"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 3 February 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

The McCurdy and Gilmore Families-Revolutionary War Service-Church Customs and Relations.

No. XXVII.

Mr. Editor:-I now approach the history of my ancestors, as among the early and noted citizens of the valley, my mother's father, Jas. McCurdy, and his brother-in-law, Jas. Gilmore, were citizens as early as 1778. Jas. McCurdy's sister was the wife of Gilmore and perhaps married in North Ireland whence they came. James McCurdy was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, likely from nearly the commencement, as I remember of him telling my mother when I was a small boy of his high esteem of Gen. Washington and that he would pass around among the soldiers in camp, inquiring of their comfort and condition, nearly every day, and of his admiring esteem of his kindness, and bearing always among them at all times, and seemed to lament that he had no sons to represent his high qualities in the country and government in after years for the country's benefit and advancement. He also spoke of the battle of Brandywine in 1777 or '78, when their part of the army was stationed below, under arms in hearing and partly in sight of the bloody strife all day, impatient to be called into action; and that the water of the creek was as red as blood as it passed. I never learned if Jas. Gilmore served in that war or not, neither whether they came to this country at the same time or not. I have learned the first part of his married life was spent in the Forks of Yough, and his wife was of the McKinny family near Periopolis, and moved from there to near West Fairfield in the valley.

When my mother was a babe, the third of the family, in the year 1778 or '79, [in an earlier article, he mentions that he thought the year must have been 1788, as his mother was born in 1787] and perhaps the same summer, they hastened to Palmer's Fort, owing to an alarm of Indians, as has been mentioned in a former article. They sold that farm in a few years and bought another on Hannah's Run, containing an excellent quality of limestone and a good coal-bank, where he was bordered by the lands of the Pollocks, Littles, Smiths, Hazlets, Toshes and Cliffords, being a fine neighborhood. He and his wife spent the balance of their days on this place, grandmother dying many years before him with a fever brought to the valley while the canal was being made in 1829, and of which their oldest son, Robert, also died, leaving a family of seven children, part of them small. His family consisted of five sons and five daughters, most of them living to nearly full age of threescore and ten, and one yet living fourscore and six.

He was small in stature compared with his sons, two or three of which were six feet or more, only one, James, his namesake, was his height and about five feet six. He was a weaver by trade in the old country and continued here to some extent with farming largely and successfully with fields sloaping southward and the grandest fields of fine growth of waving wheat and good apple and peach orchard, which I well remember when a boy; and also a fine meadow on Hannah's Run from which he sold much hay. He was good with the rake and fork, but I never saw him plow, mow or cradle grain, but his sons were all first-class in these things. He was a Presbyterian and perhaps an elder. There was another Jas. McCurdy in the same congregation, and I am not sure which was the elder. His family was raised and many of them joined the church during Rev. Hill's ministry. He was, however, near joining with the Seceders when the hymns were introduced, but his wife was not agreed, and Mr. Hill talked to him and convinced him that the hymns were better suited to the New Testament scriptures and that he could also use the psalms if he preferred to do so, and he was satisfied; and he always did use them in family worship, giving out one line at a time, the same as the Seceders did in church.

The oldest daughter only attended the Seceder church, as John Martin, her husband, was of that denomination. The eldest son died, leaving five sons and two daughters, the youngest son when small being killed in overshot mill by being caught in the machinery. That was a sore affliction to the widow and all the family and friends. They all made their way well up in the world in the farming business, and by good industry possessed farms and were good church men, two of them at least elders. The oldest son and some three or four of his boys served in the War of the Rebellion, as also did the youngest son, now living. Three sons and one daughter are yet living. The widow was always taken good care of by her children and especially very kindly and carefully during her last days by her son, William, and his good wife in the valley. My mother being third in the family, is in place now to speak of, but I will defer of her until she comes up in the McConaughy description, which will come next to these I am now writing.

I will now write of James, and yet I am not sure if he or John were the older, but I think the latter, as he and the eldest brother, Robert, served in the war of 1812. All were farmers but this James, who learned the tanning business at Col. Ramsey's near Ligonier and afterward lived for a time in Huntingdon and then in Lewistown, Union county. In the first place he married and lost his wife he many years sorely lamented. Later he married again and left a family of three children. John also settled in Huntingdon county, Penn valley, was a farmer and died when quite aged, leaving a family of three sons and three daughters, all doing well. Mrs. Nancy Trindle, the third daughter whose husband was Wm. Trindle, a man of various [unclear] and died early in life, leaving one daughter, the eldest being killed by a falling tree, and five sons left poor, but all rose to good estates by canaling and railroading industries, and I think all are yet living in the west except William, who lives near Armagh. John and Samuel Swan Trindle have been passenger conductors from Indianapolis to St. Louis for over twenty years. Barbara married Andrew Hunter and died young, leaving two children. The youngest daughter, Polly Lafferty, whose husband was Esq. John Lafferty and merchant in Indiana county, who died some years ago, is now living in East End, Pittsburg, with her daughter, Mrs. O.B. Ryall, aged 86 years. I will speak of the balance of the family when I turn to the Gilmores.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 10 February 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

Additional History of Grandfather McCurdy's Family-His Devotion to Religion-Deaths in the Family-Aunt Barbara and the Martins, etc.

No. XXVIII.

Mr. Editor:-I had written about all I knew of my grandfather McCurdy and started off on the events of his family, but thought I would write to East End, Pittsburg, to learn if my aged aunt, his youngest child, knew anything additional to what I had written, and I will copy what her daughter, Mrs. Ryall, has written, which is interesting:

"Grandfather McCurdy came to this country before the Revolutionary War. The date mother does not know, as the old bible is lost." (This agrees with my former statement of his being in the war under Gen. Washington.) "He left Ireland when 18 years of age. His mother stood on the shore waving a handkerchief. He watched her as long as he could from the deck of the ship. When he died in the valley he was 82. He married in the forks of Youghiogheny and lived there until they had three children and then moved to the valley. Uncle Gilmore came over after he settled in the valley. They had only two children-John and Mrs. Lyons. Grandmother came from Virginia with her parents, the McKinnies, when twelve years of age and they settled in the forks above mentioned where she married grandfather. In crossing the mountains and driving all their stock and conveying their household goods on pack-horses, they camped out at night, and one night the wolves made them a call and killed all their sheep but one. We would prize a copy of the ECHO very much."

My mother being the third child, the parents were likely married in 1783 at the close of the war, and say grandmother was 20 when married and came over the mountains when 12 years old and 8 years before marriage. Their crossing the mountains would be about 1775 or immediately before the Revolutionary War, and likely some of her brothers were also in the war, and in that way the young man formed acquaintance with the sister that lasted happily during life. At that period of our country's history the mountains would be almost an unbroken wilderness from their eastern side to the settlements west of them.

I will yet write respecting my grandfather McCurdy. His life was truly an eventful one in America, leaving the old country at the age of 18 years and perhaps with little money capital, but making his way up to a good estate in the new and rising country by good industry and careful management. Also at his departure under the eye and invoked blessing of his mother and no doubt his own trust in the Lord, the Ruler of all things, it would be expected he would do well and be excelled by few men in the new country. In all my remembrance of him he was a devoted church goer, and when too aged, Rev. Swan preached at his house. His hearing had failed and he sat by the pulpit on one of two chairs James Donaldson had made and placed there, and when the old log church was taken away and the new brick church dedicated chairs were presented his two sons, Revs. A. and W.M. Donalson.

I have already mentioned using the old psalms in family worship. When a small boy I was often there and my uncles and aunts were amused at my singing with him, in reading the lines as he did in a singing tone as was common then of one-line reading. I was early taught at home to sing time of worship, but not accustomed to that kind of reading. In this duty he was very solemn and earnest in prayer and always used the invocating prelude by shutting the book when the chapter and psalm to be used was found, a thing you do not often see in these days. Also in the harvest field and meadow during "evening piece" his blessing preceded the eating, not a common thing. His wife, our grandmother, was a co-worker in all these religious exercises and no doubt had been raised to the same at home. All their family was raised under this precious example and I think all or nearly all joined the Presbyterian church under Rev. Hill's ministry, early in life.

Aunt Barbara was the first of the family to die, and Andrew Hunter, her husband, was a Union Seceder, and their minister was not able to satisfy her with religious talks, and she sent for Rev. Swan, her then pastor at home, and she was greatly comforted and strengthened in faith by his talk and prayers. Father and mother went with him some ten or twelve miles distant where she lived and I think mother remained awhile. It was said she died of consumption, but it must have been from a bad cold settling on her lungs for want of proper treatment, as there was no taint or symptom of tuberculosis in the family in any form whatever. I might add to this that Aunt Jane Martin's family all died early in life with some form of tuberculor disease, but it originated in the father, as he died early with a complication of that kind. The Martin family were four daughters and oldest and youngest sons-six in all.

All of my uncles and aunts lived to a good age but this aunt mentioned and Uncle George H., who died with acute dysentery, leaving widow and two children. I would yet at in reference to Aunt Nancy, whose life was of varied experience but a woman of more than ordinary mind, very kind, friendly and sympathetic, and if not able to rule her husband to good management and success in business and good estate, she was [unclear] successful in raising all her boys in this matter. I think they were church members in their early married life, and when a boy I was often at their house when they lived in the Knox farm's upper tenant house. They had family worship regularly. From there they moved to Livermore, and with a strong four-horse team he was engaged in drawing the finely dressed stone used in constructing the canal lock, and also afterwards for the aqueduct over the river at Lockport, which structure I think is yet standing and used as a bridge for county accommodations.

I will try to close this family history in another number. I am pleased to see the splendid history by Chas. Armor.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 17 February 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

Trip Across the Mountains-Cordwood Chopping-Work at Canal-Making of Axes, etc.

No. XXIX.

Mr. Editor:-In continuing incidents in connection with my grandfather McCurdy's family, I would remark of uncle Findle [Trindle] that mainly the reason a man of such good mental and physical ability did not attain to better estate in the world was, he was perhaps too choice and peculiar about the kind of work he did, as well as the terms. When a small boy I remember of hearing of him and a cousin of his, Mr. Lightcap, of Derry township, wagoning over the mountains to Baltimore, and of one winter the Chesapeake bay was frozen up, that no goods could be gotten for Pittsburg. Uncle John McCurdy was also along with grandfather's team and during the delay he got a chance to haul wood from a distance into Baltimore and he took the cover off the wagon and went to work and made enough to meet his expenses and bring him home when he got a load for Pittsburg. The other two would not or did not haul wood and to bear their expenses, they both came with two teams reduced to one, and I think quit the business. When teaming at construction of canal, he, on account of peculiarities, was often idle with his team. One when I was down there when they were building the aqueduct at Lockport, his team had been idle for some time and Mr. Hendricks was writing an agreement for him with the contractor, and he finally started into work.

Before he went to canal for work, with farming on a small scale, he in winter time with many others went into the woods chopping for furnaces and it was said he was a match for the best of choppers, even Bob. Donaldson, Uncle Bill McCurdy, John McFarland and John Covode. The latter two were also first-class choppers before they got sick and went into politics. I remember of a job of chopping he and uncle, Wm. McCurdy away across Somerset county on a spur of the Allegheny mountains. It was a beautiful flat of large and small chestnut and some red oak timber where they could cut and ran from ten to twelve cords per day. There was quite a colony of them from the valley, that formed there at the business for a time, my father being among them to earn enough to buy iron for new tire on our cart wheels. He was away two weeks and could chop with any man if he would, but he was wise enough to never hurt himself at work and he lived to nearly 88 years of age, much longer than many others. He was a good skilled worker at anything and was good to train his boys to work to the best advantage of which thing he gave them full chance to exercise at it also.

I must give some account of my trip to this place when about ten years old, the first place I remember of going for from home. Robert K. Laferty, Frances Little's oldest boys and myself going along to pack the supply of provisions and bring back the horses. We were on the way by daylight from grandfather's and when we came to Frances Little's we were detained awhile very impatiently for Mr. Little's family worship and it was after night in making the end of the trip, some twenty miles distant. We thought the worship all right but should have been at it earlier as my grandfather did. Mr. Lytle and my uncle, Wm. McCurdy, were our guides over the mountain, with only the Hull House on the way and mostly a very narrow road. I do not remember how many were there, but old gentlemen John Wilson and son Alexander were among them, and when he came it was proposed to have worship every evening, and uncle Wm. being rather with the boys first thought it out of place, but yielded and was highly pleased. They raised a bible among the choppers and I am not sure about the singing. If this was part while Mr. Little and the Knoxs were there, they would have to use the psalms and perhaps the Coleshill tunes. We boys started back next day and it had rained heavy in the night and there was a new bridge over Stony creek, but the Ben's creek was rather high, with floating ice on it, for boys to cross safely. I was riding "Big Colly" and she would go through anything in homeward direction, and I plunged through and other followed all in safety. We arrived home in better time than we got over the mountains the day before.

There was much skill and management to do well at chopping cord-wood. Some of these trees were from four to five feet over the stump and needed two men to cut them down, unless one could use both hands alike foremost on the ax-handle and then he could chop in from both sides of the tree. Then when a lot of trees stood in good range, they would chop one partly, and then another, etc., until all that stood suitable were so chopped until the last one, it falling against one, then all, one after another, falling until every one would come down like a thunder storm, thus saving much labor. This large timber was best cut into three or four feet lengths or indeed sawed with a cross-cut saw often and then split with maul and wedges into from four to eight pieces and then cut into cordwood length, thus saving much timber in the waste of chips. To be in sight or hearing of a wood-chopping where the sound of many axes and falling trees would resound and echo over hills and hollows was very exciting to any one fond of the industries.

The making of axes for this work was an art of much celebrity. Douglas McKelvey, brother to James McKelvey, Esq., of Ligonier, and his brother Nathaniel of near Clark's Mill, both first-rate carpenters and cabinet-makers, were the noted makers of these axes and also of mattocks of that day, and then followed by Andy Galbraith who lived well down the valley; the former at Hannah's run and the latter near Maj. John Hill's. The "double bit" as was then mostly in use with one edge dressed long and sharp and thinner than the other one which was left thicker for cutting through knots and hard places that might break out a piece of the thinner one. The bit of the ax must have a regular scientific bulge as it approached the eye of the ax so it would "throw the chips" well and your ax not fasten in the wood. Col. Mendall once brought out a "Yankee ax" having a long and thin sharp bit, but it fastened in the wood and did not "throw the chips." It was excellent for trimming lapwood and cutting small wood, but not fit for large timber.

I will try to finish this family in my next number, if too many side issues do not suggest themselves to my mind as I rehearse old events.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 24 February 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

Completion of the Canal-Daughter Killed By Falling Tree-Hanging of Evans-Traffic on Canal-Structure and Management of the Boats, etc., etc.

No. XXX.

Mr. Editor:-I will now hasten to close the events of this family of my esteemed Aunt Trindle and her boys. I write more fully of them, as they had more varied experience and trials than other friends who were early in their married life settled in quiet homestead and not "tossed around."

When the work of constructing the canal was completed they moved over the river to a large flat of heavy oak timber, where the strong team was employed in drawling logs to the saw mill, for lumber to be shipped to distant places. And although my aunt had endured many trials and vicissitudes of the canal business in the hope of seeing "better days" and more prosperous times, this last place was where she suffered her great trial of affliction in the death of her only daughter, in being struck down as in a moment without the exchange of a dying word. She was nearly a full grown young lady and remarkably good to help her mother and very kind in taking care of her young brothers, as I often noticed her. It happened on a nice sunny day near the first of April, when the children were running around and a boy was cutting down a dead sapling not far from the house, without judgment to know when or perhaps which way it would fall, and she ran to save a child and the tree struck and killed her. Although so sudden, it is hoped she passed to the "Beautiful Land" where she and mother are rejoicing in the presence of the Saviour and will "never more need to part nor go out." Although no Sabbath school then nor church near, her religious training was not neglected. I and I think my oldest sister went down immediately (mother was too afraid of the river to go, as it was high and ugly looking) and stayed all night and came with funeral next day to the old Fairfield church. I saw the tree and the place she was killed. The child she tried to save was not hurt, but was dangerously near. That shocking event of my early life and also the drowning of the Beam family not over a mile from there and the hanging of Joseph Evans, who was cook in a boarding tent that Uncle Trindle managed near where they lived for a time, was also of immense magnitude.

Butchers on the canal bought stock from father and I helped to drive them down, and once I remember staying over Sabbath and was of course on hands to see the sights, and I noticed that this Joseph Evans was a jolly, lively-like man and was said to be an excellent cook and could handle dishes equal to any woman; would sing and whistle "Boyne Water," which greatly provoked Catholics, some of which boarded at that shanty, and it only seemed fun for him, but surely didn't end so. One night they attacked him, but he drove them back with a heavy shovel, and whether he struck one and knocked him over or he fell otherwise in the fray was not surely seen or known, but his skull was broken on a large iron kettle that caused his death and for which the man Evans was hung in Greensburg. I and a brother or two and a lot of young men of the valley went to see the execution, but with different feelings and sympathy than that of my father and many young men of the valley who went to Somerset about twenty years before to see the execution of the Frenchman who killed David Pollock. Soon after this crushing bereavement Uncle Trindle sold out this lumber business and moved to Bolivar, where they were living when I came from Philadelphia on canal boat, from attending medical lectures and took dinner with my aunt and then she sent two boys along to help me carry my carpet-sack a near way up a bottom and save high hill by Fairfield to Hendricks' place and near my brother-in-law's Robert Brown. Most of the boys then and the father were away on boats, at which they did good business and followed it for some years; and I think the two older sons owned section boats in which they could load at either end of route and delivered at other end in four to six days and nights, thus saving unloading and reloading at three points on route. This system of boating was surely a great advance in commercial improvements and it surely would have been wisdom in Pennsylvania to never have let this canal go out of their hands, and will, in after time, no doubt, be more fully understood. Also the P.R.R. should have never been constructed on this route, but up through the southern tier or range of counties of the State, which would have been thirty to forty miles nearer with less mountain region and through better opened and settled country and more local interests by the way. I will write more fully of this hereafter as I continue my reminiscences.

Let me say a word in reference to section boats. They were keyed together with strong iron bars, and when they came to the canal water basins at railroad points they were separated and each section loaded on trucks for the railroad without any trouble. This Pennsylvania improvement was quite sufficient for local interests through that part of the State and the railroad should have been made up the southern side, and the day is not far distant when a canal and more than one railroad through the State will be urgently called for to hold western commerce. Why is it? New York State, the Empire in all matters. She has not only a canal or water carriage through her State, but also two or three railroads, and Pennsylvania lays in better range of the great western producing country to eastern seaboard than New York or any of the other States, and to hold the trade we must be prepared to do business. I have been thus led off on these incidents of side issues that circumstances and family enterprise bring up, that I will have to defer to another number the closing of this grandfather's descendants.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)