USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and Its Centennial Celebration, Volume II > Part 48
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LIVING PICTURES
"Recreation in 1800," represented by two young colonial maids, one sewing, Miriam Morse; the other reading, Helen Patterson.
"Recreation in 1900," showed an up-to-date girl carrying a bundle of golf sticks; Adelaide Graham.
"A Proposal in 1800," Blanche Lauck and William P. Judd.
"A Proposal in 1900," represented by Ella Wallace and James Kurtz riding a tandem bicycle.
"Miles Standish's Courtship" and "The Wedding," John Alden's part taken by Paul Weyand, Priscilla's by Mary McCreary. Members of the wedding party were E. P. Kuhn, Lawrence Singleton, Joseph Scroggs, Clarence Hughes, Dan Darragh, Lucy Watkins, and Mrs. Provost.
"Beaver Indians," impersonated by Masters Phil. Davidson, John Shallenberger, Van McCreary, Philip Morse, Frank Wood, James and Lawson Bash, Paul Mays, and Frank House. These boys claimed to be the only Indians now living in Beaver, and their appearance brought down the house.
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"The Treaty at Fort McIntosh," Lawrence Singleton, E. P. Kuhn, Dan and Robert Darragh, Joseph Scroggs. Representatives of the Indian tribes, Clarence Hughes and Robert Patterson.
"An Indian Attack on a Settler's Cabin," Van McCreary, Olive Stew- art, Mrs. Provost, Lucy Watkins, Joseph Scroggs.
"Prisoners of the Indians," Charles Flinn, Mrs. Provost, Dan Darragh, Blanche Bray; Indians, Joseph Scroggs, and Clarence Hughes.
"Making the Flag," Mary Boyde, Robert Patterson, Florence Galey, Charles Flinn, Julius Kurtz, William Judd.
"Soldiers of Four Wars," 1776, Robert F. Patterson; 1812, E. P. Kuhn; 1861, James Kurtz; 1898, Dan S. Darragh.
Duss's Great Western Band added much to the pleasure of the evening. By request, The Beaver County Centennial March, written by Mr. Duss, was played again, also his popular com- position, America Up to Date, and both evoked great applause.
A delightful feature of the entertainment was the violin play- ing of Miss Caroline Roberts Harter of Canton, Ohio, a grand- daughter of Colonel Richard P. Roberts of the 140th Regiment. She was on the program for two numbers and was recalled both times.
Thus this full day was brought to a close, and what was doubtless the greatest military celebration within the existence of the county passed into history.
THURSDAY, JUNE 21ST OLD SETTLERS' DAY
In the celebration of a county's centennial anniversary no day could have more prominence or special interest than that set apart as Old Settlers' Day. And in the Beaver County Cen- tennial this part of the celebration was given appropriate em- phasis. The Executive Committee left no step untaken that could give appropriate recognition to the memory of the de- parted pioneers or to the aged citizens of the county whose gray hairs mark them as being the connecting links between the present generation and that which saw the erection of the county and laid the foundations of its greatness and prosperity. One such step was the invitation extended by the committee to the following persons to sit upon the platform on Old Settlers' Day, nearly all of whom were above eighty-five years of age: Hon. Daniel Agnew, Daniel Reisinger, Mrs. Margaretta Cook, and
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Robert Bradshaw, of Beaver; Robert Barclay, Ohio township: Robert Wilson and Benjamin McFarland, South Beaver town- ship; Joseph Pugh and Milton Townsend, New Brighton; John- son Small, Jane Keenan, and Mattison Darragh, Bridgewater; William Standish and John McGuire, Hanover township; John Cain, Mrs. Nathan Corey, Fergus Johnson, and John Lightner, Darlington; Jesse Nannah, Rochester; Mrs. Robert Wilson, Raccoon. Many of these were not able to be present on account of physical infirmities, one especially creating keen regret by his absence, Judge Agnew, the venerable and venerated President of the Centennial Association, whose life and character and great public services have shed glory upon the name of Beaver County; but a number of those named, some not now residents of the county, found strength sufficient to attend the exercises of the day, and none derived more pleasure from them or did more to give dignity to the occasion.
Prominent among the guests from a distance was ex-Lieuten- ant-Governor of Iowa, Warren S. Dungan, who was entertained while here by Hon. Henry Hice and family. Governor Dungan is a lineal descendant of Levi Dungan, the first white settler of Beaver County, and is a native of the county, and it was there- fore eminently fitting that he should be invited, as he was, to preside over the exercises on Old Settlers' Day. This he did with great grace and dignity.
The exercises began at 11 o'clock Thursday morning, and were opened with Old Folks at Home, sung by the Chorus Club, led by Prof. W. R. Gardner. Rev. Appleton Bash, D.D., pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Beaver, made the invoca- tion, the Chorus Club sang Suwanee River, and Governor Dungan then introduced Hon. James Sharp Wilson, Judge of the several Courts of Beaver County, who delivered the following address of welcome.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The history of any county or country is the history of its people. The history of a people is the record of their deeds and achievements. A territorial division or municipality is circumscribed by imaginary lines for the convenience of civil government, and affords "a local habitation and a name" to all who dwell within its boundaries.
One hundred years have rolled around since the county of Beaver was organized. The necessity for its erection was the residence within its territory of a requisite number of people. The observance of a day
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set apart especially as "Old Settlers' Day" plunges us into the history of the county, and in point of time carries us far beyond the century in our retrospect, including necessarily those who were literally the old settlers, and who made necessary the erection of the county. The his- tory proper of our county began with the advent of the settlers who en- dured the hardships and braved the dangers of the frontier.
The earliest settlers of this country, oppressed and persecuted for their convictions, left home, property, society, and country, braved the perils of an almost trackless ocean, the hardships of an unknown land, and the scalping knife of the merciless savage, to find a home where they and their posterity could enjoy the liberty they desired, and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Thus fleeing from the oppressor's rod, the Puritan, the Quaker, the Roman Catholic, and the Huguenot, when once established in their new home made it the refuge of the oppressed of all nations. This heterogeneous conclave of people of different tongues and diverse religious views, was bound together by a common bond which persecution forged, and the strongest of all senti- ments-love of liberty.
Like the earliest settlers of the country, those of this section, having fled from oppression and religious conflict,-being in most part the hardy and determined Scotch-Irishmen,-undaunted by the hardships of an uninviting forest, and undeterred by fear of the skulking savage,- prompted by religious zeal and conviction and an irrepressible love of liberty, hewed out here homes for themselves and those who should follow them.
The picture of those sturdy, industrious, frugal, virtuous, and hos- pitable people affords us many strong lessons.
Not many generations have passed away,-and when we consider the condition of the earliest settlers, as we gather it from that which has been chronicled, and that which, unwritten has, passed from generation to generation, and contrast their lot with the luxuries and conveniences of the present day, we are filled with admiration for their sterling characters. We picture to ourselves the unending forest, dotted here and there with clearings, in the center a small log cabin; the husband with his axe felling the giant trees and making the land subservient to his needs; the wife at her spinning-wheel and loom producing the clothing to protect them from the cold of winter and the heat of summer; and then we realize that to them we owe a deep debt of gratitude. Happy in their toil, they wrought not alone for themselves but for posterity. They laid the foundations for our institutions, that vouchsafe to all citizens civil and religious liberty; and founded those institutions upon the virtues of the people,-realizing that if the people failed those institutions would fall.
Not alone to the oldest settlers is the entire credit due,-but the later influx of the peaceful and God-fearing Quaker and the industrious and frugal German, imbued with the same sentiments and having the same end and aim in view, became part and parcel of the growing community, and through the vicissitudes of time have cherished and
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sustained the institutions we now enjoy. Firm as the giant oaks that surrounded them they never bent to the stiffened breeze, but were only broken by a tornado of public opinion or by force. Simple in their faith and lives, and firm in their convictions, they were uncompromising with evil. In peace and war they always bore an honorable part.
In the struggle for Independence, the War of 1812, the conflict with Mexico, the terrible internecine strife of 1861 to 1865, and the late Span- ish-American intervention, the people of this county responded in more than full proportion to the needs of the hour. To all these armies were contributed officers and men of the best blood of the county. For these men we have but one sentiment,-"Cheers for the living, and tears for the dead."
But while we are delivering eulogies to the soldier, erecting marble slabs to his memory, and each year decking his grave with garlands of flowers, let us remember the host of those in civil life, who, in times of peace and in times of war, did the full measure of their duty, according to their talents, in developing the resources of the country, furthering popular education, and in establishing and maintaining religious and charitable institutions. Their names are entitled to be cherished in our breasts and engraved on the tablets of our memory. It is a true saying, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men.
What the settlers gave this country was not so much thought as action; and the result of their labors is a noble monument to their mem- ory. The advantages of an hundred and more years of toil and hard- chips are ours to enjoy. And we are conscious that this heritage is the result of the toils and struggles, the blood and prayers of a noble ancestry.
Let us, in passing, remember that upon this generation devolves the duty of maintaining and preserving our institutions, so that we may enjoy them and leave them to posterity, not only unimpaired, but bet- tered by our efforts. A study of the lives of their founders furnishes a safe monitor to our actions.
To-day, "Old Settlers' Day," is set apart, not only for the pioneers, but for all whose fortunes have at any time been cast with the people of the county. One's country is as dear to him as life itself. The place of his birth he always cherishes. It marks the beginning, and to him the beginning and end of life are the limits of vision. Beyond cither, in the past or future, he cannot see with the physical eye, but only with the eye of faith. The days of childhood hold many precious memories. The place of his nativity, where he learned the first lessons of life, has for him tender associations that no other scenes or changes of life can efface. The memory of his loved ones is inseparably associated with places and objects, hence, "How dear to his memory are the scenes of his childhood."
It is much the same sentiment which prompts man to inquire into his ancestry. The man who cares not who his ancestors were is apt to be indifferent as to what his posterity may become. Cultivate pride in ancestry and you have pride in posterity, and with it all the vigils of life will be more seriously kept; ambition will succeed lethargy, and energy in all directions necessarily result.
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Many are here to-day, and many are living in this county, unable to be present, whose hairs are white with age, whose forms are bent with . toil and the weight of years, whose minds conjure up the scenes of a well-spent life with a pleasure not unmixed with sadness as they re- member that
" The mossy marbles rest On the lips that they have pressed, In their bloom; And the names they loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb."
Their friends and loved ones have gone before, "and their works do follow them." They rest in the land they helped to make free, and under a flag, from whose banner they, by their blood and effort, helped to wash the stains of disunion and slavery. Earthly cares will no more disturb them. They are at peace. We welcome all the good of the past as manifested in existing conditions.
Those present to-day who were not fortunate enough to have been born in Beaver County, but are Beaver Countians by adoption, we, like our ancestors, welcome you, as they did the stranger, "lest we be enter- taining angels unawares." But perhaps you need no welcome; it is rather you who are bidding welcome to the old settlers; you who are here to-day with open hands and hearts to tender to them and to each other the hospitality of the county. In your name and in the name of the county of Beaver we bid all welcome! Come and join with us in celebrating this important day; help us to make it one that shall be remembered, the beginning of a new order of things when the history of men and events shall be faithfully chronicled, so that an hundred years from now posterity can be as familiar with the people of this day and generation as with their own.
We welcome the descendants of the old settlers, and especially those who in the vicissitudes of life have cast their lot amongst other peoples in other places. We welcome you-
" For the hands that cannot clasp thee, For the voices that are dumb, For each and all we bid thee A grateful welcome home!
" For the old friends unforgotten, For the young thou hast not known, We speak their heart-warm greeting, Welcome back among thine own."
Judge Wilson's address was followed by a response from Governor Dungan, who took for his subject "The South Side."
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Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of this Centennial Celebration:
I would be insensible to my own feelings did I not express to you and to your committee my high appreciation of the honor of presiding on this "Old Settlers' Day" of our Centennial.
The harmony which has thus far prevailed in our proceedings gives assurance that there are no chronic kickers among us watching for an opportunity to entrap the unwary presiding officer to his discomfiture and to demonstrate their own superior parliamentary knowledge. This may seem a little strange, as so many of us are, by descent, Scotch-Irish. I account for it by the fact that the questions we have been discussing have not been of a religious character. Had they been so, we would doubtless have had many bouts before this, as the Scotch-Irish are a fighting as well as a praying people.
When informed by your Executive Committee that I had been chosen to preside on "Old Settlers' Day," and that I should make the opening address, I was given the privilege of choosing my own subject, keeping in view the general objects of the celebration. As Beaver County must be the general theme of every speaker at all our meetings, I have chosen as the basis of my remarks a much more limited subject, namely:
THE SOUTH SIDE
I find this designation of a portion of Beaver County-that part lying south of the Ohio River-in the history of the county, in the columns of its newspapers, and in the daily language of its people.
In selecting this subject I disclaim any sectional spirit. While I need no apology for choosing this subject, I will say I was born there and know more of its history and its people than I do of any other portion of the county.
If in the history of the county, in its hundred years and more of de- velopment, the "South Side" has performed its part well, or if it has had any conspicuous part in its development to the proud position which it holds among its sister counties of this great Commonwealth, the honor and the glory belong to the whole county as fully and completely as to any section of it. In this Centennial we honor Beaver County as a unit. while of necessity we trace its development by sections and neighbor- hoods.
We who were born in Beaver County take great pride in the fact. I have been in a majority of the States of this Union, and wherever I have been I always took pride in saying that " I was a native of Beaver County, in the grand old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
Pennsylvania! The land of Penn, of Morris, and of Franklin. A leader in all our history from and through the Revolution, in the adop- tion of our national Constitution, the War of 1812, and including her part in the recent conflict frecing Cuba from centuries of Spanish oppression. A State peopled by the best blood of Europe, mainly English, Scotch- Irish, German, and in localities Swede. Bountifully supplied by nature with a fertile soil, most valuable timber, inexhaustible supplies of coal and
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other minerals, a great mountain-range without a volcano, fitly typifying the grandeur and stability of its citizenship, drained by beautiful rivers, rightly called the "Keystone of the arch" in this great Republic. Such is a brief and faint description of our beloved Commonwealth. Go where we will, remain away from it as long as we may, when we return to look at its green hills and fertile valleys, its sparkling cool springs, and clear flowing streams, we love it still and are constrained to say, "This is my own, my native land."
But some of us have been absent for a long time. We have adopted other States for our permanent abode. And we love them too as good citizens we should. If you ask me the question, "Do you love Iowa?" Most assuredly yes. Pennsylvania not a whit the less, but, if possible, Iowa the more.
Iowa! God made Iowa great; 56,000 square miles of the richest alluvial soil on the face of the earth; well drained, the two greatest rivers of the world washing her shores, the Mississippi on the east and the Mis- souri on the west, the very garden of the Mississippi valley, the gem of the prairies, the beauties of which the poet has attempted to describe thus:
"These the unshorn fields, These the gardens of the desert Boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England Has no name-the prairies."
Peopled largely from the most energetic classes of the older States, possessing the least illiteracy of any State in the Union, with a war record inferior to none, unsurpassed for brave men and beautiful women, Iowa is, and is destined to be, a leading State in the Union. Her beautiful motto expresses the character of her people:
"Iowa! The affections of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable union."
But to-day we are Pennsylvanians, and Beaver County demands our special attention.
And now for the "South Side." And as this is "Old Settlers' Day," I am pleased to note that we go to that side to find the oldest permanent settler in the county. Levi Dungan, with his wife and two or three small children and two slaves, one named Fortune and the other Lunn, removed from their home in Philadelphia County, Pa., to the headwaters of King's Creek, and settled on a tract of 1000 acres of land now within the limits of Hanover township, which land was afterwards patented to him by the State. This was in the spring of 1772. He always told his children that he went there the year before the "tea was thrown over- board at Boston." This was one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, or twenty-eight years before the county was organized. What is said in Richard's History of Beaver County, that its first settlers were largely Scotch-Irish, is especially true of the "South Side." The name of Thomas Dungan, the American ancestor of Levi Dungan, appears in the records
-
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of Rhode Island as early as 1656, but he removed to Cold Springs, Bucks County, Pa., in 1684. He was a Scotch-Irishman. The country neces- sarily settled up slowly. For many years the early settlers were widely separated. But most of the pioneers who did locate there were of the same race and religion, Ulster through and through. In religion they were Presbyterian, and in general law abiding, but usually with a chip on their shoulders on all questions of religious belief. Take the history of our country at large, and to no other class of our citizens are we more indebted for the establishment, growth, and present grandeur of our Republic than to these same Scotch-Irish people. A people of such deep religious convictions, such unswerving integrity, of such general intelli- gence, and ever vigilant in fervent patriotism, were, by force of charac- ter, molders of public sentiment, and contributors to the highest type of American citizenship.
Referring to the social and moral condition of the people of Hanover and other townships on the "South Side" in the days of my early recol- Jection, we note:
THE SABBATH
The Sabbath was indeed a "day of rest." The farmer, the merchant, the laborer, and even the cook ceased, as far as possible, from manual labor, and cold dinners were more in fashion than roast turkey. Chil- dren must stay in the house and study the Catechism and read the Bible, and hearty laughter was a sin. We say this was too strict. I am not quite so sure. Perhaps it was. But what did it produce? The Sabbath was a sacred day. You could feel its mellowing and hallowed influence in the very atmosphere; you could hear it in the chastened songs of the birds, the lowing of the cattle, and in the ripple of the brooks. At night, so confident were the people in the security of person and property, that the doors of dwelling-houses were left unlocked. The existence of the modern burglar was scarcely known. They built schoolhouses and churches, rude though they were, as soon as able. Call it fanaticism if we will we must judge a tree by its fruits.
THE INDIAN
While the settlers lived in peace and harmony among themselves, all was not secure. One fierce and deadly enemy was ever watchful to destroy the homes and lives of these early settlers. Against the attacks of these they must be on the watch day and night. The South Side seems to have been, with them, a special field of operations. Here were many of the exploits of Big Foot, and from here he was driven to the Ohio River and slain by Andrew Poe."
In my youth I listened to the stories of many Indian raids into that country; to the tales of murders of individuals and whole families- men, women, and children indiscriminately,-of captives taken, some of whom afterwards escaped and returned to their families. I knew person- ally some of these. The Langfitts, the Bakers, the Andersons. the Dillows,
1 See vol. i., pp. 161-63.
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and the Wisemans were among their victims. My father, David D. Dungan, pointed out to me a tree, in sight of Levi Dungan's fort, against which the brains of a child captive were dashed out, in the presence of its mother, to avoid the incumbrance it would be in their flight.
RANKIN'S DREAM
These raids were made from west of the Ohio River, then a wilder- ness, where no white man dared to follow them in retreat. At one time a band of these Indians came for the purpose of destroying the family of Levi Dungan. They came in the night and camped at a spring about a quarter of a mile from his house. They stacked tomahawks by standing about a tree and driving them into it, so as to be readily recovered when ready to move. Just before daybreak they arose and were about to start for Dungan's house, when they heard guns firing in that direction, and they at once imagined that their presence in the neighborhood had been discovered and that all the settlers in the vicinity had repaired to Dungan's fort for defense. Immediately they commenced the retreat, and did not stop until the Ohio River was between them and their sup- posed pursuers. On that same night a neighbor, by the name of Rankin, living some six or eight miles south of Mr. Dungan's, dreamed that the Indians had murdered Dungan's whole family. Awaking he related the dream to his wife, and said he ought to go and see about it. His wife induced him to dismiss the fancy and go to sleep. He did so and had the same vision as before, and was hardly persuaded by his wife from going at once to their aid. A third time the same dream came to him, and this time he arose, dressed himself, took down his trusty gun, mounted his horse, and was away in spite of the remonstrance of his wife against his acting on such a visionary impulse. On carefully approaching Dun- gan's house everything was dark and still, but he could not tell whether it was the stillness of death or of sound sleep. Going quietly to the door and knocking, a welcome voice greeted him, the door was opened, and a warm welcome extended. But why come at this time of night? When the occasion of his coming was related, all agreed with his wife at home that the dream was all a dream. While Mrs. Dungan was engaged in getting breakfast the two men went out to engage in the common pas- time of "snuffing the candle."1 After breakfast Mr. Rankin returned home to receive the congratulations of his wife, "behold that dreamer cometh." After the Indians became peaceable the captain of that band, with some of his followers, stopped at Mr. Dungan's for several months. He related the facts, as heretofore stated, of the coming and purpose of attacking Dungan's family and the cause of their retreat. On compar- ing dates and facts, the dream and the purposed attack were identical in time. This Indian chief or captain showed the spring and the tree where were then still plainly to be seen the marks of the tomahawks, verifying the facts as before stated. These Christian people ever after believed that Rankin's dream was providential and saved them from a horrible massacre. And dare we say they were wrong?
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