History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 83

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 83

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In 1848, when Mr. Stewart was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, he declined a nomination for Con- gress, and in the convention in Philadelphia, after the nomination of President Taylor, it was left to the Pennsylvania delegation to nominate a candidate for Vice-President, who, after having retired to agree upon a nominee, upon the first ballot Mr. Stewart

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

had fourteen out of twenty-six, the remaining twelve voting for Mr. McKennan and several others, when, without taking a second ballot to make it unanimous, the chairman of the delegation hurried back into the convention and reported that they had failed to agree, whereupon Mr. Fillmore was nominated and con- firmed, as was stated and published at the time with- out contradiction.

On the accession of Gen. Taylor to the Presi- dency, the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress rec- ommended Mr. Stewart for Secretary of the Treas- ury ; but being at the time confined to a sick-bed, he declined the appointment ; and it may be stated as a remarkable fact, true of no other man living or dead, that Mr. Stewart served in Congress with every President before Gen. Grant, except the first five, and Taylor, who was never in Congress.

While in Congress Mr. Stewart served on several of the most important committees, among them as chairman of the Committee on the Tariff and the Committee of Internal Improvements, constituting together, what was well called by Mr. Clay, " The American System," in the advocacy of which Mr. Stewart commenced and ended his political life. This system, he always contended, lay at the founda- tion of the national prosperity, the one protecting the national industry, and the other developing the na- tional resources. He called it the "political ther- mometer," which always had and always would indi- cate the rise and fall of the national prosperity.

Mr. Stewart belonged to the Democratic party up to 1828, when the party, at the dictation of the South, under the lead of Van Buren, Buchanan, and others, gave up the tariff and internal improvements for office; here Mr. Stewart took an independent stand. He said he would stand by his measures, going with those who went for and against those who went against them. He came home in the midst of the excited contest between Jackson and Adams for the Presi- dency in 1828, when his constituents were known to be more than two to one for Jackson, and in a public speech declared his intention "to vote for Adams, whose friends supported his measures, while the Dem- ocratic party, as such, opposed them. If for this they chose to turn him out, so be it, he would never sur- render his principles for office. If he did he would be a political hypocrite, unworthy the support of any honest man ; he would rather go out endeavoring to support what, in his conscience, he believed to be the true interests of his constituents and his country than to go in by meanly betraying them."

The Democrats took up Mr. Hawkins, of Greene County, then Speaker of the Senate, and used every means to exasperate the Jackson men against Mr. Stewart; yet, with all their efforts, although Jackson had a majority of two thousand eight hundred-more than two votes to one-in his district, Mr. Stewart was elected over the Jackson candidate by a majority of two hundred and thirty-five,-a result unprecedented, showing a degree of personal popularity on the one side, and of magnanimity and forbearance on the other, without a parallel in the history of elections. Mr. Stewart was afterwards re-elected for four terms, when he peremptorily declined a renomination.

At the age of thirty-four Mr. Stewart married the daughter of David Shriver, of Cumberland, Md., and raised a family of six children, who are all living ex- cept Lieutenant-Commander William F. Stewart, U.S.N., who was lost on the U. S. S. " Oneida," on the 24th of January, 1870, being at the time executive officer of the ship, and one of the most promising officers of his age in the service, so pronounced in letters of condolence after his death by all of the officers under whom he had served. His last heroic words on being urged to take the boat as the ship was going down were, " No ! let others take the boat, my duty is on board my ship," and he went down with her.

Mr. Stewart carried into private life the same devo- tion to these measures that distinguished him while in the public service, and until the time of his death he was found among the foremost in advocating rail- road improvements which will in the near future make his native county one of the richest and most prosperous in the State. To show his constant zeal and restless activity in the cause of domestic industry and home manufactures, it may be stated that he erected a blast-furnace, rebuilt a glass-works, built eleven saw-mills, four flouring-mills, planing-mills, etc., besides more than two hundred tenant and other houses ; he bought and sold over eighty thousand acres of land, and had between thirty thousand and forty thousand acres still left at his death, much of it in the West; and yet twenty-one years of the prime of his life were devoted to the services of his country in her State and national Legislatures.

Mr. Stewart died in Uniontown, July 16, 1872, in his eighty-second year. His sons, Col. Andrew Stewart and D. Shriver Stewart, reside in Stewart township, which was so named in honor of their illus- trious father, and where they have large landed in- terests which belonged to his estate.

CONNELLSVILLE BOROUGH AND TOWNSHIP.

THE borough of Connellsville, the largest town in population in the county of Fayette, is situated op- posite the borough of New Haven, on the right or eastern bank of the Youghiogheny; its territory, however, extending across the river to low-water mark on the western side, which low-water mark forms its western boundary. On the north, east, and south it is bounded by Connellsville township. Connellsville borough is not only the centre of the vast coke and coal interests of this region, but is also the most im- portant railway point in Fayette County, having connection with Pittsburgh and Uniontown by two lines, the Southwest Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio, and eastward by the same lines, over the Baltimore and Ohio to Cumberland and Baltimore, and over the Southwest and Pennsylvania roads to Greensburg, Altoona, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. Both the Southwest Pennsylvania and the Union- town Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio road eross the Youghiogheny at this point. The population of the borough by the census of 1880 was: in the East Ward, 1926; in the West Ward, 1689; total, 3615.

The first settler within the limits of the present borough of Connellsville was William McCormick, who came here from near Winchester, Va., about the year 1770. He had a number of pack-horses, and with them was engaged in the transportation of salt, iron, and other goods from Cumberland, Md., to the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers. His wife was Effie Crawford, a daughter of Col. William Craw- ford, who had settled on the left bank of the Youghio- gheny near the northern boundary of the present borough of New Haven. McCormick settled on the other side of the river,1 directly opposite the house of his father-in-law. His first residence there was a log house, which he built on the river-bank. It is still standing on land owned by the Pittsburgh and Con- nellsville Railroad Company. In this he lived many years, and then removed to a double cabin which he built on the site below the stone house on the David- son farm. Afterwards he built a large log house

where is now the stone house built by John Boyd, who purchased the McCormick property in 1831.

William McCormick died in 1816, aged about sev- enty-four years. He had eleven children, four of whom removed to Adams County, Ohio, and two to Indiana. Provance McCormick, a grandson of Wil- liam, now the oldest living native of Connellsville, was born in the above-mentioned double cabin of his grandfather, July 29, 1799. He learned two trades, shoemaker and carpenter. He married about 1818, and for two years lived on his grandfather's place. In 1825 he bought an acre of land, and built on it the house now owned by William White. In this he lived till 1853. He was elected justice of the peace, and later associate judge of Fayette County for one term. For the past ten years he has held the office of justice of the peace in Connellsville. Two sons, George and Joseph T., and two daughters are residents of Con- nellsville.

Zachariah Connell, the founder of the town of Cou- nellsville, came here a few years later than the settle- ment of William McCormick, whose brother-in-law he was, having married Mrs. McCormick's sister, Ann Crawford. He came to this section of country soon after 1770, and stopped at the house of his future father-in-law, Capt. (afterwards Colonel) William Crawford. After his marriage, which was probably in 1773," he lived for some time on the west side of the river, but afterwards, at a time which cannot be exactly fixed (between 1773 and 1778), moved to the east side of the stream and located on a tract of land which was designated in his warrant of survey3 as "Mud Island," which included the present site of the borough of Connellsville. He built his log cabin facing the river, on or very near the spot where the Trans-Allegheny House now stands, on Water Street. There he lived for many years, until he removed to the stone house which he had built at the corner of Grave Street and Hill Alley. After the death of his wife, Ann Crawford, he married a Miss Wallace, a sister of " Aunt Jenny" Wallace, who was long and well

1 Two tracts of land, one called " Stafford," and the olher "Rich Plain," located where McCormick settled, were warranted tu William Crawford, but soon afterwards became the property of William McCormick, and were patented to him May 28, 1795. A saw-mill was erected by him on these premises. An agreement was made by McCormick (April 10, 1794) to sell a part of these tructs to Jolin Gilson for £252, and on the 7th of December, 1796, the property was deeded by McCormick to Gibson.

" In the assessment list for the year 1772 of Tyrone township, Bedford Co. (which county then included all of what is now Fayette County, and Tyrone township comprebended all of the present townships of Ty- rone, Connellsville, and Duubar, and a great extent of contiguous terri- tory), the name of Zachariah Connell appears in the list of " Intuiates," -that is, " boarders, not heads of families."

3 Mr. Connell did not receive the patent for this tract until June 2, 1795, two years after he had laid out the town of Connellsville upou it.

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

known in later years as the keeper of the toll-bridge across the Youghiogheny River. The later years of Mr. Connell's life were devoted to the care of his real estate.1 He became an ardent Methodist, and donated the lot on which the church of that denomination was built. He died in his stone house on Grave Street, Aug. 26, 1813, aged seventy-two years, and was buried near the residence of John Freeman, where his re- mains still rest near those of his two wives, and where a broken slab marks the last resting-place of the founder of Connellsville. By his first wife Mr. Con- nell was the father of four children, of whom two were sons,-Hiram and John. The former lived and died in Connellsville, the latter removed to the West. Of the two daughters, one married William Page, who became a Methodist preacher, and removed with his wife to Adams County, Ohio, abont 1810. The other married Greensbury Jones, an exhorter, and emigrated with him to the West. The second wife of Mr. Connell became the mother of two daughters, who respectively became the wives of Joseph and Wesley Phillips, sons of John Phillips, of Union- town.

Nothing has been found tending to show that any other settlers came to locate near Zachariah Connell and William McCormick, or within the present terri- tory of the borough of Connellsville, during the Rev- olutionary war or the five or six years that succeeded the return of peace. The supposition that there were no such settlements made during the time referred to is strengthened by the fact that the tracts of Connell and McCormick, which included all that is now Con- nellsville, remained intact in the hands of their re- spective owners, MeCormick retaining all his land until his sale of a part of it to John Gibson in 1796, and the whole of Connell's tract (with the exception of the Rogers mill site) being still in his possession when he laid out the town in 1793, as will hereafter be noticed.

The "Rogers Mill" referred to (which a few years later became the property of Thomas Page) was built

) From the columns of The Reporter (published at Washington, Pa.), of date May 18, 1812, is extracted the following notice lyy Mr. Connell of a public sale of lots in Connellsville in the year preceding that of his death, viz. :

" ADVERTISEMENT.

" There will be 70 or 80 lots in the flourishing and thriving borough of Connellsville exposed to public sale on Thursday, the 4th day of June next, in the said borough, and the sale to continue from day to day until they are sold. I need not mention the situation of this growing place, as it is well known for the many ion-works around and near the town, . on the hill, afterwards known as the Page House, and

the many boats that are built there, and which communicate a trade with all the western country. There is a new State road laid out by an act of Assembly through this town to intersect the Federal turnpike road nen Brownsville. Also about 50 or 60 acres of land will be laul ont in lots adjoining said town, to be sold at the same time, when due attendance and reasonable credit will be given by me.

" ZACHARIAH CONNELL.

" CONNELLSVILLE, April 6, 1812.

" N B .- All persons claiming lots in said town are desired to come and lay in their chims by the 1st day of May, and pay the purchase-money and ground-rents if any dne.

"Z. C."

before 1793, on the river-bank, where the present mill stands, opposite Grave Street. Its owner was Daniel Rogers, who came bere from Dunbar township, and became one of the most prominent citizens of Con- nellsville, and, with his brother Joseph and Zadoc Walker, of Uniontown, was interested in the erection of the paper-mill on the Youghiogheny above Con- nellsville in 1810. The old grist-mill which he built, as above mentioned, became an establishment of no little importance to Connellsville as the settlement increased, and was largely patronized by people of both Bullskin and Dunbar townships.

Dr. James Francis was one of the earliest settlers in Connellsville. Evidence is found that he was prac- ticing in the vicinity before 1790, but it is not certain that he was at that time a resident in what is now Connellsville, though it is known that he was located there not long afterwards. Dr. Francis will be found mentioned more fully in the account of the early physicians of Connellsville.

Anthony Banning, an itinerant Methodist preacher, came to Connellsville as early as 1789, but did not lo- cate here until about two years later. He is mentioned in the narrative of the Methodist Church, written in 1848 by the Rev. P. McGowan, as follows : "There is reason to believe that there was a society at Connells- ville at this time [1789]. Anthony Banning, who resided at Connellsville, was received on trial in the traveling connection this year, but located in 1791, and afterwards resided in the same place." Here the Rev. Mr. McGowan merely infers that there must have been a society at Connellsville at the time men- tioned. But it is not at all strange that he should be mistaken in his inference, writing as he did at a time fifty years later. It is in no way probable that there was a Methodist Society at Connellsville at the time named, for there were no inhabitants there at that time except the families of Connell, McCormick, and Gibson (if the latter had a family then), and Anthony Banning (the last named being only temporarily lo- cated there) ; but it is not unlikely that people from Bullskin township and from the west side of the Yonghiogheny often met at Connell's, or in its vicinity as a central point, to listen to Banning's exhortations. . Besides preaching, Banning appears to have had other occupations, and to have been rather an enter- prising man. Some years after his settlement he started a tannery on the run, to the southward of Mr. Connell's stone house, and later built the stone house opened it as a tavern. He remained till 1810, when he sold the tavern stand to David Barnes and re- moved to Mount Vernon, Ohio.

In 1793 the town of Connellsville was laid out and chartered by Mr. Connell, who perceived that though there were but very few inhabitants in the place, it was destined to become a point of importance, because . it was here that emigrants and travelers to the West

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(of whom there were already great numbers in transit, coming over the road from Bedford by way of Turkey Foot) reached a boatable point on the Youghiogheny River. Here, for several years, boats had been built by emigrants and others to take their merchandise and other movables down by water carriage, and here he thought was a place where a thriving village would naturally spring up. Succeeding years bore witness to the soundness of his calculations, though for more than a decade after the laying out of the town its growth was but slow.

The charter, executed by Mr. Connell, March 21, 1793, and recorded with the town plot1 in Book C, page 329, of the Fayette County records, is as fol- lows :

" Zachariah Connell, proprietor of the tract of land situate on the East side of Youghiogheni River, where the State Road from the north fork of Turkey foot, intersects said river, To all to whom these presents shall come sendeth Greeting, Whereas it is necessary that some provision he made at the place aforesaid for the reception and entertainment of Travelers, and as well to accommodate such Tradesmen and others inclining to settle at or near said pince, for their encouragement and better regu- lation, Has laid out a small Town at the afuresaid place by the name of Connellsville, agreeably to the plan hereunto annexed. And the said Zachariah Connell, for himself, his heirs, and as- signs, doth grant that the streets and alleys of the said town shall forever continue as they are now laid out and regulated by the plan aforesaid, viz. : Spring Street or State Road, sixty feet wide, and all the other streets forty feet wide, and Alleys twenty feet wide, and that the space left opposite the ferry and front- ing on said River, as represented in the plan, and distinguished by Public Ground, and Water Street, shall be and continue free for the use of the Inhabitants of said Town, and for Travelers who may erect thereon temporary boat-yards, or may from time to time occupy the same or any part thereof for making any vessels or other Conveniences for the purpose of conveying their property to or from said Town. And the said Zachariah Connell doth further promise und Covenant with the Inhabit- ants of said Town and others who choose to frequent the same, that all landings, harbours, or other conveniences and advan- tages of said River opposite said town or adjoining Water Street aforesaid shall be free to them at all times for the purpose of landing Timher, Stone, or other materials for building, or fur the use of lading Vessels for removal of their persons or prop- erty to any place whatever. But the said Zachariah Connell reserves to himself, his heirs, and Assigns all that piece of Land situate between Water Street and the River, and extending from Roger's Mill down to Spring Street or State Road, Pro- vided always that none of said Town or others shall at any time ercet a ferry boat for publie use, or keep and maintain a Canoe or other Vessel for the purpose of conveying any person or persons, thing or things, across said River other than their own families or their own property. And providing also as the

1 Coughenour's addition to the town of Connellsville was made about 1836, by Valentine Coughenour, embracing about six acres, bounded south by North Alley, east by lots of John Fuller and Alexander Juhu- ston, north by property of Alexander Johnston, and west hy Church Street.

In February, 1871, a plot of fifty-one acres was added by the Connells- ville Building and Loan Association. In October, 1873, James Johnston platted an addition of twenty-seven aeres, lying west of Church Street, and in 1875 he platted forty-five acres lying east of Church Street as an addition to the borough.

privilege is joint, that nu person or persons, Company or Com- panies, shall at any time or times hereafter occupy more of the margin of said River for the purpose aforesnid than is abso- lutely necessary, according to the various changes and circum- stances of the case, to the end that all foreigners as well as Citizens may be equally or proportionately advantaged therchy as their necessity require. And, whereas, there is near said Town, on the verge of said river, an excellent Stone Coal Bank from which Coal may be conveniently conveyed by water along all the front of said Town, and also a Stone-Quarry, where stone may he got for building, and the said Zachariah Connell heing desirous of giving all the encouragement and advantages that the nature of the case will admit of, consistent with his own interest and safety, doth herchy grant unto the inhabitants of said Town, their heirs, and assigns for ever, the free and full privilege of digging and removing from said Stone Coal Bank and Stone-Quarry to their habitation or place of abode within said town only any quantity of Coal and Stone necessary for their own particular use. And the said Zachariah Connell doth hereby grant to be surveyed und laid out for the use of the In- habitants of said Town the timber and stone on one hundred acres of land adjacent thereto for building, &c. . . . And whereas there are sundry springs within the limits aforesaid, and the said Zachariah Connell being desirous that as many of the Inhabitants of said Town as possible may receive mutual advantage therefrom, doth give and grant unto the inhabitants of said town, and others traveling through said town, the com- mon use and benefit of said springs, to be by them conveyed or condneted through all and every part of said town at their pleasure for their mutual convenience and advantage, reserving, nevertheless, to the owner of Lots out of which the fountain issues the full privilege of erecting any house or other conven- ience at the head of said spring, so as not to prevent the other inhabitants from free access thereto at all times. And provided the said house or other convenience will and shall not have a tendency to disturb or affect the water flowing from said spring so as to render it disagreeable to the other inhabitants. And provided also that by said building or other convenience the Inhabitants shall not be prevented from having access to the fountain for sinking Pipes or conduits for the conveying of the water aforesaid and screening or securing the same from filth or other injury, and Whereas it is the desire of the said Zach- ariah Connell that the inhabitants of said town should be ac- commodated with a commodious seat whereon to erect a house or houses for public worship and school or schools, he for that purpose alone appropriates the Lots Nos. 88 and 96 on said plan for said purpose, free and clear of purchase money or ground-rent, for ever to the inhabitants of said town. their beirs, and successors, to be held in common for the purpose aforesaid, or jointly, as the inhabitants may choose, and also a sufficient quantity of suitable ground convenient thereto, and not included in said Town or in the one hundred acres aforesaid, not exceeding an acre, for the purpose of a Grave-Yard. And to prevent a misunderstanding of the grant made of the timber and stone on the hundred acres aforesaid, the said Zachariah Connell hereby declares that the said Timber and Stone sball be removed or prepared for removal before the sale of the land whereon it may be. Provided always that the said Zachariah Connell hereby reserves to himself, his heirs, or assigns, the purchase money for each and every Lot so laid off for sale. and an annual ground-rent of half a dollar for each Lot. The ground- rent to be paid to the said Zachariah Connell, his heirs, and as- signs, at the town aforesaid, on the first day of May in each and every year forever, and the said Zachariah doth hereby cove- nant with the inhabitants of said town that all moneys that shall become due and owing unto him for ground-rents for the

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

space of four years from the date hereof to be applied to rais- ing a meeting-house or meeting-houses, and School or School- Houses on the aforesaid lots appropriated to that use. And whereas in length of time it may be convenient for some of the inhabitants of said town to have ontlots for pasture, and the said Zachariah Connell doth hereby grant to be surveyed and laid out for the use of the inbabitaots of said town the one hundred acres of Land above mentioned adjacent to said town, in Lots of not less than one acre nor exceeding four acres each, subject to such purchase money as the parties may agree upon.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 83

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