[Pennsylvania County Histories]

^ -'1 f* 3fcn V. V- 7 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from This project is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniacoun45unse 4 4 T M A_ R K TWAIN’S 1. SoRar moK. FA TENTS: UNITED STATES. GREAT BRITAIN. FRANCE. June 24TH, 1873. May i6th, 1877. May i8th,. 1877. TRADE MARKS: UNITED STATES. GREAT BRITAIN. Registered No. 5,896. Registered No. 15,979. DIRECTIONS. Use but little moisture, and only on the gummed lines. Press the scrap on without wetting it. DANIEL SLOTE & COMPANY, NEW YORK. '—f— INDEX. U V Page ' W . pi ■ ■ v . • ' "'iV '| w • »v X YZ Slavery in Jfeflerson County. ' jto reach Philadelphia from that point. Editor Democrat:—The first person to | From Brookville to Philadelphia it required settle in what is now Brookville was Moses isome four or five days constant traveling. ( Knapp. He built a log house about 1801, Our merchants carried their money on these at the mouth of North Fork creek, on ground trips as well as they could, mostly secreted now owned by Thos. L. Templeton, near in some way on or about their persons. Christ’s brewery. About 1806 or 1807, I After purchasing their goods in Philadel¬ i Knapp built a log gristmill where the waters phia they were ordered to be shipped to of North Fork theu entered into Redbank, Brookville as “heavy freight,” over the jit was a rude mill, and had but one run of great corporation freight line of “Joe Mor¬ |rock stones. In 1818 he sold this mill to row. ” Joe was a ‘ ‘bloated corporationist, ’ ’ IThouies Barnett. James Parks, Barnett’s a transportation monopolist of that day. brother-in-law, came to run this mill about ! He was a whole “trust” in himself. He 1824, (Barnett having died), and lived here owned and managed the whole line and had until about 1830. Parks came from West¬ i no opposition, on this end at least. His moreland county, - pa., and brought with line consisted of two Connestoga wagons, him and held in legal slayery here a negro the bed on each at least four feet high and man named “Sam.” Joshua Knapp, Uriah | sixteen feet long. Each wagon was painted Matson, and John Dixon, all took grists of blue, and each was covered with a white corn and buckwheat to this mill for "Sam,” canvas, this covering supported by hoops. the “miller,” to grind. The wagon was always loaded and unloaded Happy the miller who lives by the mill, from the rear end. The tires on the wheels For by the turning of his hand he can do what he I will were six inches wide. Each wagon would But this was not so with “Sam.” At his carry over three tons of freight, and was master’s nod he could grind his own “peck drawn over good roads by six magnificent of meal,” for his body, his work, his life and horses, and over bad roads by eight of such his will belonged to Parks, horses. This was the “fast” and heavy The census of 1830 gives Jefferson county [freight line from Philadelphia to Brook¬ a population of 2,003 whites, 21 free colored ville until the canal was built to Lewis- persons, and one colored slaye. This slave town, Pa., when Morrow changed hisliead- we suppose was “Ham.” , quarters from Philadelphia to Lewistown, I write this item to inform our people that and continued to run his semi-annual human slavery was once legal in Jefferson “freight train” from Lewistown to Brook¬ county—that less than seventy years ago ville. Morrow’s advent into town was al¬ a “master’s call” was heard where Brookville ways a great event. He always stopped now stands, an “auction block” was possible his “train” in front of the Red Lion hotel, - for the sale of human beings, and a “driver’s then kept by John Smith. The horses lash” probably echoed over the North Fork were never stabled, but stood day and hills- W. J. McKnight, night in tho street, three on each side of Brookville, July 5, 1894. the stiff’ tongue of the wagon, and were fed Jin a box he carried with him called his “feed trough.” The harness was broad From, C~... and heavy, and nearly covered the horses, jand they were “hitched up” to the wagon • i U.'1/rr/tctSFs.. OL with iron “pole” and “trace chains. ” The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the .Switchmen’s Union, the “American Rail¬ I Date, ‘ /i / {/, way Union,” and all the Sovereigns and Debs’s put together, had no terrors for Joe, for he had but one employe, a “brakeman” fty JF'irst Recollections of Brookvillie. in 1840-43. for his second wagon. Joe was the em- i ployed and the employer. Like a “trans- In 1840 Brookville merchants purchased I portation king, ’ ’ like a ‘ ‘robber baron, ’ ’ he jtheir goods in Philadelphia. These pur¬ jsat astride a wagon saddle on the hind lead chases were made in the spring and fall. (horse, driving the others with a single line It took about two and a halfdays continu- jous traveling in the “limited mail” day ;and a blacksnake whip, to the words, ‘ ‘Gee, ’ ’ jand night stage coach to reach Lewistown, j“Jep,” and “haw.” Morrow always re¬ Pa., and required about one day and a mained in Brookville four or five days, to h-'li traveling over the canal and railroad buy our products and load his train for the home trip. He bought and loaded clover, “When I can read my title clear timothy and flax seed, leathers, old rags, j To mansions in the skies. tar, beeswax, wheat, rye, chestnuts, furs, | I bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes.” and dried elderberries. The western ter¬ The first verse of the second hymn was:! •' minus of his line was Shippenville, Clarion! “There is a land of pure delight, county, Pa., and on his return from there Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, was when he bought up these products. And pleasures banish pain.” Morrow’s last trip to Brookville with his One by one, one by one, these early pio¬ train was about the year 1850. He was an neer Christians have left for this “land of Irishman, slim, wiry, industrious, and of pure delight, ’! to [occupy these ‘ ‘mansions ^ business habits. He was killed by the in the skies.” I hope and pray that each kick of a horse between the years 1850 and one is now— 1860. I remember that he usually wore a “In seas of heavenly rest.” It- I spotted fawn skin vest, made from the skin After returning home from the Butler, with the hair on. Themerchantsin Brook- school house one Saturday, I remember; ville of that day who are still living, and! I asked my pi other] for a “piece.” Shei . for whom Morrow hauled goods, as far as I went to the cupboard, and when she got • can recollect, are Uriah Matson, Harry there the cupboard was not bare, for, lo! Matson, Judge Henderson, Samuel Train. and bebold, a great big snake was therein, [.. Wm. Rodgers and "W. W. Corbett, who now coiled and ready for fight. My mother in, reside in or near the town; Captain John horror ran to the door and called Mr. Lewis] J Hastings of Punxsutawney, and W. F. Dunham, a lawyer, who lived in the housei- Clark of Maquoketa, Iowa, and S. M. now occupied by R. M. Matson, Esq.. 3 Moore of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Dunham came on a run, and tried toi The town was laid out in 1830. My catch or kill the snake with our “tongs,”! father moved here in 1832. He taught the hut it made good its escape through a big jj second term of the school in the town, in hole in the comer of the cupboard. Rep¬ the winter of 1832. He was major in the) tiles, such as black, rattle, house and other militia, a justice of the peace, and was snakes were very plenty then in and around county treasurer w'hen he died, in 1837, | Brookville, and dangerous, too. at the early age of twenty-seven years, leav-l W. J. McKnxght. ing my mother in this wilderness, a widow with three small children to support and rear. In 1840 my mother taught a summer; term of school, in what was then and is now called the Butler school house. This school house is on the Ridgway road, in Pinecreek township, two miles from town. I was small, and had to go and come to and from this school with mother. We came home every Saturday to remain over A CHAPTER OF THE PAST Sunday, and to attend Presbyterian church, service being then held in the old brick Something of the Early Settlers in Jef¬ ferson County. court house. The Presbyterians then In looking over the history of Hunt¬ called their church “Bethel.” In 1842 it ingdon and Blair counties, compiled by was changed to Brookville. We had no Hon. J. Simpson Africa, in 1883, it is choir in the church then, hut had a “clerk” found that a great many of the old citi¬ who would stand in front of the pulpit, read zens of Jefferson county were origin¬ out two lines, and then sing them; then ally from Huntingdon, as in almost read two more and sing them, and so on until the hymn or psalm was sung, the every township names of our early set¬ congregation joining in as best they could.

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