USA > Pennsylvania > Clarion County > History of Clarion County, Pennsylvania > Part 8
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The Holland Company's warrants east of the Allegheny were located in Mc- Kean, Warren, Forest, Clarion, Jefferson, and Armstrong counties. Most of the Clarion county tracts were surveyed in June and July, 1793. The line enters the county at the north on the Washington-Farmington boundary, and after following that down to its extremity passes through Knox township due south, takes up the Paint-Highland line, pursues that, and crosses the river about one mile above the county seat. Then it turns due west, truncates Clarion borough, crosses the river again a little below the Pike bridge, and continues due west till it reaches a point one and one-half miles southwest of Shippenville. There it turns south to the Clarion River, a little below the mouth of Deer Creek ; thence west again to a point a short distance southwest of Blair's Corners ; the ice north to Monroeville, where it retires eastward, forming a recess for two of Barron's warrants, and an irregular one of Fox's intervening. A broken line, generally parallel to the northwestern line of Beaver township, carries it into Achiand in a due north course, where, a mile and a half east from Mt. Pleas- ant village, it turns westward till on a line with the western boundary of Ash- land, into which it merges. From there the boundary of the Holland
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FROM 1784 TO SETTLEMENT OF COUNTY.
Company's land in Clarion county is continuous with the county line to the place of beginning.
It will be seen that these lines include fully one-fourth the surface of the county, comprising all of Washington and all but a fraction of Elk township, five-sixths of Ashland, four-fifths of Paint, three-fourths of Beaver, two- thirds of Knox, and a small section of Clarion township. They embrace seventy-four warrants representing over 74,000 acres.
In the southern part of the county the territory of the company com- prised about 10,000 acres, divided as follows : One section in southern Madi- son, bordering on the Redbank, consisting of all the territory south of the Bingham line, which runs through the center of the township west of Mifflin's warrant 5086, which extends centrally from the Redbank till it intersects the Bingham line on the J. Mortimer farm, and east of a broken line running north of Van Buren Furnace. Further east a Holland tier crosses Redbank Creek into Porter township, adjoining Mifflin's, and extending up the length of three 1,000 acre warrants.
From the most southern of these three another one off- sets eastwardly. Both of these are interfered with by several narrow strips running east and west. The last section of the Holland Company's land lies in southern and eastern Redbank township, Nos. 3058-3063, including all south of the east and west line running through Shannondale and east of the Thomas and Brodhead line, except a few parcels in the southeastern corner.
In 1804 145 warrants in the purchase were seized by United States mar- shal Smith for unpaid national taxes. They were purchased by Busti, as agent for the company; but the former owners, or their heirs - Jesse Waln, Isaac Wharton, Samuel M. Fox, David Lewis, and John Adlum resisted its title. Accordingly Smith filed a bill of interpleader to determine in whom was the equitable ownership, in which the Holland Company and Le Roy and Bayard (who had succeeded Lincklaen) were complainants, and the parties above men- tioned defendants. The decree of the Circuit Court (October 31, 1807), decided in favor of Waln, Wharton, and the others, and ordered a conveyance in proportionate shares. The lands in this county involved in this contest were chiefly those of Samuel M. Fox. In 1805 Harm Jan Huidekoper was sent out by the syndicate as " general superintending agent " in a local sense. Busti still retained his former relations with the company. Huidekoper took up his residence at Meadville, and in the same year, March 19, purchased from the company twenty-three of its east Allegheny tracts. This purchase covered all its possessions in Beaver township, southern Ashland, southwestern Elk and two warrants 2801 and 2795, in central Washington, about Fryburg. By what time Stadnitzki, Van Eeghen, and Van Staphorst had died.
THE BINGHAM LANDS.
Close upon the heels of those to Willink and company came the Bingham warrants. They were issued December 14, 1792, to Robert Gilmor and
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HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
Thomas Willing, but patented and conveyed to William Bingham October 30, 1794. Willing was Bingham's father-in-law, a leading merchant of Philadel- phia, and partner of Robert Morris. Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore, was a cor- respondent of Bingham's and Willing's, and ranked high in the early social and commercial world. He was co-partner of an American commercial house established at Amsterdam, and resided there as agent. With the wealthy bank- ers Wilhem and Jan Willink, he had intimate business relations, and this, taken in connection with the almost identical period of the Holland and Bingham pur- chases, points to some connection between the two companies. William Bing- ham was a man of wealth and aristocratic connections, resident in the Quaker City. He was speaker of the first Pennsylvania House from 1791 to 1793, and afterward filled the chair in the Senate in 1795. By a rather odd coincidence two of the largest holders of land in Clarion county, William Bingham and Richard Peters, filled the highest positions respectively in the first House and Senate of Pennsylvania.
The Bingham estate in northern Clarion county consisted of thirty-three full 1,000-acre warrants and eight halves of tracts cut by the Clarion-Jefferson line, embracing about 46,000 acres in Farmington, Highland, Millcreek, and Clarion townships. The boundary of the connected warrants begins on the Forest county line about one mile southeast of the junction of Walley's Run and Coon Creek. It is identical with the line between the P. Haskell and the Ford and Lacy property, and continues due north and south, bisecting Farm- ington township to its southern boundary. It follows this line westward to the offset from Highland township, having the Peters land on the north here, and enters Knox. Near Mr. S. W. Wilson's saw-mill it again takes a southern course, and penetrates Highland to a point a little below the cross-roads at Miola Post-office, thence leads east the length of one warrant into Millcreek township, thence north to the mouth of Blyson Run, where it turns due east, cutting Millcreek township into two sections, in the northern of which the Mifflin warrants lie and intervene between the Bingham lands in Farmington and those in Millcreek. Arrived at the Clarion and Jefferson county line, the Bingham boundary turns south on it to a point one-fourth mile north of Little Millcreek, where it turns due west to the mouth of that stream, then jogs south, west, and north in an irregular line, coming up again to the northwest corner of the borough of Strattanville, then turning west to include warrant 3389, which covers the bend in the Clarion at Clugh's Riffle, and is isolated on the north and east by Harrison's warrants. In Farmington township the county line K.rin tin kmit to the Bingham territory on the east. All the tracts, except whew Aby je river, have due north and south lines.
The Bingham tracts were surveyed in August and September, 1793. The south Clarion Bingham territory occupies connectedly parts of Perry, Madison, and Toby townships, covering, roughly speaking, the southern half of Perry,
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FROM 1784 TO SETTLEMENT OF COUNTY.
the northern half of Madison, the western third of Toby, and a section in the southeast on the Madison line, taking in Rimersburg; twenty-two warrants, all of 1,000 acres, except two of 500 in Perry township. The line is so zig-zag, so broken by gaps and interferences ( ¿. e., previous warrant rights), that it is im- possible to describe it except by projection. Its continuous boundaries are the Allegheny from near the mouth of Troutman's Run to a point a little below Monterey, and the well-known line in Madison township extending from a point a little north of the junction of Mortimer and Catfish Runs, due east to Wild Cat Run.
William Bingham removed to England in the latter part of the last century, and died there toward the close of 1804. His will, dated January 10, 1804, devised all his realty to five executors in perpetual trust for his son William Bingham, and his daughters, Anna, wife of Alex. Baring, and Maria Matilda, wedded to Henry Baring. These trustees were Alexander and Henry Bar- ing, of the great London banking house of Baring Brothers; Robert Gilmor, Thomas Mayne Willing, and Charles Willing Hare, of Philadelphia. The devisees had authority to dispose of portions of his property, and among them the warrants in the Late Purchase. Alex. Baring in 1842 became Lord Ash- burton, and, having extensive commercial and landed interests in North Amer- ica, was selected as Great Britain's representative to perfect by treaty a settle- ment of the northeast boundary between the United States and the British Possessions (1842).
The alien Bingham devisees and Gilmor, resident in Amsterdam, appointed as their attorneys in fact Thomas Mayne Willing and Charles W. Hare.
THE HARRISON LANDS
Were warranted to George Harrison December 26, 1792, and surveyed in the early part of July, 1794. They consist, in Clarion county, of a strip a mile, or a warrant, in width, extending north and south in Knox and Highland town- ships ; and two offsetting to the east. The strip contains two oblong one- thousand-acre warrants, lying between the Bingham and Holland tracts, with the Peters on the north, and reaches down to tract 3389 of the Bingham. Here a jog eastward occurs, occupying two warrants which cover the mouth of Mill- creek and extend into Millcreek and Clarion townships.
LEWIS AND PETERS.
This was a partnership composed of William Lewis and Richard Peters, of Philadelphia. The latter was a distinguished citizen of the early Common- wealth ; he had served in the Revolution as a captain and as secretary of the board of war. Later he was elected speaker of the first Senate, and in 1792 was appointed judge of the United States District Court, occupying the bench till his death. His residence was at Belmont, a beautiful villa, now a charming
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HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
spot in Fairmount Park. On January 26, 1793, Messrs. Lewis and Peters took out a large number of the largest warrants, which were surveyed late in July of the same year. In the northern part of the county they occupy all the area . not covered by Willink and Company, Bingham and Harrison, viz. - the two tiers between the Bingham and Holland lines, comprising the western half of Farmington (except Biddle warrant, No. 5502, in the upper edge) ; the northeastern corner of Knox, and the northern neck in Highland, though con- cerning the latter there was a dispute, arising from an alleged overlapping of the Bingham purchase. In these tiers there are 16,500 acres. On June 20, 1794, Lewis and Peters conveyed all these warrants and several more in For- est county to Peter Benson and wife, who the same day deeded them to Richard Peters, Francis Johnston, and David Kennedy, and they became finally vested in Peters alone. The Dallas and Ingersoll warrants did not be- come a part of the Peters estate till after 1820.
THE MIFFLIN WARRANTS.
In 1786 Jonathan Mifflin, of Philadelphia, and Colonel Francis Johnston, of Revolutionary fame, living at Blockley Retreat, and then receiver-general of the land office, bought ten small tracts in the vicinity of "Lick Creek." In 1794 surveys were made to Mifflin and Johnston for a number of large tracts in Madison and Toby, and in Millcreek townships. Those in Madison and Toby numbering 5081-5088, extend on the eastern line-lapping over it slightly - the width of the two townships ; the northernmost one is interfered with considerably on the north. No. 5086, offsetting, embraces Lawsonham and vicinity. The Millcreek warrants contain the half of the township north of the Bingham line. In 1798 Mifflin (having bought out Johnston) sold some of the Millcreek lands to George and Samuel Fox, and in 1799 the remainder to the Bank of Pennsylvania.
In 1795 Charles Cist, of Philadelphia, took out warrants for two tracts on Toby's Creek.
The first surveyors in this region were the skirmish line of civilization, the first white men to leave the beaten paths and penetrate the interior. Their work bore a large share in the development of the wilderness and formed the basis of the later subdivision lines in our county. The surveyors, therefore, and their methods merit our attention in a historical work of this kind.
Clarion county belonged to surveyor's districts Nos. 6 and 7. All east of the north and south boundary line common to Madison, Porter, Toby, Piney, and Monroe townships, and a continuation of it to the river, and north of a line thence due west, belonged to No. 6; all south and west of it, to No. 7. The first deputy-surveyor assigned to No. 6 was Samuel Johnston, who was succeeded in 1786 by George Woods. Johnston and Woods surveyed the Pickering tracts. In 1789, on the accession of Colonel Brodhead to the sur-
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FROM 1784 TO SETTLEMENT OF COUNTY.
veyor-generalship, Ennion Williams was appointed. Williams had been com- mander of a battalion of riflemen during the Revolution, and, like a great many military men, when his services were no longer required on the line of battle, was selected for a position only second in its arduous and hazardous charac- ter to the life of a soldier. Williams acted till 1794 and was replaced by John Brodhead, a relative of the general's. Williams therefore surveyed the greater part of the Holland and all of the Harrison and Peters warrants, and Brodhead the upper Bingham and Mifflin tracts.
The first, and, until about 1800, apparently the only surveyor of District No. 7, was John Buchanan, of Philadelphia. Occasionally the deputy-sur- veyors sub-deputed others to do work.
The rugged and unexplored nature of the country in those days required surveying to be carried on in campaign style. Each surveyor was accompa- nied by a party, generally numbering a dozen, consisting of assistants, ax-men, and drivers, who brought up the rear with the pack-horses bearing provisions, tents, etc. The corps was always armed, for danger was ever possible, either from wild beasts or Indians. Surveying was extremely hazardous between 1790 and 1793, owing to the Indian outbreaks and the war which culminated in the defeat of St. Clair; and very little of it was done. The severe punish- ment inflicted by General Wayne, in Ohio, awed the western tribes, and thence- forth the work of both subdivision and settlement advanced with comparative security. Yet, notwithstanding, there were continual alarms among the inhab- itants of the frontier, owing to threatening hostilities arising from the dissatis- faction of the Indians with the treaties; militia-men were consequently pick- eted along the Allegheny. Cornplanter, the well-known Seneca chief, cautioned the surveyors to leave the woods, as they might expect attack after the 13th of December, 1794 However, nothing serious transpired.
The surveyors went in advance of the slow provision-train, blazing their route as they went along, to enable the packmen to follow. In after times these lines were sometimes mistaken for warrant lines, and caused confusion. When the corps at work on a line arrived at a place, almost impassably dense or rough-a rugged ravine, for instance-instead of maintaining their straight line, they would turn to the right or left at right angles till a practicable course was found, and, on arriving at the bottom or opening, would return to a spot on a line with the break-off. These breaks were ignored in the returns, but were puzzling to future land litigants; the courts decided that the ground, and not the air lines, controlled.
In laying out a " block " or tier of warrants, the surveyors by no means ran all the warrant lines by actual measurement. They would measure lines for two or three sides of a block of warrants, deduce the remaining side or sides, and then project imaginary lines of division across the parallelogram, splitting it into tracts of equal area. The corners along the actual line would
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HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
be specifically designated as by " a white oak," " a gum," etc. ; the imaginary corners were indicated by imaginary "posts."
Most of the larger warrants were regular rectangles with lines running true to the cardinal points; the exceptions were where previous warrants, overlap- ping, made irregularity of outline necessary, and along the Allegheny, across which warrants could not extend on account of the difference of tenure. Each tract had a name, generally fanciful or imitative, as "Troy," 559; "Busti Farm," 2710 ; sometimes incidental or descriptive, as 3675 on Knapp's Run, in Northwestern Farmington, called " Hickory Dale"; the adjoining warrant south, " Saw-mill Run"; "Wild Cherrytree Plain " (5081), in Madison town- ship, east of the junction of Wildcat and Fiddler's Runs; " Han o yought," " where the stream is crooked " (5629).
There is scarcely any data for determining the value of warrant lands in the earliest days. Conveyances were usually made only from warrantees to pat- entees, and in case of small tracts the consideration, nominal, was five shillings per tract.
In 1788 David and John Mead, the Randolph brothers, Stophel Seiverling, James Miller, and Cornelius Van Horn passed through Clarion county on the Susquehanna trail. They had come from the far distant Wyoming valley, where they had been driven from their possessions by the contentions of the Connecticut claimants. From Venango they ascended French Creek to the mouth of the Cussewago, and erected cabins in that fertile vale-the future city of Meadville.
In 1790 the Supreme Executive Council appointed a commission to survey the Upper Allegheny and its tributaries and examine the capabilities of the "Late Purchase." It consisted of Colonel Timothy Matlack, Samuel Maclay, and John Adlum. Matlack had been, with General James Potter, a member of the State Resolutionary Committee of the Frame of Government, and was subsequently secretary of the Commonwealth and master of rolls. Maclay, the grandfather of Hon. David Maclay, of Sligo, was a veteran surveyor of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, and was president of the State Senate from 1802 to 1804. John Adlum was a State commissioner, resident in Centre county, who afterwards removed to Maryland. He had some interest in Clarion county property. One of the objects of their expedition was to explore a route for a wagon road through the Purchase to the head waters of the Allegheny. They left Lebanon May 1, 1790, their intention being to ascend the " West Branch as high as it will admit canoes and then examine what kind of communication the country will admit of between it and Toby's Creek."1 On June 18 they (Matlack and Maclay) crossed from the Sinnemahoning to Little Toby in Jefferson county ; Adlum had previously left with a party of ax-men to run a line to the head- waters of the " Alegina," near Warren, and construct canoes. This point his colleagues reached from the Sinnemahoning by a circuitous northern route.
1 Diary of Samuel Maclay.
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FROM 1784 TO SETTLEMENT OF COUNTY.
From hence, after passing up Conewango to Lake "Chadokin," they descended the river in canoes, stopping to explore several affluents for some distance up, on their way. August 5 Mr. Maclay writes: "Started the surveying party "- from Fort Franklin-" early in the morning, as we were obliged to remain awhile to bake some bread. As soon as that was done we followed and over- took them and gave them some provisions, and then made the best of our way for Toby's Creek. At one o'clock we had a heavy shower. After it was over we proceeded down the river and came to the mouth of Toby's Creek about five o'clock, and before we had time to pitch our tent we had another heavy shower, followed by a rainy night."
"Friday, August 6 .- The morning showery, and continued until twelve o'clock, when it cleared up a little, but does not yet promise fair weather. Our surveying party has not yet reached us, although it is now past four o'clock. The surveying party came in before night, and after them John Ria and Frederick Bawm came to our camp. It was therefore agreed that Bawm and Ria1 should be taken into pay for four days, and that I, with one hand in addition, should survey the river down to the Kishcaminitas, while the other commissioners were to be employed in exploring the Toby's Creek."
Unfortunately no record of this exploration exists. The commissioners must have ascended the stream for a considerable distance ; for almost a week elapsed before they returned to Maclay, at his camp on the Kiskiminetas.
The line known to the earliest settlers as " Adlum's line " was one made on their overland return to the Allegheny. Mr. Maclay evidently thought that at the junction of Toby's Creek the " Alegina" becomes the " Ohia," for above that he mentions the stream by the first, and below, by the latter name.
We take up his diary again: " August 7 .- Started with my party and sur- veyed nine miles and one half, and took up our quarters.
" August 8 .- Continued our survey eleven miles further down the river." So he continued down to the Kiskiminetas.
On April 13, 1795, the western part of Northumberland, including, of course, the present Clarion county, was erected into Lycoming. There was no township organization here; but the western frontier was mentioned as " that part of Lycoming county lying in the New Purchase."
As a tardy result of the exploration by the commissioners, an act of March 21, 1798, declared public highways the Allegheny and several of its tribu- taries, including "Toby's Creek from the mouth up to the second fork," and " Sandy Lick or Redbank Creek from the mouth up to the second fork."
March 12, 1800, all of Clarion county lying north of the river was taken from Lycoming to form part of the new county of Venango, and all south of the river was likewise cut off from Lycoming and annexed to the new county of Armstrong. There was no township organization of these sections till 1801 for Armstrong county, and 1806 for Venango.
1 Probably Baum and Rhea is the correct version of these names.
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HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY TO THE WAR OF 1812.
Absalom Travis - Securing Warrants - John Laughlin - Settlers from Westmoreland - From Centre County - Character of Pioneers -Pioneer Life - Mills -Churches - Schools - Pastimes - " First Things."
1792-1812.
0 F the settlement of Absalom Travis, the pioneer of Clarion county, few particulars have reached us. All that is known of him is that about 1790 he removed from New York, his native State, to the Black Lick settlement, Indiana county. There he remained but a short time, and about 1792-it is impossible to fix the date exactly-he came with his three sons, Robert, James, and Stephen, and squatted or settled on the spot now occupied by the farm of J. Barnhart, in the southeastern corner of Monroe township, Brodhead- Thomas tract No. 5589. He did not live long enough to reap the profit of his enterprise and labors ; he died on his humble homestead in or before 1795. His grave is still discernible.
We cannot but admire the hardihood of this, the first settler of Clarion county, in going forth at an advanced age, accompanied only by his family, to seek a home solitary, in the wilds, where the half-conquered savage yet roamed at will ; where the sound of the pioneer's ax had never disturbed the forest's depths, and nature in her most uncouth garb frowned at the efforts of man to smooth her ruggedness. He was many miles in advance of the northernmost settlements of Armstrong (then Northumberland and Westmoreland) county, and outstripped organized colonization by eight years.
It is not difficult to imagine what a panorama of Clarion county at the time of the arrival of Absalom Travis, would have presented. A vast expanse of forest, rugged and tangled, yet majestic, unbroken save by rare openings from which the smoke of the Indian camp ascended, or by windfalls where a storm had hurled the monarchs of the forest in impassable confusion. Here and there a dimly discernible Indian path traversed the waste ; sometimes the vivid rattlesnake darted across it. The deer, the bear, the wolf, and panther roamed everywhere ; a few elk were yet here ; the pheasant and wild turkey, and at night the dismal baying of wolves, made the air resonant at times. Otherwise the silence was only broken by the swaying of the limitless forest, the murmur of the streams, and an occasional shot from an Indian's rifle. Such was this region when this bold pioneer broke the spell of its vacancy and penetrated its unhospitable bosom.
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