USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 10
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It is a reasonable inference that many places in Penn- sylvania were not given buffalo names merely through ca- price. Buffalo Mills and mountain in Bedford county, Buf- falo mountain and valley in Union county, Buffalo creeks in Washington, Perry, Union, and other counties, and Buf- falo townships in several counties in Central and Western Pennsylvania are prima facie evidence that buffaloes had once frequented the localities to which their name had been given. There is a tradition that the last buffalo in Bedford county was killed at Buffalo Mills. Rhoads says that there are sure proofs of the existence of the buffalo along the Casselman river in Somerset county. The last buffalo in Pennsylvania was probably killed in Union county about 1790, as will presently be shown.
Some of the buffalo localities referred to above are in Central Pennsylvania, east of the Alleghenies. In Professor Hornaday's map illustrating his monograph he indicates that the range of the buffalo in Pennsylvania extended as far east as Harrisburg. Neither William Penn nor any other early writer mentions the buffalo in Eastern Penn- sylvania, although Gabriel Thomas in 1698 says that the buffalo was found in the province. Hulbert often men- tions buffalo paths in Central and Western Pennsylvania.
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Professor Allen carries far to the eastward his investi- gations of the presence of the buffalo in Pennsylvania and finds proofs of its existence in Union county in the Susquehanna valley. He quotes from a letter written on March 14, 1876, by Professor Loomis, of the University of Lewisburg, to Professor Hamlin, in which letter Loomis copies as follows from a letter received by him from J. Wolfe : "Since seeing you this morning I have had a conversation with Dr. Beck, and he informs me that buf- faloes, at an early day, were very abundant in this valley, and that the valley received its name from that circum- stance. The doctor received his information from Colonel John Kelly, who was a prominent and early settler in this valley. Kelly told the doctor that he shot the last one that was seen in the valley. Kelly received his infor- mation of the abundance of buffaloes from an old Indian named Logan, friendly to the whites, and who remained among the whites after the Indians were driven away."
On March 30, 1876, Professor Loomis wrote again to Professor Hamlin, from which letter Allen quotes as fol- lows: "I sought an interview with Dr. Beck. The Colo- nel Kelly referred to was a soldier and an officer in the Revolutionary war. (He died in 1832, aged 88 years.) He owned a farm about five miles from Lewis- burg, in Kelly township, which was named after him. About 1790-1800 Colonel Kelly was out with his gun on the McClister farm, (which joined that of Colonel Kelly,) and just at evening saw and shot a buffalo. His dog was young and at so late an hour he did not allow it to pursue. The next morning he went to hunt his game but did not find it. Nearly a week later word was brought him that it had been found dead, some mile or two away. He found the information correct but the animal had been considerably torn and eaten by wolves. He regarded the animal as a stray one and had never heard of any in the valley at a later day. Dr. Beck had the account from Colonel Kelly about three months before his death. The colonel repeated the statement of the friendly Indian, Logan, who said that buffaloes had been very abundant. He, Dr. Beck, had the same statement from Michael
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Grove, also one of the first settlers in the valley. . . I was more particular than I should ordinarily have been because this is about the last stage when reliable tradi- tion can be had." Allen says : " This, of course, affords satisfactory proof of the former existence of the buffalo in the region of Lewisburg, which forms the most easterly point to which the buffalo has been positively traced." The valley referred to by Dr. Beck near the top of the preceding page was Buffalo valley, in Union county.
In Watson's Annals, published in 1857, it is stated that "the latest notice of buffaloes nearest to our region of country is mentioned in 1730, when a gentleman from the Shenandoah, Virginia, saw there a buffalo killed of 1,000 pounds, and several others came in a drove at the same time." As the Shenandoah valley is an extension of the Cumberland valley in Pennsylvania it is easily to be inferred that if buffaloes would come into one valley they would naturally invade the other. Hence it is alto- gether probable that the bones found by Professor Baird near Carlisle were what he supposed them to be, Carlisle being in the Cumberland valley.
The foregoing summary of facts relating to the buffalo abundantly proves its existence in Central Pennsylvania as well as in Western Pennsylvania down to a period cotemporaneous with the close of the Revolutionary war.
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CHAPTER X.
EARLY TRANSPORTATION IN PENNSYLVANIA.
THE opening of means of communication between the different parts of Pennsylvania in the early days of its settlement was slow and often difficult. In the lowlands along the Delaware bridle paths followed the lines of In- dian trails, while canoes, skiffs, and small boats were used on the streams and rivers. Afterwards wagon roads were cut through the forests to meet neighborhood wants, al- though for many years carts and sleds were more gener- ally used on these roads than wagons. When they could not be forded streams and rivers were crossed by canoes, skiffs, and rafts, and later by ferries. A ferry over the Schuylkill at Market street, Philadelphia, was in operation in 1685. In time some of the roads were extended so that communication could be opened with the more or less remote parts of Pennsylvania and to connect with other roads leading to New York, Baltimore, and other places of importance, but there was no noteworthy movement to improve the condition of the roads for a hundred years. Ferries were established over the principal streams as the country was opened to settlement. Harris's ferry, which crossed the Susquehanna where Harrisburg now stands, and Wright's ferry, which crossed the same stream at Wrightsville, were established about 1735. One of the ear- liest ferries in Western Pennsylvania was Devore's ferry, on the Monongahela river, where Monongahela City now stands, which was established about 1770. The Belle Ver- non ferry, on the Monongahela, was established between 1767 and 1769. Ferries at Pittsburgh date from 1779.
Bridges were not built over any of the large rivers of Pennsylvania until about the beginning of the last decade of the eighteenth century and in the next two decades, fer- ries having been mainly relied on previous to this period, and, of course, were continued as necessity required. The first bridge over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, at Market
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street, was commenced in 1800 and it was opened for use in 1805. The second bridge over the Schuylkill, at Callow- hill street, was completed in 1812. The first bridge over the Monongahela at Pittsburgh was the Smithfield street bridge, built in 1818, and the first bridge over the Alle- gheny at Pittsburgh was the St. Clair street bridge, com- pleted in 1820. Ringwalt quotes from a report on roads and bridges, which was read in the Senate of Pennsylvania in 1822, the following dates of the incorporation of some of the early bridge companies : " Bridge over the Susquehan- na, four miles below Wrightsville, 1793 ; over the Delaware, at Easton, 1795; over the Lehigh, near Bethlehem, 1797; over the Delaware, at Trenton, 1798." A notable bridge over the Conemaugh, at Blairsville, was completed in 1821. It was a single-arch Wernwag bridge, 300 feet long.
For many years after wagon roads were opened in Eastern Pennsylvania bridle paths were in use in the central and western parts of the State, and along these paths the pioneers made their way on horseback and on foot and the necessaries of life were transported on pack- horses. Rupp, writing in 1848, says that "sixty or sev- enty years ago five hundred pack-horses had been at one time in Carlisle, going thence to Shippensburg, Fort Lou- don, and farther westward, loaded with merchandise, also salt, iron, etc." Day says that "Mercersburg, in Franklin county, was in early days an important point for trade with Indians and settlers on the western frontier. It was no uncommon event to see there 50 or 100 pack-horses in a row, taking on their loads of salt, iron, and other com- modities for the Monongahela country." A pack-horse train has been described as follows: "A train of pack-horses consisted of from five to a dozen and even more, tethered by a hitching rope one behind the other. The master of the train rode before or followed after the horses and di- rected their movements by his voice. About fifteen miles per day were traveled in this manner, and each horse car- ried about 200 pounds' burden. The harness consisted of a pack-saddle and a halter, and the lead horse often had, in addition, a circling band of iron over his withers attached to the saddle and to which were hung several bells, whose
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tinkling in a way relieved the monotony of the journey and kept the horses from going astray."
The pack-horse required the use of a pack-saddle. It is thus described by a writer in a Pittsburgh newspaper on early transportation in Western Pennsylvania : "It was made of four pieces of wood, two being notched, the notch- es fitting along the horse's back, with the front part rest- ing upon the animal's withers. The other two were flat pieces about the length and breadth of a lap shingle, per- haps eighteen inches by five inches. They extended along the sides and were fastened to the ends of the notched pieces. Upon these saddles were placed all kinds of mer- chandise. Bars of iron were bent in the middle and hung across ; large creels of wicker-work, containing babies, bed- clothing, and farm implements, as well as kegs of powder, caddies of spice, bags of salt, sacks of charcoal, and boxes of glass, were thus carried over the mountains. Shop- keepers from Pittsburgh went to Philadelphia in squads of eight or ten to lay in their yearly supply of goods and brought them to this city in this manner."
In 1792 the turnpike era in the history of Pennsyl- vania had its beginning, when the construction of the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike was undertaken by a company. It was finished between the two cities in 1794, a distance of 62 miles, at a cost of $465,000, con- tributed entirely by stockholders in the company, a great financial achievement for that day. This turnpike was the first to be built in the United States. It gave a great im- petus to western travel through Pennsylvania, as it was almost immediately followed by other turnpikes and by the improvement of old roads-all leading to Pittsburgh. Before its construction travelers from New England, New York, and New Jersey for the West through Pennsylvania passed through Easton and Reading to the Susquehanna, which they usually crossed at Harris's ferry.
Soon after the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike was built over a hundred other turnpikes were projected in Pennsylvania and many were built, the first three decades of the nineteenth century being prolific of turnpikes. Most of these enterprises were of only local interest, connecting
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towns that were not far apart, usually county-seats, but others were longer and of commercial importance. The junction of two or more of these turnpikes afforded con- tinuous turnpike communication between widely separated commercial centres. Turnpike roads connected Philadel- phia with Pittsburgh by two distinct routes, which were generally known as the Northern and Southern turnpikes, although each route embraced more than one turnpike. Nearly all the turnpike companies were aided by State appropriations. The Lancaster Turnpike was not so aided.
The Conestoga wagons and Conestoga horses of the German and Swiss farmers of Eastern Pennsylvania were famous before the building of the Lancaster Turnpike and its western connections, but after this turnpike was built they became objects of interest as far west as Pittsburgh. In 1789 Dr. Benjamin Rush described the Conestoga wag- on and its horses in the following words : "A large strong wagon, (the ship of inland commerce,) covered with a lin- en cloth, is an essential part of the furniture of a German farm. In this wagon, drawn by four or five horses of a peculiar breed, they convey to market, over the roughest roads, 2,000 and 3,000 pounds' weight of the produce of their farms. In the months of September and October it is no uncommon thing, on the Lancaster and Reading roads, to meet in one day fifty or one hundred of these wagons on their way to Philadelphia, most of which be- long to German farmers." Many Conestoga wagons and horses came from Lancaster county, which in Dr. Rush's day embraced a large part of Lebanon county. After- wards they greatly increased in number and formed an important factor in the internal commerce of Pennsyl- vania down to almost the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury, when the canals and railroads of the State rendered their further use on a large scale unnecessary. It has been authoritatively stated that as early as 1790 ten thousand Conestoga wagons were needed for the traffic of Philadelphia.
Between 1830 and 1840 the era of turnpike building culminated. The people of Pennsylvania were then look- ing to canals and railroads for means of communication.
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In the next ten or fifteen years plank roads became popu- lar as substitutes for turnpikes for short distances and many were built, but their popularity soon waned. Town- ship roads without solid stone foundations are still too much in evidence in Pennsylvania, although it is now the policy of the State to aid in the improvement of these roads substantially after the style of the best turnpikes. Many of the old turnpikes are still maintained in excellent condition, as are also many of the early roads.
" Dear roads that wind around the hill, Here to a church and there to a mill, And wind and wind as old roads will."
In colonial days the two most notable roads in Penn- sylvania were built for military purposes-Braddock's Road, following a noted Indian path, Nemacolin's, built in 1755, and Forbes's Road, built in 1758, both crossing the Allegheny mountains and penetrating the wilderness of Western Pennsylvania. Braddock's Road began at Cum- berland, Maryland, and entered Pennsylvania in Somerset county, and Forbes's Road began at Bedford, Pennsylva- nia. Both roads had Fort Du Quesne as their objective point, and both were built nearly the whole way to that place. After the direct objects for which they were built -the transportation of troops-had been accomplished these roads served a useful purpose in enabling thousands of pioneers to cross the Alleghenies into the western part of Pennsylvania and the Ohio valley, Forbes's Road be- ing, however, much more used by the pioneers than Brad- dock's, although the latter was the main highway for emi- grants from Virginia and Maryland. Forbes's Road was also used for military purposes in Colonel Bouquet's expe- dition against the Indian uprising under Pontiac in 1763, and during the Revolution it was the direct route from the East to Fort Pitt. Hulbert says that "for thirty years after it was built it was the main highway across the mountains." After the Revolution, in 1785, Pennsylvania began the work of improving Forbes's Road and also the road leading from Carlisle to Bedford, and this work was carried on for several years. The distance from Carlisle
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to Pittsburgh by this route was 197 miles. This road was generally known as the State Road, and for many years it was more traveled than any other road in Pennsylvania. During the second and succeeding decades of the nine- teenth century turnpikes took its place.
Hulbert quotes from the correspondence in 1758 be- tween General Forbes, Sir John St. Clair, and Colonel Bou- quet sufficient testimony to settle the long disputed loca- tion of Kickenapawling's town, Kickenapawling being an Indian chief. This correspondence proves conclusively that this much discussed place was in Somerset county, on the line of Forbes's Road and not far distant from the present town of Jenner Cross Roads-about five miles west of the crossing of Quemahoning creek. The reader will find the correspondence in Hulbert's Historic Highways, volume 5. Post's second journal, which has been relied upon to es- tablish the identity of Kickenapawling's town with Johns- town, shows that Post was never near Johnstown.
At a later day, immediately after the close of the Rev- olution, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, by act of March 29, 1787, directed that commissioners should be ap- pointed to survey a highway over the Allegheny moun- tains between the waters of the Frankstown branch of the Juniata river and the Conemaugh river. By the same act the commissioners, having surveyed the proposed road, were further directed to trace the course of another road, beginning at the termination of the first mentioned road, and leading along "the left bank of the Conemaugh" to that point "where the river began to be navigable at all seasons." Down to this time communication between the Juniata and the Conemaugh valleys had been maintained by bridle paths. The commissioners were appointed, and on December 18, 1787, their report of the survey they had made was confirmed by the Council of the Commonwealth, the Constitution of 1776 being still in force. On Septem- ber 25, 1788, the opening of both roads was contracted for by Robert Galbraith, then the prothonotary of Bedford county. The contract was for the whole length of road from Frankstown, now in Blair county, to the point where the Conemaugh " began to be navigable at all seasons."
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This point was seventy miles east of Pittsburgh by water. On January 4, 1790, Mr. Galbraith wrote to the Council that, agreeably to contract, he had opened the road from Frankstown to the mouth of Blacklick creek. The Black- lick enters the Conemaugh from the north, a short dis- tance below Blairsville, in Indiana county. At its mouth there once stood a small town called Newport. A ferry connected Newport with the opposite shore of the Cone- maugh in Westmoreland county. The Frankstown Road was subsequently, about 1791, extended by way of this ferry to Pittsburgh, and its name is retained in Franks- town avenue of that city. It crossed the Alleghenies through Blair's Gap in Blair county and through the cen- tral part of Cambria county near Ebensburg, thence pass- ing near or through Armagh in Indiana county and north of Blairsville to its terminus at the mouth of Blacklick creek. This was the original Frankstown Road, and, like Braddock's and Forbes's roads, it was a thoroughfare con- necting the eastern and western parts of Pennsylvania. It was succeeded early in the nineteenth century by the so-called Northern Turnpike, which was otherwise known as the Huntingdon Turnpike.
There was, however, another Frankstown Road, taking its name from the fact that its eastern terminus was also at Frankstown. This road was authorized by an act of the General Assembly dated April 10, 1792, which pro- vided for the opening of a road from Poplar run, in the present county of Blair, "to Conemaugh at the mouth of Stony creek and from thence to the northwest side of the Chestnut ridge, at or near Thomas Trimble's." This road was made promptly, at least as far west as the mouth of the Stony creek at Johnstown, beginning at Frankstown and passing through the southern parts of Blair and Cam- bria counties. It is marked on Howell's map of 1792 and on Morse's map of 1796. It is still in use between Johns- town and Blair county and is known as the Frankstown Road. The most important service of this road was in the transportation of merchandise, chiefly iron from the Juni- ata valley, to Johnstown, at which point flatboat naviga- tion to Pittsburgh began. There is no accessible record of
.
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its having ever been extended from Johnstown to Thomas Trimble's, "to the northwest side of the Chestnut ridge," but it was certainly built from Johnstown westward into the Ligonier valley some time after 1799.
In the history of Salem church, in Derry township, Westmoreland county, prepared by John Barnett, one of its early elders, occurs the following account of an inci- dent that could not have happened in our day : " It is said that during the pastorate of Rev. Mr. Lee (1813 to 1819) Esquire Kinkaid, on his way to church, saw an emigrant traveling on the old Frankstown Road. He went on to church and consulted with Squire Barnett. They conclud- ed that such a violation of the Sabbath law ought not to be permitted, and mounting their horses they overtook the man on Donnelly's (now Beatty's) hill and made him rest according to God's commandments." Beatty's hill is several miles northeast of Greensburg. The Frankstown Road referred to was a continuation of the Blacklick line.
A road of national importance, usually styled the Na- tional Road but sometimes the Cumberland Road, was un- dertaken by the Government of the United States in 1806 with the patriotic object of opening a highway between the East and the West and thus aiding in more strongly cementing these two sections of our country. The road was planned to pass westward from Cumberland through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to a point on the Ohio river, afterwards fixed at Wheeling, and thence into Ohio and eventually farther west, thus realizing the early dream of Washington, who had for many years before his death advocated a closer union of the East and the West through the creation of transportation facilities between these sections. Work on the construction of this road was commenced at Cumberland in 1811, and the road was fin- ished to Wheeling and opened to the public in 1818, a dis- tance of 112 miles, of which 24} miles were in Maryland, 75₺ were in Pennsylvania, and 12 were in Virginia, now West Virginia. It was 40 feet wide at its narrowest point and 80 feet at its widest. The road in Pennsylvania pass- ed through Somerset, Fayette, Westmoreland, and Wash- ington counties. After 1818 it was extended into Ohio,
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Indiana, and Illinois. Until after 1850 it was a much used thoroughfare, both for passengers and freight, and it accomplished all the desirable results which had originally been claimed for it. After 1850 its use, which had gradu- ally been yielding to the competition of the canals and railroads, and also to the competition of steamboat navi- gation on the Ohio, rapidly declined, except for local pur- poses, and for these purposes parts of it, especially in Pennsylvania, are still kept in good condition, although no longer under the care of the United States. The in- fluence of the National Road in the development of the country west of the Alleghenies has been very great.
Joseph W. Hunter, State Highway Commissioner for Pennsylvania, says in his report for 1906 that the Na- tional Road in the counties of Fayette and Washington, which had been under the care of the State since 1835, was placed under the care of the State Highway Depart- ment by act of April 10, 1905, and the sum of $100,000 was appropriated for its improvement. Tolls were abol- ished by the act, and all the toll houses, except two, had been sold and removed beyond the line of the road. Ten miles of the road, five miles in each of the counties of Fayette and Washington, were to be reconstructed at once.
In the early days the cost of transportation between the eastern and western parts of Pennsylvania by bridle paths, pioneer wagon roads, and turnpikes was a serious matter. " The good old times" were accompanied by great drawbacks and this was one of them. In Washington's diary of his trip to Western Pennsylvania in 1784 he says, speaking of Pennsylvania : "There are in that State at least 100,000 souls west of the Laurel hill who are groaning under the inconvenience of a long land transportation." In 1784 the freight rate from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh on pack-horses, then the only method of long distance transportation that was in use, was 12} cents per pound, while in 1786 a rate of $10.50 per hundredweight (112 pounds) was charged for the same distance. In 1784 it cost $249 to carry a ton of merchandise from Philadelphia to Erie on pack-horses; in 1789 it cost $3 to carry a hun- dred pounds of merchandise from Hagerstown, Maryland,
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over the Allegheny mountains to Brownsville, Pennsylva- nia; and in 1793 it cost $75 a ton to carry bars of iron from Centre county, Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh. All the roads were uniformly bad. In 1803 the charge for hauling most articles of merchandise from Baltimore to Pittsburgh was $4.50 per hundred pounds and from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh the charge was $5.
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