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

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

Uncle James as a Musician-The Influence of Drink-Relatives in Indiana County and Pittsburg-Marriages and Deaths

No. XLIII.

Mr. Editor:-I intimated in my last number that I would close our histories, but was forgetting my uncle James, the next in age to my father and perhaps intellectually equal to any of the five brothers. It might be said he was the best talker and good debater at the societies-what the others did not do. He was also one of the early violinists, and with the David Pollock killed on the mountain the only ones known in all the country in early times. The next one I remember was Capt. Jas. Clark, son of the old gent owning the mill. When a boy I thought uncle James could make more music with a violin than any one I ever heard playing. He was not quite as tall as the brothers but stouter built and was a good, skilled worker and fair at rough carpentry, hewing timber, making shingles, splitting clapboards, etc. He and Solomon Humberd were the leading men at the business in their day and helped father to build a barn when I was a small boy. He was married in the Finly family and settled on 100 acres of the old homestead, but being one of the very good men ruined by drink, lost it in early life, but when the father died the brothers divided equally with him as if he never had had his portion. Drink was a natural infirmity he seemed unable to overcome, but I was told he became a sober, religious man before he died. I hope it was true, for he never used a profane word nor was ugly when drinking but good tempered, kind and obliging. His wife died early in life with a cancerous breast; also the youngest son of the same on the neck when he became a young man. She partly nursed him in her illness. Uncle never married again. His second daughter kept house for him. His wife was said to have been very handsome, as were all the female portion of that family; but not so with the men, who were cross-eyed, although they were very clever and industrious. The Findley family was very large, early opened out and was the main forage supply for soldiers and teams on the Forbes State road to Pittsburg. Uncle James' family was four daughters for the most part and the three youngest sons that died young. The oldest daughter's husband was Hugh Dever, a relative of the Seatons, and their two sons and three daughters were well doing. The oldest son went west and the second, John, whose wife is a granddaughter of Rev. Geo. Hill, Sr., was a very successful merchant in eastern cities, became wealthy and is now one of Blairsville's best business men. The third daughter was married to a Pershing, joining St. Clair, Derry township, both dying early and leaving a son and daughter and good estate that never reached the heirs, I am told. The daughter, however, died when small and the son is a very good doing man and able to live without the estate, but that does not excuse the administrators.

His youngest daughter's husband was Samuel Dixon, this side of Indiana town and near Homer City, who was of a high rating connection of Dixons in that part of the county, and whose husband died some years ago, but the wife is the only one of the family now living. Their oldest son, James, is a merchant in the east. Some of the daughters married and have families in good circumstances; youngest son and daughter yet at home taking good care of the mother in declining years. They have a fine, well improved farm joining the village of Twolick. Uncle has been dead many years and think only two of his family survived him. There were few his equal at a pun or stroke of wit. The brothers were all good in that way when one came handy, but perhaps he excelled, especially when he had a "dram" or two, which was common then and no harm thought of it, but did not end so with him. None of the other brothers drank. I will write of one. When we were boys and thrashing our grain with flails, we soon learned that oats, well bleached with rain, was much easier thrashed, and at one time uncle was helping us to build some nice large oats and John was troubled because they had not gotten more rain, a thing father did not want, as the straw was better for the cattle without the rain. Uncle said, "We had better bind them up now and you can lay them out for rain again." We heard no more complaint from John that day. We soon, however, got to tramping them out with horses. My sister visiting us reminds me that I have said nothing of brother John's marriage, and I might add that he was married in Pittsburg one day and came to Mt. Pleasant next day and married brother James-one on the 22d and the other on the 23d day of May, 1844. He was married by Dr. Francis Herron, and when Rev. Wm. Speer, his attendant, gave him two gold pieces for the services, shook his head and said "fox nor dog don't eat one another," and "please present them to the bride with my compliments." He also did the same when he married brother, and so Harriet got the gold but not for same reasons. Brother John's widow is living yet, but all of the Porter family except Prof. Barber's wife of Western University are dead many years. Their father, Judge Porter, was a wealthy and reading man to establish sixth church in Pittsburg after he moved out to Center avenue from Seventh street. He left a large estate, much of which was lost by lending it out to unsound men, brother's family alone escaping the frauds. The oldest brother, Captain Robert, with Dr. Herron's oldest son took companies and came through the Mexican war safely and think they were dead before the late one. Brother's attendant was Rev. Wm. Speer (since a missionary to China) son of the old medical gent in Pittsburg who only lately died at the age of 94 years, also grandson of Rev. Dr. Speer, many years pastor at Greensburg and Unity. I would yet add of my sister, Mary Ann, and my own marriage not yet mentioned, that she was married to John Bell, of Derry, on the 17^th of June, 1846, and I on the 25^th, just one week after, to Sophia A. Lobingier, being now almost forty-six years and drawing near to the half century.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 8 June 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

Marriages and Intermarriages-Stage Driving-Deep Snows on the Mountains-Trip to Pittsburg.

No. XLIV.

Mr. Editor:-I had thought of next writing of the Smiths, Lytles, Hamils and Browns as among the noted families of the valley, but have concluded to dispose of the Presbyterian denomination before turning to Seceders, now called United Presbyterians. Will now write of the Ogdens as being among the eminent and no doubt early settlers of the valley that rated high. The old gent George Ogden was one of Rev. Geo Hill's first elders of the lower church and had an enterprising and industrious family of five sons and two daughters, or perhaps more. In very early times he built a large stone house on his large tract of land, as large or perhaps larger than Rev. Hill's house and likely near the same time. There were two inter-marriages in the Esq. Samuel Moorhead's family, of Derry township, Col. Amos Ogden and James Moorhead to a Miss Ogden. James Moorhead and the son George early settled in Ohio. The Col. Amos inherited the old homestead and also became owner of the part his brother William had owned. These two and James Ogden came into possession of the original tract. None attained to much wealth but the Col. Amos. The brother John, however, owned a nicely improved farm on the other side of the valley near Clark's mill and only the Seaburg farm between him and the improvements on the upper Millcreek. This son was, I think, the only one succeeding his father in the eldership of the church. He had one daughter and three sons. The two older were near my age and I was well acquainted with them, and it often happened Thomas and I were on the highway together driving our fathers' teams and he was very pleasant company. His father also drove team from Ross furnace to Pittsburg and perhaps some over the mountains. My father only went once to Pittsburg with a load from Johnstown, with our brother-in-law, R. Brown, and some others in company, but he had a sad time of it, as the cigar smoke and smell of whisky in hotels made him sick; and too cold to stay outside. That trip did him and he never asked to go again.

I will give a short account of a trip Thomas and I made to Philadelphia in the thirties when we were caught in that noted snow-storm that closed up the highway for three or four days in the mountains and below. We loaded bacon for Esq. Wm. Litle, of Laughlinstown, for Potsville in the hills some distance above Reading; staid over Sabbath in Harrisburg, and Maj. Jno. Hill and Capt. Reynolds, members of legislature then, called at hotel on friendly visit, dressed finer than we ever saw them at home. We the following week delivered the bacon-no pieces lost that we had to pay for as often happens-and were in Philadelphia next Sabbath and loaded out to Pittsburg at fair wages, and six miles below Londen and Cave mountain the snow and rain mingled commenced early in morning. I hitched up, as I wanted to get over the mountain to McConnelstown to lay over Sabbath. Tom said he would rather drive Sunday, as such a day as that was. I went on. The snow and rain soon became all snow, which I preferred, and when near top of the mountain was getting up to the traces on the horses and too deep to wade in, but there were six or eight teams ahead of me that kept the road well beat, and all stopped to water the teams at hotel on top and then to go in and drink. A young man with fine team at one side of yard just ahead of me. I said if you go on I will follow, for it will soon be hard starting here if the horses get cool in this deep snow. He said, I was just thinking so, and we mounted our saddle horses and never needed to draw the locking machine and never came down that four-mile mountain nicer, but some open fields at the base caused deep drifts to blow into a couple curves, but we got through and into town first and stabled our teams where we rested till the fourth day, and when teams began to leave with eight to ten horses to a team, up the first hill out of town. As we came off the mountain a mile out of town, where there was a log cabin, we met the stage with a crowded load and the driver had to unhitch and left the stage standing where the passengers lodged all night comfortably warm, the stage completely covered over. They soon worked their way to the log tavern in the morning and lodged till third day when men and oxen with all arts of operation got U.S. mail forwarded on up the mountain and to Washington. In the evening of third day I rode up to see the high snowbanks cut through and I saw the teams coming through the cuts about as high as tops of the wagons. The teams we left on top and Thomas Ogden among them, and when he saw me he said, "Oh, Frank, I wish I had come with you, for I never worked horses harder than these three days," and the horses looked well done out indeed.

These two oldest sons of John Ogden were nice young men; never saw the younger since a small boy. I never could learn what became of my friend Tom. Some said he went with the army to Mexico and was never heard of again. He was engaged to a first-class young lady, but his mother violently opposed the marrying. He never did well afterwards. In my time I have noticed many sad cases of same nature and parents should be very careful. She also opposed the other son, Joseph, I have been told, but she didn't stop it and it was truly a proper match of love, as when he was killed on the railroad at Johnstown he left three sons that turned out to be excellent young men in business and good church men. The daughter is the wife of my friend, John Devers, a business man of Blairsville, already mentioned. Their mother was the youngest daughter and the eighth of the old gent, Rev. Geo. Hill. The old gent John Ogden was a notedly fine and highly respected man in his day; was once county commissioner and said to be one of the strictly honest ones. The lady was of the Trimble family and sister of John Seaburg's wife and a very handsome, lively lady, even as she became aged. I was well acquainted there, as sometimes coming from Johnstown with load of goods for Pittsburg I run in that way by narrow road from Johnstown pike, rather than stay at Bob Irvin's hotel at foot of Laurel Hill. I remember of one time when there was a grand rush of teams of all kinds from the valley went for loads at high wages, and old gent Ogden's team of four horses had gone with one of the boys to Pittsburg and himself seized a two-horse wagon, and even old gent Esq. McKelvey, of Ligonier, was along with a one-horse wagon on a very cold night. They and I got ahead of all others, and coming in this narrow road two trees had fallen over it, and very crooked narrow way to get around where they expected I would stick in the brush with my five-horse team, but they were scarcely seated at the fire till I came in also, and surely I enjoyed the fun when they saw me safely on hands and had not stuck in the brush on the spur of the mountain near where John Knupp lately had his golden wedding. I hope to be pardoned for dwelling on these living days, and don't see how I could make it shorter and "do justice to the subject."

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 15 June 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

The Ogdens, McDowels, Clarks and Other Early Settlers of the Valley-Inter-Marriage of the Different Families-Their Location in the West and Elsewhere.

No. XLV.

Mr. Editor:-After writing some further of Ogdens I will then write of some of the people I was not so well acquainted with in the valley. James Ogden, near the oldest of the brothers, was married to a McCurdy, sister of James Willey's wife, but was not much acquainted with her family and do not know the number. One son married a daughter of Col. John Moorhead and sister of the one my friend Tom O. wanted to marry. One son John the Major's wife was Miss Belle McDowell, both now dead, also one of their two sons, the other an eminent lawyer of Greensburg. One daughter married a Mr. Blair, farmer; the other a Mr. Taylor, merchant, and went to Jefferson county and became wealthy, Col. Amos had a large family, but I was only acquainted with the older part, two or three daughters and the doctor, S.M. Ogden, whose wife was of the Smith family, and of my particular friend near Blairsville; was a very successful physician in Pleasant Unity but died young, leaving his widow and two sons well supplied up in the thousands. The eldest daughter's husband was of the Graham family, a fine business man, and some time since died, leaving much wealth to his family. The next was the wife of Dr. Taylor, of Fairfield, whose family reunion you lately published. The next daughter was the wife of an excellent young man, son of Wm. Graham. I am not acquainted with the other's history. The Col. has been dead some time, but the old lady who was of the Moorhead family and sister of Maj. Hill and Rev. Swan, lived to be very old and only died lately at West Fairfield, Pa. The old gent John O. has been dead a long time, the old lady not so long. She had been living with a grand-daughter in Latrobe, as it was said her youngest son's wife was not comfortable to live with at the old homestead in the valley.

Of the valley people I was not so well acquainted, I will mention the Hazletts and near neighbors of my grand-father McCurdy. There were many boys but only two daughters. Three sons early settled in Richland county, Ohio, and did well. Samuel's wife was daughter of John Wilson in the valley; William's wife was of a Knox family in Ohio, and James was engaged to a lady in Ohio, and when a friend from the valley was visiting him and taken to see his intended. I was told he turned in and "cut him out," a truly mean thing, and he never looked up another but lived on his fine farm till old age, and died leaving many thousands to be divided among his brothers and sisters in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Two brothers and a sister remained at the old homestead with the mother who was a careful, industrious economist.

After Rev. Swan left and the charge divided in two, the church - - had also to rise as formerly. Two, three to five dollars was the common amount, but now it was expected to be ten to twelve or fifteen dollars. I heard her tell mother she could not think of raising that amount of money and they may just come and take a cow at once. Robert and John went to school the last winter I did, when the good Yankee teacher taught in Pollock's school-house and "Bob" was one of the best spellers and reciters of the catechism, even there among the young Pollocks, Smiths and Lytles, and would have made an able man had he been educated. His mother said when she could not go to church she would ask him of the sermons and he could tell over nearly all Rev. S. Swan's sermons of that day.

The next citizens of prominence, and early settlers of the valley were Findleys, Seatons and McDowells. The tall McDowell family, all over six feet, the Seatons also tall but slender. I think they were cousins all round and some intermarriage, and many of them became wealthy. Samuel McDowell, the surveyor and engineer married his cousin Martha Findley and went to Ohio and became wealthy and may be living yet. Thomas McDowell who owned the Ober Mill on Millcreek got his start in wealth by contracting on the canal in early times in Ohio, but I think after marriage spent all his days in that beautiful location in the valley. He has been dead for many years and his widow married that fine old gentleman and Methodist, John Bruce, of Blairsville, where she and their only child have been living for many years. This Millcreek has never been known to be too low for an overshot wheel to grind, and before the days of steam mills much custom came from over the Ridge and waited to take the flour along home.

I can remember when a small boy of old Mr. John Ogden having large logs across this Millcreek for a bridge near William Clark's old fallen mill. The first bridge on it and the only one at this time was at James Clark's flouring mill, that they built themselves. Now there are eight or ten bridges on this creek. Mr. Ogden was road supervisor at that time and it is said he was a very good one. The Seaburg family lived joining the Ogden family and were inter-married with the Clarks; also John Seaburg's wife was a sister of Mrs. Ogden. The Seaburgs were connected with the Bonbrights and Smiths at and beyond Youngstown. They were pronounced a handsome family. Mr. Skiles afterward owned this farm to add to the one he had got of his father-in-law, James Clark. The other daughter of Mr. Clark was the wife of John Woaden. Skiles had a large family that are all scattered in the western country. Mr. Woaden had only two sons and one of them was killed when half grown by the kick of a horse. The other became an able minister and a D.D. in the Presbyterian church. His first wife was a daughter of Dr. Postleweight, of Greensburg, and died young leaving a large family of small children, and after having two more wives he died a few years ago, leaving a large family. He had a good estate to leave to be divided among them. None of his sons became preachers, but I think some of the daughters married preachers of high standing.

I will yet speak of another family of Presbyterians to which James Willey belonged, whose wife was a sister of James Ogden's wife. He and his parents and single brothers and sisters lived on the large farm near the lower churches and in a fine store and also frame house on that noted Willey Lane where the Presbyterian and Seceder people would mingle together Sabbath evening in a very sociable manner when dismissed from their churches, but it was said some of the psalm singers would remark, "a great mixture of sheep and goats," looking upon hymn singers as goats, but the Presbyterians were not disturbed by such ideas or "foolish notions" and such thoughts have long since passed away never to return, as many of those people are among the foremost in all true gospel advancement and not behind in singing hymns and having instrumental music in their churches, as they surely ought always to have had it, if they wanted to follow closely David's style that could not find instruments enough to bring in to the praise of the Lord.

Of the James Wiley family I only knew the oldest son, who became a physician and settled in the West, and two of the daughters one the wife of a shoe merchant, Wm. McClintock of Allegheny city, and the other in the same city, the wife of G. Will Ogden and grandson of old gent., elder, John Ogden, also grandson of Rev. Geo. Hill, Sr. They were both fine ladies and highly esteemed by all acquaintance.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 22 June 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

The Early Willey, McCoy, Humberd, Riddle, Shaffer and Galbraith Families-Many Sons and Daughters Rose to Important Positions in Various Parts of the Country-Push and Honesty Always Win.

No. XLVI.

Mr. Editor:-I will yet write of James Willey and then take up the McCoy family to finish the history of that part of the valley.

In the year 1832 or 1834 when brother with his help boarded at the Willey place, he spoke of Mr. W. and his family as being very fine people to board with. He remained with them quite awhile, during the time it took to dress all the lumber, to weatherboard and shingle that very large 3-logs length church and paint it shining white outside and pulpit and some other parts inside, in a manner that pleased the people wonderfully well, for no other church within a great distance was of equal style, and the trustees of whom Col. A. Ogden was head, paid him the large bill without a word of dissent. It was of higher style than ordinary dwelling houses. Not far below the church, lived the old gent. John McCoy and where, I think, the son, Thomas who is married to a sister of John Covode and Wm. Graham's second wife, has always lived. I am not sure if the old gentleman was elder in the church or not but his son was. The mother of the three sons of the Pollock family and raised in the valley. The oldest son, Daniel, had a very nice large wagon made by Jacob Divebest, once of Ligonier but now of Springfield, Illinois, with which he once followed as a regular for eight or ten years. He was one of the skilled and gentlemanly teamsters of the road, who had a well trained six-horse team of the best in the country at which he never "hallowed" or cracked a whip and used only a kind of long cane and no whip at all. When the business become unprofitable, he sold one and kept a hotel in Baltimore where he married and, I think, spent his days.

The next brother went in early times to Jefferson county, Pa., where also one or two sisters did. One sister marrying a son of "Yankee" Clark, once of the valley and became very wealthy by dealing in lumber. I never learned much of their families after marriage.

Thomas has a large family of well doing young people who live on the homestead. One daughter was married to a Mr. Smith, of Fort Palmer and settled there.

I will now speak of a Riddle family joining our old homestead on the Pennsylvania state road, but to what church, if any, they belonged, I do not know. All the sons and two daughters were dead, died of a fever, before I remember of seeing them, except one crippled son, who was killed by the kick of a horse and the remaining daughter married to Daniel Mickey. The mother of the family was a very stout through going woman, Jane Riddle or "granny Riddle" as commonly called and the son-in-law and family lived there with her until her death at quite an old age. The farm was pretty well improved and had a log house and barn of large size and fine orchard of good apples and pear trees of the best fruit in the country, and where father got the plants for our place and of which Mr. George Thomas told me he sold one year 200 bushels at one dollar per bushel. The pears were large and sweet. On this farm was a very deep ravine and the only one to cross from the foot of the mountain to Fort Ligonier. On each side the road ran into a very deep hollow on one side was iron ore bank and on other side, lime-stone quarry and from each side soldiers going west to Ft. Pitt were attacked by Indians and had a very severe battle in which many lives were lost. The place was well located for an ambush attack.

James Galbraith was one of the most noted laboring men of the neighborhood of Ligonier, where he spent most of his days. He was said to be a distant relative of old lady Jemison and a good talker and industrious man who raised a large family of sons and daughters. The daughters were considered very handsome and married good business men. The sons were active industrious men, all owning good properties in the valley. One owning part of the old Col. Ramsey farm, and one the Robert Knox farm after Rev. Swan sold it. I think the old gent never owned land, but made a good honest living for a large family. He worked to great disadvantage, being very lame from a hurt.

I will next speak of our neighbors, the Shaffer and Humberd families living on a large tract of land in that deep hollow on the road to the Loyalhanna. The old lady Shaffer was very German and always dressed strictly in that style. I think she was nearly one hundred years old when she died. Solomon Humberd's wife was her daughter and died leaving three sons and two daughters. One son died of dysentery when young and that was a sore affliction to the father as he was the only one at home the others having good places to be trained up to industrious business. This was the first death I ever witnessed. These other sons all became eminent and wealthy in contracting and speculating. They moved early to Cumberland, Md., where John, the older was elected Mayor of that city and with other extensive business did very well and only dying a few years ago. Jacob with other enterprises spent seven years in South America building railroads and I was informed that he was the inventor of the zigzag railroads right up the face of the mountain by sharp turns and not by the more distant way of crossing around the mountain. He is a little older than I am and we were school boys together in the valley. He is nicely settled near Cumberland with many boys throughout the country in fine business. He and John have both active families but I do not know the number. The sisters also were well married and have or had families, but I am not acquainted with them. Lettie Shaffer, the mother, was sister of Mrs. Humberd and with her two daughters lived there all her days. She was a very honest industrious woman. The younger daughter married a Mr. Campbell up the valley, the other, Lettie, remaining on the old homestead.

This Humberd family were of much more than ordinary intelligence and very active and prosperous in all their enterprises. Also this Letter Shaffer, a cousin of theirs always rated high at school and Sabbath school at Ligonier and she was ever a punctual church goer until disabled with rheumatism. I remember when a boy I never heard any person who could read so fast and pronounce the words so correctly and distinctly as she could and she was an extensive reader too. When I first remember the place, there were a family of Taylors lived on the lower end, all very large and powerful men at common labor, especially with the ax, broadax, mattock and excellent rail-splitter. They were all sober and industrious men and women and settled in that region, raising families, some of them very large ones.

I will in my next notice a few more of our near neighbors and then advance to the ancient "seceder."

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"The Ligonier Echo" issue of 29 June 1892, p. 1:

OLD-TIME RECOLLECTIONS.

History of Neighbors-The St. Clairs-Thos. Enis-Wisner Family-Lewis Rector-John Taylor and Families.

No. XLVII.

Mr. Editor:-By continuing this run of the deep Shaffer Hollow you soon come to the St. Clair tract that took in a great amount of Loyalhanna bottom and extended away back on the high hill north east. On this land lived John Murray St. Clair with his wife and son Arthur, but it was owned by his brother, Daniel, of Philadelphia, a fine successful business man and said to be very wealthy. I have seen them often at this place and they had that appearance. This old resident was cross-eyed and not prepossessing in general appearance, did not dress finely but was quiet and genteel and said to be a fine scholar and extensive reader, well acquainted with politics and forms and manner of government, both home and foreign. The old lady was quiet and dignified, not a talker and surely of high life, but living very poor. The son Arthur was a stout built man and judging from the old general's picture was some taller and heavier and a rather fine looking man. I do not know if he could read and write or ever attended school. He was good at almost all labor, but did not follow it regularly. He helped us much in harvest and clearing. He also worked much for Esquires Wm. Lytle and Clark of Laughlinstown. He was particular for whom he worked. These fits of working and products of the farm were the resources without paying a cent. They seemed very poor, but no doubt Robert Graham, and Mr. Boldridge whose wives were his nieces helped them much. They never, however, complained nor seemed to know they were poor. That brilliant writer of old Gen. St. Clair, James Johnston stated that when the old general lived on top of the Ridge he could not get a bushel of potatoes on trust in the country and being in conversation with that fine old gentleman Conger Finley, who was expressing sympathy for his hard times-the reply was, sorry he could not appreciate his sympathy. So it must have been characteristic of the family. I was well acquainted with them as we farmed some fields of corn and oats there before we cleared new land at home, also went often with team and log-sled to draw fire-wood on good snows in the winter. When a boy often went to bathe and learn to swim, but not in swirl hole or deep places, where Arthur and town men did, and with horses also quite deep enough. This swirl was said once to suck in drift wood in high water time, but I think it never did in our day. Arthur was quite a famous man with the whip, either in handling or constructing one. In that way he was a favorite with us boys, as father was never much for whips. With his numerous young ones to shoe, he thought there was better use for leather than making whip lashes. Arthur, however, managed to get the leather somehow for the lashes for us and himself too. His whip stock was a little more than half common wagon whip with a lash more than half the length of a four-horse stage whip; this with two stout dogs the supplement for good fences was good to protect the grain fields from town cows and hogs. If these strays passed carefully down the old state road and over into the large open creek bottoms, and the same on return in the evening then all would be well and no disturbance, but if any attempt on fences and into fields, Arthur would be on the watch and with whip and dogs out for the encounter, dogs at his heels until in close quarter when the charge would be made, whip sounding like rifle shots, the dogs busy and often jerking the ears off the hogs, and with yells and whoops on high key and powerful volume of voice perhaps never excelled by his grandfather or any other general in the leading and command of any army in putting to flight the foes of the western wilderness or any other part of the country in war times. I never knew of their attending church nor of any body asking them to do so. I must hasten from this family or I will not have room for the other neighbors in this number.

Of our neighbors on the 400-acre tract between our place and the Robert Knox, and before Col. Clifford and Charles Menoher became the owners, I well remember the five sons and two daughters, of Thomas Enis of Irish descent. They were in low circumstances, but a lively stirring family and gradually worked up to be fairly well off. They raised flax and wool with which they furnished clothing of home manufactory, also raised tobacco for home consumption, of which one of the boys gave me a twist that I at first thought tasted good and swallowed the juice, but got awful sick and scared mother badly till she found the twist in my pocket. I am thankful that was my first and last use of tobacco. They all were good to attend school and learned well, especially, the fourth son, James was very bright to learn and easily stood head in spelling classes and good reader. They moved to north of Coalpit creek and then on pike near the widow Knox tavern and kept hotel for teamsters and the oldest son, John, owned a team on the road, some others drove as hired drivers and when this business declined moved near Pittsburg and to railroad employment and I finally lost sight of them.

The next on the place was a Wisner family, very poor and doless. They worked some at the furnaces and made baskets and brooms, also trained for us, a yoke of oxen, the first and last yoke we ever had, being too slow for our work.

A good industrious neighbor on uncle James's land was Dutch Wm. Clark from Somerset county. That prefix to his name was to distinguish him from fuller Wm. Clark on Mill creek. When married, it was said he was English and his wife German and neither one could talk the other's language. Both lived to near one hundred years and only lately died near Laughlinstown leaving a large family doing for themselves.

Our good neighbor, Lewis Rector, first lived on the Thomas Wilson place and then bought uncle James' land when he lost it. Rector soon sold it to the Horners and moved up the valley. He had a good wife of Mewherter people and had four or five children and was of the Methodist church. His father and lot of brothers came from western Virginia and settled in rich hill country and opened out quite a lot of that rich farming land and were very industrious raising some fine crops. I think they had no daughters. He had a son, Jacob, living with a Thomas Seaton, who was one of the best scholars to learn ever met with in my Hermitage teaching. Jacob bought off father's place a piece of land and nicely improved it. I was sorry to learn that afterwards his children died of diphtheria.

I will now close our neighborhood with John Taylor of the family already mentioned on Shaffer land. A lot of tall good-looking men. His wife was of the Joseph Clifford daughters and they attended church regularly and paid promptly. He opened out a large well improved farm at the foot of the mountains and afterwards bought of the John Ogden land. He was a man who wasted no time with gun or fishing-rod, but would at times go into the mountain and bring home much wild game-bears, deer and turkeys. I remember of a time we were going for chestnuts to a beautiful flat of half-grown chestnut trees, half up the mountain, where three or four of us gathered two bushels of chestnuts and where Mr. Taylor and family were the day before and on his way home killed a deer weighing nearly 400 pounds. Killed him at the second shot as after the first he got up and was looking around for his enemy, while he reloaded and shot him in the head. He had also same day shot another deer. I remember of his so ably telling father the particulars as there was great danger of in the case of a bear being wounded and seeing the person who did it.

A NEIGHBOR.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)