USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 46
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On the whole, the citizens of Beaver County have just reason to be proud of the honored history of their schools and school- teachers, but if, as was said by Wendell Phillips, "education is
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the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man," they will not be content with the work already done, but will devise such liberal things for the future that the best possible results may be obtained. If this is to be accom- plished, the teacher's profession must be so well paid and so highly honored, that men and women of the highest character and talents can afford to make it their life-work. If Beaver County taxpayers and school directors shall be true to the highest ideals of patriotism, they will not regard the money expended in education as a mere expense, but rather as the most profitable of all investments, the interest on which will be paid in broader culture, better citizenship, and happier homes, and the training of their children to be able in face of the dan- gers and difficulties of life
to exercise that power Which is our human nature's highest dower.
CHAPTER XII
RELIGIOUS HISTORY
Religious Spirit of Pioneers-Roman Catholcism-Moravian Mission on the Big Beaver (Friedenstadt) - Presbyterianism - Methodism - United Brethren in Christ-Church of God-Baptists-Lutheranism-Disciples of Christ-Evangelical Association-Congregational Church-Protes- tant Episcopal Church.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her; Tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, Consider her palaces; That ye may tell it to the generation following.
PSALM Xlviii., 12, 13.
WE turn now from the study of the facts and forces which built the fabric of material and political greatness in western Pennsylvania and in Beaver County, to trace, in brief outline, the story of the founding here of that kingdom which "cometh not with observation." It will be found, we think, that the spiritual kept pace with the physical development of the com- munity. We have no desire to idealize our picture of the pio- neer settlement of our section. On the contrary we have shown previously that it was "a mixed multitude" that came into these parts, and that deeds of shame are in the record of their con- duct for which even the rude time and the terrors of their wil- derness life afford no excuse. But still, if they were often violent and lawless, as even the best of them sometimes were in dealing with the Indians, we may charitably seek to find the fault in their position rather than in a radical want of humanity and justice in their characters. The best of them were but men, and-
No perfect whole can our nature make;
Here or there the circle will break;
4II
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The orb of life as it takes the light On one side leaves the other in night. Never was saint so good and great As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate For the plea of the Devil's advocate.
Taking into account all the conditions, we believe that a high claim can be made and maintained for the general worthi- ness of the early settlers of this region. Of those who formed the largest element it may be said that they brought with them not only the axe and the rifle, but that they brought also, at least in their heads and their hearts, the Bible and the Shorter Catechism. They reared family altars in their forest homes and gathered for social worship in the forest shades, "God's first temples," and drew the witness of His presence and perfections alike from the book of nature and the Book of grace.
ROMAN CATHOLICISM-ATTEMPT TO FOUND A ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION
A recent graceful writer (Stewart Edward White) has said that the French of North America "have laughed in farther places than the Anglo-Saxons,"-his meaning being that they have led the way in wilderness explorations. Long before the English had penetrated the unknown regions of the west, the French voyageurs had threaded its pathless forests or paddled their canoes over the dancing waters of its lakes and rivers, singing their songs in the wigwams of the natives, conforming to their customs, often taking to themselves as brides the dusky daughters of the forests. And the faithful curés were not long behind them, as brave as any of their light-hearted children in facing untried perils, enduring all hardness in order to care for their sheep scattered abroad in the wilderness, or to bring the message of the Gospel to the red man. Thus the French found their way along the St. Lawrence, the Lakes, the Wabash, and the Mississippi to the heart of the continent, and thus, too, they came first into the valley of the Ohio. Perhaps earlier than history has brought us any record of names and dates,
Merry Jean Baptiste Paddled his pirogue on La Belle Rivière, While from its banks some lone Loyola priest Echoed the night-song of the voyageur.
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The first minister of religion to arrive in the valley of the Ohio was, so far as history records, the Rev. Joseph Peter Bon- necamp, S. J. He was the chaplain and mathematician of Celeron's expedition, and was at Chiningué, as the French called Logstown, on August 8, 1749, and afterwards passed down the Ohio River, and it is probable that he said mass somewhere within what is now Beaver County,' as it was the law and the invariable practice of the Jesuits to say mass wherever they served as chaplains.
Eight years later a mission was established at the mouth of the Big Beaver by the Jesuit Father Virot. The brief record of this mission is found in Dr. Shea's History of the Catholic Church in the United States, in the following words: "The Jesuit Father Claude Francis Virot, who had labored in the Abnaki Missions in Maine, was sent to the Ohio about 1753 to found a mission among the Delawares who had settled near the French. He planted his mission cross at Sawkunk, as the Indians styled the mouth of the Big Beaver. Here he persevered in his good work until Pakanke, chief of the Wolf tribe, drove him off." 2
In a letter in The Fesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 3 dated October 21, 1757, the writer, Father Peter Joseph Antoine Roubaud, says that he set out July 12th, from the Abnaki Missions to bring to Montreal a deputation of twenty Abnakis appointed to accompany Father Virot, "who has gone to try and found a mission among the Loups [Wolf tribe] of the Oyo or Beautiful river." The date of his mission is shown from this letter to have been somewhere between July 12 and October 21, 1757, but it is not known how long it lasted. It must have been short on account of Pakanke's opposition, and we know
1 "In 1749 the Jesuit Father Joseph Peter de Bonnecamp, who had been professor of hydrography at Quebec, accompanied an expedition under de Celeron. The party descended the Ohio as far as the great Miami, and then crossed to Lake Erie. Father Bonnecamp was the first priest who offered the holy sacrifice in the southern part of Ohio." The Catholic Church in Colonial Days, 1521-1763, by John Gilmary Shea, New York, 1886, p. 613.
2 Vol. i., p. 614.
"Father Claude F. Virot was born February 16, 1721 [according to The Jesuit Relations, vol. 1xx., p. 85, his name was Louis Virot, and February 15, 1722, the date of his birth]; entered the Society of Jesus in the province of Toulouse, October 10, 1738; was sent to Canada in 1750. After his Delaware mission he acted as chaplain to Aubrey's force, and was killed in the attempt made to relieve Niagara in July, 1759." Pouchot's Mémoires, vol. i., pp. 109-IIO.
The Aubrey here mentioned was Captain de Aubrey, Knight of St. Louis, who com- manded a part of the French forces in the western part of our State, and who defeated Major Grant on what is now known as Grant's Hill, Pittsburg, Sept. 14, 1758.
3 Vol. Ixx., p. 91.
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that Father Virot was killed by the Iroquois Indians near Fort Niagara, July 24, 1759.1
Local Catholic history really begins, however, with the arrival of the first Catholic settler in the person of James Mc- Guire, who fled from Ireland during the political troubles in that country at the close of the eighteenth century, and, crossing the Allegheny Mountains into western Pennsylvania, came to the Beaver valley in 1793. It is claimed that despite the danger from the Indians he at once located a large tract of land lying immediately north of the present New Brighton, a large part of which has remained in possession of his descendants, being at present owned and resided upon by Hugh McGuire of Oak Hill, a grandson. Having cleared a small space, he built thereon his log-cabin home, one of the largest ever erected in Beaver County, upon a site which is within a few feet of the old stone "Scho- field " house below the New Brighton reservoir.
The second settler of Catholic faith was John Daugherty, who a few years after McGuire's settlement located upon a tract upon Bennett's Run, north of Eastvale. He erected his house just within the angle formed by the meeting of the present two roads, at the forks of the run; but the log house now stand- ing at this point is of a later date, and not the original. John Daugherty died at an extreme old age.
About the same time, Daniel McGuire, a cousin of the James McGuire mentioned above, and the grandfather of Michael Mc- Guire of Economy township, settled at Vicary, now a part of Freedom, where he lived until 1830, when he removed to the Big Sewickley Creek, near Wall Rose post-office, where several of his descendants still reside. The fourth Catholic settler was Edward Daugherty, grandfather of the late Edward Black Daugherty, Esq., of Beaver, and a younger brother of the above- mentioned John Daugherty. He came to Beaver County in 1796, and settled on a tract of land southeast of New Brigh- ton. He was early joined by his brother Manasseh Daugh- erty and his family, and John Black, a Protestant, whose children later became Catholics, took up a tract lying nearer New Brighton. During the erection of Mr. Black's log barn, Manasseh Daugherty, who was giving neighborly assistance, was killed by the falling upon him of a heavy piece of timber. This
1 The Fesuit Relations, vol. 1xx., p. 251. See note on Virot in fes. Rel., vol. 1xxi., p. 178.
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was the first death of a Catholic resident, and there being no Catholic graveyard, his brother Edward buried him in a plot of ground on his (Edward's) farm, which he thereupon set aside and donated to the Catholics forever as a burying-ground.
During a period of about thirty years succeeding the coming of Mr. Black, the members of the above-named five families constituted practically the entire Catholic population. They had no resident priest, and had to go to Pittsburg to old St. Patrick's Church to be married and to have their children bap- tized. Some of the older Catholics living in the county to-day were baptized under these conditions. Beaver, in 1830, became one of the regular missionary stations of Rev. Patrick O'Neil of Sugar Creek. In 1834 the Catholics began the erection of a church, but it was not finished until 1837. Rev. J. O'Reilly of Pittsburg visited this field at distant intervals about 1824; and after it became a regular monthly station it was attended suc- cessively from St. Paul's, Pittsburg, by Rev. E. F. Garland, Rev. Francis Kendrick,1 A. P. Gibbs, J. Powers, and Thos. Mc- Cullagh. In 1847 Rev. James Reid was appointed first resident pastor, with the additional charge of the entire Beaver valley; and when, in 1866, he became too feeble to attend to his duties, the Passionist fathers from Pittsburg visited the congregation on two Sundays in the month .? The further history of this church will be given in the chapter on Beaver borough.
The history of other individual Roman Catholic congrega- tions may be read in the chapters of this work devoted to the different townships and boroughs of the county.
THE MORAVIAN MISSION IN WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY BEAVER COUNTY 3
Father Virot's attempt to found a Roman Catholic mission among the Indians on the Beaver was, as we have seen, unsuc-
1 Father Kendrick became a well-known archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and died several years ago in St. Louis, being at the time of his death archbishop of that diocese. 2 See History of the Catholic Church in the Dioceses of Pittsburg and Allegheny, Rev. A. A. Lambing, D.D., page 455.
3 Authorities: History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians of North America, by George Henry Loskiel, London, 1794; Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren to the Delaware and Mohegan Indians, by John Heckewelder, Phila., 1820; Life of Heckewelder, by Rev. Edward Rondthaler, Phila., 1847; Diaries of Zeisberger in the Mora- vian archives at Bethlehem, Pa., extracts from which, kindly furnished by Mr. John W. Jordan, Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, will be found in the notes to this sketch of the Friedenstadt Mission; Life and Times of David Zeisberger, by Edmund De Schweinitz, Phila., 1870; Article "David Zeisberger" by Rev. Wm. H. Rice, in American Heroes on Mission Fields, Series I, Amer. Tract Soc., New York, 1894.
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cessful. The next effort to evangelize the Indians here was made by representatives of a branch of the Protestant Church which, though small in numbers, has always been noted for its successful missions to native tribes, whether dwelling amid Arc- tic snows or under the burning sun of the equator, namely, the Moravian Christians, properly called the Unitas Fratrum, or Brethren's Unity. This church was composed of the successors of John Huss, who, at times tolerated, at times persecuted, had ever since 1468 preserved among the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia a church organization, and who in 1722 were collected into a community by Count Zinzendorf at Berthelsdorf, on his estate in Upper Lusatia. Here they built their famous town called Herrnhut, or "the Watch of the Lord," and ten years later began their glorious enterprise of foreign missionary work, in which they have surpassed all other churches, and which their successors maintain to the present day with unabated zeal. In 1735, their first missionaries arrived in America and established a mission among the Creek Indians, near Savannah, Georgia. In 1741, Bethlehem, seventy-five miles north of Philadelphia, the station which has ever since been the chief center of the Brotherhood, was founded, and from this center influences reached out over the whole country. In Connecticut and New York and in many places in Pennsylvania, the labors of the Brethren were especially consecrated to the conversion of the Indians, and they were rewarded with a considerable degree of success. At Friedenshütten, Gnadenhütten, and other hamlets around them, grew up villages of their converts, who, amid every kind of trial and persecution, gave evidence of the genuineness of their faith.
FRIEDENSTADT ON THE BIG BEAVER
One of the most devoted of the missionaries of the Breth- ren's Unity, who had labored in many parts of the country among the Iroquois and Delaware Indians, was David Zeis- berger.1 In the fall of 1767, learning that some Indians on the
1 David Zeisberger was the son of a wealthy and pious farmer in the village of Zauch- tenthal, in Moravia, where he was born, April 11, 1721. His parents had emigrated to the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem upon the breaking out of the persecutions in Moravia, leaving David in the care of the brethren at Herrnhut. When he was nineteen years of age he followed his parents to Bethlehem, where he was converted, and shortly afterwards began his career as a missionary, which for sixty-seven years he continued with marvelous
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Ohio (now the Allegheny) River were desirous of hearing the Gospel, he went thither, accompanied by his assistant, Anthony, and a convert named Papunhank, and located his station at a Delaware town of three villages called Goschgoschünk. This Indian town was situated on the Allegheny River, near the mouth of Tionesta Creek, in what is now Venango County. Here, in the month of June, 1768, Zeisberger, with the assistant, Gottlob Senseman, and three families from Friedenshütten, set- tled, built a log chapel, planted corn, and commenced the work of evangelization.1 They were soon rewarded by gaining a number of converts, among whom was the blind old chief, Allemewi, who was baptized with the name of Solomon; but, as usual, their success excited opposition and their lives were threatened by the hostile Indians.2 Wangomen, an Indian pro- phet, declared that he had had a vision in which he was shown by the Great Spirit that the white men had displeased him by coming among the Indians; and the old squaws went about complaining that since their arrival the corn was devoured by worms, that the game was leaving the country, and that neither chestnuts nor bilberries ripened any more. Some said, "The white men ought to be killed"; and others agreeing, said, "Yes, and all the baptized Indians with them, and their bodies thrown into the river." The name of the town, Goschgoschünk, meant "the place of hogs," and from their treatment there the mission- aries had good reason to consider it well named. In the spring of 1769 the dangers of their position had become so great that they determined to leave, and accordingly they removed with their converts to Lawunakhannak, a place on the other side of the river and several miles above Goschgoschünk.3 While here, Wangomen, their chief opponent at the former station, became friendly, and the news of their success in gaining converts was
love and power. In 1771 he established a mission on the Muskingum River in what is now Tuscarawas County, Ohio, but which ten years later was broken up by the Wyandot warriors. When, in 1796, Congress granted to the Moravian Indians the tract of land which they had formerly occupied, Zeisberger returned with a considerable number of con- verts and built the town of Goshen, where, at almost eighty-eight years of age, he died, Nov. 17, 1808.
1 Loskiel, Part III., pp. 20-36.
2 The hostile Indians called the converts "Sunday Indians" or "Swannocks," a name of great opprobrium. Id., p. 35.
3 Zeisberger's labors at Goschgoschünk furnished the subject for Schüssele's historical painting, The Power of the Gospel, the original of which is in the Moravian archives at Bethlehem, Pa.
VOL. 1 .- 27.
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carried to the great Delaware town on the Big Beaver, called Kuskuskee.1 From this place Pakanke, the chief of the Wolf tribe of the Delawares, sent Glikhickan, a celebrated Delaware warrior and orator, to refute the teachings of the missionaries. On his arrival Glikhickan heard the preaching of Zeisberger, and was privately instructed by the assistant, Anthony, in the doc- trines of the Gospel. He was completely won by them, and in the presence of the chiefs of Goschgoschünk declared his belief in the new religion, and returning to Kuskuskee made a favor- able report to Pakanke, who later joined with Glikhickan in inviting the missionaries and their converts to remove to the Beaver, where, in the neighborhood of Kuskuskee, a tract of land was promised them for their exclusive use. War having broken out between the Six Nations and the Cherokees, and the station at Lawunakhannak being immediately in the path of the war-parties, it was finally decided by Zeisberger, with the con- sent of the Mission Board at Bethlehem, to accept this invita- tion, and they prepared to remove to the Big Beaver.
Accordingly, on the 17th of April, 1770, the congregation at Lawunakhannak broke up, and setting out in sixteen canoes they passed down the river to Fort Pitt, which they reached on the 20th of the same month. Here, says Zeisberger's biographer, the garrison and the traders looked with wonder upon the sight of savage Indians "changed into consistent Christians." 2
In the forenoon of April 23d they arrived at the mouth of the Big Beaver and rowed up this stream to the Falls.3 At this point a portage was necessary, and from April 24th to 28th they were engaged in carrying their canoes and baggage around the rapids. They were met here by Glikhickan and others with horses from Kuskuskee, who assisted them in this labor.
1 See note on Kuskuskee, ante p. 15.
2 Life and Times of David Zeisberger, De Schweinitz, p. 360.
3 In his diary Zeisberger says:
"23d April [1770]. In the forenoon came to Sakunk (i. e., the place of an outlet) at the mouth of the Big Beaver. No one at present lives at this old Indian station. Here during the occupation of Fort Du Quesne by the French there resided a French priest, who labored to convert the Delawares to Romanism, but he was driven away by Pakanke, chief of the Wolf tribe of that nation. Rode 3 miles up the creek to the Falls, and en- camped.
‘April 24-28. Busy with transporting the canoes and baggage across the Falls.
.. I May. Resumed the journey. Proceeded but 4 miles.
" 2 May. Navigation good.
"3 May. Passed a settlement of 5 or ó huts-inhabited altogether by women. Two miles above this came to a flat on the left bank of the river, where we landed and encamped. Jeremiah, one of my Indians, stated that 10 or 12 years ago [1759] a large town of Delama- tinos [the Delawares called the Hurons or Wyandots-Delamatinos .- Ed.] occupied this flat. There was enough land cleared for corn-lands for 100 families. Wood, however, is scarce."
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On the Ist of May they resumed their journey, and three days after passed a small settlement, the first they had seen since leaving Fort Pitt. This consisted of five or six huts, inhabited, strange to say, by a community of women, all single, and all pledged never to marry.' The site of this squaw settlement must have been near the present village of Wampum. Two miles above this, probably not far from the present site of East Moravia, they reached a broad plain on the left, or east, bank of the river. Here an encampment was made, and on the 5th of May Zeisberger and some of the Indian brethren visited the chief, Pakanke, at his home at New Kuskuskee, and the for- malities usual on such occasions were observed, several speeches being made in order to give the inhabitants of the Indian village a just idea of the mission of the visitors and of the new religion which they came to preach to them. Pakanke, on his part, bade them welcome in the same number of speeches. Pipes were passed, strings of wampum were exchanged, and the land was officially designated which was to be for the exclusive use of the missionaries and their adherents.2
On the site of their encampment on the east side of the Beaver a settlement was begun on the 7th of May; corn was planted, a large hut for the meetings of the congregation, and smaller ones of bark for dwellings, were put up, and the Breth- ren rejoiced in the foundation in the wilderness of a Christian village.3 This station was named by them Langundo-utenink in the Delaware tongue, and in the German Friedenstadt, or the "town of peace." Its site was within the limits of Beaver County as originally formed, and is now in Lawrence County. The missionaries began at once the preaching of the Gospel, and their meetings were numerously attended by the Indians
1 Life of Zeisberger, De Schweinitz, p. 361.
2 Loskiel's History, Part III., p. 56; De Schweinitz, p. 361. Zeisberger says:
"5 May. Set out to visit Pakanke. Came to the fork of the Big Beaver, to the site of Old Kaskaskunk. Followed up the fork - and at noon came to New Kaskaskunk, the home of Pakanke. The town lies on a large flat, composed of but 20 huts - the Indians being scattered along the creek."*
3 " 7 May. Have determined to settle on this site - we staked off 12 plantations, each one of which borders on the river .- and began to plant.
"21 May. Done with putting up a temporary meeting-house. " 31 May. Finished fencing the entire flat. "
* Old Kaskaskunk (or Kuskuskee) was at the forks of Big Beaver, and not far from Mahoningtown. New Kaskaskunk was probably on the south side of the Mahoning, and about a half-mile southeast of the present Edenburg, Lawrence County: some prefer the site of New Castle (see De Schweinitz, p. 361).
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from Kuskuskee. Glikhickan, the chief spoken of above, became a devoted friend of the Christians and desired permission to leave Kuskuskee and reside at Friedenstadt. The missionaries exhorted him to count the cost in forsaking his Indian friends but, finding him resolute, gave their consent. His friends were very angry at his leaving, calling him a sorcerer, and old Pa- kanke attacked him publicly, saying: "And even you have gone over from this council to them. I suppose you intend to get a white skin? But I tell you, not even one of your feet will turn white, much less your body. Were you not a brave and honored man, sitting next to me in council, when we spread the blanket, and considered the belts of wampum lying before us? Now you pretend to despise all this, and think to have found something better. Sometime or other you will find yourself deceived." Glikhickan replied calmly, "It is very true I have gone over to them, and with them I will live and die." Colonel George Croghan, the Indian trader, used his influence to ap- pease Pakanke, and secure a fair hearing for the missionaries, but the enmity of the chief and his people became daily stronger. Nevertheless, some of the Indians continued to come from Kus- kuskee to the meetings at Friedenstadt, and the labors of the Brethren began to bring forth fruit.I
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