garton Brodhead. She married Casper Heiner, of Reading, Pennsylvania, a surveyor by profession and an anthor of a series of mathematics.

To Ann Garton Heiner and her children Gen. Brodhead left all his lands and property. Ann Garton HIeiner had but one son, John Heiner, who

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

removed to Kittanning in 1812, and took posses- sion of all the lands left him by his grandfather, Gen. Brodhead.

Captain John Heiner died and was buried in Indiana, Pennsylvania, in 1833. He left but one son, Daniel Brodhead Heiner, late of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, and three daughters, Ann Eliza, who married John Mechling, sheriff of Armstrong county from 1845 to 1848 ; Margaret Heiner (Car- son), of Sidney, Illinois, and Catherine Heiner Smith, wife of Gov. George W. Smith, of Law- rence, Kansas.

Ann Garton Brodhead Heiner had, beside her son John Heiner, four daughters, Rebecca Heiner, who was the mother of the Hon. Henry Johnson, of Mun- cy, Pennsylvania, presidential elector in 1848 on the whig ticket ; state senator of Pennsylvania, from 1861 to 1864, and chairman of the judiciary com- mittee and author of the bill to entitle soldiers to vote in the field (after the supreme court of Penn- sylvania had decided their voting unconstitutional). She was the grandmother of Hon. Henry John Brodhead Cummings, colonel of the 39th Ia. Inf. during the war of the rebellion, and member of congress from the Des Moines district from 1877 to 1879. Ann Gorton Brodhead Heiner's second daughter (Margaret Heiner) married John Faulk, and was the mother of Hon. Andrew J. Faulk, governor of Dakota, from August 4, 1866, to May 1, 1869, also superintendent of Indian affairs for Dakota, and member of the committee, with Gen. William T. Sherman, Gen. Stanley and others, which made the famous treaty with the Sioux Indians at Fort Sully, Dakota, in 1868. Ann Gar- ton Brodhead Heiner's third daughter (Catherine Heiner) married Col. Brodhead, a distant cousin, descended of a brother of Gen. Daniel Brodhead. Gen. Brodhead's descendants by this marriage are the children of Geo. Brodhead, of Kittanning ; Mark Brodhead, of Washington ; Mrs. Kate Van Wyke, wife of United States Senator Van Wyke, of Nebraska, and Mrs. Van Auken, wife of John Van Auken, member of congress from Pike county from 1867 to 1871, and Ann Gorton Brodhead Heiner's fourth daughter (Mary Heiner), married John Weitzel, late of Reading, Pennsylvania.

GEN. ROBERT ORR.

Robert Orr was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania (probably in Hannahstown), upon March 5, 1786. His father,* whose name de- scended to the subject of our sketch, had been one of the defenders of the Pennsylvania frontier ;

had enjoyed some official distinction in West- moreland county, and was one of the earliest pioneers of Armstrong county west of the Alle- gheny. His mother's maiden name was Fannie Culbertson. Coming with his parents to what was then almost the verge of the inhabited portion of the country while still a minor, Robert Orr entered upon his manhood as a pioneer, and had considerable experience in that rugged condition of life for which the strong alone were fitted. His boyhood had been passed in a region which afforded educational and other opportunities scarcely in advance of those he found in sparsely- settled Armstrong county. His instruction had been very meager, his schoolmasters few and, doubtless, of limited talent ; but as boy he had been (and as man ever continued to be) an apt pupil in that great and thorough school wherein the teachers are observation and experience. To this fact, in conjunction with strong native ability, strict honesty and more than average energy of character, may be attributed both his usefulness and his success in life. The young man resided with his parents in Sugar Creek township for a few years, and in 1805, when the county was organized for judicial purposes, came to Kittanning to serve as deputy for his brother John, who was the first sheriff of the county. Subsequently he studied and followed surveying, and in still later years was ap- pointed deputy district surveyor.

Gen. Orr inherited from his father the strongest spirit of patriotism and a fondness for military pursuits. When the war of 1812 broke out he was very naturally found among the defenders of our country, and rendered valuable services. History states that the second brigade of the army ren- dezvoused at Pittsburgh on October 2, 1812-where the subject of this sketch was elected major,-and left that place the same fall under command of Gen. Crooks to join the northwestern army under Gen. Harrison, on the Miami river, where Fort Meigs was afterward built. At Upper Sandusky they were joined by a brigade of militia from Vir- ginia. From that place Maj. Orr, by the direc- tion of the general, took charge of the artillery, munitions, stores, etc., and set off with about 300 men to headquarters of Gen. Harrison. While on the march he was met by an express from Harrison, bringing information of the defeat of Gen. Win- chester on the River Raisin, and requesting him to bring on his force as rapidly as possible. After consolidation with the balance of the army from Upper Sandusky, they proceeded to the rapids of the Miami (Manmee), where they remained until the six-months term of duty of the Pennsyl-

* A sketch of Robert Orr, Sr., appears in the chapter devoted to Sugar Creek township.

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HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY.

vania and Virginia militia had expired. Gen. Harrison then appealed for volunteers to remain fifteen days longer, until he should receive rein- forcements from Kentucky. Maj. Orr and about 200 other Pennsylvanians did volunteer and re- mained until they were discharged, after the battle at Fort Meigs, upon April 19, 1813.

It was not long after Gen. Orr's return from Fort Meigs that he received his first honor in civil life. He was elected to the legislature in 1817. He served two terms in that body and was then (1821) sent to the state senate to represent the large, but comparatively thinly settled, district composed of the counties of Armstrong, Warren, Indiana, Jefferson, Cambria and Venango, the latter county including much of the territory now in Clarion. After serving one term he was led to enter the contest for election to congress, and, doing so, defeated Gen. Abner Laycock. He thus became the representative in the nineteenth and twentieth congresses of the district composed of Armstrong, Butler, Beaver and Allegheny counties. In the legislature, in the state senate and in the congress of the United States he served satisfac- torily to his people and with unwavering integrity of purpose. Calm, judicious and experienced, his presence in the national counsels could not but exert a beneficial influence in the direction and control of the affairs of the country, which at that time witnessed the earlier symptoms of the dis- turbance that eventually culminated in the tragical events of 1861.

Later in life Gen. Orr was appointed by the governor associate judge of Armstrong county and served very acceptably to the people. He retained his interest in military affairs and was active in the militia organizations of Western Pennsylvania, thereby acquiring the rank and title of general.

After all, it was not in official life that Gen. Orr was greatest or that he was most useful to his people. IIe was one of those men who needed not the dignity of office to give him a name among his fellow citizens, or to command their love and respect. His true loftiness and kindliness of character were daily attested by little acts, which in his long lifetime aggregated an immense good.

Gen. Orr became possessed of a large number of land tracts in Armstrong and adjoining counties, which he leased or sold as he had opportunity. During the years he was most extensively engaged in his land business, money was scarce and it was very frequently the case that purchasers were unable to meet their payments. Debtor never had better creditor than Robert Orr. When those to whom he sold were embarrassed and could not

meet their obligations, he extended their time and gave them easier terms. With many individuals this was done again and again, until at last they were able to pay. Gen. Orr never dispossessed a man of property on which he was toiling to dis- charge his indebtedness. Often the sons of the men who contracted with him for lands completed the payment for them. Through this leniency and lack of oppression in the subject of our sketch many families were enabled to gain homes. He was in a very literal sense the steward of his riches, holding them for others' good as well as his own. His kindness of heart and practical philanthropy found expression in many ways beside the one on which we have dwelt. He was unostentatiously and judiciously charitable throughout his life. He did much to advance the interests of the school and church, and for many years prior to his death was a member of the Presbyterian church.

Gen. Orr's whole life was identified with Arm- strong county. For about three years (1848-52) he resided in Allegheny City, and for a short time, about 1845, he lived at Orrsville (mouth of Mahon- ing), but the greater number of his years were passed in Kittanning. He was interested in and helped to advance almost every local public im- provement inaugurated during his time. Laboring zealously for the construction of the A. V. R. R., he lived to realize his hope in that direction and to see the wealth of his county practically increased by its mineral and agricultural resources being made more easily available to the uses of the world.

In politics Gen. Orr was a Democrat, in 1861 a War Democrat. He used his influence and con- tributed liberally of his means to assist the organi- zation of the military, and the camp where the 78th and the 103d regts. rendezvoused was appropriately named in his honor .* His appearance upon the ground, when the soldiers were encamped there, was always the signal for an ovation, or at least hearty cheers, and all who knew him gathered round him to shake the hand of the old soldier of 1812.

Gen. Orr lived to see the war ended and the country he loved so much still preserved in union. He lived to witness the nation recover from the worst effects of that war and in the centennial year rejoice in peace and prosperity.

Upon May 22, 1876, this grand, good old man passed away at his residence in Kittanning, after a lingering but not severe illness, " full of riches, full of honors and full of years."

Gen. Orr was married in 1836 to Martha, sister

* See introduction to Chapter II.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

of the late Judge Robert C. Grier, of the United States supreme court, who died December 7, 1881. Two children were the offspring of this propitious union-Grier C. Orr, Esq., and Fannie E. Orr. The last-named, of most esteemed memory, died March 14, 1882, after a brief illness.

HON. JOSEPH BUFFINGTON.

Joseph Buffington, for many years judge of the "old tenth" district, and whose life was intimately connected with the history of Armstrong county, was born in the town of West Chester, county of Chester, on the 27th of November, 1803, and died at Kittanning on the 3d of February, 1872. The ancestors of Judge Buffington were Quakers or Friends, who left England several years before Wm. Penn, and in 1677, five years before the arri- val of Penn, we find one of them, Richard Buffing- ton, among the list of "tydables " at Upland, which same Richard was the father of the first-born child of English descent in the Province of Pennsyl- vania. From Hazard's Annals, page 468, as well as from the Pennsylvania Gazette from June 28 to July 5, 1739, we learn that, " on the 30th of May past, the children, grandchildren and great-grand- children of Richard Buffington, Sr., to the number of 115, met together at his home in Chester county, as also his 9 sons and daughters-in-law, and 12 great-grandchildren-in-law. The old man is from Great Marle upon the Thames, in Bucking- hamshire, in Old England, aged about 85, and is still hearty, active and of perfect memory. His eldest son, now in the 60th year of his age, was the first-born son of English descent in this Province."

The second son, Thomas, was born about 1680, and died in December, 1739. He was married to Ruth Cope, and among other children left a son William, who was first married to Lena Ferree, as appears in Rupp's History of Lancaster county, page 112, and afterward to a second wife, Alice, whose maiden name is unknown. By this second wife there was born in 1736 a son Jonathan, who died October 18, 1801. This Jonathan Buffington was the grandfather of Judge Buffington. He owned and operated a gristmill which is still stand- ing at North Brook, near the site of the battle of the Brandywine. At the time of that battle (Sep- tember, 1777) his mill was taken possession of by the British troops, and the non-combatant Friend compelled to furnish food for the British.

Jonathan Buffington was married to Ann (born 1739, died June 16, 1811), daughter of Edward and Ann Clayton. Their third child, Ephraim Buf- fington, was born March 23, 1767, and died Decem-

ber 30, 1832. Ephraim Buffington was married to Rebecca Francis, March 4, 1790, at the old Swedes church, Wilmington, Delaware. IIe kept a hotel at West Chester, at a tavern stand known as the "White Hall," a venerable hostelry, and well known throughout that region for many years. It was here that Judge Buffington was born and lived until his tenth year, when his father, in hopes of bettering his fortunes in the then West, left Ches- ter county, came over the mountains and settled at Pine creek, about five miles above Pittsburgh, on the Allegheny river. When about 18 years of age he entered the Western University at Pittsburgh, then under the charge of Dr. Bruce, at which place he also enjoyed the instructions of the venerable Dr. Joseph Stockton. After finishing a liberal course of studies he went to Butler, Pennsylvania, and for some time prior to studying law, edited a weekly newspaper called the Butler Repository, and in company with Samuel A. Purviance, afterward a well-known member of the Allegheny county bar and attorney-general of the commonwealth, he engaged in keeping a small grocery store. Soon afterward he entered, as a student of law, the office of Gen. William Ayers, at that time one of the celebrated lawyers of Western Pennsylvania, under whose careful training he laid a thorough founda- tion for his chosen life work. During his student life he married Miss Catharine Mechling, a dangh- ter of Hon. Jacob Mechling, of Butler county, a prominent politician of that region, and for many years a member of the house of representatives and the senate of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Buffington survived her husband, dying September 11, 1873. They left no children, their only child, Mary, hav- ing died in infancy.

In July, 1826, he was admitted to practice in Butler county, and in the supreme court on Sep- tember 10, 1828. He remained at the Butler bar for about a year, but finding that the business was largely absorbed by older and more experienced practitioners, he determined to seek some new field of labor and finally decided upon Armstrong county, to which he removed and settled at Kittan- ning, where he continued to reside until his death. Shortly after his coming he purchased from his perceptor, Gen. Ayers, the lots on Water street which afterward became his home and on which he built the old homestead.

Though the first years of his professional life were ones of hardship and narrow means, yet his industry, integrity and close application soon brought him to the front of the bar, and in a few years he was in possession of a practice that ab- sorbed his time and afforded him a comfortable

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income. During the years that intervened between his coming to Kittanning and 1843 he was closely engaged in the line of his profession. Patient, laborious and attentive, full of zeal and energy for his clients' causes, he acquired an extensive prac- tice. He was constantly in attendance upon the courts of Clarion, Jefferson, Armstrong and Indiana, and his services were often in demand in other counties. He was connected with all the import- ant land trials of these regions, and his knowledge of this intricate branch of the law was thorough and exhaustive. To practice successfully in these counties indicated no meager abilities as one recalls to mind the array of legal talent of those days, among whom may be mentioned Thomas Blair, Gov. Wm. F. Johnston, H. N. Lee, Darwin Phelps, of Armstrong county; Hon. Samuel A. Gilmore, Hon. Charles C. Sullivan, Hon. Samuel A. Pur- viance, Gen. I. N. Purviance, of Butler county; Hon. Thomas White, Daniel Stannard, William Banks, of Indiana county; Hon. Henry D. Foster, Edgar A. Cowan, of Westmoreland county; IIon. James Campbell and Thomas Sutton, of Clarion county.

Upon coming to manhood, Judge Buffington took a strong interest in politics. At the inception of the anti-masonic party in 1831 or thereabouts he became one of its members and served as a delegate to the national convention of that body which met at Baltimore in 1832 and nominated William Wirt for the presidency.

During these and the few succeeding years he was several times nominated for the position of state senator or member of the house of repre- sentatives, but without success, his party being largely in the minority. In 1840 he became a whig, taking an active part in the election of Gen. Harrison and serving as one of the presidential electors on the whig ticket.

In the fall of 1843 he was elected a member of congress as the whig candidate in the district com- posed of the counties of Armstrong, Butler, Clear- field and Indiana, his competitor being Dr. Lorain, of Clearfield county. In 1844 he was again elected in the same district, his competitor being Judge McKennan, of Indiana county. During his mem- bership of the house he voted with the Whigs in all important measures, among others voting against the admission of Texas on the ground of opposition to the extension of slave territory.

His fellow townsman and warm personal friend, IIon. W. F. Johnston, having been elected gover- nor, he appointed Mr. Buffington in 1849 to the position of president-judge of the eighteenth judi- cial district, composed of Clarion, Elk, Jefferson

and Venango counties. This position he held un- til 1851, when he was defeated in the judicial elec- tion by Hon. John C. Knox, the district being largely democratic.

In 1852 he was nominated by the whig state convention for the judgeship of the supreme court. In the general overthrow of the whig party which resulted in the defeat of Gen. Scott for the presidency, Judge Buffington was defeated, his competitor being the late Chief Justice Wood- ward, of Luzerne county.

The same year he was appointed, by President Fillmore, chief justice of Utah territory; then just organized. He was strongly urged by the presi- dent personally to accept, as the position was a trying one and the administration wished it to be filled by one in whom it had confidence. Its great distance from civilization and the customs of the country, which were so abhorrent to his ideas, led him, however, to decline the proffered honor.

In the year 1855, on the resignation of Hon. John Murray Burrill, judge of the tenth district, he was appointed to that position by Gov. Pollock, with whom he had been a fellow-member of con- gress. In the fall of 1856 he was elected to fill the position to which he had been appointed, for a term of ten years. In this election he had no contestant, the opposition declining to nominate. This position he held until 1866, when he was again elected to fill the judgeship for another term of ten years. His position during these years was one of hard and constant labor, and the growing business of the three counties of Armstrong, Indi- ana and Westmoreland kept his mind and time fully occupied. In 1871 failing health admonished him that the judicial labors, already too great for any one man to perform, were certainly too severe for one who had passed the meridian of life, and had borne the burden and heat of the day. It was indeed hard for him to listen to the demands of a feeble frame, but, sustained by the consciousness of duty well done, and cheered by united voices from without, proclaiming his life-mission to the public nobly performed, he left the busy scenes of labor and retired to private life after forty-six years' connection with the bench and bar of the commonwealth, to the thoroughness and industry of which the state reports of Pennsylvania bear silent but eloquent testimony. Surrounded by friends and every comfort of life the following year passed quickly, but as in the case of many an overworked professional man, the final sum- mons came without warning. On Saturday, Feb- ruary 3, 1872, he was in his usual health, and, rising from dinner, he went to an adjoining room,

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History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Part 123

Author: Smith, Robert Walter Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago : Waterman, Watkins Number of Pages: 790

Author: Smith, Robert Walter
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Waterman, Watkins
Number of Pages: 790