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 56

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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 56
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 56

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" Look now abroad-another race has filled These populous borders; wide the wood recedes, And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are tilled; The land is full of harvests and green meads."

The earliest settlers in the township were, as everywhere in the county, the Scotch-Irish. Among them were the McCunes, Sharps, Sterritts, Fultons, Graceys, Mickeys, Scroggs, Kilgores, Beattys and others. Some of the descendants of these are still in the possession of the homes where their ancestors settled. Much of the land in Newton Township had not been taken up at the time of its formation in 1767. A tract of 100 acres, partly in New- ton and partly in Mifflin Township, was taken up by Robert McCoome in 1746; one was located, of 100 acres, by John Herman in 1752; James Kilgore and Samuel Williamson also each took up a tract this year; John and Hugh Laughlin took up tracts, of 200 acres each, in 1766, and George Thompson 100 acres, while in the following year, 1767, when the township was formed, tracts were taken up by Samuel Bratton, Matthew Boyd, William Carnahan, Joseph Eager, Robert Mickey, William Nicholson and others.

By far the largest amount of land, however, seems to have been taken up in 1794, during which year twenty-five tracts of 400 acres each, aggregating 10,000 acres, were taken up by the following twenty-five persons: William Auld, Horace and John Bratton, Samuel Dickenson, Thomas Heeling, Josiah Lewis, Atcheson and John Laughlin, Adam and George Logue, James Lam- berton, William and Henry Miller, James Moore, William McFarlan, Samuel McClintock, William McCracken, Mark and William McCasland, Benjamin, David, George and Alexander McCune and George Wilson.

David Rawlston also took up a tract of several hundred acres on the Big Pond during this year 1794 .* Many tracts of land on the North Mountain, from Doubling Gap to Sterrett's Gap, were taken up by various parties in 1794. Nearly all of the early inhabitants of Newton Township were Scotch- Irish Presbyterians, and among those who came at about or before this time

*There were probably earlier warrants than we have mentioned, as of some known to have existed we can find no record.

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NEWTON TOWNSHIP.

was a minister, who settled at Big Spring, whose grandfather, John Brown, a pious carrier of Mnir Kirk Parish, Scotland, was shot, in 1685, by Graham of Claverhouse. It was not until near the closo of the last century that a few German families began to come into the lower portion of tho township. They settled on the pine lands along the mountain. Before 1802 they had erected a small church, which was known as the Dutch Meeting- House. Among these were the Seavers, Thrushes, Frys, Brickers and others. Until after 1530 the German inhabitants of Newton constituted but a small portion of its population; to-day they own much of the most desirable land in the southern portion of the township.

Among the families still represented in Cumberland County by numerous descendants, were the Sharps, who settled in Newton Township at an early period. The ancestor was Thomas Sharp, but the first who came to America was his son Robert. He came over at a very early age, and soon returned to the North of Ireland, where they had immigrated at some previous period from Scotland, and persuaded his father to bring his family over. This was not later than 1746." Thomas Sharp, the father, had married Margaret Elder, the daughter of a Scottish laird, by whom he had five sons and five daughters. All of these owned lands afterward in Cumberland County, in the neighborhood of the Big Spring. These were Robert, Alexander, Andrew (killed by the In- dians). John and James. Of the daughters one married John McCune, an- other James Hemphill, another --- Fullerton, another John Smith of Lurgan Township, now Franklin but then Cumberland County, and another

Harper, father of the late William Harper of Dickinson Township. All of these sons, except Andrew, and all the husbands of the daughters, lived and died in the neighborhood of the Big Spring. Their bones and those of their children, and many of their children's children are buried there, in the old grave yard of the United Presbyterian Church at Newville. All of these sons of Thomas Sharp were, with the exception of Alexander, commissioned officers in the Indian war or the Revolution. Alexander went as a private. The chil- dren of Alexander, who married Margaret McDowell, were Andrew, Rev. Alex- ander Sharp, Dr. William M. Sharp, John, the father of Gen. Alexander Brady Sharpe, of Carlisle, known as "John Sharp of the Barrens;" Col. Thomas Sharp, elder, who died unmarried, aged nineteen, and Ellen, who married Samnel MeCune. Rev. Alexander Sharp married Elizabeth Bryson, and his children were Dr. Alexander Sharp, who married Nelly Dent, a sister of the wife of Gen. Grant, and Andrew, who was the father of the late Hon. J. McDowell Sharp. born in Newton Township, one of the ablest lawyers in Pennsylvania, and one of the most prominent members of the Constitutional Convention in 1872-73. Rev. Alexander Sharp lived on the Green Spring, and was pastor of the church at Newville (Big Spring), from 1824 until the time of his death in January, 1857.

Alexander Sharp, the son of Thomas, the ancestor, was the largest land- owner in the township, his tract extending from near Newville to the turnpike above Stoughstown, a distance of about four miles in length and several miles in breadth. nearly all of which, variously divided, is in the hands of his de- scendants to this day. It bordered on the north on the headwaters of the Green Spring, the right to the watercourse of which stream was the cause of the long war between the Sharps and Kilgores. That litigation, after old Mr. Kilgore had been nearly impoverished by it, was brought to an end by the in-

"Two tracts, one of 200 acres another of 20, are found in the list of land warrants as takeu up by Thomas Sharp in May, 1744. James Sharp, a brother of Robert and son of Thotuas, is one of the signers of a petition from Cumberland County to Gov Hamilton for aid against the Indiaus July, 1754. See Rupp's History of Cum- berland County, etc., page 65.

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HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

tercession of Samuel McCune (father of the wife of John Sharp of the Bar- rens) who was known in the community as the peacemaker. Alexander Sharp had a tannery, distillery, mills, etc., and one of his apprentices at the tanning business, which he carried on extensively, was Robert Garrett, of Baltimore, father of John W. Garrett, former president of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road, and grandfather of Robert M. Garrett, the present president of that road. He sent him, after his apprenticeship was over and before he was twenty years of age, to Baltimore, where he had never been, to begin life, secured for him a warehouse, turned much of the trade of the valley, then carried to Baltimore in wagons, to his place of business, and laid the founda- tion of the fortune of which he died possessed.

Andrew Sharp, the son of Thomas Sharp, the ancestor, was killed by the Indians at what is now Sharpsburg, a town which was called after him. He went from this valley to Indiana County in 17S5, and located on Crooked Creek, eight miles west of Indiana, on the famous Indian trail known as the Kittanning Path, and which Gen. Armstrong followed in his expedition against the Indians at Kittanning in 1756. He took with him his only child, Hannah, born in Cumberland County February 14, 1784 (married in 1803 to Robert Leason), from whom we take the following account of the killing of her father, Capt. Sharp, which was given by her in a letter written to her grand-nephew, William Moorhead: "My father," says she, "was a mili- tia captain, and served under Gen. Washington in the Revolution. He was married to my mother, Ann Woods, in their native place, Cumberland County, in 1783, and with a family of one child moved to Crooked Creek, in what is now Indiana County, Penn. This being a new country, there was no chance for schooling his children. My father, after living there ten years, was de- termined on having them schooled. He swapt his place for one in Kentucky, where my mother's friends lived. We started to move to Black Lick River. and got into our boat, but the water was low, and we had to land over a day and a night. We started the next. Father had a canoe tied to the side of the boat. It got loose. He went back for it. When he was away, there was a man came and told us the Indians were coming. By that time father got back. All the women and children were in the boat. The men went out to tie up their horses. The sun was an hour and a half high. Seven Indians fired upon them. They were hid behind a large tree that had fallen down. The first fire shot off my father's eyebrow. When he was cutting one end of the boat loose he got a wound in the left side. When he was cutting the other end loose they shot him in the other side, but he got the boat away before they could get in. He saw an Indian among the trees. He called for his gun. Mother gave it to him. He shot him dead. The boat got into a whirlpool, and went round and round for awhile, when the open side went toward land and the Indians fired at us. They followed us twelve miles down the river. They called to us to go out to them or they would fire again. Mrs. Leonner and her son wanted to go out to them. They said the men were all killed or wounded [i. e., the seven who had gone ashore]. Father told him to desist or he would shoot him. The Indians shot him dead that minute. He fell across my mother's feet. There were two dead men and two wounded. One of them died the next morning. There was no woman or child hurt. There were twenty in all. They took my father's horses. The others got theirs. My mother worked the boat, and we got to Pittsburgh again by daylight. One man went on before us and had doctors ready. When we got to Pittsburgh there were a great many kind neighbors came to see us when we landed. We lived awhile in the boat. We moved up to the city before father's death. He

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lived forty days after he was wounded. There were three [wounds] in him, one on each side and one in his back .* Ho diod the eighth day of July in the forty-second year of his ago, in the year 1794. Ho was buried with hon- ors of war in Pittsburgh."

His brother, Alexander Sharp, went from Cumberland County to see him, but Capt. Andrew Sharp had died before he arrived in Pittsburgh. "My un- cle." the writer continues, " stayed with us till there were wagons sent for. We went over the mountains to Cumberland County, where our friends lived, and stayed there three years, where we went to school," when they moved back to their old home in Indiana County. " It was a party of twelve Indians that went to Pittsburgh to trade. " we are further informed, "who killed Capt. Sharp. The people would not trade with them. They got angry and killed all they could that day. There were three men went down the river in a eanoe before us, one of whom was shot dead; the other two were wounded. One of them died and the other got well. He lay in a room next to father's room. He could come to see father. This was the last war which was in that part of the country. It was in the year 1794 when all these things happened."t

We have given the above vivid account, not only because it concerns one of the carly pioneers belonging to one of the largest families, or cluster of families, in Newton Township, but also as illustrative of the times, and as one instance of the trials and tribulations of the carly settlers, who, impelled by the restless spirit of adventure which was in their blood, moved still farther westward, and were driven back to Cumberland County by the remorseless cruelty of the Indians.

Among the pioneers who settled at an early date in the upper portion of the county were the Moorheads, some of whom resided in that portion which is now Franklin. The name of John Moorhead is found in the tax list of 1750. One of the earliest of this family was Fergus Moorhead, who, impelled west- ward by the "Saxon hunger for land," left the county in 1769, the year in which the land office was opened for the sale of lands in the northwestern and southwestern connties of Pennsylvania, and purchased, of the Penns, a large tract, known in the patent, after the English fashion. as "Suffield," two miles west of the present town of Indiana, on the road to Kittanning. The smoke of Moorhead's cabin was the first that arose from the chimney of a legal land- owner between the Conemaugh River and the old French fort at Le Boeuff. He, like his eo-settlers in the Cumberland Valley, was a Scotch Presbyterian, who "carried his Bible in one hand and his rifle in the other."

Two of his brothers, Samuel and Joseph, accompanied him from their old home in Cumberland County, to help in bringing the wagons, live-stoek and goods. On their trip they traveled partly on the road made by Gen. Arm- strong and his men some twelve years before, when he led his expedition against the Indians at Kittanning. Here he lived until the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, when the Indians became hostile to the English. In 1775 he undertook to condnet a man, by the name of Simpson, from his home to Fort Kittaning. Simpson was the bearer of dispatches from the government to the commander of the Fort, who was Moorhead's brother. Near the Fort they were waylaid by the Indians, Simpson was shot, and Moorhead taken prisoner, carried to Quebee and sold to the British. When his wife had be- come convinced that some misfortune had befallen him. she started through the wilderness for Cumberland County, with one child in front of her.on the

" It seems also from the letter that he was recovering, but that the cannons fired on the 4th of July caused his relapse.

tIt was In August of this year (1794) that Gen. Wayne galned his decisive victory over the Indiaos.

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HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

horse and one behind her. She went by way of Fort Ligonier, and reached the Cumberland Valley in safety. Just one year after being taken prisoner, Moorhead returned to his father's home in Cumberland County from Quebec, he having been exchanged as a prisoner.

At Fort Shippen, in the Cumberland Valley, he and his brother Samuel (who also had gone away, built a grist-mill above Homer City, which was burned, and he driven back by the Indians) signed a petition to Gov. Penn, that means might be adopted to protect the frontier inhabitants. After the close of the war he returned again to his new home, near Indiana, which he found in ruins; but he soon built a stone house, which is still standing, and which has ever since been occupied by his descendants. It was said to have been built of memorial stones heaped by the Indians upon the graves of their dead. One son of Fergus Moorhead, Joseph, was wounded at St. Clair's de- feat; another, James, was killed at Perry's victory, on Lake Erie; another, Fergus Moorhead, Jr., was the paternal grandfather of Silas M. Clark, of the Supreme Court .*

VILLAGES.

The township contains few villages. Jacksonville (Walnut Bottom P. O.), before 1825, consisted of but six log houses. One, a two-story house on the hill, was kept as a tavern by an Irishman named John McCaslin. Some dis- tance east was another, known as the "Bull Ring" tavern, kept by Michael Hawk. The land on the north side of the road was the property of Peter Fry, and the village was at first called Frystown. It was afterward called Canada, and later Jacksonville. About 1820 the pine forest extended to the town.

Stoughstown, on the turnpike in the eastern portion of the township, was called after Col. John Stough, who kept a tavern there for many years, which tavern was also, prior to 1846, kept by his son. The town dates back to nearly the beginning of the century, and the tavern, for many years, was one of the most noted as a relay house for the teamsters and the stages on the road. Near Stoughstown is a large spring, from which a fine stream issues.

Oakville is a small post-village west of the center of the township and a station on the Cumberland Valley Railroad. Prior to the building of this road it had no existence.

MISCELLANEOUS.

There are small beds of iron ore at places, particularly in the southern portion of the township. The Big Pond Furnace was built some three miles southeast of Leesburg, or Lee's Cross Roads, about forty years ago, near the Big Pond, a deep and somewhat stagnant pool, from which seemingly there is no outlet, made by a mountain stream, on which are Seever's mill, Buchanan's mill, and, after the Three Springs flows into it, Oyster's mill. This furnace, however, at the Big Pond, was long ago abandoned.

The Cumberland Valley and the Harrisburg & Potomac are the two rail- roads which pass through Newton Township. The postoffices are Newville, Green Spring, Oakville, Big Spring, Stoughstown and Walnut Bottom.

BOROUGH OF NEWVILLE.

The borough of Newville is handsomely situated on the Big Spring, on the line of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, some twelve miles westward of

* As to the Moorheads settlement in Indiana County, see also the sketch of that county in Dr. Egle's His tory of Pennsylvania, p. 793.

The date is there given as 1772. hut as we have obtained our information from a descendant, who gives the date as 1769, we prefer to let it stand.

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NEWTON TOWNSHIP.

Carlisle. It was first incorporated as a borough by an act of the Legislature on the 20th of February, 1517, but its inception as n settlement ante-dates the century, and carries us back to the days of our Colonial Government.

In the earlier part of the last century there was something of a settlement in the country surrounding the Big Spring, as a Presbyterian congregation was in existence at that place prior to 1737. A warrant for a tract of about ninety acres of land was issued by the provincial authorities on March 2, 1744, to four persons, namely: William Lamond, James Walker, Alexander Mcclintock and David Killaugh, in trust for the Presbyterian congregation at Big Spring, which had previously, about 1735, creeted a house of worship .* Upon this globe the congregation built a parsonage, which was occupied until after 1756, but prior to 1790 it was abandoned as a parsonage, and in 1794 laid out into village lots. A plan of the new town was drawn, which consisted of one (Main) street, extending from the spring westward, with Cove and Glebe Alleys running parallel on the north and south, crossed by Corporation, High and West Streets, the former two extending northward to the boundary of the glebe. The first lots were laid out upon these streets, and the remain- ing portion of the tract was divided into larger parcels of from two to five acres, for pasture or tillage.

The first sale of lots was September 9, 1790. Other sales occurred during the eight or ten years succeeding. until all were sold. They were not put up at auction. but were disposed of af fixed prices, most of them selling for $6 each. f The pasture lots were all sold April 9, 1795, at prices ranging from $24 to $27 per acre. About eight acres on the northeast corner of the glebe were reserved for a parsonage, and subsequently purchased by the pastor, Rev. S. Wilson. On all of these lots laid out for the new town, there was a reserved incumbrance, with an annual quit-rent of 6 per cent to the church, most of which annual quit-rents were extinguished in 1836.₺

FIRST HOTELS, STORES, ETC.

The first buildings were erected upon the eastern part of Main Street and on North Corporation. Robert Lusk was one of the earliest citizens, and is said to have been the first innkeeper in Newville. He built the third house from the spring on Main Street, in which he opened the first tavern. This was before 1792. for in the petition to the court for a license in August of that year he speaks of having kept " a house of entertainment in the house where he now lives the preceding year, and is desirous of continuing the same." Samuel McCullongh, having provided himself with a house for keeping a tavern in the town of Newville. also prays the court to recommend him to the Governor for a license this same year. John Dunbar shortly opened a hotel in the third house above Corporation Street, but at what exact date is to us unknown.

The first store is said to have been opened on North Corporation Street, on the east side and north of Cove Alley. About 1797 Thomas Kennedy, father of the late Judge John Kennedy, of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and of James Kennedy, for many years a justice of the peace in Newville, opened the second store upon the opposite side of Corporation Street, in what is known as the Woodburn row. "Stephen Ryan then opened where Morrow's brick house stands, and was succeeded by Christian Geese. Joseph Colbertson next

*This same tract was confirmed to the church, by another patent, under the State authority, in 1794. tA few lots on account of exceptional advantages, brought much higher prices; as Lot No 1. on account of water privileges $213, bought by William Laughlin, and one opposite, $50, bought by George Mckechan.

[The Incumbrance on the front fots was $/2 22 each, making the annual quit-rent $1.33; on the back lots $17.90 each, with quit-rent of $1 07: on outloty $13 33 per acre, with quit-rent of 80 cents, Owing to the annoy- ance of collecting these rents, the trustees of the church accepted, in 1836, the payment of the incumbrance on most of the lots, aod granted to the owners titles in fec simple.

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HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

opened in the stone house on the southeast corner of Main and Corporation Streets, which Gen. Samuel Finley had built in 1799, Joseph Showalter, Alexander Barr, William McCandlish, John Johnson, James Huston and oth- ers followed." These were the early merchants of the town. The first resi- dent physician was John Gedds. He came from Silver Spring, and settled in Newville about 1792, after having studied medicine with Dr. McCoskry, of Carlisle. Here he practiced until his death in 1840.

The village must have improved with tolerable rapidity, for in 1799, nine years after the sale of the first lots, there were five tavern-keepers in Newville. These were James Woodburn, Joseph Shannon, Thomas Clark, Thomas Martin and Philip Beck. Two years later, 1801, James Woodburn built the Logan House, which is still standing.

In the year 1800 the first postoffice was established. Before this time there were no offices nearer than Carlisle and Shippensburg. For about twenty years there was but one mail each way per week. Then there were two until the building of the railroad in 1838, when the daily mail and the daily papers first made their appearance. There is now Pullman cars and a variable number of daily mails each way.

Coming down to about 1806 and after, we find that the appearance of the town is within the recollection of the living. James Woodburn kept the hotel on the corner of Main and Corporation Streets. Up two or three lots, John Dun- bar kept a hotel. The names of two of the sehotels were "The Indian Queen" and "The Eagle." Opposite was Samuel Crowell, on the corner of Main Street, not yet built up. Near the corner of Main and High, Philip Beck kept a tav- ern. On the extreme upper end of Main Street Patrick Dunfee and William MacMonagal had their inns. Besides these there were two on Corporation Street, Thomas Clark and Andrew Thompson. The area of these public houses embraced the extreme limits of the town. Few buildings had been erected west of High Street. Clusters of buildings afterward grew up on the western end of Main Street, and the two portions of the town gradually grew together. The original portion of the town, however, was that lying just north or slightly northwest of the old Presbyterian Church and cemetery.

INCORPORATION, ETC.

The town, which was first laid out in 1794, remained for more than twenty years a part of Newton Township. Dissatisfaction existed as to the propor- tionate assessments of property, and on application to the Legislature a bor- ough charter was granted February 26, 1817. The town, however, con- tinued to pay its proportion of road taxes to Newton Township until January sessions, 1828, when the borough was formed into a township by the court. To get rid of the inconvenience of two sets of officers-borough and township-a more comprehensive charter was granted by the court in 1869.

Since the building of the railroad, the track of improvement has turned south toward the depot, and westward along the line of the road, giving to the plan of the town quite an irregular form.

What was known as Newtown was laid out prior to the war by the McFar- lan brothers, John and William Gettys, and some buildings erected. Shortly after the Ahl brothers laid out an addition to the borough, extending south- westerly toward the railroad, on the Jerry McKibbon land, which two por- tions of the town were taken into the borough of Newville in 1874, and now constitute the South Ward. Until this time the boundaries of the old glebe farm, which had been originally granted to the church, constituted the limits of the borough.

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

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