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 26
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At the election of 1824 Robert Mitchell and Abraham Bower succeeded John Maxwell and Robert Elliott on the board of com- missioners, the other member being Samuel Linn. On April II, 1825, they advertised that they would receive proposals until All- gust 30th for the erection of a new brick courthouse, forty-five feet square. In September the contract was awarded to John Rice for $2,975, but later the height of the walls was increased and a cupola added to the contract. The building was completed in 1826 at a cost of $4,240. The courthouse then erected was in use until 1868, when the grand jury authorized the county com- missioners to make any alterations and additions that might be necessary for the increasing business of the county, then about to enter its second half-century of existence. It was considerably enlarged and modernized and including the cost of the clock tower cost a trifle over $25,000, the citizens of the town donating ap- proximately $300 towards purchasing the clock. While these alterations were being done the county offices were installed in the basement of the Presbyterian Church, and the sessions of court were held in the old Methodist Church on High Street. A new addition was erected in 1892 to the north end of the building at a cost of about $20,000. In it are the offices of the register and recorded and prothonotary, on the first floor, and the jury rooms and the law library on the second floor.
The removal of the public documents from Landisburg to Bloomfield took place on March 12 and 13th, 1827.
CHAPTER XIV.
TRAILS AND HIGHWAYS .*
T HE story of the settlement of Perry County territory is also the story of the first road westward over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio, which was then the "Far West." The travel on streams was by canoe, and on land, following the trails made by the Indians through the forests, first on foot, the original manner of travel; later on horseback, and with the ad- vent of roads, in carriages and wagons. These Indian trails were generally direct, reaching the gaps in the mountains and following streams, when the route was not too circuitous. The continual nise of given routes, even afoot, soon created paths, which the Indians termed trails, and which often later became pack horse paths, then roads or highways, some even becoming main highways or turn- pikes. Some were narrow and never became utilized for vehicles, but were used by the pioneer circuit rider, who came after the In- dians had departed, and by the pioneers before roads became gen- eral. These were then known as bridle paths and some of them are yet distinguishable. One such is over the end of Bowers' Mountain, near Cisna's Run, and another around the foot of Mt. Dempsey, opposite Landisburg, in Sheaffer's Valley, and not far from Sherman's Creek. Both are known to the oldest residents of these localities from their earliest recollections.
One of these old Indian trails led from New York State, south- west across Pennsylvania, to the Potomac, contiguous to Perry County soil, through present Juniata County. It was known as the Tuscarora Path, hence the names of two of the valleys through which it passed, Tuscarora and Path. Its proximity to the county territory is largely responsible for the seeming ease with which the Indian warriors reached here even from remote points to wield the tomahawk and scalping knife.
The through trail to the West, as far as the Ohio, first known as the "Allegheny Path," led through Croghan's (now Sterrett's)
*In discussing the inception of this volume with Prof. H. H. Shenk, custodian of public records of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to whom we are indebted for many suggestions and much encouragement, he remarked that the history of roads and highways was very much neglected, a fact which has proven true, in so far as Perry County is concerned at least. An effort has been made to record the earlier roads with partial success. Following the first Indian trails in the province, roads or high- ways were laid out, the main ones being at first known as "The King's Highways," for the pioneers had not yet arrived at the point where free- dom was even considered.
23I
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Gap, across what is now Perry County, over Tuscarora Mountain, through Shade Gap, Black Log, Aughwick, Frankstown, and Hol- lidaysburg, crossing the Allegheny Mountains at or near Kittan- ning Point. It was the great highway to the West and was used by George Croghan, Andrew Montour, Conrad Weiser and other traders, interpreters and government representatives as far back as records are available. It was in general use by traders in 1740 and succeeding years. It was then an old Indian trail and it was but natural for these men to use it. It became known as the "Traders' Path" and as "The Horseway." It descended in turn to the pioneers, but they were men of vision and soon regular roads were laid out and built.
Watson's Annals tells of a Mrs. Murphy, who died at the age of 100, in 1803, and who remembered "that the first 'Indian track' to go westward was across Simpson's Ferry, four miles below Harris', then across the Conodoguinet at Middlesex, then up the Kittatinny Mountain across Croghan's .( Sterrett's) Gap, thence down the mountain and across Sherman's Creek at Gibson's, thence by Dick's Gap, thence by Sherman's Valley, by Concord, to the burnt cabins, thence to the west of the Allegheny."
The route westward varied at points, or rather, at some places there were several routes, but this oldest of routes over Perry County's domain, was likely the main trail to which these other routes led.
John Harris, who had been westward in 1748, left a diary which mentions the following points with intermediate distances :
"From my ferry to George Croghan's, 5 miles; to Kittatinny Mountain, 9; to Andrew Montour's, 5; to Tuscarora Hill, 9 (Conococheague Moun- tain is intended) ; to *Thomas Mitchell's sleeping place, 3; to Tuscarora, 14; to Cove Spring, 10; Shadow of Death, 8; Black Log, 3; 66 miles to this point."
"Starting at Black Log, to Aughwick, 6; Jack Armstrong's Narrows (so called from his being murdered there), 8; to Standing Stone (about 14 feet high and 6 inches square), 10; total, 24 miles."
The "standing stone" referred to is where Huntingdon is now located. There was a route from Croghan's via Robert Dun- ning's and McAllister's Gap, west of Perry County, to Path Val- ley, but six miles of it through the gap were at the bottom of a chasm, over a bed of stones and rocks, which the waters of ages had washed bare, and the descent into Path Valley was very steep and stony for an additional mile, so that the route over the Perry
*Thomas Mitchell's sleeping place was in that part of Madison Town- ship known as Liberty Valley. It is mentioned by John Harris, in his table of distances from Harrisburg to Logstown, in 1754, and by Conrad Weiser. Mitchell was an Indian trader as early as 1848 and is supposed to have made a shelter at this point.
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County territory became the popular one. This old path, known as the Allegheny Path, the Traders' Path, etc., came through Cro- ghan's (now Sterrett's) Gap, followed the south side of Sherman's Creek to a point west of Gibson's Rock, where it crossed to the north, continuing westward to where Montour's Run joined the creek; from there it passed onward by Fort Robinson, crossing the Conococheague Mountain's end near the present Sandy Hill road, past Thomas Mitchell's sleeping place (the old Meminger place), in Liberty Valley, via Bigham's Gap to the Tuscarora Val- ley. A tradition has the path crossing the Conococheague at a point between Andersonburg and Blain, but the late Prof. J. R. Flickinger, himself a resident of the immediate vicinity, wrote "it seems improbable that a crossing so difficult would be selected. when nature had provided an easier passage at a point almost as direct." The sleeping places mentioned at various places were usually either hollow logs, bark or sapling huts or abandoned In- dian shacks, and no record remains as to the nature of the "Thomas Mitchell sleeping place." It likely took its name from the fact that he either improvised it or that he was the first one known to use it. A deed on record in the Perry County courhouse, executed in 1811, mentions the Meminger place as the location of "Mitchell's Sleeping Place." Thomas Mitchell was an unlicensed trader in 1747, and in the minutes of the Provincial Counsel for November 15, 1753, is mentioned as a man of no character. Authorities differ as to the route, as the following paragraph shows.
In describing this old Indian trail across the county Prof. A. L. Guss, the historian, says: "The path by way of Bigham's Gap is largely misunderstood. Liberty Valley was an impregnable thicket of laurel and spruce. No early trader or adventurer passed through it. It took much and hard labor to make a path through it. The west Tuscarora and the Conococheague Mountains form an anti- clinal axis, with Horse Valley scooped out of the crest. ` Just where they begin to separate the broadened mountain has ravines on each side, and it was along these ravines that the early path led over the mountains. The old 'traders' road' passed up a ravine north of Andersonburg and came down a ravine at Mohler's tan- nery, in Liberty Valley, and crossed directly over the depressed end of the Tuscarora Mountain by Bigham's Gap."
It was contended by the province at the treaty of Albany in 1754 and admitted by the Indians (the Six Nations) that "the road to Ohio is no new road ; it is an old, frequented road; the Shaw- nees and Delawares removed thither about thirty years ago from Pennsylvania, ever since which that road has been traveled by our traders at their invitation, and always with safety until within these few years." The reader will note that it was then already called an "old, frequented road."
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That the first official journey of a representative from the colo- nies bordering the Atlantic seaboard to the lands west of the Alle- ghenies-that mighty empire of the West-was made over this old Allegheny Path, through the territory now comprising Perry County, is an historical fact. That notable journey of Conrad Weiser at the instance of the English colonies in 1748 was the occa- sion. Of course there were other trails to the West, but this was at that time the principal one. "There were later three great In- dian paths from the East to the West through western Pennsyl- vania," says Thwaite's "Early Western Travels." "The southern led from Fort Cumberland, on the Potomac, westward through the valleys of Youghiogheny and Monongahela, to the forks of the Ohio, and was the route taken by Washington in 1753. later by Braddock's expedition, and was substantially the line of the great Cumberland National Road of the early Nineteenth Century. The central trail, passing through Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Bed- ford, over Laurel Mountain, through Fort Ligonier, over Chest- nut Ridge to *Shannopin's town, at the forks of the Ohio, was the most direct and became the basis of General Forbes' road and later the Pennsylvania wagon road to the Ohio. But the older, or Kittatinny Trail, was the oldest and most used by the Indian traders. It was this route that Conrad Weiser followed. From Croghan's (in East Pennsboro Township, Cumberland County) he passed over into the valley of Sherman's Creek (now in Perry County ), crossing Sterrett's Gap and the Tuscarora Mountains via Standing Stone (now Huntingdon). There was also a fourth trail, still farther north, by way of Sunbury and the West Branch to Venango."
Of the place where the Kittatinny Trail, more generally known as the Allegheny Path, crossed the Allegheny Mountains, Jones, in his History of the Juniata Valley ( 1889) says: "It is still visible in some places where the ground was marshy, close to the run ; the path is at least twelve inches deep and the very stones along the road bear the marks of the iron-shod horses of the Indian traders." As late as 1796 Carlisle was an important point for the starting of pack horse trains for Pittsburgh and the Ohio region.
There are records to show that this old Allegheny Trail was taken by the northern section of Liuet. Col. John Armstrong in his expedition against the Indians at Kittanning in 1756. They show that the expedition left Carlisle in August, Colonel Arm- strong being personally in charge, "going via Sherman's Valley." At Fort Shirley additional recruits were received.
*Shannopin's town was named after a chief of that name, who died in 1749. It was situated on the Allegheny River where the present city of Pittsburgh stands.
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When the English and French rivalry for the possession of America came to its inevitable end-war-Conrad Weiser, an agent for the provincial government, was sent to the Ohio for the purpose of conciliating the Indians, as was the custom, with valu- able presents. At the same time his duties were not unlike those of a spy. He was to ascertain their strength, location, mood and prestige, and at the same time learn the objects of the French. With the party on this trip was a son of Benjamin Franklin, George Croghan, and Andrew Montour, and there is record of their using this route over Perry County soil.
When there was pressing need of military operations against the French on the Ohio, in 1754, and ways and means were under consideration, there was no other highway ; and Governor Morris described it as "only a horseway through the woods and over the mountains, not passable with any carriage." Travel was not di- verted from this road or trail until a year later, 1755, when the southern route was made, over the Alleghenies via the route which is to-day known as the Lincoln Highway, in order to enable Brad- dock and his army to march against Fort Duquesne. In May of that year the province agreed to send three hundred men, in order to cut a wagon road from Fort Loudon, Franklin County, to join Braddock's Road near the "turkey foot," three miles from the forks of the Youghiogheny.
In the introductory remarks in the chapter relating to churches, there is an account of a Presbyterian missionary, Rev. Charles Beatty, passing over this route in 1766. It was then only an In- dian trail over which the pioneers had entered the county's terri- tory. However, it became the first road to be laid out in the new purchase covered by the Albany treaty. In 1761 the Cumberland County court ordered it laid out as a public highway between Car- lisle and Sherman's Valley. Viewers appointed by the court rec- ommended that the road be opened "through the lands of Francis West (vicinity of the Gibson mill) and others, from Carlisle, across the mountain, and through Sherman's Valley, to Alexander Logan's, and from thence to the gap in the Tuscarora Mountain, leading to Aughwick and Juniata, as the nearest and best way from the head of Sherman's Valley to Carlisle." The removal of the timber was about all that was required in making a roadway in those days.
This old Allegheny Path should be taken over in its entirely by the State Highway Department, if for no other reason than that it was the first roadway to the West, but another great reason is that a good road is needed, not only by the public but by the state. whose reserve-the Tuscarora Forest-it passes through. There are only certain small links which need to be improved. From Carlisle to a locality known as Dromgold there is already a state
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
road. The stretches from Dromgold to Landisburg, from a mile west of Landisburg to Loysville, and from the Waggoner Mill bridge, via Fort Robinson, Kistler and Walsingham, to Honey Grove, in Juniata County, is all that requires to be taken over. A fair road already exists over these stretches, but there is no reason why the entire old Allegheny Path should not be kept up at state expense. Representative Clark Bower introduced a bill to that effect in the legislature of 1920-21, but it failed. That bill should be introduced at each and every session until the great common- wealth, in a way, perpetuates the first great highway to the West.
There were trails along the Juniata and Susquehanna Rivers, en- tering the county above Duncan's and Haldeman's Islands, the lat- ter going into the Susquehanna country and New York State and known as the Susquehanna Trail, and the former being of a local nature, as the traffic from Harris' Ferry westward preferred the more direct line across present Perry County, via Black Log and Aughwick. Hardy, in "The Wilderness Trail," says another traders' path north of the Juniata was joined by the Shamokin Path near what is now Mifflintown, and was crossed by the Tuscarora Path near present Port Royal, Pennsylvania. He also says: "One branch may have led directly up the river from the Shawnee towns on Big Island (now Haldeman Island), and on the mainland, oppo- site, at the mouth of the Juniata; if so the first stage may have been by canoes, as the river, from the island to what is now New- port, is hemmed in in some places by mountains." Tradition dif- fers from that statement and we are inclined to be with tradition in this case. The Indians had a fording, known as "Queenashawa- kee." where Clark's Run enters the Susquehanna in Duncannon Borough, and there was a trail from there through the hills via the old Dick's Gap Church, to below the present location of Newport, which was four miles shorter than the river route, and it was but natural for the Indian to take the shorter route. That there was a trail over this route is proven by the fact that the church was located along the old trail and that the first stage line likewise fol- lowed the trail. Furthermore, the average Indians hardly found canoes available for "through traffic."
Further on in "The Wilderness Trail" is this reference to a branch of the Allegheny Path which connected with the Susque- hanna Trail: "Bishop Cameroff, who traveled along the east bank of the Susquehanna from Paxtang to Shamokin in the winter of 1748, notes in his journal that after crossing to the north side of Wiconisco Creek, near its mouth, on January 12th, he came to a house a short distance beyond, where he halted. Here his host informed him that on the west bank of the Susquehanna, opposite to his home, 'began the great path to the Allegheny country, esti-
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mated to be three or four hundred miles distant.' This must have been in what is now Buffalo Township, Perry County."
The inception of the first road to what is now Juniata and Mif- flin Counties dates to 1767, when a petition was presented to the Cumberland County court to open a road from Sherman's Valley to the Kishacoquillas Valley. In May, 1768, viewers reported in favor of "a carriage road from the Sherman's Valley road, be- ginning two and three-quarter miles from Croghan's (now Ster- rett's) Gap, running through Rye Township and across the Juniata River at the mouth of Sugar Run, into Fermanagh (now Green- wood) Township, and thence through the same and Derry Town- ship, up the north side of the Juniata into the Kishacoquillas Val- ley." This road was the first to be built into these two counties. There was also a petition during the same year for a road from Baskins' Ferry on the Susquehanna to Andrew Stephens' Ferry on the Juniata.
At the January term of court in 1771 a petition was presented asking that a road be opened from James Gallagher's, on the Juniata River, to William Patterson's, thence to James Baskins' Ferry. on the Juniata River. At the April term of court of the same year the request of the petitioners was granted and it was ordered opened as a "bridle path." At the same term of court a petition was presented asking for a road from William Patterson's mill, on Cocolamus Creek, to Middle Creek. This was probably intended to extend to Middleburg, Snyder County.
James Gallagher's was near where Thompsontown is now lo- cated, and William Patterson's at Cocolamus Creek, below Millers- town. Baskins' Ferry was at the north end of Duncannon.
Then came the American Revolution and road building was farthest from the thoughts of men. Their whole thought was of liberty and the preservation of that freedom which had caused them to brave the dangers of crossing the sea. During the pro- vincial days when the proprietary government was in power slow progress was made with the building of roads, but when the change was made from province to colony improvements began. In 1787 a commission was appointed to survey a road to connect the Frankstown branch of the Juniata with the Conemaugh at Johns- town. A year later it was contracted for, and in 1790 completed. Another Frankstown road was authorized in 1792, south of the previous one. In 1788, at the January term of the Cumberland County courts a road was recommended to be laid out from the Reed Ferry on the Susquehanna, to Boston Shade's mill, on Cocolamus Creek. There was an act passed April 13, 1791, which is known as the Improvement Act. It granted £300 for the im- provement of a road from the mouth of the Juniata to David Mil- ler's (now Millerstown) on the Juniata, through Dick's Gap.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
There was a road from Carlisle to Sunbury at a very early date. On February 3, 1794, William Long warranted 400 acres of land located in what is now Spring Township, which is described as "adjoining lands on the west this day granted to John Long, and on the north by lands now in the possession of John Caven, and to join the great road leading from Carlisle to Sunbury." This "great road" passed through Long's Gap over the Blue Mountain. It was originally a pack horse route or bridle path from the South to the Susquehanna River, thence along to Sunbury.
In 1803, at the August term of court held at Carlisle, a petition was presented, requesting the erection of a bridge across Cocolamus Creek, on the post road from Harrisburg to Lewistown, near the junction of the creek with the Juniata River. This road was washed out by a flood, but its location was between the present road and the old canal bed, where the Patterson mill was located. Until recently there were traces of it. This old petition set forth that during winter this road was almost impassable, by reason of backwater from the river and ice blocking the fording. While it is here named as "the post-road" yet the fact remains that the Juniata Mail Stage Company did not begin operations until 1808, but the mails were carried over the route on horseback as early as 1798.
When the first through route was made through the Juniata Val- ley to Pittsburgh, now known as the "Old State Road," it did not take the river route from Clark's Ferry to Newport, but followed the old Indian trail via Pine Grove, in what is now Miller Town- ship, where Woodburn's tavern, an old and well-known road house, was located. Later this part of the route was abandoned and it followed the river bank.
In the fall of 1806 petitions favoring a turnpike along the Juni- ata were in circulation. On March 4, 1807, the State Legislature enacted a law to incorporate a company for building a turnpike from Harrisburg via Lewistown and Huntingdon, to Pittsburgh. This turnpike, which has been known by various names, frequently as the Allegheny pike, entered Perry County at the head of Duin- can's Island and ran west along the Juniata through Millerstown. For many years this was a turnpike, then it relapsed into the town- ship road class, and in 1889, the Johnstown flood year, the high water washed out a section of five miles in Watts Township, which remains vacated to this day, by an order of the Perry County court, the township claiming it as a too expensive piece of road to keep in order. As this route is now a part of the William Penn Highway an effort is under way to have the state rebuild it, which should be done.
The first section, from Harrisburg west, was not built until 1822, however. By an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, dated
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in March, 1821, two turnpike companies were chartered, the Har- risburg & Millerstown Turnpike Company and the Millerstown & Lewistown Turnpike Company. The location of two of the toll- gates were at the Miller pottery, in Howe Township, and at a point above Millerstown, known as "the burnt house." The lower company in 1825 had as commissioners: George Mann, of Cum- berland County, and the following Perry Countians: John Fry, Robert Clark, Cadwallader Jones, Peter Stingle, Robert Mitchell, John Rider, Francis Beelen, Joseph Power, Thomas Power, and Caleb North. Among the fourteen commissioners of the Millers- town & Lewistown Company were Jaines Freeland and Abram Addams. Mr. Addams, whose eldest daughter became the mother of Governor James A. Beaver, was an influential man in the com- munity and the new county and took a great interest in turnpike affairs. The turnpike was completed in 1825 and the subscription books opened at Millerstown. It was in use until 1857, when the county authorities took charge, the turnpike companies having abandoned it owing to the building of the canal and railroad, which took away the principal part of the traffic.
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