While these fortifications varied considerably in design and size, the most common plan was the stockade. Thus they toiled heavily on till the main ridge of the Alleghenies, a mighty wall of green, rose up before them; and they began their zigzag progress up the woody heights amid the sweltering heat of July. The next day the infantry passed on their way, and on the evening following the Cavalry having the prisoners in charge encamped on the same ground. At the very crest of the mountain the sparkling springs spilled toward the rising sun to mingle with the flood of the Susquehanna. The Red Man saw and was pleased, and gave thanks in his fashion to Manitou, the Great Spirit that ruled over the forests, the rivers, and the glittering stars. But wait, Indians and loyal subject to His Majesty King George III also build fires. The young schoolmaster, after surveying and questioning his home spun class for a few minutes dismissed school with the admonition, "Och! Wells located at the forks of the Quemahoning and Stony Creek, near the site of the old Indian town of Kickenapaulin with McMullen and Smiley as his nearest neighbors. Still the Red Men listened with the ears of their fathers. General Forbes and the Great Road In their path was the future Somerset County. Algonquin was a name to be spelled out; an all embracing name subordinated by lesser words such as Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, Pottawattomies, Sacs and Foxes. [Source: The History of Bedford and Somerset Counties by Blackburn and Welfley, published in 1906. The rules were: "The undersigned hereby agree to form themselves into an association to encourage the destruction of wolves, by subscribing and paying two shillings for each wolf scalp killed within the settlement or within a circuit of ten miles, Col. Brown's to be considered the centre, but each person bringing in the scalp shall become a member of the company and a joint contributor before receiving the premium on the scalp." FREDRIC DOYLE The settler with his gnarled hands still grasping the plow handles nodded to a sixteen year old boy to unyoke the team of oxen. He had his finger on the throbbing pulse of colonial affairs of the day, and through Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson, and their contemporaries, he kept abreast of the great scientific discoveries of the age. The Red Coats would return. This he did in the form of a number of prisoners who were paraded through the streets of Philadelphia with placards pinned on their breasts bearing the word, "Insurgent.". See author's posts. Apple orchards, cleared lands, and military and civil records are fitting monuments for the spirits of these brave pioneers. While it marshals and brings to the surface the sub-beastial instincts, it also awakens nobler passions. Arriving here about the first of May they pitched their tents, after which the "men folks" went forth to select a portion of land on which to build a home for himself and his family. and the dark waters that danced at the foot of the Laurel Mountains. The waspish twang of the stone tipped arrow scattered the flocks-leaving one flapping helplessly. The account of the manner of their capture carries with it the same tone that harmonizes with the whole affair. Chapter 1, pages 1- 9. Th e county of Somerset was created on April 17, 1795 from the western part of Bedford County and was named for Somersetshire, England. Maryland authorities encouraged settlers with both a liberal land policy and religious tolerance, attracting persecuted Quakers and others to settle in Somerset County in the early 1660s. These settlers had been previously warned in 1763 by a royal proclamation of both the Pennsylvania and Virginia governors, and upon other occasions. Added to the constant menace of the Indians were the wolves that preyed upon live stock that was abandoned by the settlers who fled across the mountains. Somerset Settlement His assessment was $50 and his tax was 25 cents. A man named Jones built a grist mill on Jones run about 1778, which was the first mill built anywhere in the ancient Somerset settlement. Fort Stony Creek They were constructed at strategic points near the summits of the Allegheny Mountains and the Laurel Hills with intervening stockades and entrenchments spaced a few miles apart. We had a porch on one side of the house from which the musicians were invited to play. The keen eye of the hunter caught the wolf in the crotch of his buckhorn sight. They were: Jacob Saylor, John Saylor, Christian Knaigey, Christian Berkey, Peter Fahrney, Michael Buechley, John Olinger, John Burger, and the Burntrangers. Contrasting the mental attitudes of these early pioneers in their respective clearings we find one settler in the southern area of the Glades pondering: "I, always a noncombatant of the Quaker school, in the midst of a howling wilderness, not a fellow-being within ten miles of me that I knew of, a stranger to the use of firearms left in my care and for my defense, liable at any moment to be attacked by the primitive claimants of the domain on which I was a trespasser-then again the thought of shedding the blood of a fellow creature would rise up in all its horrible features." The pioneers of Somerset County (called Bedford County at the time) were no exceptions. Log cabins mushroomed overnight, clustering together, and taking names like Berlin, Somerset, Meyersdale, and Stoystown. Traveling west across the Allegheny Mountains they made their first overnight stop with Jack Miller at Edmond's Swamp, March 30, 1762. Land on the Eastern Shore proved less suited to tobacco growing than other sections of the Chesapeake region, although nearly all settlers there raised . At other points along this road we find Daniel Stoy, Casper Statler, Richard Wells, James McMullen, Robert Smiley, and Calender. In the early half of the eighteenth century when a man crossed the Susquehanna River at Harris's Ferry, and headed into the wilderness of the West he was a law unto himself. Thereafter this trail was known as the Forbes Road or Bouquet's Road or the Great Road. Bouquet stated that it was of the utmost importance to hold the few remaining forts along the Road which contained stores and munitions, the capture of which by the Indians would lead to the worst consequences. Contributed for use by the Bedford County Genealogy Project Divisions or partitions of logs separated the cabins from each other. reverberated against the eastern wall of the Allegheny Mountains in the year of our Lord 1492. Those who did were introduced to them by the way of well thumbed Bibles. , WARNER, BEERS & CO, 1885 HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND AND ADAMS COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA. 1748 - The Ohio Company is formed by Virginia gentlemen, including two of George Washington's brothers, to affect settlement in southwestern Pennsylvania and carry on Indian trade on a large scale. He had 47 acres of land with 3 cleared and a house. Somerset County PA Civil War Veterans' Census This database is an index to individuals enumerated in the 1890 special census of Civil War Union veterans and widows of veterans and includes names of surviving soldiers, sailors, and marines, and widows; rank; name of regiment or vessel; date of enlistment; date of discharge, length of service . The extent of the circle of their traplines depended upon the number of steel traps they had in their possession, but the range covered by the hunter himself and his long rifle was limited only by the hunter's physical endurance. Faced with a $77,000,000 war debt, Hamilton conceived the idea of placing a small tax on all spiritous liquors. Transcribed and donated by Batha Karr <batha.karr@gmail.com>. They became the first settlers; the first died about eleven and the last about twenty years since. He pastured his sheep along the rocky hillside. How to Apply Frequently Asked Questions Listed in this table are the qualifying ancestorsthose whose residency in Pennsylvania falls within one of the required time periodsfrom First Families applications approved to date. Salisbury Pennsylvania History Jack Miller with his clearing and cabin at Edmond's Swamp is jogging along the old Forbes Road at the head of a convoy of pack horses. glades, and the gurgle of the infant rivers. Bare feet were the vogue in summertime. Ostensibly the order was to prevent fresh clashes with the Indians from whom this land was not yet purchased. Being too ill to ride, he was carried on a litter from fort to fort across Somerset County to view for the last time the Great Road that he had built. At length from the windy summits the Highland soldiers could gaze around upon a boundless panorama of forest covered mountains wilder than their own native hills. For an instant all the weariness of the day gives way to a feeling of exultation; at last after many years he has found his old friend. The hunter's frock, a knee-length fringed. Coon skin caps, buck skin shirts, and leather stockings were further protection against sleet and snow. From the Cornplanter Indians to early settlers, through plague and disaster, to its war heroes and sports exploits, discover the charm of this southwestern Pennsylvania town. Among the settlers who came in 1774 and 1775 were: Christian Ankeny, Peter Ankeny, Jacob Barnhart, Peter Barnhart, John Rowley, James Black, George Barron, Nicholas Barron, Young, Kifer, and Doom. Sheltered by, half-faced cabins, that is, a log lean-to with the roof covered with bark or skins, and the whole front open to the weather, these hunters selected for themselves isolated valleys or coves. ", Sparks, leaning on the long barrel of his flintlock, said in utter astonishment, "You come out here into the wilderness and no gun! Frontispiece There were fish; slim speckled trout, white suckers, and bass that seemed to wait only the spear thrust. Jefferson had ideas of his own. Approaching a natural meadow, he takes mental notes to be later recorded in his journal which he carries in his saddle bag. Did the Penns, the Virginians, the English, the Delawares or the Mingoes own the land along the valleys of the Turkey Foot? Viewed from the perspective of a century and a half, the early settlers of the southern area of the Stony Creek Glades were guided by the Hand found between the lids of their respective Bibles, whereas the watchword of the pioneers along the military road to the north was, "keep your powder dry.". The colonel of the regiment issued orders to proceed in all haste, not even permitting the men to water their horse lest they arrive too late to net the "insurgents.". Among the earlier settlers, and possibly they were the earliest, were a number of Germans and persons of German extraction who were members of the Dunkard or German Baptist church, and among themselves called "The Brethren," or "Brueders Lide." No man now living knows by what name these dawn men went, but the goose quills that began to label the bundles of furs gleaned from the bark huts began also to label the tribes from which the respective bales were taken. In the doorway of a settler's cabin along the Laurel Hill Creek, a woman, holding the hand of a child that clutched at her homespun dress, watched the purple plumes of the camp fires of the last remnant of a defeated army. Military sources give us the name of Benjamin Jollys as one of the settlers at Fort Stony Creek. Fortunately or unfortunately all of the stockholders of this Company were not sure of the actual existence of this tract of wilderness; so one Christopher Gist, a surveyor from North Carolina, was appointed to search out and discover these lands. Rising in his stirrups he looks to the west. meadows. They were taking pot-shots at anyone who ranged ten steps beyond the side of the Road. Most of this land was marked, "Indian Territory" on the maps and ledgers of the Penns; therefore anyone living here was, according to the provincial authorities, out of bounds, off the record and disinherited. The spinning wheel, hand loom, and the backs of 'coon and deer were sources of material for dress. Flee for your lives !" With the mental gap that yawned between Husband and his jovial hunting companions it is no surprise to know that they called him the Queer Old Quaker. History of Bedford and Somerset Counties, Chapter 1 - PAGenWeb Thereafter the wide valley between the mountain ranges was known by these names each in his respective tongue. Pioneer Lineages of Bedford County PA Vol. 1 thru 5 As a young man he went to the province of North Carolina, where he gained property, position, and influence. The horn of plenty bulged. 1 They called them "log rollins." ", While Husband and Philson were the only two persons from this district to answer charges of "treasonable proceedings," thirty-one others from Somerset County were fined from five shillings to fifteen pounds each for "assisting and abetting" in setting up a "seditious pole in opposition to the laws of the United States. And while the settlers who remained in the Glades lived in constant terror of the scalping knife, there is no record of the Indians ever having actually invaded that territory during Revolutionary days. When the tide of Colonial affairs turned, and a bounty was placed upon the scalp lock of the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingos--"For the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the age of ten years, produced as evidence of their being killed, the sum of one hundred and thirty four pieces of eight; and for the scalp of every female Indian enemy above the age of ten years, produced as evidence of their being killed, the sum of fifty pieces of eight." John Rhodes, along with several old hunters, stuck to their claims. In common with the hunters and a few settlers of the Glades, Husband now belonged to that small band of pioneers who had snapped the last tie that bound them to the traditions of the ages-in short he belonged to the disinherited. Signed: Jacob Morningstar, A. Wright, Henry Bruner, J. Martin was a minister, and in 1770 his congregation numbered seventeen persons, among them were: Henry Roth and wife, Henry Roth, Jr. and wife, and Abraham Gebel. Nature had formed the country for a war of ambuscade and surprises, and no pains were spared to guard against them. The year was 1768. The forests were endless; dark columns of hemlock marched steadily into the infinite horizon. When the owner of the cabin, William Sparks, returned he informed Husband that Isaac Cox's camp was a short distance away. A young gentleman from Virginia, a dirt farmer from a family of some influence, was commissioned by the English to inform the French of their erring designs. As the shadows lengthened, a dank, fishy odor arose from the river. Whether the war-whoop sounded or not, the result was the same. Controlling the panic that was in her heart, she assured the child that the French, who now held undisputed sway in the mountain wilderness, would do them no harm. An Illustrated History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, by Edward B. Scull of Somerset, Pa.; pub. From a sentry's point of view, stationed at the south east bastion of Fort Stony Creek, in the early fall of 1758, the whole road building project must have seemed like another Braddock blunder. "All our hopes are turned upon Bouquet," wrote one panic stricken citizen of the Pennsylvania frontier. Adams County. On the same June day that Tryon was scrawling out this vitriolic message to the people of North Carolina, Harmon Husband's faithful Old Tom had carried him to a hunter's cabin which was located almost within the present limits of the Borough of Somerset. His explanations, however, were recited with some reservations. For the next decade a military fort at the forks of the Ohio was to be the pivot of French and English differences in the New World, and Washington, with all the optimism of youth, and one hundred and sixty riflemen from the Old Dominion were dispatched to pin down that point for the British. More than a century after the French had established Port Royal, and the coureurs de bois had driven the prows of their canoes down the St. Lawrence, and across the Great Lakes almost to the Rocky Mountains, a few hunters from the province of Pennsylvania stood at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains weighing the hazards of a season in the wilderness against the bales of furs and skins that would afford them several months leisure in the settlements. The stockade, bastions, cabins, and block houses were furnished with port holes at proper heights and distances. In 1735-1736 there was a great rush of emigration from Ireland through fear of restrictive legislation. In mental stature Harmon Husband stood head and shoulders above the very early pioneers of Somerset County. Fredric Doyle, SOMERSET COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY With a blare of trumpets, an expeditionary force of fifteen thousand men under the command of "Light Horse" Harry Lee and accompanied by Hamilton himself, headed toward Somerset County over the old Forbes Road. They are most common in the southeastern part of the state, but examples can be found in almost every county, including Somerset. The log cabin, the long rifle, the axe and the plow took the place of the bark huts and the stone hatchets of the Shawnees and the Mingos. Mennonites were religious dissenters who believed in adult baptism and absolute pacifism. (Shade Township, November, 1777). ", "Ladies and gentlemen of the higher social life shivered with apprehension as they stood at their windows and saw the herd of shabby, gangling farmers driven past. Contact Us. Unfortunately the early settlers of Somerset County were spare to the point of parsimony in their use of the quill and inkpot. Facing Page 20 On Monday, November 5, 1750, Gist and his party reached the top of the Allegheny Mountains where they camped for three days; again arriving in this territory from a different direction, that is, from the headwaters of the Juniata River, and he was still the first white man officially to reach this section of Penn's Woods. Fort Pitt, May 31, 1763. The first known assessment list for this area gives us the names of: Walter Hoyle, Jacob Fisher, John Sweitzer, Valentine Lout, John Glessner, Philip Wagerline, Frederick Ambrose, Sebastian Shaullis, Peter and Jacob Wingard, LudowickGreenwalt, Adam Palm, Matthias Judy, Abraham Cable, Frederick Shoaff, and Francis Hay. Other implements of work and war, the tomahawk, the spear point, the skinning knife, the "grist mill" were stamped with the indelible grace of his savage mind. James Kennedy, one of Harmon Husband's indentured servants, who was a poor hand at grubbing and picking brush, was chosen to lead, guide and direct the lives of the little children of the Somerset Settlement. A Short History of Somerset County - PA-Roots Yes, old "Bucky" was having troubles of his own. Then with a sigh of relief, they returned to their toasted muffins and tea-assured that "all's right with the world.". One of the first attempts to bring regimented "book larnin'" into settlements of Somerset County was in the year of 1777. Early German settlers of York County Pennsylvania - Schlow Library . Migrations of The Pennsylvania Germans to Western Pennsylvania They staggered along, whooping, singing, and swearing altogether. asked Cox, after the greeting of handshakes and backslapping. In 1767 there had been an extension of the Mason and Dixon line which showed that most of these citizens lived within the bounds of Pennsylvania, and a number in the future Somerset County. The region which approximates the Elk Lick township of today, that is, the valley of the Casseleman river which lies between the Allegheny and Negro mountains, and extending from the Maryland line north to Flaherty's Run was not overlooked by the early homesteaders. Wild turkeys, grouse, and wild pigeons fattened themselves on the purple clusters of wild grapes, acorns, and chestnuts, while wedges of wild geese and ducks circled low over the quiet forest pools. He selected his land in 1793, cleared a small portion in 1794, and brought his family to the location in 1795. Hero worship and love of glory were the balancing factors in his nature; ofttimes overruling his wary and cautious nature even in the face of death. but you are set of young haythens.". Benjamin Jennings settled on a claim along the Laurel Hill Creek between the present towns of Confluence and Ursina. They just expired-one of them, after being tomahawked and scalped, ran a little way; and got on the loft in Mr. Croughan's house, where he lay till found by a party of the Garrison-", Amherst to Bouquet. The Organization of Somerset County.---The First Term of Court. The wild turkey and the grouse strutted among the shadows of the thorn berry bushes. Extending from Fort Bedford, the last outpost of colonial culture, to the heart of the wilderness at the forks of the Ohio, it was to be knotted with military forts in a fashion that would turn the edge of the keenest French blade. ", Arriving in Philadelphia Husband and Philson were released on bail with the promise not to leave the city, after having been paraded through the streets along with the rest of the "Insurgents. Tryon, the Great Wolf of North Carolina, was not so generous; proclaiming on the 9th day of June, 1771 that: "Whereas, Harmon Husband, (and others) are outlawed and liable to be shot by any person whatever, I do therefore, proclaim that they are to be punished for the Traitorous and Rebellious crimes they have committed, issue this my proclamation thereby offering a reward of 100 pounds sterling, and 1000 acres of land to any person or persons who will take dead or alive and bring into mine or General Waddell's camp either or each of the above-named outlaws.". He was generally of medium stature, lean, muscular, marked with symmetry and vigor with dark eyed features stamped with a stern expression to mask more compassionate emotions. Original Land Owners The state of Pennsylvania began platting the exact metes-and-bounds tracts of the earliest landowners, township-by-township, starting in 1907, but the Land Office only completed about 1/3 of the state before the project ended. --it was the hunter who took up the Indian's trail, never resting until the coveted scalp lock was stretched over a willow hoop, and drying over the hot coals of the hunter's camp fire. They pondered further on the extent of Penn's Woods into the West. At the sound of the first clash of battle, Harmon Husband, the leader of the Sons of Liberty, jumped on his horse and fled. The sentry was not alone in his moody apprehensions. Ulster Scot settlers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware, and "I cannot help thinking," he said, "that the enemy will collect, after cutting of the little posts one after the other, and bend their whole force upon the frontier." Reflecting upon the Dark Years of 1762 and 1763 when Pontiac took vengeance upon the early settlers of Somerset County, scalping them, or driving them across the mountains to the established settlements of the East, there was only one garrisoned British military fort in Somerset County in which the settlers could seek refuge, and that was Fort Stony Creek. "You would never take part in our hunting and sporting expeditions in the settlements. Would General Forbes meet the same fate that the French and Indians had prepared for Braddock? When the gossips appeared in their doorways, they listened with the usual absorbing feminine inquisitiveness while the mush bubbled in the pot, but discounted every dripping word as child's chatter. The next day, November 12, they crossed these mountains. Facing Page 32 With the Turkeyfoot settlers as their nearest neighbors these families flourished like the green bay tree; establishing permanent landmarks which are now known as the Jersey Settlement, Jersey Church, Draketown, Drake's Mill and King's Mill (two of the first grist mills in Somerset County) Harnedsville, forts and block houses which formed the nuclei of the present towns of Ursina and Confluence. His sense of smell served him from afar, quickening him to the distant tang of wood smoke, or the grease smeared skin of an enemy hidden in the shaded underbrush along a mountain trail. Volume 1 Index Volume 2 Index Volume 3 Index Volume 4 Index Volume 5 Index. The Indian was made to feel that his destiny lay with one or the other of these nations. The mountains still belonged to the Indians by sovereign right, and the Penns, by lip service at least, respected the Red Man's claim. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Into this bloody foray stepped the greatest Indian warrior in all American History. Signs and symbols, carved in the rocks by the hands of our ancestors, are uncertain accounts of the lives they led. French and Indian War---Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Mexican War. The ablest fighters had emptied the buck horn racks of the best rifles, and had marched eastward to meet the Red Coats, leaving the older men and boys with worn and rattling flintlocks to guard their cabins and families against Indian raids from the west.
Philly Car Accident Yesterday, Articles E