HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 75 CHAPTER TENTH.—STRUGGLE FOR REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. GENERAL OPPOSITION TO TAXATION. The political calm which followed the peace with the Indians was not of long continuance. As early as in 1765 there began to be signs of disturbance in the relations of the colonies to the mother country. The year before (March 1774) resolutions had been passed in the British Parliament formally proclaiming the right to tax the American colonies, and now (March 1775) when a bill founded upon this claim passed the House of Commons, according to which all instruments of writing were to be null and void unless executed upon stamped paper or parchment charged with a duty payable to the crown, intelligent persons in America took the alarm. There were men bold enough to assert and well able to maintain by forcible arguments that such a claim was inconsistent, not only with the charter of most of the colonies, but with the long conceded rights of Englishmen. William Pennls charter expressly provided that " no custom or other contribution should be laid on the inhabitants or their estates unless by the consent of the Proprietary or Governor and Assembly, or by act of Parliament in England ;" and Dr. Franklin when examined at the bar of the British House of Commons explained this last clause by saying that " the inhabitants from the first settlement of the.province relied that the Parliament never would or could tax them by virtue of that reservation till it had qualified itself constitutionally for the exercise of such a right by admitting representatives from the people," Before the day appointed for the enforcement of the Stamp Act the opposition to it had become formidable, and it was evident that nothing but an open war could secure its execution. After that day legal proceedings went forward in the courts, papers were made out for vessels, newspapers were circulated among the people, and all kinds of business were transacted as if no Stamp Act had been in existence. Associations were formed against importing or using British goods, and in all the towns and villages men and women refused to wear any articles of foreign manufacture. Even in the interior counties of Pennsylvania associations were organized " to purchase no article of British manufacture until the Stamp Act should be repealed," and in order " that wool might not be wanting they entered into engagements to abstain from eating lambs." Companies of men calling themselves "Sons of Liberty" were formed in every part of the county, who agreed " to march with the utmost expedition at their own proper costs and expense with their whole force to the relief of those who should be in danger from the Stamp Act or its promoters or abettors or anything relative to it on account of anything that may have been done in opposition to it." So disastrous was the effect of this upon the British rrade that commercial people in England united with American patriots in demanding the repeal of the obnoxious act, and accordingly after months of only empty authority it was repealed (March, 1776). Enlightened patriots, however, observed that the obnoxious principle was not removed. In the preamble for the repeal, the reason was that " the collecting of the several duties and revenues as by said act was directed would be attended by many inconveniences and productive of consequences dangerous to the commercial interests of these kingdoms," and it was accompanied by a declaratory act more hostile in principle to American rights than the Stamp Act itself; for it annulled those resolutions and acts of the Provincial Assemblies in which they had asserted their right to exemption from all taxes not imposed by their own representatives, and also enacted that the " Parliament had and of right ought to have power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." In a little more than a year after this (June, 1767) a bill was passed for imposing duties in all the colonies on glass, paper, painters' colors and tea. The amount to be raised from these imposts was small and it was said to be for the purpose of repaying the Home Government for monies expended in defence of the colonies themselves during the Indian wars. But the people were no w prepared to resist every act in which the principle of taxation where there was no representation was involved. John Dickinson, in his celebrated " Farmer's Letters," published a series of articles in which he showed that such an act established a precedent which would eventually annihilate American liberty and property. These letters were eagerly read, and produced an intense excitement in every village and neighborhood throughout the province. The former associations of the " Sons of Liberty" were revived, and all further importations of British manufactures were suspended. A convention was called in Faneuil Hall, in Boston, in which the rights of the colonies were strongly asserted. The day after two regiments of soldiers and some armed vessels arrived in Boston to enforce the execution of the law. Their guns were pointed against the town and awaited the slightest demonstration of resistance. In February, 1769, Parliament proposed that all charged with treason should be sought out and brought to England for trial. For a while the people contented themselves with a simple abstinence from the importation and use of tea, for it was against this article that their principal hostility was directed. Next year five-sixths of the duties which had been imposed were repealed, and many hoped that the opposition would cease. But early in the same year (March, 1770) an affray took place in Boston in which the military fired upon the people, and several of the latter were killed and more were wounded. The Captain and the soldiers were tried and were acquitted, but the events of that tragical night were reported throughout the colonies and remembered with great bitterness. A new turn was given to the whole affair when in 1773, not only were the duties on all articles except tea removed, but by a contrivance of the East Indian company, tea could be imported into the colonies cheaper than before it was taxed. Several ships were freighted with tea and despatched to the different parts of America. This appeal to men's avarice was likely to produce a general acquiescence in the trade and the payment of the duty, but many public meetings 76 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. were held to denounce the attempt. In Philadelphia (October 18th, 1773,) it was resolved that whoever directly or indirectly aided in unloading receiving or vending the tea was an enemy to his country ; and a committee was sent to those who were appointed to receive and sell the tea and request them to resign their appointment. The captains of the ships which were to land at New York and Philadelphia returned immediately to Great Britain without an entry at the custom house, but at Boston the power of the government was sufficient to effect a payment of the ship's dues. Under these circumstances the people had no option but to destroy the tea, and a number of them disguised as Indians, broke open 342 chests of tea and threw their contents into the water. Another cargo sent to Charleston was landed and stored, but was never offered for sale. Of all the cargoes sent out by the company none was sold for their benefit. The port of Boston was at once virtually closed, and an act was passed nominally for the regulation of the government of Massachusetts, but really for such an alteration of the charter of the province as to remove the executive department of the government from the hands of the people. Information of these proceedings had scarcely been conveyed to the different parts of the country before the people with one mind perceived that the cause of Boston and Massachusetts Bay was common to them all. In spite of the strong partiality for the proprietary government, and the opposition of a large portion of the people to war, an immense assembly met in Philadelphia, June 18, 1774, at which the closing of the Boston Port was declared unconstitutional, a Continental Congress was pronounced expedient, and a committee was appointed for the city and county of Philadelphia, to correspond with the other colonies and the other counties of Pennsylvania. Under this last resolution a circular letter was sent to all the counties requesting them to appoint delegates to a general meeting to be held in Philadelphia on the ensuing fifteenth of July. In the Assembly also, June 30th, the military associations were encouraged, the payment of the officers and men who should be called into service was promised, and each county was called upon to provide arms and ammunition, and to prepare a number of men from their associated companies equal to the number of its arms, and to assess its real and personal estates for defraying the expenses of these companies. ACTION IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY. On the reception of this letter influential citizens of Cumberland county, united in calling a public meeting of the freeholders and freemen of the several townships for the purpose of taking corresponding action. It was held in the Presbyterian church of Carlisle, July 12, 1774. John Montgomery, an elder in that congregation, and a prominent citizen of the town, was called to the chair, and the following resolutions were adopted, viz : " 1. Resolved that the late act of the Parliament of Great Britain, by which the port of Boston is shut up, is oppressive to that town, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the colony of Massachusetts Bay ; that the principle on which that act is founded is not more subversive of the rights and liberties of that colony than it is of all other British colonies of North America ; and therefore the inhabitants of Boston are suffering in the common cause of all these colonies. 2. That every vigorous and prudent measure ought speedily and unanimously to be adopted by these colonies for obtaining a redress of the grievances under which the inhabitants of Boston are now laboring, and security from grievance of the same or of a still more severe nature under which they and the other inhabitants of the colonies may by a further operation of the same principle hereafter labor. 3. That a congress of deputies from all the colonies will be one proper method for obtaining these purposes. 4. That the same purposes will in the opinion of this meeting be promoted by an agreement of all the colonies, not to import any merchandise from nor export any merchandise to Great Britain, Ireland or the West Indies, nor to use any such merchandise so imported, nor tea imported from any place whatever till these purposes shall be obtained ; that the inhabitants of this county will join in any restriction of that agreement which the general Congress may think it necessary for the colonies to confine themselves to. 5. That the inhabitants of this county will contribute to the relief of their suffering brethren in Boston, at any time when they shall receive intimation that such relief will be most seasonable. 6. That a committee be immediately appointed for this county to correspond with the committee of this province or of the other provinces upon the great objects of the public attention ; and to cooperate in every proper measure conducing to the general welfare of British America. 7. That the committee consist of the following persons, viz : James Wilson, John Armstrong, John Montgomery, Wm. Irvine, Bobert Callender, Wm. Thompson, John Calhoon, Jonathan Hoge, Robert Magaw, Ephraim Blaine, John Allison, John Harris and Robert Miller, or any five of them. 8. That James Wilson, Robert Magaw, and William Irvine be the deputies appointed to meet the deputies from the other counties of this province at Philadelphia on Friday next in order to concert measures preparatory to the General Congress." With some of the persons appointed on these committees we have already become acquainted, but some of them now appear for the first time, and all of them are henceforth to be prominent in our history. James Wilson was born in 1742 in Scotland, had received a finished education at St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow, under Dr. Blair in rhetoric, and Dr. Watts in logic, and in 1766 had come to reside in Philadelphia, where he studied law with John Dickinson, from whom he doubtless acquired something of the spirit which then distinguished that eminent patriot. When admitted to practice he took up his residence in Carlisle. In an important land case which had recently been tried between the proprietaries and Samuel Wallace, he had gained the admiration of the most eminent lawyers in the province, and at once had taken rank second to none at the Pennsylvania bar. At the meeting of the people now held in Carlisle, he made a speech which drew forth the most rapturous applause. Robert Magaw was a native of Cumberland county, belonging to a family which had early settled in Hopewell township, and was also a lawyer of some distinc- HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 77 tion in Carlisle. The career on which he was now entering was one in which he was to become known to the American people as one of their purest and bravest officers. Wm. Irvine was a native of Ireland, from the neighborhood of Enniskillen, had been classically educated at the University of Dublin, and had early evinced a fondness for military life, but had been induced by his parents to devote himself to the medical and surgical profession. On receiving his diploma he had been appointed a surgeon in the British navy, where he continued until near the close of the French war (1754-63), when he resigned his place, removed to America and settled in Carlisle, where he had acquired a high reputation and an extensive practice as a physician. William Thompson had served as a captain of ho rse in the expeditions against the Indians (1759-60), had been appointed a Justice of the Peace in Hopewell township, and had lately been active in the relief of the inhabitants in the western part of the province in their difficulties with Virginia on the boundary question. Jonathan Hoge and John Calhoon had been Justices of the Peace and Judges in the county, and belonged to two of the oldest and most respectable families in the vicinity of Silvers' Spring. Ephraim Blaine we have known for his brave defence of a fort at Ligonier, and was now the proprietor of a large property and mills on the Conodoguinet, near the cave, about a mile north of Carlisle. John Allison, of Tyrone township, John Harris, a lawyer of Carlisle, and Robert Miller, living about a mile northeast of Carlisle, in Middleton township, John Montgomery, a member of the Assembly, and Robert Callender, formerly an extensive trader with the Indians, a commissary for victualing the troops on the western campaign, and the owner of mills at the confluence of the Letort with the Conodoguinet, were all of them active as Justices, Judges and Commissioners for the county. In no part of America was the cause of freedom taken up with more alacrity and intelligence than among the Scotch Irish of Pennsylvania. The religious and civil history of their race supplied them with but few motives for attachment to the royal government itself, and even the proprietary rule had left but few memories of a pleasant nature. For many years they had been obliged to rely almost wholly upon their own resources for protection against a savage foe and for the development of their industry. By the established habits of their race their views were but slightly fettered by prescriptive usages and they were familiar with those questions of popular rights and duties which were now under discussion. MEETING OF THE PROVINCIAL DEPUTIES. Four days after this meeting at Carlisle the delegates from the different counties of the province assembled in the city of Philadelphia, July 15, 1774. Thomas Willing, an opulent merchant of that city was elected its President, and Charles Thompson its clerk. The three delegates who had been appointed from Cumberland county were present, and James Wilson was one of the Committee of eleven which brought in a paper of " Instructions on the present situation of public affairs to the representatives who were to meet in the Colonial Assembly next week." In the resolutions and address of instructions which were adopted and published by this convention, a true and faithful allegiance to his majesty, King George the Third, was honestly professed and the idea of an unconstitutional independence of the parent state was indignantly repelled ; but the power claimed by Parliament to bind the people of these colonies in all cases whatsoever, and the acts by which the port of Boston had been shut up and the administration of criminal justice in Massachusetts had been changed were pronounced unconstitutional, oppressive and dangerous to the liberties of the colonies ; a Congress of deputies from the several colonies to consult together to form a general plan of conduct and to procure a redress of grievances was suggested as an absolute necessity ; and measures for the enforcement of an entire non-importation from and non-exportation to Great Britain was urged upon such a Congress should every reasonable effort to obtain redress he found ineffectual. The Assembly was called upon to appoint delegates to a Continental Congress, and the members from the city and county of Philadelphia, or any fifteen of them were constituted a committee of correspondence for the province. The Assembly when it met, promptly responded to the instructions of the Convention and appointed eight delegates to a general Congress. The request, however, was made that these delegates should be instructed to use their best efforts to induce Congress to content themselves with making a full and precise statement of grievances and a decent yet firm claim of redress, and then to wait the event before any other step should be taken. They gave it as their opinion that persons should be appointed and sent home to present this statement and claim at the Court of Great Britain. Of all the colonies Pennsylvania had the least reason for desiring a separation. The proprietary government, which it was seen at once would soon be thrown off with the crown from which it had authority, had never been oppressive and had been on the whole favorable to the people. William Penn had been one of the most disinterested and public spirited of all the American Proprietaries, and the frame of government he had devised and set up had come as near as possible to his ideal, which was to leave it out of the power of the rulers to do any harm. Although his descendants had forsaken the peculiar principles which had been so dear to him, their policy had been liberal and had given very little ground for complaint. Leading men, however, perceived that the interests of all the colonies were bound up together, and that no one province should be allowed to make terms which were not agreeable to the others. Accordingly, in no part of the country was there a greater zeal to support the claims of the united colonies. COMMITTEE OF OBSERVATION. The first Continental Congress continued in session from the 5th of September till the 25th of October ; and as soon as its proceedings were published, they were the subject of the warmest discussion. Every newspaper teemed with dissertations in favor of liberty, and with the speeches of men in Parliament, especially of those in favor of American rights. Messengers and letters were sent to influential per- 78 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. sons in every county urging them to get up meetings in every town and appoint committees to enlighten and direct the public mind. The Committee of thirteen which had been appointed at the meeting in Carlisle, July 12th, 1774, were not inactive. Notices were sent to each public place throughout the county, requesting the freeholders and others qualified to vote for representatives in the Assembly to meet at the Court House in Carlisle and there choose a Committee of Observation, to have a general oversight of civil affairs, and especially to divide the county into districts and appoint persons to superintend each district. By such an organization, the whole influence of the county was secured on the side of the patriots. The utmost freedom of discussion was of course proclaimed, but it was not easy for those who were apologists of the royal acts, if any such there were, to obtain a hearing. Articles of confederation had been adopted in the First Congress which have some claim for being regarded as the birth act of the nation, and now as these were taken up in every county and town meeting they gave opportunity for the expression of the most advanced opinions. Few wiser men in any part of the province were found than those who had the direction of affairs in this county. And yet the coolest heads, and the most farseeing counsellors were precisely the ones who favored radical measures. WHIGS AND TORIES. It was about this time that the terms whig and tory began to be used to distinguish the different political parties. However various the application of these words before and since that day, we can discover a radical signification which always remains the same. In English politics the word tory had been at first a term of reproach for the court party in the time of Charles the Second, and afterwards for the supporters of high royal and ecclesiastical authority. Many in this country had been accustomed in Ireland to hear the word applied to those " bogtrotters who during the civil wars had robbed and plundered their neighbors under the pretence of maintaining the royal cause, and more lately had advocated the extreme prerogatives of the crown." It was therefore with especial bitterness that the word was used in this region to mean one who supported the English government in its high pretensions. At this time, however, it had not acquired the peculiar odiousness which it attained when independence had been declared, and it was applied not only to the advocates of a policy in a state, but to those abettors of foreign aggressions, who gave assistance to an invading army, and resisted all efforts to defend the nation. Few such were found among the native population of this Valley. There were indeed some both in civil and in ecclesiastical life who questioned whether they had a right to break the oath or vow of allegiance which they had taken on assuming some official station. Even these were seldom prepared to go so far as to give actual aid and comfort to the enemy, or to make positive resistance to the efforts of the patriots. They usually contented themselves with a negative withdrawal from all participation in efforts at independence. Many of them were earnest supporters of all movements for a redress of griev ances, and paused only when they were asked to support what they looked upon as rebellion. These hardly deserved the name of " tories," since they were not the friends of extreme royal prerogative, and only doubted whether the colonies were authorized by what they had suffered to break entirely away from the crown to which they had sworn allegiance, and whether the people were yet able to maintain their separate position. Among those, who deserved rather to be ranked as non-jurors, were one of the first Judges of the county who had recently removed over the mountain to what is now Perry county, and two clergymen who held a commission as missionaries of the " Venerable Society in England for the Propagation of Religion in Foreign Parts." CONVENTIONS, COMMITTEES, &C. The Assembly which met in December heard and heartily approved of the proceedings of the first Congress, and appointed nine delegates to a second Congress to be held the succeeding year in Philadelphia. Among these were James Wilson, from Cumberland county, who was continued a member of that body until 1777. On the twenty-third of January, 1775, another provincial convention was held in Philadelphia and continued six days in session, during which time much business of importance was transacted, such as the encouragement of various kinds of manufacture which were likely to be needed should commercial intercourse with the mother country cease, and the preparation for the crisis which was now seen to be in the near future. James Wilson and Robert Magaw were members of that convention froth this county. The last resolution adopted was : " That the Comm it-tee of Correspondence for the city and liberties of Philadelphia be a standing Committee of Correspondence for the several counties here represented, and that if it should at any time hereafter appear to the committee of the city and liberties that the situation of public affairs renders a provincial convention necessary, that the said Committee of Correspondence do give the earliest notice thereof to the committees of the several counties." It was not long before the necessity anticipated in this resolution became apparent. The battle of Lexington took place April 19th, and on receiving the news, Congress resolved to raise an army of which the quota for Pennsylvania amounted to four thousand three hundred men. The news of this being sent to the Committee of Cumberland county, they proceeded at once to organize companies of " Associators." Many of these were already formed on the plan long in use. According to a letter dated May 6th, 1775, some weeks before the action of the Assembly, but after the passage of the resolutions of Congress, we find that companies were formed on the plan recommended by the Assembly and the language used in the letter is precisely that used in the subsequent act. " Yesterday the County Committee met from nineteen townships, on the short notice they had. About three thousand men have already associated. The arms returned amount to about fifteen hundred. The Committee have voted five hundred effective men, besides commissioned officers, to be immediately drafted, taken into pay, armed and HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 79 disciplined, to march on the first emergency ; to be paid and supported as long as necessary by a tax on all estates real and personal in the county ; the returns to be taken by the township committees ; and the .tax laid by the Commissioners and Assessors ; the pay of the officers and men as in times past. This morning we met again at eight o'clock ; among other subjects of inquiry, the mode of drafting or taking into pay, arming and victualling immediately the men, and the choice of field and other officers, will among other matters be the subjects of deliberation. The strength or spirit of this county, perhaps may appear small, if judged by the number of men proposed ; but when it is considered that we are ready to raise fifteen hundred or two thousand should we have support from the province ; and that independently and in uncertain expectation of support, we have voluntarily drawn upon this county a debt of about £27,000 per annum, I hope we shall not appear contemptible. We make great improvements in military discipline. It is yet uncertain who may go." The Assembly on the thirteenth of June approved of the plan of association which it seems had for some time been acted upon ; and resolved, for the purpose of sustaining the expense of arming and equipping them, to issue bills of credit to the amount of thirty-five thousand pounds, redeemable by a tax on real and personal estates to be assessed and collected by the Commissioners and Assessors of each county in the same manner as the provincial taxes under the laws before in force. It also appointed a Committee of Safety consisting of twenty-five men from different parts of the province to sit permanently in the city of Philadelphia, whose business it should be to call into actual service such and as many of the associators as they should judge necessary, to pay and supply them with necessaries while in actual service and to provide for the defence of the province. Of this important committee John Montgomery, Esq., of Carlisle, was one of the most active and prominent members as long as it continued in existence (July 3, 1775—July 22, 1776). During that period it had the management of the entire military affairs of the province. MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS. There were two classes of military organizations which are carefully to be distinguished. The first was the State Militia, which, though a voluntary association, had now all the qualities of a legal body. They were recognized, and paid by the State when the counties did not take on themselves this burden ; all officers above captain were appointed by the Committee of Safety or the Assembly ; and power to enforce their regulations was given by law. It was recommended that all able-bodied effective men betwen 16 and 50 years of age should form themselves into companies, each to consist of the usual officers and about sixty-eight privates. The officers of each company were to be chosen by the men who composed it, The companies were to be formed into regiments or battalions, whose officers might be voted for by the lower officers of companies, but they were in fact to be appointed by the Provincial Assembly or in its recess by the Committee of Safety. The battalions of each county and the companies of each battalion were numbered, by lot, one, two, three, four, &c., so that orders might issue from the commander-in-chief to the colonels, either to march their whole battalions or to send the first or second or any number of companies that should be wanted. As a call might be made for the service of some of these men on some sudden emergency before the whole body could be sufficiently trained, it was recommended that one or more of these classes should he brought under a more diligent and particular discipline and instruction so as to be ready as minute men. These, after being in service during the four months of their enlistment (such being the usual period for some time), if they desired it, might be relieved by new drafts from the whole body, each company serving in its turn and for such a proportion of time as should make the burden nearly equal. By this means the inconvenience was avoided of calling out the whole body on each alarm when perhaps the assistance of only a part was needed. But each company or battalion thus voluntarily associated had the right, if it pleased, to place itself under the second class of soldiers, i. e., in the Continental army. These were in fact the first which were formed in Cumberland county, and were the first called into service. The demand for troops by Congress was made in May, 1775, and it was under this call that we have seen the first companies were formed. The call from the Committee of Safety was not sent forth until two or three months after this. The troops under the control of Congress were raised by the state authorities, but they were to be placed under the immediate direction of the Continental Congress or of Generals appointed by them. The rules and regulations of these early associations were of so honorable a character that we would gladly transcribe them all ; but we shall content ourself with remarking that they forbade among both officers and men with penalties all profane language, drunkenness, provoking or indecent language, violent or abusive conducr, or any behavior of a scandalous or unbecoming nature when under arms or on duty ; and " when any officer or soldier shall refuse to obey the regulations or submit to the penalties lawfully imposed upon him by a court martial, he shall be dismissed the service and held up to the public as unfriendly to the liberties of America." The greatest difficulty encountered in the raising of troops was in finding arms and ammunition. We have seen that this was the obstacle in Cumberland county. Each person in the possession of arms, was called upon to deliver them up at a fair valuation, if he could not himself enlist with them. Rifles, muskets and other firearms were thus obtained to the amount of several hundred, and an armory was established for the repairing and altering of these in Carlisle. On hearing that a quantity of arms and accoutrements had been left at the close of the Indian war at the house of Mr. Carson, in Paxtang township, and had remained there without notice or care, the Commissioners of Cumberland county, regarding them as public property, sent for them and found about sixty or seventy muskets or rifles, which were capable of being put to use, and these were brought to Carlisle, repaired and distributed. Three hundred pounds were also 80 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. paid for such arms and equipments as were collected from individuals who could not themselves come forward as soldiers. All persons who were not associated and yet were of the age and ability for effective service were to be reported by the Assessors to the County Commissioners, and assessed in addition to the regular tax, two pounds ten shillings annually, in lieu of the time which others spent in military training. The only persons excepted were ministers of the gospel and servants purchased for a valuable consideration of any kind. It was assumed that those who had conscientious scruples about personally bearing arms ought not to hesitate to contribute a reasonable share of the expense for the protection they received. CRISIS IN 1775. It had now become evident that the struggle for colonial rights was to be principally by military power. Blood had been shed on at least three battle fields (Lexington, Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga) an army had been collected, and Washington had taken his place as its chief. A last earnest appeal had been sent to Parliament and its bearers had been informed that no answer would be given to it, and the whole nation had now become pervaded by a martial spirit. Congress, aware of the solemnity of the crisis, sent forth their appeal to the people to stand firm in the maintenance of their rights, to discontinue no efforts for the support of the army, and to plead earnestly at a higher tribunal for the success which they doubted not was before them. The twentieth day of July had been appointed as a day of public humiliation and prayer, not that the equity of their cause might be decided (for of this they admitted no question), but " that the Supreme Ruler would turn the heart of the Sovereign of the British nation to discern and pursue the true interests of his subjects, and that America might have her grievances redressed and a reconciliation might be effected with the parent state on terms constitutional and honorable to both countries." The historian Ramsay informs us that " since the fast of the Ninevites, recorded in sacred writ, perhaps there has been none more generally observed or observed with more suitable dispositions. It was no formal service. The whole body of the people felt the importance, the weight and the danger of the unequal contest in which they were about to engage, that everything dear to them was at stake, and that a divine blessing only could carry them through it successfully." The Synod of New York and Philadelphia, with which most of the inhabitants of this valley were connected, in uniting with Congress to recommend the observance of such a day, remarked that " they had hitherto abstained with an unprecedented degree of reserve from every thing calculated to inflame the public mind, but that things were then come to such a state that they could withold no longer their opinions as men and citizens. While they exhort that no sense of oppression or of injury should be allowed to provoke any to the betrayal of disloyal sentiments against the Sovereign, all were entreated to regard with the highest respect the Continental Congress then sitting in Philadelphia, and not only let their prayers be offered for God's direction in their proceedings; but adhere firmly to their resolutions and let it be seen that they are able to bring out the whole strength of this vast country to carry them into execution." The Pastoral Letter which contained these and many other noble sentiments was probably the composition of Dr. Witherspoon, the chairman of the committee which reported them (May 17, 1775). The pulpit, the press, the bar and the bench were nearly unanimous in endeavoring to mould the public mind to the support of the action of Congress. Few were yet prepared for a complete separation from the mother country, but many began to see that such a result was possible. FIRST RIFLE REGIMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. Within ten days after the news.of the battle of Bunker Hill a regiment of riflemen was formed, officered and equipped principally in Cumberland county. It was composed of men who had been before associated, and were now organized for immediate service. It consisted of eight companies, most of which numbered a full hundred men. The place of rendezvous for the companies was Reading, where the regiment was organized by the election of Wm. Thompson, a surveyor near Carlisle and an experienced officer in the Indian war, as colonel, Edward Hand, of Lancaster, as lieut.-colonel and Robert Magaw, of Carlisle, as major. The companies were severally under the command of Captains James Chambers, of Loudon Forge, near Chambersburg, Robert Cluggage, of Hamilton township, Michael Doudel, Wm Hendricks, of East Pennsborough, John Loudon, James Ross, Matthew Smith and George Nagel. Dr. Wm. Magaw, a brother of Robert, was of Mercersburg and acted as the surgeon, and Rev. Samuel Blair was the chaplain. The regiment marched directly to Boston by way of Easton, through northern New Jersey, crossing the Hudson at New Windsor a few miles north of West Point, and reaching camp at Cambridge in the beginning of August, 1775. At this time it consisted of three field officers, nine Captains, twenty-seven Lieutenants, one Adjutant, one Quartermaster, one Surgeon, one Surgeon's Mate, twenty-nine Sergeants, thirteen drummers and seven hundred and thirteen rank and file fit for duty. The commissions of the officers are dated June 25, 1775. The term of service for the men was one year. It was the first regiment which reached the camp from beyond the Hudson, and was therefore the object of much attention. Thatcher, an eyewitness of their arrival, says of them in his Military Journal : " They are remarkably stout and vigorous men, many of them exeeeding 'six feet in height. They are dressed in white frocks or rifle shirts and round hats. They are remarkable for the accuracy of their aim, striking a mark with great certainty at two hundred yards distance. At a review, a company of them while on a quick advance fired their balls into objects of seven inches in diameter at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards. They are stationed in our outlines, and their shots have frequently proved fatal to British officers and soldiers who exposed themselves to view even at more than double the distance of a common musket-shot." When the expedition to Canada was fitted out Col. Thomrson, with two of HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 81 his companies under Smith and Hendricks, was sent on that dangerous errand. They were probably a part of the heroic band who went with Arnold on the Eastern route by the valleys of the Kennebec and Chaudiere, against an impetuous river current through immense and thick forests in which they had to cut roads, over precipitous mountains, across portages over which they had to carry their canoes and vessels, and for a considerable time weakened by only a half allowance of food. In the assault on Quebec (December 31, 1775) they were in the party which carried the barriers and for three hours sustained the onset of a much superior force, but in the end were compelled to retire. Gen. Richard Montgomery said of the body of which this regiment formed a part, " It is an exceedingly fine corps, inured to fatigue and well accustomed to common shot, having served at Cambridge. There is a style of discipline amongst them much superior to what I have been accustomed to see in this campaign." On the first of the ensuing March, Thompson was made a Brigadier General, and Lieut. Col. Hand succeeded him in the command of the regiment, while Chambers became Lieut.-Col. and Thomas Armstrong Wilson, of Carlisle, became Major on the transfer of Robert Magaw. A part of the regiment was captured (July 4th) at Trois Rivieres (Three Rivers) and Col. Hand with another portion barely escaped, and soon after joined the main army at New York. The captured party were taken to New York, where Thompson was paroled and allowed to return to his family in 1777, but did not regularly obtain his liberty until the 26th of October, 1780, when he and some others were exchanged for Major General De Reidesel, of the Brunswick troops. He did not long survive the hardships he had endured, but died on his own farm near Carlisle, Sept. 3rd, 1781, aged forty-five years. The other portion of the regiment it is difficult if not impossible to trace. Hon. J. B. Linn, writing for the weekly " Times" of Philadelphia, April 14th, 1877, says of it : " Its time of enlistment expired June 30th, 1776, but nearly all the officers and men re-enlisted for three years or during the war, under Col. Hand, and the battalion became the first regiment of the continental line. The two separated parts of the regiment, one from Cambridge and the other from Canada, were reunited at New York, though some of its officers like Magaw were transferred by promotion to other portions of the army. It was at Long Island, White Plains, Trenton and Princeton under Hand. In April, 1777, Hand was made a Brigadier and James Chambers became the Colonel. Under him the regiment fought at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and in every other battle and skirmish of the main army until he retired from the service, January 1st, 1781, and was succeeded by Col. Daniel Broadhead, May 26th, 1781. With him the First Regiment left York, Pa., with five others into which the line was consolidated under. the command of General Wayne, and joined Lafayette at Raccoon Ford on the Rappahannock, June 10th; fought at Green Springs on the 6th of July, and opened the second parallel at Yorktown which Gen. Steuben said he considered the most important part of the seige. After the surrender the regiment went southward with Gen. Wayne, fought the last battle of the war at Sharon, Georgia, May 24th, 1782, entered Savannah in triumph on the 11th of July, Charleston on the 14th of December, 1782 ; was in camp on James Island, South Carolina, on the 11th of May, 1783, and only when the news of the cessation of hostilities reached that point was embarked for Philadelphia. In its services it traversed every one of the original thirteen states of the Union." The standard of this regiment is now in the possession of Thomas Robinson, Esq., a grandson of Lieut. Col. Thomas Robinson, who in the absence of Col. Broadhead was in actual command of the regiment in the South in 1783, when the war closed.* There were some, both officers and privates, who were in this regiment through all its changes, but it is likely that it was composed at last of but few of those who set out with such earnestness. Some like the much lamented Hendricks fell during the glorious but profitless campaign in Canada, others like their leader were compelled to languish in prison or stand inactive on parol, and others like Chambers and Wilson were constrained by wounds or exhaustion to return to private life. But we question whether a more honorable record can be shown among all the regiments of that trying period. THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CONTINENTAL REGIMENTS. Near the close of the year (1775), Congress then in Philadelphia, called for several additional regiments from Pennsylvania. In compliance with its demand the Second, Third and Fourth battalions for the Continental Line were speedily raised and put under the command respectively of Colonels Arthur St. Clair, John Shea and Anthony Wayne. The Fifth was made up of companies principally from Cumberland county, and was placed under the command of Robert Magaw, who had been originally a Major in the First. It was recruited and organized during the months of December and January. In February there are references to it in the proceedings of the Committee of Safety, which imply that some of its companies were already in Philadelphia on their way to head quarters, but the main body of the regiment did not leave the county until near the middle of March. The movements of troops in that day were much slower and more laborious than they are at present, when railroads in every direction enable large bodies to travel from one point to another rapidly and comfortably. A march on foot, sometimes in the depth of winter for hundreds of miles, then tried the strength and fortitude of the best of soldiers. On the eve of the departure of the regiment from Carlisle, March 17th, 1776, Mr. Wm. Linn, † who had recently been licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Carlisle, and was afterwards the pastor of the Presbyterian congregation at Big Spring (Newville), had in January been appointed chaplain of the Fifth and Sixth Battalions of Pennsylvania militia, and preached before it a discourse which has been preserved, and well exhibits the thought and spirit of the time. * History of Franklin County by I. H. McCauley, Esq , Chambersburg, 1878, pp., 127-9. † " Born in Lurgan township, near the foot of the North Mountain, graduated at Princeton in 1772, at the age of twenty, and at the head of his class, and studied Theology with Dr. Cooper, of Middle Spring." Wylie's Discourse at Middle Spring, June 16, 1876. 82 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA. Full of youthful fire and enthusiasm it so far corresponded with the feelings of his hearers that a copy of it was solicited for publication, and we are disposed to extract from it a few prominent passages. Alluding to the recent deaths of Warren and Montgomery, the speaker said : " Let not their fall, or the fall of a hundred such discourage any one. Let them rather animate our souls, and urge us on to avenge their death and assert the glorious cause in which they fell. When the bloody page of American history is written, I hope proper justice will be done to those noble heroes and to all others who may yet fall a sacrifice to British insolence and cruelty. Courage and heroism in a good cause, joined to the prospect of immortal life in a future world affords one of the most exalted ideas in human nature. When ourselves, our brethren, our sisters, our property—when all worth living for is at stake, he has not the spirit of a man who would not lift the sword and hazard his life in their defence." " Call to mind the oppressive acts by which you and your children were to be made slaves and your money was to be wrested from you, you know not why or for what, by an omnipotent Parliament,' full of bribery and corruption, consisting of men abandoned and profligate, in whose election we have had no vote, and yet claiming a right to bind in all cases whatsoever, and on this ground breaking charters, blocking up harbors, establishing popery,* and sending an armed force to dragoon us to submission ! Call to mind the scenes at Lexington and Concord, where without provocation our brethren were inhumanly fired on and slain ; the ever memorable action at Bunker Hill, where our small army bravely withstood the charge of two thousand of the flower of the British troops, an opulent town in flames, mourning families and every species of violence which the hellish scheme of bringing savage bands and our armed slaves could inflict upon us, call to mind all these and tell me whether your breasts do not burn with indignation and long for the day of combat ? Be of good courage then, cherish this ardor, gather strength from every excitement, and when the day of trial comes, the Lord make you like Saul and Jonathan, swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.' When you come to be drawn in battle array, let your breasts rise high and your joints stand firm, let a generous indignation sparkle in your eyes and flush your cheeks. If you have any mettle, if you would not have your names damned to perpetual infamy, behave like men and fight for your people and for the cities of your God. Courage ! for the cause is good. Courage! for all is at stake. Courage ! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let America reign and all her colonies be glad thereof." † The regiment soon reached Long Island, where Gen. Washington then was, and was not long after engaged in constructing defences on that Island. After the battle on Long Island they came down to New York, crossed the East River, and were employed with other Penn- * Alluding to the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church along with the English Church in Canada. † A Discourse preached by Rey. Vim. Linn, March 17, 1776, before the soldiers of 1: Battalion, who were abut leaving their homes to join the Army. American rolunteer, March 16, 1876. sylvania troops in covering the retreat on the night of leaving the Island. They were finally thrown into Fort Washington at the head of Manhattan Island, and entrusted with its defence, when immense importance was attached to its possession. The troops in it amounted to about three thousand, mostly Pennsylvanians under Colonels Cadwallader, Atlee, Swope, Frederic Watts, of Carlisle, and John Montgomery, with Col. Magaw as the commander. He was soon. summoned to surrender, and threatened by Gen. Howe with extremities if the place should have to be carried by assault. Magaw replied, that he doubted whether a threat so unworthy of the General and of the British nation would be executed. " But," added he, " give me leave to assure your Excellency, that actuated by the most glorious cause that mankind ever fought in, I am determined to defend this post to the very last extremity." After a gallant defence under great disadvantages for want of room to bring all his men into action, and which drew forth the admiration of Gen. Washington who witnessed a part of it from the opposite side of the Hudson, he was obliged to yield himself and a garrison of two thousand eight hundred and eighteen men as prisoners of war (Nov. 16th, 1776). The loss was a serious blow to the fortunes of the war, but no imputation was ever thrown upon the bravery and the good management of the defence. Magaw remained a prisoner, though most of the time on parol, and he was not released until October 25th, 1780, when with Thompson and Laurens he was exchanged for Major Gen. De Reidesel. Many of his men suffered severely in the prisons of New York and in the Jersey prison ships at the Wallabout. Great temptations were offered them to enlist in the British army, but no examples of others, or threats could induce them to purchase freedom by a sacrifice of their principles. Some of them were exchanged next year, but most of them remained until near the close of the war. About the middle of August, 1775, the Committee of Correspondence for Cumberland county wrote to Congress : "The twelfth company of our militia is marched to-day, which companies contain, in the whole, eight hundred and thirty-three privates, with officers nearly nine hundred men. Six companies more are collecting arms and are preparing to march." In December of the same year the same committee (of which John Armstrong, John Byers, Robert Miller,* John Agnew and James Pollock were then present), wrote to the Committee of Safety, that they think they are able to raise a complete Battalion in the county ; and they expressed a hope that the Committee would indulge them with one, for the reason " that corps raised in confined districts where both officers and men are acquainted, would not be liable to those discords which were too prevalent among promiscuous crowds of men, and would otherwise be more serviceable to the common cause. They therefore take the liberty to recommend a list of officers for such a regiment, viz : Wm. Irvine, Colonel ; Ephraim Blaine, Lieut. Colonel ; James Dunlap, * Robt. Miller resided in Carlisle, sustained many offices, and was an elder in the church and a merchant during the Revolution. His daughter Margaret mar. led Major James Armstrong Wilson. HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 83 Major ; James Byers, S. Hay, W. Alexander, J. Talbott, J. Wilson, J. Armstrong, A. Galbreath and R. Adams, Captains ; A. Parker, W. Bratton, G. Alexander, P. Jack, S. M'Clay, S. M'Kenney, R. White and J. M'Donald, Lieutenants. The Sixth regiment was accordingly organized about that time, and on the 9th of January Wm. Irvine re. ceived his appointment as its Colonel. Some changes were made in the list which the Committee had recommended, so that the full organization was : Thomas Hartley, of York, Lieut. Colonel ; James Dunlap (who lived near Newburg), Major ; John Brooks, Adjutant ; and Samuel Hay, Robert Adams, Abraham Smith, of Lurgan, Wm. Rippey (near Shippensburg), Jas. A. Wilson,* David Grier, Moses McLean and Jeremiah Talbotr, of Chambersburg, captains. Within three months after receiving his commission, Col. Irvine marched with his regiment the whole distance to Canada and joined the army before Quebec. It had been formed with the First under Col. J. P. De Haas, the Second under Arthur St. Clair and the Fourth under Colonel Anthony Wayne into a Brigade, and placed under the command, first of General Thomas, and at his death of General Sullivan. By this last commander Col. Irvine was sent with Gen. Thompson on the unfortunate expedition to Trois Rivieres, where he and most of his men were captured (June 8th, 1776,) and sent as prisoners first to Quebec and then to New York. The command of the remaining portion of the regiment was devolved upon Lieut. Col. Hartley, who fell back to Lake Champlain and wintered there. Most of the men re-enlisted after the expiration of their year's time, Jan. 1st, 1777, for three years or during the war. Capt. Rippey had been captured with his company at the Three Rivers, but had succeeded in making his escape. † In March, 1777, a new regiment was formed out of the fragments of the Sixth and the original Seventh, under Col. David Greer. Irvine himself was kept for some months a prisoner, but like his companions allowed to visit his friends on parol, and exchanged (May 6th, 1770), and appointed a Colonel of the Second Pennsylvania regiment. Next year (May 12th, 1779,) he was made a Brigadier General and served for one or two years under Gen. Wayne. In 1781 he was stationed at Fort Pitt, and we shall have occasion to mention him as honored with a number of high civil and military offices until his death at Philadelphia, July 29th, 1804. ERECTION OF A STATE GOVERNMENT. On the 15th of May, 1776, Congress passed the following preamble and resolution : " WHEREAS, his Britannic majesty in conjunction with the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, has by a late act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of these United Colonies from the protection of his crown ; and WHEREAS, no answer whatever to the humble petitions of the colonies for redress of grievances and rec- * James A. Wilson was a son of Thomas W., who resided near Carlisle, by the mill now owned by R. M. Henderson. James was educated at Princeton College, where he graduated about 1771, studied law with Richard Stockton. of Princeton, and after a while was promoted to be Major. His daughter Rebecca married Andrew McDowell, who resided on the same place. † He lived after the war in Shippensburg and kept a hotel there. His wife died there January 2nd, 1801. onciliation with Great Britain has been or is likely to be given, but the whole force of that kingdom, aided by foreign mercenaries, is to be exerted for the destruction of the good people of these colonies ; and WHEREAS, it appears absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good conscience, for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain ; and it is necessary that every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of the government be under the authority of the people of the colonies for the preservation of internal peace, virtue and good order, as well as for the defence of their lives, liberties and properties against the hostile invasions and cruel depredations of their enemies : Therefore, Resolved, That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs has been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general." On the third of June Congress also determined to raise a new species of troops that would be more permanent than the common militia, and yet more easily raised than regulars. This was to form what they called " a flying camp," intermediate between regular soldiers and militia, and to consist of ten thousand men from the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. The quota of Pennsylvania was six thousand, but as fifteen hundred of such men had already been sent into the field, the immediate demand was for four thousand five hundred. These recommendations were designedly left without a precise designation of the provincial bodies to act upon them. They were reported to the Assembly of Pennsylvania and were there referred to a Committee, but neither the Committee nor the Assembly took any further action upon them under the plea that their oaths of office would not permit them to cast off the very authority under which they existed. The Assembly soon after (June 14th) adjourned to the 14th of August, and on the failure of a quorum to the 23rd of September, when after a feeble protest against the invasion of its prerogatives which by that time had been made by the Conference, it adjourned to meet no more. In like manner the Committee of Safety, regarding itself simply as the executive power of the province during the recess of the Assembly, declined to act on the recommendations. There seemed to be no way to reach the case, but through a new body chosen directly by the people. To give an opportunity for the election of such a body, at the suggestion of the committee of the city and county of Philadelphia, the committees of the several counties were invited to meet, and they accordingly did meet in Philadelphia at Carpenter's Hall on the 18th of June. All the counties were finally represented in this Provincial Conference," the county of Cumberland being represented by James M'Lane, of Antrim township, John McClay, of Lurgan, William Elliot, Col. William Clark, Dr. John Calhoon, of East Pennsborough, John Creigh and John Harris, of Carlisle, Hugh McCormick and Hugh Alexander, of Middle 84 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. Spring. Though it continued in session but one week, (June 18-25), a large amount of business was transacted by it. The resolutions of Congress were approved, the existing government of the province was pronounced incompetent, a convention to frame a new government based on the authority of the people only was appointed to meet in Philadelphia on the 15th of July, the number of delegates was limited to eight from each county, the qualifications of the delegates and of the voters for such delegates were determined, and the several places for voting in each precinct of each county were named. It was agreed that every delegate to the Convention should be required to abjure allegiance to the King of Great Britain ; to promise to support all measures fitted to establish a government on the authority of the people, to oppose the tyrannical proceedings of the king and parliament, to resist every measure which would interfere with the religious principles or practices of the people of the province and to profess his faith in a Triune God and in the holy Scriptures. Before any person otherwise qualified in the way prescribed should be permitted to vote for delegates, he was on cath, if so required by any of the judges or inspectors of the election, to take the following test, viz : " I do declare that I do not hold myself bound to bear allegiance to George the Third, King of Great Britain, Sze., and that I will not by any means directly or indirectly oppose the establishment of a free government in this province by the convention now to be chosen, nor the measures adopted by Congress against the tyranny attempted to be established in these colonies by the court of Great Britain." Three voting places were designated for the county of Cumberland, with the judges of election for each, viz : For the first division at Carlisle, Robert Miller and James Gregory, of Carlisle, and Benjamin Blyth, of Middle Spring ; for the second, John Allison, of Tyrone, James Maxwell, of Peters, and John Baird, of Letterkenny, at Chambersburg ; and for the third, Wm. Brown, Alexander Morrow and James Taylor at Robert Campbell's in Hamilton township. The time for the election of these delegates was fixed for the 8th of July. Although the conference had been appointed solely for the purpose of providing for a new government of the province, the sudden dissolution of the Assembly left no means of providing for the raising of the 4,500 men required for the militia ; and the conference therefore recommended to the committees of Inspection and Observation for the several counties to order such a proportion of men as they should judge most equal from the battalions associated within their respective limits. The number of men to be raised by each county was then decided upon, and the proper quota for Cumberland county was concluded to be three hundred and thirty four. This small number was fixed upon in consideration of the number which had already been contributed there. Finally a declaration was unanimously adopted and sent forth to the people, in which for themselves and their constituents, the members of conference proclaimed that they were willing to concur with Congress in a vote declaring the united colonies free and independent states. This bold declaration was signed at the table of the Conference and the President was directed to furnish Congress with a copy. On the day appointed by the Conference, (July 8th, 1776), Wm. Harris, then a lawyer in Carlisle, Wm. Clark, Wm. Duffield, near Loudon, Hugh Alexander, of Middle Spring, Jonathan Hoge and Robert Whitehill, of East Pennsborough, James Brown, of Carlisle, and James M'Lane, of Antrim, were chosen delegates from Cumberland county. At the meeting of the Convention, July 15th, a constitution was formed which was acquiesced in by the people for a number of years, in spite of some informalities in the body which framed it and some infelicities in its provisions. The supreme executive power was vested in a President chosen by joint ballot each year by the Assembly and the Supreme Executive Council, consisting of twelve persons, four of which were to be chosen each year to continue in office three years. It provided for but one chamber in the Legislature, established a Council of Censors once in seven years after its first meeting in 1783, to continue for one year, to see that the Constitution was not violated by any public officers, that all parts of government were properly administered and that taxes were justly imposed, revenues were wisely expended and laws were faithfully executed. It was completed by the last of September, signed by the President and each member, and then handed over to the Committee of Safety to be transmitted by it to the Assembly at its next meeting. It was never formally ratified by the people, but was generally accepted without objection. The elections provided for were held in their due order, the officers of the new government and the members of Council and Assembly assumed their respective stations without any serious opposition. The protest of the Governor and a few members of the old Colonial Assembly against what they called the unlawful usurpation of their functions was disregarded, and the attempt of a few Justices in this and other counties to exercise jurisdiction under royal commissions received so little support as scarcely to awaken attention. Some of the powers exercised by the Convention were confessedly unauthorized, and warranted only by the necessities of the case. It proceeded to appoint a Council of Safety, of which William Lyon was a member from Cumberland county, to carry on the duties of the executive department, and some Justices for each county, to act until appointments could be made in a regular way for such offices. The names of the Justices for this county are not known, but as their tenure of office must have been brief this is of but little importance. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The Assembly of Pennsylvania had on several occasions instructed the Delegates in Congress from that province to dissent from and utterly reject any proposition which looked toward a separation from the mother country or a change of the proprietary government. This was in accordance with the views of all wise persons as long as a fair prospect remained of a redress of grievances. But when the respectful addresses of the colony to the King and the Parliament had been repeatedly treated with contempt, when war had been waged by powerful armies upon more than one colony, and when the purpose was openly avowed that no terms were to be held with any colony until it HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 85 had given up its resistance and submitted unconditionally to the will of Parliament, a decided change had taken place in public feeling. From being loyal subjects large numbers had now become determined enemies. They could no longer bear to see delegates in Congress who would gladly vote for independence bound by instructions which had become out of date. Among the first meetings in the province to produce a Change in this state of things was one held in Carlisle early in May, 1776. In that meeting which was said to have been large and influential, a memorial to the Assembly was unanimously adopted, alleging that in the opinion of the freemen of this county the safety and welfare of these colonies rendered separation from the mother country an absolute necessity ; and a formal request was made " that the last instructions which the Assembly had given to the delegates of this province in Congress, wherein they are enjoined not to consent to any step which may cause or lead to a separation from Great Britain, might be withdrawn." This memorial was presented to the Assembly on the 28th of May, 1776, and after a long debate was referred to a committee to bring in new instructions to the delegates in Congress. The instructions reported by this committee are almost in the exact words of the memorial from this county, but the utmost that could be obtained from a majority of the Assembly was the adoption of a resolution that since the time at which their last instructions had been given (November, 1775), " the situation of public affairs has so greatly altered, that we now think ourselves justifiable in removing the restrictions laid upon you by those instructions." As this memorial was presented to the Assembly on the 28th of May, the meeting in the distant county of Cumberland must have been held some time before the 20th of May, when the celebrated Declaration was made at Mechlenburg, North Carolina. Certainly we have a right to believe that the bold thought had taken possession quite as early of the hearts of these Cumberland county people as of the hearts of their kindred in faith and blood in a more Southern clime. It was, however, adopted and expressed here with a unanimity which the latter could not attain, and it was put forth in a district and in the name of some who held high positions in civil and military service. It did not long stand alone. We have seen that the provincial Conference (June 24th), declared its " willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress in declaring the united colonies free and independent states," and that " the obligations of allegiance (being reciprocal between a king and his subjects) are now dissolved on the side of the colonists, insomuch that it now appears that loyalty to him is treason against the good people of this country." In these circumstances when the motion for independence was finally acted upon in Congress the vote of Pennsylvania was carried in its favor by the casting vote of James Wilson, of Cumberland county. Bancroft says of him, "He had at an early day foreseen independence as the probable, though not the intended result of the contest ; he had uniformly declared in his place that he never would vote for it contrary to his instructions ; nay, that he regarded it as something more than presumption to take a step of such importance without express instructions and authority."' For,' said he, 'ought this act to be the act of four or five individuals, or should it be the act of the people of Pennsylvania ?' But now that their authority was communicated by the Conference of Committees, he stood on very different ground." On the 2d day of July, after earnest and eloquent appeals in opposition to the motion, Dickinson and Morris absented themselves, and this enabled Franklin, Wilson and Morton to outvote Willing and Humphreys.* Before the time arrived at which the Declaration was signed (Aug. 2d), the overcautious delegates whose patriotism was unquestioned, but who still. hoped for some advantages by delay were rebuked by the failure of their re-election, and by the choice of men from the interior whose political and commercial entanglements were less restraining. CHAPTER ELEVENTH. REVOLUTIONARY WAR. The first six months after the Declaration of Independence were by no means encouraging for the patriot cause. Washington's army was driven from New York across New Jersey to the western side of the Delaware. Worst of all, that army seemed about to melt entirely away from. the expiration of the soldiers' term of enlistment, Only a few from New York had enlisted for a longer time and it seemed impossible to obtain further recruits. In the meantime General Howe was advancing toward Philadelphia, and was encountering no opposition. Leading men on the American side seemed to waver, and some to be preparing for a return to their allegiance. Congress itself, while abating nothing of its professions, hastily forsook Philadelphia and went to Baltimore. But a new zeal appeared to take possession of the Pennsylvania authorities. On the 28th of. November a. meeting of citizens was called at the State House; and the public heart was aroused by spirited addresses and prompt action—Earnest and eloquent men were sent through the counties to lay before the people the danger of the new commonwealth and the terrible results which would follow the subjugation of its territory. Messengers were dispatched among others to Cumberland county to entreat * Bancroft's Hist. of the United States, Vol. VIII., pp. 456-459. 86 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. the committee by every consideration of patriotism to make efforts for raising troops. On the 16th of October, the Council Of Safety (in which William Lyon, of Cumberland county, that day took his seat), proposed to the Board of War, to continue a large force in this State to protect it " not only against British troops, but againsr the growing party of disaffected persons which unhappily exists at this time, and to carry on such works of defence as were thought needful ;" and also resolved " to raise four battalions of militia for the immediate defence of this state to be furnished by York, Cumberland, Lancaster and Berks counties, one. battalion for each county and each battalion to consist of five hundred men." The brilliant achievements of Trenton (Dec. 25th), and of Princeton (Jan 3d, 1777), were yet more effectual, and for a while prospects began to brighten. The recruiting service which for some time had been at a stand was successfully renewed, and when the eastern bank of the Delaware was trodden by the invader, and a series of outrages showed what was in prospect on his possession of our soil, companies began to form in the back counties and march to the front with alacrity. On the same day the Declaration of Independence had been passed in Congress, (July 4, 1776), a military Convention, representing the 53 battalions of the Associators of Pennsylvania, met at Lancaster to choose two Brigadier Generals to command the battalions and forces of Pennsylvania. Cumberland county was represented by Col. John Armstrong, Lieutenant Colonels Wm. Blair, Wm. Clark, and Frederick Watts, Major James M'Calmont (" Supple M'Cammont" as he was called for his fleetness in the pursuit of Indians, of Letterkenny township in the present Franklin county), Captains Rev. John Steel, Thomas McClelland, John Davison, James M'Farlane and George Robinson and Privates David Hoge, Ephraim Steel, Smith, Pauling, Brown, Sterrett, Hamilton, Read, Finley and Vance. Daniel Robardeau, of Philadelphia, and James Ewing, of York were chosen, and they were soon after commissioned, first and second Brigadier Generals in the associated militia. On. the formation of the Flying Camp, two regiments had been formed in Cumberland county under Col. Frederick Watts and John Montgomery, of Carlisle, and sent forward to General Washington, on Long Island, but they had been captured at the surrender of Fort Washington. These officers, however, were soon exchanged, and we shall find them in command of regiments under a new arrangement. When General Howe appeared to be about crossing New Jersey, to get possession of Philadelphia by land (June 14, 1776), messengers were dispatched to the counties to give orders that the second class of the associated militia should march as speedily as possible to the places to which the first class had been ordered, and that the third class should be got in readiness to march at a moment's notice. These orders were at once complied with, but before the companies from this county had started, the order' was countermanded, on account of the return of the British troops to New York. It soon, however, became known that the approach to Philadelphia was to be by transports up Chesapeake Bay and Delaware river, and a requisition was made upon the state for four thousand militia in addition to those already in the field. One class therefore was again ordered from the county. On the 5th of October, 1776, the Council of Safety resolved to throw into the new continental establishment two of the three Pennsylvania Battalions before in that service to serve during the war, and the third was to be retained in the service of the state until the first of January, 1778, unless sooner discharged, and to consist of ten companies of 100 men each including officers. The privates of the three battalions were to continue in the service of the State, the officers according to seniority to have the choice of entering into either, and the two battalions to be recruited to their full complement of men as speedily as possible. By this new arrangement, Pennsylvania was to keep twelve battalions complete in the continental service. Of course this broke up all previous organizations, and renders it difficult to trace the course of the old companies. We have seen that on the 16th of August, thirteen companies fully officered and equipped had left the county for the seat of war and six others were preparing to go. The regiments of Colonels Thompson,* Irvine and Magaw, † we have noticed, and two or three * In addition to the items mentioned in the History, we may mention that General Thompson was commissioned by Governor Denny as Captain of a troop of light horse May 4th, 1758, and in 1763 all field officers in the French war received from the King liberal donations of land in any part of the royal domains. In 1774 he was delegated by his brother officers to locate these lands, and he proceeded down the Ohio and surveyed with great labor and expense a large body Of land at Salt Lick river now in Kentucky. On going to Richmond to complete the title to these lands, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King and so lost his labor and money. In 1779 he received General Clinton's permission through Major Andre, to come to New Yerk Where he was exchanged. He was the owner of a house on the public square in Carlisle. His wife was a daughter of George Ross, an Episcopal clergyman of New Castle, Delaware, and father of George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Two of her sisters married George Read, another signer, and Rev. Wm. Thompson, of Carlisle. One of General Thompson's daughters married George Read, a son of the signer, besides whom he had Wm. Allen Thompson, of Chestnut Hill, and George Thompson, of Pittsburg. He was the grand uncle of Dr. T. C. Stephenson, of Carlisle. His grave is in the Hamilton lot in the old Cemetery in Carlisle. † Col. Robert Magaw was probably the son of David Magaw, whom we have mentioned as a resident of Shippensburg or its neighborhood, and whose brother William sometimes is spoken of. Eamuel a brother of Robert was a Presbyterian clergyman who was chosen in place of Rittenhouse, to be Provost of the University of Pensylvania. At the opening of the Revolution Robert had attained considerable distinction as a lawyer in Carlisle. His regiment was not in the battle of Long Island but on the next morning, Aug. 28th, it came down from Fort Washington, crossed the East river at the Wallabout, and on the night of the 29th formed a part of the rear guard which covered Washington's evacuation of Long Island. On the 16th of October, when Manhattan Island was evacuated Magaw was left in command of Fort Washington (between the 18th and the 187th streets of New York as now laid out) while the army marched to Kingsbridge. After the capture of the Fort he remained a prisoner four years. His soldiers were confined in the celebrated sugar House on Liberty street. He probably then became acquainted with Marietta Van Brunt, a daughter of Rutger Van Brunt whom he married. In a letter to President Heed, dated Carlisle, April 6th, 1781, he said : " On my return from fear years captivity I found the infantry of the Pennsylvania line about to be reduced to six regiments and that the number of officers was more than competent and considering that it would show but false patriotism to insist for my sank as a general officer in prejudice to one of more experience, I sent down my intimation to be returned a retiring officer, which was done accordingly. I paid my boarding while a prisoner except about £13 and loaned a £1.0 in specie to officers in distress before any public supplies arrived, much of which sum I will lose from the depreciation." After his return to Carlisle, he organized a volunteer company which he commanded till his death. Ile was at one time a member of the Legislature. The dote of his HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 87 others must have been in existence about this time. One of these was commanded by Col. Frederick Watts and Major David Mitchell ; and another by John Montgomery, who after the dissolution of the Committee of Safety, July 22d, 1776, appears to have taken charge of a regiment. Both of these regiments were at the taking of Fort Washington and were then captured. One of the volunteer companies under Col. Watts, after the latter had been set at liberty and been put again at the head of a regiment,* was commanded by Capt. Jonathan Robinson, of Sherman's Valley, the son of George Bobinson, who suffered so much in the Indian war, and who now, though above fifty years of age, had entered the patriot army. t This company was in the battle of Princeton, and was for some time stationed at that town to guard against the British and to act as scouts to intercept their foraging parties. Near the close of the year 1776, or the beginning of 1777, battalions began to be designated by numbers in their respective counties, and we read of the first, second, third, &c., of Cumberland county. This was under the new organization of the militia of the state. The first was organized in January, 1777, when " Col. Ephraim Blaine of the first battalion of Cumberland county militia is directed to hold an election for field officers in the said battalion, if two thirds of the battalion, now marched and marching to camp, require the same." Accordingly the Colonel was furnished with blank commissions to fill them when the officers should be chosen. Captains Samuel Postlethwaite, Matthias Selers, John Steel, Wm. 'Chambers and John Boggs are mentioned in the minutes of the Council of Safety as connected with this regiment. Col. Blaine's connection with the regiment must have been brief, for he was soon transferred to the commissary department, and we find it under the command of Colonel James Dunlap, from near Newburgh and a ruling elder in the congregation of Middle Spring, Lieut. Col. Robert Culbertson, and connected with three companies from what is now Franklin county, viz : those of Captains Noah Abraham, of Path Valley, Patrick Jack, of Hamilton township, and Charles McClay, of Lurgan. The second battalion was at first under the command of Col. John Allison, a Justice of the peace in Tyrone township, over the mountains, and a Judge of the county, but after his retirement (for he was now past middle life), it was for a while under the command of Col. James Murray, and still later we find it under John Davis, of Middleton, near the Conodoguinet. Under him were the companies of Captains Wm. Huston, Charles Leeper, of the Middle Spring congregation, James death is unknown. His will was proved April 9th, 1'93. He owned two stone houses on the southeast corner of the public square in Carlisle. He left two children, Van Brunt and Elizabeth, the former of whom in a letter dated Gravesend, L. I., Nov. 27, 1811, says that he had chosen to be a farmer there; and the latter married Peter M'Carty, of New York. *Col. Watts was a native of Wales, and must have received a good early education. He married Jane Murray, a niece of David Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, a partisan of the Pretender Charles Edward. About 5763 he came to America, and after a brief residence in Chester county, removed to a place near the confluence of the Juniata and the Susquehanna, about so miles from Carlisle, where some barracks had been built for the soldiers during the Indian Wars. Biog. Encyclop. of Pa., of the XIXth Cent., Philad., 0874. † Fragments of Family and Contemporary History by T. H. Robinson, D. D., 1867, p 61. Crawford, Patrick Jack, (sometimes credited to this regiment), Samuel Royal and Lieut. George Wallace. While this regiment was under marching orders for Amboy, near Jan. 1, 1777, they took from such persons as were not associated in Antrim and Peters townships, whatever arms were found in their possession, to be paid for according to appraisement by the government. The fourth battalion was under Col. Samuel Lyon and had in it the companies of Captains John Purdy, of East Pennsborough, James McConnel, of Letterkenny, and in 1778 of Jonathan Robinson, of Sherman's Valley, Stephen Stevenson who was at first a Lieutenant but afterwards became a Captain. The fifth battalion was commanded by Col. Joseph Armstrong, a veteran of the Indian war and of the expedition to Kittanning, and in 1756-7 a member of the Colonial Assembly. Most of this regiment was raised in Hamilton, Letterkenny and Lurgan townships, and its companies at different times were under Captains John Andrew. Robert Culbertson, (for a time), Samuel Patton, John McConnel, Conrad Snider, Wm. Thompson, Charles McClay, (at one period), James McKee, James Gibson, John Rea, Jonathan Robinson, George Matthews and John Boggs ; John Murphy was a Lieutenant and John Martin Ensign. Captain McClay's men are said to have been over six feet in height and to have numbered a hundred, and the whole regiment was remarkable for its vigor and high spirit. It suffered severely at the battle of " Crooked Billet," in Berks county, May 4th, 1778, when Gen. Lacy was surprised and many of his men were butchered without mercy. The sixth battalion was commanded by Col. Samuel Culbertson, who had been a Lieut. Colonel in the first, but was promoted to the command of the sixth. John Work was the Lieut. Colonel, James McCammont, Major, John Wilson, Adjutant, Samuel Finley, Quarter Master, and Richard Brownson, Surgeon, and Patrick Jack, Samuel Patton, James Patton, Joseph Culbertson, William Huston, Robert McCoy and John McConnel, were at some periods Captains. As the period for which the enlistments about this time, when the invasion of Pennsylvania was imminent, were usually limited to six months and sometimes even to three and two months, we need not be surprised to find that at different times the same men and officers served in two or three different regiments. As an instance J. Robinson says that he entered the service a number of times on short enlistments of two or three months and was placed in different regiments and brigades. The seventh battalion is believed to have consisted of remnants of the old fifth and sixth continental regiments, andi was commanded by Col. Wm, Irvine. These soldiers re-entered, the-service as the seventh battalion in March, 1777, and were under the command of its Major, David Grier, until the release of Irvine from his parole as a prisoner of war, (May 6th, 1777). In 1779 Col, Irvine was commissioned a Brigadier and served under Gen. Wayne, but before this (July 5th, 1777), Abraham Smith, of Lurgan township, was elected Colonel. Among the Captains were Wm. Rippey, Samuel Montgomery, who became Captain of Smith's company when the latter was promoted, John Alexander, before a Lieutenant in Smith's company, Alexander Parker, Jeremiah Talbott, who in the latter part. 88 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA. of the year 1777 was promoted a Major in the sixth, and served in that position until the close of the war. He was the first Sheriff of Franklin county, (Oct. 1784) and was twice re-elected. The eighth mgetalion was commanded by Abraham Smith, who was chosen July 6, 1777, probably from Lurgan, and a member of the congregation of fiddle Spring. Its officers were largely taken from a single remarkable family in Antrim township. The head of this family had settled very early, about 1735, two and a half miles east of where Greencastle now is and had died near 1755, leaving a large property and four ;ons. Each of these sons entered the army. The eldest James was Lieut. Colonel of the eighth battalion, but afterwards was the Colonel )f a battalion during a campaign in New Jersey. John, the youngest, was the Major, and Thomas, the second son, was Adjutant and was present at the slaughter at Paoli, Sept. 20, 1777, but survived to be )romoted to a colonelcy and lived till about 1819. Dr. Robert, the other brother, was a Surgeon in Col. Irvine's regiment, was in the South during the latter years of the war, was at the surrender of Yorktown, Oct. 1781, and in 1790 was an excise collector for Frank-in county. Terrence Campbell was the Quarter-master. The Capains were Samuel Roger, John Jack, James Poe and John Rea, who afterwards became a Brigadier General. Besides these, we have notices of several companies, regiments and officers whose number and position in the service is not given in any tccount we have seen. Early in the war James Wilson and John Montgomery were appointed Colonels, and in the battalion of the former are mentioned the companies of Captains Thomas Clarke and Thomas Turbitt. Montgomery was in the army at New York in 1776, Ind was at the surrender of Fort Washington, but both he and Wilon were soon called into the civil department of the service and do tot appear in the army, after that year. Besides them were Colonels Robert Callender, of Middlesex, now in advanced life, whose death early in the war, deprived his country of his valuable services, James Armstrong, Robert Peoples, James Gregory, Arthur Buchanan, Benjamin Blythe, Abraham Smith, Isaac Miller and William Scott. 'Among le Captains whom we are unable to locate in any particular regiment, at least for any considerable time, were Joseph Brady, Thomas eale, Matthew Henderson, Samuel M'Cune, (under Col. Wm. Clarke for a while, and at Ticonderoga), Isaac Miller, David M'Knight, Alexander Trindle, Robert Quigley, Wm. Strain, Sam uel Kearsley, Samuel lythe, Samuel Walker, Wm. Blaine, Joseph Martin, James Adams, Samuel Erwin and Peter Withington. One of the companies which ere early mustered into the service was that of Capt. Wm. Peebles. he officers' commissions were dated somewhere between the 9th id the 15th of March, near the time at which Magaw's regiment ft the county. The company was in Philadelphia, Aug. 17th, and as then said to consist of 81 riflemen. It was in the battle of Long and, Aug. 27th, when a portion was captured, and the remainder ?.re in the engagements at White Plains, Trenton and Princeton. his return from the war Capt. Peebles resided on Peebles' Run, a le distance from Newburg, and was for many years an elder in the congregation at Middle Spring. He was promoted to be a Colonel Sept. 23d, 1776. Matthew Scott was the First Lieutenant and among the captured at Long Island, but lie was exchanged Dec. 8, 1776, and promoted Captain April 18, 1777. He married Peggy, the daughter of Samuel Lamb, a stone mason near Stony Ridge, who long survived him and was living in Mechanicsburg in 1845. The family of Mr. Lamb was distinguished for its ardent patriotism. The Second Lieutenant was Robert Burns, promoted to be a Captain in Col. Hazen's regiment Dec. 21st, 1776. The Third Lieutenant was Robert Campble also promoted to be a Captain .at the same time in the same regiment, and when wounded was transferred to an invalid regiment under Lewis Nichola. The sergeants were Samuel Kenny, Wm. M'Cracken, Patrick Highlands, captured, and Joseph Collier. James Carson drummer and Edward Lee, fifer, were also captured at Long Island, Aug, 27th, 1776. The privates were Wm. Adams, Zachariah Archer, Wm. Armstrong, James Atchison, captured, Thomas Beatty, Henry Bourke, Wm. Boyd, Daniel Boyle, (enlisted for two years, discharged at Valley Forge, July 1st, 1778, and 1824 resided in Armstrong county,) James Brattin, John Brown, Robert Campble, John Carrigan, Wm. Carson, Wm. Cavan, Henry Dibbins, Pat. Dixon, Samuel Dixon, captured, Barnabas Dougherty, James Dowds, John Elliott, Charles Farguer, Daniel Finley, Pat. Flynn, James Galbreath, Thomas Gilmore, Dagwell Hawn, John Hodge, Charles Holder, Jacob Hove, John Jacobs, John Justice, John Keating, John Lane, Peter Lane, Samuel Logan, Robert M'Clintock, Alex. M'Curdy, Hugh M'Kegney, Andrew M'Kinsey, Charles McKowen, Niel M'Mullen, Alex. Mitchell, John Mitchell, a Justice of the Peace in Cumberland county, in 1821, Laurence Morgan, Samuel Montgomery, Wm. Montgomery, David Moore, James Moore, John Moore, James Mortimer, Robert Mullady, Patrick Murdaugh, John Niel, James Nickleson, Robt. Nugent. Richard Orput, John Paxton, Robert Pealing, James Pollock, Hans Potts, Patrick Quigley, John Quinn, Andrew Ralston, James Reily, Thomas Rogers, (captured on Long Island, died in New Jersey, leaving a widow who resided in Chester county,) James Scroggs, Andrew Sharpe, Thomas Sheerer, John Shields, John Skuse, Thomas Townsend, Patten Viney, John Walker, John Wallace, Thomas Wallace, Wm. Weatherspoon, captain, Peter Weaver, Robert Wilson and Hugh Woods. Total of officers 10, and of privates 80. A company of rangers from the borders of this county who had been accustomed in the Indian wars to act under James Smith, also deserves notice. He had now removed to the western -part of the State, and was a member of the Assembly from Westmoreland. While attending on that body early in 1777 he saw in the street of. the city some of his former companions in forest adventure from this region, and they immediately formed themselves into a company under him as their commander. Obtaining leave of absence for a short time from the Assembly, he went with them to the army in New Jersey, attacked about 200 of the British at Rocky Hill, and with only 36 men drove them from their position ; and on another occasion took 22 Hessians with their officers' baggage-wagons and a number of our HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 89 continental prisoners they were guarding. In a few days they took more of the British than was of their own party. Being taken with the camp fever, Smith returned to the city and the party was com manded by Major M'Cammont, of Strasburg. He then applied to General Washington for permission to raise a battalion of riflemen, all expert marksmen and accustomed to the Indian method of fighting, and the Council of Safety strongly recommended the project ; but the General thought not best to introduce such an irregular element into the army, and only offered him a Major's commission in a regular regiment. Not fancying the officer under whom he was to serve he declined this and remained for a time with his companions in the militia. In 1778 he received a Colonel's commission, and served with credit till the end of the war principally on the western frontier. Another partisan leader was Samuel Brady, originally from near Shippensburg, and among those who went first to Boston. Though but sixteen years of age when he enlisted in 1775 in a company of riflemen, he was one of the boldest and hardiest of that remarkable company. At the battle of Monmouth he was made a Captain, at Princeton he was near being taken prisoner, but succeeded in effecting an escape for himself and his Colonel, and on many occasions displayed an astonishing coolness and steadiness of courage. He so often acted on special commissions to obtain intelligence that he became distinguished as the " Captain of the Spies." In 1778 his brother and in 1779 hiS father were cruelly killed by the Indians, and from that time it is said of him—" This made him an Indian killer, and he never changed his business. The red man never had a more implacable foe or a more relentless tracker. Being as well skilled in woodcraft as any Indian of them all, he would trail them to their very lairs with all the fierceness and tenacity of the sleuth hound." During the whole sanguinary war with the Indians he gave up his whole time to lone vigils, solitary wanderings and terrible revenges. He commenced his scouting service in 1780, when he was but 24 years old, and became a terror to the savages and a security to a large body of settlers. He did not marry until about 1786, when he spent some years at West Liberty, in West Virginia, where he probably died about 1800.* The Patrick Jack, who is mentioned more than once above as connected at different times with several regiments, was probably the same man who afterwards became famous as the " Wild Hunter," or Juniata Jack, the Indian Killer." He was from Hamilton township, and is said by Geo. Croghan in 1755 to have been at the head of a company of hunter rangers, expert in Indian warfare and clad like their leader in Indian attire. They were therefore proposed to Gen. Braddock, as proper persons to act as scouts, provided they were allowed to dress, march and fight as they pleased. " They are well armed," said Croghan, " and are equally regardless of heat and cold. They require no shelter for the night and ask no pay." It is said of *A detailed account of all that is known of this singular man may be found in " Our Western Border, by Charles McKnight," 1875 pp. 426-42. him as of Brady, that he became a bitter enemy of the Indians, by finding his cabin one evening on his return from hunting, " a heap of smouldering ruins, and the blackened corpses of his murdered family scattered around." From that time he became a rancorous Indian hater and slayer. When the Revolutionary War began he was among the first that enlisted, and he afterwards enlisted several times on short terms, in various companies. He was of large size and stature, dark almost as an Indian, and stern and relentless to his foes. John Armstrong, in his account of the Kittanning expedition, calls him " the half Indian," but he could have had no Indian blood in his veins. His monument may be seen at Chambersburg with this inscription, " Colonel Patrick Jack, an officer of the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars—died January 25th, 1821, aged ninety-one years."* COMMISSIONERS, COMMITTEES AND PUBLIC OFFICERS. At this early period of the war many were as active in the county at home as those we have noticed abroad. There were few men of intelligence and energy whose services were not called for in some department. We have already mentioned the Committee of Observation and Inspection, appointed as early as in 1774. It was one of the most important mediums of intercourse between the Committee and Council of Safety and the people of the counties. Its powers were not clearly defined, but it seems to have had a general oversight of the patriot interest, and its members were expected to communicate to the authorities at Philadelphia every incident bearing upon the public welfare, to arrest persons suspected of disaffection to government, and to take charge of property which had been forfeited for treason, to aid in the purchase of arms and ammunition and in the enlistment of recruits, to attend to such persons as might be confined in their vicinity, &c. On this committe were George Stevenson, the chairman, whose activity and vigilance were unceasing and untiring from the very commencement. of the war,' John Creigh who also acted as a Justice of the Peace and a Judge, Ephraim Steel, John Agnew, for some time a Prothonotary, Wm. Beckworth and Adam Laughlin. This committee was required to " keep a true account of their pro- * "Our Western Border," pp., 109-11 † George Stevenson was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1718, and graduated at Trinity college in that city. He came to America near the middle of the century and for a while taught a classical school at New Castle, Delaware, and, was Deputy Surveyor General under Nicholas Scull for the " Three Lower counties on the Delaware." He then removed to York, Pa., where he practised law with success, and was commissioned in 1755 a Judge for the counties of York and Cumberland. In connection with William Thompson (afterwards General) and George Ross, of Delaware (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), he became a large land owner and manufacturer of iron, and built (1764) a Furnace and Forge in York county. In 1769 he removed to Carlisle and engaged in the iron business at Mount Holly, seven miles south of Carlisle. Owing to the dishonesty of others he was unsuccessful in this enterprise, and he returned to the practice of law in Carlisle. His correspondence as published in the Colonial Records and Archives, shows him to have been a man of ability and to have been much trusted. He received the degree of L.L. D. He died in Carlisle in 1783. He married Mrs. Mary Cookson, the widow of Thomas Cookson, a lawyer of Lancaster, and a Deputy Surveyor who laid cut the town of Carlisle. She was the sister of Mrs. General William Thompson, the mother of Dr. George Stevenson (mentioned in another part of this work), and three daughters : Nancy married to John Holmes, of Baltimore, Catharine married to General John Wilkins, of Pittsburg. and Mary married to Dr. James Armstrong, of Carlisle. She died in 1791. 90 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. ceedings and were allowed a fair compensation for their trouble over and above their costs and charges." In the early part of 1778 (May 6th), the business of attending upon estates forfeited for treason had become so burdensome that a special committee was appointed for attending to that department in the several counties. For this county, George Stevenson, John Boggs, Joseph Brady and Alexander McGehan were on this committee. The commissioners for the county, James Pollock and Samuel Laird, were called upon to collect the amounts which non-associators were expected to contribute as a fair equivalent for the military services they owed to the State, and to collect such arms and ammunition as might be found in their possession. By an Act of the Supreme Executive Council of March 17th, 1777, it was provided that the President should appoint one or more persons in each city or county to serve as Lieutenants of the militia ; and also any number of persons not exceeding the number of battalions in the same city or county to serve as sub-Lieutenants. They were to divide the county into militia districts, enroll the militia, divide them into companies, hold elections of officers for them, collect fines, purchase arms for the militia, settle for arms horses and other property, and represent generally the state government in military matters in the county. The orders of the Supreme Executive Council were given to the militia through these Lieutenants, who acted through sub-Lieutenants in each battalion. John Armstrong was first appointed for this responsible position, and soon after his declinature Ephraim Blaine. In a letter dated April 7th, 1777, the latter gives as a reason for not accepting this appointment " the difference of sentiment which prevails in Cumberland county, and the ill-judged appointment of a part of the sub-Lieutenants." Gen. Armstrong refers to this opposition and writes that " by much the greatest which he had found anywhere he had encountered in this county, where temper bath had too great a lead of reason." From other correspondence it is apparent that this was not an opposition to the patriot cause nor to the American government as such, but only to certain articles in the State constitution as they had been formed by the late convention and to some informalities of proceeding. For some time there was a difficulty in filling this office in consequence of the odium attached to the enforcement of some parts of the militia law. At last (April 10th, 1777) James Galbreath an old veteran of East Pennsborough, was appointed, and though he also for a time declined, he yielded to importunities and the necessities of the service and performed its duties without a formal induction into office. In August John Carothers accepted the office and discharged its duties with much efficiency until October, 1779, when Col. James Dunlap was appointed. Abraham Smith held the office in April, 1780. The sub-Lieutenants who were chosen trom different parts of the county were Col. James Gregory, of Allen township, Col. Benjamin Blythe, near Middle Spring, George Sharpe, near Big Spring, Col Robert McCoy (died in May, 1777), John Harris, of Carlisle, George Stewart, James McDowell, of Peters township (in place of Col. R. McCoy) Col. Frederick Watts, Col. Ar thur Buchanan, Thomas Buchanan, John Trindle, Col. Abraham Smith and Thomas Turbutt. The first seven of these were appointed in 1777, and the remainder in 1780. In June, 1777, the Supreme Executive Council, having received complaints, that some of the Justices of this county had not taken the oath of allegiance, and that there were many vacancies in the several townships, made an entirely new board of these Justices composed of the following persons, viz : John Rannels (Reynolds), James Maxwell, James Oliver, John Holmes, John Agnew, John Mc-Clay, Samuel Lyon, Wm. Brown, John Harris, Samuel Royer, John Anderson, John Creigh, Hugh Laird, Andrew McBeath, Thomas Kennedy, Alexander Laughlin, Samuel McClure, Patrick Vance, Geo. Matthews, Wm. McClure, Samuel Culbertson, James Armstrong, John Work, John Trindle, Stephen Duncan, Ephraim Steel, Wm. Brown (Carlisle), Robert Peebles, Henry Taylor, James Taylor, Chas. Leiper, John Scouler, Matthew Wilson and David McClure. On the nomination of these Justices John Agnew was soon after (Nov. 5th) appointed a clerk of the Peace and (Feb. 20th, 1779) a Commissioner for the exchange of money. It was one part of the duty of these Justices at this time to administer the oath of allegiance to every person who should vote for officers, or enter upon any office either under the State government or under the Continental Congress. Thousands of names are preserved among the records of these Justices under the different forms of oaths or affirmations required. Two years later (Feb. 6, 1779), a supersedeas was issued upon the commission of the peace of this county, by the Council, so far as respected John Holmes, Stephen Duncan, Ephraim Steel, Wm. Brown, John Harris, John Scouller, James Maxwell and John Work, inasmuch as for various reasons they had declined accepting the office of Justice for that term. The Prothonotaries, after the resignation of Hermanus Alricks (died Sept., 1772)* were Turbutt Francis and John Agnew successively until 1777, when Wm. Lyon received the appointment (March 12th). The Sheriffs were John Holmes, 1765-7, David Hoge, 1768-70, Ephraim Blaine, 1771-3, Robert Semple, 1774-6, James Johnston, 1777-9. The Coroners were James Jack, 1765-7, Wm. Denny, 1768-70, Samuel Laird, 1771-3, James Pollock, 1774-6, John Martin, 1777, Wm. Rippey, 1778 and Wm. Holmes, 1779. John Creigh was appointed April 7th, 1777, Clerk of the Orphans' Court, Register of * Hermanus Alricks belonged probably to the oldest family in the Province. Peter, his grandfather, came from Holland in 1660 with despatches to the Dutch on the Delaware; in 2682 he was one of the six Justices in the court of Judicature, and in 1683 was a witness to Wm. Penn's deed for land extending back from the Delaware " as far as a man can ride in two days with a horse." Hermanus settled early in Lancaster, now Cumberland county, and in 1749-50 was the first representative of Cumberland county in the Assembly. On his return from the Assembly at Philadelphia t3*" Letort Spring," that year, he brought with him for his bride a young lady lately from Ireland, with her brother, Francis West, then about to settle in Carlisle. He held the offices then bestowed upon him (Prothonotary, Register, Recorder, Clerk of the Courts, and Justice of the Peace) until May 21st; 1770, when he resigned in favor of Turbutt Francis. His residence was in Carlisle on a lot on Main street, near the present gaol, since owned by Dr McCcskry and Judge Hepburn successively. His son James lived at one time at Oakland Mills, in Lost Creek Valley, Mifflin county, and married a daughter of Judge Hamilton, of Harrisburg. In 19r5 he removed to Harrisburg, where be was a magistrate and notary public for several years. Two of his family were lawyers in the same place and one still lives... HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 91 wills and Recorder of deeds, but he resigned these offices Feb. 9th, 1779,* and was succeeded in them Feb. 13th by Wm. Lyon, who was also then appointed to receive subscriptions for the state loan. Col. Wm. Clark was the paymaster for the troops in Cumberland county in 1777, and continued in that office until 1779. On his representation of the destitute condition of the militia in 1777 a committee consisting of John Boggs, Abraham Smith, John Andrew, Wm. McClure, Samuel Williamson, James Purdy and Wm. Blair, was appointed " to collect without delay from such as have not taken the oath of allegiance and abjuration, or who have aided or assisted the enemy with arms and accoutrements, blankets, linen and linsey-wolsey cloth, shoes and stockings for the army." George Stevens, John Boggs and Joseph Brady were also made commissioners " to seize upon the personal estates of all who have abandoned their families or habitations, joined the army of the enemy, or resorted to any city or town or place within the commonwealth in possession of the enemy, or supplied provisions, intelligence or aid for the enemy, or shall hereafter do such things; and they shall as speedily as possible dispose of all the perishable part thereof, and hold possession of all the remainder subject to the future disposition of the Legislature." As immense quantities of stores and provisions had to be transported to and from different points, a large number of wagons and teams and teamsters had to be employed, and it was found needful to have a special department foil the organization and management of this service. Great activity was necessary, especially in the rural districts of Pennsylvania which had ngoodecome the seat of the war, and to which an application was most convenient. The wagon-master for this county, from which large supplies were demanded, was in 1777 Hugh McCormick, in 1778 Matthew Gregg and in 1780 Robert Culbertson. Two hundred of tlettersons at one time, eight hundred at another and smaller numbers at other seasons, sometimes when the farmers much needed them for their work, were assessed upon this county. In November, 1777, the assessment was upon East Pennsborough, Peters and Antrim townships, each for twelve wagons and teams ; Allen for eleven, and Middleton, West PCongressugh, Newton, Hopewell, Lurgan, Letterkenny, Guilford and Hamilton each for, ten. Eublicgon was to be accompanied by four horses, a good harness and one attendant, and the owner was paid thirty Shillings in specie or forty in currency, according to the exchange agreed upon by Congress. Among the representatives in Congress from Pennsylvania this county gave first Col. laMag. Wilson, who sat from 1775 to 1777, * John Creigh came from Ireland and settied in Carlisle in 1761. He was, as we have seen, active during the Revolution; Was one of the nine representatives who signed the Declaration (June 24th, £776,) for the colony of Pennsylvania. His commission as an officer in the Revolutionary army is dated April He had three sons and three daughters : Thcmas, educated for a lawyer, died in Carlisle, October 28th, 1809 ; Samuel, a merchant in Ohio, died in 1836, and John, a physician in Collide most of his life, died in 1848. His daughters: Isabella married first fsmuel Auxaneir, of Carlisle and after him Robert Evans, of Maryland; Mary married Hon. John Kennedy, Judge of the Supreme Court of Pa., and Elizabeth married Samuel Duncan, of Carlisle. when his enemies succeeded in defeating his election. In 1782 he was again a member, but he had then ceased to reside in this county. From 1778 to 1780 Gen. John Armstrong was a member.* In the Supreme Executive Council sat Jonathan Hoge, March 4th, 1777, James McLean from what is now Franklin county, Nov. 9th, 1778, and Robert Whitehill, of East Pennsborough, Dec. 28th, 1779. In the Committee of Safety John Montgomery was an active member until its dissolution in July 24th, 1776, and in the Council of Safety which succeeded it was Wm. Lyon, until that body also ceased to exist Dec. 4th, 1777. From November, 1777, onward, Wm. Duffield, James McLean, Wm. Clark, James Brown, Robert Whitehill and John Harris were elected and commissioned at different times to represent the county in the Assembly. John Andrew was in 1777 the Commissioner of the county ; and James Lyon, Wm. McClure, Wm. Finley, James McKee, James Laird and George Robinson were assessors. The Collectors of Excise were for 1778, Wm. Piper, and for 1779 Matthew Henderson. RECRUITING IN 1776-7. It was with the utmost difficulty that the battalions of militia and the continental regiments were kept full. Under the expectation that the struggle with the mother country would be brief, the enlistments were usually for no longer time than a year, but often for some temporary service as against the invading army, the time was for even two or three months. This made the work of recruiting almost perpetual and always exciting. We read of officers on the recruiting service in great numbers and sending forth the most impassioned appeals. With the assistance of the Lieutenants of the county and the offer of high bounties, the demands upon the state and county were usually complied with promptly, but some difficulties arose which were not easily surmounted. The first was to the enlistment of servants. In the agricultural districts laborers were few and their wages high, so that farmers had purchased the time of many immigrants for a series of years by paying the owners of vessels the price of their passage by sea. In other instances slaves had been brought from various parts, and were held in a mild form of servitude. A few of the latter, but more of RRevolutionaryled redemptioners) had been received into the ranks without the consent of their * Most of the incidents of a historical character in the life of General Armstrong have been given in this narrative. His memory is dear to the people in this region aboveIsabllavery other man. He was the central figure in every early movement of a general natute in the county. In civil, judicial, educational and religious aaairs, he was always the leader. His judgment was remarkably good, and not only the County and State offices, but the United States government, and General Washington in particular, were accustomed to ask and rely upon his opinions on all public matters within his observation. His style, as shown in his numerous letters through all the Colonial Records and Archives, was very peculiar but forcible and original, his views were independent and comprehensive, his Christian faith sincere and Scriptural, and his social intercourse a little stern, but on the whole refined and delicate. In 1778 he was elected by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania a member of Congress for 1779 and 1780. He was again elected for the same office for 1787-8, when his pgublic career closed. His death, however, did not take place until March 9th, 1793, at Carlisle. His remains lie entombed in the old Cemetery, in Carlisle, as yet without a suitable monument. A sketch of his life may be found in Nevins' " Men of Mark in Cumberland Valley," and in the Pa. Mag of Hist. and Biog., Vol. I., pp 183 7. 92 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. masters. As under the old colonial service, this proceeding raised a remonstrance, and in May, 1777, the Committee of Cumberland county held a meeting at Shippensburg and declared that such enlistments were a violation of the rights of property, that every officer who had enlisted a servant without the master's consent should at once return him to the owner, and that on, his refusal he should be committed before a magistrate and imprisoned until the mind of the Legislature should be declared on the subject. Still another di fficulty was with reference to the money in which soldiers were paid. Already the paper which was in circulation had become depreciated, and no legal enactments could make it acceptable in payment. Then when one of the classes of associators was called upon to march or to make up a company for active service, any member of it, if he found it inconvenient to go, was permitted to send a substitute. The terms in which this was done were such as to bear very unequally, and occasioned at some times an almost complete suspension of enlistments. Finally so much was written and published about this time respecting the unskilfulness and cowardice of the militia as compared with the more regular soldiery that many were reluctant to enter that part of the service. Notwithstanding these obstacles there was no serious deficiency most of the time in the ranks of the county battalions. The periods in which it was the greatest were during the closing months of 1776 and 1777, when the enlistments of so large a portiwheelwrightldiers expired. On both of these winters so few soldiers were left with Gen. Washington that nothing could have saved our army but the ignorance of the British General of its weakness. It was an awful peril, and we may be thankful that through the worse mismanagement of the English authorities, there were so few cavalry that it was difficult for them to obtain intelligence. The five hundred men demanded of this county were sent in the Spring of 1777 to Bristol, the place of rendezvous, and on the following year recruits were so abundant that the invaders were outnumbered and fled from the State. LOYALISTS. It has been often said that " an enemy to American liberties was not to be found among the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." In the strict sense given to this remark, it is doubtless substantially true, at least with reference to those who resided in this county. The assertion of John Armstrong in his letter to the Council January 5th, 1777, is much more reserved : " I think there is good reason to believe that the generality of the Irish will stand firm in the common cause." He speaks of " a culpable stupor and timidity which had at that crisis seized the minds of many, arising partly from the cloud over our troops on their passage through the Jerseys and partly from the spurious doctrines of dastardly and unprincipled men." He was " of the opinion that in Philadelphia there was either some particular deputy from General Howe, or some secret junto of tories who had derived authority from him to engage fit tools under certain promises of reward to carry and comment on his proclamation through various parts of this State in order to seduce the people and perhaps lay the foundation of a tory army at such a time as he might be able to penetrate this State." Pennsylvania,of affairs in this region turned out to be in fact more favorable than the cautious and ever vigilant spirit of this zealous patriot appeared to apprehend. The people were of one mind in rallying to the common standard when the necessity became urgent. Scarcely a voice was heard in public to object to independence, and this only on the suggestion that the present movement was premature. In September, 1777, information was given to the Committee of Inspection " of divers treasonable and dangerous designs of levying men and destroying the public stores at York, Lancaster, Carlisle and elsewhere," and Daniel Shelly, of Shelly's Island, in Lancaster county, who had been engaged in the affair, offered to discover and give evidence against his accomplices. Some persons who had formerly resided in this county and had been prominent as clergymen or as justices were implicated in these revelations. They were in a' few instances arrested and imprisoned and their property was for a time held by the committee on forfeited estates. Affidavits taken before Justice Francis West* were sent to Philadelphia, showing that some persons connected with these families had visited Philadelphia while it was in the possession of the British and had there engaged in treasonable transactions. By a proclamation of the Supreme Executive Council June 15th, 1778, John Wilson, wheelwright and husbandman, and Andrew Fursuer, laborer, both of Allen township ; Lawrence Kelley, cooper, Wm. Curlan, laborer, John M. Cart, distiller and laborer, and Francis Irwin, carter, of East Penns-borough ; George Croghan, Alexander McKee, Simon Girty and Matthew Elliott, Indian traders, were said severally to have aided and assisted the enemy by having joined the British army, and were therefore attainted of high treason, and subject to the penalties and forfeitures which were by law attached to that crime. The committee on forfeited estates rendered an account of several hundred pounds which * Francis West emigrated from England to Ireland, where he married a Miss Wynn, and from there to this country about 1754 and settled at Carlisle. He filled the office of Justice and for some time of President Judge after the organization of Cumberland county. Some time before the Revolution he removed to what is now Perry County, and resided a little west of Falling Spring, on land wow owned by heirs of J R. M'Clintock. Esq., on which he erected a large log building and stable. He also owned what has been long known as the Gibson property, on which he erected a house and resided about 1765. The house and mill which he also owned art still standing. Here he lived till his death in 1783. He was an upright and well educated man, and though he differed from his neighbors on the political questions of the day, he was never charged with corruption or want of honor. He had five children, William, Ann, Edward, Dorothy and Mary. William died unmarried at Baltimore in 1797. Ann married Col. George Gibson, after his death moved to Carlisle to educate her four sons, Francis (a rare genius) George a General in the regular army, John Bannister, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and William, who died young. Edward married first Jane Stevenson, of York county, and after her death, in 1797, Mrs. Ann McDowell, (Miss Archer) of Carlisle, settled on his father's property in Perry County, was a staunch Presbyterian Elder and regular attendnt upon the church at Centre, ten miles distant, and was the father of a numerous family, among: which were Hon. George West, of Wisconsin, Edward West a Baptist minister, and Mrs. Rev. Dr. Elliott a Professor in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Allegheny City, Pa. ; and Wm. a surveyor or Engineer until within a few years, active in his business, and still living at the age of eighty-six. Dorothy married Thomas Kinsloe, of Juniata county, where many of his descendants reside. Mary married Colonel Mitchell, of Cumberland county, distinguished in. the war of 1812. HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 93 they had handed over to the proper officers to be used in the purchase of arms, provisions, &c., from which it would appear that some persons had been found guilty of treason in the county. The names which have come down to us either by tradition or by documentary evidence, were usually of persons of no prominence, or of such as were then residing beyond the limits of the present county of Cumberland. PRISONERS. Near the beginning of 1776 some prisoners who had been taken from the British on the Northern frontier and in the East, were sent to the interior that they might be removed from the casualties of war and from the vicinity of such as might aid in their escape. At first they were confined at Lancaster, but in March, 1776, Congress gave orders for their removal, one-half to York and the other half to Carlisle. This was the time at which Lieutenants Andre and Despard and Anstruther were taken to Carlisle. They had been captured with portions of two regiments by General Montgomery in the Autumn of 1775 at St. Johns, Canada, and reached Carlisle about the first of April. They complained that the people of the town were unwilling to harbor them, and were inclined to abuse them. According to the usage of the times they were obliged to maintain their own expenses, and the means of doing so were at first difficult on account of delays in obtaining remittances from their own government. There were besides them eight officers in a single mess, and these finally obtained lodgings in the house of a Mrs. Ramsey, on the corner of Locust alley and South Hanover street. Each had his servant from among the other prisoners, and were soon allowed freedom to hunt and exercise on their parole of honor within six miles of town. On one occasion Andre and Despard were seen conversing with two persons of a suspicious character, and letters in the French language were found in their possession. On this the two men seen conversing with them and the two officers were sent to gaol, but as no persons were found to translate the letters and no proof of improper conversation was ever produced, the prisoners were released from gaol, but were kept in strict confinement. The two fowling pieces they had used were said to have been broken by themselves, " that no rebel might ever burn powder in them." Rumors were in circulation that Andre before his capture had shown indifference when American prisoners were cruelly mutilated and otherwise ill-treated in Canada, and now some of the military threatened to take vengeance on him and his fellow-prisoners. No violence, however, took place, and Andre is described as quietly confining himself to his chamber and passing his days in reading, with his feet resting on the wainscot of the window and his dogs lying by his side. Toward the close of the year the prisoners were exchanged, and most of them were sent Nov. 28th, 1776, under the escort of Lieut.-Col. John Creigh and Ephraim Steel, two members of the Committe of Inspection, with their servants and their servants' wives and their baggage by way of Reading and Trenton to the nearest camp of the United States in New Jersey. Andre reached New York a few days after, was promoted to be a Captain on the 18th of January, and was in Philadelphia during its occupation by the British. Our readers are probably familiar with his part in the splendid pageants with which the English officers amused themselves during that dreary period, and in which he bore so prominent a part, and with the sad fate which the necessities of war finally imposed upon him.* After the capture of the Hessians at Trenton Dec. 25th, 1776, a large number of them were sent to Carlisle and were employed in building barracks in the neighborhood. A kind feeling was entertained toward them as victims to the avarice and cruelty of theip rulers, and many of them were induced finally to return and settle in this country. About the first of August, 1777, John Penn, James Hamilton, Benjamin Chew and about thirty others who had been officers under the royal and proprietary government, and declined to take the oath of allegiance to the new government were arrested in Philadelphia, received by the Sheriff of Reading and by the Sheriff of Cumberland county, and escorted through this valley to Staunton, Virginia, where. they were detained until near the conclusion of the war. PROGRESS OF THE WAR. It belongs not to our history to give details of work done by our troops in the Revolutionary war. During those years in which Pennsylvania was threatened and invaded by the British army, the number of troops and the amount of supplies drawn from this state were disproportionately large, and these happen to be the years when the ac, tivity and sufferings of the army were peculiarly intense. In April; 1777, when the enemy was expected from the sea by way of the Deli-aware river, General Armstrong, of Carlisle, was called to take command of the whole body of the state militia. He had spent a year of great exertion in the Southern States, and the next day (April 4th) after his resignation as the First Brigadier General in the Continental] army, he was appointed the First Brigadier General, and one month/ later a Major General of the state of Pennsylvania. His advanced age did not prevent ,him from at once undertaking the responsible duties thus devolved upon him, and the summer was spent in erecting and maintaining defensive works along the Delaware river. At the battle of Brandywine (September 11th) he and a portion of the Pennsylvania militia were stationed at the Ford, two miles below Chad's, and another portion under Wayne were in the severest part of the conflict ; and after the retreat of the American army they were employed in throwing up redoubts and guarding the passes along the Schuylkill. At the battle of Germantown (October 4th) they attacked in a gallant and successful manner the Hessians covering the left flank * Despard, the companion of Andre, was an Irish officer, promoted to be a Colonel, who served under Nelson, and had a high reputation for rash bravery. He was one of the few British officers who carried back from America Democratic sentiments, and he was executed for treason in 1803. Walter Scott says : " Three distinguished heroes of this class have arisen in my time, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Colonel Despard and Captain Thistlewood ; and with the contempt and abhorrence ofall men, they died the death of infamy and guilt." Life and Career of Major John Andre, by Winthrop Sargeant, pp. 86-97. 94 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. of the enemy. " My destiny," wrote Gen. Armstrong, " was against the various corps of Germans encamped at Van During's or near the Falls. Their light-horse discovered our approach a little before sunrise ; we cannonaded from the heights on each side the Wissahickon, whilst the riflemen on opposite sides acted on the lower ground. About nine I was called to join the General, but left a party with Colonels Eyers and Dunlap and one field piece, and afterwards reinforced them, which reinforcement by the bye, however, did not join them until after a brave resistance they were obliged to retreat, but carried off the field piece ; the other I was obliged to leave in the horrendous hills of the Wissahickon, but ordered her on a safe route to join Eyers if he should retreat, which was done accordingly. We proceeded to the left and above Germantown some three miles directed by a slow cross fire of cannon until we fell into the front of a superior body of the enemy, with whom we engaged about three-quarters of an hour, but their grape shot and ball soon intimidated and obliged us to retreat or rather file off. Until then I thought we had a victory, but to my great disappointment soon found our enemy had gone an hour or two before and we were the last on the ground. We brought off everything but a wounded man or two, lost not quite twenty men on the whole, and hope we killed at least that number, besides diverting the Hessian strength from the General in the morning." "What I shall call a victory almost in full embrace was frustrated ; but by what means cannot yet be easily ascertained." " Seldom was victory more nearly won or strangely lost." After that battle the position of the continental army was intended to cover the southeastern counties, while the state militia endeavored to defend the region to the northward. The essential part of the latter's duty was to take various positions on each of the nine leading roads between the Delaware and the Schuylkill and prevent any intercourse between the enemy and the country. " At no time," says their commander, " was their number over 2973 rank and file, and according to our highest return this number is but of short duration." In consequence of expired terms of enlistment, sickness and desertions, before the middle of December when Washington retired to winter quarters, there were with Armstrong not more than a thousand soldiers, with which to guard the whole region between the Schuylkill and the Delaware. As no general movement of the enemy was expected during the winter, and as even this small body was sufficient to cut off small detachments from the city or from the country, no attempt was made to increase it. During the absence of General Armstrong on a visit to his family and to recruit his long tasked energies, the number became so small that at one time only 60 could be counted fit for service. On the opening of Spring, however, recruits began to come in, and it appeared as if Pennsylvanians were determined to drive the invaders from their soil. The conduct of our men in these circumstances, so trying to the fortitude of inexperienced troops, was generally such as to deserve the high encomiums which they received from their officers. Some of them were present and were among the victims, as we have before noticed in the terrible butcheries at Paoli and Crooked Billet ; and all of them were absent but shared =justly in the disgrace which was heaped on the militia at Sideling Hill when the much lamented General James Irvine received his mortal wound. " No man," writes General Armstrong December 16th, 1777, " can more deeply resent the infamous conduct of such as were in reach of General Irvine when he fell from his horse than I do, but very few there are to acknowledge they saw him in that situation, and these, whether true or false, are not without their apologies. Many, too many, of the militia are a scandal to the military profession, a nuisance in service and a dead weight on the public ; yet is it equally true that taken as a body, they have rendered that service that neither the State nor the army could have dispensed with. They have constantly mounted guards, formed many and distant pickets, performed many occasional pieces of labor—patroled the roads leading to the enemy by day and by night, and that more than their proportion—they have taken a number of prisoners, brought in deserters, suppressed tories, prevented much intercourse between the disaffected and the enemy—met and skirmished with the enemy as early and as often as others, and (except the battle of Brandywine, which from their station little fell in their way) have had a proportional share of success, hazard and loss of blood. I hate the disagreeable doctrine of comparison, and only give this detail to show the partial representations you have had of the services of the militia of this state. They judge ill of the uses of a body of men who fix their character from a single action, and still worse who brand the whole with the infamous conduct of only a part, when others of the same body and on the same occasion have fully evinced their bravery. Take for instance the very affair in which I agree the cowardice of a part occasioned the loss of Gen. Irvine ; and there we find that a very warm fire was maintained by others of the militia for the full space of twenty minutes, and if we may believe report several 'wagons (some call them nine in number) were employed by the enemy in carrying off their wounded." It is gratifying to find that among those who are here commended were the men from Cumberland county, and that none from that county were among the censured ones. Most of the enlistments from this time onward were for three years or during the war. At least 500 men were sent from this county early in 1778, but their march was much retarded by the unusually severe weather and the difficulty of passing the Susquehanna. Some incursions of the Indians began also to make our people reluctant to leave, but above all the indiscriminate reproaches which had been cast upon the militia made many unwilling to encounter the dishonor. And yet the size of the army under Gen. Washington increased by the accession of the troops from the North and the news that a French fleet might at any hour be sent to blockade the mouth of the Delaware, were sufficient to make General Howe feel insecure in Philadelphia. The only advantage he had gained by the occupation of the city was that he and his troops had there found comfortable quarters during a severe winter, and now he hastened back as secretly and quickly as possible to his former home in New York. The annoyance which he now received from a pursuing. foe, the masterly HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 95 movements in New Jersey, and the brilliant actions at Monmouth* and other places along his route proved that he had an opponent not to be despised. The succeeding winter, however, like all which had preceded it, was a severe trial to the continental troops. Their numbers were again so reduced that had they been attacked they could have made no serious resistance. Fortunately the royal forces had no knowledge of their weakness and spent the whole season in useless petty depredations along the Eastern coast. The next year (1779-80) the seat of war was transferred to the Southern States with nothing decisive on either side. Feebleness characterized every movement, and the ardor of early patriotism cooled under a false reliance upon foreign aid, dissensions sprung up in every department of government and the army, and private interest became an almost universal care. The startling events of the next few months recalled the people to their real dangers and duties, and the year 1781 closed in all parts with the success of the Americans. It had begun with discouragement in the Carolinas, with mutiny in New Jersey and devastation in Virginia, but terminated with a decided renewal and concentration of energies and with a success at Yorktown which was in fact decisive of the great event. ANXIETY AND EMPLOYMENT AT HOME. Few can now conceive of the interest and absorption of feeling which prevailed through all classes of society with reference to military affairs. Little thought was given to anything else. Nearly every family had its absent father or son or brother in the army, from whom each day news was looked for, for whom earnest prayer was offered, and to whom some little token or comfort was sent by every opportunity. So large was the number of these absent ones that society was unable to pursue its ordinary engagements. When the * An incident connected with this battle has become surrounded with considerable traditionary interest and incorporated with a number of general histories. It is said that while John Hays, a sergeant in a company of artillery, was working one of the guns in battle, he was struck down and borne from the field. His wife Mary, who on that extremely hot day was serving the men with a pitcher of water, seeing the gun without a man, it is said took his place and loaded and directed the gun against the enemy. While thus engaged the story goes that Washington saw her and commissioned her in her husband's place. the retired only on hearning of her husband's wound, but with reluctance. At night she sought and found a friend among those who had been thrown among the dead, discovered that he was alive, and bore him to the hospital and nursed him till his recovery. Years afterwards she received many presents of gratitude and offers of support for life from him. She was thirty years of age at the battle and served with her husband in the army seven years and nine months. After the war she came with him to reside in Carlisle. He did not long survive, and after remainirg a widow for several years she married again, but was not happy in her connection. After the death of this second husband she lived many years in a second widowhood, acting as a nurse in many families and an object of great interest especially to the young. She died in January, 583n, aged 89, and was buried in Carlisle with military honors from the United States troops at the Garrison and others. As the widow of a revolutionary soldier she received for many years fifty dollars yearly, but on the last month of her life she was pensioned in her own name. Her maiden name was Mary Ludwig, and she went to the war as a servant in the family of General Irvine. Her daughter, Mary McLeaster, still lives in Carlisle, A monument was erected July 4th, i876, to her memory by the citizens of Carlisle. The more familiar name by which she is known " Molly Pitcher," was given her from the service she rendered to the soldiers in the battle. It is possible that her story has been embellished, but it has taken such hold on the popular heart that no one would desire to disturb it. prisoners we have spoken of were quartered in Carlisle the people complained that enough effective men were not left in this part to guard them. The courts were frequently omitted or held as occasion or opportunity offered, the churches were in many congregations closed, for their ministers and leaders had gone at the head of their companies, and industries of every kind except for military purposes were suspended or languishing. Suspicions of the bitterest nature sprung up between neighbors who took opposite sides on public questions, and violence was threatened in secret and in open day. Each year hope, which at first anticipated speedy and easy success, was deferred another and yet another year until every heart fainted. Amusements of all sorts were given up, and each newspaper was read and each messenger questioned with bated breath for some happy chance which might put an end to suspense. In such circumstances there were no enterprises or incidents calling for notice of an extraordinary kind. Recruiting, collecting teams and wagons, purchasing and storing provisions, settling bounties and paying off wages, arranging prices and wrangling about a depreciated currency—these are the principal items which we meet with in the correspondence and accounts of that period. The general current of patriotism in this region seldom called for notice, and only when it was impeded or disturbed did it arrest attention. Sometimes when the demands of the State became too exacting or disproportionate to what was done in other quarters, or when questionable methods for reaching a desired end were pursued, the peculiar spirit of the race found expression in strong language and public resolutions, but ordinarily the people of this region were contented and even emulous to be foremost in patriotic labors and self denials, MANUFACTURE OF ARMS, SALTPETRE AND SALT. Great difficulties were experienced, especially before supplies were obtained from France (1778), in finding arms and ammunition for the troops. The perpetual cry was that the men needful for the war were easier to be raised than the necessary equipments. Hence the efforts in the beginning of the conflict to establish at every available town shops for the manufacture of rifles, muskets and even cannon, old arms were repaired and altered so that even fowling pieces could be used for deadlier purposes, and bayonets were prepared. Armories are spoken of in Carlisle and at Shippensburg at which hundreds of rifles were got in readiness at one time. A foundry was started at Mount Holly and perhaps at Boiling Springs, at which cannon were cast, and at which Wm. Denning was known to have worked at his inventions. Aware of the many failures which had followed all previous attempts under the most favorable conditions to make cannon of wrought iron, he is said to have persevered until he constructed at least two of such uniform quality and of such size and calibre as to have done good service in the American army. One of them is reported to have been taken by the British at the battle of Brandywine, and now to be kept as a trophy in the Tower of London, and another to have been for a long time and perhaps to be now at the barracks 96 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. near Carlisle.* So great was the destitution of lead for bullets that the Council of Safety requested all families possessing plates, weights for clocks or windows, or any other articles made of lead to give them up to the collectors appointed to demand them with the promise that they should be replaced by substitutes of iron. Payments were acknowledged for considerable quantities of lead thus collected in this county. Every part of the county was explored to obtain sulphur and -other substances in sufficient quantities for the manufacture of gunpowder. Jonathan Kearsley, of Carlisle, was for some months employed in learning the art and in the attempt to manufacture saltpetre out of earths impregnated with nitrous particles in Dauphin county. After nearly three months of experiments he wrote that the -amount obtained was not sufficient to warrant his continuance at the work in that vicinity. Common salt finally became so scarce that Congress took upon itself the business of supplying the people as well as the soldiers. Before the construction of those vast establishments which have since been created for the manufacture of this article, the whole population were dependent upon foreign countries, and now -were cut off from all importation of it. Near the close of 1776 a law was passed against those who endeavored to monopolize the sale of salt, and a large purchase of it was made by Congress itself. A certain quota was assigned to each state, and then to each county under the direction of the state authorities. The proportion which fell to Cumberland county (Nov. 23rd, 1776) was eighty bushels. On its arrival a certain portion was delivered to each householder who applied for it with an order from the county committee, " on his paying the prime cost of fifteen shillings a bushel, expense of carriage only added." FAMILIES OF SOLDIERS, AND PRICES OF GRAIN. By a resolution of the Assembly, and of the Committee of Safety (July 15th, 1776), the Committee of Inspection and Observation in each county was empowered to draw upon the Council for the assistance of any family of such associator who had been called into actual service, which was unable to maintain itself during his absence. At first the overseers of the poor with the concurrence of one Justice of * Wm. Denning at the commencement of the Revolutionary war resided in Chester county, where he enlisted in a company of which he was Second Lieutenant and for nine months shared in the privations of 1776. He was with General Washington at Trenton and Princeton. As he 'had been in early life a blacksmith and was very ingenious and inventive, he was placed at the -head of a band of artificers at Philadelphia, but on the approach of the British to occupy that city he was removed to Carlisle. Iron was abundant in the South Mountain and was manufactured into bayonets, gunbarrels, &c., and his fertile genius here engaged in all kinds of fabrications for the armories at Carlisle and Mount Holly. He became especially interested in the manufacture of wrought iron cannon, and to this he devoted the best of his life. Few could be induced to assist him on account of the intense heat to be endured in welding the heavy bars of iron for bands and hoops. The pieces made by him were generally four or six pounders, but the last attempt was upon a twelve pounder left unfinished. Of the pieces finished one was said to have been taken by the British at the battle of Brandywine, and now in the tower of London, two were sent to Pittsburg and others were distributed where most needed. After the war he resided at Big Spring and continued in that neighborhood until his death, December 19th, 1830, aged 94 years. His health was unimpaired until a short time before death, "wad his mental *powers were good to the last. the Peace residing near, were authorised to grant a pension to such families, to be afterwards returned to them by the Assembly, but it was soon found that these overseers were without funds to meet such demands as were made upon them. Under the nomination of the county committees, a number of judicious persons were therefore appointed for each county to distribute to such families the allowance they judged reasonable. These committees were empowered to draw for such sums as they saw occasion, first upon the Council of Safety, and afterwards upon the Supreme Executive Council. On the 17th of August, 1776, the Committee of Inspection and Observation for Cumberland county, of which George Stevenson was Chairman, sent word by Robert Semple, one of their number, that they had drawn an order on the Council of Safety for two hundred pounds which they " hope will be sufficient to answer the demands of such of the good people of this county as are at present in want, unless our men should be continued abroad longer than we expect." On subsequent years the amount required for such a purpose was somewhat larger. Vast supplies of grain were drawn from this county, and men at home became so scarce in summer that it was difficult to harvest and thresh out the grain. Gen. Armstrong complains also (Feb. 17, 1777), that the distillation of wheat, rye and other grains had been so great, that consequences the most alarming were expected. " From the best information I can get" he writes, " the rye both in this and the county of York is almost all distilled, as is also considerable quantities of wheat, and larger still of the latter bought up for the same purpose ; nor can we doubt that Lancaster and other counties are going on in the same destructive way, so that in a few months Pennsylvania may be scarce of bread for her own inhabitants. Liquor is already ten shillings per gallon, wheat will immediately be the same per bushel, and if the complicated demon of avarice and infatuation is not suddenly chained or cast out, he will raise them each to twenty !" COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT. Military men are in the habit of insisting much upon the difficulty and importance of provisioning an army. More ability of a special kind is sometimes requisite for supplying than for otherwise commanding a large body of troops. The American people, without experience in this department, with no anticipation of a long war to provide for, and with a paper currency which soon greatly depreciated, hastily adopted systems of action which soon proved entirely inadequate. In May, 1780, the troops had been unpaid for five months, they had seldom more than six days' provisions in advance, and on one or two occasions not a supply for twelve hours. When Gen. Greene was persuaded in March, 1778, to undertake the office of Quartermaster General, the patience of the soldiers had become completely exhausted, and the affairs of the department had fallen into utter confusion. His efforts soon brought relief and order. Col. Ephraim Blaine, of this county, was his most efficient deputy. He was after a while invested with the entire charge of supplies from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the states on which the main reliance was then placed HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 97 With his ample fortune all of which he at times staked upon his payments, with an enthusiasm which from the beginning was intense but mounted higher with exertion, and with an administrative ability which extended to an immense amount of details, he was by the express acknowledgment of the War Department more than once the "Savior of the army from being disbanded." He was the owner of a large establishment for the manufacture of flour on the Conodoguinet, near Carlisle, which he enlarged and kept in operation to its utmost capacity, and without profit to himself. In May, 1780, he writes that there was not a single pound of beef in camp; and in August there were fourteen brigades and recruits hourly arriving, consuming one hundred barrels of flour and sixty-five head of cattle daily ; and he makes a demand upon Pennsylvania for five thousand barrels of flour, two hundred and twenty-five hogsheads of rum and a hundred and sixty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-five pounds of beef per month. To obtain this he solicits authority for the commissioners of the counties to purchase and to take cattle wherever they can find them fit for use. In Sept., 1779, he again writes that the magazines of flour were exhausted and that the quantity demanded from his district was 150,000 barrels, and that 70,000 of these was the quota for Pennsylvania ; and he complains that under the unhappy spirit of extortion and monopoly which prevailed, he required the aid of executive and legislative authority. On the 25th of January, 1780, he presented as the Commissary General of Purchases, an order of Congress on the Council for a million of dollars only in part for monies which he had raised from his own resources and by his influence for the use of the United States ; and again on the 11th of April of the same year another similar order and for a like payment in part, was directed to be paid to him for his department. Very generally he raised the funds when they were needed among his friends and trusted to the public treasury, precarious as it then was, for reimbursement. In those dark times this was a service of incalculable importance. It was impossible that he should transact such an amount of business, sometimes by impressments, without giving offence. He had to do with people who were jealous of their rights and resolute in asserting them. The people of Cumberland county refused to submit to the impressment of anything, particularly of wagons and horses, and they agreed to resist force by force. John Byers, Esq., who with Gen. Ewing, of York, was appointed (Feb. 4, 1778) to superintend the storing of flour and other provisions, on the west of the Susquehanna, complains that a work which he had undertaken solely for the public good, should be met with odium and opposition, and he was kept with difficulty from renouncing his task. It was, however, with the cooperation of men of wealth and energy like these, that the army was after a while, amply supplied, and though sometimes the stores were low they were always replenished before a complete exhaustion. BILLS OF CREDIT AND PUBLIC FINANCE. Such was the condition of the currency that not only the purchases of public stores but all kinds of business were seriously embarrassed. This operated with especial effect against enlistsments. " How could men be raised to fight even for their homes when the money in which they were to be paid would not support their families ? Six months pay in 1779 would not provide bread for a family for a month, nor the pay of a colonel purchase oats for his horse." Destitute of pecuniary resources, without power to impose taxes, or duties, and yet with an army and many officials in the civil service to maintain, Congress had no alternative but to issue paper money. For a while, the quantity was small, public credit was good, and the enthusiasm of the people and the expectation that the necessity would soon be over, forced the paper into circulation. By a request of Congress, Dec. 27th. 1776, the Council of Safety on the first of January, 1777, provided that every person who should refuse to take continental currency in payment of debt or for any articles offered for sale, or should ask a greater price for any articles in continental currency than in any other kind of money, should be considered a dangerous member of society, should forfeit the goods offered for sale or the debt due, and should moreover pay a fine of five pounds to the state ; and every person so offending for the second time should be subject to the same penalties and be banished from the state. These forced measures were successful only for a few months. The laws of trade were more powerful than all legislation to the contrary. They operated with severity only upon the patriotic portion, for others contrived ways of dealing in British gold. The first emission (June 1775), was to the amount of 2,000,000 of dollars, to which was added next month another million. For the redemption of these bills, was pledged the credit of the confederate colonies, who were to sink their quotas in four annual payments, the first on or before the last of November, 1779. In June, 1776, a further three million was emitted, to be redeemed by four annual payments, the first on or before the last of November, 1783. By the 22d of July, 1776, the aggregate of these emissions was not less than twenty millions of dollars, and up to that time there was no serious depreciation of the currency, and it commanded the resources of the country as if it had been gold or silver. But the states, on whose credit this circulation depended, had made no provision for the fulfillment of their pledges. They shrunk from the imposition of taxes, the idea of which was then especially odious. Indeed the states added to the evil by emiting paper in their separate capacities, which like the other was irredeemable and of no intrinsic value. In October, 1776, Congress resolved to borrow five millions of dollars, and in the month following a lottery was set on foot. The amount thus obtained though considerable, was not sufficient to meet the now enormous expenditure. In1780 the amount of continental and state currency was not lesss than two hundred millions of dollars. Every expedient to prevent depreciation was ineffectual. Even in 1777 two or three dollars of currency was received as equivalent to one in specie ; in 1778 98 - HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. it was as five or six to one ; in 1779, as twenty eight or nine to one ; in 1780, as fifty or sixty to one ; and in 1781 as a hundred and fifty to one. Even this was not the end, for it was not long after this, that any amount of such money was looked upon as quite worthless. When the time came at which the first emission became due, (1779), most of the States separately and all of them as confederated, declined to venture on a direct taxation, and promises which had no security or prospect of fulfillment, could have no value in the market. The attempt to raise the assessments on the states by making their payments in kind, that is, by sending on to camp or seizing upon the amount of pork, beef, flour, &c., which were sufficient to meet the levy, was for a while resorted to, but it was soon found that none but states in the vicinity of the army could comply with such a requisition and that it was terribly burdensome on account of transportation on them. In this extremity, some citizens of Philadelphia, with a liberality which did them great honor, subscribed three hundred thousand dollars, which sum was soon converted into a bank which availed for a much larger sum. In 1781, France loaned some millions, and became security for more, and this under the skillful management of Robert Morris, afforded relief. It was, however, by the redemption of two hundred millions of paper money by five- millions, that is by buying up this currency at a depreciated valuation ; in other words, by a failure so far to meet its obligations, that Congress finally found its way out of this embarrassment. The effecr upon commercial credit, and even upon the public morals was very great for many years, but it may be difficult to say by what other means the war could have been sustained. Its bearing was heavy upon every part of the country, and not the least upon those agricultural counties from which the largest proportion of men, stores and teams were obtained. A number of the most active men of Cumberland county were seriously embarrassed and some were for years financially broken up. To such a people may be conceded the privilege of sometimes uttering a word of complaint. DISCONTENT IN THE ARMY. As early as in the beginning of 1781 a serious mutiny broke out in the division of General Wayne, among the Pennsylvania troops, near Morristown. About 1300 men paraded under arms, refused to obey their officers, killed one captain, wounded another, and committed various outrages. The mutineers marched to Princeton with several field pieces and threatened to proceed to Philadelphia to demand of Congress a redress of grievances. They complained that their pay was much in arrears, and when paid was in a depreciated currency, that many of them were detained beyond their enlistments which were for three years or during the war, that they had suffered intolerable hardships for want of money, provisions and clothing, and that their officers had not made an adequate representation of their case to the proper authorities. By the judicious management of the officers, the soldiers were induced to stop at Trenton where they were met by a committee of Congress and the President of the Pennsylvania Coun cil, and an arrangement was effected. The soldiers understood the agreement to serve for three years or the war to mean not longer than three years, but only during the war if it did not last so long. This construction was allowed them, although by it the most of the Pennsylvania line was disbanded for the winter, but it was recruited again in the spring to its original complement. Some emissaries from the British General with overtures were indignantly repelled, and two of them were given up and executed as spies. Justly aggrieved as the soldiers were they scorned the idea as they expressed it of turning Arnolds. These discontents, however, were only partially silenced. Next year those Pennsylvania troops which had participated in the southern campaign and had shared in the final triumph at Yorktown, were cantoned for the winter (1781-2) at Newburg, in New York. Among them were some regiments, probably from this region which had been first to be mustered in and were now about to be the last to be mustered out of the service. After their severe privations and toils they were about to be disbanded with nothing but the depreciated currency which had been insufficient to obtain them a days provisions. The pay of their officers was also much in arrears and many doubted whether the half pay Congress had voted them (Oct., 1780), for a term of years would ever be paid. They began to fear that they were all to be sent off penniless and unfitted for common employments, with their claims unliquidated. In the leisure of a winter camp, the discontents of an earlier period had opportunity to ferment. The promises of a government which had no funds or means to pay had for some time been regarded as worthless, and the vote of future half pay, required for its validity the concurrence of a majority of the states, and this began to be uncertain. A memorial setting forth their grievances in an humble and pathetic manner, was sent to Congress (Dec. 1782), but before a scheme could be devised for their satisfaction and hence before the committee to whom it was referred made a report, an address was put in circulation to the officers of the army by an anonymous writer, which Washington declared to be " in point of composition, in elegance and force of expression rarely equalled in the English language ; and in which the dreadful alternative was proposed of relinquishing the service in a body if the war continued, or retaining their arms in case of peace until Congress should comply with all their demands." Near the same time a general meeting of the officers was called to consider the whole subject. By the skillful management of Washington this meeting was delayed and finally when it took place with his sanction (March 15th), he succeeded in calming the spirit of the officers by promising himself to present their just claims before the proper authorities. In a letter to Congress in which he speedily fulfilled this pledge he wrote with an earnestness and force which showed that his sympathies were thoroughly with the complainants, though he severely censured the methods they proposed. We have no distinct evidence that the soldiers from this county were participators in these proceedings. The anonymous addresses (for there was another of a milder character which HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - 99 followed the public meeting), were afterwards avowed by John Armstrong, a native of this county, and a son of the hero of Kittanning. He was then a young man, an aide-de-camp to General Gates, and writing at the request of his fellow officers. Washington wrote many years afterwards that he " had sufficient reason for believing that the object of the author was just, honorable and friendly to the country, though the means suggested by him were certainly liable to much misunderstanding and abuse."* A majority of the states was soon after obtained in favor of a resolution to commute the half pay at first proposed into a sum equal to five years full pay for each officer. Not long after this (about June 20, 1783), a party of recruits belonging to the Pennsylvania line, suddenly mutinied at Lancaster, and against the remonstrances of all their. commissioned officers, marched to Philadelphia to demand a settlement of their claims from the Executive Council and Assembly. They were there joined by about two hundred troops from the city barracks, and on Saturday, June 23, sent a detachment of thirty men who surrounded the building in which Congress and the Council were accustomed to meet and demanded from the latter an attention to their case within twenty minutes, on peril of being delivered over to the power of the injured soldiers. Congress, which had adjourned over till Monday, was at once called together, and soon after under the impression that their dignity and safety were infringed upon, adjourned to meet at Princeton. After considerable negotiation the mutiny was suppressed without violence, the soldiers being convinced of their wrong doing, two of their leaders having absconded, two others being subsequently tried and condemned to death, but afterwards pardoned, and four receiving corporal chastisement. A company from Carlisle which started to join these mutineers was stopped on its way to Lancaster, and induced to return to duty before any extreme act of insubordination. The officers were not implicated in these disorders, and the whole appears to have sprung from misunderstanding in the settlement of the company's accounts. John Byers, who was a member of Council, John Mon Montgom- * General John Armstrong, Jr., was the younger of two sons, his brother Dr. James being several years older. He was born Nov. 1758, and was educated at Newburg Academy, in Cumberland county, and at Nassau Hall partly under Dr. Witherspoon. While a student at the college and only eighteen years of age he enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment, became an aid-de-camp to General Mercer, whom he bore fatally wounded from the field at Stoney Brook, N. J. General Gates invited him to become a member of his staff, on which he continued with the rank of Major until the close of the war. On the return of peace, he became unlike his father, a warm partisan of the Democratic party, was Secretary of State under Governor Franklin, and served at least one term as a member of the old Congress. In 1789 he married a sister of Chancellor Livingston and took up his residence at Red Hook on the North river. In 1800 he represented New York in the Senate of the United States, but in 1804 he was appointed by President Jefferson, Minister to France. He remainel in this office six years, acting also much of the time as minister to Spain. On the opening of the war with England, he was made a Brigadier General in command of New York. In 1813 he reluctantly became Secretary of War, for he was not in accord with most of his brother officers as to the military policy, and the opposition to him became so decided that rather hastily he resigned and gave his enemies an advantage over him. After his retirement he occupied himself in literary pursuits, wrote on Farming and Gardening. a Review of Wilkinson's Memoirs, some biographical papers, and a history of the war with Great Britain. He died at Red Bank, in his 85th year, leaving a daughter, the wife of Wm B. Astor, of New York. ery who had a seat in Congress, and Stephen Duncan, John Carothers, James Johnston, Wm. Brown, James M'Lean, Jonathan Hoge and Patrick Maxwell representatives in the Assembly, were all unanimous in condemning the method taken by the rioters, and joined in the public acts of the bodies of which they were members in condemnation of their proceedings.* LANDS BESTOWED UPON PENNSYLVANIA TROOPS. In addition to the commutation money which was voted by Congress, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed a series of acts by which not only all arrearages were paid but the depreciation in the currency which had been paid their officers and men was made up, and the privilege was given them to select a portion of land in any part of the new purchases made from the Indians in the western part of the state in proportion to their official station and their time of service. In this way some of the officers became in subsequent years possessed of large quantities of land in the western counties, which when properly managed became of great value to them and their families. It was thus particularly that the Armstrong, the Irvine, the Magaw and other families were in some degree rewarded for the losses they had encountered, although the land being wild and sometimes not selected or improved until years had passed, the profits were not as great as they were intended to be. It is sad to know that the hardships of the camp and of the prison, the wounds of the battle field, the derangement of neglected affairs at home, and those military habits which are so often unfavorable to ordinary industries may have exerted an injurious influence upon the last years of many of our revolutionary soldiers. But the great majority of them we have reason to believe returned to their homes to live many years in comparative health and strength, their character ennobled by the principles they had defended, and themselves happy in the enjoyment of what their toils and endurances had secured for their country. For many years it was the delight of the people to exalt the " heroes of the war," to every station of emolument and honor, and every true American pronounces their names with affectionate reverence. PROPRIETARY LANDS. From an examination of the titles to lands with a view to taxation it was found that the original proprietary family were still the owners of a large amount of territory in the county from which no revenues were derived. The following tracts were described as belonging to them : In East Pennsborough a tract called Lowther (formerly Paxton) Manor, containing 7551 acres ; in West Pennsborough three tracts, one called Jericho containing 807 acres and 40 perches, another of 828 acres, and another of 770 acres and 120 perches ; a * For a full account of this mutiny, which differs in some respects from some published notices, see a report of the Executive Council to the Assembly, with notes in Col. Rec., Vol. XIII., pp, 634-66, and Letters of Lieut. Wm. Butler, of Carlisle, and Col. Richard Butler of Lancaster, in the manuscript papers of Gen. Wm. Irvine in the possession of the Pa. Hist. Society.