History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 163

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Pennsylvania > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 163

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JOSIAH KING.

In the year 1816, George King, with his wife and children, moved into Fayette County, and in the town- ship of Perry bought the fulling-mills which are now known as the Strickler mill property. It was a part of the General Washington tract. George was the son of Michael King, who was of German descent, and was born in York County, Pa. After his marriage to Susan Husbands he moved to Somerset County, where he bought a farm, on which he passed the remainder of his days. He was a local Methodist preacher, and his descendants have nearly all been of the same re- ligious faith.

George was born July 4, 1774, on the home-farm in Somerset County, and, as set forth above, emigrated to Fayette County in 1816. He was a carpenter, and at intervals followed that calling for many years, quitting it finally for the farm. In 1794 he was joined in mar- riage to Miss Catherine Stickle. The result of this union was nine children, two of whom died in infancy ; the others were Susan, Josiah, Enos, Caroline, Rachel, Mary, and William. He operated the fulling-mills a few years, then sold out and bought the farm now

Josiah King, of whom this brief sketch is written, was born Dec. 18, 1801, on Laurel Hill, in Somerset Co., Pa. His chances for an education were limited to a few months' attendance at a country school, and completed in the school of life by observation and re- membering what he saw, making his judgment on any subject desirable. From the age of sixteen to nineteen years he served as an apprentice as a cloth-dresser with Myers & McClay. He was then for three years a partner of William Searight in woolen cloth dressing, when the building of woolen-factories made their business unprofitable. We now for a few years find him building boats on the Youghiogheny River, and shipping sand and stone to Cincinnati and other points. This business proved remunerative, and he obtained a start in life. In 1835 he went on the farm he with others had bought in 1828 in Jefferson town- ship. There he remained until 1845, when he rented of Robert Lynch the farm which he now owns (bought in 1848), and where he intends to pass the remainder of his long and upright life. The farm now consists of 180 acres of well-improved land, the result of in- dustry and good management. On the 3d day of July, 1823, he was married to Nancy Lynch, daughter of Robert and Mercilla (Martin) Lynch. She was born May 27, 1804, on the farm where they now reside. Their children are L. R., born Aug. 11, 1824, married to Rebecca Shepherd. He emigrated to Winona County, of which he was three terms sheriff; died Nov. 8, 1868. Elizabeth, born March 5, 1826, mar- ried Dec. 25, 1845, to S. B. Chalfant. Catherine, born Jan. 28, 1828, married Michael C. Cramer; died May 21, 1855. E. L. King, born Feb. 17, 1830, married March 21, 1854, to Miss Mary M. Sanborn. He is a physician of Ashtabula, Ohio, of which place he is now mayor. Enos King, born June 12, 1834, mar- ried June 12, 1856, to Polly C. Stephens. Mary Jane, born March 19, 1836, married to Rev. Jolın McIntyre, March 15, 1860. Mercilla Ann, born Aug. 17, 1838, married Aug. 18, 1864, to John H. Martin. She died May 6, 1870. And George F., born Feb. 11, 1841, died May 17, 1851.

Kasich King,

REDSTONE TOWNSHIP.

REDSTONE, one of the western townships of Fay- ette, has for its boundaries Jefferson on the north, Menallen and German on the south, Franklin and Menallen on the east, and Brownsville and Luzerne on the west. The total valuation of Redstone sub- ject to county tax in 1881 was $660,948, or a decrease from 1880 of $8895. Its population June, 1880, was 1065.

Redstone contains valuable coal deposits, but these lie deep in the earth in most localities. Upon the land of Robert Tate and in the contiguous region the coal vein is rich and easy of development. The great highway through Redstone is now the old National road (so called), but a line of railway (the Redstone extension of the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Road) running along the northeastern border of the township is now nearly completed and will prove of great benefit to the people of Redstone.

Innumerable water-courses traverse the township, but Redstone and Dunlap's Creeks are the most notice- able and about the only ones having mill-power. The surface of the country is uneven and in many places quite hilly. There are many valuable farms and some rough ones, but generally considered the agri- cultural resources are quite up to the average. Oil deposits have been found on Redstone Creek and in other places. Oil-wells were sunk in 1870 by a com- pany styled the Farmers' and Mechanics' Oil Com- pany, and in some cases to the depth of a thousand feet, but operations were not satisfactorily pursued, although indications of more than ordinary promise were apparent. It is thought by many that profitable oil-wells will yet be sunk and operated in this town- ship.

The township received its name from that of the creek which forms its northeastern boundary. The reason why the name was originally given to the creek is told in the " American Pioneer" (vol. ii. p. 55), as follows :

"The hills around ahounded with bituminous coal, and along the water-courses, where the earth had been washed off, the coal was left exposed. The inflammability of that mineral must have been known to the inhabitants at that early period, for where those exposures happened fire had been communicated, and an ignition of the coal taken place, and probably continued to burn until the compactness and solidity of the body and want of air caused its extinguishment. These fires in their course came in contact with the surrounding earth and stone and gave theui a red appearance; indeed, so completely burned were they that when pulverized they have been substituted, in point-

ing, for Spanish brown. Many of the red banks are now visi- ble ; the most prominent one, perhaps, is that near the junction of a creek with the Monongahela River, a short distance helow the fortification, and which hears the name of Redstone, douht- less from the red appearance of the bank near its mouth."

But the State geologist, in the third annual report on the geological survey of the State of Pennsylva- nia, gives a different account of the origin of the ignition of the coal-banks, viz. : "In many places the coal of the roofs has been precipitated by a slipping of the hillside upon the lower part of the seam, in which case the latter has often taken fire from the heat evolved by the chemical decomposition. This has occurred particularly at the mouth of Redstone Creek, in Fayette County, where the overlaying slate has been reddened by the combustion."

The earliest settlements in what is now known as the township of Redstone were made west and south of the centre, although there was but little difference in point of time between settlements in that section and in the country along the Redstone Creek. In- deed, some authorities give the creek region the pre- cedence, but the advantage upon either side was too slight to call for special investigation. Among the first who came into Redstone to stay, if not indeed the very first, was George Kroft, the ancestor in this county of the now numerous Crafts, who through the changes of time have Anglicized the spelling and pronunciation of the name from Kroft to Craft. Mr. Kroft came from Germany to America as a " redemp- tioner,"-that is, he sold himself to pay his passage. Upon arriving in America he was indentured to Samuel Grable, a farmer living on the Eastern Shore of Mary- land. In 1771, Kroft found himself in the possession of a family, some means, and an ambition to better his fortunes in a new country. Such a country he dis- covered in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and in Fayette County in the same year of 1771 he tomahawked a claim of eight hundred acres in the present township of Redstone. The land lay near and north of the site of the Dunlap's Creek Church, and near that site, not far from Dunlap's Creek, he put up his cabin. In testimony of the wild and lonesome condition of the region in which he located, he used to relate that his nearest neighbor was nine miles distant in Ger- man township, at a place called High House, and his next nearest at Beesontown (now Uniontown). It would appear from these declarations made by Mr.

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Kroft that he must have been at the time of his loca- tion the only settler in what is now Redstone town- ship. In 1772, Mr. Kroft made a trip to Eastern Maryland for a supply of salt and other commodities, and upon his return brought a half-dozen young apple-trees and set them out near his house. One of the six apple-trees brought in by Mr. Kroft in 1772 still bears fruit, and, beyond that distinction even, is claimed to be the largest apple-tree in Fayette County. Six inches from the ground it measures two feet six inches in diameter, and it is said to have borne one season seventy-five bushels of apples. This tree stands on George M. Craft's farm.

Mr. Kroft (dying in 1806) had four sons, named Samuel, Benjamin, David, and John. Benjamin lived and died on a portion of the old farm, Samuel died in Luzerne, John in Greene County, and David on the old farm in 1837. David, who was the father of Mr. Elijah Craft, of Redstone, used to tell his son about the trials and privations that waited on pioneer life in Redstone, and among other things told how he and one of his brothers once rode twenty-five miles to a mill on the Youghiogheny to get a grist ground. For subsistence while they were gone they carried a mess of boiled corn, and when they got to the mill they found so many customers before them that by the time their turn came they had eaten all their boiled corn and spent a couple of days and nights in waiting, so that when they started for home it was upon empty stomachs that landed them at the parental roof-tree in a condition bordering upon starvation. David Croft, herein referred to, became the father of thirteen children, and when his wife died the young- est of the children was but three weeks old. David bestowed watchful care upon them all, small as they were, despite the exhaustive field of labor incident to his farming pursuits, and gave to each a good educa- tion. Of the thirteen children six were boys. Of the six boys, Elijah Craft, of Redstone, is the only one now living. His brother George, who died in Ohio in 1877 at the age of eighty-eight, rode when a boy with his father to Brownsville in the winter of 1799- 1800 to view the funeral ceremonies of Washington there displayed.

One of the daughters of old George Kroft married Peter Colley, one of Redstone's noted pioneers and a popular landlord of his day. George Kroft died in 1806, but how old he was he did not know himself, for he was a man but little given to either learning, reflection, or observation. George B. Craft, one of his grandsons, died in Redstone in 1878, aged ninety- three. Another of his grandsons, George, was at one time sheriff of Fayette County.

During the early period of George Kroft's residence in Redstone settlers felt much apprehension concern- ing Indian ravages, and although no very serious trouble came to them from that source, they were in constant dread for a time. There was at Merrittstown a fort, whither at the first alarm of the near presence

of Indians neighboring inhabitants would flee, to remain until the signs of danger were past. A story told of a Mr. Wade, who lived on the present Fought place, is to the effect that each night he used to send his wife and little ones to the fort at Brownsville, while he himself would crawl into a hollowed log, and thus rest securely if not comfortably until morn- ing, consoled with the reflection that if the savages should happen along there they would never dream that an innocent-looking log contained human prey.

Isaiah Ratcliffe, a Quaker, was one of Redstone's pioneer blacksmiths. He set up his shop near Dun- lap's Creek Church, but did not tarry long. He died before 1800. He had made the journey from the East with Alexander Nelan, who made his settlement in Luzerne on the river. A son of Isaiah Ratcliffe now lives in Brownsville in his eighty-sixth year.

William Colvin, mentioned in early accounts as having been in the territory now called Redstone township as early as 1768, was doubtless a settler two years before that, or in 1766. He tomahawked a claim to a large tract of land, and put up a log cabin near what is now known as the Dunham place, not far from the Bath Hotel property. An old ac- count-book kept by William Colvin, and now in the possession of Samuel Colvin, of Redstone, discloses the fact that William Colvin traded in a small way at his home near Brownsville as early as 1766. Un- der that date he charged John Sarvil, John Wise- man, Mr. Hamer, David Cook, Jonathan Himer with such articles as fine combs, rum, broadcloth, whisky, tobacco, egg-punch, egg-nog, vinegar, etc. In 1767 charges appear against John Davis, Capt. Colren, Andrew Grigen, James Brown, Jacob Dri- nens, Richard Ashcraft, George Coran, George Moran, George Martin, Morris Brady, Moses Henry, Charles Ferguson, Aaron Richardson, Moses Holladay, John Jones, Alexander Bowlin, John Henderson, and John Martin.

Under date of 1768 appear upon Mr. Colvin's ac- count-book the names of Isham Barnett, Levi Col- vin, John Radcliff, Moses Holladay, Thomas Wig- gins, Joel White, John Peters, Jeremiah McNew, and William Lanfitt. Subsequently occur the names of Thomas Bandfield, Zachariah Brashears, Basil Brown, Robert Chalfant, James Crawford, William Butler, Alexander Armstrong, Isaac Stout, Jeremiah Downs, Joseph Brashears, William Brashears, John Craig, William Smith, Nathaniel Brown, Aaron Richardson, Evan Williams, Moses Davison, John Matthews, Thomas Downs, Lucas Ives, Zela Rude, Samuel Jackson, James Stephens, Christopher Perky, Henry Tillen, Nathaniel Fleming, Francis Pursley, Robert Shannon, John McGrew, John Dean, Rich- ard McGuire, John McCormickle, Anthony Tills, Thomas Best, Adolph Iler, John Miller, Godfrey Johnson, John Cummins, James Winders, William Beard, Benjamin Caulk, John Cherry, Reuben Sti- vers, John Scantlin, Robert Chalfant, Edward Elliot,

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REDSTONE TOWNSHIP.

Jonathan Chambers, Patrick Lynch, John Casler, James Richey, Thomas Barker, Edward Jordan, John McConnell, John Bright, John Lynch, Muael Hess, John Laughlin, Richard J. Waters, Edward Brashears, Philip Fout, Charles Hickman, George Bruner, John Matson, John Restine, Michael Lynch, James Lynch, Ezekiel Painter, Reuben Kemp, John Detrich, Joseph Price, Hugh Laughlin, Caleb Gas- kill, Robert Adams, John Jackson, John Cartnell, Robert Martin, William Granon, John Fulton, John Rosemon, Henry Lancaster, and Aaron Dennis.

William Colvin lived in a log cabin, as mentioned, and as can best be gathered from the records he left, must have kept a trading-place and tavern as well as a distillery. How long he remained after his first location cannot be told, but it is probable that he withdrew from that region about 1771, frightened away, doubtless, by fears of Indian aggressions, since it seems pretty well authenticated that when George Kroft settled on Dunlap's Creek in 1771 his nearest neighbor was nine miles away. Accepting that state- ment as true, the conclusion follows that Colvin was not in the vicinity at that time. That his absence was not prolonged to any great extent is tolerably certain. It is said that the floor of his cabin was composed of a single flat rock, which was at a late date broken up and used for house foundations in Brownsville. William Colvin, grandson of the Wil- liam Colvin first named, was a surveyor of some note. He died in 1870 on the farm now occupied by his son Samuel, the only son of William Colvin in the town- ship. Of eight sons six are, however, still living. William Colvin's widow, aged seventy-six, still resides on the old homestead with her son Samuel.

The settlement of the Finleys in Redstone was one of the conspicuous features of early local history, al- though, as a matter of fact, the Finley settlement proper was effected by a person who, although named Fin- ley, was not akin to the actual owner of the land on which he settled. To trace the thread of the story from the source, the declaration is made that in or about 1765, Rev. James Finley, then a Presbyterian minister living in Cecil County, upon the Eastern Shore of Maryland, came into Southwestern Pennsyl- vania on a tour of observation, which included not only a religious mission looking to the preaching of the gospel to such settlers as he might find, but looking for land locations where he might after a while make homes for his sons. Accompanying Mr. Finley was a Chester County farmer and fuller, by name Philip Tanner, who was similarly in search of lands. Tan- ner and Finley made a wide circuit of the then almost unbroken wilderness of country, and tarried perhaps ! a month, Finley preaching here and there as he found opportunity. He is said to have been the first minister of the gospel (except army chaplains) who ever penetrated into Western Pennsylvania. Finley came into the country again in 1767, and again in 1771, each time on a preaching tour, and each time

encountering an experience that must have made him not only familiar and warmly welcome to the people, but an experience that taught him valuable lessons in the school of pioneering, and toughened his own nature to endure the rigors of the wilderness. What had seemed a predilection in favor of the country in 1765 was confirmed as he became acquainted with it, and in 1771, considering that the population had then become numerous enough to warrant an effort to make such a land settlement as he had long looked for, he purchased a large tract of land upon Dunlap's Creek, within the present limits of the townships of German, Redstone, and Menallen. To this land then he returned the following year with his fourteen-year- old son Ebenezer, a farm hand named Samuel Finley (not related to the Rev. James), and a number of negro slaves. Philip Tanner, who bore Rev. James Finley company to Western Pennsylvania in 1765, located lands adjoining Finley's tract in 1770, and doubtless made a settlement about 1772; but details touching his residence in this county are so meagre that nothing can, with any degree of certainty, be told concerning him except that he died on his Red- stone farm in 1801. In 1802 his executors sold the farm to John Moore. As to Rev. James Finley, he was at no time himself an actual resident of Fayette County, although his son lived and died in the county, and left within it many descendants who have to this day worthily maintained the name. Rev. James was settled in 1783 over Rehoboth Church, in Westmore- land County, and died in 1795. With this statement his history may be considered closed as concerns this record of Fayette County, save the remark that from the time of his coming in 1765 to 1783, thirty-four families, connected mainly with his congregation in Cecil County, removed to Western Pennsylvania. These families, it is said, intended to make their Penn- sylvania settlements near each other, but coming out in straggling detachments as circumstances allowed they found themselves unable to secure lands as they desired, and thus they became scattered, although only so far that the area that included their homes measured less than forty miles between extreme points. There was nevertheless a Providence in this scattering of the families, for it was the instrument through which Presbyterian Churches were estab- lished at least at five points, to wit: Chartiers, Cross Creek, Rehoboth, Laurel Hill, and Dunlap's Creek. Of the thirty-four families named, twenty-two of the heads thereof became ruling elders of the churches named at their organization.

Ebenezer Finley played a conspicuous part in a perilous adventure with Indians near Fort Wallace in 1776. "Finley1 had gone from Dunlap's Creek on a short tour of militia duty to the frontier as a substi- tute for Samuel Finley, then in charge of the Finley farm. While Finley was at Fort Wallace tidings

1 From "Old Redstone."

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

were brought by a man on horseback in breathless haste that Indians had made their appearance at a little distance ; that he had left two men and a woman on foot trying to make their way to the fort; and that unless immediately protected or rescued they would be lost. Some eighteen or twenty men, among whom was young Finley, started immediately for their res- cue. About a mile and a half from the fort they came unexpectedly upon a considerable force of sav- ages. They were for a while in the midst of them. A sharp fire began immediately, and a zig-zag run- ning fight took place. Onr people making their way back toward the fort, numbers of them were shot down or tomahawked.

"Finley's gun would not go off. He stopped for a moment to pick his flint and fell behind. An Indian was seen leveling his gun at him, but was fortunately shot down just at the moment. Being fleet of foot, Finley was soon abreast of his companions, and in passing around the root of a tree, by a quick motion of his elbow against his companion's shoulder, suc- ceeded in passing him, when, the next moment, this comrade sunk beneath the stroke of a tomahawk. A Mr. Moore, seeing Finley's imminent danger from a bridge upon which he stood, stopped, and by his well- directed fire again protected him and enabled him to pass the bridge. . At last, after several doublings and turnings, the Indians being sometimes both in the rear and ahead of him, he reached the fort in safety. But the most remarkable part of the matter remains to be told. Mr. Finley, the father, then at home east of the moun- tains, three hundred miles off, had, as he thought, one day a strange, undefinable impression that his son was in imminent danger of some kind, but he could form no distinct conception of its nature or cause. He betook himself to intense and agonizing prayer for his son, continued in this exercise for some time, felt at length relieved and comforted, as though the dan- ger was past. It was altogether to himself an extra- ordinary thing, such as he had never before experi- , strange to relate, not a vestige of either his buckskin

enced. He made a note of the time. A few weeks afterwards he received from his son an account of his narrow escape from death. The time corresponded exactly with the time of Mr. Finley's strange experi- ence. This is the substance of the statement we have received. Its accuracy, in its most essential features, may be relied on. What shall we say of it? Mr. Finley was a man of most scrupulous veracity. We leave the simple statement of the case to the reflec- tions of the reader."

Ebenezer Finley grew to manhood in his adopted home, and rose to importance in the community. His home was in Redstone, on Dunlap's Creek, where at an early day he erected a grist-mill and saw-mill. The foundations of the saw-mill may still be seen, as may also the miller's house. Mr. Finley was married four times, and with his four wives rests now in Dunlap's Creek churchyard. He died in 1849 at the age of eighty-eight. Three of his sons, Eben-

ezer, Elliott, and Eli H., live now in Menallen, on portions of the land located by their grandfather, Rev. James Finley, in 1772. Robert, another son, died in Redstone in 1874. Of Ebenezer Finley the elder it is stated that he was upon one occasion plunged into great distress consequent upon his having hauled a liberty pole over to New Salem during the days of the Whiskey Insurrection. He did not happen to learn until after he had hauled the pole to its des- tination that it was intended to take part in a defiant demonstration on the part of the Whiskey Boys, and with that knowledge came the apprehension that the authorities might consider him equally culpable with the Whiskey Boys in defying the law. He was not a partisan, and he felt sure the Whiskey Boys and their abettors would be ultimately overthrown and pun- ished, and knowing that circumstances pointed strongly toward him as an abettor as far as concerned the liberty pole business, he was in great fear lest he should meet with punishment. Happily for him no serious results attended his action.

John Laughlin, a conspicuous character in Red- stone's early history, tomahawked a four-hundred- acre claim that included the present Benjamin Phil- lips and Colvin places. Laughlin was a bachelor, a farmer of some enterprise, and employed slave labor almost exclusively. He must have occupied his land as early as 1780, if not before. He was esteemed a man of considerable wealth, and was noted for keep- ing a large amount of it, in the form of gold and silver, tied up in a pair of buckskin breeches. Once when he lay quite ill he sent for his neighbors, Wil- liam Colvin, Thomas Wells, and Samuel Grable, whom he requested to count in his and each other's presence the gold and silver that was within the buckskin breeches. That task they performed, and left him satisfied, and his mind relieved. Contrary to his expectations, however, he did not die that time, but he did die about six months later; and then, breeches or the wealth they contained could be found. There were many conjectures as to what had become of the money, and many faithful searches in every place of supposable concealment, but every search was fruitless, and the disappearance remained as much a mystery as ever in the end. People whose cupidity outran their judgment dug upon the present Benjamin Phillips farm in various places and under cover of night, hoping to unearth the treasure which then was and to-day is confidently believed by some persons to be hidden in the earth, placed there they say by the hands of old John Laughlin himself; but as the case stands at present, they are not likely to learn whether their theories are or are not correct. Mr. Laughlin's death occurred shortly after the year 1800, and although his silver and gold were not found, he left behind him a bountiful supply of this world's goods for those who came after him. He had been an excellent master to his slaves, and in his will left

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 163

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314