History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 143

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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The last hostile demonstration about Fort Wallace

was after the Revolution, in 1788. At that time a half-breed, used by the British and under their pay, and partly equipped in the uniform of an officer, ap- proached the fort with a flag. This was shortly after the raid on Hannastown, and there were here gathered many of the inhabitants. This fellow was used as a decoy. But the settlers there suspected him at once, having been deceived in this manner so frequently, and he was shot and killed. No attack was then made. He was buried a short distance above the mill.

We have before related the adventure of Finley at this fort in Chapter Twenty.

One of the foremost men of the settlement about Wallace's Fort we said was James Wilson. The old farm near New Derry contained about eight hundred acres. The tract to-day, counting the improvements thereon and the marketable value of the minerals, is probably cheap at a quarter of a million of dollars. Yet, at first,. Wilson had hard work frequently to get enough money to pay the tax collector. Col. Wil- son, as he was best known, resided on this farm until 1820, in which year he died. In appearance he was a typical pioneer : tall, over six feet, very straight, and active. His remains, those of his wife, and a married daughter (Mrs. Knott) all lie in the burying- ground on the Barr or Gilson farm. There also were buried the remains of some of the Barr family, rela- tives of Mrs. Wilson.

Col. Wilson and John Pomroy remained close and fast friends until death separated them. Pomroy, although not such a leader in military affairs as Wil- son, was always a leader in civil affairs. He was one of the five commissioners appointed by Act of As- sembly of 1785 to locate a county-seat for the county, and whose labors resulted in the selection of Greens- burg. He was also one of the associate judges under the presidency of Alexander Addison ; certainly a very distinguished place of honor. He. had a brother, Francis Pomroy, who with him shared a large portion of the popular respect and confidence.1

Among the first of these settlers whose name we have met with heretofore, either attached to himself or his son, was William Guthrie, who made applica- tion in 1769 for three hundred and fifty acres of land, some of which is at this day occupied by his grand- son, Joseph Guthrie, Esq. William Guthrie took an active part in the border troubles, and was an officer in the militia, a lieutenant in 1794. His son, James Guthrie, served in the war of Eighteen-Twelve, and died on that farm. William Guthrie built a stone house on this tract in 1799.

Capt. John Shields came from Adams County to Westmoreland about the year 1766. He was a tall, muscular man, well qualified to endure the hardships incident to the time and place in which he lived. He

1 Pomroy's name is now usually written Pomeroy ; but we follow his own autograph spelling.

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purchased a large tract of land in the vicinity of what is now known as New Alexandria. He was captain of a company in the Revolutionary war, and faith- fully performed the duties of a soldier in many a battle with the British.

After the war with England was ended the inhabi- tants of Westmoreland County were greatly annoyed by depredations committed by the Indians. Meetings were held throughout the county, petitions drawn up and signed by the people and sent to Governor Penn asking for protection. One of these meetings was held at the house of Capt. Shields, a petition was drawn up setting forth the danger to which they were exposed as the troops raised by order of the Governor and Assembly were ordered to Kittanning. They complained that they were without arms and anımu- nition or the protection of the troops, and they con- cluded by asking for protection. The petition was signed by one hundred and thirty-four. The names of John Shields, John Alexander, and Samuel Craig are annexed to it. Meantime the neighbors built a small fort on an eminence near the residence of Capt. Shields.

There was neither surgeon nor dentist available, and Mr. Shields was often called upon to reduce a fracture or extract a tooth. He was a blacksmith, and made his own dental instruments, and although they may not have been of as delicate structure as those of the dentists of the present time, yet they answered the end intended; and on the whole, teeth were therr extracted without much "pay-in'." Mr. Shields was one of the five commissioners who were appointed in 1785 to purchase a piece of land in trust for the inhabitants of the county, and thereon to erect a court-house and prison for the use of the county.

Mr. Shields was a justice of the peace, and for many years a ruling elder in Congruity Church, of which Rev. Samuel Porter was pastor. He died Nov. 8, 1821, aged eighty-two years, and his remains repose in Congruity Cemetery.

Mr. Matthew Shields, grandson of Capt. Shields, resides on the farm owned by his grandfather, and although he has been afflicted with almost total blind- ness for many years, yet he so manages his farm that for culture and neatness no farm in the neighborhood can surpass it.

Additional early settlers were Thomas Allison, Gawain Adams, George Trimble, Alexander Taylor, John Lytle, Daniel Elgin, Conrad Rice, Thomas Wil- kins, Daniel McKisson, James Mitchell, Andrew Dixon, John Agey, Blaney Adair, Thomas McCrea, Thomas Burns, William Lowry, John Wilson, Robert Pilson, John Thompson, Patrick Lydick, James Simpson, Christopher Stutchal, William Smith.

Along the Conemaugh and Black Lick, Charles Campbell (county-lieutenant after Lochry), Samuel Dixon, John McCrea, John Harrold, Philip Altman, .... Patrick McGee, Arch. Coleman, George Repine, Mal- | by the rest breaking in as a chorus. .

achia Sutton, William Loughry, Jonathan Doty, Jacob Bricker, James Ewing, James Ferguson, Peter Fair, James McComb, Samuel McCartney, John Neal, Alexander Rhea, William Robertson, Daniel Repine, John Shields, Robert Liggot, David Reed, William Graham, Ephraim Wallace, George Mahon, Hugh St. Clair, James McDonald, William Clark, the Hices, Walkers, Thomases, McKnights.

SNAKES AND WOLVES.

There are few districts in the county to which at- taches so much of interesting early history as Derry township. Its location,-or speaking more to the point, the location of the early settlers of Derry was one that was exposed to the incursions and depreda- tions of the Indians from the earliest times down to but a very short period before the Revolution. The old military road which ran directly through it, the old trails along the streams along which the savages passed, the heavy woods to the north of the county, and the border line of civilization and settlement, which was the river to the north-these make its location one of extreme danger when there was danger at all. Besides this, the annoyance to the early settlers from wild animals and reptiles appears to have been of a more serious character than in most any other part of the country. The grassy glades about Indiana town (some of the few open spaces in this whole region at that time) were espe- cially noted for the great quantity of rattlesnakes, and these poisonous reptiles were sources of great annoy- ance in summer time along the sides of the Chestnut Ridge to even a late day. Bears in great numbers harbored within its limits.' Late in the last century bears carried off young hogs in winter time from the very pens near the house: Wolves in the early times here prevailed in great numbers. Christian Post in his second journal, 1758, for the 9th of No- vember, writing at his'camp on the Loyalhanna a few miles below Latrobe, says, "The wolves made a terrible music this night." It is well remembered, for it has been frequently related by the local histo- rians of Indiana County, that the region north of the Conemaugh was, up to the middle of the Revolution, literally a " howling wilderness," for it was full of wolves. Of Moorhead and Kelly, the two first who settled near the present site of Indiana town, and who formed a part of the settlement which composed the Derry settlement, an old story is told which we have heretofore given.

To the early settlers there was probably no sound so dismal as that of these famishing wolves, unless we ex- cept the howls of those two-legged wolves, the Indians. Unless one has heard a wolf howl one can scarcely imagine it correctly. They did not, for instance, yell coarsely, but, on the contrary, in a tremor, long, shriek- ing, and increasing in volume as they raised their heads skyward, began first by a leader, and followed

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

All other wild animals, panthers, bears, catamounts, foxes, common to this region, were to be met with in Derry township in the early days.

INCIDENTS.

In relating the early historical incidents of Derry, we cannot refrain from recounting the accounts pre- served of the settlement made by Fergus Moorhead, because there are many illustrations in his experience that will go toward giving us a comprehensive view of those times. Besides this, many of Moorhead's descendants belong to Westmoreland, and he himself was a pioneer and a settler of Westmoreland.

Fergus Moorhead, his wife and three children, his two brothers (Samuel and Joseph), James Kelly, James Thompson, and a few others set out from their homes in Franklin County for the "Indian country," west of the Allegheny, in May, 1772.

Moorhead brought three horses in a wagon, which contained their provisions, his family utensils, and household effects. His other live-stock consisted of a yoke of oxen, two milch cows, several head of sheep and hoga, and a lot of fowl. He had been to the country before by himself, had erected a cabin, made a clearing, and marked out a location before he went back to Franklin County whence he first came.

The party came out by way of the military road of Forbes, and at the end of four weeks from the time they left Franklin they came to the spot which he and Kelly had previously selected, as we have men- tioned before. This was near Indiana town. It seems, however, that they changed their minds when they began to locate permanently, and erected a cabin and began to clear a few miles west of that spot.

They then planted a small patch which they had cleared with potatoes and corn, and cleared another for a garden. Joseph and Samuel Moorhead left their brother and his family to return home. For that har- vest Fergus cut the grass growing on the land, which at that day, in that section of country, in some places, resembled prairies, being open and treeless and rank with grass, and in some instances swampy. In these little meadow patches within the woods north of Conemaugh the wild grass grew luxuriantly. Snakes were also there in great numbers, particularly rattle- snakes, of which there was much complaint, they and the copperheads coming to the cabins and secreting themselves in the beds. They also complained of and were much alarmed by panthers, wolves, and cat- amounts. In building their cabins they sometimes left the spaces between the logs open in summer, and in the winter filled them in. It was certainly an easy = and convenient method of securing good ventilation, but one would suspect that it would be more practica- ble in a country with fewer venomous reptiles.

Among the first things done by the settlement was the erection of the block-house. known as " Moor- head's Block-house." But yet the settlers of this frontier, but more especially those in the direction of

Conemaugh, frequently came in their flight for pro- tection to Wallace's Fort. .

In the beginning of the Revolution, Fergus Moor- head was taken by the Indians. Upon Mrs. Moor- head, while her husband was a captive (1776), de- volved the sad duty, without any assistance whatever, to close the eyes of a dead child,-her own child,- make its coffin, and deposit it in the grave she had dug for it.

As Moorhead was taken without the noise of a battle, but by being waylaid not far from his home, his people got no word from him. His wife went with her brother back to Franklin County, and while she was there at his father's house she had the un- speakable gladness to meet again her husband, who, after many adventures, returned back there from the country of the Indians. In 1781 he, with his wife and children, returned to their home in Westmore- land, now within Indiana County. Some other fam- ilies came out with them this time. But his cattle were gone,-"strayed or stolen ;" really killed by the Indians,-and his whole place was in decay.

Randall Laughlin was one of the early settlers who was identified with this region. He was one of the neighbors of Col. (or Gen.) Charles Campbell, the county lieutenant after Archibald Lochry. This was about the line of Blacklick and Centre townships, Indiana County, and of course north of the Cone- maugh. Laughlin came early, but probably did not locate permanently until after the beginning of the Revolutionary war.

In the summer of 1777 all the settlers of the Camp- bell and Laughlin settlements took their families to Wallace's Fort. Towards the end of the summer they went back to look after their cabins, as they had done several times previously. When they were at Laughlin's cabin Laughlin, Campbell, John Gilson, and one Dickson, all neighbors, were surrounded by Indians led by whites, probably British or half-breeds, and thus taken.

Col. Charles Campbell kept a journal of their cap- tivity, and it is still extant in the original manuscript. They were taken September the 25th, 1777. They managed to let the whites know they were taken by leaving a written notice of the same in the cabin be- fore they left it. They left this writing on the door of the cabin, the Indians not objecting to it, and probably not suspicioning anything. In this paper Campbell said they would soon be back again. Laughlin and he did return by way of Franklin County, as they said they would, but the other two died while prisoners.

The Samuel Moorhead mentioned, in 1774 com- menced building a mill on Stony Run, where Andrew Dixon's till was afterwards situated, but before it was completed the settlers were driven off by the Indians.

Gen. Alexander Craig was born Nov. 20, 1755. He was married to Jane Clark, second daughter of James

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Clark, Faq. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. James Power. The bride was arrayed in a Minen dress bleached to a snowy whiteness.

Gen. Craig was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the State militia in 1798, and brigadier-general in 1807, and again in 1811. In 1812 a letter from Dr. Postlethwaite, of Greensburg, conveyed to him the intelligence that war was declared with England. He arose and paced the room in silence for a few minutes, and then said, "I have but one son, and he is too delicate to perform the duties of a soldier; I am growing old, but if my country requires my services they shall not be withheld."

The farm on the Loyalhanna was purchased by Gen. Craig from Samuel Wallace, Faq., a merchant of Philadelphia, in 1798. Mr. Wallace had purchased it from Loveday Allen in 1769.

After the trouble with the Indians was over, Gen. Craig often met with them when surveying or out on business. He once went to the camp of Cornplanter, and they spent some time in shooting at a mark; to the great surprise of the party the general beat Corn- planter, who concluded that there must be some witchery about the gun, and for that reason pur- chased it.

The whites were prejudiced against the Indians, and embraced every opportunity to disoblige them ; Gen. Craig sympathized with them and treated them kindly. Once se he was walking along one of our rivers he saw an Indian canoe tied to a tree; knowing that if it should be discovered by the whites it would be destroyed, he wrote his name on the side of the canoe and sunk it into the water. Some time after- wards he was in a store at Pittsburgh, and several In- dians came in; one of them heard him named, and walked up to him and said, " Alexander Craig you a good man, you no destroy Indian canoe."

Gen. Craig was agent for the heirs of Governor Mifflin,-Jonathan and John Mifflin and Rebecca Archer,-they owned a great deal of land in what was then called the " backwoods;" and although he transacted much business for himself and others, he never had a law suit, and often used his influ- ence successfully in preventing litigation among his neighbors.

Gen. Craig had not the advantage of a liberal edu- cation, but he had good judgment, was fond of read- ing, had a retentive memory, and his mind was well stored with useful knowledge. In person, he was not quite six feet in height, was muscular, strong, and active; his manners were refined, and his whole ap- pearance prepossessing. He was generous; he re- fused to take any share of the paternal inheritance, but left it for his father's younger children.

Gen. Craig's family consisted of three sons and five daughters. His second and third sons died in infancy. He lived to see the grave close over his three sons and three of his daughters; but the greatest sorrow of his life was the fate of his father.

His death occurred on the 29th of October, 1882, at the age of seventy-seven. He was interred in Congruity Cemetery, where a neat little monument marks his resting-place.

LATER SETTLERS, ETC.

For the following lists of the early settlers of Derry township, we are greatly indebted to our venerable friend Isaac Pershing, Esq., who was a grandson of Frederich Pershing, who bought a location in West- moreland in 1773. He came out with his family in that year from Fredericktown, Md., and located in Unity township, and built a mill afterwards upon his land. This was " Pershing's mill," on the head-waters of the Nine-Mile Run, and but a short distance from the village of Lycippus. He left issue four sons and three daughters who had families of their own.

Thomas Anderson, a Revolutionary soldier, lived with Col. Guthrie, the elder, and died at his house in 1827. Michael Churn, Sr., settled in 1782. John Mc- Guire, a neighbor of Churn, settled in 1778. One of Mc- Guire's neighbors was William Joyce. Robert Arm- strong was an early settler near Salem Church, and at his house were held some of the first itinerant services of the Methodist Church. The eccentric Lorenzo Dow was frequently his guest. Peter Knight, Sr., settled north of the village of Saint Clair (Bra- denville Post-office). He was one of the ancestors of the Soxmans and Schalls. Andrew Allison located on the banks of the Loyalhanna, between the present town of Latrobe and Kingston, the residence of the late Alexander Johnston, Esq., his daughter mar- rying Charles Mitchell, who afterwards possessed the land. Some of his descendants are prominent citi- zens of Armstrong County, and of Washington County. The next neighbor on the creek below Al- lison was John Sloan, Esq., high sheriff of the county. Sloan was distinguished as an officer in the militia along the frontier during the troubles after the Revo- lution. In an expedition against a party of depre- dating Indians, as elsewhere noted, he was wounded in his groin, and had a silk handkerchief drawn en- tirely through the wound. He shot and scalped an Indian in that expedition, and brought the scalp home with him. This he would frequently produce on public occasions. He died on his farm in 1833. Joseph Baldridge, Esq., the paternal ancestor of the Baldridge family, now widely scattered over the United States, lived on the Loyalhanna. His resi- dence, a spacious and expensive one for his day, is still standing on the lower road from Youngstown to Latrobe. He was a millwright by trade, and built a mill on that stream in 1804. When he came over the mountain he brought his sister with him. She rode on a horse which also carried his bundle of earthly goods, while he walked by the side. He died in 1840, a very wealthy man of his day, and of some influence. Christian Soxman was a miller, and built a mill on Soxman's Run in 1784. Died in 1828.

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Thomas Culbertson, a wheelwright by trade, settled early on land north of Latrobe. He is said to have built the first stone house in his part of the country. William Hughes was a very early settler. His oldest son was said to have been the first male child born in Derry township, but we repeat this merely as a cur- rent matter of belief in that neighborhood. James Cummins settled at the foot of Chestnut Ridge, about the end of the Revolutionary war. Hugh Cannon was one of the first settlers near Derry Station to the west. He followed the business of transporting flour and salt from the eastern side of the mountains and the valley of the Shenandoah. He died so early as 1818. Hisson, Alexander Cannon, who died in 1842, in the seventy-second year of his age, was one among the first settlers who in his younger days endured the hardships of early life.

THE BEAR CAVE.

Probably the greatest natural curiosity within the limits of the county is the " Bear Cave," in this town- ship. It is a monstrous cavern in the Chestnut Ridge, and the nearest designated point to it is Hillside, a station on the Pennsylvania Railroad.

There have been many accounts written descrip- tive of this great natural wonder, which have ap- peared from time to time in the periodicals, and some of them in works devoted to such subjects. The first general notice taken by the outside world of this cave was probably about the year 1840. Prior to that time it is, not likely it was explored, if, indeed, a knowledge of it was even locally well known.

In 1842 a very interesting article appeared in the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate descriptive of "A Visit to the Bear Cave in Westmoreland County." Although the party who visited it did not make a complete exploration of the cave, they expressed great satisfaction at the novelty of the adventure, and the historian of the expedition gave a rather glowing de- scription of the various apartments which they had examined.

An account of another exploring party appeared in the Blairwille Record of November, 1842. This party was made up of young men mostly from about Blairs- ville, and were all well-known young men of char- acter. They were well prepared beforehand to make a thorough examination of the cave. Coming to the cave, they divided into two parties; one of these entered to the right hand, the other to the left. In their progress they passed along over deep fissures, and heard far beneath them the gurgling of sub- teranean streams, into whose depths the light from their torches did not penetrate, nor could stones dropped down be heard to reach the bottom.

The party, however, with difficulty sometimes, being compelled to crawl under the rocks on their bellies for a distance, at other times being compelled to stoop low and walk awkwardly, penetrated to a distance of nineteen hundred and forty-seven yards, where, at the

end of a narrow passage-way which wound up in a room-like cavity, their journey ended. They said they explored in all forty-nine different rooms, or apartments, varying in size from eight to thirty and forty feet square. In some were found large quantities of carbonate of lime.

Among the names chiseled in the rock there was that of Norman McLeod. McLeod left a cheese-knife there, suspecting, no doubt, that those in the future when they would find it would attach to it a tale of mystery and blood. This party actually found the knife, and made in their narration a touching sentence on it, and let "conjecture run wild." But it happened that McLeod's secret was known to several others of the free-and easy companions of his former days, and they divulged.

For many years the knowledge of this great natural curiosity was confined to a few hunters along that side of the Ridge, and to a few of the people who lived near its mouth. McLeod was one of the first to satisfy a prying curiosity in penetrating so far within the bowels of the earth, and finding out all about it that has yet been known.

But modern tourists describe the cavern more elo- quently.still. They talk of narrow passages between walls of rocks, of immense chambers studded with stalactites and inhabited by bats, of fathomless chasms, of the sound of running water in the darkness, of! twine for an Ariadne clew, of labyrinths, of torches, and have named some of the larger rooms "The Snake' Chamber," "The Altar Room," "The Senate Cham- ber," because of certain peculiarities,-all of which must be taken with a grain of salt, or rather after " an ounce of civet, good apothecary."

EARLY SCHOOLS.

In recording the educational deeds of other days of this large and flourishing township we pause and wonder at the very outstart that with such a good be- ginning it has not made still greater progress. The original school-houses of this township were not all built of logs, as was generally the case through- out the country, but there were substantial frame buildings prior to the adoption of the free-school system of 1834. Such was the school-house now known as McClelland's, but its dimensions were small. The writing-desks were fastened around the wall, the seats were called "peg seats," and the heat- ing apparatus consisted of a ten-plate stove used for burning wood. The earliest teacher remembered was "Master" Tawny Hill. Prof. James McCalep taught this school about fifty-three years ago. William Coch- ran, an Irishman, taught the first free school here. His teaching was remarkable for the religious in- struction mingled therewith. He opened the school with prayer, had Bible-class twice a day, and read in the New Testament four times a day. The Shorter Catechism was at that time a prominent text-book. His mode of punishment was such as questions,

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 143

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

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