Troublesome Times for Ancestors

Troublesome Times for Ancestors

Grandpa’s Gleanings II
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 No. 2


Greeting All in the Family!!

Here is the second addition to the Revived Gpa Gleanings.

I suppose you have all seen the revisions posted by Joy and Grandma G.

Joy said:
Laura Elaine Geaslen has arrived. She weighs 8 lbs. 4 oz. and has lots of dark hair. She was low on oxygen so has been put into a tent to try to raise the levels but Jeremy said they only expect that to be for an hour or so. Tracy is doing great. Seems this has been the easiest (??) delivery yet.
Only a few weeks ago they were told this baby was at a higher risk for a number of birth defects…and she is perfect. God is good.

Grandma G wrote:
Unless someone finds something different -- here are the totals for the Glass Family Tree:Grandpa and Grandma - 2Children and Spouses - 14Grandchildren and Spouses - 33Great Grandchildren - 25Total of 74When Josh and Michelle marry on December 29 -- 75When Amanda and Brad Green marry on March 10, 2007 -- 77 (includes BrayLee - Brad's little boy who is 3 yrs. old.WOW!!

And beside all of that, when I sent my previous Gleanings, Juno would only allow me to send to 50 of you. Now I know I have several addresses for some of you, but I don’t know which one should be your main address. You may get this more than once because I had to make to separate lists—SAT! [Sorry About That]

As you know from my last letter, I have been back working on some genealogy stuff. I will continue that theme by sharing some history of the Glass [Dad’s side] and Brumbaugh [Mom’s side] families and where they lived and grew up.

The attached/following is the first half of the first chapter of “A History of the Church of the Brethren in Middle Pennsylvania”.


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From,
“History of the Church of the Brethren in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, 1781—1925”

Prepared and Published Under the Supervision of the District Conference through its Home Mission Board.
From the introduction by M.G.Brumbaugh, it is noted that James A. Sell was the chief editor.

For an historical setting of our fore fathers, we turn to chapter one, “Early Glimpses and Trials,” pages 18—26.
“In Morrison’s Cove”

The early settlers of this beautiful and fertile valley for the most part were a deeply religious folk who migrated from the sections of Pennsylvania and Maryland lying east and southward. “In their new home,” James A. Sell has written concerning these people who located in the vicinity of Clover Creek, “their Bibles were as common and necessary as the axe and the plow. They were a religious people, and religious services were inseparably connected to their daily routine. They called men to the ministry from the plow, illiterate though they often were, but they were devote and zealous, simple in their faith, and self-sacrificing in their labors. They exposed themselves to the elements and dangers from wild beasts and to the fury of savage Indians. Marshalls of God they were, and under the disadvantages of pioneer life they wrought and left an organized work to their children that passed from one generation to another until it has come to the present.
“About 1755 a colony of Brethren entered the Cove through Loy’s Gap and gradually worked their way northward and became residents of the territory now embraced in the Clover Creek and Albright congregations.
“A colony of Scotch-Irish settled here as early as 1749, but they were considered squatters and were expelled as the land belonged to Indians. The Penns made a new purchase in 1754 and when the Brethren came they secured a title to lands they purchased, and by 1790 all the desirable lands passed into private ownership. The Brethren secured the greater part of the land. Some of them purchased large tracts, as much as 1,500 acres. They were pioneer settlers and did the first preaching.
“We do not have the names of all the original settlers, neither do we have space to give what we do know. But it will be interesting to many now and to the coming generation to trace their ancestry back to this time. Hence we give a few:
“Albrights, Allenbaughs, Blakes, Burkets, Bowers, Brumbaughs, Benners, Cammerons, Cowens, Deeters, Dillingers, Emricks, Eversoles, Faulkners, Flenners,Gensingers, Grabills. Hoovers, Holsingers, Knees, Lowers, Looses, Longeneckers, Martins, Metzkers, Meyerses, Moores, Nisewangers, Puderbaughs, Rhodes, Strayers, Shonefelts, Stoners, Skyleses, Stouffers, Stoudenours, Smiths, Shifflers, Stonerocks, Tetwilers, Winelands, Ullerys, Bridenthalls.
“During the Indian wars of 1762 and onward there were quite a number of murders committed and captives taken. The particulars will never be known. The greatest massacrewas in 1777. One history says there were thirty killed. Our tradition says twenty. The number of prisoners taken we cannot conjecture. A Brother Houser and family are mentioned among the number.”
John Martin, a pioneer preacher, whose name heads the list of ministers of the Clover Creek congregation, suffered greatly from these Indian depredations. For want of the original, copy is taken from the Jones’ History of Juniata Valley, relating the incident as follows:
“During the Great Cove massacre, among others carried into captivity was the family of John Martin. This incursion was indeed a most formidable one, led by the kings Shingas and Beaver in person. How many were killed there is no living witness to tell; neither can we conjecture the number of prisoners taken. The following petition was sent by John Martin to council:


August 13, 1762
“The Humble Petition of Your Most Obedient Servant Sheweth, Sir, may it please Your Excellancy, Hearing me in Your Clemancy a few Words. I. One of the Bereaved of my Wife and five Children, by Savage War at the Captivity of the Great Cove, after Many & Long Journeys, I Lately went to an Indian Town, viz., Tuskaroways. 150 miles beyond Fort Pitts, & Entrested in Co. Bucquits & Co. Croghan’s favor, So as to bear their Letters to King Beaver & Cap. Shingas, Desiring them to Give up One of my Daughters to me, Whiles I have Yet two Sons & and One Other Daughter, if Alive, Among them—and After Seeing my Daughter with Shingas he Refused to Give her up, and after some Expostulating with him, but all in vain, he promised to Deliver her up with Other Captives to yr Excellency.
“Sir, yr Excellency’s Most Humble Servt Humbly & Passionately Beseeches Yr Beningn Compassion to interpose Yr Excellencies Beneficient influence in favor of Yr Excellencies Most Obedient & Dutiful Servt.
John Martin.

Brother Sell writes further:
“The Brethren came into the Great Cove, now Morrison’s Cove, and by taking possession of the valley in the vicinity of Roaring Springs, the western portion of the Clover Creek congregation, were among its first settlers.
“They set to work to clear away forests, till the soil, build mills, and labored to promote the peace and prosperity of the country. It has been conceded to them, even by people who took no interest in their religion, that as good farmers, good tax payers, quiet and inoffensive people—they were of the best citizens.
“But their exclusiveness, opposition to education, their lack of interest in political matters, and above all, their non-resistant principle brought them into disrepute with their neighbors.
“This made their situation unpleasant and at times exposed them to more danger from their common enemy. Had they been permitted to treat with the Indian alone and manifest their love of peace and fair and honorable treatment, there is every reason to believe that not only they but their fighting neighbors would have escaped the assaults of the savage’s tomahawk and scalping knife.
“The settlers all suffered from the incursions of the Indians from the time of their coming into the valley up to the time and during the Revolutionary War.
“By this time by purchase and force the Indians were driven west of the Allegeny mountains. But out of hatred to their white brothers from real or imaginary wrongs, and also for spoils and scalps on which they were paid bounty by the British government they made frequent raids into the valleys east of the mountain. When invasions were made the news was heralded as rapidly as the circumstances of the times permitted and warning was to flee for safety. Some left their homes, others did not. All perhaps did not hear the alarm. Some could not go, and others preferred not to go. The result was that a number of them were murdered. In 1777 between twenty and thirty were killed.
“During all these trying experiences of frontier life covering a period of nearly a quarter of a century, but one breach or violation of the peace principle held by our people is recorded.”
This single instance. Which Brother Sell calls the, “Jacob Neff Episode” occurred within the bounds of the Clover Creek congregation. U. J. Jones, after giving a copy of a report of “Thomas Smith and George Woods, both, we believe, Justice of Peace at the time to President Wharton,” in which there is no direct reference to the Brethren, refers to the Neff incident as follows:

[To be continued]
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[My note: I remember my father—the original Roy—telling me the story as we drove through the Cove area when I was but a young boy. It was exciting to hear about the Indian raid. I regret I can not identify the place Dad said this event took place. Stay tuned! I’ll send the rest of the story next time].

Gpa G. Roy E. Glass, junior. [Junior was my pre-teen name. I knew no other].
Labels: Gleanings 20061115