Western Pennsylvania

“ From Philadelphia ran out a road to what was then the far West. Its course after leaving the city lay through the counties of Chester and Lancaster, then sparsely settled, now thick with towns and cities and penetrated with innumerable railways, and went over the Blue Ridge mountains to Shippensburg and the little town of Bedford. Thence it wound through the beautiful hills of western Pennsylvania, and crossed the Alleghany mountains to the head-waters of the Ohio. It was known to travelers as the northern route, and was declared to be execrable. ”

“ The Indians being recognized as owners of the soil, the whole was purchased from them by different treaties. One at Fort Stanwix extinguished their title to the lands of Western Pennsylvania and New York, excepting the Triangle or Presqu’ Isle lands, which were accidentally left out of Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia and were supposed at different times to belong to each. ”

“ The aqueduct of the Pennsylvania canal, across the Alleghany river, is also deserving attention.
The inhabitants of Pittsburg are a mixture of English, French, Scotch, Irish, German and Swiss artisans and mechanics, as well as of native born Americans, who live together in much harmony. Industry, sobriety, morality and good order generally prevail. Extensive revivals of religion prevailed here about a year since.
The population of Western Pennsylvania is characterized for industry, frugality, economy and enterprise. Temperance principles have made considerable progress of late years. ”

“ Before 1758 the western part of Pennsylvania could be approached from the east only by the route of the Juniata and the Kiskiminitas. In that year Forbes finished as far as Loyalhanna the road previously begun from Fort Loudon by way of Bedford. Many Scotch-Irish settlers seated themselves in the Ligonier Valley at Hannastown, and about the forks of the Ohio, and, with settlers from Maryland and Virginia, they possessed the land in comparative quiet until Pontiac’s War. ”

“ The spirit of the early settlers in Pennsylvania was alive with the idea of internal improvement, and very early they were anxious to reach out toward the western empire that was to become the promised land and furnish food for the world. The ultimate result of this vision was the construction of the grand system of canals connecting the navigable rivers, Delaware and Ohio, by which products of the States and Territories to the westward could be carried to Philadelphia, the metropolitan seaport city of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The natural beauty of western Pennsylvania can only be realized when one leaves the business part of the city and plunges into the districts adjacent, where conditions are found that suggest what must have existed before man's transforming had converted the earth to his own uses. It is doubtful whether any community, east or west, has done so much in so short a time, to make the surrounding country accessible. In various directions about Pittsburgh fine, hard, smooth macadam roads extend for many miles. ”

“ Western Pennsylvania filled rapidly with settlers, and soon pioneers began to float down the Ohio in flatboats and build their homes on the soil of the Northwest Territory. In a few years so many white people were living in this Western domain that it became necessary for them to have some form of government. ”

“ At the breaking out of the Revolution it was the most important settlement in all Westmoreland County save only those about Forts Pitt and Ligonier. “These huts scattered along the narrow pack-horse track among the monster trees of the ancient forest, was that Hannastown, which occupied such a prominent place in the early history of Western Pennsylvania where was held the first court west of the Alleghany where the resolves of May 16, 1775, were passed.” ”

“ On this occasion and to this vast audience I said:
The Republican party held its first convention in that city of Western Pennsylvania which, in energy, enterprise and wealth, rivals the great mart upon the shores of the inland lakes, wherein, after the lapse of nearly half a century, we meet to-day. Pennsylvania may well claim to be the leader among Republican states. The principles which are embodied in the platform of the party as we have adopted it are the result of the teachings of her scholars and statesmen. ”

“ The principal citizen here was Captain, afterwards General Arthur St. Clair, a Scotchman who 149served under Wolfe at Quebec and afterwards became the agent of the Penn family in Western Pennsylvania.
Settlements also became numerous west of Chestnut Ridge, along the Loyalhanna and its tributaries, as far as Hannastown on the Forbes Road. Derry settlement was to the north of the road, between the Loyalhanna and the Conemaugh. Nearly all the settlers were Scots from Ulster, or their immediate descendants, with a sprinkling of Irish of Presbyterian faith. ”

“ On a map of 1776, after the passing of the Act, Pennsylvania was shown as jutting out at an acute angle into Lake Erie, and the boundary line, identical with the western frontier of the state, started from the lake near Presque Isle, and struck the Ohio at Logs Town, west of Fort Duquesne and slightly east of Beaver Creek, leaving to Pennsylvania the whole course of the Alleghany, and Fort Duquesne or Pittsburg. ”

“ The officers of the First and Second Battalions of the Province of Pennsylvania in the French and Indian War petitioned for and received twenty-four thousand acres of land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and these officers and their families thus became pioneer settlers in that picturesque valley, and now the veterans of the Revolution were given homes in the northwestern section of the State and there planted the settlements which have grown into the most important industrial centers of the Western Hemisphere. ”

“ The frontiers of Pennsylvania had not been seriously harassed by the Indians since the close of the Revolution, but late in 1793 they again became restive and early in the following year so many depredations had been committed along the western frontier of the State that the Assembly on February 28, 1794, passed an act for enlisting soldiers for the defense of the Delaware River and the western frontiers. ”

“ Pennsylvania appointed George Bryan, the Rev. Dr. John Ewing and David Rittenhouse; Virginia sent James Madison, afterward President of the United States, and Robert Andrews.
These commissioners met August 31, 1779, and agreed that Mason and Dixon’s line should be extended due west five degrees of longitude 709from the Delaware River for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian line drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the State should be the western boundary. ”

“ The 50th Pennsylvania were Pennsylvania Dutch, descendants of the Germans who settled the central part of the State before the Revolution, and were slower, more heavily moulded than the others, but always steadfast and reliable. The Roundheads came from the western, more mountainous part of the Keystone State, and were of the vigorous Scotch-Irish stock, with many tall, rawboned men. ”

“ Those who went to Pennsylvania received grants of land in the western mountain region. The policy of the government was to interpose them as a buffer between the expanding colony and the Indian frontier. Once planted in the Alleghany region, they spread rapidly and in large numbers toward the southwest along the mountain country through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolinas. At a later time they formed almost the entire population of West Virginia, and they were the men who chiefly built up the commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee. ”

“ The one in which Pennsylvanians are more properly interested was known as the Western expedition. It was placed under the command of Major General John Forbes, an officer of great skill, energy and resolution. His army consisted of nearly 9000 men, embracing British regulars and provincials from Pennsylvania, and the Lower Counties, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.
The troops from the other Governments rendezvoused at Winchester, while the Pennsylvanians, under Colonel Henry Bouquet, assembled at Raystown, now Bedford. ”

“ The country northwest has well-cultivated farm lands; that, southeast, blends with the Pocono Highlands, is wild and picturesque; an almost unbroken wilderness for thirty miles, excepting along the line of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad; on both sides of this road are good highways; the main road, the whole length of the valley, is exceptionally fine. ”

“ The last named state, the territory lately ceded to Connecticut, and Lake Erie, (part of which is included in Pennsylvania) form the western and north-western boundaries of the state. Part of New-York, and the territory lately ceded to Pennsylvania, with a part of Lake Erie, compose the northern, and another part of New-York, with a large extent of New-Jersey (separated from Pennsylvania by the river Delaware) , compose the eastern boundaries of the state. The lands which form these boundaries (except a part of the states of Delaware, Maryland, and New-Jersey) are in a state of nature. ”

“ The inhabitants are chiefly the descendants of the first German settlers, and are a quiet, orderly people—They are estimated at about four thousand five hundred.
This has been the seat of government of Pennsylvania since 1799, but it is not rendered permanently {16} so by an [Pg 32] act of the legislature, which occasions attempts being made annually at every session of that body to remove it. ”

“ The greatest corporation in Pennsylvania is the railroad system which so gloriously carries the name of the Keystone State into every part of the Western Hemisphere.
235 Great Indian Council Opened at Harris’ Ferry, April 1, 1757
September 10, 1756, Governor Denny ordered a suspension of hostilities against the Indians on the east side of the Susquehanna. A month later Major Parsons wrote from Easton that nine Indian men and one Indian woman with four white prisoners had arrived at Easton. ”

“ The indeterminate sentence, which made its appearance in this Commonwealth in the law of May 10, 1909, has passed through several phases to a state in which its purpose is almost completely defeated. In its original form it provided that the maximum term to be imposed upon a convict who should be sentenced to imprisonment in either the Eastern or the Western Penitentiaries should not exceed the maximum time prescribed by law and that the minimum term when not fixed by law, should not exceed one-fourth of the maximum time. ”

“ The change which comes over the men who are transferred from the Western Penitentiary to the new prison site in Centre County is a sufficient commentary on the older type of prison, and demonstrates beyond peradventure the duty of affording to all 31 of our convict population a similar life of freedom and opportunity. ”

“ It is appropriate that the citizens of Pennsylvania particularly should have their attention called to the out-door life for misdemeanants, since the Managers of the Western Penitentiary have decided and have been permitted to remove that institution to some large tract of ground within the State. ”

“ The moral instructor’s report informs us, that 288 sermons have been preached in the prison, which is an average of 48 to each corridor, and nearly one service for every Sabbath of the year. The whole number of visits recorded as having been paid by this officer to the convicts, in the course of the year, is 3,385.
II. The condition of the Western Penitentiary, is exceedingly gratifying. The inspectors allude briefly to the animadversions which have been made upon the Pennsylvania system ”

“ In actual practice nearly all of it has been doomed to wasteful and demoralizing idleness.
The law of June 1, 1915, “providing a system of employment and compensation for the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary, Western Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory at Huntingdon” and creating a Prison Labor Commission to carry its provisions into effect, has proved almost wholly inoperative, owing primarily to the failure of the Legislature to provide for the compulsory purchase of prison-made goods by the Commonwealth or the political divisions thereof or by public institutions. ”

“ Public spirit was more active in Pennsylvania than in New York. More roads and canals were building; a new turnpike ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the great highway to Pittsburg was a more important artery of national life than was controlled by any other State. The exports of Pennsylvania amounted to $12,000,000, and the custom-house produced $1,350,000. The State contained six hundred thousand inhabitants—a population somewhat larger than that of New York. ”

“ Several years ago more than one thousand persons from every section of Pennsylvania, and not a few from Southern New York State, journeyed to a most out-of-the-way place up in the wilds of Potter County to do homage to the memory of a great man, and to view the scene of one of the saddest failures in the history of the settlement of our great Commonwealth. ”

“ The settlers flocked into this new region from two directions. The Scots from the Cumberland Valley and other settled posts of the Province made their way westward along the Forbes military road and planted their cabins along its course. These men were loyal Pennsylvanians, and they held their lands under the Provincial Government. Other Scots came from the South, principally from the Old Dominion; they crossed the mountains by the Braddock road and occupied the fertile lands along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and Chartiers Creek. ”