Local History

I live in a small community in South Central PA. The valley I live in is called Path Valley. I have always been a history buff and I continue to find new things just in my area. Some examples of what I have learned. The valley was first settled in the 1730 and 40. The valley was a trade route for local tribes. Most Kitatiny (sp) Indians. But other tribes came through. The Delaware tribes attacked many times just south of me. The residents in the 40s we're kicked out do to treat violation. Returned around 1754. Not more than a mile from my house is a location that is thought to have been used a meeting location for several tribes wanted to push Philadelphia to correct the treaty violation. 15 miles down the road we had the black boys rebellion and also the cove slaughter. Another fact I found through talking to a very old lady was that the mountain top was a smuggler run. A guy would steal weapons and other goods from the small towns at forts and trade them to the Indians. He had hidden stashed through out the mountain ridge. (To date I don't know of any that we're found). The old lady that told me this story was a direct descendant of one of the first settlers. By 1770s the Indian threat had vanished. From 1756 until early 1770s English troops had forts all along the valley. It pretty cool what a little digging can find out about where you live at. Anyone else have similar tales of where they live.

We tend to see the big picture of history, while the people we reinact didn’t live the big picture, they just lived their life’s in a small way. More and more my persona has become smaller, I hunt I make whisky I trade with the osage, I wear cloth working mans clothing, i never killed an Indian, as a young man I was in the militia during the revolution but never got in a fight, I traveled west to Virgina Tennessee and finely into the ozarks and like most people just made a living.
Local history rocks!

I lived for many years in Taylor County, KY. The neighboring county to the west, Green County, has an interesting webpage detailing some of the area's early history. Seems many people have heard the quote carved into a tree, "2300 lost. Ruination by God" and that was carved in a tree at the longhunter camp in Green Co!

Green Co.

I've hunted Wilson and Russell creeks, and the upper Green River extensively.

My wife and I searched out the Skinhouse Branch and the site of the Knox "ruination, by God!" camp a few years ago and had a picnic by the little stream. There are historic markers of those events there. That sort of thing will really concentrate your interest in local history, and is a perfect example of what living in the area makes available.

Spence

George said:

That sort of thing will really concentrate your interest in local history, and is a perfect example of what living in the area makes available.

Spence

Click to expand...

I always found it interesting to make camp in one of the several rock houses I know of along the upper Green River. You know I'm not the first to have found them, and sitting there by the fire I get lost in my ruminations over who else, and when, sat in this very spot going about the business of daily living. Deep stuff...

Sorry for all the spelling errors. I need to proof read more or not post something after midnight. My wife just got me a book on the history of the valley I live in. I knew we had a lot of stuff around here. Seems the more I look the more I find. There was a fort about a mile from my house Called Springtown. I read an article that says it was built ware 5 springs come together. I know exactly where that's at. I will have to go looking to see if can find anything. Supposedly there was a blacksmith and silversmith there. Fort was active 1755 thru 1770. I will let you know if I find anything.

Heres just a bit of local history thats just minutes from my home to several locations in which this took place. To me these kinds of local history are fascinating and are what great personas are based upon.
John Conner was born on August 27, 1775, at the village of Schoenbrun, in what is now the State of Ohio. Schoenbrun was a community founded by Moravian missionaries in an attempt to bring Christianity to the Delaware Indians. In 1781, the Indians and the Moravians, including the Conners, moved to the Detroit area. John and brother, William, left the Conner farm near Detroit and settled among the Delaware along the West Fork of White River in the newly-created Delaware dialects, and both were married to Delaware women. They went into the fur trading business in the Indian villages along the West Fork.

Partly as a result of a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1802, John moved to the Whitewater Valley, establishing a post near present day Cedar Grove. Furs would be shipped from William Conner's post among the Delaware to Cedar Grove and on down the Indian Trail to the Ohio River; trade goods were shipped down the Ohio River from Pittsburg and north to the post at Cedar Grove, a very profitable arrangement for the Conner brothers.
The Grouseland Treaty of 1805 reduced the hunting grounds of the Indians to some extent. As a result, John Conner, in 1808, moved his trading post about 20 miles north to a location along the west side of the West Fork of the Whitewater River, the present site of Connersville.

The War of 1812 brought increased Indiana tensions to the frontier, and also served as a transition period in the life of John Conner.

The Twelve Mile Purchase of 1809, the beginning of the exodus of the Delaware from the Indiana Territory, and the War of 1812 caused Conner to realize that his future was no longer in the Indian trade. His Indian wife had died, and in 1813 he married Lavina Winship of Cedar Grove.

In 1813 he platted a small village; the original plat of 62 lots included two north-south streets and four or five east-west streets. About this time he also left his log trading post and built a store on the southwest corner of Main and Harrison streets in the newly-platted village. He soon had a grist mill, a saw mill, and a distillery in operation. Settlers were following the old Indiana train north from the Ohio River and buying land in the vicinity of Conner's post. Small businesses were starting; blacksmiths, tanners, wagon makers, taverns, and stores.

In 1816, John served in the newly elected State Senate meeting at the State Capital in Corydon. In 1819 Fayette County was created by the General Assembly and Connersville was chosen as the county seat. In 1820, Conner was appointed one of the commissioners to select a site for the new state capital.

In 1822, John Conner decided to move his business interests to a location south of Noblesville, near his brother. Near horseshoe Prairie he erected a saw mill, a grist mill, and a carding mill. He was elected to the State House of Representatives; he had served in the first legislature at Corydon, and now he served in the first one at the new capitol in Indianapolis. John also owned a store in Indianapolis.

Tanker, there is an old old movie which was extremely loosely adapted from the history of your area. Allegheny Uprising starring john Wayne. (1939 based on a 1937 novel)

I live in the area along the Susquehanna that was wrested away from the Pennsylvanians by Cresap, a Maryland Justice of the Peace, in the 1730's. The Sheriff of Baltimore with 300 Maryland Militia came and occupied the area around my farm for two years. Wrights Ferry at the Boundary between the two colonies was just 6 miles north. It became Wrightsville, where the bridge across the river was burned by Union troop in 1863 to keep the Confederates and Lee from crossing over to Lancaster PA, a major manufacturing town. There are Indian pictographs on rocks in the river that date from before contact times. I am just across the river from where the Conestoga Indians lived that were slaughtered by the Paxtang boys. My Farm was part of a "plantation" called Howard's Choice granted by the Penns in the 1740's. The fellow that built the farm house here, was injured at Gettysburg and furloughed for recuperation. According to his family's stories, it took him three days to travel the 40 miles home and that he had stolen a team of horses and harness to use to get home. When i bought the place, there was an old mildewed bridle in the basement with buckles stamped US. According to his family, he never went back to the Army, but began cutting timbers to build the house a few weeks after he got home. It was an old style house with the big basement kitchen fireplace to hang pots over the fire. The upstairs had two separate entrances. Once was to the rooms where the boys stayed and the other was to the side of the house where the Parents and girls stayed.

I became deeply interested in local history about 10 years ago.
It's lead me to become the curator of our local historical Museum here in Armstrong county Pennsylvania. Our county has played a part in American history beginning with the battle of Kittanning which was one of the initial conflicts that started the French and Indian war. Even the smallest piece of knowledge about our area peaks my interest. My family has been here since 1804.

One of my ancestors Gerhardt Hendricks, was a Dutch Mennonite refugee who escaped from Holland to southern Germany. He met with Penn's friend John Ames in 1677 and converted to a Quaker as did several other families. They were in a Quaker congregation in Kriegsheim in the Palatinate. About the same time that an Army of Turks was invading Eastern Europe intent on capturing Rome, extra taxes were imposed on the people to pay for the defense against the Turks. He and the Quakers refused to pay the tax, or serve as sentries or in the equivalent of a militia. A judge even wrote to the Prince asking for permission to throw Hendricks and the other "troublesome Quakers" out of the country. He did voluntarily pack his bags and left, arriving in Philadelphia in 1685. One of his grandsons and one great grandson became mayors of colonial Philadelphia. Benjamin Schumacher and Samuel Schumacher.

Another of my ancestors was the son of an immigrant German gunsmith. That gunsmith set up shop near Kutztown PA and his sons and brother and nephews became the Angstadts of the Kutztown school of long rifles in Berks County PA in the 1770's to 1820's.

way cool... i lived in Hagerstown and worked in Waynesboro (it had three stoplights back then ... i was unaware of the richness and depth of the local history until i left the area for southeast Vermont.