Notes and Queries Historical, Biographical, and Genealogical
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3 Genet 1 Class BookE^^V \ VOLU M E Pi- Pennsylvania State Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 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/ notesquerieshist00unse_1 .. M J L U Q 17 & 3 I at N . L3 11^ i- Ail ; ' ^ cu^,/ t ; <Uj M. 7 \ \ > t\ v .^JU V-^> 1 4 NOTES AXD QUERIES. and Mrs. Herman A1 ricks were born upon this land. David Cook, Sr., married a j Historical, Biographical and Geneal- Stewart. Samuel Fulton probably left i ogical. daughters. His executors were James Kerr and Ephraim Moore who resided LXL near Donegal church. Robert Fulton, the father of the in- Bcried in Maryland. — In Beard’s ventor who married Mary Smith, sister of Lutheran graveyard, Washington county, Colonel Robert Smith, of Chester county, Maryland, located about one-fourth of a was not of the Donegal family. There mile from Beard’s church, near Chews- seems to be two families of Fultons, and ville, stands an old time worn and dis- are certainly located in the wrong place, j colored tombstone. The following ap- Some of the descendants of Samuel Ful- pears upon its surface: ton move to the western part of Pennsyl- “Epitaphium of Anna Christina vania, and others to New York State. Geiserin, Born March 6, 1761, in the Robert Fulton, the father of the in- province of Pennsylvania, in Lancaster ventor, was a merchant tailor in Lancaster county. Married John Beard in the year before the Revolution. He purchased of oar Lord, 1781, February 14. Lived lands in Little Brittain about the year without heritance during the life of social 1770, to which place he removed, and marriage, 27 years, 8 months and 19 days. while there the Inventor Robert Fulton She died October 20, in the year 1809, was born. He became involved and his aged 47 years, 10 months a*d G days.” farm was sold by the sheriff, and he re- s. m. s turned to Lancaster about the year 1774, . where he died a few years later in poor BURTONS AND STEWARTS. circumstances. Samuel Evans. Columbia. Samuel Fulton settled in Donegal in the year 1724. He married Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of George Stewart, Esq., REMINISCENCES OF LONG AGO. who settled along the Susquehanna river Jacob. upon land embraced by the lower half of French the present town of Marietta. He was Miilersburg is built upon a plateau of feet elected to the General Assembly in the land eighty or one hundred above the ! fall of 1732, after a violent contest with Susquehanna river. The site is underlaid I by hard slate rock, a fact which has en- I John Wright. He died in January, 1733. abled that little town of Lykens Valley I The latter’s sou, John Stewart, who in- ' herited His land at the river, married a land to jut out square upon the river, and daughter of xhe Rev. James Anderson. from time immemorial to resist its floods ! | His oldest son, George Stewart, married a and washings. Six hundred yards wide daughter of Captain Thomas Harris, the by twelve hundred long it is the best towE Indian Trader, who then resided at Cone- site above Harrisburg. The Wiconisco wago creek. George Stewart removed to ereek skirts its southern border, whilst I Cumberland county, in Tuscarora Valley, Spring brauch does like duty for the and was a Colonel in the Revolutionary northern. Spring branch is headed by ' ; Army. two springs, east and back of Oakdale cemetery, and is thought to furnish ex- Samuel Fulton settled along “Peter’s j Road,” about two miles west of Donegal ceptionally good water. j I ! I Meeting House. He was a surveyor and The Moravian Bishop, Cammerhoff, in Justice of the peace. He died in April, his journal (1748) states, that passing I 1760, and left but three sons, so far as the from Bethlehem to Shamokin, he found i 1 same appears upon record. To his oldest no settled place or habitation between son, James, he gave one hundred aud sev- Fort Hunter and McKee’s (Georgetown). enty acres and his dwelling and offices, It is not known at what time a trading j house was built on Spring branch, nor James married Margaret , and had the following: who built it. It is only that in the last 1. Samuel. century sixties, that here was the home of 2. Hugh. Jacob Beauchamp, know to tradition as 3. John. French Jacob. 4. James. Although the name French Jacob is 5. Elizabeth. familiar to old residents of Miilersburg, He removed from Donegal between the none, so far as I know after enquiry, years 1778 and 1781. could give any connected account of the John; received the sum of £3, and after man—where he lived, his occupation or his mother’s death, was to receive her history. The question occurs here, how 1 share. He removed from Donegal soon did it happen that the name of a man after his father’s death. who left no landmark behind him, and Samuel; received one hundred and disappeared from the Valley a hundred thirty-nine acres. He sold his land to and twenty years ago should be retained to this day ? It is the purpose of this ! James, his brother, who sold three hun- far dred and nine acres of land to Davit’. paper to explain that conundrum, so Cook, on April 20th, 1778. Part of this land as such a puzzle can be explained. | have went to his son, Samuel Cook, Esq., who As to his origin or birth-place we of data, sold to J. Wilson, who so.d to the Rev. no knowledge. In the absence upon the William Kerr. The late Dr. James Kerr conjecture is allowable, based —; ! his- informant, did not little we know ol his character and that fire, aaded my ] tory. His forefathers were probably dare to come any farther. Gascon-French; driven by persecution, The Wiconisco creek for a few miles they found refuge, like other Huguenots, above Millersburg skirts the mountain. with the friendly Hollanders, where our But on its way to the river sheers off to | Indian trader, we will suppose, was born, the right and strikes the southeast corner and took for a name the Teutonic Jacob, of the town. At this point is a gravel good- instead of the French Jacques, ( Anglice I and sand beach, with a few _ James.) It is stated that he moved sized boulders on the shore and in the from Lancaster, brought with him channel. In the long ago this was a fa- a wife, a sister and a negro vorite place for washing clothes, the slave. It appears that he had boulders serving as stools - for the wrung a warrant for the land reaching from the out garments, prepared for the line. It head of Spring branch to the river, includ- was here that Mr. Beauchamp had one of ing the island adjoining; land which be- his remarkable adventures, as was de- 1 longed to the estate of the late Jacob Seal. tailed to me by one of Mr. Rush’s It is uncertain whether the warrant took neighbors, whose name I cannot this mo- in the town site or not. As the story goes ment recall. Jacob had turned out his he and his wife once made a business visit horses one evening to graze and next to Lancaster, leaving the girl and the ne- morning, taking his gun he went out to gro to plant corn on the island. On their look for them as a matter of course, return they met the negro on the road. but under the difficulties of a dense fog. On close questioning he confessed to hav- Passing up along the creek in his search, ing murdered the girl and to burying her he reached this particular bend and to the handed over i in the sand. He was / the place being open, he halted authorities and haDged in due time. I <• to look and listen. At that this incident from my old friend, G. fired party of had i moment he was upon by a J. Campbell, of Millersburg, one of its Indians from the opposite side. Fortu- honored octogenarians. nately he was not hit, and although his j French Jacob had a personality peculiar peril was great, his resources were equal to himself; perhaps his Gascon blood to the situation. Whether it was that may have asserted itself, or the oppor- he possessed the ring of Gyges, tunities, which to this day new settle- or the tarn-cap of Fofner, is ments afford for romance and personal not known, but by means of one 1 exaggeration—-one of those artistic monu- or the other he rendered himself invisible, liars with whom you will seldom j mental Behind this barrier he proceeded to shoot ! meet more than once in a lifetime. With down his opponents with profound de- ! an appreciative audience he filled the liberation. The muzzle-loader is a slow j Hudibras description. weapon, and by the time he had four or “He knew whatever was to be known. five disposed of, the balance, seeing no And much more than he knew he’d own.” enemy, and believing that they had met He proposed to a knowledge of the the devil, went into a panic and occult sciences, whatever that may be; fled. Jacob was a utilitarian, he could charm the festive rattler and wave drove his hogs to j the place and thus the intrusive bear back with his hand disposed of the dead bodies to the best ad- could cure all diseases with woi'ds blow , vantage.