History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including, Part 8

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868-
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co.
Number of Pages: 1323

USA > Pennsylvania > Venango County > History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including > Part 8

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HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

and for a time Alexander McCalmont was attorney in fact for Astley. At the death of the latter the property was inherited by his daughter and only child, Mrs. Sophia Kirkpatrick, wife of Littleton Kirkpatrick, of New Jersey, who sold it in 1840 to Henry Crammond: Nearly all of it had passed out of his possession before the discovery of oil.

The Bingham lands comprised nearly the whole of Rockland township. They were surveyed upon warrants granted to William Bingham, principally in December, 1792. He was a man of prominence in state affairs, repre- sented Pennsylvania in the Continental congress of 1787-88, and in the United States senate from 1795 to 1801, serving as president pro tempore of that body in 1797. He was born in 1729, and died in 1808, probably before any of his lands in this county had been sold. The deeds are usually exe- cuted by Thomas Mayne Willing and Charles Willing Hare, of Philadelphia; Alexander Baring (Lord Ashburton), and Henry Baring, of London, and Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore, devisees in trust for the estate. The first res- ident agent and attorney in fact was probably John Jolly, who was succeeded in 1834 by Elihu Chadwick. Tracts of varying area were sold, the only requirement as to form and extent being that all boundaries should be cardinal lines and all angles right angles. In consequence many of the tracts are exceedingly irregular in shape. They were numbered in the order of their sale. It was the policy of the trustees to permit the larger part of the purchase money, secured by mortgage, to remain unpaid for a number of years if the interest was promptly remitted. After the great body of the land had been sold, the remainder, consisting of a number of detached tracts, was purchased by Mr. Chadwick. He was the father of J. D. Chad- wick, of Franklin.

The Dickinson College lands are the only holdings of any considerable extent that remain to be noticed. Certain lands granted to that institution (situated at Carlisle, Cumberland county) were located in this county in tracts of a thousand acres, principally in Pinegrove and Richland townships. Subsequently, in consideration of an appropriation in money, they were sur- rendered to the state, and the legislature conferred upon the commissioners of the respective counties where they were located authority to dispose of them and give deeds, as in the case of tax sales. Several other colleges also received grants of land in this part of the state.

From a casual estimate of the amount of land in this county acquired in large tracts under corporate or individual auspices it is readily apparent that but a comparatively small part of its area remained for improvement. and settlement. The principal body of land secured under tenure of this- nature, as provided in the act of 1792, is situated in the townships of Scrub- grass, Clinton, Sandy Creek, Victory, Irwin, and French Creek. This region was neglected by speculators, not from a generous consideration for the class of people who afterward acquired it, but because General

LAND TENURE.

Irvine's report upon the donation lands in 1785 called attention to it as "a continued chain of high barren mountains except small breaches for creeks and rivulets to disembogue themselves into the river." While the land job- ber was not as a general thing fastidious in his requirements he did not buy "high barren mountains" while lands of which the topography had not been so specifically described were to be obtained, and hence the southwest- ern part of the county remained to be taken up by bona fide settlers. It was in this section of country that the surveying of Samuel Dale on warrants issued by virtue of settlement and improvement was principally done. The vacant lands in that part of the county north of French creek and the Alle- gheny river were principally in Oakland township, and east of the Allegheny river, in Richland. Between the Astley and Bingham warrants on the west and the Holland warrants on the east, north of three Dickinson College tracts in Cranberry township, and south of the same through Rockland into Richland there was a strip of land averaging two-thirds of a mile in width, referred to in old deeds as "The Vacancy." The western part of President township was patented on improvement warrants at a comparatively recent period; and bends in the Allegheny river south and east of its course at various points have also been patented in the same manner, not having been included in the regular tracts adjoining on the interior.

The fidelity and accuracy of surveys have had much to do in determining title. Fortunately for this county its early surveyors were men of excep- tional proficiency and accuracy, and litigation from careless surveying has been comparatively rare. The first deputy surveyor for this county was Colonel Samuel Dale; the early improvement claims were principally located by him, and he also subdivided the Lancaster Land Company's lands, aggregating one hundred and seventy thousand acres. The following with reference to the general character of his work and the manner in which this commission from the Lancaster Land Company was executed is from the pen of Judge Samuel Porter Johnson, of Warren:

This big job of surveying Mr. Dale performed in the summer and season of 1814, finishing his surveys and making a connected map of his work in 1815. He divided that land into seven hundred lots or tracts and numbered them, ran and marked every line, and carved the number of every tract on a tree at one of its corners. Then he made a connected draft of the whole, showing the number of each and kind of tree marked. That was one of the best jobs of surveying ever done in Pennsylvania. I speak advisedly. My long professional life and practice has made me familiar with most of the original land surveys in every part of the state. The lines and corners run and marked by Colonel Dale can be traced and found to-day as fast as a man can walk through the woods. While we have had a great deal of litigation about other surveys, no dispute has ever come into court to my knowledge about any line or corner established by Coloncl Dale for the Lancaster Land Company.

By his contract he was to make a map of all his surveys for the Lancaster Land Company. In the course of time it became important in Warren county to find that map. It should have been on record in Venango county, where all the records for

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

Warren were kept prior to its organization. It was not there. We hunted among the records of Jefferson and Mckean counties, among Judge Shippen's papers at Lancas- ter and elsewhere, and found it not. Then I concluded to interview Mrs. Samuel F. Dale, of Franklin, supposing her husband might have fallen heir to his father's papers. Therc the contract and field notes of Colonel Dale were found, from which I had a surveyor make a connected map of all the seven hundred tracts. Afterward I found the long hunted map hid away for about sixty years in the fire-proof vaults of the Huide- koper land office at Meadville.

Colonel Dale had a remarkable tenacity of recollection, owing doubtless to the carc and correctness with which he did his business. Many years ago, during his lifetime, I was concerned in a lawsuit about a tract of land in Scrubgrass township, which he had surveyed more than thirty-five years before. I sent a commission to Lancaster and took his deposition, and was surprised at the accuracy with which he told all about the minutest details connected with that survey.

Tax sales have entered largely into the question of land tenure. A large part of the county remained practically undeveloped until the discovery of oil, with but little prospect that real estate consisting in lands unfit for cul- tivation would materially appreciate in value. With no returns whatever from property constantly subject to taxation, the holders frequently allowed their lands to go by default and competent authorities agree in estimating that fully one-half the area of the county has been sold in this manner at one time or another. It is also to be observed that the large associate and individual holdings had been almost entirely disposed of before oil develop- ments conferred upon this territory an enormous increase in value; so that, whether the litigation incident to conflicting claims that placed land com- panies and individual settlers at variance be referred to obscure, intricate, and defective legislation or to an ultimate pernicious principle underlying the whole system of land ownership, the course of events seems to have ad- justed inequalities of this nature most effectually so far as Venango county is concerned.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

CHAPTER IX.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, AT MEADVILLE -- GEORGE POWER AND HIS EARLY CONTEMPORARIES AT FRANK- LIN-PIONEERS OF SCRUBGRASS-CLINTON-IRWIN-FRENCH CREEK- SANDY CREEK, VICTORY AND MINERAL-SUGAR CREEK-CANAL- JACKSON - OAKLAND - CORNPLANTER - ALLEGHENY -OIL CREEK-CHERRY TREE-PLUM-PRESIDENT-RICHLAND -ROCKLAND-CRANBERRY-PINEGROVE-TAXABLES IN 1805 IN ALLEGHENY, IRWIN AND SUGAR CREEK -POPULATION OF THE COUNTY BY DECADES.

T THE termination of Indian hostilities on the western frontier was im- mediately followed by a movement of population from the eastern and central counties of Pennsylvania to the wild and uninhabited territory re- cently acquired by that commonwealth on the northwest. The settlement of this region by American citizens was first attempted during the period of comparative quiet that followed the close of the Revolutionary struggle. In the summer of 1787. David and John Mead, of Northumberland county, vis- ited the valley of French creek on a journey of exploration and returned in May of the following year with seven others, most of whom located in the near vicinity of Meadville. This was the first permanent settlement in north- western Pennsylvania. There was a spirit of adventure abroad in the land which was manifested in the willingness with which people seemed ready to make the long and arduous journey to their prospective homes and face the inevitable hardships incident to frontier life. It is true that the build- ing of Fort Franklin by the United States government was a great induce- ment to possible settlers, not only to the town commenced near it but also to the surrounding country, as a place of refuge in times of extreme danger, but this could not add to the amenities of life in the wilderness or serve to minimize its material discomforts and disadvantages.

The state had taken the initiative in the settlement of Venango county by laying out the town of Franklin on ground reserved for that purpose at the mouth of French creek. As in the case of Pittsburgh, the site had been selected before the formal survey was determined upon. "Manifest destiny " had pointed out the junction of French creek with the Allegheny

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

river as the location of a town that should be the nucleus of subsequent growth throughout the county.

The site of the city of Franklin must have been a pleasant and inviting spot to the enterprising man looking for a home in the new country. Nest- ling amid towering hills, the valley was sheltered and pleasant. The ground was level and thickly wooded with oaks, chestnuts, walnuts, and hemlocks. The soil was dry and sandy and would afford signs of great fertility. In those early days men were anxiously looking for promising location in which to settle.

The first man who came here to make his home was George Power. He had come with the soldiers to erect Fort Franklin in 1787. He had an official connection with the army, being commissary. After the completion of the fort he remained but a short time. From here he went to Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, then to Vincennes, Indiana. In 1790 he re- turned to Franklin and made his home here for the remainder of his life.

George Power was a man for the times. He was one of those hardy, earnest souls, that a new and wild country always develops, that are ready for any emergency, and prepared to face any hardships and confront any dangers that may arise. He was born in the state of Maryland on the 10th of April, 1762. He was consequently about twenty-four years of age when he first set foot in this valley, and twenty-eight when he came as a settler. He had associated much with backwoodsmen and Indians, and was well acquainted with their habits. At his coming he took up the trade that John Frazier had abandoned when driven out by the French. Know- ing the capabilities of the place and the promise of the town that had now been laid out, he prepared himself for trade with the Indians as well as with the incoming settlers. He soon acquired the language of the In- dians, and could speak the Seneca language with facility.

A lot was selected on the bank of French creek, a little below Fort Franklin, and a log house erected and stocked with such goods as might be called for. These were traded to the Indians in exchange for skins and furs. Ammunition and blankets were always in demand, and peltry was always in market down at Pittsburgh, so that a thriving trade was soon built up.

At Mr. Power's coming he was unmarried, but December 30, 1800, he married Margaret Bowman, a sister of the late Andrew Bowman. Near the site of his first log cabin he built his stone house, that was long the orna- ment and pride of the town. This was on the corner of Elk and Elbow streets, now the location of the dwelling formerly occupied by Judge Trunkey .. This house was kept for a time as a hotel, and generous hos- pitality was dealt out to the sojourner within its walls.

The account books of Mr. Power kept in those early days, show his trade with the Indians. Often he dealt with them, giving them credit, and sel-

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

dom found them delinquent in keeping their word. These books will be great curiosities in days to come, as they are full of Indian names.

Mr. Power died at his residence on the 2nd of April, 1845, in the eighty- third year of his age, honored and respected by his fellow citizens. His descendents are numerous in Venango county at the present time.

For some years Mr. Power was the only civilian resident of the nominal town of Franklin. There was a garrison at the fort, and it is probable the locality was visited frequently by military officers, surveyors, and others, so that life was not without incident and variety. Colonel Alexander McDowell arrived in 1794. He was deputy surveyor of district No. 7, west of the Allegheny river and Conewango creek, and located many of the warrants of the Holland Land Company in this and adjoining counties. In 1796 he was commissioned justice of the peace, and was the first to discharge the func- tions of a magistrate in Venango county. He was also the first postmaster at Franklin, and was commissioned to that office January 1, 1801. He died January 4, 1816, at the age of fifty-three. His wife, Mrs. Sarah McDowell, died September 25, 1865, at the remarkable age of one hundred and three years. Their son, Thomas Skelley McDowell, born April 26, 1803, was the first white child born in the town.

The name of Captain James G. Heron appears on the books of George Power as early as 1795, but although a soldier of the Revolution, he had no connection with the military at this point. His family arrived in 1800. He was a member of the first board of county commissioners, one of the first associate judges, and the second postmaster of Franklin. He died De- cember 30, 1809; the inventory of his estate reveals the fact that he brought several slaves to this county, this being the first introduction of property of that description.

Edward Hale came from Fayette county in 1798 and established himself in business as a trader. He died in 1806 in the thirtieth year of his age. When the troops evacuated the " Old Garrison" in 1799 it was occupied by Captain George Fowler, an officer in the British service who had remained in this country and came to Venango county in 1797. He was a justice of the peace. It is not definitely known when Marcus Hulings came to Frank- lin, but he was the earliest medium of communication between that com- munity and the outside world. He made periodic voyages to Pittsburgh by flat boat, his cargo consisting mainly of peltries on the voyage down and of merchandise for the local traders on his return. The earliest inscription on a tombstone in the old Franklin cemetery records the fact that Michael Hu- lings died August 9, 1797, aged twenty-seven years, which would clearly indicate that the family was here at that early date. Hulings' name also ap- pears on George Power's and Edward Hale's journals in 1797.

The families of George Power, Alexander McDowell, James G. Heron, Edward Hale, George Fowler, and Marcus Hulings, five in number, consti-

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

tuted the entire population of the embryo county seat in 1800. Colonel Samuel Dale, John Broadfoot, Samuel Hays, William Moore, George and Hugh McClelland, William Connely, Nathaniel Cary, David Irvine, Abra- ham Selders, Andrew Bowman, Alexander McCalmont, and William and James Kinnear were also among the early and prominent residents of the town.

While the county capital was thus assuming the proportions of an in- cipient village there was an influx of population to other parts of the county and almost simultaneously the region of Scrubgrass, the valleys of French creek and Sugar creek, of Oil creek and Pithole, gave evidence of the presence of the aggressive and ubiquitous pioneer. In 1793-94 two scouts from the settlements on the Kiskeminitas made an exploration of the country west of the Allegheny river; their report of the Scrubgrass re- gion was particularly favorable and in the year 1795 James Scott, one of the scouts, returned to that locality, accompanied by a party of his neighbors, thus inaugurating the emigration from Westmoreland county that contributed so largely to the settlement of the southern tier of townships. Samuel Jolly, David Say, James Craig, and James Fearis were among those who came to Scrubgrass township in this manner in 1795. They were followed before the close of the century by William Crawford, Thomas Milford, Moses Perry, and others. Reverend Robert Johnson, pastor of Scrubgrass Presbyterian church, who preached in the first building erected in the county for religious worship, resided near the church from 1803 to 1811, when he removed to Meadville. He died at New Castle, May 20, 1861.

The first permanent settlement in the adjoining township of Clinton was effected in 1796. That year marks the arrival of Thomas McKee, a native of Westmoreland county and a surveyor by occupation, in which capacity he assisted in locating many of the first land claims in this part of the state; Matthew Riddle, a veteran of the Revolution, who had visited the valley of Scrubgrass creek in 1795 with the party of settlers led by Scott and returned the next year with his family; Archibald and Patrick Davidson, from the eastern part of the state; Thomas Baird, one of the early justices; Robert Calvert, from the Ligonier valley, Westmoreland county, who had accompanied Riddle in the previous year; John Vogus, and Patrick Mc- Dowell. Major Philip Ghost, whose military title had been acquired by service in the Revolution, arrived in the same year and was one of the few German settlers in the southern part of the county. John Phipps, the progenitor in this county of a family that was prominently identified with its early political and industrial history; and Patrick Coulter, father of John Coulter, an early physician in the southern part of the county, became residents of the township in 1797. John Witherup, first sheriff of Venango county and contractor for the erection of the first court house, arrived in 1800 and was probably the only native of England among the pioneers.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

James Hoffman, Alexander Porter, John Hovis, and Benjamin Williams were also among the very early residents in the valley of Scrubgrass creek.

In Irwin township there is no authentic record of settlement prior to 1796, when Adam Dinsmore and Henry Crull located near the old Pitts- burgh road. Isaac and George McMurdy, father and son, settled near the line of Butler county in 1797; they were from Huntingdon county. Richard Monjar, the first shoemaker of the township, also came in 1797, from the state of Maryland. Thomas Bullion, an eccentric character, was one of the first settlers and proprietor of the first distillery. William Davidson, one of the early constables, who lost his life in the discharge of his duty; James McClaran, one of the trustees of Venango county appointed in 1800 by the act providing for its erection; and Jonathan Morris, a native of Lancaster county, arrived in 1798. Through the representations of Adam Dinsmore, William and Hugh McManigal, David Martin, and John Crain, formerly from the North of Ireland, removed from Mifflin county to this township in 1799. Hugh McManigal led a company to the defense of Erie in 1813; Edward McFadden came from Luzerne county prior to 1800; William Adams became a settler in 1800, Moses Bonnell, Robert Jones, and Robert Burns in 1802, and John Bullion in 1803.

Contemporaneous with the settlement of the southern townships there was an equally important movement of population into the valley of French creek. The first to settle in the township of that name was John Martin; he arrived in 1796 from Maryland and located three miles above Utica, where he kept a ferry for some years and was on terms of friendship with the Indians. John Chapman arrived about the same time, but being a man of migratory habits his stay was brief. Others who arrived prior to 1800 were John Gordon and John Cooper, 1797 or 1798; William Duffield, a na- tive of Ireland, who came here from Centre county in 1798; John Lindsay, said to have built the first mill on French creek in this county; Welden Adams, a man of prominence in local and county matters; Thomas and Al- exander Russell, from Huntingdon county, father and son; James and Rob- ert Greenlee, Peter Patterson, William Patterson, and William Vogan, Hugh and John L. Hasson, from eastern Pennsylvania, came in 1800; Ja- cob Runninger, in 1801; John Hanna, in 1802; and James Gilliland, in 1804; John Temple, Seth Jewel, William Evans, and James Gibson were also early settlers.

The first settlements in Sandy Creek and Victory townships were made along the line of the old Pittsburgh road. Prior to 1796 Samuel Patterson, a young unmarried man, selected a tract of land on the south side of Sandy creek and having built a cabin thereon eked out a precarious subsistance by hunting and fishing. In 1796 he transferred his rights to John Dewoody, a native of Ireland, who emigrated at the age of twenty-one and after a brief residence in Lancaster county went to Pittsburgh, whence he came to 5

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

this locality. Patrick Manson, a native of Ireland and a veteran of the Revolution, settled within the present limits of Sandy Creek township in 1797. It is probable that James Stevens, who built the first mill on Sandy creek at the crossing of the Pittsburgh road, came there in 1798. In the vicinity of Franklin the first permanent settlers were James Martin, first clerk to the county commissioners, who came from Maryland in 1796 and planted one of the first orchards of the county; Thomas Brandon from Cum- berland county, who removed to Cranberry at an early date; and William Dewoody, a native of Ireland, who also came in 1796. After John Dewoody the earliest settlers in Victory were Robert Hyner, Daniel McMillin, John Lyons, Isaac Bennett, and James Major. George McClelland settled near the village of Springville in 1803; within a few years he removed to Frank- lin and is better remembered in connection with the early history of that place.

In that part of Mineral township which was formerly part of Sandy Creek the first settlers were Samuel Gildersleeve and William Whann; the former was from New Jersey and located on the Mercer road, the latter was from Northumberland county and settled on South Sandy, whence he re- moved to Ohio. Both arrived in 1797. Archibald Henderson from Alle- gheny county, Shadrach Simcox from Maryland, Andrew Smith from Washington county, Daniel Crain from New Jersey, and Jacob Rice were also pioneers of Mineral.

The foregoing account of settlement in the French creek valley was con- fined to the township of that name. North of that stream within the pres- ent limits of Sugar Creek the pioneers were Mr. Bowman, father of Andrew Bowman of Franklin, who came from Northampton county in 1795; Eben- ezer Roberts, who improved the poorhouse farm in 1796; Angus McKinzie, a native of Scotland, who came here from Pittsburgh; William Cousins, one of the soldiers who remained in this county when the garrison at Fort Frank- lin was disbanded; John Rogers and Luther Thomas, who came in 1796; and John McCalmont, from the Nittany valley, Centre county, who came with his sons-Thomas, Robert, James, Alexander, John, and Joseph in 1803. Robert visited this region in the previous year, while another son, Henry, did not come till 1817.

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History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including, Part 8

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868- Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co. Number of Pages: 1323

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868-
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co.
Number of Pages: 1323