USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 18
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charged the grand jury from a large roll of manuscript showing considerable age.
" This was a novelty to me, as I had always seen that duty performed without the aid of manuscript, the judge and the jurors all standing. To those who were acquainted with Judge Moore and the courts in Western Pennsyl- vania, it of course appeared all natural and in order. The traverse jurors were then sworn. After calling over the docket, which then consisted of only a few suits that had been transferred from Venango county under the act organizing Warren county for judicial purposes, and the transaction of some routine busi- ness, the court adjourned to the next day to await the action of the grand jury.
" During the evening of the first day Counselor Marlin, who was not a total abstinence man, was approached rather incautiously, as he thought, by one of the grand jurors named Dickson, who, like the colonel, had imbibed pretty freely. Colonel Marlin had been some years previous to that time engaged in lumber- ing on the Conewango and the Allegheny, and Dickson, who claimed to have been employed in some capacity about that business, was disposed to be more familiar with the colonel than was agreeable to him, and he put himself upon his dignity, which greatly irritated Dickson, who being a grand juror sup- posed himself the peer of any one. The result was a free fight ensued, in which the colonel was rather roughly handled. As several of the grand jurors were witnesses of the affray, they thought it their duty to indict them both. My recollection is, that Mr. Sill, of Erie, officiated as prosecuting attorney and drew the bill. The next day the bills were presented in court and the defend- ants arrested. That day, or the next, Dickson was put upon his trial. That, I suppose, was the first trial before a jury ever had in this county. That cir- cumstance and the character of the parties concerned, interested the public and caused a large attendance. The evidence in the case was brief; only two or three persons who saw the affray were sworn. One, I think, was Mr. Miller, the foreman of the grand jury. Mr. Sill appeared for the Common- wealth, and as was his wont, made a very eloquent speech, speaking in high terms of Colonel Marlin and alluding to his services in the then recent war with Great Britain, in which the colonel had served with distinction. Dickson was defended by Mr. afterwards Judge Galbraith, then a very young man. The jury, after receiving a very brief charge from the court, consisting mainly of a definition of the crime of assault and battery, retired to a room provided for them by the sheriff in another building. They soon returned and rendered a verdict of guilty against the prisoner. A motion was then made to postpone the trial of Colonel Marlin to the next term, which was granted. The sentence of Dickson was also postponed. According to my recollection neither case was ever moved again, but what the records show in the matter I am unable to say."
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Since both gentlemen-Messrs. Wetmore and Hazeltine-depended upon their memory alone in reciting events connected with this term of court, they have quite naturally failed to state things just as they were, particularly in relation to the trial of Marlin and Dixon for assault and battery, the results, etc. Therefore we furnish the reader the following information derived from the docket :
In the case of the "Commonwealth vs. R. Marlin, Esq.," which was first called, the witnesses for the Commonwealth were John Dixon, Samuel Gilson, Henry Dunn, Alfred Ayers, and Jonathan Andrews; the witnesses for the defendant being Richard B. Miller, James Wilson, William Siggins, Alfred Vanornam, Charles O'Bryan, and Barnabas Mckinney. The trial came off November 30, 1819, the second day of the term, before the following jurors : Cookson Long, Enoch Gillam, Cephas Hulbert, Samuel Gregg, Eli Granger, Levi Morrison, Ethan Owen, James Follett, Walter Seaman, John Sample, John Gilson, and Henry Myers. Defendant was found not guilty, but ordered to pay the costs of prosecution. On December 1, 1819, motion for a new trial was granted.
"Commonwealth vs. John Dixon." In this case the witnesses for the Commonwealth were Alfred Vanornam and William Siggins ; for the defend- ant, Alfred Ayers and Jacob C. Boardman. The trial came off the same day as that of Marlin's, before a jury composed of the following members : Barna- bas Owen, Eben Owen, Philip Huffman, Abraham Strickland, James Willson, John Rogers, Eben Jackson, George Morrison, Michael McKinney, Johnson Wilson, Barnabas Mckinney, and Robert Miles. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $6 and all the costs of prosecution.
In 1820 the two townships of the county-Brokenstraw and Conewango- contained, according to the United States census, one thousand nine hundred and seventy-six inhabitants, three of whom were dcaf and dumb. The follow- ing year five hundred and twenty-four taxables were reported to the State authorities.
In March, 1821, the two old townships were divided and reduced to but a fraction of their former great extent. Ten others were erected, making twelve in all, as follows: Brokenstraw, Conewango, Spring Creek, Sugar Grove, Pine Grove, Kinzua, Deerfield, North West (now Columbus), Limestone, Tionesta (now obsolete), Elk, and South West. Of these seven only, viz., Brokenstraw, Conewango, Spring Creek, Sugar Grove, Pine Grove, Kinzua, and Deerfield, were organized, the remainder being attached to the organized townships for a number of years. Full particulars, however, relating to these and all other townships in the county will be found in a subsequent chapter of this work, devoted exclusively to the topic.
On the 2d of April, 1822, an act was passed by the State Legislature which declared that the lands held by Cornplanter and his tribe should be exempt
2
ranging
147
FROM THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY UNTIL 1830.
from taxation so long as he or they "hold and occupy them in their own right." The same act further provided that all notes, moneys, etc., given by Corn- planter for taxes should be returned to him.
It seems that a year or two prior to the passage of the above-mentioned act, the county authorities imposed a tax upon Cornplanter's lands which he refused to pay, declaring that it was levied without authority. A deputation was dispatched to inform him that the collection would be made forcibly if he persisted in his refusal. Cornplanter, who was then surrounded by several of his warriors, invited the deputation of whites into the council-house, and, pointing to a large collection of guns which were standing in one corner of the room, told them that the cause of the Indians was just, and there was their defense.
An armed force, headed by the sheriff, was already assembled in Warren to put their threats in execution, but after some consultation the movement was considered premature and injudicious, and was abandoned. The matter was then submitted to the Legislature and decided in favor of the Indians, by the enactment above referred to.
On the 6th of July, 1822, Cornplanter visited Warren by appointment, to confer with the county commissioners. He was firm and dignified in his bear- ing. His conduct had been justified by the State; hence the commissioners could not do otherwise than to adjust all differences, and restore to him the moneys, notes, etc., which had been unlawfully obtained.
During the year 1824 occurred the celebrated Hook murder trial. In relating the incidents connected with this case Judge Lansing Wetmore, in his "Reminiscences" of olden times, published in a newspaper in 1853, said: " There has been but one trial for a capital offense since the organization of the county. That was the Commonwealth vs. Jacob Hook, for the murder of Caleb Wallace in 1824. Mr. Hook came to this county in 1812, and entered extensively into the lumbering business; built the mills which his brother Orin now occupies on the Allegheny, five miles above Warren. He was a man of strong mind, great energy of character, inflexible in his pursuits, unyielding in his opinions and purposes, but, withal, uncultivated. He had rapidly accumu- lated a large property for those times, and was using it to accumulate a still larger. He got into a quarrel with one of his hired men on account of a small balance of wages, claimed as due from Hook. Both were unyielding. The man applied to an attorney for redress, who, also being on bad terms with Hook, espoused the quarrel and brought a suit against Hook. Several other suits for trivial matters were brought against him the same week.
"Having exhausted everything on the civil list, on searching the records of court an affidavit was found made by Hook, to ground a motion on to set aside an award of arbitration, something was discovered on which to found the charge of perjury. The oath was made to that effect by Perry Sherman,
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
and a warrant issued. This was on Saturday. Hook had been to Warren every day that weck to answer to some legal process. Sheriff Littlefield being sick, Asa Scott, his deputy, went to serve the writ. He went up in the morn- ing and made known his business. Hook told him he had been to Warren often enough on trivial, trumped-up matters, and should not go down that day; that he should be down the next week, and would answer to the charge. Scott returned and reported progress to complainant and his attorney, who directed him to return with a posse and bring Hook down. Scott, accordingly, called to his assistance the complainant, Caleb Wallace, James Arthur, and perhaps one or two more. They arrived at Hook's about dark, went into a house some ten or twelve rods from Hook's, and waited till some time after dark. Mr. Arthur, being on friendly terms with Hook, went to his bed-room window and attempted to persuade him to go with them peaceably; but he was inflexible, and told him he should not go to Warren that night a live man, and warned him if they entered his house it was at the peril of their lives.
" Finding importunities fruitless, Scott, with Wallace and Sherman, went into the stoop at the front door; finding it fastened, Scott stepped back a few paces, and rushed against the door with his shoulder; it flew open suddenly, and he fell sprawling his length on the floor. At that moment a gun was discharged from within. Wallace being immediately in Scott's rear received the charge of slug shot in the breast, and fell dead. Sherman being at his side received four of the slugs in his left arm, above and near the elbow. The posse withdrew. Hook came down on Monday morning following, surrendered himself, and was committed to prison. He was taken before Judge Moore, at Meadville, on a habeas corpus, and admitted to bail in $3,000.1 Henry Baldwin, with Pat. Farrelly, Sill, and Hazeltine, defended him on the trial. He was acquitted, mainly on the ground that the deputation to Scott was not under seal and void, placing the posse in the same situation as trespassers breaking into a house without any authority. Hook died at Pittsburgh a year or two subsequent to his trial, from the effects of a swelling on his neck, at the age of about forty years."
Hook shot Wallace with a musket, March 25, 1824. He was acquitted June 2, 1824, by a jury, selected from a panel of fifty-six men, composed as fol- lows: Daniel Chapin, Horace Watkins, Thomas Gilson, Alexander Stewart, Stephen Williams, Joseph H. Marsh, Jeremiah Dunn, Robert Donaldson, Martin Reese, jr., Jesse Tarbox, Asa Winter, and Walter Seaman.
The acquittal of Hook was severely criticised by the faction led by Josiah Hall, the lawyer who was so active in the prosecution of the defendant both before and after the death of Wallace. These criticisms so preyed upon the nerves of Jeremiah Dunn, one of the jurymen, as to produce temporary
1 The records state that Hook was hekl in $6,000 bail, and his sureties, James Morrison and Hugh Marsh, jointly in $2,000.
Arch Janou
149
FROM 1830 TO 1861.
insanity, and the next day he hung himself. For several years this trial and its results was the great event of the county.
In 1824, also, Warren's first newspaper, the Conewango Emigrant, was established. The first court-house was commenced in 1825.I During the same year North West township was organized as Columbus. The court- house was completed in 1827. Limestone was organized in 1829, taking in the territory to that time known as Tionesta, when the latter term, as the name of a township, disappeared from view.
CHAPTER XV.
FROM 1830 TO 1861.
The First Steamboat on the Upper Waters of the Allegheny -- An Account of the Trip - Cornplanter a Passenger - Merchants and Inn-keepers in 1830 -- National Character of Early Settlers - The Scotch-Irish at First in the Ascendency - Origin of the Term Scotch-Irish - Those of English Descent in Final Control -- Early Routes of Travel - A Remarkable Journey - Barefooted in Midwinter - An Influx of Alsatians - Death of Cornplanter -- Incorporators of Various Associations --- Lumbering - River Navigation - Store Goods -- Prices - Routes Pursued in Transit - Part of Mckean County Annexed to Warren - The Whigs and Demo- crats - The First Telegraph Line - Merchants of the County in 1850 -The Whigs Disband - Organization of the American Party -- Temporary Success - Causes Leading to the Formation of the Republican Party - An Incident in the Career of Jeff. Davis - Republicans Gain Control of the County in 1856-New County Scheme - Petroleum Discoveries - Titusville to the Front -- Warren Men Also - Railroad Completed from Erie to Warren - Tidoute Oil Field - Election in 1860.
IN 1830 the steamboat Allegheny, built chiefly by Archibald Tanner, of Warren, and David Dick, of Meadville, opened steam navigation on the upper waters of the Allegheny River. This boat made one and the only trip ever accomplished by a craft propelled by steam to Olean, N. Y., to the great amusement of such of the four thousand six hundred and ninety-seven white inhabitants of the county as witnessed the spectacle, and the utter astonishment of the native Senecas. James and Lewis Follett, of Warren, officiated as pilots. In a published account of this trip we find the following :
" On the evening of the 20th of May we departed from Warren for Olean, in the State of New York, seventy-five miles above (by water), with freight and passengers from Pittsburgh. At 9 o'clock next day we arrived opposite the Indian village of Cornplanter, seventeen miles up. Here a deputation of gen-
1 In 1825 an Indian named " Blue Throat " died on the Allegheny River Reservation, who it was claimed had attained the age of one hundred and sixty years.
150
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
tlemen waited on the well-known Indian king or chief and invited him on board this new and, to him, wonderful visitor, a steamboat. We found him in all his native simplicity of dress and manner of living, lying on his couch, made of rough pine boards, and covered with deer skins and blankets. His habitation, a two-story log house, is in a state of decay, without furniture, except a few benches, and wooden spoons and bowls to eat out of, which convinced us of his determination to retain old habits and customs. This venerable chief was a lad in the French war, and is now nearly one hundred years of age. He is a smart, active man, seemingly possessed of all his strength of mind, and in per- fect health, and retains among his nation all the uncontrolled influence of by- gone days. He, with his son Charles, who is sixty years of age, and his son- in-law, came on board and remained until the boat passed six miles up, and then after expressing great pleasure with their novel ride, returned home in their own canoe. His domain is a delightful bottom of rich land two miles square, nearly adjoining the line between Pennsylvania and New York. On this his own family, about fifty in number, reside in eight or ten houses."
The merchants engaged in business in the county at this time (1830) were N. A. Lowry, Lothrop S. Parmlee, Daniel Chase, Archibald Tanner, Robert Falconer, Orris Hall, and Samuel D. Hall, dealers in general merchandise ; O. Stanton & Co., grocers, and Milton Ford, grocer and druggist, in Conewango township; William P. McDowell and L. Risley & Co., in Pine Grove township; Richard Crocker, in Sugar Grove township ; Amos Patterson, in Elk township; William Jackman and William L. Barber, in Columbus township, and Charles Whitney, in Brokenstraw.
A year or so later the inn-keepers were Joseph C. Gordon and Alvin Hood, in Warren borough ; Luke Turner, in Conewango township; Porter R. Webber and Reuben Parsons, in Columbus township; Samuel McGuire, Anthony Cour- son, and Benjamin Clark, in Deerfield township; Warren H. Reeves, in Elk township; Alfred Vanornam and Adoniram Smith, in Brokenstraw township; George Mosher, in Pine Grove; and John I. Willson and Samuel Brown, in Sugar Grove.
Thus far in the history of the county its inhabitants had been, almost to a man, composed of those of English and Scotch-Irish origin, the few excep- tions being men of equally as proud an ancestry, that is, descendants of the good old Knickerbockers, or Holland Dutch. The Scotch-Irish, who for a decade or more were in the ascendency, came in chiefly from the south, an overflow, as it were, from Venango, Butler, and other counties in that direction, which had been largely peopled by those of that nationality or descent. They were fair representatives of a hardy race, were strong men, mentally as well as physically, and, what is equally as remarkable, many prominent old-world char- acteristics in form, face, and custom have been perpetuated, and are plainly observable in their descendants of to-day.
151
FROM 1830 TO 186[.
The term " Scotch-Irish " is one so frequently used, particularly in Penn- sylvania, and is so little understood, even by those who claim such relationship, that it is considered appropriate in this place to explain its derivation. It appears that in the time of James I, of England, the Irish earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell conspired against his government, fled from Ireland, were pro- claimed outlaws, and their estates, consisting of about five hundred thousand acres of land, were seized by the crown. The king divided these lands into small tracts and gave them to persons from his own country (Scotland), on the sole condition that they should cross over into Ireland within four years and reside upon them permanently. A second insurrection soon after gave occa- sion for another large forfeiture, and nearly six counties in the province of Ul- ster were confiscated and taken possession of by the officers of the govern- ment. King James was a zealous sectarian, and his primary object was to root out the native Irish, who were all Catholics, hostile to his government, and almost constantly plotting against it, and to repeople the country with those whom he knew would be loyal.
The distance from Scotland to County Antrim, in Ireland, was but twenty miles. The lands thus offered free of cost were among the best and most pro- ductive in the Emerald Isle, though blasted and made barren by the troubles of the times and the indolence of a degraded peasantry. Having the power of the government to encourage and protect them, the inducements offered to the industrious Scotch could not be resisted. Thousands went over. Many of them, though not lords, were Lairds, and all were men of enterprise and energy, and above the average in intelligence. They went to work to restore the land to fruitfulness, and to show the superiority of their habits and belief compared with those of the natives among whom they settled; they soon made the Counties of Antrim, Armagh, Caven, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, London- derry, Monaghan, and Tyrone- names familiar to Pennsylvanians-to blossom as the rose.
These, the first Protestants introduced into Ireland, at once secured the ascendency in the counties which they settled, and their descendants have maintained that ascendency to the present day against the efforts of the gov- ernment church on the one hand and the Romanists on the other. They did not intermarry with the Irish who surrounded them. The Scotch were Saxon in blood and Presbyterian in religion, while the Irish were Celtic in blood and Roman Catholic in religion, and these were elements that would not readily coalesce. Hence the races are as distinct in Ireland to-day, after a lapse of more than two hundred and fifty years, as when the Scotch first crossed over. The term Scotch-Irish is purely American. It is not used in Ireland, and here it was given to the Protestant emigrants from the north of Ireland, simply because they were the descendants of the Scots who had in former times taken up their residence there.
152
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Subsequently, under Catholic governments, the descendants of the Scots in Ireland were bitterly persecuted, and prior to 1764 large numbers had immi- grated and settled in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Caro- lina. In September, 1736, alone, one thousand families sailed from Belfast because of their inability to renew their leases upon satisfactory terms, and the most of them settled in the eastern and middle counties of Pennsylvania. They hoped, by a change of residence, to find an unrestrained field for the exercise of their industry and skill, and for the enjoyment of their religious opinions. They brought with them a hatred of oppression, and a love of free- dom in its fullest measure, that served much to give that independent tone to the sentiments of the people of the province, which prevailed in their con- troversies with the home government years before they seriously thought of independence.
They settled the Cumberland valley and brought its fair lands under culti- vation. They fought the savages and stood as a wall of fire against their further forays eastward. It is said that between 1771 and 1773 over twenty- five thousand of them, driven from the places of their birth by the rapacity of their landlords, located in that valley and to the westward. This was just before the Revolutionary War began, and while the angry controversies that preceded it were taking place between the colonists and the English govern- ment. Hence these immigrants were in just the right frame of mind needed to make them espouse, to a man, the side of the patriots. A Tory was unheard of among them. They were found as military leaders in all times of danger, and were among the most prominent law-makers, through and after the long struggle for freedom and human rights. They have furnished presidents, United States senators, congressmen, judges, and many others prominent in all stations of life. In short, the names of these patriots and wise men, as well as the names of their descendants, are familiar words, not only in Penn- sylvania, but throughout the Union.
Other early settlers of Warren-the New Yorkers and New Englanders, which element, by the way, has controlled here for the last sixty years or more, -came in, by following rough roads leading westward, until the upper waters of the Allegheny were reached, and then floating, by the aid of canoes and flat-boats, their wives, children, and household goods down that stream, while their horses and cattle were being driven or led along its banks. Olean was then famous as the usual place of embarkation for a trip down the river, for thousands, even, who did not propose to stop in Warren or at any other point along the Allegheny River, but who continued on their way to more fertile lands and a milder climate in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Occasionally, however, the population of Warren county was increased by small parties who ascended the West Branch of the Susquehanna and Sinnamahoning Creek as far as navigable by canoes, and thence striking boldly across the country to the
I53
FROM 1830 TO 1861.
Allegheny. One of the most remarkable journeys ever made in coming to this county, by this or a similar route, has been described by Hon. Lansing Wetmore as follows:
"The favorable reports of the Allegheny country having reached the Wyoming Valley, one John Chapman started in November, 1797, on foot and alone, to come here by the 'overland route'. He was a tall, stalwart Yankee, who was inured to the perils and hardships of the first settlers of Wyoming. He also was a God-fearing man, and he feared nothing else. He was withal a devotee of Pomona, and made it an object wherever he went to introduce the seeds of the choicest fruit, which in those days, however, did not extend beyond the common apple or pear. John, accordingly, with his other 'fixin's,' with which he stored his knapsack, put in a sack of choice apple seeds; with his blanket, rifle, and tomahawk, the usual appendages of the woodsman, bare-foot and alone, he started on his journey. When he arrived on the head waters of the Allegheny, one hundred miles from where he started, and about the same distance from his place of destination, a snow storm came on and continued until it fell full three feet deep on the level. Here he was, one hundred miles from the habitation of man, with barely provisions enough to last him through without detention, with 'none to direct and Providence his guide.' To retreat was perilous-to advance seemed impossible, as at every step he sank above his leggins in the snow. He first cast about for something to cover and pro- tect his bare feet. This he accomplished by tearing the skirt from his blanket coat, and sewing it together made it answer the double purpose of shoes and stockings. These, although they rendered his feet comfortable, did not enable him to proceed on his journey. The deep snow was before and around him. The same kind mother, necessity, which prompted him to invent his shoes and stockings, suggested the means to bear his ponderous weight above the deep snow. He had heard of snow-shoes, and perhaps had seen them, made of hickory bows and the sinews of the moose or deer; but these materials he had not, and the idea of wearing snow-shoes, to one who never wore any shoes at all, was quite novel. He cut a small quantity of small beech brush or twigs, heated them in a fire until they became pliable, and commenced, to him, the most dubious and difficult task he had ever performed.
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