Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 47

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II > Part 47

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Mr. Strong married Mary Sylvessa Bower- sox, a daughter of George Bowersox and Margaret Miller (Hall ) Bowersox, of Clear- field county, Pa., to which union there were born a daughter, Agnes Vera, who died in early womanhood, and a son, Harold LeRoy. who died at the age of fourteen.

Mr. Strong is a member of the Pennsylvania Society of New York ; the Community Club of Brookville; the Pittsburgh Athletic Associa- tion ; the Americus Republican Club of Pitts- burgh; New Bethlehem Lodge, F. & A. M .; Coudersport Consistory, thirty-second degree, Scottish Rite Masons; and Syria Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Pittsburgh. He is a trustee of the Brookville Y. M. C. A., which has erected a fifty thousand dollar building, a steward in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Brookville, president of the Boy Scout Council of Kittanning, and a member of the finance committee of the Boy Scout Council of Brook- ville, and is at present promoting the Brookville Improvement Association, another organiza- tion not for profit, its proposed object being to render assistance to worthy local enterprises.

JAMES TORRENCE, the pioneer tanner at Punxsutawney, one-time associate judge of Jefferson county, and throughout a long life filling a worthy place among its most excellent citizens, was a descendant of that sterling race known as Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who have made so notable a contribution to the development of the Commonwealth of Penn- sylvania. Born in the second decade of the nineteenth century, and living to the beginning of its last decade, he witnessed the most won- derful period of growth in the world's history and himself took an important part in its man- ifestations in his own locality, true to the tra- ditions of an ancestry always found in the forefront of progress, especially in the cause of morality or right.

The proper spelling of the family name is Torrance, but from about 1870 James Tor- rence wrote his name with the "e." His an- cestors were what are known in Ireland as Ulstermen, living in the North of Ireland in the Counties of Derry, Antrim or Down, in the Province of Ulster. The name is found in Scotch and Irish history as far back as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the

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year 1306 two brothers by the name of Tor- rance saved the life of Robert the Bruce. In an article written by R. Torrance, of Sandy- Cove, Dublin, Ireland, to the Glasgow Weekly Herald, this incident is spoken of as follows:

SIR :- Referring to the recent mention in your widely circulated and much read paper regarding the expected celebration of the six hundredth anniver- sary of the battle of Bannockburn, might I be allowed to suggest that the Torrance family should be rep- resented on that occasion and thus help to keep fresh the memory of the two fishermen who saved the life of Robert the Bruce? The fact may not be known to Scotchmen generally that but for the timely ar- rival and help of the two Torrances there might have been no battle of Bannockburn and the whole course of British history been different from what it is today.

In the year 1306, when Bruce and a small com- pany of followers were hard-pressed by John of Lorn-just after the hand-to-hand fight with Lorn, when the brooch was lost which is now in the pos- session of the Macdougalls-Bruce found himself on a narrow neck of land, probably about Knapdale or Cantive, and gave himself up for lost. Two brothers appeared in sight sailing across the strait, and Bruce managed to get in touch with them. They were named Torrance, probably from the Ayrshire or Wigtown coast. Bruce was anxious to get to the Island of Rathlin, off the north coast of Ireland, and thither they conveyed him. On regaining his power and becoming king, he sent for the two men who had proved his rescuers, knighted them and gave them large tracts of land in Ayrshire, and the right to a crest of a boar's head supported by two oars, etc., and the words "We saved the King."

Over twenty years ago, when the late Sir Andrew M. Torrance was a member of the Corporation of London, he was presented by the members with an illuminated address. The crest mentioned is shown thereon, and was duly verified by the Herald Office in Edinburgh.

(Signed) R. TORRANCE.

The forebears of James Torrence emigrated to America at an early date and settled in Cumberland county, Pa. As a historian has said of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish: "Patri- otism was a predominant trait among the early Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of Conococheague (pronounced Kon-o-ka-ghee ) as well as in the whole Kittatinny Valley. They were conspic- uous among the Provincial troops in the French and Indian wars. They sustained nearly the whole burden of defending the frontier, and when a new purchase was made -indeed ofttimes before-they were first to make an opening in the wilderness beyond the mountains. When the alarm of the Revolution echoed along the rocky walls of the Blue Ridge mountains, it awakened a congenial thrill in the hearts of that people, which years before in Scotland and' Ireland had resisted the arbi- trary power of England."

The first authentic history of his forefathers

commences with Hugh Torrance, who lived in the North of Ireland in County Derry or Antrim. He was an officer in the British army under William, Prince of Orange, was in the memorable siege of Derry or Londonderry, and a year later in the battle of the Boyne. He had three sons, James, Albert and Hugh, James living and dying in Ireland, the others emigrating to America some time in the first half of the eighteenth century. Albert Tor- rance settled in what is now Franklin county, but which at that time was the southeastern part of Cumberland county, which county com- prised a large area from which a number of counties were later made. Hugh Torrance settled in Cumberland county, in Conoco- cheague settlement. Their names are found among the taxables or freeholders of Hope- well and Largan townships of 1751.

Albert Torrance was married twice. By his first wife he had a son Hugh, who had a son Hugh. By his second wife he had seven chil- dren, as follows: John, a merchant of Hag- erstown; James, who settled and died east of Pittsburgh; Albert, who died unmarried in the home on Conococheague; Isabella, who married John Ferguson in Conococheague ; Mary, who married Hugh Wiley, near Con- gruity, and moved to Ohio; Jane, who married Thomas McClain, of Chambersburg, and after his death became the wife of Benjamin Kirk- patrick, near Hannastown; and William, who settled near Cincinnati.

Hugh Torrance (2), of Hopewell town- ship, Cumberland county, was born in Ire- land Oct. 10, 1701. He fought well for his adopted country in the Revolutionary war, though he must have been advanced in years when he enlisted in the army. for he is on record as receiving his honorable discharge at the age of eighty-three years. He was married three times. By his first wife, name unknown, he had four children: ( 1) Elizabeth married Joseph McClintic and had fourteen children, of whom four are given, Samuel, Hugh, Joseph and Sarah, these three sons settling in Kentucky. Sarah married Alex. Clark, and lived and died in the Shenandoah valley. She left children. (2) Adam, who moved to North Carolina, was killed in the Revolutionary war. In an old history of Cumberland and Franklin counties his name is found associated with the story of the first Indian massacre in Pennsylvania, on Penn's creek. in 1755. He was one of the party that afterwards went to bury the dead. (3) Elea- nor married a Mr. Overstreet and had three children. William, Sally and Betsy. (4)

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George was drowned. The name of Hugh Torrance's second wife is not known, nor the children, if there were any. His third mar- riage was to Mrs. Sarah Cunningham, a widow with five children: Margaret, married to Jos- seph Huston ; William, married to Margaret Nicholson ; Barnett, married to Ann Wilson ; Ann, married to Robert Clark; and Jane, who lived with her stepfather and tenderly cared for her mother until her death in 1781, after- wards marrying John Blair. Hugh Torrance then went to his daughter, Mrs. Sarah Mc- Clintock, with whom he lived until his death, July 22, 1784, surviving his wife only three years. He had three children by his third wife, James, Hugh and Sarah ( Mrs. McClin- tock), the son Hugh being the ancestor of James Torrence, of Punxsutawney.

James Torrance, eldest son of llugh and Sarah (Cunningham) Torrance, was born Feb. 12, 1744, and settled in Fayette county, Pa. On June 28, 1768, he married Mary McCon- nell, who was born Feb. 24, 1744, and died the mother of five children, as follows: Hugh, born June 29, 1770, who was married May 15, 1798, and had children: Alexander, born March 18, 1772, who married and had two chil- dren, Peggy and Mary ; James and John, twins, born Feb. 13. 1774 (John raised a family near Lancaster, Ohio) ; and Prudence, born April 12, 1776, who married George Collins, and died Sept. 6, 1820, at Georgetown (she had one daughter. Margaret, who became the wife of Matthew Coals). On Feb. 16, 1784, James Torrance married (second ) Margaret Stewart, who was born Oct. 10, 1761, and died May IS, 1848, in her eighty-seventh year. They had ten children, viz. : William, born Nov. 18, 1784, settled in Brown county, Ohio (he had four children) ; Sarah, born March 10, 1786, mar- ried John Clark May 10, 1814, and died May 17, 1820 ( she had one son) ; Ann, born Jan. 15, 1788, was married July 4, 18It, to George Smith, of Dearborn county, Ind., who died Oct. 21, 1825 (they had children) ; Cunning- ham born June 7, 1789, married Mary Cun- ningham Feb. 20, 1820; Margaret, born April 3. 1791, married her cousin Hugh Torrance as his second wife, and died March 24, 1873, in Murrysville, Westmoreland Co., Pa .. at the home of her stepdaughter Hannah (Torrance) Meaner with whom she lived after her hus- band's death (she had no children ) ; Robert, born April 24. 1793, married July 31, 1817, and lived in Madison. Ind. (his family con- sisted of eight children) ; Joseph Huston, born April 26. 1795. married Rebecca Norris (they had two children ) : Mary, born April 17, 1797,

married a Mr. Cunningham Feb. 14. 1816, and lived in Trumbull county, Ohio; Margary, born June 4, 1800, married Alexander Cum- mings Dec. 30. 1823, and died May 18, 1843; Elizabeth ( or Betsy ), born Jan. 7, 1802, mar- ried a Mr. Wilson.

HIugh Torrance (3), second son of Hugh and Sarah (Cunningham) Torrance, was born Nov. 5. 1745, and died June 28, 1830, in his eighty-fifth year. lle first lived in Hopewell township, Cumberland county, in the year 1780 removing to Fayette county, and seven years later, 1787, to Westmoreland county, settling on a tract of land in Franklin township which he had previously purchased and on which he remained until his death. He served through the Revolutionary war in the regiment com- manded by Colonel Cadwallader, being in the battles of Monmouth, the Brandywine, Ger- mantown and others ; was an ensign in Captain Channon's Company of Cumberland County Associates in service in 1776 (see manuscript of Archives of Pennsylvania in State Li- brary) ; commissioned July 31, 1776, as adju- tant of the Ist Battalion of Cumberland County Militia in actual service ( see Pennsyl- vania Archives, 2d Series, Vol. XV, page 392 ). James Torrance, son of Hugh and Mary (Gray) Torrance. remembered his grandfa- ther Hugh quite well, as he was a youth of sixteen when the grandfather died. The Rev- olutionary veteran never changed the style of wearing his hair or his clothing, and carried a cane upon which he leaned heavily. In his younger days he was tall and straight. His grave is in a private burial plot on his own farm. He had seen the Marquis de LaFay- ette as a soldier, and again in his old age had the honor of meeting and talking to him as the General passed along the old State road on his way from Braddock to Pittsburgh in 1825, as the honored guest of the nation. Hugh Torrance, then eighty years old, was visiting at the home of his stepson, George Gray, and desirous of looking once more on the face of this beloved General went out the road over which he was to pass. LaFayette, upon seeing this old man with trembling hand raised in military salute, and no doubt at- tracted by the old familiar three-cornered hat, white hair in a queue tied with bow of black ribbon, military coat, knee breeches, black stockings, low shoes and buckles. stopped to speak to him. On learning he had been a soldier in the Revolutionary war, he invited him to a seat in his carriage, which was gladly accepted. His youngest son Joseph, then serv- ing an apprenticeship in Pittsburgh, accom-

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panied by another young man from the same establishment, started with a crowd out the old Fourth street road to what is now Wilkins- burg, where they met the military which was to escort the honored guest and his party into the city. Making their way through the crowd for a nearer view, Joseph to his great amaze- ment saw his aged father in LaFayette's car- riage. Making his way to it, he was introduced by his father to the General, who, holding his hand, told him if he "proved so good a patriot as his father, and the growing generation the same, this would be a great nation." It was here they left the General and went with their relative to his home at Turtle Creek IHill. Some days afterwards, when LaFayette and his party were coming from Pittsburgh along the old pike, he stopped at a group of boys gathered to see him pass, and to their un- bounded delight shook hands with them. One of these boys was James Torrence, then a lad of thirteen years. The incident of the grandfather's meeting with LaFayette was re- lated to the compiler of this article by J. R. Torrance and told to him forty years ago by Mr. Hugh Francis, aged eighty-six years, who worked in the same shop with Joseph Tor- ance and accompanied him on that day.

On April 13, 1776, Hugh Torrance married Mary Fenton, who was born Nov. 6. 1753, and died Jan. 18. 1795. She was the mother of six children, as follows: Sarah, born July 30. 1777, was married Oct. 7, 1799, to Matthew McKeever (brother of Jane Mckeever Tor- rance ), and died July 25, 1815; Samuel, born July 2, 1780, was married July 4, 1800, to Jane McKeever, born Oct. 1I, 1783 (she died July 16, 1845, he on March 17, 1861) ; Hugh, born Oct. 27. 1782, is mentioned at length below ; Mary (or Polly ), born Feb. 24, 1785, married William Parks Oct. 9. 1817, and died Feb. 5. 1851 (she had one daughter, Mary, who mar- ried Joseph Clark and lived in Manor, West- moreland county ) ; Jane, born July 7. 1787, died unmarried ; Isabel, born March 5. 1789. died Sept. 22, 1793. After the death of his wife Mary (Fenton ) Hugh Torrance mar- ried Mrs. Mary ( Borland) Gray on Feb. 28, 1797. She was born Dec. 25, 1766, and died Dec. 16, 1838. Their five children were: James, born Dec. 4. 1797, married Mary Jane Peoples Dec. 9. 1819; William Gray, born March 2, 1799, married Margaret McCabe July 15, 1821, and died May 1, 1878; Adam, born April 24, 1801, married Nov. 5. 1832, Elizabeth Graham, who was born Jan. 31, 1810, and died in 1881, his death occurring at the advanced age of eighty-one years (they

had six children) ; Joseph, born Aug. 27, 1807, married Sarah Peoples (sister of Jane Peo- ples Torrance), who died May 13, 1888, his death occurring April 26, 1876 ( they had seven children; they lived in Beardstown, near Blairsville, Pa.) ; Albert, born April 1, 1803, married Elizabeth Lorimer and died in 1878 ( they had three children). By her first mar- riage Mrs. Mary (Borland) Torrance had three children, James, George and John. All the children of Hugh Torrance were born in the old home, Manor Dale, Franklin township, Westmoreland county, which he inherited from his father.

Hugh Torrance (4), son of Hugh and Mary (Fenton) Torrance, was born Oct. 27, 1782, and married Mary Gray Sept. 20, 1803. She died Sept. 25, 1822, the mother of ten chil- dren, namely : Mary ( or Polly), born Oct. 7, 1804, married a Mr. Calhoun, and died Feb. 18, 1887; Sarah, born Aug. 12, 1806, married a Mr. McConnel (no children ) ; Fenton, born Sept. 18, 1808, married Elizabeth Lorimer, and had eight children ; Hugh, born Aug. 20, 1810, married, and died Sept. 27, 1885; James, born Aug. 3. 1812, is mentioned at length below ; John, born Nov. 3, 1814, died young ; Eliza Jane, born Dec. 12, 1816, married a Mr. Cal- len, and died April 5, 1853: Hannah Gray, born Aug. 12, 1818, married a Mr. Meaner and (second) George Grier, and died in Greens- burg, Pa .; Samuel, born in December, 1819, married, and is deceased; William G., born Sept. 1, 1822, married Ellen J. Martin Sept. 13, 1840, and was killed in the Civil war. For his second wife Hugh Torrance (4) married Margaret Torrance, a cousin. There were 110 children by this union.

It was just at the beginning of our country's second war with England, after a little more than a quarter century of peace, that James Torrence was born, .Aug. 3, 1812, among the hills of old Pennsylvania, in the Manor dis- trict of Franklin township, Westmoreland county, to Flugh and Mary (Gray) Torrance. He was named for an uncle of his father, whose daughter Margaret years afterwards became his stepmother. He was baptized in the Presbyterian faith of his fathers, and early instructed in Bible truths. Committing to memory the Westminster shorter catechism was then the daily task of the young people. Indeed, it was taught in the schools, whose pupils were mostly from Presbyterian fami- lies, who supported them. On the Sabbath they were required to answer from memory the questions studied through the week. So thoroughly were these instilled in their young

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minds they were never forgotten. The fam- ily was catechised by the minister on his pas- toral calls, which event was looked forward to with pleasure by the older folks, but by the children with trembling hearts lest they fail to answer correctly the questions asked them, thereby casting un- pleasant reflections on their training as good Presbyterians. In those days the "token" was still in use at the communion season. This was a small metal disk with a stamped design, given to the heads of families to be presented at the communion table to show they were entitled to be there. The custom was a relic of the times when their forefathers were per- secuted for their faith and obliged to hold their religious services in secret, ofttimes among the wild mountain crags, for fear of their enemies. Even there they were not left in peace. Spies under the guise of friendship would find the meeting place, and they were dispersed by armed force and even with blood- shed. So to protect themselves this method was adopted todistinguish friend from foe. The Presbyterians brought the "token" with them across the ocean to this great free land of America, where it was used many years in memory of what had been. It was finally dis- pensed with, and a few are still kept in fami- lies as precious heirlooms.

James Torrence grew up as other boys raised on a farm in those days, attending school part of the time and helping with the work as he grew older. When about ten years of age he lost his mother, whose place in the house- hold was taken by his eldest sister, Mary, who with patient faithfulness assisted, the father to raise his large family of sturdy boys and girls into useful lives, as the love and esteem in which they all held her testified. James fa- vored his father more than any of the other children. He was lively and full of mischief, and in his later years often spoke of inci- dents of his boyhood days, particularly one which happened when he was seven or eight years old. His father had purchased a barrel of brown sugar, and the children were strictly forbidden to go to it without permission. But James had a sweet tooth .. and the longer he thought about it the greater his desire. until the temptation proved too strong and he yielded. He had filled his hat half full of sugar when he heard someone coming, and elapping it on his head quickly he escaped without being seen, but not with a very pleas- ant feeling over what had been done. He knew he was in the wrong, and his conscience was busy, as also the consequences from discovery

loomed large before him. Shortly afterwards his mother noticed sugar strewn along the floor. She began to make inquiries, but found out nothing until she came to Jim, whose looks betrayed him. When his father examined his head and found it full of brown sugar he was very angry at his son's disobedience, but he made it a rule never to punish when he was angry, so he told the boy he would attend to him the next morning. The anticipation was no small part of the punishment, which he received duly, together with a lecture on the sin of stealing so faithfully impressed that he never forgot it.

In those days the minds of the boys were filled with the daring deeds of early border warfare, and hearts still thrilled with patriotic fervor over the heroic struggle made and won for independence scarce half a century before, and brought very near by the aged grandfather in the home, who had been with Washington at Valley Forge, with the brave Anthony Wayne at Brandywine, Germantown, Mon- mouth and other battles, and an admirer of the gallant LaFayette. In his younger days James Torrence served as a second lieutenant in the State militia, with Company 4. His spirit is well illustrated by an incident of his young manhood. He was apprenticed in a tanning establishment near Pittsburgh and learned the trade, remaining four years. It was customary for masters to give apprentice- ship or finishing papers to apprentices when they attained the age of twenty-one, but he received his a short time before. Andrew Jackson, the Democratic nominee, was run- ning for president the second time, in 1832, and was greatly admired for his war record, especially by the younger people, among them James Torrence, who though not of the Demo- cratic party decided to cast a vote for him if possible, though not yet privileged to do so legally. He determined to see how near he could come to it, though he expected to be challenged. Making an early start, he arrived shortly after the polls opened, and upon being asked if he was of age replied, "I have received my apprenticeship papers." An acquaintance standing near said, "Yes, I can vouch for that, for I have seen them." He was allowed the bal- lot, and cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson -the first and last time he ever voted for a Democratic president. Then he thought it ad- visable not to linger in the vicinity, knowing his father and older brother Hugh were com- ing, the latter to cast his first vote. When they arrived the father was asked about Jim and replied that he was not quite of age. "Well,

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he has been here and voted," he was told. "Did he tell you he was of age? I can't be- lieve my son would do that." "Does he not have his apprenticeship papers?" "Yes, he received them a little sooner than is usual." "Then that is our mistake. Ile said he had his papers, and let us infer what we chose." Then they wanted him brought back to tell for whom he had voted, in order to throw the vote out, but he had vanished, so the vote remained. "And that is how I voted for An- drew Jackson," he remarked in telling the incident long years after to his daughter. "But my first legal vote was cast for William Henry Harrison, 1836, in Punxsutawney, and I have voted at every presidential election since." An unusual happening this-his first legal vote for the grandfather, and his last for the grandson, Benjamin Harrison, in 1888.

Having finished his trade James Torrence began to look around for a suitable location, friends advising him to choose the vicinity of some large town. As Pittsburgh was then a growing city, with the prospect of becoming a manufacturing center, he considered it for a time, but his inclination was more towards the frontier part of the State, which to his people seemed the extreme edge of civilization. The call to the wilds finally conquered, and in the early fall of 1832 he started on horseback by way of Saltsburg and Kittanning for Jef- ferson county, to see what prospects were of- fered for business. His father had given him one thousand dollars, a small sum for a business venture at the present, but in those days of barter and exchange, when cash was scarce, a thousand dollars seemed a very fair amount, having a purchasing power many times greater than its present-day value. He came to Brookville, a small village situated on Red Bank creek near the mouth of Sandy Lick. It had been made the county seat about two years prior to this time. Jefferson county covered a much larger area than at present, having more than one thousand square miles up to 1843. when part was taken to help form Elk county, and five years later more went to form Forest county. After spending sev- eral days in Brookville looking over the situ- ation. Mr. Torrence was not satisfied and decided to move on farther north. He went through forests of magnificent timber, mostly pine and hemlock, to what is now the borough of Reynoldsville, then consisting of only two or three cabins in the midst of small clear- ings. At one of these he obtained lodging for himself and horse over night. lle was in- formed of a village with the Indian name

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Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 47

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers Number of Pages: 972

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972