Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I, Part 7

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 650

USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I > Part 7

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"I have now to thank the governor for what he has done. I have informed him what the Great Spirit has ordered me to cease from,

JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

and I wish the governor to inform others what I have communicated. This is all I have at present to say."

The old chief appears after this again to have fallen into entire seclusion, taking no part even in the politics of his people. He died at his residence on the 7th of March, 1836, at the age of one hundred and four years. "Whether at the time of his death he expected to go to the fair hunting-grounds of his own people or to the heaven of the Christian is not known."

Notwithstanding his profession of Chris- tianity, Cornplanter was very superstitious. "Not long since," says Mr. Foote, of Chautatı- qua county, "he said the Good Spirit had told him not to have anything to do with the white people, or even to preserve any mementoes or relics that had been given to him from time to time by the palefaces, whereupon, among other things, he burnt up his belt and broke his elegant sword."

In reference to the personal appearance of Cornplanter at the close of his life, a writer says :

"I once saw the aged and venerable chief, and had an interesting interview with him about a year and a half before his death. I thought of many things when seated near him, beneath the wide-spreading shade of an old sycamore on the banks of the Allegheny, many things to ask him, the scenes of the Revolution, the generals that fought its battles and con- quered, the Indians, his tribe, the Six Nations, and himself. He was constitutionally sedate, was never observed to smile, much less to indulge in the luxury of a laugh. When I saw him he estimated his age to be over one hun- dred ; I think one hundred and three was about his reckoning of it. This would make him near one hundred and five years old at the time of his decease. Ilis person was stooped, and his stature was far short of what it once had been, not being over five feet, six inches at the time I speak of. Mr. John Struthers, of Ohio, told me, some years since, that he had seen him near fifty years ago, and at that period he was at his height, viz., six feet, one inch. Time and hardship had made dreadful impressions upon that ancient form. The chest was sunken and his shoulders were drawn forward, making the upper part of his body resemble a trough. His limbs had lost size and become crooked. His feet ( for he had taken off his moccasins) were deformed and haggard by injury. I would say that most of the fingers on one hand were useless ; the sinews had been severed by the blow of a tomahawk or scalping knife.

How I longed to ask him what scene of blood and strife had thus stamped the enduring evidence of its existence upon his person ! But to have done so would, in all probability, have put an end to all further conversation on any subject. The information desired would cer- tainly not have been received, and I had to forego my curiosity. He had but one eye, and even the socket of the lost organ was hid by the overhanging brow resting upon the high cheekbone. His remaining eye was of the brightest and blackest hue. Never have I seen one, in young or old, that equaled it in bril- liancy. Perhaps it had borrowed lustre from the eternal darkness that rested on its neighboring orbit. His ears had been dressed in the Indian mode, all but the outside ring had been cut away. On the one ear this ring had been torn asunder near the top, and hung down his neck like a useless rag. He had a full head of hair, white as the driven snow, which covered a head of ample dimensions and admirable shape. His face was not swarthy, but this may be accounted for from the fact, also, that he was but half Indian. He told me he had been at Franklin more than eighty years before the period of our conversation, on his passage down the Ohio and Mississippi with the warriors of his tribe, in some expedi- tion against the Creeks or Osages. He had long been a man of peace, and I believe his great characteristics were humanity and truth. It is said that Brant and Cornplanter were never friends after the massacre of Cherry Valley. Some have alleged, because the Wyoming massacre was perpetrated by Sene- cas, that Cornplanter was there. Of the justice of this suspicion there are many reasons for doubt. It is certain that he was not the chief of the Senecas at that time. The name of the chief in that expedition was Ge-en-quah-toh, or He-goes-in-the-smoke.

"As he stood before me, the ancient chief in ruins, how forcibly was I struck with the truth of that beautiful figure of the old aboriginal chieftain, who, in describing himself, said he was 'like an aged hemlock, dead at the top, and whose branches alone were green" . After more than one hundred years of most varied life, of strife, of danger, of peace, he at last slumbers in deep repose on the banks of his own beloved Allegheny.

"Cornplanter was born at Conewongus, on the Genesee river, in 1732, being a half-breed, the son of a white man named John O'Bail ( Abeel), a trader from the Mohawk Valley. In a letter written in later years to the gov- ernor of Pennsylvania he thus spoke of his

JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

early youth : 'When I was a child I played with the butterfly, the grasshopper, and the frogs; and as I grew up I began to pay some atten- tion and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood, and they took notice of my skin being of a different color from theirs, and spoke about it. I inquired from my mother the cause, and she told me my father was a resident of Albany. I still ate my victuals out of a bark dish. 1 grew up to be a young man and married a wife, and I had no kettle or gun. I then knew where my father lived, and went to see him, and found he was a white man and spoke the English language. He gave me vic- tuals while I was at his house, but when I started to return home he gave me no provi- sions to eat on the way. He gave me neither kettle or gun.'

"little further is known of his early life beyond the fact that he was allied with the French in the engagement against General Braddock in July, 1755. He was probably at that time at least twenty years old. During the Revolution he was a war chief of high rank. in the full vigor of manhood, active, sagacious, brave, and he most probably participated in the principal Indian engagements against the United States during the war. He is supposed to have been present at the cruelties of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, in which the Senecas took a prominent part. He was on the warpath with Brant during General Sul- livan's campaign in 1779, and in the following year, under Brant and Sir John Johnson, he led the Senecas in sweeping through the Sehoharie and Mohawk Valleys. On this occasion he took his father a prisoner, but with such caution as to avoid an immediate recognition. After marching the old man some ten or twelve miles, he stepped before him, faced about, and addressed him in the following terms :

"'My name is John O'Bail, commonly called Cornplanter. I am your son. You are my father. You are now my prisoner, and sub-

ject to the custom of Indian warfare, but you shall not be harmed. You need not fear. I am a warrior. Many are the scalps which I have taken. Many prisoners have I tortured to death. I am your son. I was anxious to see you and greet you in friendship. I went to your cabin and took you by force, but your life shall be spared. Indians love their friends and their kindred, and treat them with kind- ness. If you now choose to follow the fortunes of your yellow son and to live with our people, I will cherish your old age with plenty of venison, and you shall live easy. But if it is your choice to return to your fields and live with your white children, I will send a party of trusty young men to conduct you back in safety. I respect you. my father. You have been friendly to Indians, and they are your friends.' The elder O'Bail preferred his white children and green fields to his yellow offspring and the wild woods, and chose to return.

"Cornplanter was the greatest warrior the Senecas, the untamable people of the hills, ever had, and it was his wish that when he died his grave would remain unmarked, but the Legis- lature of Pennsylvania willed otherwise, and erected a monument to him with this beautiful inscription :

"'Gy-ant-wachia. the Cornplanter, John ('Bail, alias Cornplanter, died at Cornplanter Town, February 18, .A. D. 1836, aged about one hundred years.'

"Upon the west side is the following inscription :

"'Chief of the Seneca tribe, and a principal chief of the Six Nations from the period of the Revolutionary war to the time of his death. Distinguished for talent, courage, eloquence, sobriety, and love for tribe and race, to whose welfare he devoted his time, his energy, and his means during a long and eventful life.'"

Cornplanter had two sons, Charles and Henry, both of whom survived him.

·ny

VIRTUE

INDEPENDENCE

LIBERTY

AND

Pennsylvania's Coat of Arms. Engraved by Caleb Lownes, 1778.

STATE CAPITOL, HARRISBURG, P.A. Built 1>19-21. Destroyed by Fire February 2, 1897

CHAPTER III GENERAL HISTORY AND PENNSYLVANIA CHRONOLOGY PATENTS, INVENTIONS, ETC.

HISTORICAL CIIRONOLOGY-GOVERNORS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA -POPULAR VOTE FOR GOVERNORS, 1790-1914-SOME STATE LAWS-DISTINCTIVE CONDITIONS- - POPULA- TION, PENNSYLVANIA AND THE UNITED STATES-RATIO OF CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATION -DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN PENNSYLVANIA-PENNSYLVANIA COUNTIES-CHRONOL- OGY OF INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES-FORTY YEARS OF PROGRESS-NOTABLE OCCURRENCES-PENN- SYLVANIA IN THE WAR OF TIIE REBELLION-HISTORICAL MISCELLANY-PATENTS, INVEN- TIONS, ETC.

I was born in Pennsylvania, and I state the fact with pride ; I am proud of all her mountains and her fertile valleys wide ; Proud of her majestic forests, of her placid rivers blue ;

Proud of all her wealth of blossoms, of her sons and daughters true.

I was born in Pennsylvania-in the greatest, grand- est State- In the Keystone of the Union-best of all the forty- eight :

For the gift the King of England gave to good old Father Penn

Was the finest gift e'er given to the worthiest of men.

And proud and happy is the man or woman who can say,

"I was born in Pennsylvania, tho' I've wandered far away."

Keystone State is an appellation bestowed on Pennsylvania, because she was the seventh or central of the original thirteen States.

Pennsylvania, one of the United States of America, lies between 39 degrees 42 minutes and 42 degrees 15 minutes north latitude ; and 2 degrees 18 minutes east, and 3 degrees 32 minutes west, longitude from Washington.

It is bounded on the east by New Jersey and New York ; north by New York ; west by Lake Erie (touching the State for about fifty miles). Ohio and Virginia ; and south by Vir- ginia, Maryland and Delaware.

Its shape is a regular oblong ; length, three hundred and ten miles; breadth, one hundred and sixty miles ; and entire area over forty- five thousand square miles, or thirty million acres of land.

The seat of government is Harrisburg, and its chief commercial cities are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The word Pennsylvania is composed of the name of Penn, the founder of the State, and the Latin word sylva, which means a wood or forest, to which are added the letters nia, a termination used in Latin to show that the word of which it forms part is the name of land, or country. The whole, therefore, means Penn's forest country, a term quite applicable to its appearance when granted to William Penn, in 1681, by King Charles II of England.

The chief mountains of Pennsylvania are the Appalachian, more commonly called the Alleghenies, whose parallel ranges run north- east to southwest. Their height varies from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the Atlantic. The moun- tainous portion of Pennsylvania forms fully one-third of its whole area, or sixteen thousand square miles. One-half of the remainder is of a hilly or broken character, and the other has a gently rolling surface. Little of the State is perfectly level land.

However, it is not to be understood that the whole of the mountainous portion of Pennsyl- vania is unfit for cultivation. On the contrary, some of our finest valleys and most productive lands are embraced in this region. Probably, therefore, not more than one-sixth of the State. if so much, is wholly unfit for the purposes of agriculture.

The soil of Pennsylvania varies with the rocks which compose its surface, the greater portion of the substance of all soil being formed of pulverized rock.

The chief rivers of Pennsylvania all rise in the Allegheny mountains, and therefore pos- sess the qualities of mountain'streams, being rapid in their descent, liable to sudden changes of high and low water, and only permanently

JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

navigable for a short distance near their mouths. The Delaware river breaks through a gorge twelve hundred feet deep and forms the boundary between this State and New Jersey.

The year is usually divided into four seasons : March, April and May are called spring ; June, July and August, summer ; Sep- tember, October, and November, autumn or fall; and December, January and February, winter.

Sometimes the stormis of winter begin with November, or endure till Marchi; other years delightful spring weather commences in February, and autumn runs into December.

The climate, generally speaking, is very healthful. In the north winter is severe and summer is delightfully cool. The east is sub- ject to extremes and sudden changes; and in the west the changes are even more abrupt. In the river valleys there is a good deal of malaria. Average temperature, 54 degrees ; annual precipitation at Philadelphia, 40 inches.

There are many mineral springs in the mountains. Those near Bedford are famous ; the waters are saline-chalybeate, sulphur and limestone. Others are Carlisle Springs, Doubling Gap Springs, Perry Warm Springs, Cresson Springs, Gettysburg Springs, Kiskim- inetas Springs, Minnequa Springs and Val- lonia Springs.

HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY

Before it was taken possession of by Euro- peans, the territory now called Pennsylvania was occupied by various tribes of Indians, of which the chief were the Delawares, Six Nations and Shawnese.

The Delawares, so called by the whites from the river on whose banks they were first met, and where they chiefly resided, were the most numerous nation in the Province. They called themselves Lenni Lenape, or the original people. They were also sometimes known by the name of Algonquins. They were divided into three chief tribes: The Unamis, or turtles, the Unalachtgos, or turkeys, and the Monseys, or wolves. The first two occupied the country southeast of the Kittatinny, and the last the region north of that mountain, on the upper waters of the Delaware and Susque- hanna. The various bands of Delawares re- ceived different names from the whites. according to their location, as the Susque- hannas, the Conestogas, the Neshaminies, the Nanticokes, etc.

The Shawnese, a portion of a different

nation, were settled near Wyoming, and some of them on the Ohio, below Pittsburgh.

The celebrated Five Nations seem originally to have owned northwestern Pennsylvania. The Onondagas,* Cayugas, Oneidas, Senecas and Mohawks first composed this remarkable and powerful confederacy. To these were subsequently added the Tuscaroras, after which they were called the Six Nations.

By the Delawares they were called Mingos and Maquas, by the French Iroquois, t and by the English the Five or Six Nations.

Their chief residence or council house was at Onondaga, in New York, the greater part of which State belonged to them.

Sometime previous to the landing of tlie Europeans, the Six Nations are said to have conquered the Delawares. It is at least cer- tain that they exercised authority over them, and that this subjection often rendered the dealings of the colonists with the Delawares complicated and difficult. In 1756 Teedyus- cund, the noted Delaware chief, seems to have compelled the Six Nations to acknowledge the independence of his tribe; but the claim of superiority was often afterwards revived.

In 1638 the Swedes purchased from the Indians the land from Cape Henlopen to the Falls at Trenton, along the western shore of the Delaware. They were the first purchasers of the land from the Indians, and called it New Sweden. In 1643 they established the first colony of whites within the present bounds of Pennsylvania, under their governor, John Printz, settling along the western bank of the Delaware, principally near the mouth of the Schuylkill. Governor Printz erected a fort, which he called New Gottenburg, and after- wards a church and a spacious house for him- self, on Tinicum island, in the Delaware, below the month of the Schuylkill. Until 1655 the Swedish settlements regularly increased. In that year they were taken by Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the Dutch colony of New Nether- lands, now New York, but all the Swedish settlers were permitted to remain.

Nine years afterwards, or in 1664, the ter- ritory now called Pennsylvania, with all the other Dutch possessions in North America, was conquered by the English.

In this year, 1664, we read of negro slaves in Delaware, which afterwards became a part of Pennsylvania.

Being thus possessed of the territory by con- quest from those who had rightfully acquired

*On-on-daw'goes.

FE-ro-quaw'.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

the Indian title to at least a part of it, King Charles II, by charter dated March 4, 1681, granted it to William Penn, a member of the Society of Friends, in discharge of certain large claims due by the crown to his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, and gave it the present name.

On the 24th of October, 1682, William Penn arrived at his new province in the ship "Welcome." He first landed at New Castle, in the present State of Delaware. At this time Delaware also belonged to Penn, by grant from the Duke of York, the King's brother, but did not long continue connected with Pennsyl- vania.

The same year he regularly founded the Province ; laid out Philadelphia, on land pur- chased from three Swedish settlers; divided the Province into the three counties of Phila- delphia, Chester and Bucks; and convened the first legislature, which met on the 4th of December, at the town of Chester, and com- pleted their session in three days.

Early in 1683 Penn entered into treaties with the Indians for the purchase of large tracts of land west and north of Philadelphia, it being his honest rule to acquire the Indian title, as well as that of the English king.

In 1684 Penn sailed for England.

In 1691 a dispute arose between the Provinces of Pennsylvania and Delaware, which resulted in the formation of separate legislatures, and the final separation of the Provinces.

In 1699 Penn returned to the Province with his family, and found it much increased in population, prosperity and wealth.

In 1701 a new charter, or frame of govern- ment, more fully adapted to the wants of the people, was adopted, and Penn finally returned to England.

In 1718 he died at Rushcomb, in Bucking- hamshire, aged seventy-four years. His last days were embittered by persecution and pecuniary distresses at home, and dissensions in his colonies. On his death Pennsylvania became the property of his sons, John, Thomas and Richard. by whom, or their deputies, it was governed till the Revolution.

In 1723 Benjamin Franklin, then in his seventeenth year, arrived in Philadelphia from Boston, and soon acquired an influence which he exercised to the benefit of the Province and his own honor during a long life.

The same year the first paper money was issued in the Province.

In 1732 Thomas Penn, and in 1734 John

Penn, arrived in the Province, where Thomas remained till 1741.

In 1739, on the breaking out of a war with Spain, the Assembly refused supplies for the defense of the Province, on the ground of religious scruples. This was the beginning of a long controversy between the legislature and the governors.

In 1744, the war between England and France put an end to the peace that had previously existed without any interruption between the colonists and Indians. Before that melancholy era, the prudent counsels of the Friends had completely saved the Province from those Indian ravages that afterwards devastated the frontiers.

By the treaty of Albany, in 1754, the Six Nations conveyed to the Province a large tract of land, lying beyond the Susquehanna river and Kittatinny mountain, and southwest of the mouth of Penn's creek. Being done without the consent of the Delawares and Shawnese, who occupied the territory, those tribes became justly incensed, and joined the French.

In 1755 General Braddock, while marching, in a manner opposed to the advice of Colonel Washington, with a large force against Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) was attacked by the Indians and French, and defeated with great slaughter. He himself was mortally wounded, and died shortly after, during the retreat.

In 1758 Gen. John Forbes led a strong force from Carlisle against Fort Duquesne, at Pitts- burgh, which he found abandoned. The French never afterwards regained any footing in the Province.

In 1763, the Indian war called Pontiac's war raged. Forts Presquile, Venango and Le Boeuf were taken, and Forts Pitt, Ligonier and Bed- ford were attacked on the same day, by stratagem. The exposed settlers suffered many hardships. The same year the Manor Indians were killed at Lancaster jail by the Paxton boys.

In 1767 the southern line of the State was finally run and settled by Mason and Dixon.

In 1768 all the remaining lands in the Province, except those beyond the Allegheny river, were purchased from the Indians at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, in Oneida county, New York.

In 1769 the civil war between the Connecti- cut settlers and the Pennsylvania claimants began in Wyoming.

In 1769 the right of taxing the colonies, without their own consent, some years before asserted by the British Parliament, was boldly

JEFFERSON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

denied by the Colonial Assembly, who took strong ground against that odious doctrine.

In 1774 Lord Dunmore, governor of Vir- ginia, took possession of Fort Pitt as being within the limits of his Province ; but his gar- rison was soon expelled.

On the 18th of June, 1774. a meeting of eight thousand persons took place in Philadel- phia, and recommended a Continental Con- gress for the vindication of the rights of the Colonies and the relief of Boston.

On the 15th of July, 1774, deputies from all the counties met at Philadelphia, and passed strong resolutions in favor of the rights of the colonies and the holding of a General Colonial Congress. Accordingly the Assembly appointed seven delegates to the Congress.

In September, 1774, the first Congress met at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia.

On the 15th of July, 1776, independence having been declared, a State convention, in Philadelphia, met and framed a Constitution for Pennsylvania as a Freed and Sovereign State. At that time the population was about three hundred thousand.

In 1777, after the battle of Brandywine, Congress adjourned to Lancaster, and thence to York; and Philadelphia fell into the hands of the British, who retained it till June, 1778. In the last named year Congress returned to Philadelphia, where it remained till 1800, when it removed to Washington.

In 1778 the Tories and Indians destroyed the Wyoming settlements.

In 1779 Sullivan's expedition against the northern Indians occurred.

In 1780 an act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania was passed which provided for the gradual abolition of negro slavery.

In 1781, by the advice of Robert Morris, Congress incorporated the Bank of North America, which was the first bank in the Union.

In 1782, the controversy with Connecticut about the Luzerne lands was decided in favor of Pennsylvania, by commissioners of Con- gress at Trenton, after full argument and in- vestigation.

In 1784 all the remaining lands owned by the Indians in the State were purchased from the Six Nations by treaty at Fort Stanwix.

In 1789 Harmar's expedition against the western Indians took place.

In 1790 the second State Constitution was adopted.

In 1791 General St. Clair, most of whose troops were from Pennsylvania, was defeated by the Indians.

In 1792 Pennsylvania purchased the Erie triangle of land from the United States gov- ernment.

Between 1792 and 1795 Wayne's operations against the western Indians put an end to their ravages.

In 1803 the name Keystone was first applied to the State. This was in a printed political address to the people. Pennsylvania was the central State of the original thirteen.

In 1834 the common school law was passed.

In 1838 the third State Constitution was adopted. It put an end to the life tenure of office.

In 1845 the great fire at Pittsburgh occurred.

In February, 1856, a number of self- appointed delegates from all parts of the country assembled at Pittsburgh and organized the National Republican party, whose first con- vention met at Philadelphia in June of that year, nominating John C. Fremont for presi- dent and William L. Dayton for vice president.

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Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I, Part 7

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers Number of Pages: 650

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 650