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 118

Author:
Publication date:
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 118
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 118

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).

The earliest pioneers in the deep, wild woods were a silent and gloomy race of men. Their lives were too earnest to be frivolous. They prayed more than they laughed. Their thoughts and conversations were divided between bread in this world and heaven in the next. What men now call sport, and is a great recreation to some, was to these pioneers but a portion of their serious, silent labors. They pursued the chase and had to capture their meat or go to bed supperless. From the game they supplied their tables until such times as they could begin to raise their own pork.

A wedding then, as it always has been, was a great event, but both court- ing and wedding must have partaken somewhat of the general serious business habits of the people. A young man courted a neighbor's daughter a little af- ter the style of a business trip to buy of him a calf. He would hardly have the te- merity to venture up to her at church and ask to be her company home. This would have shocked the old folks of all the congregation. It would have been a case of dangerous rashness. It was hardly the proper thing to go visiting on Sun- day, and during the week he would have been missed from his regular work. And thus many a poor fellow must have worked and pined in painful silence. But love conquers all things, and in the end he would put on all the grim courage he could command and go, week day or Sunday, just as it happened when he reached the acting climax. The lovers had never spoken the soft words of first love together, but they had looked the language of the heart, and when in clean bibber he unexpectedly presented himself, even if there were half a dozen girls there, the particular one he wanted to see somehow managed to understand she was wanted, although the blushing swain would be unable probably to call for any one.

After making herself "smart," in the greatest of flurries, putting on a clean

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

gown perhaps, she would appear, and, upon the first sight of her, John would commence mumbling his errand. Perhaps in the bluntest language he could use, he told his mission, and as blunt a "yes," if it was all agreeable, would be the reply. The family would then be called in, the matter talked over, the old man would give his blunt consent and silently go to field to his work again, leaving all the small details for the family to discuss. In a few days would come the wedding, without a single invitation, unless the ceremony would be at the church, which was often the case, when all acquaintances were considered invited.

In the course of time these grew to be more ceremonious, and then there would be a day of merry feasting at the house of the bride, continued the next day at the home of the groom, and this last would be known as the "infair," eating and drinking on both occasions. The Quakers were always, when pos- sible, married in their church, the entire congregation signing the contract of marriage, as witnesses. The Catholics also repaired, when possible, to their church, because to them, too, the marriage ceremony was purely a religious ceremony, a solemn church rite that could only end in death. In none of them was there a mental reservation in their altar vows-none. None expected to rue, and but few ever rued, their bargain. And people had been living here nearly fifty years before we hear of an elopement from "bed and board," or before there was a divorce suit on the court records. These things came only with the innovations of time.

The average of education was low. Some could not send their children to school and were not able to teach them the first rudiments at home. The church schools were mostly for drilling in the catechism, whose meaningless words must have added confusion or nothing to the young minds. We can well un- derstand what a great general advance it was when the night or Saturday spell- ing school was eventually introduced. It brought the young people together in a slight social life, without those iron restraints that had previously surround- ed them. It stimulated greatly the first acquirement in their education. The best speller was a hero-no, generally a heroine, because girls can naturally outstrip the boys in learning to spell. It was no small accomplishment, and then very soon the children could begin to correct the reading and pronunciation of their par- ents in the daily Bible lessons. The men continued to dress in the plainest homespun, and the girls-girls they were then as they always will be, bless them-also dressed in homespun; but they had found, in the barks of trees and in herbs, coloring matter, and here the dear creatures rivaled each other, badgered their heated brains for beautiful designs and color combinations; and then a bright ribbon from the tramping pedlar, and the real woman began to bloom again before the dazzled eyes of men. Their hair, the solitary cheap ribbon, the bright colors in their frocks, were their implements of gratification to their own hearts and for invasion to the strong citadel of man's affections. The preachers were greatly alarmed, shocked-to put it mildly. They har- angued, they raved, and thundered anathemas at the sacrilegious ribbons, gim- cracks and awful furbelows; but, bless the dear, brave girls, they stood their ground heroically. As a rule they confessed their crime and promised amend- ment and put away the ribbon and tied up their curls. This satisfied the preachers and the cruel war was over; but it is now well known that as soon as the preachers' backs were turned, they redecked themselves a little gayer than ever, and employed their lovers to look out for the preacher, so as they could snap off the finery at his approach.

At first wind-mills were put upon the high hills to grind their cereals, then in a little while the plenteous streams over the country invited the erection of

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

water-mills. One was not greatly more reliable to do the work the year round than the other. In the winter the waters would be frozen and in the winter and summer alike, the winds would not always work the clumsy wind-mills. But soon, between the two, the people did not have to carry on pack horses to Baltimore or Chester their milling.

A simple, pastoral people, leading a hard life, was and is the summing up of their existence. The home and surroundings were of the rudest and plainest. Of what is now esteemed a luxury they had not one. It was all the bare neces- sitios of life. won only by the most patient and tireless industry. The economy they had been forced to learn was severe and pinching. Thus they had expo- rienced, before they came to the country, great trials, but they had to plant and grow here for some time before they eeased or were not often compelled to add experience to those severe lessons of the Old World.

Getting a Start. - This was the most trying ordeal to all the first comers. They didn't even find the Indian here with his simple culture of Indian corn and the very few simples that the squaws sometimes planted to the east and north of this. With little to do with, he had to commence from the very begin- ning. A few grains of corn or wheat, the seeds of an apple or peach, or a po- tato, and so on, were the only chance to get a start in the seeds that innst furnish his family bread. Soon the country, as have been all new countries, was full of malaria, and malarial fever and chills added their quota to the already hard lot of the people. They were without medicines, or the ability to procure them at any reasonable sacrifice or effort. A great want for health was a variety of food, and as a consequence they probably ate too much meat for the other food they could obtain. In the woods they could get a great abundance of meat. and here too they found the crab apple, the phun and the grape, and sometimes the paw-paw, as well as the many and delicious nuts that abounded plentifully. These were all life-giving to these poor people, and it is highly probable that they prevented the appearance of some dreadful epidemic- such as sometimes visited the large colonies in the great western prairies of Illinois, where people died to the extent sometimes of literally depopulating good sized settlements. Children wandered into the woods and gathered crab apples, grapes, nuts, and in the spring the wild onion, and certain vegetables that had acid in them, and these they ato freely. Except for this they must have all suffered from scurvy, because soon their almost constant diet was black bread and salt pork. But the limpid, sweet waters, the bracing mountain air and the variety they could find existing in the country, gave them rather vigorous health, and strong and hardy constitutions.

Their Commerce. - Nothing could have been more simple than this among these people. Their first dry goods stores were itinerant-pack pedlars. It was some time before the people had anything to sell and therefore they had but little to buy with. The pedlar and his pack was one of the valued and really valuable institutions of the country. His visits were few and far be- tween at first, and at the rate of a visit a year he could easily supply the de- mands upon his assortment, the chief of which, at one time, was an assortment of combs. And it was but seldom that you could not find somewhere a tuft of hair from a horse's tail, fastened with a pin in an anger hole, for the purpose of cleaning the combs. Where this work of civilization could not be found, you might take it for granted the family had been too poor to patronize, to that ex- tent, the pedlar. This itinerant merchant peddled his wares and retailed the news of the outside world. He was both merchant and newspaper. The elders of the family often detested him and his visits: they knew each visit meant some small purchase, but the younger members of the family looked to his

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

coming with bright anticipations, and as a rule, these young people only spent their own small change money they had made by their own labor and saved. Such was the family economy. In the course of time the pedlar came with a pack horse, and then he could take small lots of farm produee in exchange for his wares. This opened wide the doors of trade and traffic to the farmer's family.

And then began to come the first stores and locate at points where towns had probably been started, or at the cross-roads, or by the blacksmith and wag- on-makers' shops. This of itself was enough to at once start a town, and it was given a name; and to the young people, the children at least of the sur- rounding country, who heard of it and had never seen a town or a store, per- haps not even a smith's shop, did it become the Mecca of their dreams and hopes. They hoped to live to make the trip to see it. They would besiege father and mother to go with them on some of their rare visits "to town". Of course eventually their dreams became reality, though many of them were nearly grown men and women first, and behold them in the town, open mouthed, wide eyed and generally clinging closely to father's or mother's hands, or mother's apron, their hearts beating wildly as they look for the first time upon this new, strange world. The family wagon would probably stop first at the smithy, to have a plow sharpened. and here the young novice saw the most astounding, the most incredible and indescribable things. The din, the flam- ing, blowing forge, the red hot iron, the flying sparks, that would certainly burn any one else in a moment's time, the brawny blacksmith and his great leathern apron, the strange sulphurous smell, all combined, made an impression upon the virgin mind that was never erased. It was crowding a lifetime into a moment. From thence to the one store of the place, and here again what expansive wonders break upon the senses. Their eyes were bewildered -- here was everything in the world that was good and beautiful. The peculiar smell of molasses, sugar, pelts, game, shoes, calico, whisky, cheap spices, new leather, tobacco, eggs in every stage and other odds and ends of the small trading and trafficking of the room, made as distinct and lasting an impression, as had already been made upon the eyes. Amazement and awe were running a race in the young mind. How blind had been their dreams of all this wonderland. They would not have laid even the weight of a finger upon the rough counter for worlds. They could no more have sat down on the ends of some of the boxes that were the only seats in the place. than they could have comfortably seated themselves upon the curling smoke. They preferred to stand up, and vigorously bite the ends of the fing- ers and gaze and gaze in an ecstasy of awe and wonder. It was all they could do. It was their first lesson in the great voyage, the quick and stormful voy- age across the face of the earth-from the unknown to the unknown.

Receptions. - The primitive "reception days" by the most distinguished families were the "house raisings." What splendid times, what gay and dis- tinguished frolics were these! No Jenkins was there to describe the splendor of the toilets, or tell who leaned upon whose arm as they filed into the 8 P. M. dinner. Some new neighbor had arrived, or some new married couple wanted to go to housekeeping, and word was sent to all the neighbors and from near and far they came-all came; and even sometimes the women came, and while the men worked at the new house, and worked like heroes on a wager, too, the women put in a quilt and also worked the live-long day. The women's work was not so violent as the men's, but they made ample amends for this in the talk and gossip that ran like the swollen waters when they break away an ob- structing dam. The new house and the quilt would be completed about the same time-all racing with the setting sun.

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

Improvements. - When we reflect on the cheapness of the land at that time, the land elaims and the improvements were not large to the average family domains. Probably an average would have been 100 acres. But these people after once here were driven by eireumstances to regard small holdings as the safest and best, and their highest ambition was to rear their families respecta- bly, give them some little education, and a fair start in the world, and the lands continuing cheap they could easily acquire all they wanted or needed for themselves. This was the average, from which of course there were many ex- ceptions. They fully succeeded in their laudable ambitions. It was very rarely they contracted debts, and year by year, even if little or no ready money came to them, they saw their possessions grow in value. Their children were being trained in economy and industry, growing up to take their places and carry on the work when old age should take them from the active duties of life.

All over the Old World, especially in England and on the continent, the habits of the people generally had been for centuries to eat enormous quanti- ties of meat, and drink heavily of the coarsest and strongest liquors they could obtain. In 1684 gin was discovered, and a generation of English people were the vilest of sots. Signs were put up at the gin shops to "come and get drunk for a penny." and "for two pence you can become very drunk," and "free straw will be furnished in the cellar to sleep it off." In the great London riot, when the drunken mob held the city for three days and nights, the mob rolled the gin barrels to the front doors and knocked in the heads, and the gutters were running with the liquid. Women and children drank from the gutters, many gorging themselves and dying on the streets; many more reeled and fell and lay in stupor and were burned by the falling and burning buildings where they helplessly lay. The average farmers' choicest pastimes were drinking bouts, where they drank to insensibility. In many a fashionable city circle, the boast was how many had attended the gatherings at different families, and how much they drank. and how many fell under the table.

In the course of a few years some of the people who prospered most, be- came wealthy enough to purchase and bring here their negro slaves. A few immigrants brought their negroes with them when they came. Slavery con- tinued here in full force and effect until 1828. With the introduction here of slaves, came, what some writer has designated "the most venomous worm" - the worm of the still. And these small hand stills were erected on many of the farms. In fact among the earliest publication of notice of sale of a farm it was not uncommon to state, as a special inducement to purchasers, that there were "two stills of good capacity on the elegant plantation." They made whisky of corn and wheat and rye, apple-jack of apples, and brandy of their seedling peaches. It was all pure, fiery and strong. They could get, for instance, only a little over a gallon of whisky from a bushel of corn (now they make over four gallons); yet everything was so cheap that they could manu- facture it at prices that would seem incredit le to the present generation.

Drinking was allowe l to every one; they drank in quantities that now would swiftly bring death and destruction. Yet drunkenness was sternly frowned upon. Among the Quakers, especially, it was not permitted, and to this day on their old church records are written out and signed and witnessed the con- fessions of members who humbly acknowledged their grevious sin, giving the day and date and place where they had thoughtlessly swallowed too much, and promising earnestly to sin no more. And occasionally some preacher would be arraigned for habitual drunkenness, and, while the evidence would sometimes be elear and positive, we find no instance of a conviction and deg- radation for the offense. To explain this a little, there was one case in the

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

county where the synod convicted and sentenced the offender to dismissal, but the plucky congregation would not so have it, and in the face of the orders of the authorities they retained their preacher. The general habits of the peo- ple, the heavy diet of salt pork and black bread of which they eat so heartily, enabled them to drink great quantities of the liquor made at their own stills without serious bad effects, and in the long monotony of their lives is the ample excuse for their doing so. Let us believe, what was probably true, that they actually needed this stimulant of which they partook in great quantities, but nearly always at stated and regular times of the day. They were not physi- cally debauched by any indulgence they partook of. They were left possessed of sound minds and strong and vigorous bodies, and they transmitted to their children sound constitutions. They generally attained great age, and to this day a strong mark of their descendants is a springing vitality that does and will carry them to more than the three score and ten years of active life.

Many of the first and second generations of women took their places beside the men in the hard work of the field. Here they delved and toiled until often their hands became too stiff and horny to handle the needle at all. They could bake the bread on Saturday for the coming week, and then fry the meat and sometimes make a pot of black coffee, and this was the sum of the cooking. Dishes were a few pewter plates, often the head of the family being the only one honored with a plate, while the others ate with their bare hands mostly; therefore the dish washing was a small affair in clearing away the table after a meal.

The growth and change from these simple habits of the early day were very slow indeed. The young people accepted their manners and customs from the parents and as unimpaired as possible, transmitted them in turn to their chil- dren. The long war of the Revolution forced upon them many of the first changes in their modes of life. It compelled the people to band more gen- erally together; they met on serious matters of life and death in larger bodies, and men extended their acquaintance greatly with their fellow-men. Young men who had never been ten miles from the farm where they had first settled, joined the army and started ont to fight for liberty, and in their travels they saw something of the outside world. In these hard and cruel marches they learned much of their own country, and iu the march, the encampment, the prisons, the battle-fields, the bivouacs of those days that tried meu's souls, they learned rapidly of their fellow-men. They came in contact with men of different ideas, manners and customs. They uewly tested themselves and tested others, and each one brought many new ideas back to his old home when the war was over. It was a wonderful discipline and school for these simple children of the woods. A feeble nation struggling in distress and poverty, fighting a rich and powerful enemy, and wresting victory in the end from the foe, are not apt to come out of the severe ordeal with that general demoralization that is so often the doleful afterpiece of war. This happy exemption was the great distinguishing mark of our forefathers of the Revolution. They returned from the army, resumed their places on their farms and were ouly better citizens than before. What

they had seen and heard, and the hard experiences they had passed, only made them that much better citizens, and there were enough of these men scattered through every community to bear up the civilization of the day and push it along -advance it in every line. To a large extent, too, that war broke up the exclu- sive clanishness that had before marked different communities, especially those who spoke different languages. The impetuous Scotch-Irishman learned that the phlegmatic Dutchman would fight and fight all day and all night if necessary, sturdily giving or receiving blows to the death. And. vice versa, the German,

J.S. Schick

IIISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

learned to love his Irish mossmate for his many good qualities in moments of great trial and danger. The Macs and the Vons came back from the war, and they would visit each other; their families became acquainted. The young folks would fall in love, of course, and marry, and hence to this day you need not, when you meet a Mr. MeSomething, commence your Irish blarney upon him, because as likely as not it will turn ont he is a German by descent. And this is quite as true of the Vons as the Macs. This was a happy solution of the once ill-conditioned question of nationality that prevailed in this county.

CILAPTER XIII.

SKETCHES AND ETCHINGS-THE MCCLEANS-THE MCPHERSONS-GEN. REED -- DR. CRAWFORD-COL. STAAGLE-COL. GRIER-VICTOR KING-JUDGE BLACK- THADDEUS STEVENS-PATRICK MCSHERRY-COL. HANCE HAMILTON-THE CULPS-WILLIAM MCCLELLAN-CAPT. BETTINGER-JAMES COOPER.

THE McCLEANS. - Among the earliest settlers in this portion of Pennsyl- vania, 1733, was William McClean, a Scotchman. From this man has come a long race of eminent and influential men. In Illinois is the rich and populous county of McLean, and in the southern portion of the same State is the town of MeLeansboro, and from the Atlantic at least west to the Missis- sippi are to be found evidences of the McClean family in the lineal and latteral lines in nearly every State. The name is spelled McClean mostly, as used by the family of Pennsylvania, but frequently the capital "C" is dropped, as we find it in Illinois. The original William McClean settled in Montgomery County, and in two years removed to York County. He had nine children. His first was Archibald and second Moses, and as these two and their families are a part of the history of York and Adams County, we confine our record to them. Archibald was born October 26, 1736.

The other sons, younger brothers of Archibald and Moses, were William. Samuel, John, James and Alexander, all surveyors, and all at one time or another assistants to the eldest, Archibald, in the survey of what is now Mason and Dixon's line. Archibald and Moses became deputy surveyors of York Conn- ty, Abraham in the east part of the county, and Moses in what is now Adams County. They laid out "Carroll's Delight," and Archibald, Moses and Will- iam, three brothers, secured fine farms in this tract. All the McCleans were early and distinguished defenders of their country in the days of the Revolu- tion. Archibald was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1776. He was president of a revolutionary meeting in York for "taking effectual meas- ures for putting a stop to forestalling, extortion and the depreciation of the continental currency." This was June 18, 1779. No men in the country were more active and prominent in these terrible times than the MeCleans. Ar- chibald lost nearly all his property by the depreciation of the continental money.

Moses McClean was born January 10, 1737. in what is now Adams County. He died September 10, 1810. Col. Moses McClean was one of the distinguished citizens aud soldiers of the Revolution, being one of the first captains mustered into the service in Col. Hartley's Eleventh Regiment, Pennsylvania line. In 1780-83 he was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature. The eldest

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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

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