USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 7
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"In July, 1850, I was appointed to Brookville Mission, as it was then called, with Thomas Elliott as junior preacher. For some years prior to this Brook- ville and Luthersburg, with a few outlying appointments at both ends, consti- tuted the mission field. Dean C. Wright, my immediate predecessor, preached in Brookville and in Luthersburg on alternate Sabbaths. Luthersburg was now cut off from Brookville, and formed into a new charge, and the Brook- ville mission field was greatly enlarged, so as to take in Greenville, Kearney's school-house, and Canada, as it was called. These appointments were in Clar- ion county, and with Troy, and Holts, Brookville, Warsaw, Richardsville, Ebenezer Church, a mile or two from Sigel, and Hominy Ridge, near the Clarion River, constituted our Sabbath appointments; and with two preachers on the charge, we were able to give them public services once in two weeks.
59
EARLY SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
But in addition to these we had a good many other preaching places, and fee- ble societies which could be reached and served only on week days and nights. Thomas Elliott, being a young man and a novice in the ministry, thinking the labor and sacrifices too great, became discouraged, and fled ingloriously from the field before the year was half ended. This occasioned my labors and responsibilities to be greatly increased ; but later on Samuel Warren was sent to my assistance. He was kind, companionable, and faithful to his work. He was after this received into the Erie Conference ; served a number of charges, then moved to Missouri; entered the conference there, and subsequently be- came a presiding elder, and for anything I know to the contrary, he is still alive, and in the active work of the ministry.
"On my arrival in Brookville I found a feeble society, numbering, to the best of my recollection, but twenty-six in all; of these, fully one-third lived four to six miles away, and were seldom seen at any of our Sabbath services. Elijah Heath and Christopher Fogel, a local preacher, had transferred their residences and membership to Brookville, and with Martin Travis, Reuben Hubbard, John Long, Samuel Clark, Daniel Silvis, and James Moore, and their wives, were the principal members.
" As we had no church edifice, and the court-house not always available for public services, I early began to agitate the matter of building a church of our own. This, however, was decidedly opposed by the official members gen- erally, and particularly by Judge Heath, who affirmed that no man could raise a thousand dollars in Brookville to build a Methodist Church. With per - sistent agitation, however, their consent was obtained not to oppose the enter- prise any further, provided I would agree to solicit the subscriptions, and collect the funds, to which I gave a willing assent, and in a comparatively short time I had good pledges to the amount of $1,500. The judge very frankly acknowledged his mistake, and became quite enthusiastic to see the building commenced and carried on to completion as rapidly as possible. This was soon done, and I had the very great pleasure of preaching and worshiping with my people in our own house of prayer during the latter nine months of my second year on the charge, and pushing the subscription as much as my time would allow. I had the entire cost of lot, building, etc., can- celled with the exception of about $450, with nearly that amount of sub- scription uncollected, before my alloted time expired.
" In the month of January, 1851, I commenced a series of meetings in the court-house, hoping thereby to get the church revived, and her membership increased. I was not disappointed-the result was a glorious revival, such as had never been witnessed before in Brookville. Of the new accessions many were heads of families, and became stable and useful members of the church. We were blest with a similar revival soon after we began to worship in the new church. One of the converts, Rev. J. K. Mendenhall, became an itiner-
60
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
ant minister in the Erie Conference. From this time on the Methodist Epis- copal Church has had a respectable showing, and has been a power in Brook- ville. The missionary appropriation was now withheld, outside appointments were formed into other charges, and the church in Brookville became an independent station. Three sessions of the Erie Annual Conference have been held and creditably sustained there.
" In the summer of 1852 I was appointed to Punxsutawney, and remained there two years. The revival spirit prevailed generally over the charge. Many new and valuable members were gathered, especially at Punxsutawney and Ringgold. The latter place was a new appointment; a flourishing society was organized and the 'Union Bethel Church' erected, which was built and held in common by the Evangelical and Methodist denominations. Paradise, near Reynoldsville, was a new appointment, and a house of worship was erected there soon after I had left the charge, chiefly through the liberality and peristent efforts of a Mr. Syphert.
"Two of this Brother Syphert's daughters were afterwards married to Meth- odist preachers, and are still itinerating and toiling with their husbands in the Master's vineyard.
"In the summer of 1854 I was sent to Luthersburg, and remained there two years. By special invitation I visited Washington township, in Jefferson county, and established a preaching place not far from Rockdale Mills. A series of revival meetings held in a school-house proved a great blessing; a society of some fifty members was formed, and the 'Beech Wood's Church,' as it was called, became one of the most important Sabbath appointments on the charge. Mathew and John Smith, Michael Grogan, Daniel Groves and three of his sons - James, Thomas, and John, and many others whose names I cannot now recall were among the earliest members. James Groves was afterward licensed to preach, and admitted into the Erie Conference, and did the church good service for a number of years.
"From Luthersburg I moved to Clarington, on the north side of the Clarion River, but I had several preaching places in Jefferson county. In 1866 and 1867 I was reappointed to Clarington and remained two years again, and had the same preaching places in Jefferson as before. In 1868 and '69 I was at . Brockwayville. The charge was a laborious one and lay entirely within the limits of Jefferson county. Fourteen years of my ministerial life and labors were thus spent, either wholly, or in part, in Jefferson county. When I first entered the county as a Methodist preacher there was not a single parsonage, and but one house of worship owned by the Methodists in the county. That house was in Punxsutawney, and was a mere shell, small, old, and somewhat dilapidated, in which a feeble society had been worshiping for a number of years. The second house of worship erected by the Methodists was the Hope- well Church, of which I have spoken before; the third was at Troy, the
61
FROM 1807 TO 1830.
fourth at Brookville, the fifth at Gahagan's, in the southern part of the county. Our preaching was done chiefly in school-houses, private dwellings, grist-mills, and in the open air, but ' the hand of the Lord was with us working with signs and wonders,' 'and hundreds were added to the church. Of the older members of my acquaintance many have departed, I trust in peace; others moved away, and when I consider how many parsonages and houses of wor- ship have been built, and how many new societies have been organized, and how many preachers are employed and liberally sustained within the limits of the county, I am constrained to exclaim ' What hath God wrought!'"
The first Catholics who came into the county, as far as we can learn, were those two sturdy, honest Irishmen, John Dougherty and John Gallagher, who settled in Brookville, in the year 1831, and who were both prominently con- nected with the town and county for so many years. Soon others came in ; some from Belgium, who settled on the south side of Red Bank, in what has ever since been known as Belgiumtown. They were for a long time minis- tered unto by priests from St. Mary's, Pa., and from the older Catholic settle- ments in the Clarion region, until 1853, when, during the pastorate of Rev. Father Ledwith, they built the brick church on Water street, which was for a long time the finest church edifice in Brookville.
Although there were members of the Baptist, Lutheran and other denomi- nations in the county prior to 1830, they had no organization, nor any preach- ing, except that of Dr. Nichols, in the northern part of the county, before noted.
The rapid growth, the fine church edifices, with full statistics of the different church organizations within the county the past half of a century, will be given elsewhere.
CAAPTER VII.
FROM 1807 TO 1830.
First Assessments and Elections-First Roads-Population-Statistics of Agriculture- Commerce and Manufactures.
T HOUGH the county was organized provisionally in 1804, there seems to have been no records kept nor any elections held until 1807. The fol- lowing is the first assessment of property on record : 5
62
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
" 100 acres Joseph Barnett, (improved), val. $3.29
- John Dixon, (weaver),
Elijah M. Graham,
Joseph Hutchison,.
100 acres Peter Jones, (blacksmith), (improved), 1.95
100
.€ Samuel Scott, (miller), 6.00
100
John Scott,
2.22
100
66 Jacob Vasbinder, S. M.,1 2.47
William Vasbinder, 2.01
100 Adam Vasbinder,. 2.22
Total val. $33.13.
" No. of taxables, 18; No. of horses, 23 ; No. of cows, 35."
The first election returns are as follows :
1 807.
" Jefferson county-At an election held at the house of Samuel Scott, in said county, on Friday, the 20th of March, A. D. 1807, the following persons were duly elected :
" Supervisors-John Scott had 18 votes. Peter Jones " 18 “ " Signed Sam'l. Scott, Thos. Lucas, Judges."
1808.
" At an election held at the house of Samuel Scott in said county, on the 18th day of March, A. D. 1808, the following persons were duly elected as returned below :
" Supervisors ; John Jones, } were duly Alex. McCoy, S elected.
Auditors ; Samuel Lucas, Samuel Scott, Moses Knap, and Adam Vasbinder, Were duly elected. " Signed Samuel Scott, John Dickson, ¿ Judges."
The above returns are as copied from the records of Indiana county, where the returns had to be made, this county then being under the legal jurisdiction of Indiana.
In the next three years the white population according to the census of 1810, was 161 whites, one colored, showing that the settlements in the county within the first ten years proceeded very slowly.
The American, published at Indiana, Pa., of February 10, 1817, publishes the receipts and expenditures of Jefferson county as follows :
" Receipts and Expenditures .- In the Treasury of Jefferson County, from the Second of January, 1816, to January First, 1817, both days inclusive.
1 Single man.
63
FROM 1807 TO 1830.
John Taylor, Esq., Treasurer.
Dr.
Dols. Cts.
To cash of Joseph Barnett, Collector
of Pine Creek Township for 1813, in full. 17.4334 66 to Road viewers 18.00
Received on Unseated Lands 2,475.61 14
Land sold. 101.92
$2.594.97
List of outstanding debts.
Due from the Collectors for 1815 .... $ 7.701/2
On unseated Lands before 1816, for which the lands have been sold to the Commissioners. 2,140.27
County Tax 1816. 790.92
$2,938.8912
Cr.
By Cash paid on Sundry road orders. $1,626.76 Election orders 34.00
Wolf orders 157.37/2
66 Contingent expenses .. 102.00
Paid to Indiana County the propor- tional part of the general expenses 298.56
Treasurer's fees of sixty-five tracts of Land sold to Commissioners 186.92
Treasurer's fees on $1,933.1312 at 2 per cent. 38.66
Balance in Treasury 132.6312
$2.594.97
GARWIN SUTTON,
THOMAS SHARP, Commissioners.
THOMAS LAUGHLIN,
Attest.
Daniel Stanard, Clerk.
By an act of the Legislature Pine Creek township was established in 1806, and comprised the entire county until 1818, when Perry was established; and until the year 1826, when Young was formed from a portion of Perry, these two townships, Pine Creek on the north, and Perry on the south, with Little Sandy as the dividing line, were the only two districts in the county. The elections were held at the house of Joseph Barnett for Pine Creek, and at the house of John Bell for Perry. In 1826 Ridgway township was formed from a portion of Pine Creek. Previous to this all the settlers mentioned heretofore as having settled on Little Toby and the West Branch, in what is now Elk county, had to come to Port Barnett to vote, while all other legal business had to be enacted at Indiana. In 1827 Rose was formed from Pine Creek.
Previous to the War of 1812, there were no roads; the " Chinklacamoose path" from Clearfield, through Punxsutawney, and "Meade's trail" from Clearfield, through Brookville, westward, were the only highways. Previous to the beginning of the war a government road was projected through this territory for the purpose of transporting troops from the eastern part of the State to Lake Erie, and is said to have been " brushed out." That the troops from the east- ern part of the State passed through this county on their way to the scene of hostilities at Lake Erie is well authenticated. Colonel Bird, with his regiment, rested three days at Port Barnett, and the next night after leaving there bi- vouacked at the " Four Mile Spring," on the Afton farm, in Eldred township. Several persons were impressed by the commander of this expedition, among the number being E. M. Graham, who, with his team, was taken to aid in car- rying supplies. Mr. Graham was taken as far as Waterford, in Erie county, and after an absence of two weeks was allowed to return home.
During the building of the Low Grade division of the Allegheny Valley Railroad through this county, in the year 1872, near the western county line, there was found imbedded in the hardpan some six feet below the the surface, and covered by nearly that depth of solid sandstone, some relics of a past age. One was what appeared to be a Queen Anne musket. The stock and wooden
64
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
part of the gun had entirely disappeared, but the flint-lock of extraordinary proportions, and the length and style of the barrel proved its identity. Near the gun lay a huge bridle-bit, the size of which gave some indication of the ideas of utility of the people of that remote age. The sides were not less than eighteen inches long, and terminated in immense rings, and the ponderous ar- ticle was large enough for an animal ten times the size of the horses in use at the present day. These relics of antiquity were in a comparatively good state of preservation. How they got so deeply imbedded in the "hardpan," and when and by whom they were deposited there, was a source of much conjecture, and is a question not easily answered ; but it has been presumed that the spot where they were found marked the road over which troops had marched dur- ing the early Indian wars, or they may have been deposited in the grave of some Indian brave who had stolen them.
The first effort to make a State road through Jefferson county was by the passage of an act, February 22, 1812, to enable the governor of the Common- wealth to incorporate a company for making an artificial road from Waterford in the county of Erie, through Meadville and Franklin to the river Susque- hanna, at or near the mouth of Anderson's Creek, in Clearfield county. The governor was empowered to subscribe $12,000 in shares toward the building of this road, and Thomas Forster and John Boyd, of the county of Erie ; James Harriott and Henry Hurst, of the county of Crawford ; William Moore and George Powers, of the county of Venango; Ebenezer Magoffin, and Be- son Pearson, of the county of Mercer ; Joseph Barnett and Peter Jones, of the county of Jefferson ; Joseph Bond and Paul Clover, of the county of Clearfield ; George Lattimer and Jeremiah Parker, of the city Philadelphia; and William Dunn and John Shaw, of the county of Philadelphia, were appointed commis- sioners to receive subscriptions for stock. The shares were put at twenty-five dollars each, and the several counties named were required to take a certain number of said shares ; Jefferson county's apportionment being fifty shares.
This road-which was called the Waterford and Susquehanna Turnpike- was incorporated in the year 1817, and work was begun in 1818. March, 1821, an act was passed, by which $2,500 was appropriated for improving said road, and persons appointed from each county to receive the sum to be ex- pended in their respective counties, Charles C. Gaskill and Carpenter Winslow being appointed to represent Jefferson county.
" November 3, 1830, a contract was made between the commissioners of Jefferson county and John Lucas for making eighty perches of road through the borough of Brookville, to intersect the Susquehanna and Waterford turn- pike road, being Sections 3, 4, and 7. Twenty perches east, counting from east of town, to be made in same manner as the pike, to be finished by the Ist of December next. Amt. for work $79."
William Lucas is also mentioned as making " 50 perches of turnpike, being
65
FROM 1807 TO 1830.
that part of the alteration of the Susquehanna and Waterford turnpike road through the borough of Brookville." This road was finished in 1822, and has ever since been the principal thoroughfare from east to west through Jefferson county. It is still a State road. In 1840 the tolls received were $4, 109.10. Amount paid for repairs, $3,338.17. Salaries of gate-keepers, $784.33.
By an act passed March 26, 1821, "the sum of $8,000 was appropriated for opening and improving a State road, recently laid out from the town of Kittanning, in Armstrong county, to the State line in the direction of Hamil- ton, in the State of New York, which road passed through the counties of Armstrong, Jefferson, and Mckean, to be expended in the said counties, in proportion to the distance it passed through the same respectively, and John Matson and John Lucas, were appointed to receive and expend the same for Jefferson county." This road, still known as the Olean road, was finished in 1822.
In 1825 another State road was laid out from the town of Indiana, through Punxsutawney, in Jefferson county, and Smethport, in the county of Mckean, to the town of Ceres, in Mckean county. This road, known as the Ceres road, was finished in 1828.
In 1830, through the exertions of Judge Gillis, a road was made from Milesburg, in Centre county, through the Ridgway and Kersey settlements in Jefferson county, to intersect with the Olean road, near the town of Olean, N. Y., the State appropriating $20,000 towards the same.
There was not much done in the way of improvement in Jefferson county in the first quarter of a century. The land was too rugged and heavily tim- bered to allow the few settlers to make much progress in farming. The soil, however, enriched by the accumulations and decayed vegetation of centuries, was very productive, and when tilled, yielded productively ; but it required so much hard labor to clear the ground that during these first years only a soli- tary clearing here and there proclaimed the presence of the husbandmen. During the troublous times attendant on the War of 1812, the few settlers lived in constant dread of an incursion of Indians and British, but were unmo- lested.
Another decade showed only 551 whites and ten negroes as the aggregate population, but during the next ten years settlers commenced to come in more rapidly. The settlements in the northern and southern portions of the county already noticed were made, and the census of 1830 gives the population as 2,003 whites, twenty-one free colored, and one slave. Those of the present generation will scarcely credit the fact that a slave was at one time, and that as late as 1830, owned in Jefferson county ; but we learn that the slave reported in Jefferson county by the census of 1830, was Charles Sutherland, who was brought from Virginia to this county about the year 1812.
Captain E. R. Brady in the Jeffersonian of January 20, 1852, notices the
66
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
death of this venerable negro, the only slave ever owned in Jefferson county : "In this day's paper we record the death of Charles Sutherland (colored), who was one of the oldest inhabitants of this county and had arrived at the ad- vanced age of nearly one hundred years. He came to what is now Jefferson county upwards of forty years ago, when the ground upon which Brookville now stands was but a howling wilderness. Many there are in this borough who will miss the familiar and friendly visits of ' old Charley' who, with hat in hand, and his venerable head uncovered, asked alms at their hands. No more will they hear from him a description of the 'Father of his country,' when he, Charley, held his horse at the laying of the corner-stone of the capitol at Washington City. His breath is hushed, his lips are sealed, and his body is wrapped in the cold habiliments of the grave. Resquicscat in pace."
The progress in other respects was as great as in the increase of population. Until the year 1826 there were no mail facilities. In all those years no letters, no papers, no tidings from the outside world reached these dwellers in the wilder- ness except a special messenger was sent to the town forty or fifty miles dis- tant. In January, 1826, a post-office was established at Port Barnett, and Jo- seph Barnett appointed postmaster. In February of the same year another office was established at the Ridgway Settlement, and James Gillis appointed postmaster. This office was called Montmorency.
An office was established in 1826 at Punxsutawney, with Charles Barclay as postmaster, and that at Brockwayville, Alonzo Brockway, postmaster, in 1829. These were all the post-offices in the county during the first thirty years. In 1828 a post-route was established, and the mail was carried once a week on horseback from Kittanning to Smethport in Mckean county. Letter postage at that time was 64, 122, 182, to 25 cents per ounce, according to the distance the letter had to go. Each letter was wrapped in a separate wrapper, and the postmasters at the sending and receiving offices had to keep a correct record of every letter passing through their hands. The advent of the mail service in the county was a great event, and the weekly visit of the "post- boy " was looked for eagerly by those who for so long had been deprived of all communication with the outside world.
67
FROM 1830 TO 1860.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM 1830 TO 1860.
The Lumber Trade -- Progress in Agriculture - Growth of Settlements - The First Public Buildings - The First Newspaper - Agricultural and Manufacturing Statistics.
W TITH the commencement of the year 1830 Jefferson county seemed to take a great stride forward in every respect. From being a dependency of Indiana county, as regarded all legal or official business, she found herself clothed with full power to enact her own business, and take care of her own interests.
The county seat was established, Brookville laid out, and the first settle- ment effected there. Roads had already been made throughout the county, new settlements were being made in every direction, while the forests were giving way beneath the sturdy blows of the lumbermen and the farmer.
Although lumbering had been carried on in a desultory way from the first settlement of the county, it was not until 1830 that a real beginning was made. In a sketch of Jefferson county published in 1843 in the " Historical Collec- tions of Pennsylvania," the early lumbering business of the county is referred to thus :
" The impulse given to the lumber trade by the speculations in the State of Maine was not without its influence upon remote sections of the Union. The keen sagacity of the Yankees discovered that there were vast bodies of pine lands lying around the sources of the Allegheny River not appreciated at their full value by the few pioneers who lived among them. The Yankees had learned to estimate the value of pine land by the tree, and by the log ; the Pennsylvanians still reckoned it by the acre. Somewhere between 1830 and 1837 individuals and companies from New England and New York pur- chased considerable bodies of land on the head waters of the Red Bank and Clarion Rivers from the Holland Land Land Company and other large land- holders. They proceeded to erect saw-mills, and to drive the lumber trade after the most approved methods. The little leaven thus introduced caused quite a fermentation among the lumbermen and landholders of the county. More lands changed owners ; new water-privileges were improved; capital was introduced from abroad, and during the spring floods every creek and river resounded with the preparation of rafts, and the lively shouts of the lumber- men, as they shot their rafts over the swift chutes of the mill-dam. The pop- ulation of the county was trebled in ten years."
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