History of Cumberland and Adams counties, Pennsylvania. Containing history of the counties, their townships, towns, villages, schools, churches, industries, etc.; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of Pennsylvania, statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc, Part 117

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Publisher: W. Taylor
Number of Pages: 1280

USA > Pennsylvania > Adams County > History of Cumberland and Adams counties, Pennsylvania. Containing history of the counties, their townships, towns, villages, schools, churches, industries, etc.; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of Pennsylvania, statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc > Part 117
USA > Pennsylvania > Cumberland County > History of Cumberland and Adams counties, Pennsylvania. Containing history of the counties, their townships, towns, villages, schools, churches, industries, etc.; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of Pennsylvania, statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc > Part 117

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BIRDS.

The birds of the county are not very numerous. The following is a list:

Wild Turkey .- Black Eagle, Gray Eagle, Bald Eagle .- IIawks (6 varieties), Great Northern Shrike, Tur- key Buzzard, Turkey Crow .- Owls (6 varieties, including snow Owl) .- Pheasant, Partridge, Woodcock, English Snipe, Upland Plover, Golden Plover, Bull Plover, Rail (2 varieties), Reed Bird, Wild Pigeon, Turtle Dove .- Large Blue Crane, Heron, Willet, Yellow Shanks, American Bitteru, Sand Piper, King Fisher .-- Wild Goose .-- Red Head Duck, Mallard Duck, Blue Wing Teal, Spoonbill, Sprig Tail, Wood Duck, Summer Duck, Loon (2 varieties) .- Wren, Chippen, Tom Tit, English Sparrow, Indigo, Pee Weet, Martin. Bee Martin, Blue Bird, Chimney Swallow, Barn Swallow. Bank Swallow, Cow or Redwinged Black, Crow Black Bird, Bell Bird, Rain Bird .- Mocking Bird, Cat Bird, Thrush. Robin, Meadow Lark, Goldfinch, Golden Robin or Baltimore Oriole, Bull-finch, Cardinal or Gros Beak, Yellow or Salad Bird .- Whippoorwill, Bull Bat, Common Bat .- Woodchuck, Wood Pecker, Yellow Hammer or Flicker, Sap Sucker (3 varieties).

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

CHAPTER XI.

ROADS-TURNPIKES-RAILROADS-BALTIMORE & HANOVER RAILROAD- GETTYS- BURG & HARRISBURG ROAD-THE OLD "TAPE WORM" LINE.

I OR many years there were no roads for transportation or travel, except a species of paths and ways through the forests and across the unbridged streams used for the trains of pack-horses, on which all transportation to Balti- more and other markets was then carried on. There were men who had their regular train of horses, each horse carrying about 250 pounds weight; the head horse was belled, and one man riding in front and one in the rear controlled the caravan. These early freighters violently opposed the building of roads, as it would destroy their business.

The first road opened in Adams County was in 1742, when two petitions were sent up by the citizens of Marsh Creek settlement (Gettysburg) and vicinity. William Ruddock, Richard Proctor, John Sharp, Benjamin Cham- bers and James Ruddock were appointed to view and lay out a road from the settlement to York and Lancaster. It was opened and corresponded very nearly to the route of the Gettysburg & York Pike.

It was yet to be more than half a century before there would be any mails carried to this portion of the country. In 1683 the colonial governors began to establish post routes in this State, Penn paying employes a commission there- for. Letters to this part of the world, however, were carried by travelers and chance traders. But a more complete account of these matters will be found in the chapter on "postoffices."

Turnpikes .- The Gettysburg & Petersburg Turnpike road was chartered March 7, 1807. An organization was effected, with Alexander Cobean, president. The managers were Alexander Russell, Walter Smith, Peter Saunders, Thomas Sweeny, Philip Bishop, Andrew Shriver; treasurer, Alex Dobbin. In Sep- tember. 1SOS, notice for bids to construct the road were published.

The Gettysburg & Black's Tavern Turnpike was chartered and organized in 1811. The first commissioners were John Edie, William Hamilton, Will- iam McPherson, Samuel Sloan, Mathew Longwell, James Black. The meet- ing to elect officers was held in Gettysburg May 28, 1811.

In June, 1809, Ralph Lashells started a hack line from Gettysburg to York Sulphur Springs, leaving Gettysburg Monday and returning Wednesday.

The turnpike from Galluchas' saw-mill in this county to Chambersburg was chartered in 1809, and the company was organized in May following.

The Gettysburg & York Pike road was organized 1804. At first it was the York & Susquehanna road, and in 1811 the provisions of the act were extended to the York & Gettysburg road. Jacob Cassat, Jacob Hahn and Jacob Metzger were the commissioners to report concerning the building of it. The road was only completed December 15, 1819. May 2, 1818, an election of the first officers was held in Abottstown; president, Alexander Cobean; treasurer, George Upp; secretary, Alexander Russell; managers, William McPherson, George Hassler, John Hersh, Fredrick Baugher, Jacob Smyser (tanner), Jacob Smyser (farmer), Thomas Eichelberger, Henry Wolf,

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

Henry King, Peter Butt, George Dashiells and John Murphy. Jacob Spangler inade the survey. There were two toll-gates in York and two in Adams County.

Railroads. - The first survey of the Hanover & Littlestown Railroad was made by Civil Engineer J. S. Gitt, in November, 1855. A charter was soon after re- ceived. On the 4th of July, 1857, the work of construction was begun at Littles- town. A speech was made by William McSherry, the president of the rail- road, and two bands discoursed fine music. After a bounteous repast in a grove, near by, other speeches were made and the work started. The completion of the road was celebrated just one year from the time of beginning. It joined the Hanover Branch at Hanover, and the first trains were run on July 1, 1858. This road was operated for a number of years after its completion by the Hanover Branch Railroad until its lease by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It now forms a part of the Frederick Division of that railroad.

Baltimore & Hanover Railroad .- The company which controls and oper- ates this road was organized in the year 1877. It connects the Western Mary- land Railroad at Emory Grove with the Bachman Valley Railroad near Black Rock Station, in York County, and these constitute, with the Hanover Junc- tion, Hanover & Gettysburg Railroad, a continuous line from Baltimore to Gettysburg. These lines of roads pass through a well cultivated, rich and productive agricultural country. After leaving Emory Grove on the line of the Western Maryland Railroad, seventeen miles from Baltimore, the road grad- ually ascends, running parallel with and in close proximity to the Hanover & Baltimore Turnpike. One great point gained to the southwestern end of York . County by the building of the Baltimore & Hanover and the Bachman Valley Railroads, was that they opened up a section of country in which the soil is susceptible of being highly improved by the application of fertilizers, especially lime and phosphates. The facilities thus offered for their introduction at a moderate cost were promptly availed of by the industrious and enterprising farmers, the results of which are now shown in crops which compare favorably with those raised in limestone land. A short line taps this road at Red Hill, running north by east through Abbottstown and terminating at East Berlin.

Gettysburg & Harrisburg Road .- This now elegant railroad from Gettys- burg to Harrisburg was completed in April, 1SS4. It had been built some years previously to the southern part of Cumberland County, and was originally intended to run only to the Pine Grove Mines, but the growing importance and the needs of Adams County soon made it a necessity to extend it to this place. The opening was duly celebrated July 4, 1884, by an ox-roast and picnic at Round Top Park, under the auspices of Col. John H. Mcclellan, who contrib- uted the fatted ox, and provided for the multitude. Dr. Kiefer was the orator of the day.

The Old "Tape Worm" Line was commenced to be built in 1835, under the State auspices. The era of internal improvements then ran all over our coun- try, and nearly bankrupted many States. It was originally intended as a road to start at Gettysburg, and bearing southwest to somewhere strike the Baltimore & Ohio Road. Thaddeus Stevens stood as godfather a long time to this enter- prise, as it was to run to his furnaces in Franklin County. The State made appropriations and work commenced all along the line in this county and beyond. Cuts were made and embankments thrown up. The State stopped appropriations, and practically to this day the work on the road stopped. Two years ago it passed into the hands of the Hanover road, and they have now com- pleted it to eight miles west from Gettysburg, and will soon extend it on an inter- section of the western Maryland Railroad. This will add greatly to the ship- · ping facilities of Adams County.

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

CHAPTER XII.

CUSTOMS AND MANNERS-DISTINCT STREAMS OF IMMIGRANTS-INDUSTRY AND RELIGION-GETTING A START-THEIR COMMERCE-RECEPTIONS-IMPROVE- MENTS.

A LREADY we have traced settlements in this county as far back as 1734. It was the merest chance that threw in our way the authentic records of this date and who it was that came that year. Possibly there may have been set- tlers here before that, a short time, but there is not in the world, so far as we can learn, a trace of evidence of this fact, and now there is no tradition.

This much is history. There came here four separate and distinct streams of immigrants, and each one pushed its separate way into the wilderness about the same time. They were as distinct upon their first coming as it was possible for communities well to be. The Irish, the Dutch, the Germans and the English, are the three broad divisions that mark these separate people. The Dutch and Irish were Calvinists in religion, and this was largely the only bond of affinity between them. The Quakers were the English, and such odds and ends of nationalities as existed here at the first. Then there were the Cath- olies, coming up from Maryland. Although the Penns were Quakers, yet they seem to have been wholly impartial in the bestowal of lands and rights upon people of any and all faiths and creeds. They had been just and liberal to the Indians, and they seem to have carried out this broad catholic spirit toward all mankind that sought the shelter of their protecting wings. Considering the religious spirit of the age, the universal intolerance and bigotry that prevailed, we cannot too much admire the generous greatness of the action of these pro- prietaries of the province. They must have acted without precedent in the face of settled conclusions by the world's rulers at that time, and yet their con- duet is a model that may still be closely followed, and it is a pity that the bloom and glory of the present great century, that is so rapidly closing, have not vet reached, to our common humanity's misfortune, the high level of liberality that here marked an age that we have taught ourselves to regard as only half emerging, in many respects, from the dark and gloomy days of semi-barbarism.

There was apparently no connecting link in the coming here of these sep- arate streams. Each had been moved by its own volition, and pursued in par- allel routes what then must have been a dark and devious way. The Quakers came sparingly only into what is now the northeast part of the county. The Irish and Dutch, and that scattering class that made up the remainder of the first settlers, had behind them a stronger propelling power, and they soon over- ran the county.

As early as 1740, while this was still a part of Lancaster County, we find people in all portions of what is now Adams County. To indicate beyond all doubt the nationality in each part of the county, we give the following names of representative men. These are the names of men who were known to the authorities at Lancaster. We gather this official information from the archives at the capital. They were appointed, upon the formation of York County, as the overseers of the poor, as follows: Tyrone, Robert Mellvain and Finley MeGrew; Strabane, David Turner and James Stevenson; Menallen, John Gilli-

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

land and John Lawrence; Cumberland, John McFarren and David Porter; Hamiltonban, James Agnew and William Waugh; Mountjoy, James Hunter and William Gibson; Germany, Jacob Koontz and Peter Little; Mountpleasant, William Black and Alexander McCarter; Heidelberg, Peter Schultz and Andrew Shriver (Schreiber); Berwick, Casper Weiser and George Baker.

The records show that these townships were formed as early as 1750, and at that time the York County authorities made these appointments.

They were, all classes, a distinct and marked race of men. They nearly all were fugitives from religious persecution in the Old World. They had been hunted across the face of the earth with a relentless ferocity. Their progeni- tors were, in nearly every instance, a race of men that was ever ready for martyrdom for conscience sake, and the warring elements in which they had been born and nurtured had fully developed their natures into the fiercest elements of heart and brain. For the slightest shade of a religious opinion they were ever ready to defy the powers of man, and, if necessary, without a cringe offer up their lives, go to the rack, the dungeon, the pillory, the stake or the block. Mostly, the immigrants who came here were of such a race as we have described. Then when we reflect that the children born of such a parentage had met in their native homes such an agony of cruelties, such shocking and destructive persecutions, it is to us almost inconceivable how prolonged and cruel it must have been to drive them to this new. strange world. Thus equipped for the great work before them, here they came. They came seeking peace and quiet, freedom of person, and, most important of all, freedom to worship God ex- actly as they pleased. As a rule they were very poor in purse, and, among the Dutch and Germans especially, many of them, who had started with enough to bring them in comfort to our shores, had been cruelly robbed by dishonest agents and assumed friends. Often to such extent was this the case that upon landing upon our shores the poor creatures found themselves in the clutches of cormorants, and had to indenture themselves, and become almost literally slaves to work out the outrageous claims made upon them. This must have been quite common, as we judge from the great numbers of indentured servants that may yet be found traces of in the early records. We are aware that it is true that some of these had agreed to thus dispose of themselves before they had left the Old World to come to the New, as this was the only possible resource left them whereby they could reach this promised haven. Hence, while at the first coming all were poor, yet we find some who were, just as we find people in these days of so-called plenty, incomparably poorer than their neighbors. They not only had nothing literally, but there was a mortgage on their labor for about all that part of their working lives that could be made to yield any- thing.

Circumstances drove those speaking a foreign language into closer colonies than necessarily it did the English speaking people. The Dutch especially were driven closely within themselves. In a neighborhood there would be a very few that could speak a few words of broken English, and this was all.

These immigrants landed on our shores, and with hardly a halt began to push their way to where they could find unoccupied lands. This was their first subject of consideration, and here they stopped as soon as they found it. In the intensity of their new found joys of freedom and land-land that they could hope to own, and thus fill the once utopian dream of their lives of being real land owners-it is hoped they forgot the repelling features, the dangers and gloom that otherwise would have settled upon them at the end of their long journeys, and the first realizations of their arrival in the wilderness.

Industry and Religion. - These were the strong marks of all the early settlers,

DO Mlable

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

without regard to race. They would land, sometimes, one wagon to several families, and, in some instances, there was wagon room enough to sleep the women and children, and where this was the case, the arrangement was regarded as very comfortable indeed. When there was no wagon a brush tent was made, and here the entire family housed until the first rude cabin could be put up. The clapboard cabin once up and the elated family moved in, then, floor less and doorless as it was, there was real, solid family rejoicing. It was the first feel- ing of triumphant victory over their long days of doubt and sore trial. In- deed, it was much more -- it was home. It was their world, conquered and won by their own strong arms and bravo hearts, and in this struggle father, mother and all the children had partaken. The father was the commanding captain, but he commanded as loyal a squad as was ever mustered upon this earth. Bless these honest, bravo, simple folk! They gave a new meaning, almost a new name, to that sweetest of words in our language -- Home.

The descendants of these brave old pioneers who are so fortunate as to pos- sess, to this day, one of these spots where the smoke of the first cabin of their ancestors rose upon the unvexed air, may well regard it as hallowed ground.

Once housed, the work of their simple lives commenced. Here every tod- dler even contributed all he could. The men felled the trees, the women and children gathered and burned the brush, and to this general outdoor work there was but slight variation in the way of time used by the women in cook- ing. If they had a little black bread and cold meat, their dinner was sumptu- ons indeed. They attacked their simple fare with enormous appetites. Their outdoor lives gave them health and a vigorous digestion.

In the midst of this work-a-day life there was no time when their family worship was neglected. Their Bible and prayer-book were the sum of their books to read. The old board-bound Bibles were thumbed and dog-eared by horny hands, and the religions precepts were often slowly spelled out, and the most carping critic, had he witnessed the honest sincerity, would have forgot- ten at once the fearful mispronunciations that must have passed from sire to son as distinguishing family marks.

Without ever stopping to rest a moment, as soon as there were half a lozen families that could call each other neighbors, they commenced the effort of a church and schoolhouse. In those days these were always one. When the first passing preacher would visit them and hold service, it constituted a great event, a gala day. They called him blest, and lifted up their hearts in joy. In their cheerless log meeting-houses the sermon could not be long enough for these long-fasting people. It could not be too dry and dogmatical. They wanted this and the severest morals that could be proclaimed from the pulpit. To them the Bible was the literal word of God and without the figure of speech in it. They believed with all their heart and soul, and believed literally, and then at their hard, daily toil they treasured up the long sermon and its divisions, and when people conversed it was about what the dear preacher, that God had sent them, had said on this point of doctrine and on that. The sum total of their ambition was to be good citizens and live in the hope of heaven.

The parental authority was unbending, and in the few simple arrangements of their lives it was nearly supreme. This was but another manifestation of their full to overflowing religions sentiments. And when they read in their Bibles: "Children, be obedient to your parents," they became the old patri- archs, and thus the command was not only a filial duty, but it was a stern religious obligation.

They were without other diversions and amusements except their unremit-

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

ting labors in the field, or their rare opportunities for attendance upon church worship. They were wholly satisfied, it seems, with these. By the second season the increase of house room would be noticed. Out-buildings would be put up, the little stock they possessed housed, and nearly as well housed as the family. A porch, or rather a wide covered shed, would appear in front of the cabin for purposes of storage, and in good weather here the family met, . worked, conversed, and passed much of their time, as well as received their neighbors' visits, now growing to be an important feature in their routine lives. At long intervals some one in the colony would perhaps get a letter from the old home, and upon its most trifling words the people would listen open- mouthed, with bated breaths.

This thrift continued, and soon a more pretentious log house was reared adjoining the first small cabin. This in rare cases had two rooms, and, whether one or two rooms, there would be a spacious "loft." A ladder reached this upper story-generally the boudoir of the big girls-the store- house of richest treasures. Here would be long strings of peppers, dried pumpkins, apples, bunches of sage, precious strings of garlic decocrating the walls, and hanging in festoons from the rafters, flanked by dresses, dimity, and home made furbelows, such only as could be appreciated or understood by those daughters of the pioneers-the good and sainted great-grandmothers of this generation. Many and many a comfortable mansion of those days had not so much iron in all its structure as a nail. Then the saying: "My latch- string is always open to you," was full of meaning, and a welcoming invitation to come, pull the latch-string, open the door, and, without ceremony, walk in.

The agriculture of the farmers was of the mnost primitive character, their implements being few and of the clumsiest construction. One small, inferior pony was a whole family pride, when once possessed. A yoke of oxen, some- times a cow yoked with an ox, or a yoke of cows, a wooden plow lined at the base with a strip of iron, a home-made wagon-the melodious old truck- with its solid wheels cut from a large tree, made round, and a hole in the center for the axle-tree, and greased with soft soap, and when this began to wear out its call for more would ring over the hills and far away like the dying yells of a fabled monster-all these were wealth to them.

The people of to-day cannot appreciate the amount of misdirected effort there was among these people-labor thrown away, because they had to exper- iment and learn all only by experiment. They understood slowly the necessi- ties and qualities of the new world in which they were, and we can gain only a faint idea of this by reflecting that, to this day, men are experimenting and still improving in planting, both as to the kind of seed to plant and the best mode of putting it in the ground.

The very first consideration always with a settler in a new country is water. And in this respect it is not hazarding much in saying that, for domestic pur- poses, Adams County is the best watered spot on the globe. Certainly there can be none superior to it. Springs bubble up their sparkling waters everywhere; the silvery, cool, sweet mountain streams ripple; the clear valley brooks winding their way in the deep shade and the bright sunshine are upon every side, all of clear, pure granite water, with no trace of the limestone; and by drilling through the upper granite, as is found in the Gettysburg water-works, great and inexhaustible lakes of the same pure, cold, sweet water are to hand. Hence, everywhere in the county is inexhaustable water, and under the test of the microscope there is found less of animal matter in it than in any other known water.

To these springs and clear streams the women went to do the family wash-

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

ing, where the clothes were paddled clean with a heavy paddle made for the purpose, after the method of their ancestors from time immemorial. Every- where the spining-wheel was in use, and the females always greatly prided themselves on the dexterons handling of this stay of the family. It was the only musical instrument these good dames ever had, -the peculiar whirr and hum of the wheel, rising and falling, dying away to the faintest sounds only to com- mence again and again; and there was no child of that day in its hollow log cradle but remembered all his life this eternal lullaby-a sweet, sweet song now lost forever. Then followed the bang, bang of the busy loom, where warp and woof were beaten together, where the clothing was made for all the family, the bed clothing, too. the articles of general use about the house, the ornamental hangings as well-linsey-wolsey and linen and tow. The white goods were then bleached until they vied with the driven snow in whiteness, and the greatest pride of the good housewife was here found in the perfection of the goods that came from her deft hands. The writer has been shown a piece of cotton-linen, made by the grandmother and great annt of the proud possessor. The seed of the cotton and flax were planted, grown and pulled by them, and every process to the perfected cloth was by their hands alone, and no more perfect piece of cloth ever came from the loom. What a rich inheritance this piece of goods is? What a history it possesses to even the veriest stranger. A mere look at it and one can almost revivify the nimble fingers, and feel the warm life breath again that wrought here so deftly, so long, so long ago. A hundred years have sped away since last they looked upon it, and its associations rewarmed their hearts; yet this long chasm of time is bridged, the moldered hands again are warm and nimble, the beam of wistful eyes, the holy smile of love shines down through these long, long corridors of time. Thus by such simple trifles we live on and on, and forever renew those lives that did not live in vain.

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Author: Publication date: Publisher: W. Taylor Number of Pages: 1280

Author:
Publication date:
Publisher: W. Taylor
Number of Pages: 1280