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 41
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In the rugged New York highlands Coming from a glistening lake, The charming Susquehanna flows Through many a mountain break. It waters vale and fertile plain As in volume it comes forth, And crosses Pennsylvania, As it rambles from the North.
As these rivers gather body Since their sources they have fled, They trend toward each other, Until they meet and wed; And then, through gorgeous mountain gaps The waters swish away, Until they lose identity In the bosom of the bay.
As the waters flow toward the sea, Through the very heart of the hills, You can hear the intonations, From the rocky falls and rills, Of the crafty, stealthy red man As he crooned an Indian song ; The very echo of the waters Has the sound of Indian tongue.
These Pennsylvania waters, Whose banks touch mart and mine, Come from the very Northland, Crossing the "Mason-Dixon Line"; They've been flowing through the ages, Untold men have loved the streams As they've wandered toward the ocean, Flowing through a land of dreams.
· Harrisburg, Pa., July 2, 1921.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER.
A writer of seventy years ago, in a magazine article, speaking of the Susquehanna, called it "the Alpha and Omega of Nature's gift to the State-the first and noblest in beauty as it is in extent and position." That writer's name has been lost to posterity, but the quotation will go down the ages. It is the longest unnavigable river on the American continent and traverses a veritable empire. On its way it receives the waters of the Unadilla, the Chenango, the West Branch, and the Juniata Rivers, and of many creeks whose names are often writ in Indian and pioneer annals: Penn's Creek, Sherman's Creek, the Conodoguinet, the Swatara, the Conewago, and the Conestoga. Passing farming districts where fine grains and fat cattle evidence the fertility of the soil, it passes mountain crag and peak, breaking through great mountains on its way to the sea. At Sunbury it kisses Shikellamy Heights, named after that old In- dian chief who played so important a part in the history of the province, on one side, and Old Fort Augusta on the other. Leav- ing Perry County it passes through one of the famous water gaps and lazily flows by the State Capital-Harrisburg-named for a famous pioneer, and tumbles over the Conewago Falls, that ancient terror of rivermen. After its long journey over the lands of the immortal Penn, the founder of the greatest of states, it broadens into that majestic body of water, the Chesapeake Bay, later to join the broad Atlantic, where rides the commerce of a world.
The Susquehanna rises in New York State, Lake Otsego being its headwaters. New York State, it will be remembered, has many lakes, but Lake Otsego is noted as being the most beautiful from a scenic point of view, and the Susquehanna, true to form, has lav- ished beautiful scenery along its entire course-scenery unsur- passed anywhere. This lake is nine miles in length and over a mile wide, and James Fennimore Cooper, the author, says that "Deerslayer" called it "Glimmerglass." The town located on the lake is Cooperstown, named after Cooper, the famous author. Its principal tributary in New York State is the Chenango River, which joins at Binghamton.
The West Branch, the main tributary, rises in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and joins the main river at Sunbury. The Susque- hanna is really the most important river of Pennsylvania, it and its tributaries draining thirty-three of the sixty-seven counties of the state. It flows in a southerly direction and empties into the Chesa- peake Bay. It was named by the Indians "Sa-os-que-ha-an-unk," meaning a "long, crooked river," says Heckewelder.
During the last half of the Seventeenth Century there were pub- lished a dozen or more different maps of the Atlantic slope section of Pennsylvania, and on almost all of them, on the western side
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of the Susquehanna, about where it is joined by the Juniata, ap- pears the name "O-no-jut-ta Ha-ga," the headquarters or abode of an Indian tribe. According to experts Haga is the Mohawk word for people or tribe, and the first part of the name means a projecting stone. The similarity in sound between "O-no-jut-ta" and Juniata will be noticed.
The Susquehanna is over a half-mile wide passing Perry County. Geologists tell us that the land above the Blue or Kittatinny Moun- tains must at one time have been an immense lake, as the water gaps through the mountains would indicate. The Susquehanna is over four hundred miles long.
The first white man to navigate the Susquehanna River, was Captain John Smith, of Virginia. He sailed several miles up the river from the Chesapeake Bay, in 1608, being met by Susque- hanna Indians who then inhabited Lancaster County. Smith said of the Indians, they are "of many kingdoms to the head of the bay. which seemed to be a mighty river issuing from mighty moun- tains, betwixt two seas."
From the north three Dutch settlers from Albany had come part way down the river in 1614, and had gone overland to the Lehigh and the Delaware. A Frenchman, Etienne Brule, in the service of Champlain, Canada's first governor, left the vicinity of Oneida, New York, in 1615, and spent the following winter exploring along the river "that debouches in the direction of Florida," and followed it "as far as the sea, and to the islands and lands near them." This description would indicate that he had crossed Penn- sylvania and reached the Chesapeake Bay.
It is a historical fact that in the year 1723 some Germans from the Province of New York, leaving Schoharie, traveled through the forest in a southwesterly direction until they reached the Sus- quehanna, where they made canoes and with their families floated down the river until they reached the mouth of the Swatara. at Middletown. They then worked their way up the creek until they reached the Tulpehocken, where they settled.
In 1797 Louis Philippe, the Duke de Nemours, and the Duke de Berri visited Newtown Point, now Elmira, New York, having traveled on foot to that place from Canandaigua, a distance of sev- enty miles. They then went down the Susquehanna River upon an ark to Harrisburg, says French's Gascette of New York. This was probably the earliest record of long navigation upon its waters.
In September, 1700, William Penn bought all the Susquehanna country from the Indians, through Governor Dongan, of New York, for approximately five hundred dollars. Following is a copy of the deed :
"September 13, 1700; Widaugh and Andaggy-Junkquagh, Kings or ·Sachems of the Susquehanna Indians, and of the river under that name,
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and lands lying on both sides thereof, deed to W. Penn all the said river Susquehannough, and all the islands therein, and all the lands situate, lying and being on both sides of the said river, and next adjoining the same, to the utmost confines of the lands which are, or formerly were, the right of the people or nation called the Susquehannough Indians, or by what name soever they were called, as fully and amply as we or any of our ancestors, have, might or ought to have had, held or enjoyed, and also confirm the bargain or sale of said lands unto Col. Thomas Dongan, now Earl of Limerick, and formerly Governor of New York, whose deed of sale to Governor Penn we have seen."
However, this purchase seems not to have held, as later pur- chases of the same territory at different periods shows.
Before the building of the McCall's Ferry dam in the Susque- hanna River, large numbers of shad came up the river every spring and there were a number of fisheries. In earlier years there were as many as four at Marysville. There was another at Duncannon, operated as late as 1900, and the Wrights operated one above New- port for many years. There were also a number of others.
The Susquehanna River touches the northeastern corner of the county five miles above Liverpool, and is its eastern boundary from that point until it touches the shores of Cumberland County, over thirty miles below. Its width varies very little covering this distance. Its waters are shallow and the only navigation on it are a number of ferries which cross, the ones at Liverpool and Mil- lersburg being chartered and having regular traffic.
On entering the county it flows in an almost southern direction, until it touches Duncannon Borough, which is the most western point it strikes in the state. Here it bends sharply to the southeast. passing through the famous Susquehanna water gap, crossing the Cove section for a distance of five miles, where it breaks through a second water gap, that of the historic Second Mountain, above the Borough of Marysville and below the Borough of Dauphin. The fall of the river through the Cove is estimated at 1.58 feet per mile, and from the Cove to Rockville bridge, 2.69 feet per mile.
From Mahantonga, above Liverpool, to the Rockville bridge, or practically while passing the breadth of Perry County, a dis- tance of thirty and one-half miles, the river has a total fall of eighty-one and one-half feet, or at the average rate of two and two-thirds feet per mile. Its average fall is said to be two feet to the mile on its long course.
There are three principal drainage rivers of Pennsylvania, the Ohio, the Susquehanna, and the Delaware. The Susquehanna drains far the largest acreage of the domain, as the following fig- ures will testify: Delaware and tributaries, 6,710 square miles, 4,214,400 acres; Ohio and tributaries, 16,760 acres, 10,598.400 square miles ; Susquehanna and tributaries, 21,390 acres, 13.685,- 600 square miles.
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THE SUSQUEHANNA.
BY BENNETT BELLMAN.
Throw broad thy gleaming waters bright, O Susquehanna! in thy flow, And let me lie and dream to-night Of days which once I used to know. O river rolling from the dawn Of a new world and century,
Not yet, not yet, shall be thy song, -- That in the future, yet must be.
O broad, blue river, in thy' beams I see around me now the lands, Already growing dim like dreams, In which are warring, savage bands. They come again as in a dream, Their shadows moving to and fro;
And watch-fires on the hills that gleam In the red sunset's crimson glow.
Now like some gleaming sword all bright, Unsheathed by some great God of old, Thou severest with thy liquid light The darkness which is round thee rolled. The turbid' Tiber still doth flow By temples, aqueducts and domes ;
It but of dead days past doth know When heroes round it made their homes.
But thou, O river rolling on, It is the future which is thine ; A future when a brighter sun On brighter days shall proudly shine. And in the distant years to come, Like fable, will it still be told How a strange race, whose lips are dumb, Named thee in time, far passed and old?
THE JUNIATA RIVER.
The Juniata will ever live in song and story. There is music in its very name. Both branches, born in the foothills of the Alle- gheny Mountains, a part of the great Appalachian system, join and wind in and out by mountain crag and fertile valley, breaking through mountain ranges and introducing to the traveler as charm- ing and picturesque scenery as nature has bestowed anywhere. Favorite haunt of Indian hunter ; at different times the home of different tribes ; its banks traversed by native trails later used by early traders ; that primitive water-way-the Pennsylvania Canal -hugging its side; the standard railroad of America-like the canal, named after the great state, Pennsylvania-along its banks! Those are only milestones in the passing of the centuries of Juniata Hore. Of its tales of love and devotion, of confidence and ambi-
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
tion, and of energy and success there will be no end so long as civilization exists and its waters flow towards the sea.
The Juniata River enters Perry County above Millerstown, cut- ting across the county to a point above Duncannon, where it joins the Susquehanna. The Juniata is formed by two branches, the main stream bearing the name Juniata, and the other being known as the Raystown Branch. The Juniata rises near Hollidaysburg, in Blair County, flowing northeast until it reaches Tyrone, where it turns abruptly to the southeast, forming for a little way the boundary between Blair and Huntingdon Counties, continuing in the same general direction through Huntingdon County.
The source of the Raystown Branch is a short distance west of Raystown, in Bedford County. Its general course is to the north- east until it unites with the Juniata, midway between Huntingdon and Mapleton, the two branches forming the Juniata River, proper. Flowing southeast it again forms a county boundary for a short distance, between Huntingdon and Mifflin. From Mount Union until Lewistown its trend is again northeast, but from that point through Juniata and Perry, until it joins the Susquehanna near Duncannon, its trend is generally southeast.
During the latter half of the Seventeenth Century a number of maps of the province and the Atlantic seaboard were published which showed the Susquehanna River practically correct, but giv- ing little description of the country west of the Susquehanna. On practically all of them, on the west side of the Susquehanna, where the Juniata is located appears the words "Onojutta Haga," as de- scribed before. The French maps from 1700 to 1725 show a small stream there named "Cheneaide." Isaac Taylor, a Chester County surveyor, in 1701, made a map of the Susquehanna, on which he has marked the mouth of a large stream "Cheniaty."
To Heckelekler, the Moravian missionary, we are indebted for a slight description of the Juniata. He says: "This word ( Juniata) is of the Six Nations. The Delawares say Yuchniada or Chuchni- ada. The Iroquois had a path leading direct to a settlement of Shawnees residing somewhere on this river; I understood where Bedford is. Juniata is an Iroquois word, unknown now. The Indians said that the river had the best hunting ground for deer, elk and beaver."
The word Juniata has been variously spelled by map makers, traders, provincial officials, interpreters, missionaries and histori- ans, as Soghneijadie, Cheniaty, Choniata, Chiniotta, Chiniotte, Juniada, Scokooniady, Chiniotto, Juneauta, Joniady, Scohonihady, Schohonyady, Junietto, Juniatia, Juniatta, Junieta, Junitia, Juneata, Juniatto, Juneadey, Coniata, and Juniata, as it is spelled to-day. It was first used in the present form by the provincial secretary, July 7, 1742, according to provincial records.
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Prof. A. L. Guss, of Juniata County, who devoted much time to the study of Indian legends, and traditions, says: "The name Juniata, like Oneida, is derived from onenhia, onenya, or onia, a stone, and kaniote, to be upright or elevated, being a contraction and a corruption of the compound." The name was handed down to the traders and pioneers, who probably never saw these old maps.
In the report of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Prof. E. W. Claypole said :
"In ordinary weather the Juniata water carries about eight grains of earthy sediment, or about one pound for every one hundred cubic feet of water.
"In ordinary weather the Juniata water carries about eight grains of deep, with a current flowing about two miles an hour; that is twenty-four million cubic feet of water pass Millerstown every hour, carrying two hundred and forty thousand pounds (120 tons) of rock sediment. In other words, one million cubic yards of the rock waste of Juniata, Mifflin, Hunt- ingdon, and Blair Counties pass through Perry County down the Juniata River to the sea every year. The water basin from which this river sedi- ment comes measures about ten billion square yards. Its average loss per year is, therefore, about the ten-thousandth of a yard. If we take into account the gravel and stones rolled down the river in flood times, and carried down by ice, it will be safe to call it the five-thousandth of a yard.
"The whole surface of the Juniata country has, therefore, been lowered, say one foot in fifteen hundred years, or three thousand yards in thirteen million, five hundred thousand years; that is supposing the climate was always the same, and the Juniata River never did more work than it does now. But there is good reason for believing in earlier ages the erosion was more violent; this time may be reduced to ten, or even five million years."
The lands through which the Juniata flows are more or less hilly, its waters washing the base of many different mountains. Between these mountains are fertile and well watered valleys.
The Juniata of song and story! The very name of the river speaks of love and devotion, of pathos and poetry, and its romantic and enchanting scenery has on more than one occasion been the object of beautiful sketch or charming poem. While taking a trip along the Juniata on a packet boat, during the first half of last century, Marian Dix Sullivan wrote the words of the following poem, which were soon set to music, and a few of the older gen- eration yet remember when The Blue Juniata was on the lips of every one, for in those days a new song was not turned out with each waning day. Marian Dix Sullivan, by the way, was a ma- tron, the wife of John W. Sullivan, of Boston, whose father, Gen- eral Sullivan, was a Revolutionary hero. She was a daughter of Timothy Dix, a sister of General John A. Dix, and also of Doro- thea L. Dix, the great philanthropist who did so much for sick and wounded soldiers during the Sectional War. She was born near · the beautiful Merrimac River, in New Hampshire, and died in
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
1860. While the title of her poem was The Blue Juniata, the song publisher put it out under the title of "Sweet Alfarata."
There is no great poetical merit in the lines, but they caught the popular fancy and were sung everywhere, throughout the States. Girls and pets and boats and other things were named Alfarata, and the name still survives. The frequency with which the name appears in the song is accounted for by the very few words that rhyme with Juniata. The poem follows:
THE BLUE JUNIATA. BY MARIAN DIX SULLIVAN.
Wild roved an Indian girl, Bright Alfarata, Where sweep the waters Of the Blue Juniata. Swift as an antelope, Through the forest going,
Loose were her jetty locks In wavy tresses flowing.
Gay was the mountain song Of bright Alfarata, Where sweep the waters Of the Blue Juniata ; Strong and true my arrows are In my painted quiver ;
Swift goes my light canoe Adown the rapid river.
Bold is my warrior true- The love of Alfarata ; Proud waves his snowy plume Along the Juniata. Soft and low he speaks to me. And then, his war cry sounding.
Rings his voice in thunder loud, From height to height resounding.
So sang the Indian girl, Bright Alfarata, Where sweep the waters Of the Blue Juniata. Fleeting years have borne away The voice of Alfarata, Still sweeps the river on, The Blue Juniata.
Then, in 1865, came the sequel to "The Blue Juniata." Rev. Cyrus Cort was pastor of the First Reformed Church of Altoona- a mission at that time. He had organized it in 1862, and in the course of raising money to erect a church, made a number of trips along the Juniata. He wrote the poem on one of these trips in August, 1865. For long years afterwards he was the pastor of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania, Reformed Church, where the author of
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this volume met him and heard him preach in 1891. He was a man of fine physical proportions and an eminent divine. While he had written the poem in August, it had remained a personal matter with him until the following month, when, traveling overland from Chambersburg to Mercersburg with Rev. Dr. Harbaugh in his car- riage, he showed it to his distinguished host, who was the editor of a magazine known as "The Guardian." Dr. Harbaugh insisted on having the permission of publishing it, but not until early the next year was it granted. It appeared in the March number, and after that Dr. Cort wrote and had published many beautiful hymns, poems, historical sketches, etc. He was much interested in the gathering of historical data and of the marking of historical sites, and, during the compilation of this volume, probably the greatest compliment given the writer by a noted Pennsylvanian, himself a pastmaster in the same line, was to have his interest in things his- torical compared with that of Dr. Cort. The words of his beau- tiful poem follow :
RESPONSE TO "THE BLUE JUNIATA." BY REV. CYRUS CORT.
The Indian girl has ceased to rove Along the winding river ; The warrior brave that won hier love, Is gone, with bow and quiver.
The valley rears another race, Where flows the Juniata ; There maidens rove, with paler face Than that of Alfarata.
Where pine trees moan her requiem wail, And blue waves, too, are knelling, Through mountain gorge and fertile vale, A louder note is swelling.
A hundred years have rolled around, The red man has departed, The hills give back a wilder sound Than warrior's whoop e'er started.
With piercing neigh, the iron steed Now sweeps along the waters, And bears, with more than wild deer speed, The white man's sons and daughters.
The products, too, of every clime Are borne along the river, Where roved the brave, in olden time, With naught but how and quiver.
And swifter than the arrow's flight, From trusty bow and quiver, The messages of love and light Now speed along the river.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
The engine and the telegraph Have wrought some wondrous changes, Since rang the Indian maiden's laugh Among the mountain ranges.
'Tis grand to see what art hath done, The world is surely wiser. What triumphs white man's skill hath won With steam, the civilizer.
But still, methinks, I'd rather hear The song of Alfarata- Had rather chase the fallow deer Along the Juniata.
For fondly now my heart esteems This Indian song and story ; Yea, grander far old nature seems, Than art in all its glory.
Roll on, thou classic Keystone stream, Thou peerless little river ; Fulfill the poet's brightest dream, And be a joy forever.
As generations come and go, Each one their part repeating, Thy waters keep their constant .flow, Still down to ocean fleeting.
And while thy blue waves seek the sea, Thou lovely Juniata, Surpassing sweet thy name shall be, For sake of Alfarata.
SHERMAN'S CREEK.
Just as Sherman's Valley is the most important valley locally to Perry County, so is Sherman's Creek the most important stream. Like the valley of the same name, which it drains, it is supposed to have been named after an early settler, but records veil the fact in obscurity. Clarence W. Baker, a noted local historian who re- sided at New Bloomfield and assisted his father in editing The Freeman, said the stream was named after an old Indian trader named Sherman (or Sheerman), who plied his vocation in that particular territory many years ago. He is said to have been a veritable "Leather Stocking," sleeping outdoors 'and killing as many as sixty deer in a season. He and his horse were drowned in the creek which bears his name, at Gibson's Rock, through the animal being hampered with packs of furs. The writer is inclined to give credence to this story. The source of Sherman's Creek is variously given, but through Forester Bryner, who is familiar with every foot of the territory, its actual source is authoritatively given.
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Its headwaters rise in the mountains of Toboyne Township, in the extreme western part of Perry County. The general opinion is that the real head of the stream is in a swampy area on the north- western slope of the Rising Mountain, known as "the bear ponds." These ponds are located in a depression in the mountain which forms a small basin, being drained by what is locally known as Patterson Run. In wet seasons "the bear ponds" overflow and con- tribute to this stream, but during dry seasons the ponds are usually reduced to small swampy patches of ground, and the main run is fed by a large spring near the southern terminus of the gap or cut through which the stream flows from the Rising Mountain, fol- lowing a narrow ravine between the north slope of the Rising Mountain and the south slope of the Little Round Top. It emerges near the eastern base of the Big Round Top and unites at this point with what is locally known as the Barnhart Run. This run rises in a small valley formed by the union of the Big Round Top and the Conococheagte Mountain. The big spring located approximately five miles west of New Germantown, on the south side of the state highway leading from the former place to Con- cord, is one of the principal feeders of the Barnhart Rum, espe- cially during dry seasons. From the junction of these streams Sherman's Creek flows in a northeastward direction through the Sherman's Valley, passing near the south side of New German- town and continuing in the same direction towards Blain. In this distance it is fed by numerous small streams flowing from the north and south. In addition to the smaller streams, several larger streams which have their source in the mountains of the same township, contribute to the waters of this creek. Brown or Fowler Rum, which rises in the head of Fowler Hollow, on the south side
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