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 22
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"In 1787 the township of Rye and that part of Greenwood lying south of the Half Falls Mountain were erected into a separate election district, with its voting place 'at the Union schoolhouse, in the town of Petersburg, in Rye Township.'
"The next change was made by the Act of March 8, 1802, Juniata Green- wood and that part of Buffalo Township lying north of the Half Falls Mountain had their place of holding elections fixed 'at the house now or lately occupied by William Woods, at Millerstown, in the township of Greenwood.'
"By the Act of March 21, 1803, the townships of Tyrone and Toboyne heretofore together, are separated, each to constitute an election district of itself. Tyrone was to vote 'at the schoolhouse in the town of Landis- burg,' and Toboyne 'at the house now occupied by Henry Zimmerman, in said township.'
"By the Act of February 11, 1805, Buffalo Township was made a sepa- rate election district, with a voting place 'at the house now occupied by William Thompson, in Buffalo Township.'
"By the Act of March 19, 1816, it was provided that 'the electors re- siding within the eastern part of Greenwood Township be divided as fol- lows: beginning in the narrows of Berris (Berry's) Mountain; thence westerly above the summit of the said mountain, six miles: thence north- erly by a line parallel with the river Susquehanna to the line of Cumber- land County; thence easterly along the said line to said river; thence down said river to the place of beginning, shall hold their general elec- tions at the house of Henry Raymon,' now in Liverpool Township.
"By the thirty-second section of the Act of March 24, 1818, the voting place of Buffalo Township was changed to the house of Frederick Deal, in said township, and by the twelfth section of the Act of March 29, 1819. the township of Saville was erected into a separate election district, with voting place 'at a schoolhouse near Ickesburg, in said township.'
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
"In 1820, when the county was separated from Cumberland as a new county the election districts and voting places were as follows: Tohoyne, house of Henry Zimmerman; Tyrone, schoolhouse, Landisburg; Saville, schoolhouse, North Ickesburg; Buffalo, house of Frederick Deal; East Greenwood, house of Henry Raymon; Rye, Union schoolhouse, Peters- burg; Juniata and West Greenwood, W. Woods' house, Millerstown.
"A change was made in 1860, and the following were made the voting places: At the schoolhouse in Germantown district; at Zimmerman's tavern for the lower district of Toboyne; at the schoolhouse in Landis- burg for Tyrone Township; at the schoolhouse near Ickesburg for Saville ; at John Koch's (Kough's) tavern for the northern district of Juniata Township; at the Union schoolhouse near the Methodist Church in Wheatfield Township; at Colonel Bovard's tavern for Rye Township; at the house of Straw, for Buffalo Township; at the house of John Gard- ner, Millerstown, for Greenwood Township; at the house of John Eber- ling. in Liverpool Township.
"At this time a new district was made composed of parts of Juniata, Wheatfield, Tyrone, and Saville Townships, bounded as follows: Begin- ning at the mouth of Little Buffalo Creek in Juniata Township; thence up said creek to the house of John Smith, in Saville Township, including said house; thence by a straight line to the house of Abraham Kistler, in Tyrone Township, including said house; thence by a straight line to Jacob Shatto's sawmill in said township; thence down the summit of Iron Ridge, to the house of John Greer, in Wheatfield Township, inchid- ing said house; thence along the summit of Dick's Hill to Johnston's saw- mill in said township; thence by a straight line to Dick's Gap, in Juniata Township; thence along the summit of Mahanoy Hill to the house of Alexander Watson, on the bank of Juniata River, including said house ; thence up said river to place of beginning.
"A few years later, as townships were erected, separate election dis- tricts were made embracing the townships, and, with the exception of Madison Township, each township is an election district to-day. The north end of Madison was cut off into a separate district called Sandy Hill or Northeast Madison, which practically is a separate township, with the single exception of in the election of justices of the peace, both dis- tricts voting for the same candidates for this one office."
Newport borough is the only town in the county which has two separate election districts, the first and second wards.
Several special acts relating to polling places in Perry County were passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature. That of March 4, 1842, added Henry's Valley to Tyrone Township for voting purposes, and that of March 12, 1849, added part of Juniata Township to Saville Township, and made Ickesburg the polling place. An Act of March 6, 1849, annexed to Greenwood Township for election purposes "all that part of Juniata Township, commencing on the Juniata River, on division line of Perry and Juniata Counties, thence along said line on Tuscarora Mountain until it comes opposite the upper line of Samuel Black's farm, thence along said upper line to top of Raccoon Ridge one mile, thence south to Patton's schoolhouse, thence along the Oliver Township line to the Juniata River."
In a general election district bill vetoed by Governor Bigler and passed over his head by the House on January 19, 1844, and by the Senate, Janu- ary 22, 1844, parts of Tyrone, Saville, and Madison Townships were made an election district, with the voting place at Andesville (now Loysville), It was repealed by an Act of March 9, 1844, less than sixty days later.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
LEWIS, THE ROBBER.
The history of Lewis, the robber, is of no consequence in this book, except in so far as his depredations and abode concerns the territory, as he was a native of Carlisle, but even left there when he was but three years old. The year of the organization of Perry County was, strangely enough, coincident with the passing of Lewis, who died July 13, 1820, in the Bellefonte jail, when only thirty years of age, a victim of his own bad life. The very first issues of the Perry Forester tell of his capture and later of his death. There are those who uphold him as a gentleman robber, who stole from the rich to give to the poor, but his own confession, (lated the day before his death, belies that assertion, as he pleads guilty to almost the whole category of crime, save murder. How- ever, in some instances he did steal from the rich to give to the poor, if tradition be true ; and tradition is persistent, in news- paper and locality. This story appears with slight variations at various places.
On one occasion Lewis dropped in to rob a home and the lady occupant told him she was a widow, had no money and that the constable was coming to take her cow for her overdue taxes, accompanying the statement with tears. Lewis asked her the amount of the taxes and gave her an amount of money sufficient to pay them, telling her to say nothing of the fact that he had been there or where she had gotten the money. As he was hungry she gave him a meal. Shortly after he left, the expected officer of the law came, the taxes were paid and he departed, but on his way home Lewis held him up and not only got the tax money, but all that he had. Lewis is said to have remarked that that was the best investment he ever made.
He roamed the country from the Susquehanna west as far as Fayette County, and was a notorious counterfeiter, according to his own confession. He was always in search of victims to rob. One of his favorite resorts was in the Kittatinny or Blue Moun- tains, north from Doubling Gap Springs, where there was a cave, which was the size of an ordinary living room, being formed by a projecting rock. The spot is known to hunters to this day, its location having been handed down from one generation to another. Time has wrought much in its destruction by the disintegration of the rock by the elements, partly filling the cave. From a point not far from the cave he had a fine view of the valleys below and the trails up the mountain. From that point he watched for offi- cers of the law, and confederates in the valleys below used to dis- play danger signals to him when strangers were in the vicinity. One of these confederates was reputed to be a man named Moffitt, and on entering the cave at one time officers found among other
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THE PROVINCE AND "MOTHER CUMBERLAND"
things an almanac bearing his name. Near the big spring at Mt. Patrick is one of the places where tradition would have a rendez- vous of Lewis. This may have been possible, as there is a well founded tradition that a stranger once called on Peter Musselman, at Liverpool, to have a tooth drawn, and that he "later found it to have been Lewis, upon whose head was a price." Mr. Musselman, by the way, was in France as a student during the trying period of the French Revolution.
But Lewis didn't learn his deviltry in this vicinity, as the follow- lowing brief account of his life will show :
David Lewis was born in Carlisle, Cumberland County, Penn- sylvania, March 4. 1790, and was one of a numerous family of children ; and according to his deathbed confession he grew up "without regard for men and little fear of God." Three years later his father was made a deputy district surveyor and removed to Northumberland County, where he died several years later, while David was yet a small boy. He remained with his mother, doing occasional farm labor for farmers until 1807, when he left home. After trying several avocations he enlisted in the army at Bellefonte. A petty offense caused the sergeant to endeavor to arrest him, but he ran away. Some time later, using the assumed name of Armstrong Lewis, he enlisted in Capt. Wm. N. Irvin's company of artillery in the United States service, at Carlisle. He did this in order to get the bounty money and then decamp, but failed. He then decided that he would study law and tried to get out of the army for that purpose by having a writ issued. After a tedious hearing before John D. Creigh, then associate judge of Cumberland County, he was remanded into the army. This hear- ing caused an inquiry to be made into his past life and it was dis- covered that he had once before enlisted in the army under his right name and deserted.
The rumbling of the second war with Great Britain was already heard, and according to the strict military discipline of the time Lewis was sentenced to be executed. His mother, then living in Centre County, rode overland on a horse loaned by Judge Walker, to aid him. Eventually he was reprieved in so far as the death sen- tence was concerned, but was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was first imprisoned, attached to a ball and chain, but gradually ingratiated himself into the good graces of the guards and effected his escape. Once free Lewis escaped to a small cave north of Carlisle, where he remained until long after nightfall, when hunger drove him forth. Arousing a woman who lived by the wayside he was served a cooked meal and given a bed, but before morning he decamped and departed for Centre County, where his mother lived, crossing the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain, and traveling across what later became Perry County.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Later, meeting an itinerant tin peddler of a nomadie clan which frequented the countryside in those days, he learned of a concern at Burlington, Vermont, which issued counterfeit bills, and forth- with made a trip there and in due time headed for Pennsylvania, a counterfeiter with his wares ready for the market. While pass- ing through New York State he bought a horse of a General Root, then a candidate for office and paid for it with counterfeit bills. He was soon detected and jailed in Troy, where, through a girl friend of the sheriff's daughter, he effected his escape on a Sun- day night while the sheriff was at church. In company with the girl, whom he promised to marry, he arrived in Albany the next evening and kept his word and had the marriage ceremony imme- diately performed.
The next day Lewis imparted to his unsuspecting girl-wife the less criminal of his actions. Up to this time he had kept her in ignorance of any previous improprieties and insisted that his prosecution in the horse purchase was really persecution on account of politics. During the several days following, Lewis and his wife traveled to New York, the latter having secured passage on the wagon of a Yankee, bound to New York with his wares. In New York Lewis soon associated with his kind and became an ordinary sneak thief and burglar, according to his own confession. There he belonged to a gang which signed a parchment with their own blood.
After a time in New York, where he had personally robbed Mrs. John Jacob Astor of much finery which she had purchased, he was accused by his accomplices of not turning in all of the same to the general "fund." He became disgusted and with his wife traveled to New Brunswick, New Jersey, and set up housekeeping. Leav- ing his wife there he journeyed to Princeton, posed as a Southern planter and by gambling fleeced the students out of hundreds of dollars. As soon as the holiday recess was over at Princeton Lewis moved on to Philadelphia, where he resumed sneak thieving. He had conceived a plan there to lure to the country Stephen Girard, the wealthy banker, and hold him for a ransom, but his small daughter's illness recalled him to New Brunswick.
After spending some time at home he started for the Canadian lines, but became penniless and hired to a farmer. Hardly had he done so until the farmer's team was impressed into the service of the United States Army. Lewis drove it away, and when it was no longer needed lie "drove it away" again, but towards his old haunts in Pennsylvania, selling it as soon as he could. He was then traveling under the fictitious name of Peter Vanbeuren. He landed at Stoyestown, Pennsylvania, where he learned from an- other crook that his wife was dead and buried.
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In the mountains near there he joined a band of counterfeiters and, when they made some accusation against him, he waited until they slept and robbed them. This wealth he claims to have put in a bottle and buried, forgetting the place, but as his whole life was crooked his statements, too, must not be taken too seriously. In his confession he tells of stealing a horse in Maryland, coming to Cumberland County and getting arrested for passing counterfeit money, escaping to see his family, returning to Cumberland County with other counterfeiters and embarking in the business there.
This establishment was in the South Mountain. Lewis then tells of proceeding to Landisburg, where he passed a $100 counterfeit note to a Mr. Anderson, a merchant, whose place was in the build- ing owned by the heirs of George Patterson. Passing through Roxbury, Strasburg, and Fannettsburg, he gathered in $1,500 in real money, which he deposited in the Bedford bank. He was arrested and found guilty of counterfeiting, his sentence being ten years in the penitentiary, but Governor Findlay pardoned him after serving a year. He returned to Bedford to get his money, but it was refused. Here he fell in with a man named Rumbaugh, but traveling under the name of Conelly, and another who called himself Hanson. The three overtook a drover, who was return- ing westward on horseback, and robbed him, tying both man and horse to a tree, with a threat of death if he tried to get away. Lewis here prevented the other two from killing the drover, say- ing they would have to kill him first. The drover got away and aroused the community. The robbers made for the Juniata River country but were captured and returned to Bedford. They escaped from there and after some more robberies, recaptures and escapes, they turned to the Juniata River country again, with which they were familiar, and made an effort to reach New York State. Ac- cording to the "Life and Adventures of David Lewis," being ex- hausted they stopped at a tavern below Lewistown. Sheriff Samuel Edmiston learned of it and with a posse of about thirty men went to the hotel. One man was sent in to carelessly discover whether or not they were there. He returned and reported them in bed. The posse closed in and a half-dozen brave men quietly ascended the stairs and found them sleeping. On awakening Lewis he im- mediately reached for a weapon, but the sheriff overpowered him. When taken to the Bedford jail, he said it wouldn't hold him long, and it didn't. The sheriff, as an extra precaution, had handcuffed him, but he slipped the cuffs and escaped. They later got to Clear- field County, and one day recklessly began shooting at a mark, which aroused the neighborhood and they were surrounded, but defied the posse. The result was that Lewis was shot through the arm, which shortly thereafter, July 13, 1820, caused his death, and that Conelly was shot in the groin and died in a few hours.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
When Lewis escaped from the Bedford jail he was in irons, according to the public press of the period. He succeeded in get- ting to a near by woods, where, by use of a file, he cut the irons from his person. The advertisements describing him make him "six feet tall, square shoulders, reddish hair, speaks quick and has a fierce look."
While Lewis is supposed to have had no education, his confes- sion belies that supposition, both from the standpoint of language and logic. He flays the Carlisle lawyers and the public officials, naturally, for had it not been for them he might have had easier sailing. Endeavoring to find a cause for what he terms his "inis- fortunes and crimes," he says :
"When I look back upon my ill-spent life, and endeavor to dis- cover the cause or source from which all my misfortunes and crimes have sprung and proceeded, I am inclined to trace their origin to the want of early instruction. Had my widowed mother been possessed of the means of sending me to school, and afforded me the opportunity of profiting by an education during the early part of my youth, instead of being engaged in idle sports and vicious pursuits, I might have been employed in the studies of use- ful knowledge, and my mind by this means have received an early tendency to virtue and honesty from which it would have not afterwards been diverted. But, alas! She was poor, and the Legis- lature of Pennsylvania-I blush with indignation when I say it- had made no provision, nor has she yet made any adequate one, for the gratuitious education of the children of the poor. Until this is done and schools are established at the public expense for teaching those who are without the means of paying for instruc- tion, ignorance will cover the land with darkness, and vice and crime run down our streets as a mighty torrent.".
The writer feels like apologizing for publishing this account, but if it will show at least one boy the value of his free schooling, where his mind is kept on useful things. instead of those of a vicious nature, it is not done in vain. The fact that Lewis' life, through dissipation, vice, exposure and crime, was only thirty short years, will also impress the youth of the land as they see about them men and women of sixty, seventy, and even eighty. enjoying all the comforts of life, a tribute to lives of honesty, dis- cretion and labor.
This chapter would not be complete without adding that Lewis came of good people, that he was the only member of his family who trod the crooked pathway and that his children lived honest and straightforward lives. About 1845 a handsome young woman -- a daughter of the robber by a second marriage-resided with her mother at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital, where she attracted much attention by her frank, open, womanly bearing.
CHAPTER XII.
PERRY COUNTY ESTABLISHED.
B Y an act of the State Legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Perry County was created, the act being signed by the governor, William Findlay, on March 22, 1820. It was the fifty-first county of the state. The territory was a part of the lands covered by the Indian treaty at Albany, New York, July 6. 1754, of which mention is made elsewhere. The lands covered by this treaty were all embraced in Cumberland County at that time, and the northern part was formed into counties, the last one being Mifflin, in 1789.
When Perry County was formed it comprised the seven town- ships of Cumberland County lying north of the Blue Hills, or Kittatinny Mountains. Tyrone, early being known as "the ever- lasting State of Tyrone," was the oldest of these townships, being erected in 1754. The other six were Toboyne, 1762; Rye, 1766; Greenwood, 1767; Juniata, 1793; Buffalo, 1798; and Saville. 1817.
The population of these townships was considerable, and with the incoming of new settlers, frequent trips to the county seat at Carlisle were necessary in connection with the new claims, over roads which were at some seasons of the year almost impassable. The fact that most of the changes in property in those days occurred around the first of April, when the roads were at their worst, and that the shortest routes lay over the Kittatinny Mountain, no doubt. actuated the movement for the new county, with a county seat within easy distance. In conformity with this desire petitions were presented to the State Legislature then in session and the act creating Perry County was passed.
With the passing years the residents of what is now Perry-of the Sherman's Valley and the land between the rivers-became discontented as a part of a county whose seat of justice was south of that great natural barrier, the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain, and not at all central. In fact, the physical features of the entire territory of Cumberland at that time were such that there could be no logical central point to locate a seat of justice ; nature had decreed it otherwise. Those located north of the Kittatinny had to travel distances which were as far as forty miles to the county seat ; unlike those of the south side they could not return to their homes the same day, and were thus necessitated securing hotel accommodations, which cost thousands of dollars annually. The
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
expense of both time and money required for legal action at the far-away seat of justice (with the then methods of travel) often was the cause of those guilty of crimes going unpunished. These and many other reasons are enumerated in the petition praying for the new county.
Comprising practically half of Cumberland County, the citizens of what is now Perry contributed approximately half of the taxes. The public buildings at Carlisle had been built by funds supplied by taxation on both sides of the mountain, yet those early settlers of the north side, sometimes referred to in derision as "Hoop-Pole Perry" by those of the southern side, did not ask a commission's action in stating just what part of their cost should be refunded to the northern section-as is often done in this mod-
Photo by M. C. Showalter.
LANDISBURG, THE FIRST COUNTY SEAT.
Central section of Landisburg. To the left, the Reformed church, once the seat of Mt. Dempsey Academy.
ern age and rightly so-but specifically stated "all of which they are willing to give up," an everlasting credit to their magnanimity and financial independence. Such were the sons of the pioneers!
As the population of the northern section increased, murmurings -at first considered a mere passing whim-were heard. Gradu- ally separation from the mother county became a matter of bitter contention in local affairs and in elections, often causing bitterness which passed from one generation to another. It seems strange that in a few of the older people a trace of resentment is still to be found, a heritage from the generation that is gone. Those who advocated a new county were at first considered fanatics and later -when their number had become worth reckoning with-were known as "separatists" on the north side of the mountain and as "seceders" on the south side. At the general elections the matter was uppermost, and often upon it hinged defeat or political ad- vancement. Of the bitterness, as the years passed, there is evi- dence here and there. The story is told of an early settler and wife visiting her people in Carlisle and of a hasty departure for
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PERRY COUNTY ESTABLISHED
home on account of a vow that "no child of mine shall first open his eyes on the Cumberland side of the mountain."
Eventually, after years of consideration and when the small body of original enthusiasts had grown to a vast majority of the residents of the northern section, petitions were prepared and cir- culated, with the end in view of presenting them to the Pennsyl- vania General Assembly in session at Harrisburg, praying that a new county be formed. The petitions were printed and a time- worn one is in the possession of W. H. Sponsler, a New Bloom- field attorney-at-law. At several places words are obliterated by the ravages of time, but are supplied for the purpose of making clear the meaning of the instrument, the contents of which follow :
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