[Pennsylvania County Histories]

INDEX, r~T U V L W f u • H N w XYZ |KW _ ... 111 ■' ,am _„___._ ......... ---——-— V . EEr— ^---—T---— ---r - ■ if 1 ■ ■ X /■ J_ l :: . ■“> 1 ... 1 I. II tea-r.^ but he bad a vivid recollection of t, i battle of the Brandywine and tho stir ring times when Washington fell back MHO-DAY.' before the advanoing British army.” On being asked whom be murried, he replied: “My wife’s name was Eliza¬ fOHH BESSY, OF PENNVILLE, beth Bailey. Her father, Caleb Bailey, CLEARFIELD COUNTY. lived on the Loyalsock. She was- born in 1802 and died in 1841. We were mar¬ ried in 1822. We had six sons and three daughters. Fonr of my sons—Caleb, HOPES TO LIYE ONE HUNDRED YEARS. John, Joseph and James—served in thej ! Bucktail regiment. James was killed at-I the second Bull Run. John was wounded I Au )ntere«t<ns Talk With tbe Oldest twice. The others passod through tho I Flan In Clearfield County—His war without a scratch. John and I Anceiuy and WSiere Mowas Joseph are the only ones now living. | Born—Story of a Lons Liie “I came here in 1819 to assist Wil- I liam Bell to build the Erie turnpike and I -Samuel C. Hepburn. have remained here to the present time. I I knew Dr. Samuel Coleman who died I that year. He was a strange man and PsNNviLLE.Oot. 1.—Under the shadow wanted to be buried in an unmarked of the Grampian Hills, at the present grave in a certain field, bat they buried j terminus of the Tyrone and Clearfield him on the hill near the edge of his ] railroad lies the quiet little borough of orchard. I had his lancet for many Pennville. It was named of course, I years and often used to bleed persons j after one of the old oolonial governors with it. I fina’L gave it to Dr. Currier by the Quaker settlers in this part of the and he prizes : hi-, bly as a relio.” I country. Pioneers and adventurers Did any of ur relatives live to a j found their way hither before the close great age? “My sister Asenatb, who of the last century. In those days the married William Lucas, died at Union- ' country was covered with a dense growth ville, Centre county, in 1887, aged 92. ft pine and hemlock timber. The river Another sister, Margaret, who was tbe it that time afforded the easiest and second wife of Andrew Moore, died in quickest means of transportation and Pennville in 1890, aged nearly 90. I am scores of the hardy Sootch-Irish pioneers the only one left of my father’s family.” ; I found their way from the West Branch “Yes, 1 used to hunt. Game was .Valley on flat boats which they polod up plenty in the early days. One seuson I -j the stream by sheer muscular force. shot thirty-seven deer. I never killed Many of the descendants of these early but one elk. Never hunted much for settlers are found here to-day and they bea*, but one day I remember killing I relate marvelous and thrilling stories of four bear, and it was not considered a the trials and sufferings endured by their good day for bear either.” ancestors in their heroic efforts to found On being asked regarding his eany homes in the wilderness. But there is pursuits he replied that ho had followed e yet lingering on the shores of time hard work all his,life. “1 used to rnn lhose age is co-eval with the beginning arks down the riyer. Then came the the Nineteenth century. His name is rafting business, and I can proudly say an Henry, and he lives in this village, ■that I never lost, struck or stove a raft, re ie one o'i the best preserved msu for II followed the river for fifty years. We of the many thousands I haye run our rafts to Marietta and Columbia, n my travels in tbe United States, land then walked back by the reads and might be termed a remarkable man, I nearest paths over the mountains.” ough no extraordinary incidents oo- Were you a good worker? “Few could urred in his long career. beat me in those days. I oould run Meeting him to-day in his pleasant ] like a deer. In 1823 I walked from here oae on the main street of the village, I I to Bellefonte, sixty miles in one day. I ed with rapt attention to the story I traveled at a pretty lively gait, but I his life. “Yes,” he remarked, “I -made it easily. My route was through ave lived a long time; I will be ninety- Phiiipsburg.” v/o on the 3d of October. I was born in j Mr. Heuiy stands nearly six feet in arree township, Huntingdon county, height, is of spare build and remarkably 'ftober 3, 1800!” Think of it! active for his years. He thinks nothing ‘My father,” he continued, “was born of walking six or eight miles about the Chester county, not far from Coates¬ country over the ordinary roads. He es, on the Brandywine, in 1765. His has generally enjoyed good health. The ame was James. My mother’s name only illness be e ver had was an attack of .yy Lydia Brooks. Soon after my typhoid fever and inflammation of the •ents were married they moved to lungs. He has used tobacco all his life, ntingdon county. In 1801 they and occasionally took a drink of whisky, to the Bald Eagle, Centre oouuty, bat never used it to excess. ;ettled on what is now known as the As a speoimen of well preserved man¬ der farm, four or five miles above hood John Henry is certainly one of the rg.” phenomenal men of the day. He con- my father was not old enough verses intelligently on the topics of the art in the Revolutionary war, Sketch of Bishop Kephart? or sfP'Ts 0 desks wei ; roug.. boards laid on W-finin pins or driven into Bishop E. B. Kephart was born Not. 6th the wall. To reach the school he had to 1834, in Clearfield county. Pa. His patern¬ travel t wo miles with his older sisters and al great grandfather, Nicholas Kephart, brother through the wilderness, conse¬ came to America from Switzerland in 1788. quently there were many days during win- His maternal great grandfather, George that he could not go. At a very early age Goss, came from Germany prior to the Rev¬ he drove the oxen in hauling logs from the olutionary war; was in the Wyoming mas¬ forests to the streams or mills. He always sacre, in which two of his sons were killed was fond of books, but had almost reached and from which he, his wife and one re¬ manhood’s age when he decided to attend maining boy, Abraham, then a lad of four-1 college. However, by the aid of a “pine- teen and the maternal grandfather of knot” light he had read with care the few Bishop Kephart, escaped by secreting books in his father’s cabin, which were the themselves in the laurel. Soon after this Bible, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Saints’ both father and son enlisted in General Rest,” and a few other precious books. Washington’s army, in which the father He was an expert raftsman, a good pilot on was killed. The son survived the war,and the Clearfield creek and Susquehanna river near the close of the eighteenth century and with much interest related to your settled in Clearfield county, Pa. correspondent the experience he had one spring in running a raft on the Maclay Nicholas Kephart first settled in Berks rock, above the Harrisburg bridge. In county, Pa., and afterward in Centre Co. 1856 he first entei ed the doors of Dickinson His son, Henry, the grandfather of the Seminary, Williamsport, Pa., where he Bishop, married Catharine Smith,a maiden spent a short while aud then entered Mt. of English descent, while Abraham Goss, Pleasant, Pa., college, and from here to the maternal grandfather, married Eliza¬ Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio, beth Eimerhizer, whose father was Dutch until he finished two courses and graduat¬ but mother was Irish. ed with honor. He says one of his earliest To these parents were born with other recollections of life is his conversion, children, respectively Henry Kephart, jr., brought about by his mother’s religious and Sarah Goss, who were married March teachings. In 1853 he united with the 26th, 1826, to whom were born in all thir¬ church of his father's choice, the United teen children, seven sons and six daugh¬ Brethren in Christ, and in 1857 was licens¬ ters, Bishap Kephart being the second son ed to preach the Gospel by his quarterly fifth child. conference. In 1859 he was appointed to It will be seen from the above that he preach in Jefferson county, Pa., and in was ofSwiss, German, English and Irish 1860 in Johnstown, Pa., and while serving extraction; hence if mixture of blood con¬ this charge he was appointed a missionary stitutes a genuine “Yankee,” he surely is to Washington Territory, but did not go one. His father died in May, 1886, at on account of the paper morey he received Shueyville, Iowa, at the ripe age of 85 to go there. He found it to be worth only ( years, more than fifty of rhese being spent twenty-five cents on the dollar when he got in the local ministry of the U.

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