History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania, Part 133

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 967

USA > Pennsylvania > Bedford County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 133
USA > Pennsylvania > Fulton County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 133
USA > Pennsylvania > Somerset County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 133

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Stuart's column of Lee's invading army, which was quartered on this community for nearly two days, was of a different character from that of the guerrillas who preceded and followed it. They were governed, measurably, by the rules and laws of civilized warfare; they foraged and subsisted largely on the community, which is the result and consequence of war, but many acts of vandalism were also commit- ted, not laid down by Vattel as admissible. These men came to fight; did fight; got whipped ; acknowledged it; went back, and stayed away.

The freebooting class, from Jenkins the ravager to McCausland the incendiary, came not to fight, but to steal and destroy. These marauding hordes were composed mainly of

adventurers, whose only object was plunder and the torch.

All the legitimate burdens of the war the border people bore in full measure with the balance of the state, while these spoliations, worse in kind and greater in degree, they suf- fered over and above and beyond the communi- ties secured against these forays.

THE BATTLE OF AYR.

Ayr township is not without war incident, aside from the frequent raids. Within her pres- ent bounds was fought a decisive little battle in 1863. In the latter part of June of that year, just after Stuart's column had hastily decamped to join Lee on his move to Gettysburg, a squad of from eighty to one hundred of Imboden's freebooters, under command of Capt. Irvine, boldly and suddenly entered McConnellsburg one morning. There was a scouting party of thirty-two men of Co. A, Ist N. Y. Cav., com- manded by Capt. Jones, in the town at the time, just arrived from Bloody Run (Everett). Not anticipating the enemy near, they were dis- mounted and resting. The alarm came, "The rebels are coming !" Capt. Jones quickly ral- lied and mounted his men, saying, "I'll fight them "; filed into the street by which the rebels were then advancing ; slowly retired toward the west end of the town, the enemy cautiously fol- lowing. Capt. Jones suddenly faced about and started on a charge. The rebel command to charge was futile. The freebooters had come to plunder, not to fight, and, though outnumber- ing Jones three to one, they broke and ran. Jones and his men spurred on in hot pursuit, overhauled them in a chase of about one mile, brought them to bay, fought them, whipped them, killed two, wounded several, captured thirty-two men and thirty-three horses, and had no casualty himself but one man wounded. The charge started in McConnellsburg, but the scene of conflict, death and victory was in Ayr township, and there on the battlefield the dead are buried. It was the "battle of Ayr," a splen- did battle between unequal numbers, the odds being three to one against the victor. Capt. Jones promptly removed his prisoners to Bloody Run, now Everett. In the afternoon of the same day the rebels returned, reinforced to three hundred to four hundred. They pretended to hunt Capt. Jones, but showed no anxiety to find him. To a blustering rebel officer Mr. John W.

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Greathead proposed that if he was really anx- ious to meet that officer, he and others would inform Capt. Jones by telegraph of his desire, and he (the rebel) should have his wishes grati- fied, but the valiant officer only muttered impre- cations on the "- Yankee -," wheeled his horse and rode away. He wasn't anxious for the interview ; was content with plundering, and then slunk away, keeping a sharp lookout, fearing " Capt. Jones of the 1st N. Y. Cavalry " might suddenly " bob up " somewhere, greatly to the rebels' discomfort.

THE WOMEN OF THE GREAT COVE.

Any sketch of Ayr and Tod townships and the borough of McConnellsburg (and in this they are inseparably interwoven) would be incom- plete without at least a passing tribute to the devoted patriotism of the women of this valley during the war. In response to the calls from the Christian and Sanitary Commissions for hospital stores, they acted promptly and effi- ciently, and contributed freely and largely of clothing, bandages, lint, prepared fruits, deli- cacies, etc. Willing hands, prompted by loyal hearts, were busy preparing and collecting these stores. On several occasions it required great tact to conceal these from the plundering enemy, and on one occasion some of these stores did fall into the enemy's hands. Nothing daunted, these irrepressible, loyal women promptly set to work to duplicate them, as far as possible, and speedily supplied what had been confiscated by the raiders. It would be impossible to name all the noble spirits engaged in this work, and to name a few would be invidious discrimination, but it will not be deemed invidious to name the president of the Ayr Township Tributary Soldiers' Aid Society, Mrs. Margaret Kendall, nee Logan, who had three sons in the army. After the raid that captured some of the so- ciety's stores, and when few horses were left in the valley, the younger members traveled on foot on this mission of mercy. McConnells- burg was the central depot for the valley, but the Ayr township stores were first gathered at the president's house. There were left on the Kendall property an old horse that the rebels did not think worth capturing and a rickety old cart of no use to them. With this team the society's president conveyed the stores to Mc- Connellsburg, she accompanying and aiding in the work of forwarding. Tod township and Mc-

Connellsburg also were liberal in their contri- butions to the Christian and Sanitary Commis- sions, each vying with the others in the per- formance of a patriotic duty. For earnest, loyal devotion and patriotic liberality this beau- tiful valley, so fearfully sacked and plundered during the years of the war, can challenge com- parison with any other community in the state and maintain its claim. No discrimination is here intended, as what is claimed for the Great Cove can, in kind, be claimed by other parts of the county.

BIOGRAPHICAL. JOHN POTT.

On the records of Philadelphia for the year 1734, is found the following :

At the court house in Philadelphia, September 12. 1734, present, the Honourable the Lieutenant Govern- or, the Mayor of the city, and others of the Magistracy - eighty-nine Palatines, who, with their families, making in all two hundred and sixty-one persons, were imported here in the ship Saint Andrew, John Stedman, Master, from Rotterdam, but last from Plymouth, as by clearance from thence, this day took and subscribed the effect of the government oaths, and also the declaration prescribed by the order of Council of the 21st September, 1729.

Among those who "took and subscribed," etc., are the names of Wilhelm Pott and Degenhart Pott. Wilhelm brought with him a family, con- sisting of a wife and two sons, mere boys, named Johon Wilhelm and Johannes. They came from Germany. Of Degenhart nothing is known. Wilhelm, who is the original of the American line of this name, settled at German- town soon after his arrival. At some time, date not known, the family moved up the Schuylkill to what, in 1752, became Berks county. Here, on December 28, 1755, Johannes married Miss Maria Hoch. On December 16, 1759, was born of this union a son, named John, who, in due time, date unknown, married Miss Maria Lesher. Of this marriage came John Pott, the subject of this sketch, who was born in Berks county, March 16, 1787, and the eldest of the family, there being five other sons, in the order of their ages, as follows : Benjamin, James, Abraham, William and Jacob, all of whom are dead.

In the year 1804 the elder John Pott pur- chased a large tract of land on the Schuylkill in the northerly end of, then, Berks, but which,

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in 1811, was erected into Schuylkill county, where, a few years before, had been erected a small furnace. To this place the elder Pott sent his son John to superintend his operations for the time being, he giving the work his casual personal supervision, but did not remove his family to his new place until 1810. The fur- nace was at once torn down and in its stead a forge was erected, and in 1807 he built a new furnace (Greenwood). It was while digging the foundation for this furnace that a vein of an- thracite coal was uncovered, which the elder Pott tested in his blacksmith's forge with com- plete success. The existence of this " said to be coal," or "black stone," in this section, was previously known and some unsuccessful at- tempts to utilize it had been made. The idea was abandoned and it was left for John Pott, the elder, to demonstrate its inflammability and value as fuel. In 1810, while digging the foundation for a mill, near his furnace, an- other veil of coal, nine feet thick, was un- covered. Its worth had already been estab- lished, both in the smith's forge and in open grate. It now began to attract attention, and "openings " were made at other points, but it was far from market and without transporting facilities other than wagons. In 1812 Col. George Shoemaker transported nine wagon loads to Philadelphia, about one hundred miles, to introduce it. The idea of coal was scouted - he was pronounced an impostor, and the stuff to be nothing but "black stone." He was glad to be permitted to unload most of his stuff, to be used for making road, but succeeded in having one load tested at a rolling-mill, which, after much tribulation, proved a complete suc- cess, which gradually removed all doubt as to its burning qualities .* Foreseeing the results that must follow these discoveries and demonstra- tions, the elder John Pott, in 1816, laid out the town of Pottsville, which became, and has ever since been, the great central depot of the Schuylkill coal region.

But it was not until 1822 that the coal trade began to fairly expand and with it began the growth of the town. In 1825 the Schuylkill canal was opened to Port Carbon, and in that year the

trade reached six thousand and five hundred tons, which has since grown to millions of tons annually from this region alone. Prior to the building of the canal, except the tenements necessary for the hands at Pott's ironworks, there were but few houses erected in the town, but with that era the flame of speculation ran high in town lots and coal lands, and its parallel has probably never occurred in Pennsylvania, except in the oil regions, in recent years. In these scenes, from the settlement in the wilder- ness, through the furor and excitement of the early development of the Schuylkill.coal region and the building of the town, the subject of this sketch was an active participant. He was married September 16, 1812, to Miss Susannah Strauch, who died April 12, 1822, leaving two sons, Charles and William. William died in early manhood. Charles, recently deceased, leaves one son, bearing his own name, residing in Indianapolis, Indiana. April 11, 1824, John Pott married Miss Magdalena Bittle.

The elder John Pott died in 1827. During the succeeding year his son John removed to the west branch of the Schuylkill, four miles from Pottsville, and there established the Man- heim Ironworks, where now is situated the flourishing town of Cressona. There also he built a flouring-mill. He operated these iron- works, furnace and forge, until some time in 1837, when he suspended work on account of the great depression in the iron trade as well as all other American industries, by reason of the disastrous effect of the " compromise " tariff of 1833, by which the duties on foreign products annually receded, until practical free trade was established ; the American markets flooded with the cheap pauper-labor products of Europe ; American enterprise and well-paid labor crushed, and the panic of 1837 was precipitated.

But it was while operating the Manheim fur- nace that John Pott worked out successfully a problem that had been the subject of anxious thought and experiment by ironmakers for some years, and which wrought a revolution in iron- making.

The effort to use anthracite coal in furnaces to smelt iron ore had been made at different times, without success, by different persons, yet experimenting continued. During 1836, John Pott, with his Manheim furnace, set about a series of experiments and succeeded in demon- strating the practicability of anthracite for that

* In 1812 a number of gentlemen associated and applied to the legislature for a law for the improvement of the river Schuyl- kill, citing the coal as a justification. The senator then repre- senting schuylkill county in the legislature, in the face of the fact that during the past five years John Pott. Col. Shoemaker and others had successfully used the "black stone " as fuel, asserted that there was " no coal there " : that there was " a kind of black stone" that was "called coal," but that "it wouldn't burn."

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purpose, so far as that could be ascertained in a furnace built for charcoal. He saw the neces- sity for a difference in the interior construction. of the furnace. He remodeled the interior and tried again. The result was entirely satisfac- tory. He worked up the anthracite he had on hand, then used up what stock of charcoal he yet had, and, for the reason before recited, sus- pended business for the time being. He firmly believed that a revulsion of sentiment, produced by the distress with which the country was then afflicted, would bring a change as soon as the people could be heard. Confident in this, he, in due time, satisfied with his experiments and suo- cess as above related, commenced work during 1840 to enlarge the capacity of his furnace and to make such improvements as his experience taught him were required, preparatory to put- ting his works in operation again. This work had well progressed ; a large stock of anthracite coal and iron ore had been delivered on the fur- nace bank, and all looked promising, when the great ice freshet, in the spring of 1841, utterly destroyed both furnace and forge. He did not rebuild again.

Other parties were experimenting with anthra- cite at the same time, and also achieved success, but John Pott always asserted that he reached a successful solution before any of the others, and the reason he did not produce .anthracite iron in commercial quantity, at that time, is for the cause above stated, but that he produced it in commercial quality and in quantity sufficient to make it a triumph. Others claim this for other parties, but for John Pott can be claimed at least a divided honor for giving this great industry to the country, and that Manheim fur- nace was the place where the success was achieved.

Thus was the elder John Pott the first in the Schuylkill coal region to successfully establish the combustibility of anthracite coal, and his son, John Pott, was the first to successfully use it in a blast furnace to smelt iron ore, while Abraham Pott, another son, built, in 1826, a short railroad from Black valley to the Schuyl- kill river, which, in point of date, takes pre- cedence of the well-known railroad from Sum- mit Hill to the Lehigh river, at Mauch Chunk, which was built in 1827, and is usually reputed to be the first ever built in this state, or even in the United States. He also erected, in 1829, the first steam engine ever used in Schuylkill

county. In itself this is not much; but with this he was the first to successfully use anthra. cite to generate steam for an engine. This had been unsuccessfully tried by others ; the grates in use would burn out in a single day. He then devised a form, made a pattern and had a grate cast that proved successful, and the grate bars now in use are essentially the same as those invented by Abraham Pott.

All these things were quietly accomplished ; no patents applied for, but the benefits thereof given to the public.

In 1843, John Pott sold his Manheim furnace property, and in the following spring he removed to Bedford (now Fulton) county, where he had purchased the Hanover Ironworks property, and where he arrived with his family on April 19, 1844. Encouraged by the stimulus given to, and the improvement in, the iron and other industries by the protective tariff of 1842, he at once went to work to repair damages done to these works by a great freshet in 1843, and to build a new furnace, which was speedily com- pleted and put in operation the same year and successfully operated for a brief period.

But on the principle, " Anything to win," the free-traders impudently assumed the role of protection to American industry in Pennsylva- nia, and by the fraudulent and deceptive cam- paign slogan, " Polk is a better tariff-man than Henry Clay," the free-traders triumphed in the presidential election of 1844, and as soon as possible after attaining to power, they repealed the protective tariff of 1842 and substituted the free-trade tariff of 1846, and, as a consequence, the American iron and other industries were again in a large measure either wholly paralyzed or badly crippled.

Mr. Pott vainly struggled against the tide. He had unlimited quantities of the richest iron ores, convenient to the furnace, and abundance of fuel near by, but found that he, like many others, could not compete with the British pau- per-labor product, under free trade, and so, in 1847, he made the last blast in Hanover furnace, and this was the last of the once busy Hanover Ironworks, of which nothing now remains but the naked, dismantled furnace stack, shown in illustration. In 1846 he built a flouring-mill on the site of one of the forges, and the remainder of his life was devoted to milling and farming. He died November 26, 1856, leaving a widow and seven children, by this second marriage,

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surviving him. The widow died November 23, 1876 .* The seven children-two sons and five daughters-are yet living, viz .: Maria, James, Rebecca, Melinda, Catharine, Jacob and Eliza B. The two children by his first marriage are dead, as previously noted.

Through one of the daughters, Melinda, of this family, intermarried with Charles T. Logan (since deceased, and the widow re-married with Frederick Van Lew), the American-born gen- erations of Wilhelm Pott's descendants have reached the sixth in the genealogy of great- great - great-great- grandchildren, bearing the names of Logan and Langwith, residing in Iowa. Maria, intermarried with Rev. D. G. Klein, resides in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, and Eliza B., married to M. P. Crosby, resides in Franklin county, Pennsylvania ; while the other four, two sons and two daughters, continue on the old homestead.

JUDGE DANIEL LOGAN.t

The subject of this sketch was born in Mc- Connellsburg, Bedford (now Fulton) county, September 6, 1805. His father, Gawn Logan, was born in the County Derry, Ireland, in the year 1771, where he grew to manhood and was married. After having served a term of four years in the army, during which when off duty he employed his spare time mending shoes for the soldiers, and from his stinted earnings, by practicing economy, he saved enough to bring him to America, landing at New Castle in the year 1800 with his wife Eleanor and one child. He immediately set out for McConnells- burg, where his brother, Thomas Logan, who had preceded him a half score or more of years, resided. But falling short of funds he tarried several weeks at Lancaster to earn money to carry him to his destination.

Arriving at McConnellsburg, he at once estab- lished himself at his trade, shoemaking, and by industry and frugality he was soon able to buy for himself a home. Here he followed his hum- ble calling and with such success that in 1807 'he was enabled to purchase from James Kendall the tract of land in Ayr township, where origi- nally, about 1735, the heroic widow Kendall

settled. Here by industry and hard labor he continued to prosper, and raised a large family, and here he died, April 18, 1849, at the age of seventy-eight years. His wife survived him until October 28, 1851, and died at the age of eighty years.

By the terms of his father's will Daniel be- came owner of the farm on condition of paying to the other heirs the sums as provided by the will.

By successful management and industry he prospered, redeemed his obligations and has since added handsomely to the patrimonial acres, and now owns one among the finest farms in the valley.

And while he was thus prospering, Daniel Logan was not parsimonious, but was open- handed and ready to assist the honest, deserving poor, and to grant favors to all who applied to him for aid. He never learned to say "No," and an appeal, or even a simple request, was sufficient to secure the favor of his name, which has often caused him to be called upon as security to satisfy demands on default of the principals.

In like manner, when able to do so, he has often favored men with loans direct, when in pressing need, which, in not a few instances, have never returned to him ; and by these several methods of favoring and befriending he has been required to pay many thousands of dollars, while some of the principals in these transac- tions, reveling in abundance, now snap their dishonest fingers in his face and defy him, and among these are several who have been honored with lucrative official trusts and are abundantly able to redeem their dishonored paper. The worst abuse Daniel Logan gets comes from the men and their kindred whom he has thus fa- vored at great cost and inconvenience to himself.

The poor who have appealed to him worthily, in distress or want, have never been turned away empty-handed, and in this quiet way has he many times "cast his bread upon the waters." He never distressed nor oppressed anyone who dealt honorably with him.

In public and charitable matters he has not been behind his fellows in liberality, according to the importance of the measure cr the project.

In 1874 his fellow citizens honored him by electing him associate judge, which position he filled for five years with credit to himself and advantage to the taxpayers.

* Magdalena Pott, the widow of John Pott, was the daughter of Andrew Bittle, and was born in 1805, in Berks (now Schuyl- kill) county. Her grandfather, the original of the stock iu America, was a Swiss, and came to this country some years prior to the revolution, and was a soldier in the patriot army. His descendants are very numerons and are found in at least ten states of the Union.

t By a friend.

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Daniel Logano

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In 1875 he married Miss Josephene Shoemaker, daughter of the late Anthony Shoemaker, Esq., of McConnellsburg, and is now, in his declining years, living in the enjoyment of an interesting family of two sons and two daughters, whose presence are the sunshine of his life and who are to him his all in all in this world.

By a former marriage he had two children, sons, who have for many years resided in the western states.

In Judge Logan and his young family alone is the family name preserved in the Great Cove.

The Barton family have been quite an im portant factor in the settlement and develop. ment of. Fulton county. Some time prior to the revolutionary war, Elijah Barton, wife and family left their home in New Jersey, and started for the west to carve out for himself a home in the wilderness. He selected land in Brush Creek valley, the title to which he re- ceived from William and John Penn. This section was at this time a wilderness, and these worthy pioneers endured many privations and hardships to which the present generation are strangers. They remained here until their deaths. A portion of the original purchase is now in the possession of his grandson, Malon Barton. They reared a family of six children - Elisha, George, Henry, Rebecca, Rachael and Mary. George grew to manhood's estate under the parental roof, and was then given a portion of his father's land, to which he made subse- quent additions, and remained here until his death, which occurred in 1825. He married Catharine Morgert, whose father was an officer in the revolutionary army, also a prominent set- tler in what is now West Providence township, Bedford county, where he kept tavern for some fifty years. They became the parents of eleven children, four of whom died when young. The others are : John, Mary A., Peter, Elijah, Phillip, Baltzer and George.

The sons filled many important offices, viz .: George, county commissioner, six years, also as- sociate judge for nearly five years; John, county auditor ; Peter, county commissioner, and Elijah, many of the township offices, mer- cantile appraiser, etc.

Baltzer Barton was born February 17, 1824, and reared on his father's farm. In 1849 he re- moved to Westmoreland county, and one year later engaged in the mercantile business. In 1854 he returned to Fulton county and engaged

in farming, which occupation he followed until 1883, when he removed to Bedford, Pennsyl- vania.

While living in Fulton county, Mr. Barton was among its prominent residents and progress- ive farmers. He held the office of county com- missioner over three years, also the various township offices, and has greatly interested him- self in the cause of education.

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History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania, Part 133

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Number of Pages: 967

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 967