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 67
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genius. Members of all parties treated him with respect. When voluntarily retiring from the United States Congress in 1859- although the smouldering embers of disunion were almost being fanned to a flame-he received the unusual honor of a dinner ten- dered by a list of members of both houses of Congress, without party distinction. headed by the Speaker of the House and the Vice-President.
Of his father he wrote: "Never was human anguish greater than that which I felt upon the death of my father. It seemed impos- sible to me that I could live without him; and the whole world for me was filled with the blackness of despair. * *
* Whenever I was about to do something that I had never done before, the first thought that occurred to me was, what would my father think of this? * * * The principles and precepts he taught me have been my guiding star through life." And that father imbibed those principles early in life, while a resident of the vicinity of Dun- cannon. In the published works of Stephens one is impressed with the qualities of gentleness and courtesy. He disagrees with many. He condemns none. Even of Davis, whose policy he thought abso- lutely wrong, he has no unkind word. He says, "I doubt not that all-the President, the Cabinet and Congress-did the best they could from their own conviction of what was best to be done at the time." How many of us are willing to give like credit in our day? One of Lincoln's last efforts to avert the great struggle was through correspondence with Stephens, and of the prominent men on both sides that tolerant spirit was most shown by Lincoln, Lee and Stephens, in the order named. Stephens wrote on one occa- sion : "It may be that if the course which I thought would or could then save it (the Confederate Government), or would or could have saved it at any time, had been adopted, it would have come as far short of success as the one which was pursued ; and it may be, that the one which was taken on that occasion, as well as on all the other occasions on which I did not agree, was the very best that could have been taken."
When he had thoroughly investigated a subject he was not easily swerved. During his celebrated speech in Congress in answer to Congressman Campbell, of Ohio, the latter interjected. "You are wrong in that." Quick as a flash Stephens retorted, "I am never wrong upon a matter I have given as close attention to as I have given to this." On an occasion Judge Cone, a powerful man, called Stephens a traitor. Stephens characterized it as a lie and threat- ened to slap Cone's face. They later met and Cone demanded a withdrawal. Stephens refused and struck. Whereupon Cone drew a knife, slashed him a number of times, got him down and shouted, "Retract or I'll cut your throat." "Never," said Stephens, "cut if you like." He caught the descending knife blade in his bare
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hand and had it horribly mutilated, the hospital attendants finding eighteen knife thrusts in his body and arms. The man, in the face of death, would not say he was wrong when he believed he was right.
It is said of Stephens that he devoted a portion of every day to a communion with God in prayer. In old age, in sickness, and in prison he summed the matter in a few words, thus: "That the Lord is a stronghold in the day of trouble I know. But for his sustaining grace, I should have been crushed in body and soul long ere this." And yet, he once made this most singular tirade against the ministry: "If I am ever to be tried for anything, may heaven deliver me from a jury of preachers! * Their most striking defect is a want of that charity which they, above all men, should not only preach but practice." That type of theologian happily has almost gone.
Omitting his part in secession, he has left a creditable record as a statesman, an orator and an anthor. Until 1855 he generally acted with the Whigs, although not in accord with them. From 1871 to 1873 he was editor of the Atlanta Sun. He was the author of a number of books, the most notable being "A Constitutional View of the War Between the States." in two volumes. He here gives probably the ablest statement that has ever been given of the South's doctrine of State Rights.
Even in his later years Stephens was allowed no respite from public service. In 1873 he was elected to fill an unexpired term in Congress as the representative of his old district-this after an intervening period of thirty years from his first entry into that body. He was reelected each term until 1882, when he was elected Governor of Georgia by a large majority. Ile died in the gover- nor's mansion, March 4. 1883. while in the midst of his term.
When old Dr. Massey, a friend of Stephens', heard of the death of President Lincoln he was a passenger on the train going to- wards Crawfordsville, where he got off and at once went to the home of Alexander H. Stephens and told him the news. Accord- ing to Dr. Massey, Stephens burst into tears and said, "That is the greatest blow the South has had since Lee's surrender." Dr. Massey added that it took him eight years to see it that way.
In 1912 an old will was found among the papers of Alexander HI. Stephens. While the name of the signer is torn off in the be- ginning of the document, and the first name of the signature it- self cannot be made out, the will is evidently that of Alexander Stephens I, the Jacobite who came to America about 1746. All of his children are mentioned in the will except Nehemiah Steph- ens, and it is probable that he is the one referred to when "my dutiful son - " is mentioned, the latter part of the line being so faded and torn that nothing else can be made out. The will is
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principally of interest in that the tomb of Alexander Stephens I, records that he died March 15, 1813, while the will is dated No- vember 29, 1813, later than his recorded death. The year of his deathi was no doubt 1814, as, when his son Andrew Stephens vis- ited what is now Perry County in 1813, in a letter dated "Penton, Pennsylvania, April 28," to his sister, Mary Jones, he sends a message to his father, Alexander Stephens. In the letter he also speaks of leaving hime but two weeks before. The children to whom bequests are given are named in the following order: Sarah Coulter, James Stephens, Mary Jones, Catharine Hudgins (paper torn at next name, probably Nehemiah, as stated above), and An- drew B. He names Andrew B. Stephens and Mary Jones as executors. The will makes small bequests save for "an undivided tract of land I am entitled unto, being a bounty of 2,000 acres, and two claims, one for (paper torn here) from the Indians, and the other on his Britannic Majesty.
Andrew B. Stephens, father of Alexander H. Stephens, later left a widower, married Matilda Somerville Lindsay. The chil- dren of his first marriage were Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Grier, and Mary; and those of the second marriage, Andrew and Ben- jamin, who died in childhood; Linton H., John Lindsay, and Catharine Baskins. On May 7, 1826, pneumonia caused the death of Andrew Baskins Stephens, and just one week later the same disease was fatal to his wife.
Alexander H. Stephens was not the only one of Andrew B. Stephens' progeny who attained greatness. Judge Linton Steph- ens, his half brother, was one of the most brilliant judges that ever sat on the Supreme Court of Georgia, and was lieutenant colonel of the Fifteenth Georgia Regiment. Some authorities think his ability as great as that of Alexander H. John Lindsay Stephens, another half brother, who died young, was one of the leading law- yer of the state, and one of Judge Alexander W. Stephens' grandsons is now a judge of the Court of Appeals of Georgia, while another, Dr. Robert Grier Stephens, of Atlanta, is one of the leading physicians of that city. He is married to Lucy Evans, a daughter of General Clement A. Evans, of Atlanta. A grand- daughter (niece of Alexander H. Stephens), Mary Emma Holden, is the wife of Judge Horace M. Holden, who presided over the Northern Circuit of Georgia for seven years and was on the Su- preme bench for four years, when he resigned and moved to Athens, so that he might be near his children. He is one of the most prominent lawyers of the state. Mrs. Holden is much inter- ested in educational and philanthropic work and is a moving factor in having a classical school located at Crawfordsville, where rest the remains of Alexander H. Stephens, at "Liberty Hall," his old home, which was purchased by the Stephens Monumental Asso-
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ciation, who also erected a monument there to his memory, un- veiled by Mrs. Holden in 1893, just a week prior to her marriage to Mr. Holden, then a young lawyer of Crawfordsville, who was master of ceremonies. A third object of the Stephens Monumental Association was the erection of this school. The remains of Judge Linton Stephens, who died in 1872, were also removed to this historical location in 1914.
While Alexander H. Stephens was confined in Fort Warren, a political prisoner, after the war, his brother, later Judge Linton Stephens, visited him and met Miss Mary Salter, of Boston, whom he shortly married. She was of the Catholic faith, and her brother married her stepdaughter, Rebecca Stephens, and Father John Salter, president of the Jesuit College of Macon, Georgia, is their SON.
When the call to arms came in the great World War, a number of the descendants of that old Jacobite, Alexander Stephens I, fought with the allies in France, one being a son of Mrs. Holden. During that same trying period Willis E. Ruffner (a descendant of James, who returned to Perry County), of Greensburg, Penn- sylvania, was vice-consul in Italy. There are many descendants of James Baskins and a considerable number of those of Alexander Stephens I, residing in Perry and surrounding counties. In the letter of Andrew B. Stephens, from which quotation is made, he mentions "old Cousin Hugh Stephens," which shows that Alex- ander I, had at least one brother.
While at college Alexander Stephens' roommate was Dr. Craw- ford W. Long. who later became the noted discoverer of anæs- thesia. The State of Georgia has designated that Stephens and Long shall represent that commonwealth in the Hall of Fame at Washington, and thus the sons of two sons of old "Mother Cum- berland," one from south of the Kittatinny, and one from the sec- tion which became Perry, to the north, are accorded a great honor.
THE BLAINE FAMILY.
The family from which sprang James G. Blaine, the statesman, was one of the pioneer families of the territory comprising Perry County. Several members of the family were officers in the Revo- lutionary War, and one, Ephraim Blaine, financed the military operations of the colonies. Ephraim Blaine was a boy in what was then Toboyne Township, but in that part of the township which later became Jackson. Before the war had progressed very far he was a general. His brother, William Blaine, who owned the Solomon Bower farm, was a captain in Colonel Frederick Watts' battalion, having charge of the Fourth Company. Another brother, James Blaine, was the first lieutenant.
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The great-great-grandfather of James Gillispie Blaine, the great statesman, Secretary of State, and once nominated for the Presi- dency of the United States, was the pioneer of that name who located in Toboyne Township, then an outpost of civilization.
JAMES G. BLAINE,
The greatest American Statesman of the last half century. As there never was a photograph of General Ephriam Blaine, included in this chapter, none can be printed. The former was a descendant of the Pioneers and the latter himself warranted lands in what is now Perry County, near Blain.
His name was James Blaine, and that of his wife, Isabella. He took up a large tract of land and evidently ranked as a very wealthy man. There were at least four Blaines-James, Ephraim, Alexander, and William-who were early settlers and warranted lands. Of these men the first named was the father, and the other
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three, sons, who on attaining their majority, also located claims among these rich and fertile acres. All that portion of the Borough of Blain-the town dropping the final "e"-once belonged to the first James Blaine, mentioned above. Also both of the former Samuel Woods' farms, the Stokes' mill property, and part of the holdings of James Woods. As late as March 24, 1777, a deed from James Blaine and Isabella, his wife, residents of Toboyne Town- ship, conveys to William Blaine, one of their sons, four hundred acres in Toboyne. As James Blaine was one of the substantial men of the province, also having a property at Philadelphia, tra- dition alone would tell us that he would be at Philadelphia- then the heart of the colonies-using every power at his command to preserve their liberties.
As the lands which now comprise Perry County were at that time a part of Cumberland, the will of James Blaine is found recorded at the courthouse at Carlisle, and that will establishes the fact that the elder Blaine resided in Toboyne Township (now Jackson) in 1792, and that he in all probability died there. After the death of his first wife, Isabella, he had married Elizabeth Scad- den (Carskaden), the daughter of a neighbor in Toboyne, and the will, dated August 11, 1792, names as the executors of the estate, "my beloved son, Ephraim, and my beloved wife, Elizabeth." In the very beginning of the will he states his residence as "of To- boyne Township." It was proven May 19, 1794, shortly after his death. An extract from the will contains the provision :
"The house and garden I now possess be reserved and given to my widow and children begotten by me with her, together with sufficient pas- turage for one horse and one cow, summer and winter, during her life, and that the plantation owned by me let out to rent by my executors, the rents and profits arising from same to be given to my widow and children to raise and educate them till the children come of age.
"I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Elizabeth Blaine, one horse beast and the choice of any one of my cows, together with the one-third of the rents and profits arising and coming from my real estate, during her natural life," etc.
A plantation was willed "to my beloved son, James Scadden Blaine," with the provision that he pay certain sums to his sister, Margaret Blaine. To Alexander Blaine, Eleanor Lyons, Agnes McMurray, Mary Davison and Isabella Mitchell he willed five shillings each. (Book E, p. 330, Register of Wills, Courthouse, Carlisle.)
Evidently these were grown to manhood and womanhood and were well taken care of through marriage and otherwise. The cns- tom of willing five shillings to married daughters at that period seems to have been somewhat general, the property going to the · sons and ofttimes the larger portion to the first-born son.
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About 1745 James Blaine and Isabella, his wife, took their little son Ephraim and journeyed from Londonderry, Ireland, to Amer- ica, tarrying in Lancaster County, near Donegal, "on their way to the western world." which for them proved to be Toboyne Town- ship. They stopped in Carlisle long enough to become well known and then took up a tract of land in Toboyne Township, then on the frontiers and in what is now a part of Perry County, and described as "on the south side of the blue Juniata." They assumed a leading part in the affairs of the province as long as it continued a prov- ince, an active interest in the state when it became a state, and in the nation when the nation was born.
Successful in every way, happy in his home, the father of nine children who survived him, his first recorded grief was the death of his wife, Isabella. He subsequently married Elizabeth, daughter of George Carskaden, of Toboyne Township. Of the nine chil- dren, the little Irishman, the oldest, was sent to Rev. Dr. Allison's school in Philadelphia. There is a logical reason for sending young Blaine there, inasmuch as Dr. Allison himself was from Ireland ( Donegal) and had a farm in Toboyne Township, adjoin- ing the Blaine home.
On graduating at Dr. Allison's school in Philadelphia, Ephraim Blaine, his son, became a commissary sergeant with the proprietary government. Then, when the Indian treaty of 1765 was signed he did as many of our World War heroes did so recently, married "the girl he left behind," Rebecca Galbraith, descended of a staunch stock and a resident of Carlisle, whom he probably learned to know while residing there as a boy while on their way to take up lands in the province. The lure of this beautiful girl is responsible for his subsequent location there, no doubt, where he later became sheriff ( 1772). Of course men from what is now Perry County were also officials of Cumberland at that time, it being an integral part thereof. His father was one of his sureties, and as the Execu- tive Council, composed of five good men and true, attested to the recorder of Cumberland County that they did approve of Robert Callender and James Blaine as sufficient sureties, it follows that they were substantial men.
This man Callender was a very wealthy man, an Indian trader, and in a single encounter, while convoying a train of eighty-one pack-horse loads of goods, sixty-three were destroyed, the value of which was three thousand pounds. In vain he protested that they were not for the hostile Indians, but were for the Illinois, to be stored at Fort Pitt. He was charged with intending "to steal up the goods" before the trade was legally opened. He stood on good footing with young Blaine and his father, as the three combined to be "held and firmly bound unto our sovereign Lord, George, the Third, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland,
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King, Defender of the Faith," &c., in the sum of two thousand pounds lawful money of Pennsylvania to be paid to our sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors, to which payment well and truly to be made we bind ourselves, our heirs, executors and administrators and every one of them jointly and severally firmly by these presents, sealed with our seals and dated the fourteenth day of October, in the eleventh year of his majesty's reign, be- fore John Agnew, Esq., one of his majesty's justices of the peace for the county of Cumberland aforesaid." A pound of Pennsyl- vania currency at that time was worth two and two-thirds dollars. Prior to being made sheriff Ephraim Blaine was also an Indian trader for a few years. When a posse rescued Frederick Stump from the Carlisle jail, as noted in our Indian chapters, Mr. Blaine was one who rallied to the aid of the sheriff.
When the war with the mother country broke out he was com- missioned a lieutenant, later promoted to Colonel, and by a reso- lution of the Continental Congress was made chief of the com- missary department. He was then about thirty-five years of age. It was he, the Toboyne Township boy, who organized the farmers and the millers and kept Valley Forge from starving while the Tories in the great city were dancing and engaged in merry- making. In fact, many of the farmers were sending their wheat to Philadelphia to the dancing Tories instead of to the starving soldiers at Valley Forge. Practically everybody knows of the starving Continental Army at Valley Forge, but everybody does not know that hogsheads of shoes, stockings and clothing lay at different points awaiting teams and money to pay teamsters. The dearth of money is best realized when it is known that the colo- nies had voted eight million dollars for a year's war expenses, and at the end of five months had actually only furnished twenty thou- sand dollars.
But Ephraim Blaine, this boy who had come out of Toboyne Township, now a part of Perry County, already a man of affairs, having money of his own, his people having money and having a wide acquaintance among the well-to-do, raised the money pri- vately to keep the war going, and at one time-in January, 1780- the Supreme Executive Council drew a warrant in his favor for one million dollars to reimburse him in part for advances and means which he had provided.
That the Continental Congress evidently appreciated what he did and was doing is evidenced by an act of 1780 granting him "a salary at the rate of $40,000 by the year until the further order of Congress, also six rations a day and forage for four horses," for he was then a general, having been promoted to that position April 6, 1777. Later he spent his winters in Philadelphia, where his friend, George Washington, first President of the United
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States, resided, it being then the social centre of the new country, as the sessions of the Congress were held there.
Duels were yet in vogue in those days, and in the duel between John Duncan and James Lamberton in 1793, Ephraim Blaine was chosen as a second, and when the two met on the field of honor Duncan was killed. He was a brother of Judge Duncan, and years after Lamberton's grandson, Robert A. Lamberton, became presi- dent of Lehigh University.
Rebecca Galbraith, the wife of Ephraim Blaine, died in 1795. They had two sons, James and Robert, they being of the third generation of Blaines in America. James married Margaret Lyon, his cousin, whose father, Samuel Lyon, had taken up two hundred and seventy-three acres of land in Tuscarora. (This Lyon family should not be confused with that of the late Judge Lyons, of the Perry-Juniata judicial district.) James was sent abroad twice when a young man, being under voting age. It is recorded that John Bannister Gibson, the illustrious Chief Justice of the Su- preme Court of Pennsylvania (of whom more elsewhere in this book), after Blaine's death, wrote of him: "James Blaine, at the time of his return from Europe, was considered to be among the most accomplished and finest looking gentlemen in Philadelphia, then the centre of fashion, elegance and learning on this conti- nent." His reputation as a model gentleman was honestly sus- tained throughout life.
Ephraim Blaine died in 1804, but seven years previous he had married Sarah Elizabeth Postlethwaite Duncan, widow of his friend, who was killed in the duel previously mentioned, and who gave birth to a son who was also named Ephraim. His two sons by his first wife each had a son also named Ephraim, but the line of descent of James G. Blaine is from Ephraim Lyon (his moth- er's maiden name), the son of James, he being of the fourth gen- eration in America. At one time there were four Ephraim Blaines at Washington College, all related.
Ephraim L. Blaine went to Washington College and studied law with David Watts, late judge, whose son later was United States minister to Austria. The father, James Blaine, had in the mean- time settled at Sewickley, and there his son Ephraim L. met and paid court to Maria Gillespie, whom he married. They moved to Brownsville, to a house which his father had previously erected, and there, in the first stone house west of the Monongahela River. James Gillespie Blaine was born.
Ile graduated at Washington College in 1847, and was called to Maine to edit the first Whig newspaper, and made Maine his per- manent home. He was elected to the Maine Legislature and was a delegate to the second National Republican Convention, which nominated Lincoln. Ile was elected to Congress in 1862 and
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served over twenty years, being speaker part of the time. He entered the sixth National Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1876, with 285 votes for President of the United States, the second highest being Oliver P. Morton with 125, but Rutherford B. Hayes won on the seventh ballot with 384 votes. Hayes en- tered the balloting with 61 votes, while 378 were necessary for a choice. Hayes became President.
At the seventh National Convention at Chicago, in 1880, James G. Blaine entered with 284, while U. S. Grant had 304. James A. Garfield broke the Grant-Blaine deadlock in the thirty-sixth ballot with 399 votes. Garfield had no votes on the first ballot, and only two on the second. Necessary to a choice, 378 Garfield was elected.
At the eighth National Convention at Chicago, in 1884, Mr. Blaine entered with 3341/2 votes, Chester A. Arthur being second with 278. Blaine was nominated on the fourth ballot with 541 votes. Necessary to a choice, 410. He was defeated at the gen- eral elections by Grover Cleveland, through the disaffection of Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, thus losing that state by a very small majority.
At the ninth National Convention at Chicago, in 1888, he polled almost a half-hundred votes for a half-dozen ballots, although not a candidate. Benjamin Harrison was nominated and elected.
At the tenth National Convention, in 1892, he received 182 votes, Benjamin Harrison being nominated, but was defeated by Grover Cleveland at the polls.
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