History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 11

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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4 These were the only nianors in Westmoreland proper-our West- moreland. Those of the New Purcha aggregated some two hundred thousand acres.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

these reservations alone been hield intact to our time land office department. The choice was thus to be their possessors would be millionaires. But circum- given by lot. By a public advertisement from James stances completely destroyed the claim of the posses- Tilgham, secretary of the office, on Feb. 23, 1769, it was made known that the Jand office would be open - - on the 3d of April then next, at ten o'clock in the morning, to receive applications from all persons in- clined to take up lands in the New Purchase. The terms were five pounds sterling per hundred acres, and one penny per annum quit-rent. sors to all title to such real property in Pennsylvania. At the American Revolution the Penns sided with the crown and against the colonies. On the 28th of June, 1779, was passed the Divesting Act, which act diverted the title from the Penns and vested it in the Commonwealth. This was not done, of course, with- out a valuable recompense; and it was considered unreasonable, as indeed it was, that a claim of such boundless authority-for the authority extended to the making of laws, the establishing of courts-baron, and the bestowal of special privileges on favored per- -- sons-should be allowed to exist in the midst of a republic of freemen. Accordingly, all titles to pro- - prietorial, or manorial, lands within these bounds are traceable to the State, and are not of older date than the year mentioned, 1779.

A warrant is an order from the land office to survey and locate lands applied for.' A person desiring land from the Province was required first to make applica- tion, get the warrant issued thereon directed to the surveyor-general, who by his deputy inostly sur- veyed the same, and return it back to the land office, upon which, if there was no irregularity, a patent or deed from the Commonwealth issued under the great seal and superscription of the Governor. Thus, as we have seen, there could be no warrant given out by the civil authorities to any one settled in Westmore- land County prior to 1769, at which date the land office was first opened for this purpose, so far as regards the territory acquired by this treaty which we are still upon. But after this treaty in 1768, by which this land was acquired, it was in order then to grant war- rants to such as had settled and such as proposed to settle in the New Purchase.

As the soldiers of the Pennsylvania regiment had served through the preceding. wars together, it was now their wish to settle in peace together; for this purpose the Province set apart one hundred and four thousand acres. Then there were also preferences for individuals, such as special grants, the lands donated to officers, and the proprietary reservations.

As there were thousands of applications for land at the land office, the question at once arose how the preference should be given, if, indeed, any prefer- ence was allowed; for when the land office should be opened it was to be on a day certain, and after public proclamation. It was impossible to receive applications or to grant a title for the applications now waiting from settlers, from parties proposing to remove into this region, from land speculators, and from foreign immigrants. It was found expe- dient, therefore, to have the choice made by means of a lottery scheme, a scheme not unknown to the

From the records of the land office we derive the facts that, as it was anticipated on the opening of the office on this day great numbers would be ready to give in their locations at the same instant, it was the opinion of the Governor and the agents that the most unexceptionable method of receiving these locations would be, after receiving them from the people, to put them into a box or trunk, and, after mixing them, to draw out and number them in the order drawn. Those who had settled, especially those who had set- tled by permission of the commanding officers, were allowed to have the preference. This was done in order, and the list following declared those who had so drawn. But up to 1772 there were no warrants issued on application made for lands upon improve- ments or old surveys.

CHAPTER VIII.

PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS.

"New Purcl ane" in Cumberland County Territory-The Penns appoint Justices of the Prace for that part of Cumberland County west of Laurel Hill-No evidence of ans Authority being exercised by these Magistrates-Bedford County created-Township Divisions of that part of Bedford County which Inter became Westmoreland-Tax-Rolle for Belford County-Number of Landholders aud of Tenauta returned -The Southwestern Boundary of Bedford County-No Actual Juris- diction of Bedford County Government tolerated by the Settlers- First Courts of Bedford-Thuer in the first Commission-Number of Applications at the opening of the Land Office in 1700-Prominent Men who took up Land at that date-Different Nationalities of the Set- tlers : Scotch-Irish, Germans, French Huguenots, English- Americaus -Localities of their Settlements-Predominant Nationality of Penn- sylvania Settlers before the Revolution-Immigration of the Scotch- Irish, particularly that of 1771-73-Their Nativity, and account of their Denization In the North of Ireland-Their Distinct Character- istics-How they were held by Friends and by Defamers-They aud the Dutch, bad neighbors-Their Influence in Public Affairs in Western Pennsylvania, and reference therein to the Whiskey Insurrection. .

THAT portion of the purchase of 1768 (or the New Purchase) which was afterwards the territory of West- moreland was between the date of the purchase and the 9th of March, 1771 (the date of the erection of Bedford County), included in the political division of Cumberland County, which had been erected long before (1750),

In May, 1770, some ten months before the erection of Bedford County, Arthur St. Clair, William Craw- ford, Thomas Gist, and Dorsey Pentecost, all historic names, were among the justices of the peace appointed for Cumberland County. But they have left no trace

1 Lands, the title to which is traceable to Penn's successors who sold by constituted attorney, by provisions of act of Assembly, do not need to be patented from the State.

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PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS.

of any exercise of official functions until after their reappointment for Bedford County, in March, 1771, and again (except Pentecost) for Westmoreland, in 1773.

Up until 1771 the settlers here were left to the free- dom of their own will, uninfluenced except by the Indians and traders and the agents and feeble garri- sons whom the king kept here to control them. No taxes, no courts, no ministers of the law, except those mentioned, nor of the gospel, outside of Fort Pitt, except when sent here on some special mission, as were the Rev. Messrs. Beatty and Duffield in 1766, and Mr. Steele in 1768.1

The county of Bedford was created March 9, 1771. The reason assigned for the erection of the new county was "the great hardships the inhabitants of the western parts of the county of Cumberland lie under from being so remote from the present seat of judicature and the public offices." The eastern boundary ran along the summit of the Tuscarora Mountains, and the western and southern boundary was the line of the Province, embracing, as will be perceived, the entire southwestern portion of the State from the West Branch of the Susquehanna and the Cove, or Tuscarora Mountains, westward to the Ohio and the Virginia line.

From the old Bedford County tax-rolls it is seen that all that part of Western Pennsylvania which afterwards became Westmoreland County was at that date included in eight townships, and they embraced the territorial areas, as near as need be ascertained for our purpose, as follows : " Armstrong," most of what is now the county of that name and some if not the greater part of Indiana County. " Fairfield" stretched between the Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge Mountains. "Hempfield" took in a wide scope around Greensburg. "Mount Pleasant," a large dis- trict around the town of that name. "Pitt" embraced about all of Allegheny County between the rivers Allegheny, Monongahela, and Youghiogheny. It makes a poor show. "Rosstrevor" covered all of the Forks of Youghiogheny and reached up into Fayette County. "Springhill" extended over all the south- western part of Fayette and all that part of Greene and Washington then believed to be in Pennsylvania. "Tyrone" covered all the residue of what is now Fayette on both sides of the Youghiogheny.2

The number of landholders in all was nine hundred and eleven, and the number of tenants one hundred and seventy-four. "Springhill" had the highest number,' it being assessed with three hundred and eight landholders and eighty-nine tenants. This assessment has been considered too low, for the obvious reason that no perfect assessment could be made, and if ever was made it would be in restriction.

Many of those assessed as landholders were non- residents, as Rev. James Finley, in Rosstrevor, and George Washington, in Tyrone, in which he owned about sixteen hundred acres at and around Perry- opolis, in now Fayette, over the river from Layton's Station.

The act erecting Bedford County recognized Mason and Dixon's line as its southern boundary, and this purviewed the extension of this line beyond Mary- land; but the act, except in indefinite terms, did not make provision for a western boundary, nor, except on the north and east borders of Greene County as it is now, and in the region touching upon and beyond Pittsburgh, did it ever attempt to reach beyond the Monongahela. The reasons for this we shall else- where see.

Although it was subdivided into townships, and had justices appointed, yet its authority was feebly asserted and scarcely obeyed. Most of the settlers shunned it, and those about the Turkey Foot and Redstone and all the disorderly settlers of the Fayette region laughed it to scorn and derided it. Even official surveys slackened, and settlers coming in along the Braddock road squatted without right, and occupied where they pleased, only keeping off the location of prior settlers. Based upon the uncertainty whether they were in Pennsylvania or in Virginia, and fos- tered by demagogues, by "bloody law," and by the wishes and desires, antipathies and prejudices of these, they had pretexts enough not to conform to the laws of the Province. "When the back line comes to be run," said they, "if we are in Pennsylvania we will sub- mit." There could be no other government but that of Pennsylvania, and these people were very desirous, therefore, that the running of the line be deferred to an indefinite period.

The first Court of Quarter Sessions for Bedford County was held April 16, 1771, " before William Proctor, Jr., Robert Cluggage, Robert Hanna, George Wilson, William Lochrey, and William McConnell, Esqs., Justices of our Lord the King." 4

When the land office was opened, subsequent to the purchase of 1768, and the flood-gates, so to speak, were up, the flood rushed in in torrents. From the third day of April, 1769, dates the invasion of the white race into the wilderness and woods of Western Pennsylvania. On that day hundreds of locations were

1 Voech, Sec. Hist., p. 304.

" Ibid., Appendix No. III.

" This cuibraced now Fayette County, and included what was returned from Greene County.

4 The other justices appointed and commissioned with the above were John Frazer, Bernard Dougherty, Arthur St. Clair, William Crawford, James Milligan, Thomas Gist, Dorsey Pentecost, Alexander McKee, and George Woods.

The first commissioners were Robert Hanna, Dorsey Pentecost, and Jolin Stevenson; William Proctor was the first sheriff; Arthur St. Clair was appointed first prothonotary, recorder, and clerk of courts by Gov- ernor John Penn, March 12, 1771 ; and deputy register for the probate of wills, 18th of the same month, by Benjamin Chew, regi-ter-general. One word here anent the Penns. John Penn (son of Richard, and grandson of William Penn, born Philadelphia, 1728, died 1795) was Governor of the Province from 1763 to 1771, and also from 1773 to the end of the proprietary government in 1776.

Richard Penn was brother o Fof Jolin Penn, and was Lieutenant Governor from 1771 to 1773, during the abser ceof John Penn in England.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

taken up in Westmoreland County. In the first month after the opening of the office there were three thou- sand two hundred applications. Although a large percentage of these applications was made by specu- latora, yet the most were made by those who intended to locate here and reside permanently on the land.

It is not possible for us to specify by name and at length those of the earliest settlers under this arrange- ment, but from the lists which we shall further on gire, and from opportune references hereafter in the body of this work and in the notes, the reader shall have to get his information. It is noticeable that nearly all the men who became prominent in this region, either 'as representatives of the proprietary government or in public affairs under the Commonwealth, took up tracts of land at this time. St. Clair took up large bodies, both in his own name and in the different names of members of his family and of his wife's re- lations; so also did Hanna, the Proctors, the Loch- rys, Gist, Hamilton, Thompson, James Smith, Craw- ford, and, indeed, nearly all of those with whose names we are familiar as the representative meu of the early times, and that whether they had money to pay for them or no.

Of those people who took up land to live upon it, by far the largest proportion were emigrants, or the children of emigrants, of Scotch-Irish descent, them- selves called Scotch-Irish. They claimed that they had been only denizens of Ireland, from where they emigrated, and whither they had been transplanted from Scotland, the native country of their ancestors.

These were scattered all over the country, but they were to be found more noticeably in clusters where it was to be presumed that the land would grow more rapidly in value, and where there were more facilities for making money and living by thrift rather than by labor, but not at the expense of labor. There was quite a settlement of them about Pittsburgh, at the Forks of the Ohio, along the Monongahela and the other rivers, and along the main roads. But where were they not?

The next largest class- speaking in reference to their nationality-was of German origin, the offspring of the early settlers of the Berks, Lancaster, and Cum- berland region, although some were emigrants from the Palatinate or Rhine provinces, and from Wür- temberg. Of these many chose the most dreary slopes of the Chestnut Ridge, and they were the farthest back from the main (Forbes') road, although there was quite a settlement in Hempfield township, and around the Harrold and Byerly locations, between Greensburg and Irwin. These people were not so aggressive as the former, and, as a rule, they laid out a life-work devoted to labor.

There were, too, among these some who were de- scendants of those French Huguenots who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were scattered over Europe, and who having lived for the space of several generations among the neighboring nations

who received them, had, from intermarriage and cus- toms, lost not only their language but the most prom- inent distinctions of their nationality. They had, in fact, ceased to be French, and they had forgotten their sunny vales, and their cottages embowered with vines, where on trestles the purple grapes glistened. But at this day, in Ligonier Valley especially, shall you find French names and people of French lineage as com- pletely Americanized as the descendants of those voyagers who came over in the "Mayflower." The rest were American-English.

Before we begin the narrative of such events as sre connected together in the history of our county, prop- erly so speaking, this may be a more proper place to acquire a knowledge of those people who made up the greatest number of its inhabitants, and who have left upon it, both in its organizing state and in its more progressive state, such plain and enduring marks of their presence. By looking at the intervening space between the time when the country was left to peace after the termination of the Indian wars and the opening of the land by the subsequent treaties, and the epoch of 1773, we see, in the aggregate, what is a difficult matter to discern by even the process of tracing up the settlements and the transitions of the settlers from place to place. It is seen that the termi- nation of the French and Indian war (1763) was fol- lowed by an extension of settlements in all directions. Where the land was secured to the English, as was all the northern territory of Canada, the only barrier was the occupancy of the Indians. This the English- Americans, as a separate nation or people, which they evidently from many reasons were, did not count on ; and in this spontaneous transition nowhere did so great a movement take place as in the parallels which mark Southern Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the northern line of North Carolina. The advance rapidly seated themselves on what was then the other side of the Alleghenies; and notwithstanding that a royal proclamation forbade settlers seating themselves beyond this barrier, yet the banks of the Monongahela were occupied by emigrants from Vir- ginia, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Maryland; and soon after away off in Tennessee and Kentucky were the Long Hunters seeking sites for future opulent towns and cities.

In summing up the nationalities of the inhabitants of the American colonies before the Revolution, as late as the year 1775, Mr. Bancroft states that fully four-fifths of the inhabitants of those thirteen original States had for their mother-tongue the English lan- guage. In the other fifth the German element pre- dominated, and predominated to a greater degree in Pennsylvania than in any other of the colonies. Pennsylvania, indeed, from the policy of its founders, became a general receptacle of foreigners of every shade of political opinion. The position which the city of Philadelphia relatively then filled as the me- tropolis of America was also an allurement for many.

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PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS.

Of the two races of foreigners which largely con- stituted the growing population of Pennsylvania, the northern Irish, or Scotch-Irish, were more aggressive in their nature than were the plodding Germans. And while the Germans were confined mostly to the eastern part of the State, the Irish spread out towards the western part, and through Maryland and North- western Virginia.

Of this Scotch-Irish element - a people who, wherever they were settled to any extent, had a con- trolling influence in public affairs-it is stated that the immigration, though not at all regular in either its extent or duration, had reached a considerable cur- rent before the Revolution. As early as 1715 a col- ony of five hundred had settled in North Carolina, and in 1719 a colony from Ulster founded London- derrv. in New Hampshire, and between these two remote points the Irish, in little clusters, were to be found in many places. Between 1750 and 1754, when in strictness there was no Western Pennsylvania or Western Virginia to the English, Virginia had a large accession of these foreigners, who, it is asserted, went there in preference to Pennsylvania, because at that early day they could not succeed so well in that Province as the industrious, frugal, and plodding Dutch, as they were called, while many that were here sold their lands to others and took up locations more remote in either Virginia or Carolina. But still counting on these unaccountable spurts, Penn- sylvania was the centre of the Irish immigration up to 1776. In 1729 there was a large migration in this State, and those, forced by domestic troubles in their own country along the early part of the century, coming out preferred the domestic quiet offered by the mild government of the Broadrims. But none of these movements from the northern counties of Ire- land was in extent comparable with the movement of 1771 to 1773.1 And as at this juncture the southern

1 In the emigration of 1771-73 twenty-five thousand are said to have left Ulster. They left Ireland from the high rents and from a spirit of resentment towards the landed proprietors, who at that particular time took occasion to oppress the tenantry. The first great emigration to Pennsylvania, about 1750, and this subsequent one was not on account of religious persecution there. The long leases which had been offered in more remote times to induce the Scotch-Irish to enter and occupy their lands and to colonize there having expired. the landlords took ad- vantage of their situation as denizens and of the accumulation of prop- erty which had followed the labors of the colonists and of their descend- ants in order to advance the rents to such high figures as to be ruinons to many of the tenants and burdensome to all. They thence came to where laud was plentiful and taxes were light. A powerful body of these came into Western Pennsylvania and first settled along the rivers and great roads, and with them came others, as we said, from Chester, Lancaster, and York Counties, and some from Cecil County, Md. Find- Jey says (" History of the Insurrection," etc.)-and I think he means the particular region embraced within the limits of the insurrection - " that the great juirt of the early immigrants in this section were the sons of farmers in the enstern part of the Province." Findley says also that the settlers in certain localities of this region were " generally ac- quainted with each other, having emigrated together."

There was a class of felons sent from England into Virginia and Mary- Jand, and these found their way to the out-kirts of civilization, gathered around the stations (such as Pittsburgh, and hung on the verge of the ludian trade. The Indian traders use I to buy the transported Irish and

portion of Pennsylvania was opened to the world, : great majority of these found their way hither, and in no place within America have they left such last- ing impressions of their peculiar nationality as here. They became the main body of the people. Their manners, their habits, and their morals were largely the inheritance of the people of the four western counties, and they became the centre from which new colonies were started and from which other col- onies were recruited.

The Scotch-Irish took their name from being the descendants of those colonists who had, several gen- 1 erations before, been transplanted from Scotland into the north of Ireland. The same king who founded English colonies and the seat of English empire in America planted these Scotch in Ireland. Thus in time the race became a race neither Irish nor Scotch. nor yet a cross between the two. There is not a drop of pure Celtic blood in their veins. With a taint of English blood taken from the soldiers of Cromwell, who after the overthrow of the Commonwealth took refuge in Coleraine, they maintained their lineage unalloyed, and were Scotchmen who for five genera- tions had not been in Scotland. But all that now affined them to Scotland was their common religion and a common tradition. Their land leases and mossy mounds in their graveyards bound them to Ireland. They were in a certain sense analogous to those Vir- ginians who, being the descendants of English-born, retaining the speech, religion, and laws of their ances- tors, became, in spite of all contrary assertions, : distinct people.

They thus in their national character evidenced the more marked characteristics of both national- ities. While they possessed the love of liberty, the hatred of tyranny, the ready wit and versatile lan- guage of the Irish people, properly speaking, they inherited as well the shrewd cunning, the careful fore- sight, and the strict Calvinistic morality of the Scotch Covenanters. While they differed from either they reflected the prominent traits of both. So pecu- liar has been their position in this respect, both at home and abroad, that they have rarely been acknow !- edged as the representative of either race, nor have they been regarded as the true exponent of the na- tional aim of either. While the page of history shows to the world the great bravery, the undying patriotism, the unflinching courage, and the scrupu- lous morality of the race, yet it is a singular fact that the battle whose brilliant and decisive victory on Irish soil over foreign and mercenary invaders is

other colonists as servants, to be employed in carrying up their goods among the Indians. Mamy of these ran away from their masters an I joined the Indians. The ill behavior of these sometimes hurt the char- acter of the English among the Indians.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 11

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: