USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 19
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Intelligence of these events having reached the Governor of Pennsylvania, two commissioners were sent to Dunmore to negotiate for a settlement of the differences. After much corre- spondence and many conferences the Pennsylvania commission- ers finally agreed that for the sake of peace, "they would be willing to recede from their charter bounds so as to make the river Monongahela, from the line of Mason and Dixon, the western boundary of jurisdiction." This would, of course, leave Fort Pitt and the region about it, the very prize for which Dun- more was contending, within the limits of Pennsylvania, and on the same day, he haughtily replied that further correspondence was evidently useless, saying, "Your resolution with respect to Fort Pitt (the jurisdiction over which place, I must tell you, at all events, will not be relinquished by this Government, without his Majesty's Orders), puts an entire stop to further treaty." To this the commissioners in their turn curtly replied that "the de- termination of his lordship not to relinquish Fort Pitt puts a period to the treaty." 2
On the failure of the negotiations, Connolly continued to dominate with a high hand at Pittsburg, and on the 8th of September of this year (1774) the Earl of Dartmouth, one of the
1 Old Westmoreland, p. 10.
2 The Olden Time, vol. i., p. 442
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Secretaries of State of the British ministry, wrote to Dunmore, rebuking him for the severity of his agent's proceedings. But the troubles continued with such violence that it was finally determined by the Pennsylvanians to abandon Fort Pitt and build another town on the manor of Kittanning.I This project was, however, soon rendered unnecessary by the fall of Dun- more's government, his rule at home having at last become so oppressive to the Virginians themselves that they drove him away, and his agent Connolly soon also left the country, taking refuge in Canada, where he became a British officer on half-pay.
But while Virginia had thus revolted from Dunmore's tyranny at home, she showed no disposition to repudiate his aggressions abroad. The boundary dispute was maintained, although, in view of the troubles with the mother country fast approaching, the Virginia and Pennsylvania Delegates in Congress, including such men as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin, had united in a circular urging the people in the dis- turbed region to mutual forbearance. July 17, 1775, the Virginia Provincial Convention, in session at Williamsburg, passed a reso- lution which sent Captain John Neville with one hundred men to take possession of Fort Pitt, and in the following year, as we have said, the Virginia counties with their legal and administra- tive machinery were organized in the disputed territory. The rancor of the contest had, however, somewhat diminished and there were no such acts of violence committed as during the régime of Connolly and his master.
We may now inquire as to what were the grounds on which Virginia based her claims to the region in dispute. And in order to understand her contention we must glance back to what was said about the charter granted by James I. to the old London Company in 1609.
The definition of the northern and southern boundaries of the land granted by that charter, viz., "up into the land through- out, from sea to sea, west and northwest," was very ambiguous, yielding two possible meanings, one of which would limit the grant to a comparatively small triangle falling short at its western point of the region beyond the Monongahela; and the other of which would give to the owners not only the whole territory of the Monongahela and Ohio valleys, but also the whole of the
1 Hist. of Pittsburgh, Craig, p. 118.
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vast domain northwest of the Ohio, now five or six States of the Union. The latter interpretation was the one for which Virginia contended. This charter had, indeed, been revoked, and Virginia had herself frequently disowned it on other occasions, when other interests were involved, but now, in the dispute with Pennsylvania, she availed herself of it to give a show of reason to her claims of title to the territory involved. Lord Dunmore had seen the weakness of this method of justifying his usurpation, and had put it on the loftier pretence that Virginia was the guardian of his Majesty's Dominion of Virginia (which was a very different thing from the colony of Virginia, the Dominion embracing all his Majesty's possessions in America which had not already been granted to some other colony or proprietary 1) and that the territory in question was in that Dominion because Penn's grant did not cover it. This was in any case the whole question at issue,-whether the five degrees of longitude named in Penn's grant did, or did not, extend far enough westward to cover this territory. The difficulty in determining this point lay in the prior question as to how and from what point the western boundary of the province of Pennsylvania was to be drawn. The charter said that the five degrees were to be com- puted from the "eastern bounds" of the lands of the grant. Now the eastern boundary was the Delaware River, a very crooked stream, touching points in its meanderings east and west more than forty miles apart. It is evident that the extent of the five degrees westward would depend upon what point on the Delaware was selected to start from in making the computation. The western boundary might be a meridian, i. e., a straight north and south line, five degrees in longitude distant from the most east- ern or the most western point of the course of the Delaware, or from some intermediate point of that course,-or it might be a crooked line corresponding to the curves of that river, and distant from it five degrees of longitude at every corresponding point. Which should it be?
There were three official propositions made in regard to the manner of fixing the western and southern boundaries of Penn- sylvania, and without entering into the details, we will state these propositions briefly.
The first proposition was that of John Penn,2 in his letter to
1 Veech, Centenary Memorial, p. 317.
2 The Olden Time, vol. i., p. 448.
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Dunmore, in which he contended, "that at the extremity of Maryland the boundary line of Pennsylvania should run south to the line of latitude 39 degs., being identical with 'the beginning of the 40th degree' of latitude, and that then the southern boundary should extend along that line westward to the distance of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware, and that the western boundary should be run parallel to the Delaware; or, in other words, distant from it five degrees in every corresponding part."
The second proposition was Lord Dunmore's, who wanted to make the western boundary a meridian starting on the northern boundary at a point five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware, and running south to the southern boundary, which was to be the beginning of the fortieth degree of latitude. Dunmore considered Penn's proposal to follow the sinuosities of the Delaware absurd, and his own was certainly much simpler.
The third method of solving the difficulty was proposed by the Legislature of Virginia on the 18th of December, 1776. By this the boundary of Pennsylvania was to be run from the northwestern angle of Maryland north to the line of latitude of 40 degrees complete; thence west along that line to the distance of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware in that latitude, and then the western boundary was to be that proposed by John Penn, viz., one following the curves of the Delaware; or, as more convenient, a number of straight lines should be run between prominent points on the Delaware, and the western boundary be run parallel to those lines.
We reproduce on page 140, from Craig's The Olden Time, a diagram with its explanations, which will illustrate these three different propositions.
But the contestants had grown weary of the strife, and both sides were ready to come together on some practicable ground of settlement. This was at length found. In 1779, George Bryan, John Ewing, and David Rittenhouse, on the part of Pennsylvania, and Dr. James Madison, afterwards a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Rev. Robert Andrews, and Thomas Lewis, on the part of Virginia, were appointed com- missioners to meet in conference and determine the boundary. These gentlemen, except Lewis, met, August 27, 1779, in
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Baltimore, where, on the 3Ist of that month, they made and subscribed to the following agreement:
We [naming the commissioners] do hereby mutually, in behalf of our respective States, ratify and confirm the following agreement, viz. To extend Mason and Dixon's line due west five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware, for the southern boundary of Penn- sylvania, and that a meridian, drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of said State, be the western boundary of said State forever.
.-
42-N:Lat:
F
PENNSYLVANIA
FORT PITT
1W
- 40°N.L.
MARYLAND
39°N.L
DELAWARE
The plain line, thus, , represents the boundary of Pennsyl- vania, as now established. The small triangle at the northwest corner of the State was ceded to the United States by New York in 1781, and was purchased from the General Government in 1792.
The curved and dotted line represents the boundary claimed by John Penn. The line drawn thus, -, is the boundary proposed by Lord Dunmore. The Virginia Legislature proposed the line marked thus, -º __ º. -, extending from the northwest angle of Maryland to Penn's curved line, and along that to the Lake.
The line like this, -, across the south boundary of Pennsyl- vania, is the west end of Mason and Dixon's line.
The letters W and F indicate the positions of Washington and Franklin.
This agreement was confirmed by the Pennsylvania Assem- bly November 19, 1779.1 Virginia was tardy, but the next I See Hist. of Wash. Co., Crumrine, p. 192.
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summer, June 23, 1780, with certain conditions as to land titles, she consented to it. Her conditions, although distasteful, were finally agreed to by the Pennsylvania Legislature September 23d of the same year.I
As an expedient to "quiet the minds of the people and com- pel militia service" until a permanent line could be run, based upon astronomical observations, it was decided to run a tem- porary line. In June, 1782, Alexander McClean attempted to run this temporary line, but was stopped by a number of horse- men-"Virginians, as they called themselves." In November of that year, however, the temporary line was successfully run by McClean, on the part of Pennsylvania, and Colonel Joseph Neville, on the part of Virginia, with a guard of two hundred militia. Among their assistants was Christopher Hays a prominent citi- zen of Westmoreland County, who on November 19th, wrote from Cross Creek to General Irvine the following rather droll letter :
DEAR SIR :- We have proceeded this length in running the north line of Pennsylvania, and have enjoyed a peaceable progress hitherto, and expect to strike the Ohio river about Thursday next between Fort McIn- tosh and Raredon's Bottom.
Sir, I am reduced to the necessity of troubling your honor to send me by the bearer one keg of whisky, two pounds of powder and four pounds of lead, and your compliance will much oblige.
P. S .- I will replace the whisky with all convenient speed. Please to bring it in your own boat if you come to meet us.
The editor of the Washington-Irvine Correspondence, from which we extract this letter, observes: "It will be noticed that whisky is the first article mentioned; more to be desired than powder and lead, notwithstanding the Indians were still hostile!" (page 402.) 2
The temporary line was confirmed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania March 22, 1783,3 and on the 20th of that month a proclamation was issued by the President of the Council, John Dickinson, giving notice of and commanding obedience to this
1 Penna. Arch., vol. viii., p. 570.
2 It was a thirsty generation to which he belonged. In the list of articles which the com- missary of the commissioners who ran the permanent line in 1785 was to purchase for their comfort, the following items occur: "120 gallons spirits, 40 gallons brandy, 80 gallons Madeira wine and 200 lbs. loaf sugar."-(Penna. Arch., vol. x., p. 573.)
3 Penna. Arch., vol. x., p. 8.
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establishment of boundary.I Troubles still continued, however, and it became necessary to establish a permanent boundary line. To this end the two States selected the ablest men avail- able, the commissioners on the part of Pennsylvania being Dr. John Ewing, David Rittenhouse, John Lukens, and Captain Thomas Hutchins, and on the part of Virginia, Andrew Ellicott, Bishop Madison, the Rev. Robert Andrews, and T. Page, who in the summer and fall of 1784, ran the boundary and defined and marked the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, from which the western boundary was to be run northward.
All that remained now to settle forever the controversy with Virginia was to run and mark the western boundary along the meridian agreed upon to the Ohio River, and this work was done by David Rittenhouse and Andrew Porter of Pennsylvania, and Andrew Ellicott and Joseph Neville of Virginia. August 23, 1785, these gentlemen reported that they had performed their task, and had
carried on a meridian line from the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, northward to the river Ohio; and marked it by cutting a wide vista over all the principal hills, intersected by said line, and by falling or deadening a line of trees, generally through all the lower grounds. And we have likewise placed stones, marked on the east side P, and on the west side V, on the most of the principal hills, and where the line strikes the Ohio; which stones are accurately placed in the true meridian, bounding the States aforesaid. 2
During this and the following year (1785-86) the western boundary north of the Ohio to the northwest corner of the State was continued, the survey for forty miles being made in 1785 by David Rittenhouse, Andrew Porter, and Andrew Ellicott, and the rest by Porter and Alexander McClean in 1786.3
We may observe now that if John Penn's proposal for the settlement of this vexed question had been accepted Pennsyl- vania would have gained a large part of Virginia, and, on the other hand, all of what is now Beaver and Mercer counties, nine- teen twentieths of Washington County, two fifths of Allegheny County, and portions of Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, Butler, Venango, Crawford, and Erie counties would be to-day in West
1 Col. Rec., vol. xiii., p. 541.
2 Penna. Arch., vol. x., p. 506.
3 Col. Rec., vol. xiv., p. 454, and Penna Arch., vol. xi., p. 26.
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Virginia. The plan of the Virginia Legislature would have taken in addition all of the residue of Greene County and two thirds or more of Fayette.
Lord Dunmore's plan would have cut off from Pennsylvania's western end a strip of territory extending from the southern boundary to the Lake, and four or five miles wide.
The compromise finally adopted apportioned the gain and loss of the two States about equally, and may be considered the fairest and most reasonable adjustment that could have been made.
Thus the southern and western limits of Pennsylvania were definitely settled and a controversy which had been started be- fore the Revolution, and which had lasted through it, was happily ended.
THE "NEW STATE" MOVEMENT
It is interesting to note that growing out of the dissatisfaction created by the prolonged controversy over this boundary line question there arose in this general region a movement favoring the creation of a new State. The grounds upon which this project was based were the troubles arising from the different land laws of the two great provinces which were haggling over the possession of the territory, and the fact that the settlers were not receiving either from Pennsylvania or Virginia or from the United States the protection they needed from the savages. As they were left "to bear their fortunes in their own strong arms," they wished to have the advantages which they conceived would accrue to them from a State organization of their own. This project was agitated for a term of years, and enlisted in its favor many of the best citizens of the West, including former partisans of both Pennsylvania and Virginia. The limits and seat of government of the proposed new State were never fully dis- closed, and the agitation for it died with the final settlement of the provincial boundary question.I
The remaining years of the century were, for this region, years of peace and good order,2 broken only by the "Whisky
I See full account of this subject in Crumrine's Hist. of Wash. Co., pp. 185, 187, 231.
2 The very readable story of The Latimers, by H. C. McCook (Jacobs & Co., Philada.' 1897) gives a good picture of these times, with much detail and local color. The earliest scenes of the tale are located within the present limits of Beaver County.
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Insurrection," whose chief theatre was in Washington County, and which we will not attempt or need to describe. We shall turn now from the larger field of political and military events, and endeavor in our next chapter to get a closer view of the men and women who were the actors in these scenes.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LIFE
The Scotch-Irish-The Germans-The Moravians-Date of Early Settle- ments-Claims of Priority-Incidents of Indian Incursions-The Poes and Captain Brady-The Last Indian Murder-North Side Settlers-Pioneer Life-"Forts" and Blockhouses-Dress and Pro- visions-Homes and Furniture-Sports and Diversions-Morals and Manners-Religious Beliefs and Superstitions-Education.
What was his name? I do not know his name. I only know he heard God's voice, and came: Brought all he loved across the sea,
To live and work for God and me: Felled the ungracious oak; With rugged toil Dragged from the soil The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock;
With plenty filled the haggard mountain side; And, when his work was done, without memorial died. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, The Pioneer.
BUCKLE, in his great fragment on the History of Civilization in England, has ably argued the influence of food and climate on the character of the various civilizations of the earth.I Doubt- less these are important factors, but the character of a civiliza- tion is still more dependent upon what manner of men they are who are its founders. Heredity is at least as decisively a forma- tive influence as is environment. "Blood tells,"-tells on the development of the individual, tells on the character of a com- munity. In the preceding chapters we have spoken of the heroic services of the men of the West; how, like the fire-guard which the Dakota farmer to-day ploughs about his home to protect it from the sweeping flames of a prairie fire, ran the
1 Vol. i., p. 37. Appleton & Co.'s Ed. 1891.
VOL. I .- 10.
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cordon of defense which these brave men drew around the border settlements. Who were the heroic fighters on this firing- line, and whence came they? In this chapter we shall try to answer briefly these questions.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH
In any worthy chronicle of the life of the people of western Pennsylvania one racial cognomen, viz., "Scotch-Irish," will occur with a frequency which the unsympathetic reader who has other blood and traditions might even call with Falstaff "a damnable iteration." But the generous reader will find no fault with this. For dead of soul, indeed, is the man who has no love for the history and achievements of those who were his forbears, and if the Puritans, the Pilgrims, and the Huguenots in the East and South have had their full meed of praise in song and story, the historian of the West should be permitted to give to the Scotch-Irish the recognition they deserve.
It would be hard to find a spot in this wide land of ours where the early population was more homogeneous than in the region round about the head of the Ohio River. Among the first emigrants to this region those other than Scotch, or Irish, or Scotch-Irish were so few in number as to be almost a negligi- ble quantity.1 And who were, and are, the Scotch-Irish? The name stands for a great fact of racial evolution. It designates a composite people, in whose veins mingles the blood of Briton, and "Saxon, Norman, and Dane." History knows them first as the Lowland Scotch, a canny, thrifty, fearless folk, who were found in every part of Europe where there was glory to be won in the halls of learning or on the fields of battle. The evolution proceeds by the transplanting of these Lowland Scotchmen into
1 The credit due to the Germans in Pennsylvania is fully exhibited by Lucy Forney Bittinger in her book, The Germans in Colonial Times (Lippincott, 1901.) She says, page 231:
" Everywhere along the Pennsylvanian frontier we find the Germans, either as pioneers, as the first permanent settlers, or as following or intermingling with the Scotch- Irish who are commonly but mistakenly credited with being always and everywhere the pioneers. "
But she herself does not seem to succeed in tracing them much west of Bedford and Somerset counties. Mr. Lawrence Washington (a half-brother of George Washington), one of the Ohio Company, tried to induce the "Pennsylvania Dutch" and their brethren from Germany to colonize this Ohio valley region, but as he says in a letter to Mr. Hanbury he failed on account of their prejudice against paying the "parish taxes" which were levied here by the Episcopal establishment of Virginia (Old Redstone, p. 23). The German ele- ment now here dates its arrival principally after 1830.
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northern Ireland, where their blood is still further enriched by that of other races, by Huguenots from France, Burghers from Holland, Puritans and Quakers from England; and all becomes at last the one intelligent and hardy people that is known in America by the hyphenated appellation-"Scotch-Irish."
Thousands of these hardy Ulstermen came to America (as many as twenty-five thousand between 1771 and 1773 1), most of whom landed in Pennsylvania, many of these, after various haltings and migrations, settling finally in western Pennsylvania. They brought with them a burning sense of hatred to all mon- archical and ecclesiastical exactions, and so every settlement of them became a seed-plot of revolutionary sentiments. Bancroft says: "The first public voice in America for dissolving all con- nection with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans of New England, the Dutch of New York, nor the planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." It is matter of dis- pute whether the so-called "Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- pendence," to which Bancroft probably here refers, is genuine or not, with the sifted evidence against it 2; but there is no doubt that the Scotch-Irish of the North Carolina county of Mecklenburg were among the first to protest by word and deed against the tyranny of the British government. And so in all the colonies the men of that blood distinguished themselves in the championship of the Revolutionary cause, whether on the field of debate or on the battlefield. It was, as we have said, the men of that blood, too, who most largely settled western Pennsylvania generally, and the territory of Beaver County in particular. So much as to the character of the early emigration into this region. We glance now at its time.
DATE OF EARLY SETTLEMENTS
Previous to 1700 the foot of the white man had scarcely touched the soil of these western parts.3 The eighteenth century
1 James Logan, Secretary of the proprietary government, himself an Irish Quaker, wrote in 1729: "It looks as if Ireland is to send all her inhabitants hither, for last week not less than six ships arrived, and every day two or three arrive also. The common fear is that if they continue to come they will make themselves proprietors of the province."
2 See article, "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence " in The Universal Cyclopedia.
" Marquette and La Salle and the Jesuit fathers had been on the Mississippi previous to 1700. Colonel Wood, of Virginia, is alleged to have explored several branches of the Ohio and "Meschacebe" (Mississippi) from 1654 to 1664 (Western Annals, p. 94). Thomas Woods and Robert Pallam, in 1671, and Captain Botts, in 1674, are reported as making
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was two, perhaps three, decades advanced before those fore- runners of civilization-the traders-began to venture into the wilds of this region. It was nearly half gone before the attempt at settlement by the Ohio Company was made (1748), and the first actual settlement of whites was not until 1752, at which date Christopher Gist's little company of eleven families took up their abode on lands west of the Youghiogheny River in what is now Fayette County.1 In the most southern portion of the province near the Maryland line a few feeble settlements were made prior to 1754, and in 1760 what is now the great centre of population which we know as Pittsburg was a little group of cabins about the fort, with not much above two hundred in- habitants.2 About 1768 or 1769 Alexander McKee had made improvements at what is now known as McKee's Rocks in Allegheny County. Washington makes mention of him in his account of his canoe trip down the Ohio in 1770. In 1770 a mission of the Moravian Brethren, under the leadership of Zeis- berger and Senseman, was established in what became Beaver County, at a point now within the bounds of Lawrence County.3 Owing to the opposition of hostile Indians the mission was soon removed into Ohio, where, at Salem and Gnadenhütten, was per- petrated upon its peaceful members what was perhaps the most horrible butchery that ever disgraced the annals of border life.
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