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 71

Author: Hain, Harry Harrison, 1873- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Harrisburg, Pa., Hain-Moore company
Number of Pages: 1102


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 71


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The great soldier replied : "Colonel, I regret to say that we have no such brigades. I only wish we had." But it was not long be- fore he observed that his wish was realized so far at least as the regiment of the young officer was concerned.


Before the army was again ready to do battle General Joc Hooker, then in command, said of him, "It will not be long before he will be a Major General." Three times he refused command of a brigade, and when he finally did accept, it was the brigade in which was incorporated his own regiment. At the approach of spring, a few days before the army moved, he wrote to his mother :


"I do not despair of my country's future. God is indeed trying us with fire, but it is the fire which purifies, and if the nation comes out of the crucible refined, purified, sanctified, what are thousands of lives and mil- lions of treasure compared with the new birth. Oh, mother, if my life can atone for any national evil; if I were satisfied that the result of this struggle is to be union, purity, liberty, how gladly I would resign life! What is life that it should weigh in the balance against such vast stupen- dous results? What is death that we should shudder, when behind it there arises such an effulgence of brightness and glory? I have no fear for the result in God's own good time and in his own right way-I am therefore resigned. It seems like doubting God to hesitate for an instant. I never doubt. I have therefore no anxious thoughts as to the future. Whatever that future is will be right; God does not go backward. For- ward is the watchword of the creation of the universe-of nations as well as of armies. What a privilege to live when progress, civilization and universal liberty are making such colossal strides; when ignorance, super- stition, slavery and wrong shrink back to their native darkness before the rising day."


As these words were being written General Hooker was pre- paring to cross the Rappahannock, and in a few days Colonel Beaver's regiment crossed the river and soon moved forward into the tangled thicket of Chancellorsville. The wood protected a needed fording of the river. Colonel Beaver led his regiment into the woods only to find them occupied by the enemy. The fight had barely opened when an enfilading fire caught the regiment from the Confederate advance and Colonel Beaver fell, a great hole torn in his uniform; a gutta-percha pencil, however, had turned the course of the bullet and it had gone only through the fleshy parts of his abdomen. From the hospital he was taken home to Bellefonte, but in July he was back at Harrisburg to report for duty, his wound still open.


President Lincoln had called for 120,000 emergency men to de- fend Pennsylvania and drive ont Lee's army. Beaver, on report- ing at Harrisburg at this time to rejoin his regiment, was refused sanction to do so by the surgeons. He was then given command of Camp Curtin, of which he said: "It was a position of much vexatious toil. The force was immense and untamed. 1 never saw anything equal to it."


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Sharing the wider fortunes of the army throughout that dis- astrous campaign the regiment was thrice called to decisive service when the fate of the entire army was at stake. It had been shelled all day while defending the apex of Hooker's position during the cannonade which concealed the swift march of Stonewall Jackson around the Federal position. Suddenly it was called out of its entrenchments, where it was expecting an attack from the front to stem in the open field the advance of Jackson's men who had gained the rear of the Federal army and were threatening its com- munications with the river.


At a crucial stage of the subsequent fighting General Hooker, himself, called on Colonel Beaver and his regiment to hold an essential position. "There is your work, Colonel; occupy that wood," said Hooker, pointing up a slope that lay outside the Union lines. "Wait for nothing," he added, "Everything depends on holding those woods." Colonel Beaver distinguished himself on every occasion, but particularly at the Battle of the Po, May 10th, and Spottsylvania, May 12th, for which he was assigned to the com- mand of the Third Brigade, but asked to be allowed to decline this advancement. Asked why, rather sternly, and when he would ac- cept promotion, he replied, "When the losses of the war leave me the ranking officer of the brigade in which my regiment is serving."


To penetrate the Confederacy as far as the James River had cost thousands of lives and millions of money, but finally, by the middle of June, 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant had successfully pushed his way fifty-five miles across the peninsula, in the face of the enemy. Grant's audacious and successful move from Cold Harbor across the James was so bold and unexpected that Lee did not oppose it. Prior to these events Grant had been feeling the Confederate lines. General Smith had swung his troops toward Richmond, around Petersburg, but had failed to follow the ad- vantage gained, the Confederates meanwhile strengthening their positions. Learning of this about noon of June 16th, General Grant decided to retrieve, if possible, the lost advantage by a gen- eral assault on the enemy's lines. General W. M. Mintzer, who was the Lieut. Colonel of the Forty-Third Pennsylvania, one of the regiments of the brigade which Colonel Beaver then com- manded, gave this graphic account of his part in the assault :


"It was about four o'clock, I think, when we gathered about General Beaver and heard from him that we were to charge the redoubts in front of us at six o'clock. He explained the plan of attack and its perils. He designated the officers who were to succeed to the command if he fell. There was an open plain between our position and the earthworks of the enemy, which was swept by their guns, and over this cleared field we were to charge for several hundred yards. Not long after we had re- ceived our instructions General Beaver began formning the brigade behind our works. Knapsacks were piled up and everything left that would em-


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barrass the men in the dash upon the enemy. After the line was formed we had remained in suspense but a short time, when General Beaver moved down to near the center of the brigade and ordered the advance. He was first over our works, and I shall never forget him as he looked that beau- tiful June afternoon, when he turned toward us, removed his sword from its scabbard, and shouted for the charge in clear, ringing tones. He was the picture of a soldier and he had the confidence of the command as few men had. The men followed him with a shout, and over the plain they swept, under his lead, amidst a perfect shower of shot and shell. When we were well on toward the Confederate works and the charge was at its height, with every prospect of victory, I saw a shell strike beneath General Beavers feet, bury itself in the ground, and explode. It threw him into the air, I and all of us then supposed, dead. He was quickly picked up by some of the men and carried to the rear with a severe wound in his side. Deprived of his inspiring leadership, despite the efforts of the officers, the brigade fell into confusion and retired. There was no one to succeed him in whose judgment and bravery the men and officers had the confidence necessary to rally a force to face a seemingly forlorn hope. But for his removal the fort would have been taken."


During the interim between the two wounds here spoken of, he had also been wounded by a spent ball, which a note book stopped. After this, his third wound, he was soon back, impatient to rejoin his command, but General Hancock refused to permit it and fur- loughed him again. Before his second furlough had expired he was again back to take command of his brigade in the desperate engagement which cost him the loss of a leg and almost his life. It was at the Battle of Ream's Station, where General Hancock with two divisions of his corps, against which the Confederates sent more than three times his number, was tearing up the Weldon Railroad. It was an important line of communication from Peters- burg to Wilmington, North Carolina, with connections to the South Atlantic coast-an essential feeder to the enemy's position. When Colonel Beaver reported for duty the battle was imminent. Gen- eral Hancock welcomed him eagerly, pointed out the position of his brigade, and instructed him to go over and take command. He had just done so and was reviewing his front and watching the Confederate advance, when he suddenly dropped, and his right leg lay at right angle from him, as he fell. Almost at the same instant the small force of cavalry in front was driven back by over- whelming numbers, and he was almost trampled to death. Lying there he waved his cap to attract attention, and the horsemen see- ing, not only did not injure him, but hastily bore him to the rear. He had not been back in battle thirty minutes until he lost his leg. It was many days before he was able to return home to Bellefonte, and then, on November 10, 1864, came his appointment by Presi- dent Lincoln as a Brigadier General of Volunteers, by brevet, "for highly meritorious and distinguished conduct throughout the cam- paign, particularly for valuable services at Cold Harbor, while commanding a brigade."


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This description of General Beaver's military record is given principally to show the type of men born in Perry County, who went forth in '61 and later to serve their country-for there were hundreds and hundreds of brave men-and to give the reader a knowledge of his character, his manhood, his love for his mother, and all those good traits which eventually landed him in the gov- ernor's chair- the second Perry Countian to attain that coveted position, Governor William Bigler, as before stated, having been the other.


During his absence the law firm of McAllister & Beaver had continued to prosper, and the senior partner eagerly awaited Gen- eral Beaver's return. All the energy he had displayed as a soldier he now threw into the law, and as he was a man of character, great mentality and the highest integrity he was in every respect successful. He stood for right in his community and labored for the upbuilding of his adopted town and county. He was no can- didate for the nomination, but was drafted by the party of his choice-the Republicans-as the nominee for the State Legisla- ture. He declined, but at the earnest solicitation of Governor Curtin, he acquiesced, but was defeated at the general election, Centre County being then strongly Democratic.


In December, 1865, he married Miss Mary McAllister, a daugh- ter of his law partner and former preceptor, a refined and edu- cated woman of character, who survives him and resides at Belle- fonte.


During subsequent Presidential campaigns General Beaver was called into other states, where his eloquence and logic were invalu- able. He continually refused to be a candidate for Congress. He filled so many positions of honor and trust, at various times, that it would take pages to name them all. He was the logical choice of his congressional district for delegate to the Republican Na- tional Convention of 1880. When the county convention met the sentiment for James G. Blaine was as five to one, and a committee was sent to him to ascertain his views. "I am for General Grant. If I am chosen I will not go back on my old commander, as long as he is a candidate before the convention." The reply was car- ried back to the convention, but he was endorsed nevertheless and the delegates to the state convention were instructed to have him made the delegate. At the same time those authorized to speak for Beaver reiterated the fact that he would support Grant, but yet the convention named him. He was chosen chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation at Chicago, and by his fairness held the respect of both the contending forces. After the deadlock and the subsequent nomination of James A. Garfield he was made the choice of the Pennsylvania delegation for the Vice-Presidency. The delegations of Ohio, Tennessee and some other states sup-


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ported him, but the nomination went to Chester Allen Arthur, Beaver declining, with the statement that his friends in Pennsyl- vania wanted him to run for governor and he would accede to their wishes. And thus the second scion of Perry County missed the Presidency (James G. Blaine being the other ).


When the Republican State Convention met in Harrisburg, in 1882, General Beaver was its choice for governor, but an Inde- pendent and Greenback ticket appearing in the field, split the Re- publican vote, and he was defeated by Robert E. Pattison at the general elections. This independent movement was not directed against Beaver, but against the Camerons, then in the saddle in Pennsylvania politics. It was led by John Stewart, later a judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and deflected enough votes to cause Beaver's defeat. In 1886 he was again nominated and was elected over his opponent, Chauncey F. Black, by a plurality of 42,000 votes. He was inaugurated January 18, 1887. His ad- ministration had no great outstanding features, but was noted for the character of the measures, which largely bore on the betterment of life. Among them were approval of high license legislation and laws curbing the liquor traffic, the encouragement of industrial education, refusal to employ military force for the execution of civil process, save as a last resort ; reduction of state debt by three million, better road legislation, and laws for the protection of men, women and children in manufacturing establishments.


It was during his term that the great Johnstown flood occurred, and he, with the backing of prominent citizens and banks, imme- diately borrowed $400,000 for the immediate relief of the suf- ferers. He was chairman of the Flood Commission, which re- ceived and dispensed over $6,000,000.


Although declining service in the United States Army he con- tinned his interest in the Pennsylvania National Guard, and in 1872 Governor Geary, in its reorganization, appointed him Briga- dier General, a position he held until he himself was elected gover- nor. He was in command during the big strike and riots of 1877. While governor he appeared at the head of the National Guard during the Constitutional Convention Celebration of 1887. He was Chief Marshal of President Benjamin Harrison's inaugural parade of 1889, and during the same year led the National Guard at the Centennial Celebration of Washington's inauguration as first President of the United States, in New York. Although he had lost a leg he was a good horseman. At the first real reunion of the Union and Confederate Armies at Gettysburg, in 1888, he delivered the address of welcome to his old enemy-at-arms.


During 1895 the Pennsylvania Legislature passed an act creating the Superior Court, and General Beaver was one of the seven judges appointed. At the succeeding election in November he


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was elected to a ten-year term in the office, and in 1905 was re- elected, holding the office at the time of his death.


In 1871 he was made a trustee of Washington and Jefferson College, and for many years he was president of the Alumni As- sociation. In 1873 he became a trustee of the Pennsylvania State College, on which board he served for forty-one years. Even be- fore 1873 he was much interested in State College, but as Hugh N. McAllister, his law partner and father-in-law, to whom was largely due the credit for its inception, was already on the board it was not deemed advisable that both be trustees. In 1874 General Beaver was elected president of the board, and by reƫlections held the position until he became ex-officio member by being elected governor. He was for thirty years president of the board, and as such was intimately related to the progress of the college and to the life of the students until his death.


He was a consistent churchman of the Presbyterian faith, and at the centenary meeting of the General Assembly he presided as vice-moderator, the first layman to hold that position, which he also held again on a later occasion. He was deeply interested in all phases of the work of the Young Men's Christian Association and was a frequent speaker at the state and national conventions. He helped to organize the State Committee for Pennsylvania in 1869, and was a member of that committee without interruption, for the rest of his life.


Governor Beaver died January 31, 1914, at his home in Belle- fonte, mourned by county, state, and nation. He was the father of five children: Nelson, dying in early life; James, aged three, soon after the inauguration of his father as Governor of Penn- sylvania, and Hugh, prominent in Y. M. C. A. work, in young manhood, in 1898. Two sons, Gilbert, of New York, and Thomas, recently elected to the legislature from Bellefonte, survive. Mrs. James A. Beaver also survives, as does the governor's half sisters, *Mrs. Anna McDonald Eckels, of Millerstown, and Miss Catha- rine McDonald, of Lewisburg.


CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN BANNISTER GIBSON.


Perry County soil has been the birthplace and the early home of three different men who have became the chief justices of three different states of the Union. Chief Justice John Bannister Gib- son, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, was one of the great- est to serve in that high office, and many authorities place him


NOTE .- While compiling this work the author interviewed Mr. D. M. Rickabaugh, a schoolmate of General Beaver's, residing at Millerstown, who was eighty-seven years of age last July (1920), and an intimate, life- long friend. Mr. Rickabaugh has since passed away.


*Mrs. Eckels died in 1921.


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first. His ancestry on his father's side were from Ireland, and emigrated to this country late in the Eighteenth Century, settling at Lancaster, where George Gibson I, built the first public hos- telry, keeping tavern for a time. The carliest record of the family shows that in the year 1730 Governor Hamilton was instructed by the proprietors of the province-the Penns-to lay out the city of Lancaster "at or near the tavern of George Gibson," who was the


CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN BANNISTER GIBSON, One of the Greatest of Pennsylvania Jurists, who was Born in Perry County Territory.


grandfather of the chief justice. This tavern bore the sign of the "Hickory Tree," being located by the roadside, at the point where grew a large hickory tree. There the son, George Gibson IT, was born.


The son later located at Silver Springs, Cumberland County, where he purchased a mill. After a time he married Ann West, a daughter of Francis West, who at the time of the outbreaking of the American Revolution was judge of the Cumberland County courts. George Gibson II, removed to what is now Perry County and settled on lands of his father-in-law. He was the father of four children, of whom the eldest, Francis was born before coming


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north of the mountain, and his greatest distinction was service as register and recorder of Cumberland County for a term. The second son, George, became Commissary General of the United States Army, his biography appearing elsewhere in this book. A third son, William Chesney, became a miller, later going to sea. The fourth son, John Bannister Gibson, born November 8, 1780, is the subject of this sketch. A daughter died in infancy. The father, George Gibson II, removed to Sherman's Valley, in 1773. the year following his marriage. At the close of Lord Dunmore's war, in 1774, he returned to his home at Westover Mills (the Gib- son mill), but at the call to arms of the Continental Army he has- tened to Pittsburgh and recruited a company of one hundred men for service, the first company organized for that army west of the AAlleghenies. No fifer could be found, and Captain Gibson became his own fifer. Composed of the roughest of frontiersmen, never subjected to discipline, they foraged regardless of orders or of trouble, and so became jocularly known as "Gibson's Lambs." Needing powder badly, Gibson was detailed to go to New Orleans and negotiate with the Spanish government for a supply. He traversed the wilderness then existing between Pittsburgh and New Orleans and in due time arrived with a supply loaded upon flats. Offered a monetary reward or promotion for his success, he chose the latter, and was made a colonel, serving as such throughout the Revolution. To Colonel Gibson, when Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown, General Washington gave command of the surrendered troops, save the commissioned offi- cers, to be sent to York, Pennsylvania, as prisoners of war. The statement that he never returned to the county's territory to reside is erroneous, as he did so in 1782, at the conclusion of the treaty of peace, and lived largely the life of a country gentleman until early in 1791, when Congress voted two thousand men-two regi- ments, from Virginia and Pennsylvania-to assist General Arthur St. Clair in an expedition against the Indians, renegades and Brit- ish at Detroit, from where they harassed the residents of the Ohio Valley. George Gibson was appointed lieutenant colonel and field commander of the Pennsylvania regiment. This was the first con- siderable military undertaking of the new nation. Early on the morning of November 4, 1791, the troops were surrounded by the redskins, on the banks of the Wabash, and, early in the en- gagement, Colonel Gibson fell, wounded in the head. Bandaging it he again entered the fight, thus being a conspicuous target. He was again wounded, and for the third time, in the wrist, which disabled him. He was carried to a stockade, thirty miles back, and there, a few days later, he died ; and there his body rests. The township, in Mercer County, Ohio, in which the battle was fought, is named Gibson, in his honor. At no other place, save the Custer


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massacre at the Little Big Horn, were American troops handled so severely. Of 1,400 men actually engaged, 593 privates were killed and 252 privates and thirty-one officers wounded. As a young man Colonel Gibson had engaged in the trade with the West In- dies, and also as a trader, trafficking with the Indians at Fort Pitt. At the opening of the Revolution Francis West, of the Cumber- land side of the mountain, his father-in-law, was a sympathizer of the mother country, and an extremely bitter feeling existed be- tween them, Colonel Gibson being an ardent Federalist.


Unfortunately the mother, Ann West Gibson, did not live to see her son's elevation to high position. She died in 1809, and her son Francis leased the mill to Jacob Bigler ( father of the two governors), and removed to Carlisle, where he remained for many years, later returning there, where he died March 18, 1856, aged 82 years.


When the county was created in 1820, George Gibson's heirs were assessed with 450 acres of land, a sawmill and a gristmill. Francis West, the maternal grandfather of Chief Justice Gibson, was the owner of five slaves which he disposed of in his will at the time of his death in 1784. As stated, he was judge of the Cumberland County courts, and is said to have been a brilliant man. His daughter Ann, who became the mother of the future jurist, was also a brilliant woman, and during the first ten years of her married life, besides rearing her family of little children, found time to build the old Westover mill, named after the family estate in England, now and long since known as the Gibson mill.


John Bannister Gibson's boyhood home, which occupied a site near the mill, was located in the wooded section of present Spring Township, near the Carroll Township line, almost on the banks of Sherman's Creek, with the towering peak of Mt. Pisgah imme- diately facing it, and below a mighty boulder jutting to the very edge of the waters of the creek, and known to this day as Gibson's Rock. Amid this wild and picturesque section he first beheld the light of day and heard the clatter of the mill and the swish of the waters.


John Bannister Gibson was born November 1, 1780. He was named after the celebrated Virginia soldier and statesman, *John Banister, a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and an officer in the Virginia line dur- ing the Revolution-a friend of Colonel Gibson. His boyhood was similar to that of the boys of the period, save that he was early sent to Dickinson College. Absence of his father in the Continental Army placed entire responsibility upon his mother,


*In his early life Justice Gibson did not use his full name, and in later years spelled the Banister thus, Bannister, although the man after whom he was named spelled his name with a single "11."




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