USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men > Part 21
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Indians, and there is little wonder that squatters went into the ter- ritory and located claims. Mention of a number of these squat- ters occur throughout this book, and among the names are the forefathers of many present day inhabitants. Information was not disseminated nearly so easily in provincial days and it is tin- fair to charge these squatters with disobeying the laws, when they probably inferred from the language creating Cumberland County that it meant just what it said, which was not the case.
This wonderful domain, when taken literally, included all of Pennsylvania lying west of the Susquehanna River, except York County. From it all the counties west of the Susquehanna have been carved, either directly or indirectly, Perry being the last to attain separation.
Cumberland County was named after a maratime county of England, on the borders of Scotland. When the Scotch-Irish be- gan settling the Cumberland Valley at first the Six Nations still inhabited it. This was about 1730 or 1731. When Cumberland County was organized it had but 807 taxable citizens.
The first Cumberland County courts, after the county's estab- lishment in 1750, were held at Shippensburg, but were transferred to Carlisle in 1751, when the town was laid out. In those days the session of Orphans' Court were sometimes held in the various dis- tricts, and there is at least one reference to it being held on the north side of the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain while the lands yet belonged to Cumberland. The records state that it was held "at William Anderson's," which location was at what is now Ander- sonburg.
Carlisle, the new county seat, early became an educational centre, which it is to this day. Dickinson College opened in 1783, and in 1833 came under the influence of the Methodist Church.
While Perry was yet a part of Cumberland "the Father of Ilis Country," President George Washington, visited Carlisle. Incidentally, that title-the Father of His Country-was first ap- plied to him in Baer's Almanac, published at Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania. It was quickly adopted by the public press and will be used as long as time lasts. It was but fit and proper that that ap- propriate title should be first applied to him by a Pennsylvanian, for while he was born in Virginia and died in Virginia, yet he spent the greater number of his mature years in Pennsylvania. No less a historian than Ex-Governor Pennypacker is responsible for the latter statement.
In 1787, in a list of field officers selected to command the militia of Cumberland County, is the following: Toboyne, Tyrone, and Rie (Rye)-Lieutenant Colonel, John Davidson; Major, Michael Marshall.
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
In 1795 the Senate of Pennsylvania voted to make Carlisle the State Capital, but the House refused to concur.
During the period immediately prior to the Revolution, during that war and afterwards, while Perry County was yet a part of Cumberland, its residents had great reason to admire a fellow citizen who was a noted lawyer, a statesman and a patriot who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, that great document which has given civilization everywhere a new impetus. James Wilson was born in 1742 and was foremost in all matters pertaining to the province, later to the colony, and still later to the state. His influence upon the Constitution of the United States-second only to that of the Declaration of Inde- pendence-was probably greater than that of any other member of the convention. Largely to his addresses, efforts and public ar- ticles was due the ratification of the Constitution by Pennsylvania. In 1791 he established the first law school in America in connec- tion with the University of Pennsylvania. In 1789 President Washington appointed him a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
It was from Cumberland County, remembering that Perry County was an integral part at that time, that "Molly Pitcher" went forth to the army and the battle of Monmouth, from whence has come her fame. Her maiden name was Ludwig, and she was wed to a man named Hays. At that time a number of wives of soldiers were allowed to accompany the army on errands of mercy -to care for the wounded. They were the forerunners of the Red Cross nurses of our time. Mrs. Hays was one of these women and was carrying water to the soldiers when she saw her husband fall at the battle of Monmouth. She immediately took his place and fought courageously until the close of the battle, and her name, "Molly Pitcher," came by reason of her carrying water for the soldiers. She later married again, but it is as "Molly Pitcher" that her name will descend for all time as one of the heroines of that great conflict.
During the first thirty-two years that Perry County territory was a part of Cumberland County there stood in Carlisle a pillory, a whipping post and stocks, where offenders paid the penalty for crime. The Act of 1786 did away with that form of punishment. A considerable crime of that day was larceny, and the law provided that for the first offense of that nature the person so convicted should be publicly whipped on his bare back, with stripes well laid on to the number of twenty-one. Later offenses carried a larger number. Murder, arson, burglary, robbery and witchcraft were punishable by death. After 1785 the public whippings ceased, but records show that 150 persons were so punished. Of these seven- teen were in addition sentenced to stand 'in the pillory for one
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
hour, and six of them had both ears cut off and nailed to the pil- lory. These latter were convicted of horse stealing and passing counterfeit money.
From 1779 to 1787, in Cumberland County, eleven men and women were sentenced to be hanged, three for murder, three for robbery, two for burglary, two for counterfeiting, one for rape, one for arson, and one for an unmentionable crime. The early judges were laymen and were known as justices of the peace. Ac- cording to a statute three were required to preside at trials. The Act of April 3, 1791, provided for a president judge, learned in the law. The old guardhouse, near one of the entrance gates of the Carlisle Indian School, now again a military post, was built by Hessian soldiers, captured by General Washington's army at the battle of Trenton, and sent to Carlisle as prisoners of war.
A signer of the famous document known as the Declaration for the Colony of Pennsylvania was John Creigh, one of the nine rep- resentatives. Creigh was the father of Dr. Creigh, long a physi- cian at Landisburg, and the grandfather of Rev. Dr. Thomas Creigh, born in Landisburg, a noted divine. Of German origin, transplanted to Ireland, he came to this country in 1761. He was a lieutenant colonel of the Continental Army and a member of the Provincial Conference which met in Carpenter's Hall in June, 1776. In February, 1778, directed by Congress, he administered the oath to six hundred and forty-two citizens of Carlisle and vicinity. He died February 17, 1813.
At the last election for Governor of Pennsylvania while Perry was yet attached to Cumberland, in 1817, William Findlay was nominated by the (then) Republicans, and General Joseph Heister, by the disaffected branch of the party known as "The Old School" and the Federalists. Findlay was elected and was the governor who signed the act creating the new county of Perry, but at the following election for governor, in 1820, General Heister was elected as his successor.
. Even during the term of George Washington as first President of the United States insurrection broke out-and in our own fa- vored Pennsylvania. Historians term it "the Whiskey Insurrec- tion" of 1794. The farmers, and especially of western Pennsyl- vania, distilled whiskey in large quantities, that being their prin- cipal source of revenue. When the United States passed an act laying an excise on liquor the measure was very unpopular in that section, and although a people of a generally peaceful disposition, they resisted the law. Perry County's territory, as stated, was still a part of Cumberland, and Carlisle was its county seat. Troops were raised at once to stand by the government and force submis- sion of the insurrectionists. This was the occasion of President Washington's visit to Carlisle, where he reviewed four thousand
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
men under arms, many of them from north of the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain.
Among these troops was the young attorney, David Watts, son of General Frederick Watts, born in Wheatfield Township, and the first lad from Perry County territory to secure a college edu- cation, who joined the troops as a private. Alive to the danger of any refusal to support the government and resolute in his oppo- sition to the "whiskey boys," who planted a "liberty pole" near Carlisle, he shouldered an axe and alone, unaided and unarmed, rode to the spot where it stood and felled it to the ground, al- though there was a public threat to shoot any one who offered to disturb it. Whether the planting of this "liberty pole" of 1794 was the forerunner of the "personal liberty" party of the begin- ning of the Twentieth Century the reader must be left to conjec- ture. Another member of the Cumberland militia company, the Carlisle Infantry, who helped quell the insurrection was Francis Gibson, eldest son of George Gibson, who died at Gibson's Mill in 1856.
As the territory now comprising Perry County was yet a part of Cumberland during the agitation attending the adpotion of the Constitution of the United States the following episode from Rupp's History will be of interest to the reader :
"In December, 1787, a fracas occurred between the Constitutionalists and Anti-Constitutionalists. A number of citizens from the county as- sembled on the 26th (at Carlisle), to express, in their way, aided by the firing of cannons, their feelings on the actions of the convention that had assembled to frame the Constitution of the United States, when they were assaulted by an adverse party; after dealing out blows they dispersed. On Thursday, the 27th, those who had assembled the day before met again at the courthouse, well armed with guns and muskets. They, however, proceeded without molestation, except that those who had opposed them also assembled, kindled a bonfire and burned several effigies. For that temerity several, styled as rioters, were arrested and snugly lodged in jail. They were subsequently, on a compromise between the Federalists and Democrats, liberated. The Federalists were the Constitutionalists."
While Perry was a part of Cumberland, Jacob Alter was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature twenty-one consecutive times upon the Whig ticket. His only sister became the wife of Governor Joseph Ritner, of Pennsylvania. Cashier James T. Alter and D. Boyd Alter, of the First National Bank of New Bloomfield, are of the third generation of this noted family. William Anderson, who resided at Andersonburg, also represented Cumberland in the legislature.
Among others located north of the Kittatinny or Blue Moun- tains who represented Cumberland County in the legislature before Perry County was formed was David Mitchell, who served for more than twenty years. (See chapter on Revolutionary War.) He resided first on the Barnett farm at New Bloomfield,
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
but sold it to Thomas Barnett and removed, first to Raccoon Val- ley, but soon to the well-known Mitchell place, in the Juniata, north of Newport, in Oliver Township. His father was Colonel John Mitchell, commander of the Cumberland County Militia, whose re- mains lie in the Poplar Hill graveyard, on the McKee farm, west of New Bloomfield. An interesting document, the text of which is here reproduced, refers to soldiers from north of the mountain, as well as south, all of which was then Cumberland County. It is in connection with the military career of the elder Mitchell, who came to America from Ireland, because while enraged at a mem- ber of parliament who voted against an issue to which he was pledged, struck him, which either meant banishment or death. It follows :
"In Council, September 2, 1780.
"Sir: His excellency. the President of the State, having received or- ders from General Washington to dismiss the militia for the present, but to hold themselves in readiness to march at an hour's warning: we hereby direct you to discharge the Cumberland Militia now under your command at Lancaster on the conditions above expressed. At the same time ex- pressing our warmest acknowledgments of the readiness with which your militia have turned out on this occasion and make no doubt, but on every future call, they will manifest the like zeal in the cause of the country.
"Your Most Honorable Servant,
"WILLIAM MOORE, Vice-President.
"To Colonel John Mitchell, Commanding the Cumberland Militia at Lan- caster."
Robert Mitchell, of the third generation, being a son of David, was one of the first board of county commissioners of Perry County, and was interviewed by Prof. Silas Wright, the historian, in 1872, from which interview we quote:
"I am now in my ninetieth year; was one of the first board of county commissioners of Perry County ; have lived on this place since I was three years old. I remember when the deer were so plenty that, from Septem- ber to January, thirty-seven were driven into the Juniata River below the rope ferry."
Cumberland County, its people and its traditions, more than any other in the state, resembles the original counties of Bucks, Phila- delphia, and Chester, formed by William Penn, along the Dela- ware. Just as that section was the nucleus of the millions east of the Susquehanna, so was Cumberland the nucleus of that vast population west of the Susquehanna, occupying a far greater ter- ritory. Just as that section takes pride in its traditions, its insti- tutions and its ancestry, so does Cumberland. And why not ? With its institutions, dating back almost to the time of Penn; its traditions and its location, as the very outpost of civilization for decades, and again at the very borderland of sectional strife, its importance historically is self-evident.
Inextricably intertwined with the history and development of the province and of old Mother Cumberland is the series of war-
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
rants, patents, sales and land grants of this then frontier of civili- zation. In a volume the size of this it has been impossible to give any great number of them, yet, in the history of each township, some of the more important are recorded. While squatters or in- truders had presumed to settle within the borders of the county, as now constituted, and had been dispossessed and in some cases their cabins burned, yet there is evidence that a considerable num- ber again went in before the opening of the land office on Febru- ary 3. 1755. The purchase of 1754, consummated on July 6, had likely no sooner been proposed than the lure of the land, like a magnet, drew the hardy pioneer across the Kittatinny Mountain for a choice parcel which his eyes had previously feasted upon. The fact that claims of that very first day mention the names of others as "adjoining them" is in itself evidence that entry had al- ready been made. As an example, take the very property on which the county seat is located. According to an affidavit of James Mitchell, taken before David Redich, prothonotary of Washington County, Pennsylvania, October 19, 1801, and read before the Board of Property, which met at Lancaster :
"In September, 1753, William Stewart, father of John (party to the suit), made an improvement, which was the first made in that part of the county, on a tract of land now lying in Cumberland County, bounded as follows: Beginning at the mouth of Stewart's branch of Little Juniata (Creek) ; then northerly, to a gap in the Mahanoi Mountain, and not to cross said mountain, which line was agreed between John Mitchell, father of the deponent, who assisted Stewart in building a house on said tract some time in the fall of 1753, and Stewart moved in with his family the next spring, cleared ground and raised a erop that season."
The land here in dispute consisted of 348 acres and was known as the Bark Tavern tract, being located in Centre Township, the lower boundary being near the stone house formerly owned by Andrew Comp.
This affidavit, however, specifically states that the line "was agreed between John Mitchell and William, Stewart" and names the date as September, 1753, which proves that Mitchell had then already located the county seat tract. While he had located it and agreed with "an adjoiner" upon the line, yet he had not then erected an improvement upon it as the affidavit by James Mitchell (the son of John) says that William Stewart "made an improve- ment, which was the first made in that part of the county." If the affidavit is accepted at all from a historical standpoint, and there appears no reason why it should not be, then it must be accepted in its entirety, which establishes 1753 as being the exact date of the entry of the Mitchells and many others into Perry County ter- ritory, the advance guard of the pioneers.
There is quite a distinction attached to the original territory- Perry and Cumberland Counties. In the capital at Washington-
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
in the Hall of Fame-provision has been made for the various states to place statues of their two most illustrious sons. The State of Georgia has chosen Alexander H. Stephens-congressman, statesman, governor-and Dr. Crawford Long-discoverer of anæsthesia-as Georgia's most representative citizens. Both are the sons of natives of this original county. As stated at a num- ber of places in this book and in a separate chapter devoted to Mr. Stephens, his father, Andrew Stephens, was born at Dun- cannon. Mr. Long's ancestry were from Cumberland County. Three brothers named Long-Samuel, Andrew, and another- with their father, emigrated from Ulster, Ireland, to Cumberland County before the Revolution. They came of staunch stock- Scotch-Irish Presbyterians-and their name in Britain is associated with shipping and banking through generations. Of these broth- ers, Samuel went to Georgia, another went West, and the third re- mained in Carlisle. Samuel was born in 1753 and fought in the Revolution as an ensign, from which one would infer that he was barely grown to manhood when he came to America. He married Ann Williamson about 1776. About 1790 a colony of Scotch- Irish Presbyterians left the Cumberland Valley and went to Geor- gia, settling in Madison County. Of that colony Samuel Long was one of the leaders. With him went his small son, James, who became the father of Dr. Crawford Long. A few years earlier another colony had preceded these people to Georgia, where they suffered many hardships, yet, in spite of settling in a wilderness, they built at Paoli, the second Presbyterian church to be erected in the state of Georgia-the New Hope Church, of which Sammel and later James Long were elders. With the Longs there went to Georgia the Groves, McCurdys and Cartlidges, all reliable fami- lies who in after years left their impress on the state. Anesthesia, as the reader is aware, causes insensibility to pain and other ex- ternal impressions. Before the discovery of surgical anæesthesia surgery was very painful and many patients died from shock due to pain. There has long been a contention as to who was the dis- coverer of anæthesia, but Dr. Long's experiments and regular use of it date to March 30, 1842, predating the actual use by the others of from two to four years. Four Americans-Jackson, Wells, Morton, and Long-claimed the discovery. The Medical Asso- ciation of Georgia, in 1910, unveiled a marble monument to the honor of Dr. Crawford Long at Jefferson, Georgia, and in the infirmary connected with the University at Athens, Georgia, is a Long Memorial. In 1912 the University of Pennsylvania unveiled in its medical building a bronze medallion with the inscription.
"To the memory of Crawford W. Long, who first used ether as an anæthetic in surgery, March 30, 1842."
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
A life-sized marble statue of Dr. Long stands in Paris and the state of Georgia has well chosen him one of its two immortals for the Hall of Fame in the National Capitol.
James Long, the lad who left Cumberland County, married Elizabeth Ware and became a state senator of Georgia. His noted son, Dr. Crawford Long, was born at Danielsville, Georgia, No- vember 1, 1815. At the University of Georgia, where he gradu- ated at nineteen, his roommate and best friend was Alexander 11. Stephens, later vice-president of the Confederacy. At the age of twenty-three he was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in the medical course. He specialized in surgery in the New York hospitals for two years. In 1841, then twenty-six, he located at Jefferson, Georgia, and in 1851 he located at Athens, Georgia, where he practiced until his death on June 6, 1878. When Georgia decided to go out of the Union Dr. Long said, "This is the saddest day of my life," He was a Whig in politics.
OLD ELECTION DISTRICTS.
The Continental Congress in session in Philadelphia passed a resolution 01 May 15, 1776, in reference to the election of representatives from each county. Prior to that time the proprietary government ruled and prac- tically everything was done by appointment instead of by election. A new régime had now begun and at the provincial conference held in Carpen- ter's Hall, Philadelphia, June 18 to 25, the counties were divided into dis- tricts. Cumberland County was divided into three districts, the third being composed of the townships of Tyrone, Toboyne, Rye, Milford, Greenwood, Armagh, Lack, Derry, and Fermanagh. This district comprised all of what is now Perry, Juniata and Mifflin Counties. The voting place was to be "at the house of Robert Campbell, in Tuscarora Valley," being in what is now Juniata County.
The Act of June, 1777, changed the county from three to four districts, the third being composed of Tyrone, Toboyne, and Rye, the voting place to be at William McClure's-the farm now occupied by the county home at Loysville. All the territory east of the river which then comprised Greenwood Township was in the fourth district, the voting place being at James Purley's, in Fermanagh Township, now in Juniata County.
1"By the Act of September 13, 1785, entitled 'An act to regulate the general elections of this commonwealth and to prevent frauds therein,' the state redistricted, and voting places fixed in each district. Cumberland County was thrown into four districts. The first was within her present limits. The second was composed of the townships of Rye, Tyrone, and Toboyne, with the voting place 'at the house of William McClure, Esq., in the township of Tyrone.' The third district embraced Greenwood, with the townships of Fermanagh, Milford, and Leck (Lack) (now Juniata County), with the voting place fixed at the house of Thomas Wilson ( Port Royal), in the township of Milford.'
"The citizens of Rye and Greenwood were much inconvenienced by the long distance to the voting places, especially Greenwood, and petition was
I. For much of the information as to old election districts we are in- debted to William H. Sponsler's historical article on the subject, prepared and read before the Philomathean Literary Society at New Bloomfield Academy, many years ago,
13
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
made to the legislature asking relief, which was granted by Act of Sep- tember 10, 1787, of which Section IV is in these words: 'And whereas, a mimber of the freemen of the townships of Greenwood and Rye, in the county of Cumberland, have, by their petition set forth that their distant situation from the place of holding their general elections is found incon- venient, and have, therefore, prayed this General Assembly to enact a law by which the said townships shall be made a separate district for the holding of their general elections. Therefore,' etc.
"The fifth section accordingly erects Rye and Greenwood into the sixth district of Cumberland, with its voting place 'at the mill late the property of David English, and known by the name of English's Mill' (at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, near Newport).
"By the Act of the 19th of September, 1789, this sixth district was be- reft of a portion of the territory, that part of Greenwood lying north of Turkey Hills, which, by an act passed 29th of same month, was made into a separate election district of Mifflin County.
"After Rye was taken from Tyrone and Toboyne, it was found that Mc- Clure's, which had, no doubt, been selected with a view to accommodate the Rye Township people, as well as the other two townships, was incon- venient and the inhabitants asked that a more convenient place be estab- lished. The Act of September 30, 1791, was enacted to remedy this among others, and the place of election was fixed 'at the house now occupied by George Robinson, in Tyrone Township (now Edward R. Loy's, Madison Township ).
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