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 96
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Henry's Valley, now uninhabited save for the residence of F. P. Sunday, the forest ranger, is the location of an old cemetery, where many former residents are interred. The hemlock area southwest of New Germantown, proposed to be set aside as a tract of original timber or a recreation park, is fast deteriorating and almost inaccessible for access. If the State of Pennsylvania de- sires to spend any money for recreation park purposes it had bet- ter be in the vicinity of the Big Spring, above New Germantown, one of the headwaters of Sherman's Creek, or some other place easy of access.
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
PERRY COUNTY FROM MANY VIEWPOINTS.
P ERRY County is noted as a community where law and order prevail, and frequently the county jail is without a single occu- pant. Many times during recent years the grand jurors have not been called, as there were no criminal cases, and on several occasions during the past few years the traverse jury was not needed, as there was no litigation whatsoever. For years many men have refused to be elected to the office of justice of the peace, and others, when elected to that office, refuse to be commissioned, as the fees in many cases do not pay the cost of the necessary books. Only once has it been necessary in Perry County to inflict capital punishment, and in that case the victim was neither a na- tive, nor the descendant of one, but had moved to the county less than two years before the commission of the crime.
This reputation for law and order in the county is no matter of mere whim or opinion, but is a matter of record for a century. Pages could be filled with statements from the press and from court records, but that is unnecessary. However, the charge of Judge Reed to the grand jury, January 7. 1834, which was sub- stantially as follows, is of interest :
"It is a matter of congratulation to find so small a number of criminal prosecutions in the sessions of this county. We are advised that only one or two cases have been returned, and those of a very unimportant char- acter. It is usually so here. For a number of sessions past we have been able to dispose of all the sessions in a day, and often in a half-day. Jails and penitentiaries, no doubt, have their effect; but there is in public opin- ion a more sure and certain preventative of crime, than results from public punishments. Whenever reproach and opprobrium are attached indignation frowns upon the culprit when placed upon his trial-whenever the scorn of the community points its condemnation at the convict, and detestation as well as punishment follow a conviction-whenever a crimi- nal finds that he goes abroad disgraced, after paying the forfeiture or suf- fering his punishment-then criminal courts are encouraged to proceed and the community have cause to rejoice in their success.
"But if the public look on with indifference, and no disgrace is added to the sentence of the law, the mere principle of fear will have but a limited effect. Public sentiment is generally exercised in this county; and it is mainly owing to that circumstance that our criminal list is so meagre. When we consider that the grand jurors are sworn to present truly, not only such cases as are given them in charge, but all others that they know to be presentable here-when from both sources but a case or two can be found at a term, we have good reason to rejoice."
Five years later, on assuming the judgeship, Samuel Hepburn, upon opening his first court here on April 1, 1839, in his address
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PERRY COUNTY FROM MANY VIEWPOINTS
to the grand jury, noted the fact that there was not a single person in jail and complimented the county upon its morals. In fact, the small number of criminal cases has become a tradition. In 1853 again the jail was empty so much that it attracted the attention of the press of the state.
The public institutions of the county have been devoid of scan- dals, and when Bromley Wharton, representing the State Board of Charities, inspected the Perry County jail, in 1903, the few pris- oners protested that they were given too much food considering their close confinement-a most unusual proceeding, especially for a penal institution.
The county's population has largely descended from pioncers, principally of the Scotch-Irish and German strain, as noted more fully in earlier pages, and has always been practically all Protes- tant in faith, so much so in fact that not a single Catholic church has ever been built within the county's borders. The population has also been practically all Gentile and of the white race, with the exception of a small colony of negroes which has inhabited the borough of Millerstown.
Although a small county having many rivers and creek bridges, it freed its toll roads over a half century ago, and its toll bridges about forty years ago, while several wealthy and populous near-by counties which boast of their rich soils, only recently freed their toll roads (and then at the partial expense of the state), and even yet have toll bridges, a relic of a departed age. A noted Perry Countian of a Middle Western state, commenting on this, writes: "I have tramped almost over this entire county (his adopted resi- dence), and not infrequently have had difficulty in crossing streams over which there was neither bridge nor foot-log. As long ago as 1850 I had no such experience in Perry County; for, although not all the small streams in our neighborhood were bridged, the foot-log was never absent." He then quotes a beautiful little Perry County stream of but three miles in length, with the statement that it was then already spanned by eleven bridges or foot-logs.
Perry County sometimes has been referred to as "the hoop pole county," just as some counties are referred to as coal coun- ties, and another as the tobacco county, but, while it has not al- ways been applied with an affectionate motive, yet the title in itself is one of a historical character, as it shows that the county or the territory comprising it was settled during the pioneer period. In those days there were no bags and boxes used in marketing ; everything was in barrels, and to this day we speak of a barrel of flour, yet much of the flour is not actually barreled in our day. The period has even left its language to posterity for all time. The grains that were not ground into flour and meal were distilled into liquors, for in those days drinking was general. There again
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
the barrel was a necessity. To make barrels required hoops, and the modern steel and iron mills were not even dreamed of. Hoops were made of wood and the hickory, which grew in the wooded lands of Perry County territory was then, as it is to-day, of a superior quality. Expert woodmen even vouch for the fact that the hickory from the northern slopes of a mountain is superior to that grown on the southern slopes. Perusal of the various chap- ters of this book will show an additional source of supply of hoop poles in the number of early charcoal furnaces which operated in the territory, and a demand even at home for hoops by the large number of mills and distilleries which an industrious people had erected in the wake of the redmen at that early period. To keep these furnaces going large tracts of timber were cut over, and in a very few years the second growth was ready for the market as hoop poles. As there were no canals or railroads at that time, and as the Sterrett's Gap road was the most improved highway leaving the county territory, the continuous stream of wagons bearing the products to Carlisle, Columbia and other markets fas- tened the name to the county. There was a great demand for hoops by the manufacturers at Baltimore, Lancaster and other towns to the south and east, and it was a noted fact that orders from Perry County were filled more quickly than from elsewhere. There was, of course, a reason for this. The hickory close to these cities had been largely depleted and their orders had to come north to the Blue Mountain section, and the traffic by river led them up the Susquehanna. Once there the territory of Perry was the very first to which they came, and the promptness with which the orders were filled and the satisfactory product finally attached its name to the county. The mother country imported largely hogs- heads, barrel staves and heads, hoop poles, etc., according to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," as contained in the Harvard Classics, and paid a bounty for their importation from January 1, 1772, to January 1, 1781. This helped enlarge the demand, even at that early date, as the lower Susquehanna trade then entered the traffic.
An anecdote connected with this subject may not be inappro- priate. Just prior to the Sectional War, Congressman B. F. Junkin was scheduled to speak in a northern tier county of Pennsylvania. Large bills proclaimed the coming of "Congressman B. F. Junkin, of Perry County." In the district a paper condoning slavery in an indirect way was being published, its editor belonging to the class usually termed "copperheads," and in that paper the residence of the congressman was quoted "from hoop pole Perry." In open- ing his address Congressman Junkin described the uses of hoop poles, remarking that "hoop poles are of use in supplying hoops for kegs to contains nails, for barrels to contain meats, flour, liquor,
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PERRY COUNTY FROM MANY VIEWPOINTS
fish and many other products, and they are also a d- good thing to kill copperheads with."
During the compilation of this volume, reference was made to "the Pennant County," by persons in four widely separated sec- tions of the Union. Three of these persons, descendants of Perry Countians, had never seen the county, save as pictured upon a map. Interrogated as to the name, a noted woman replied, "Did you never notice on the Pennsylvania map how it hangs there upon the dear old Susquehanna River of my ancestry just as a pennant floats from its staff ?" And so it does ! And how appropriate seems this name conferred upon it by descendants of the pioneers, for, in many ways is it not a "Pennant Perry"? Where is there an- other whose scenery excels its scenery ? Where is there another so well watered? Where is there another which has captured the State prize for the finest apples for three successive years? Where is there another of like size and population with more noted sons and daughters who have attained fame? Where is there another, con- sidering size and population, which has sent into the ministry and the teaching profession an equal number of successful men? And thus we might go on! So, here's to the name conferred by the descendants, "Perry, the Pennant County"; may it ever stand upon those other traditions of the pioneers which have made it worth while!
Almost with the coming of the pioneer and civilization came the first physician, which in this case was Dr. John Creigh, who lo- cated in Landisburg in 1799, twenty-one years before the forma- tion of the county. Even to this day the territory covered by the county's physicians often requires a ten-mile drive to see a patient. In the earliest days of the new settlements, with no roads except paths, and almost the whole country yet in forests, with only a few scattered physicians in the entire territory, their practice led them to places far remote from their offices. The first practicing physicians were located at Landisburg, Millerstown, Ickesburg, Duncannon, Milford (near Newport) and Liverpool. Theirs was not an easy service, and their life was rather a hard lot. They were held in high esteem by their communities, a fact which gen- erally applies to the profession to this day.
The Perry County Medical Society is one of the oldest in the State of Pennsylvania, having been organized in Millerstown on November 19, 1847. As the result of a call among the medical profession the following physicians met and formed the organi- zation :
Dr. J. H. Case, Liverpool.
Dr. T. G. Morris, Liverpool.
Dr. John Wright, Liverpool.
Dr. A. C. Stees, Millerstown.
Dr. T. Stilwell, Millerstown.
Dr. B. F. Grosh, Andersonburg.
Dr. J. E. Singer, Newport.
Dr. P. Whiteside, Newport.
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
The first officers of the organization were: President, Dr. J. H. Case ; vice-president, Dr. A. C. Stees ; treasurer, Dr. J. E. Singer ; secretaries, Dr. B. F. Grosh, Dr. T. Stilwell.
The constitution then framed and adopted, with little modifica- tion, is still the organic law of the association. The objects of the society were defined to be "the advancement of medical knowledge, the elevation of professional character, the protection of the inter- ests of its members, and the promotion of all means to relieve suffering, to improve the public health and protect the life of the community." Incidentally, the real object, to promote a social and fraternal spirit among the fraternity, has been largely attained. Meetings are held several times each year.
While the great Sectional War was over in 1865, the Soldiers' Reunions, so familiar to a later generation, were not inaugurated at once, but ten years intervened before the first one was held, at Newport, on September 30, 1875. The chief marshal of the first parade was Capt. B. F. Miller. The aids were Major George A. Shuman, Capt. A. D. Vandling, Lieut. D. C. Orris and Sheriff J. W. Williamson. The procession included the following and marched over the principal streets of Newport :
Barnet Sheibley, survivor of the War of 1812, in carriage.
Dr. Isaac N. Shatto, of the Mexican War, in carriage.
Keystone Band, of Newville, Pa.
Company of Veterans, under Lieut. S. S. Auchmuty, of the Forty- Seventh Regiment Penna. Volunteers, and also a Mexican War veteran. (The Duncannon contingent.)
Morris Drum Corps, Liverpool; Wm. Morris, drum major, 8 drums. Company of Veterans, commanded by Capt. H. C. Snyder, of Liverpool, late captain of Company B, Seventh Reserves. (Liverpool veterans.)
Germania Band, Newport; Wm. A. Zinn, leader, 16 pieces.
Company of Veterans, commanded by Capt. F. M. McKeehan, late cap- tain of Company E; 208th Regiment. (Probably Newport and Bloomfield veterans. )
Duncannon Band, Joshua H. Gladden, leader.
Company of Veterans, commanded by Capt. Wm. H. Sheibley, Landis- burg, late captain of Company G, 133 Regiment. (Upper Sherman's Valley contingent.)
Charles H. Smiley, a veteran and then a rising young attorney, later a state senator from his native distriet, was the orator of the clay.
For the information of descendants of former or native Perry Countians it may be wise to state that the climate of Perry County is that variable one of the Northern Temperate zone, where the average summer heat is from seventy-five to ninety degrees, and where the temperature in winter sometimes reaches points below zero. Some winters are mild, with little snow, while others find snow lying from early December until the advent of April. Like- wise some summers are hot and dry and others cool and rainy. However, generally speaking, the climate of Pennsylvania com-
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PERRY COUNTY FROM MANY VIEWPOINTS
pares very favorably with that of any other state, and Perry lies not so far from its centre. The transition from the seaboard to the mountain districts has the effect of breaking the keenness of the winds. As the years have passed odd conditions of the weather are worthy of notice. In 1821 it was so cool over the nation that it even snowed in July on Capitol Hill, Washington, D. C., accord- ing to the press of that period. In 1827 cold weather gripped the very harvest time with high winds and even frost. On June 22d of that year there was a severe frost. The Perry Forester tells of "trees being uprooted, fences leveled and great coats being worn to put away hay." The winter following seems to have been the opposite, as the issue of January 31, 1828, tells of a "black snake, two feet long, being killed in Toboyne Township, yesterday." The winter of 1847-48 was unusually severe, according to records. The winter of 1875 was very mild, no snow falling after January. By the end of April clover was in bloom, while wheat was in head and potato stalks a foot high by the middle of May. Then, on May 13th a heavy frost froze the corn and potatoes and injured the wheat on the lowlands. The winter of 1885 was a severe one. A regular blizzard raged four days around Washington's birthday. On that day, Mrs. Edward Miller, of Loysville, died, and before her remains could be interred her husband too, passed away. They occupy one grave in the old Centre churchyard. The winter of 1890 was so mild that farmers plowed during January. A. L. Knisely, a reputable citizen of Buffalo Township, while plowing found grasshoppers already jumping around. The early part of 1921 found gardens being dug at Blain as early as February 15th, but a later frost ruined the apple, cherry and peach crop.
The diary of Jacob Young, deceased, which began with records told him by people yet living, dates back to 1784. He refers to the winter of 1888-89 being a remarkable one, stating "No snow of any account fell until January 20th when we had first sleighing. Farmers ploughed during December and first eighteen days of January. Shrubbery put forth buds and some days were mild and spring-like." He also refers to the summer of 1854 being very dry. The present summer ( 1921) has been the hottest and dryest since 1881, the year when President Garfield lay so long at the point of death, according to local records.
The visitor to Perry County will find along the countryside many clean little homes, which stand refreshingly in contrast to the more stately mansions of the city. Most of them stand alone, with here and there a cluster almost attaining the dignity of a vil- lage. Few of them will be found fashionably foolish or foolishly fashionable, but in many of them will be found that which many city houses often lack-a real home and family life, the bulwark of the republic. Some will need paint, yet in the owner's desk in
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
place of a receipt from the painter there often is a receipt for board and tuition of a member of the family at a far-away normal school or college. At others the surroundings may appear 1111- kempt, but, there perchance, is where the occupants are aged or where the great reaper has gathered the father or the mother, and the other, aged and unable to keep the old home as it had been, only awaits the summons to join the departed.
The one sad thing in connection with the last resting places of the dead is that, in some places, they are kept in such slov- enly condition that they are a discredit to their towns and townships. This is not applicable to Perry County alone, but to many counties. Towns which take great pride in their public squares and main streets neglect their old cemeteries, and many of their citizens would not for a minute think of conducting a visitor in that direction. Whether there is legislation in any state covering these old burial places, the writer is unable to state, but believes there should be some method devised whereby they would be kept in at least as respectable shape as the surrounding fields, instead of becoming a breeding place for noxious weeds and underbrush. The very names on the tumbling tombstones tell of a past day and generation when the parents evidently read much of the Bible. They were mostly of a generation following the pioneers and later, and are the ancestors of the present race. Several towns have already restored these historic old resting places and others are about to do so, but in order to add per- manency to the movements some particular organization, such as the civic clubs, should have the matter in charge. The principal reason for neglect has been unorganized effort-"what is every- body's business seems to be nobody's business."
The towns and boroughs of Perry County, during the past thirty years, have been intent upon getting modern water and lighting facilities. Prior to that time Blain Borough was the only town in Perry County with a water system. Since then Duncannon, Marysville, Millerstown, New Bloomfield and Newport have had water systems installed. Newport, Duncannon and Marysville had light plants, but they were privately owned, save in Duncannon, which is the only one still in existence of these three. The light plant installed for the Tressler Orphans' Home at Loysville, now (or will soon ) lights up Blain, Loysville, Green Park and Landis- burg. Newport, New Bloomfield, Millerstown and Liverpool are lighted by the Juniata Public Service Company, whose plant is located upon Wiconisco Creek, one-half mile from Millersburg, towards Lykens. The voltage is carried across the Susquehanna River from Halifax, on a 22,000-volt high tension line, carried by steel towers. It then runs along the Susquehanna River to Mont- gomery's Ferry, where the line divides. The Liverpool extension
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PERRY COUNTY FROM MANY VIEWPOINTS
also lights Middleburg, Paxtonville, Beavertown, Beaver Springs and McClure, in Snyder County. The Newport extension also lights Thompsontown, Port Royal, Mexico, Mifflin and Mifflin- town, in Juniata County. This corporation also lights Marysville, but leases the current from the United Electric Company at Le- moyne, Cumberland County. The Juniata Public Service Com- pany was organized in 1916, and completed the Newport and Mifflin extension in 1916, and the Liverpool extension in 1917.
The assessments in different sections of Pennsylvania vary from full valuation to less than a third of the actual value. According to a statement in the public press those in Perry County are esti- mated at sixty per cent, but the assessment books show a wide variance.
During the year 1906 the chestnut blight struck that part of the state which includes Perry County, and thousands of trees, in fact, all of them, were victims. The chestnut crop, long a noted one, has dwindled to nothing. Many of these trees were older than the oldest inhabitant. The largest one, yet standing on the farm of the W. A. Smiley estate, in Carroll Township, is thirty-three and one-half feet in circumference. Its location is about three miles east of Shermansdale, on the Sherman's Creek road. Experts quote its age as between 400 and 500 years. Until the blight it bore large crops of chestnuts annually. Another large tree, west of New Germantown, a willow, measured twenty-four feet, nine inches.
Prior to the purchase of the lands by the state and the creation of the Tuscarora Forest, the farmers of western Perry, northern Franklin and Cumberland Counties turned their young cattle into the mountains for pasture and forage during the summer months, and along the lower hills and in the lowlands often grazed large droves. Since 1907, when the grazing was forbidden by the state, those who formerly pastured their cattle there, have annually held a reunion which dates back to 1913, when it was held at "Camp Meetch," near Laurel Run, on the road between New German- town, Perry County, and Newburg, Cumberland County.
That there were a considerable number of unpatented lands in Perry County territory, even when the first third of the last cen- tury had elapsed, is evidenced by a settlement at the office of the Auditor General of Pennsylvania, dated March 28, 1833. The payments were to William Wilson, Esq., Deputy Surveyor of Perry County, from the commonwealth, aggregating $179.50, for surveying twelve tracts of unpatented lands at $9 each, five tracts at $6 each, eight tracts at $5 each, and one tract at $1.50. Accord- ing to the public records at the State Capitol, the last lands in Perry County to be patented were on February 19, 1918, when C. A. Baker patented three tracts, containing, respectively, 84, 84,
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
and 120 acres. The number of patents in the last fifty years have not been many. There are properties in Perry County for which there are no deeds, yet the title is as good as any title can be. The lands were warranted by the province, and have descended down through the generations without being sold. One such is the farm of C. A. Anderson, at Andersonburg, Jackson Township, whose father, Alexander Blaine Anderson, was a cousin of the late James G. Blaine, the grandfather, William Anderson, having married a daughter of James Blaine. The first wife of this old pioneer, Wil- liam Anderson, gave birth to a daughter, who became the mother of the celebrated A. K. McClure.
Among the more prominent landowners the records show that a President of the United States once held title to Perry County soil. The lands owned by the Sterrett brothers, in the vicinity of Sterrett's Gap, passed to their descendants, and from them to Wil- liam Ramsey, once congressman from the district. In a mortgage dated June 26, 1830, the Ramsey property, in Rye Township, in- cluded 850 acres, two fulling mills, a woolen facory, three dwell- ing houses, one wagonmaker's shop, stable, shed and part of tavern house and orchard at Sterrett's Gap. Through a mortgage Presi- dent James Buchanan became owner, and in 1835 he is found on the assessment lists, being taxed for 150 acres and a fulling mill. This he sold to the Ramsey heirs. William Ramsey died, while absent on a foreign mission, and it became necessary to purchase the lands, following an execution for judgment. Thomas C. Lane was the purchaser, and his death followed. A special act of the legislature then made the Buchanan title secure.
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