History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 63

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 63

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).

On the same day on which this repeal was passed, the General Assembly also passed an act incorporating the " Connellsville and Southern Pennsylvania Railway Company," with power and authority " to construct a railroad from Connellsville to the Maryland State line, at such point and by such route as to the direc- tors may seem advisable, and to connect the same with any road or roads authorized by the State of Mary- land, and to connect the same with the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad, or any other road at or near Connellsville now constructed or that may here- after be constructed ;" also to construct a road or roads from any point on the line named to the Susquehanna Valley. In the list of corporators there were named a large number of gentlemen of Pennsylvania, and William B. Ogden, J. D. T. Lanier, L. II. Meyer, and Samuel J. Tilden of New York. The capital stock authorized was ten millions of dollars, and the company was required to perfect its organization within three months from the passage of the act, and to " proceed immediately to locate and construct said road, and to complete their main line within three years."

But the company thus incorporated did not comply with the requirements of the act as to the commence- ment and completion of the line. Meanwhile, legal measures were taken on behalf of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad Company to secure a restora- tion of their charter for the line south and east of Connellsville, and this was finally accomplished by the passage (Jan. 31, 1868) of an act repealing the act of April 29, 1864, and thus reinstating the com- pany in the possession of their original powers and franchises as to the line between Connellsville and the Maryland boundary, but requiring them to com- mence the construction of the road within six months, and to complete it within three years from the pas- sage of the act. Another act was passed April 1st in the same year, authorizing the Pittsburgh and Con- nellsville Railroad Company to construct branch roads, for the development of contiguous regions of country, from any point or points on their main line.

276

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Operations were now resumed, and the construction of the road was pushed vigorously to completion. In February, 1871, the road from Connellsville to Falls City was finished, and trains ran regularly between those points on and after the 20th of that month. As early as the 23d of the same month trains were an- rounced to be running on schedule time from Sand Patch to Cumberland. At about three o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, the 10th of April, 1871, the , ing Brownsfield, James Veech, William Thorndell, Eleazer Robinson, Alpheus E. Willson, William Bee- son, Jacob Murphy, William Bryson, John K. Ewing, Samuel W. Boyd, William C. McKean, John Chaney, John Freeman, George Paull, Samuel Nixon, Thomas B. Searight, Samuel D. Oliphant, Edmund Beeson, John Bierer, Ellis B. Dawson, Armstrong Hadden, George McClean, Isaac Winn, Robert Patterson, Thomas Sturgis, Jesse B. Gardner, and Alfred Mc- Clelland.

track was finished between Pittsburgh and Cumber- land, by the laying of the last rail, at a point where the track-layers from both directions met, near Forge Bridge, three miles west of Mineral Point. "Imme- diately upon completion of the track a passenger train from Pittsburgh (the first one passing over the road east of Confluence) took aboard all present, -Messrs. Latrobe and Blanchard, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Messrs. Hughart, Page, Pen- dleton, Stout, and Turner, of the Pittsburgh and Con- nellsville road, and others,-and started directly to Cumberland, which was reached about dusk."! When this first train left Connellsville to proceed to the point where the track-laying parties were approaching each other to complete the connection, nine car-loads of rails were taken with it, drawn by locomotive No. 7, in charge of Mr. Sampsel. At Confluence these iron-laden cars were detached, and taken thence to a point near Brooke tunnel by locomotive No. 719, of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, while Mr. Sampsel, the engineer of No. 7, who had previously declared he would run the first engine over the completed road, made good his promise on this occasion by taking the excursion train through to Cumberland, passing by a zig-zag track around the Brooke tunnel, which was not then entirely completed. Among the speeches made in the opening ceremonies by men prominent in the affairs of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville and Baltimore and Ohio roads was that of B. H. Latrobe, Esq., who said that the road which he (Latrobe) had commenced in 1837 was now completed by the presi- dent, that the road had now allied itself with the Bal- timore and Ohio, and that he predicted a brilliant future for the line and the connection,-a prediction which has been completely verified during the ten years which have succeeded it. The road is now operated as a part of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- road, having been leased by that company in Decem- ber, 1875.

connect with the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Rail- road at or near the borough of Connellsville." The persons invested by the act with authority to open books for subscriptions to the stock of the company were Samuel A. Gilmore, Nathaniel Ewing, John Huston, Andrew Stewart, Joshua B. Howell, Alfred Patterson, Daniel Kaine, Henry Yeagley, Jobn Daw- son, H. W. Beeson, Isaac Beeson, Smith Fuller, Ew-

The authorized capital of the company was 8750,000 in shares of $100 each. The first president of the company was Hon. Nathaniel Ewing, to whom more than to any other person was due the credit of com- pleting the road and putting it in operation. It was finished in its entire length in the last part of the year 1859, and was formally opened for travel and traffic between Uniontown and Connellsville on the 1st of Jannary, 1860.

After the completion and opening of the line, the company met with financial embarrassments, which resulted in the sale of the road and equipment by the sheriff on the 2d of September, 1862, it being then purchased by the stockholders, and the company re- organized. On the 1st of November, 1864, the road was leased by the company to the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Company for ninety-nine years. In December, 1875, it was leased by the latter company (together with the main line from Pittsburgh to Cum- berland) to the Baltimore and Ohio Company, by which corporation it is at present operated.

The Southwest Pennsylvania Railway Company was incorporated March 16, 1871. The corporators named were Israel Painter, Alpheus E. Willson, James E. Logan, Samuel Dellinger, and Christopher Sherriek. The company were authorized to construct a railroad, with one or more tracks, from the Pennsyl- vania Railroad at or near Greensburg, Westmoreland Co., Pa., by way of Connellsville, to Uniontown, Fay- ette Co., and thence to the boundary line of West Virginia. The capital stock was 8500,000. An or- ganization of the company was effected at Greens- burg, and Thomas A. Scott elected president. The route was located, and work on the line commenced without unnecessary delay. In 1875 the completed road extended from Connellsville as far south as

The Fayette County Railroad Company was incor- porated by act of General Assembly, passed May 1, 1857, "with power and authority to construct a single or double railroad track from any point at or near the borough of Uniontown to any point at or near the borough of Connellsville, in Fayette County, and across the Youghiogheny River, with the right to | Mount Braddock, and in the fall of 1876 was opened to Uniontown.

In August, 1877, the company purchased the rights I and franchises of the Uniontown and West Virginia

1 Accounts of the opening, published in Genius of Liberty, April 13, 1871.

277

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Railroad Company, and the road was continued about seven miles southward from Uniontown to Fairchance. The line is now operated by the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company.

The Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railway was first projected by a company which was incorpo- ' are now inaccessible.

rated by an act of Assembly approved April 8, 1867, as the Monongahela Valley Railroad Company. By a supplemental act, approved March 31, 1868, the company was "authorized to construct its railroad with single or double tracks from a point at or near the city of Pittsburgh, by such route as the board of directors may determine, to a point at or near Monon- gahela City, in Washington County, and thence up either bank of the Monongahela River to a point at or near Rice's Landing, with power to construct such branches as the directors may deem necessary." Feb- ruary 4, 1870, an act was passed changing the corpor- ate name of the company to that of Pittsburgh, Vir- ginia and Charleston Railway Company.

The delays which are usual in the building of rail- ways, except such as are undertaken by old and pow- erful companies, were encountered in the construction of this, and it was not until the spring of 1881 that the line was completed and opened from Pittsburgh to West Brownsville, thus giving to the boroughs of Bridgeport and Brownsville the first railroad com- munication they ever enjoyed, though no part of the road in operation is within the county of Fayette.

A railroad to run from Brownsville to Uniontown was projected by the "Brownsville Railway Com- pany." Work on the line was commenced by this company, and some grading was done between the two termini ; but financial difficulties intervened, and ! the road was sold at sheriff's sale, Feb. 5, 1878, to Charles E. Spear, and was afterwards merged with the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railroad. The last-named road and its franchises passed in May, 1879, to the control and management of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company, by which it is now oper- ated as the "Monongahela Division" of its lines.

descending grade in its entire length, it is expected that it will take all the immense amount of coke and other freight which now finds an outlet over the Southwest Pennsylvania road from stations south and west of Mount Braddock. It will also open in the Redstone Valley an immense area of coal lands which

The Mount Pleasant and Broad Ford Railroad Company was incorporated April 6, 1870, with a capital stock of $200,000, the corporators named being Daniel Shupe, C. S. Overholt, J. B. Jordan, William J. Hitchman, Joseph R. Stouffer, A. O. Tinstman, Israel Painter, C. P. Markle, and James Neel. The road was commenced immediately after the organization of the company, and was pushed with so much energy that the line was completed and opened on Saturday, Feb. 18, 1871. On the 2d of January next preceding the opening of the road it was leased to the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad Company, and afterwards by that lessee to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, by which latter corporation it is now operated in conjunction with the main line of road from Pittsburgh to Cum- berland.

The Uniontown and West Virginia Railroad Com- pany was incorporated April 2, 1868, with an author- ized capital of $250,000, and with power to construct a railroad from Uniontown to West Virginia State line. The persons designated to open books, re- ceive subscriptions to the capital stock, and organize the company were John K. Ewing, Armstrong Had- den, Andrew Stewart, A. E. Willson, Smith Fuller, E. B. Dawson, Robert Hogsett, Daniel Kaine, Samuel A. Gilmore, Charles E. Boyle, F. H. Oliphant, Wil- liam James, Ayres Nixon, James Hughes, John Brownfield, Robert Britt, Jacob Kyle, William A. Custer, James Robinson, Thomas Seman, Samuel Shipley, Tobias Sutton, Samuel Hatfield, William H. Bailey, William S. Morgan, A. B. Hall, Jacob Crow, Dr. James Thompson, J. G. Williams, John L. Dawson, John Schnatterly, Martin Dickson, Michael W. Franks, John Morgan, Lewis Hunter, John Oli- phant, and William Sweeny.

The Redstone extension or branch of the Pitts- burgh, Virginia and Charleston Railroad is now in process of construction, having been commenced by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in January, Surveys for the location of the route of the road were made by N. Bailie, engineer. A considerable amount of work was done in the construction of culverts, build- ing of hridges, and completion of most of the grad- ing between Uniontown and Fairchance. But the financial difficulties and embarrassments usually en- countered in the construction of new lines of railway were experienced by this company, and finally, in March, 1874, the road was sold by the sheriff on three judgments, which had been obtained against the con- pany by John Snider, the contractor. Snider became the purchaser, and on the 28th of August, 1877, he sold the property to the Southwest Pennsylvania Rail- 1881. Starting from the completed road west of the Monongahela, it crosses that river by a bridge at the mouth of Redstone Creek, below Brownsville, and runs from that point to Hogsett's Cut, about one mile north of Uniontown, where it joins the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad. It is now being pushed rapidly to completion, and is expected to be opened about the 1st of June, 1882, thus giving a third line of railway communication between Uniontown and Pittsburgh, and from both these places to Browns- ville by a short branch extending to that borough from the main line near Redstone Creek. As this Redstone branch road has an easy and unbroken road Company, who completed the road from Union-

278

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

town to Fairchance. This part of the line, as well as the Southwest Company's road from Uniontown to Greensburg, is now operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

The Uniontown and Dunkard Creek Railroad Company was incorporated March 23, 1865, with a capital of 8500,000. Corporators, Edward G. Roddy, John K. Ewing, Charles S. Seaton, Thomas B. Sea- right, William James, Daniel Kaine, Alpheus E. Willson, Charles E. Boyle, Isaac P. Kendall, John Brownfield, William McCleary, Ewing Brownfield, Jacob Crow, William Parshall, and Michael W. Franks, of Fayette County, and John P. Williams, Cephas Wylie, and Freeman Lucas, of Greene County. The road has not been built, and the early completion of the line between the termini is not yet assured.

The Brownsville and New Haven Railroad Com- pany was chartered Feb. 23, 1876, under the general law. This company had authority to construct a road from a point at or near New Haven to a point at or near Vance's Mill, on Redstone Creek ; also to connect with any other railroad. The company or- ganized and prosecuted the work of construction until the grading was nearly completed over the en- tire length. The usual result followed,-financial difficulties and the sale of the road by the sheriff (Aug. 30, 1877). Abraham O. Tinstman and A. L. McFarland became the purchasers, and it was after- wards sold by them to the Pittsburgh and Connells- ville Railroad Company. The road will undoubtedly be completed in the near future.

Several other railroads are in contemplation to run through this county, one of which, known as the " Vanderbilt Road," is now being constructed with remarkable rapidity. Its route is up the Youghio- gheny, along the left bank of the river, to the vicinity of Connellsville and New Haven, and thenee south- ward through the rich coal-fields of the central part of Fayette County to the West Virginia line. Neither its route south of the State line nor its contemplated southern terminus have been ascertained. Its north- western connection is to he with the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad.

POPULATION.

In the year 1768 the Rev. John Steele, who had been sent out with two other commissioners to visit the settlements along the Monongahela and Youghio- gheny Rivers, said, in his report to the Governor, "I am of opinion, from the appearance the people made. and the best intelligence we could obtain, that there are about one hundred and fifty families

in the different settlements of Redstone, Youghio- gheny, and Cheat." A few of those included in this estimate were located at Turkey Foot, in what is now Somerset County, a few on the Cheat south of the State line, and two or three families on the west side of the Monongahela. The whole one hundred and fifty families must have aggregated more than seven hundred persons, of whom less than fifty were living at Turkey Foot, and if there were an equal number of Steele's estimate settled in what is now Washington County and West Virginia (which is not probable), then there must have been at that time within the territory that is now Fayette County a population of fully six hundred, though statements have been made giving it a much less population than that in 1770, two years later. In 1790 Fayette County had 13,325 inhabitants, and in 1800, 20,159. The population of the county at the end of each decade from 1810 to 1880, inelusive, is given below, by town- ships and boroughs, as shown by the reports of the several United States censuses taken within the period indicated :

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

1860

1870

1880

Belle Vernou1 ..

90G

1,164

Bridgeport 1

250

62.4

737

788

1,292

1,276

1,199

1,134

Brownsvillel

698

976

1,233

1,362

2,369

1,034

1,749'

1.4x9

Brownsville.

Bullskin

1,439

1,484

1,231

1,275

1,428

1,523

1,657

2,732

Connellsville1 ..

498

31,205

1,436

1,553

990

1,292

4,5,615

l'onuelisville ...

489

1,163

1.366

Dawson!

Dnubar

2,066

1,895

1,722

2,070

2,156

2,2:24

2,972

Fayette City1

972

820

889

Franklin ...

1,623

1,749

1,464

1,396

1.412

1,418

1,299

1,373

Georges.

2,086

2,031

2.416

2.371

2.536

2,656

2,544

3,332

German.

2,079

2,379

2,395

2,310

1,894

2,046

1,911

1,8.34

Henry Clay.

805

891

1.117

1,077

951

1,232

Jefferson

1,516

1,435

1,510

1,381

1,613

Lower Tyrone.

1,538

1,610

1,625

1,715

1,869

1,896

1,807

Masontown1.

1,2281

1,376

1,083

1,377

1,411

1,412

1,376

442

51,514

Perly ...

1,350

1,272

1,414

1,445

1.476

Redstone.

1,224

1.207

1,209

1.159

1.287

1,155

1,152,

1,066

Smingfield

Spring Hill.

1,837

2,086

1,934

2,385

1,685

1,687

1,644

1,558

Stewart .......

989

1.058

1.159

1,189

1.419

1,485

2,276

Union.

1,821

1.947

2.475' 2,723

1,710

2,133

2,007

02,503

$3,265

Upper Tyroue.

Washington ....

2,160

2,749

2,926,

1,515

1.270

1,506,

1.065

1,257

Wharton.

922

1,200

809

1,325

1,853

1,623,

1,478

1,704

24,714 27,285 29,248 33,574 39,112 39,909 43,284 58,852

1 Boronghs. All others townships.

" Population of Brownsville township included with Brownsville Bor- oughi from 1820 to 1850, inclusive.

3 Fram 1830 to 1850, inclusive, the figures for Connellsville Borough include also the population of Connellsville township.

4 East Ward, 1926; West Ward, 1689; total, 3615.

" Including New Geneva, 286.

6 East Ward, 1169; West Ward, 1334; total, 2503.

7 East Ward, 1582; West Ward, 1683; total, 3265.

989

1,209

1,372

Salt Lick

994

1,172

1,499

7,911

1.080

1,376

1,629

1,713

New Haven1 ...

Nicholson.

1,354

1,313

1,359

North Union ..

1,749

1,683

3,170

South Union.

978

860

1,177

338

995

1.266

1,498

Tyrone ...

Uniontown1

999

1,038

1,341

2,873

£344

286

246

453 6,327 867

Luzerne.

1,976 1,744 376 1,461

Menallen

3.33

3,306

HISTORY OF BOROUGHS AND TOWNSHIPS.

UNIONTOWN BOROUGH.

THE history of Uniontown properly begins with the year 1767, when Thomas Douthet and Henry Beeson (the latter a Quaker) came from Virginia to this section of country and selected lands within the limits of the present borough. It is evident that Douthet settled or "squatted" on his land immedi- ately after selecting it,1 for his name is mentioned in the report of the Rev. John Steele, among those of the settlers whom he and the other Pennsylvania com- missioners found living on Redstone Creek and in its vicinity in March, 1768. This makes it reasonably certain that he had located here in the previous autumn, as it is very improbable that he would have moved to his new home so early in the spring. He did not become a permanent settler here. His land was purchased hy Henry Beeson prior to 1774 (as will be seen hereafter), but the precise date of the sale has not been ascertained. The log cabin in which he lived was located on what is now the rear of E. Bai- ley Dawson's land, south of the court-house. It was occupied by him when William Campbell first visited the vicinity in 1770, but no later account of his resi- dence in the place or his removal from it has been found.

Henry Beeson, although he selected his land at about the same time as Douthet, did not settle or make improvement on it until 1768. The fact that his name does not appear in Commissioner Steele's list of settlers here in March of that year is not positive proof that he did not locate in 1767, as has been stated

by some; but evidence which appears conclusive is found in a deed dated Feb. 13, 1788, from Henry Bee- son to Jacob Beeson, of certain land, "including my improvement made in 1768, near Thomas Douthet. . . . " The improvement here mentioned included the log house which he first occupied here, situated west of Campbell's Run, and near the site of the present residence of Clark Breading, in the western part of the borough. The tract on which it was located was named by Beeson "Stone Coal Run," which was sur- veyed to him by Alexander McClean on the 27th of September, 1769, on warrant No. 3455. It contained three hundred and fifty-five acres, lying west of the present Morgantown Street, the line of which formed its eastern boundary.

It is evident that Henry Beeson was a man of very considerable enterprise, and it is not improbable that from the time of his selection of these lands he en- tertained the idea of laying out a village upon them. It is said that Alexander McClean (who came into this region as deputy surveyor in 1769) advised him to do so, in view of the natural advantages of his lo- cation and of the probability that his settlement might very likely in the not-distant future become the seat of justice of a new county. It is difficult to under- stand why McClean, far-seeing as he was, should at that early time see a reason for his prediction, but it is certain that the suggestion of laying out a village was favorably received and acted on by Beeson. Within the three years next succeeding 1770, he had purchased Douthet's " Mill Scat" tract and erected a mill,2 which was generally in rural districts, and be-

1 Probably he had at first but a "tomahawk right." The order issued to Thomas Donthet for a warrant of survey was dated June 14, 1769, and the land was surveyed to him by Alexander McClean on the 27th of September in the same year. A plat of this tract, called " Mill Seat," containing three hundred and fourteen and one-quarter of acres, situated on Redstone Creek, is found ou page 71, " Book of Surveys of Fayette County." This tract embraced the part of Uniontown lying east of what is now Morgantown Street. The patent for the " Mill Seat" tract was issued Ang. 11, 1786, to Henry Beeson, who had purchased it more than twelve years previously, from Douthet. In a later deed from Mr. Beeson to Jacob Johnston, of a lot in the Douthet tract, is found the following preamble : " Whereas the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, by patent dated the 11th day of August, in the year 1786, did graut unto Ileary Beeson a certain tract of land sitnate on Redstone Creek in the county of Fayette, on which the town of Union had been previously erected," etc.

2 At the April session of Westmoreland County Court, in 1774, a peti- tion for a road was presented. in which it was set forth by the petitioners that " we who at present live on the west side of the Monongahela River are obliged frequently to carry our corn twenty miles to the mill of Henry Beeson, near Lanrel Hill; and in all probability, at some seasone of the year, will ever have to do so; and we therefore pray for a road from near Redstone Old Fort to Henry Beeson's Mill, and thence to in- tersect Braddock's road, near the forks of Dunlap's road and said road, on the top of Lanrel Hill." This is clear proof that in the beginning of the year 1774 Beeson's mill, on Redstone Creek, had been long enough established to he known and depended on by the people beyond the Monongahela twenty miles away. There is little reason to doubt that Henry Beeson had his mill in operation at least as early as 1772.

279

280

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

fore the days of steam-travel and transportation, con- sidered the first step towards the successful laying out of a village.

The site of Beeson's mill was between Douthet's log house and the creek, a short distance northwest of the former and near the foot of the hill. The race- way which supplied the mill was long, and a work of Henry Beeson's original plat of the village was sur- veyed and laid out in the year 1776, on the land which he had purchased of Thomas Donthet. It had one principal street, running in an eastward and west- ward direction, named by him Elbow Street (on ac- count of an angle in it which was rendered necessary by the natural conformation of the ground), being the same which is now the Main Street of Uniontown. The map here given of the village of Beeson's Mill, as laid out in 1776 by Henry Beeson, with numbers of lots and the names of persons to whom they were sold or allotted, is copied from one purporting to be a correct copy of the original plat. The copy in question was made by Jacob Miller in 1846. The whole number of lots laid out was fifty-four, em- bracing one tier on each side of Elbow Street, and one tier (of seven lots) on the north side of a short no small magnitude for that early day and for the means which Mr. Beeson had at his command for constructing it.1 It was an artificial canal about three-fifths of a mile in length, which took the water from Redstone Creek at a place known as the Beaver Dam, on land now belonging to heirs of Isaac Beeson, near the southern boundary of the present borough. The first dam which turned the water from the creek into the canal soon afterwards gave place to a more substantial one thrown across the creek at a point a little distance east of the present track of the South- west Railroad. From the dam the raceway led north- wardly across what are now Fayette and Church Streets, through the present school-house grounds and the lots of Mr. Dicus, on Main, and Samuel Stearns, on Peter Street, to the mill, from which the tail-race led into the creek above the Gallatin Avenue . thoroughfare which was laid out north of and paral- bridge, at a point about one mile, by the course of the stream, below the dam, where the water was taken into the raceway.

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.

History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 63

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