3. 1015 VOL. XIX P THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WITH NOTES AND QUERIES DECEMBER 1914 PENNSYLVANIA COUNTY NAMES No. 6 ENNSYLVANIA has recorded in the names of her counties, a large number of men illustrious in American history. Previous articles in this magazine* contained a brief record of about twenty counties of the Keystone State, ending with Franklin. The next in order following those already published is Greene, which is in the extreme southwestern part of the state, and was erected out of Washington County by an act of Assembly passed in 1796, and named for General Greene, who next to Washington, is frequently mentioned as the greatest soldier of the Revolution. Greene County contains rich deposits of coal, iron and salt, and recently, natural gas wells have brought important revenue to its people. Waynesburg is the county seat, named in honor of General Anthony Wayne. Huntingdon County lies near the center of the Juniata Valley. It is a name famous in English history. The area now embraced in Huntingdon originally belonged to Cumberland County, out of which Bradford was formed in 1771. Huntingdon was erected out of Bradford in 1787, the year the National Constitution was adopted. It then included Center, Clearfield, Cambria and Blair counties, a vast extent of country, now noted for the production of lumber and coal. In the northwestern part of Huntingdon semi-bituminous coal was discovered before 1800 and used in charcoal furnaces and by blacksmiths. Valuable iron deposits were found in the mountain districts of Huntingdon, and these brought an intelligent class of Scotch-Irish and English settlers, who not only cultivated the fertile lands of the valleys, but also erected numerous iron works. The State Canal was opened through Huntingdon in 1830, and was for twenty years the principal line for the transportation of goods across the mountains to Pittsburgh. In 1850, *August 1909, October, 1910. the Pennsylvania Railroad was extended from Harrisburg to the base of the Alleghenies. Standing Stone was an Indian settlement on the present site of Huntingdon Borough, now the county seat. The first white settlers were Scotch-Irish, who for a time lived on peaceable terms with the aborigines. In 1754, an Indian treaty extended the province of Pennsylvania westward to the Allegheny mountains. During the Indian wars before the Revolution, Huntingdon, or Standing Stone as it was frequently called, was threatened by Indian invasion. In 1778 nearly one thousand armed red men from the mountain districts approached it. They were repelled by armed militia from Cumberland and York counties, under General Roberdeau, who was then delegate to Congress at York. Indiana County was created out of Westmoreland and Lycoming counties. It is a fertile region and was first populated by Indians from whom the name originated. The first whites began to settle it in 1764. After 1796 when Wayne defeated the Indians in Ohio, there were no further disturbances with the red men in western Pennsylvania. Indiana, the county seat, was laid out in 1805. It is the home of General Harry White, who won a brilliant record as a soldier in the Civil War. An act of Assembly passed March, 26, 1804, organized the county of Jefferson in western Pennsylvania, named in honor of the sage of Monticello, then President of the United States. A large part of the county in early days was covered with valuable pine, hemlock and other timber. Many sawmills were erected to convert this timber and sell it as manufactured lumber, which was in great demand at Pittsburgh. The first white settler of Jefferson was Joseph Barnett of Dauphin County, who in 1797 passed with his family up the Susquehanna in an open boat as far as he could go by water. He then crossed the mountains on pack horses and took up his abode in the wilderness. Barnett erected the first sawmill and in performing this work was assisted by nine Seneca Indians, who helped him to cut down the pine trees and saw them into boards. For twenty years the jurisdiction of Jefferson County was under Westmoreland and all legal business was transacted at Greensburg. Juniata is an Indian name, originally given to a branch of the Susquehanna which drains several counties of Central Pennsylvania. This stream is known as the "Blue Juniata," made famous by a song by that name written and published nearly a century ago. How many of our readers, as young people have sung: "Wild roved an Indian girl Bright Alfarata Where flow the waters of Tuscarora Valley was named in honor of a tribe of Indians who migrated from North Carolina, remained here a few years and in 1704 joined the Five Nations in New York State. The Six Nations were the strongest confederation of Indian tribes known to American history. Juniata County is traversed by mountain ranges and contains some of the most picturesque scenery in this country. Mifflintown, the county seat, was laid out in 1791 by John Harris' the founder of Harrisburg, who named the new town in honor of General Thomas Mifflin, then Governor of Pennsylvania. Lackawanna is an Indian name, the meaning of which is not certain, even to the careful student of history. This county was formed out of Luzerne in 1878. Within its limits are some of the most productive coal mines in the world. At the close of the Revolution, Philip Abbott built a cabin and erected a grist mill on the site of Scranton, the present county seat. He was the sole owner of the surrounding mineral lands, from which many thousand tons of coal have been taken. It was not until 1840 that Joseph Scranton and his brothers took up their abode on the site of Scranton, now containing a population next to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, being the third city in the Keystone State. Scranton has become an important industrial center. It contains numerous large manufacturing establishments, and when the anthracite coal mines are in full operation, is one of our most prosperous cities. Lancaster was the fourth county in the Province of Pennsylvania, and was formed out of the western part of Chester County in 1729. Its frontier boundary was not definitely stated, because the land west of the Susquehanna was not purchased from the Indians until 1736. In a treaty made at Philadelphia, the heirs of William Penn bought the land extending beyond the Susquehanna, and in the language of the treaty, "westward to the setting sun." The original area of Lancaster included a dozen other counties now among the most fertile and densely populated in the central part of the state. A large number of the early settlers were Palatines who came from Germany and Switzerland. Among these peasants of the Teuton race were thrifty Mennonites, a plain people, many of whose descendants now own some of the best lands in the state. The Scotch-Irish settled the lower and the Quakers the eastern part of the county. York County was cut off from Lancaster in 1749; Cumberland in 1750; Berks in 1752; and Dauphin, including Lebanon in 1785. Since that time Lancaster has retained its present area, or nearly the size of Rhode Island. Before the white man came, the valley of the Susquehanna on the Lancaster side was owned and occupied by the Susquehanna Indians, and kindred tribes noted for their prowess and majestic size. A well founded tradition states that William Penn visited these red men of the forests, and talked to them like a father as they sat around him on the banks of the Susquehanna. His words were a friendly message to these untutored people, who, after hearing the gospel of peace vowed that not a drop of Quaker blood should be shed in Pennsylvania. This treaty, like the one famous in history made at Shackamaxon was never forgotten by the Indians. Early in the Revolution and during the whole struggle for Independence, the Scotch-Irish and the German inhabitants of Lancaster were loyal to the American cause. The county furnished some of her bravest sons to the army under Washington. Among them was General Edward Hand, early in life an officer in the British Army. He commanded a brigade of Americans at Long Island, Princeton, Brandywine and Germantown. George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the first admiralty judge of Pennsylvania, was a native of Lancaster. James Buchanan who was born in Franklin County, spent his entire professional career as a lawyer in Lancaster. Thaddeus Stevens, a native of Vermont, and one of the leaders in Pennsylvania affairs for nearly half a century, was the ablest lawyer that ever practiced before the Lancaster Court. Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, first saw the light of day in the lower end of Lancaster County, near the center of the township which now bears his name. These are only a few facts concerning the important agricultural county of Lancaster whose acres are among the most productive in the United States. In the borough of Lancaster, the Continental Congress spent one day deliberating in the Court House, and then moved across the river to York in order to be farther from the British then in Philadelphia. The State Legislature met in Lancaster from 1799 until 1812, when the capital was removed to Harrisburg. Lawrence, in the western part of the state, was formed out of Beaver and Mercer, in 1849. Many men of this county had served in the War of 1812 and had taken part in Perry's famous battle on Lake Erie. The recollection of Commodore Perry and his flagship Lawrence, gave rise to the name of the county. The ship had been named in honor of Captain James Lawrence, the hero of the Chesapeake. The first-known inhabitants of the primeval forests which covered Lawrence County were remnants of the Delaware Indians, who had moved across the Alleghenies from the eastern counties of Pennsylvania. About 1750, a few of the Senecas had been here before their brothers came from the east. David Zeisberger, the famous missionary of the Moravians, who had migrated from Bradford to Forest County in 1770. founded the village of Friedenstadt on the banks of Beaver Creek in this county. He preached the gospel of peace to the friendly Indians, many of whom became converts to the Christian faith. Farther up the county and near the present site of New Castle, the seat of justice of Lawrence County, was a thriving Indian village. The success of Moravian missionaries puzzled Packanke, their chief. He selected Glikkikan, an educated Indian noted for his eloquence, and sent him to Friedenstadt for the purpose of challenging Zeisberger in an argument against the Christian faith. The missionary being absent at the time, Anthony, a native convert, in the shade of a spreading tree with his other converts around him defended the Zeisberger religion with such fervor that Glikkikan returned to the Indian village declaring that he had been converted. This noted Indian was afterwards killed by American soldiers at Muskingum, Ohio. The Friedenstadt mission continued for several years until the Indians migrated in 1794, westward to the Muskingum Valley. The early settlers of Lawrence were Scotch-Irish from the counties of eastern Pennsylvania and New Castle in Delaware. One of these |