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 SOMD MISSING AND 
 MISPbAGCD ANGGSTORS 
 
 Paper Read Before the Kittochtinny 
 
 Historical Society, 
 THURSDAY BVB^ilNG, MAY 30, 1907. 
 
 By 
 
 GEORGE O. SEIl^MAMER, 
 Chamberebur^, Pa. 
 

 //^. 
 
 
 (c^^ Zp^ c>^ I 
 
Ancestry hunting in America has 
 become a "fad." Even as a fad the 
 pursuit is a worthy one. So far, a 
 desire for the knowledge of their fore- 
 bears has been an aspiration of Amer- 
 ican women more generally than of 
 American men. Necessarily the char- 
 acter of the work accomplished has 
 been amateurish, consisting for the 
 most part of an array of names as un- 
 intelligible as the lists of Irish kings 
 of the lines of Heber and Heremon 
 from the "Four Mastery." Incom- 
 plete and unsatisfactory as are these 
 collections of names they have their 
 uses, and often serve as a foundation 
 for valuable genealogical work. I re- 
 gard the search for the ancestry of 
 the descendants of the Pennsylvania 
 pioneers as so important that it ought 
 to attain to the dignity of a mission if 
 not of a cult. The six, eight or ten 
 generations that have sprung from 
 the early settlers on the frontiers of 
 Penn's province, represent a new 
 type of American manhood. The ex- 
 isting families of the Scotch-Irish 
 pioneers are no longer Scotch. The 
 descendants of the Pennsylvania 
 Germans — Pennsylvania "Dutch" as 
 they have been popularly called — are 
 no longer German. In this part of 
 the world began a blending of nations 
 and even of races that has wrought 
 a complete transformation. We, the 
 great and the great-great grandchi- 
 dren of the pioneers, are so near the 
 beginnings of the transfusion of 
 bloods that has resulted in this new 
 ^.merican type that it becomes our 
 duty to trace our origin from its in- 
 ception and to place the history of its 
 development and progress upon rec- 
 ord for our posterity. With this end 
 in view I have chosen for my subject 
 on this occasion, "Some Missing and 
 Misplaced Ancestors," confining my 
 theme to families whose ancestry be- 
 longed to the Concocheague country. 
 The missing ancestors of the Conoco- 
 cheague pioneers whose descendants 
 represent families of distinction in 
 every state of ti*e Union are more 
 numerous than one would suspect up- 
 on a mere cursory examination of the 
 subject. Their names are found on 
 the tax lists of "Old Mother Antrim.' 
 "Old Lurgan" and Guilford, Hamilton, 
 Peters and Fannett Townships. In 
 
 many cases these names represent 
 American families of national and his- 
 toric importance, and trace their an- 
 cestry back to the Conococheague in 
 a vague indefinite way. Among these 
 a few are still represented in this 
 community, but for the most part 
 even their names are forgotten by the 
 present owners of the soil that they 
 were the first to break. Of the for- 
 mer class whose descendants are 
 known to all of us, I may name the 
 Bards, Bonbrakes, Brackenridges, 
 Culbertsons, Elders, Joneses, McDow- 
 ells, Poes, Pomeroys, Reishers, Shields 
 and Wilsons. Of the latter are the 
 Allisons, Armstrongs, Bairds, BarrSj_ 
 Beattys, Berryhi' "1, Bittingers, 
 
 Browns, Browns .s, Buchanans, 
 Campbells, Cassatts, Chestnuts, Doug- 
 lasses, Dunns, Eatons, Elliots, Erwins, 
 Ewalts, Findlays, Gasses, Gibsons, 
 Harrises, "Hendersons, Hollidays, Ir- 
 wins. Jacks, McBrides, TJoClellans, 
 i.xcClures, McKeans, McLenes, .L*i»l- 
 Mullins, Magaws, Matthews, Mitchells. 
 Newells, Orbisons, Parkers, Pattons, 
 iroormans, R^ciseys, Reas, Scotts, 
 Smiths, Speers, Stevensons, Talbots, 
 Taylors, Thomsons, Thompsons, Tor- 
 rences. Turners, Van Lears, Waddells, 
 Whites, Widneys, Works, Wrights 
 and Youngs. 
 
 Beginning with the first name on 
 my list, the Bards, I find it represent- 
 ed by two ladies of the highest re- 
 spectability. Their relations, near 
 and remote, are scattered all over the 
 Union. The history of the Bard fam- 
 ily has engaged my attention for a 
 number of years with accumulating 
 results, but for me it has been a sin- 
 gularly interesting romance of ances- 
 try hunting. To begin with, I had 
 the ancestral names of Richard Bard 
 and his wife, Catharine Poe, but be- 
 yond the tragic story of their captiv- 
 ity araong the Indians, as it is told 
 in "Border Life," we had little data 
 relating to their descendants and 
 none coHceraiiig their antecedants. 
 To maKe the matter worse, the late 
 Dr. William Henry Egle, with the en- 
 thusiastic but indiscriminating zeal of 
 the amateur genealogist, gave us a 
 wrong sign board for our lineal high- 
 way. In a brief sketch of Richard 
 Bard ,as a member of the Pennsylva- 
 nia Convention that ratified the Fed- 
 
eral Constitution, Dr. Egle said that 
 liis father. Hernard Bard, settled and 
 built a mill on Middle Creek, In what 
 is now Adams county. It was true 
 that Richard lUird's father settled and 
 built a mill on Middle Creek, but his 
 name was Archibald, not Hernard. It 
 was from that mill that Richard Bard 
 and his wife were carried into cap- 
 tivity by the savages in 1758. Egle's 
 mistake cast upon me the burden of 
 establishing Richard Hard's paientage 
 by proofs that would have been ac- 
 cepted as evidence in a court of law 
 in a judicial proceeding. The chain 
 of testimony when it was finally com- 
 pleted was as follows: 
 
 1. Maryland records and recitals 
 filed in the Land Office of Pennsylva- 
 nit show that Archibald Beard was 
 one of four men who purchased under 
 a Maryland title a tract of 5000 acres 
 of land at ': airfield, Adams county, 
 "n thdt is still known as "Carroll's 
 Delight." 
 
 2. An indenture on record in York 
 county shows that Archibald Beard 
 conveyed a part of this tract and the 
 Mill Place, outside of it, to Richard 
 Haird. 
 
 3. A letter from George Steven- 
 son, of York, printed in the "Pennsyl- 
 vania Archives," gives information 
 of Richard Bard's return from captiv- 
 uy, and adds that he had not yet ar- 
 rived at his father's house on Marsh 
 Creek ,of which Middle Creek is a 
 tributary. 
 
 In the deed from Archibald Beard 
 to Richard Baird the grantor men- 
 tioned his son William, but notwith- 
 standing it was a condition of the in- 
 denture that the conveyance was to be 
 void if Richard failed to support Arch- 
 ibald for the rest of his life, the deed 
 contained no direct proof that the 
 grantee was his son. I now had on 
 my hands a probable brother of Rich- 
 ard Bard, of whom I knew nothing, 
 with no legal evidence of their rela- 
 tionship. It was very provoking. 
 Besides, it was a question whether 
 the names Beard, Baird and Bard were 
 only variants of the same family 
 name. Fortunately, this question was 
 solved by three deeds on record in 
 the Recorder's office at Chambers- 
 burg. Archibald Beard had obtained 
 a warrant for a tract of land near 
 
 the nunnery in Qulncy township. In 
 turn this land was the property of 
 Archibald, William and Richard, all of 
 whom executed deeds for it. Archi- 
 bald's deed was signed Archibald 
 Beard; William's was signed William 
 Baird and Richard's was signed Rich- 
 ard Bard. If it had not been for Dr. 
 Egle's confident assumi)tion of Ber- 
 nard as the Bard ancestor I should 
 have regarded the proofs already ad- 
 duced as a satisfactory adjustment 
 of my genealogical problem, but with 
 that blunder staring me in the face 
 1 could not content myself without an 
 absolute settlement of the vexed ques- 
 tion. A weary pursuit of disappoint- 
 ing chimeras, th false children of 
 illusive and elusive clews followed, 
 but in the period of hopes deferred, 
 data for a family history of the later 
 generations was obtained that is re- 
 markably full and complete. At last 
 I was shown a paper in the hand- 
 writing of Archibald Bard, who for 
 more than twenty years was an asso- 
 ciate judge of Fi-anklin county. This 
 paper contained a brief genealogy in 
 scriptural form. It read thus: Arch- 
 ibald Bard, which was the son of 
 Richai'd, which was the son of Arch- 
 ijald, which was the son of David, 
 which was the son of William. My 
 riddle was solved. A missing ances- 
 tor was found, and the mistaken an- 
 cestor was relegated to the German 
 Bai'd family on the other side of the 
 county to which he actually belonged 
 A worthy doctor of divinity, whom 
 I knew during his useful life, used to 
 assert that everybody of the same 
 name would be found to be kin, more 
 or less remote, if their lineage could 
 be traced. I do not believe that this 
 assumption is true of all the people 
 of the same name in any country, — it 
 is certainly not true of many people 
 of the same name in Pennsylvania. A 
 glance at the passenger lists of Ger- 
 man, French and Swiss immigrants in 
 Rupp's "Thirty Thousand Names" 
 will i-eveal many surnames generally 
 assumed to be English or Scotch and 
 by an easy transformation, Scotch- 
 Irish. Among these immigrants were 
 •irany Bards who settled in Montgom- 
 ery, Berks, Lancaster, and York coun- 
 ties, Pa„ and in Frederick county, 
 Md. All the Bards now living in 
 
Berks and Lancaster counties are of 
 German descent. The Bards of New 
 York and New Jersey, now, I believe 
 extinct so far as the name goes, were 
 of French Huguenot origin. Michael 
 Bard, a prominent man in York county 
 in the Revolution, at the time of his 
 death owned the Reichard farm, be- 
 tween Fetterhoff's chapel and Mont 
 Alto, in this county. Bernhard Bard, 
 wnom Dr. Egle mistook for the 
 father of Richard Bard, was a son of 
 Martin Bard, who settled in Germany 
 township in York, now Adams, county, 
 at a very early period. The names of 
 these immigrants were generally writ- 
 ten Barth or Bardt, but in the second 
 generation the name had become 
 Bard and their descendants are Bards 
 to this day. 
 
 The president of your society is al- 
 ways active in promoting Scotch-Irish 
 movements, celebrating Scotch-Irish 
 enterprises and exalting Scotch-Irish 
 virtues, but I verily believe that his 
 emigrant ancestor had not a drop of 
 Scotch-Irish blood in his veins. Be- 
 sides, his name was George and not 
 Thomas. Some of the Pomeroys take 
 it as a hardship that I insist upon 
 changing the name of their American 
 ancestor. I cnn only answer them 
 that I sincertiy believe that their an- 
 cestor knew his own name. Some- 
 time before his death, the late Major 
 John M. Pomeroy wrote a brief his- 
 tory of the Pomeroy family, which was 
 printed. "He died about 1770," Major 
 Pomeroy said, speaking of the first 
 of the name in this country: "I hoped 
 to get the date of his death more ac- 
 curately from the records of Cumber- 
 land county, which at that date em- 
 braced Lurgan township, but learned 
 with regret that the Recorder's office 
 at Carlisle was destroyed in 1776 to- 
 gether with its contents. I found 
 there the account of Thomas Pomeroy, 
 who was the administrator of his 
 mother, widow of the first Thomas 
 from which it appeared that she died 
 in 1777. Her name was Margaret." 
 
 Major Pomeroy gave the names of 
 the sons of the so-called first Thomas 
 Pomeroy as Thomas, John, George and 
 Samuel, and he added, that while he 
 was not able to get the names of the 
 four daughters, one of them married 
 a Mr. Doyle and another a Mr. Dun- 
 
 can. It is very clear that Major Pom- 
 eroy was the victim of some modern 
 Ananias, who possessed the peculiar 
 gift of confidently asserting what he 
 did not know. Not a scrap of the 
 Cumberland county records was ever 
 burned. There is on record at Car- 
 lisle the will of George Pumroy, 
 proved Nov. 6, 1776, in which he 
 named a widow, Margaret; sons, 
 Thomas, John and George; and daugh- 
 ters Elizabeth, Mary, Hannah, Mar- 
 garet and xsabel. Elizabeth Pumroy 
 married Charles Boyle, and Margaret 
 married David Duncan. It will be ob- 
 served that the only difference be- 
 tween these two lists — the one from 
 tradition and the other from the will — 
 was that there were three sons and 
 five daughters instead of four sons 
 and four daughters, and that Eliza- 
 beth Pumroy married a Mr. Boyle in- 
 stead of a Mr. Doyle. The similarity 
 in the names of the Pomeroy sons and 
 of the husbands of the two Pomeroy 
 daughters is too striking to be a mere 
 coincidence. If we are not to accept 
 the testator in this case as the Pom- 
 eroy ancestor as against the ancestor 
 of tradition proofs of ancestry by pub- 
 lic records, the best evidence avail- 
 able to us, will become impossible. I 
 confess that I do not like the substi- 
 tution of ancestors, even as against 
 tradition, and I never allow myself to 
 desecrate the sanctity of a consecrat- 
 es, name unless it is a duty that I owe 
 to the truth of history. At the same 
 time I may add that there is nothing 
 so tenacious of life as a disproved tra- 
 dition. 
 
 In connection with these two cases 
 of missing and mistaken ancestors, I 
 wish to point out an unfounded claim 
 to a German origin for a Conocochea- 
 gue family. Among the early settlers 
 along the Palling Spring in Guilford 
 township was Benjamin Gass. With 
 only the surname as a criterion that 
 unusually accurate historian, Daniel 
 Rupp, unhesitatingly set him down as 
 a German. He came from the river 
 Bann in Ireland. It is true, however, 
 that many emigrants came to Penn- 
 sylvania from Ireland whose ancestry 
 was as Dutch as sour-krout. We may 
 take the Widney family of Path Val- 
 ley as a case in point. The first of 
 the Widneys to settle in Ireland was 
 
an offlcer in the army of William of 
 Orange who was rewarded for gal- 
 lantry at Hoyne Water, by a grant of 
 land in Ulster. As an illustration of 
 Dutch ancestors and ancestresses 
 born in Ireland, I may mention the 
 fact that the mother of Judge Mellon, 
 of Pittsburgh, although born in the 
 vale of the St rule, in County Tyrone, 
 was by extraction a Hollander. And 
 as a further illustration of the eccen- 
 tricities of nomenclature as a guide 
 to racial antecedents, I may point to 
 my own great-grand-mother, who, al- 
 though born and married in Rotter- 
 dam, was by surname a Powell. An 
 esteemed Irish corespondent of mine. 
 Sir Edmund Rewley, of Dublin, in- 
 forms me that many of the Powells of 
 Ireland shortened their name to Poe. 
 The Poes of Ireland, who pronounce 
 their name in two syllables, are 
 Anglo-Irish. Some of them were 
 officers in that oppressed country at 
 the Cromwellian usurpation, but while 
 they had long been settled in P^ngland 
 they were either of French or German 
 origin. There are Poes in this county 
 today whose ancestors were emi- 
 grants from Germany. If I were to 
 cite all the cases of the kind that 
 press upon me, you would be too late 
 for supper, unless you made up your 
 minds to run away from me. 
 
 Another misapprehension that 
 sometimes results in misconceptions 
 of Cumberland Valley ancestries is 
 the prevalent belief that the early 
 settlers of this valley emigrated di- 
 rectly from Ireland or Germany. As a 
 matter of fact many of the early set- 
 tlers were Bostonese before they be- 
 came Pennamites. When the Rev. 
 David McClure, who was a New Eng- 
 lander by birth, passed through this 
 valley in 1764 on his way to the Ohio, 
 he was stopped to preach to the Pres- 
 byterians at the Big Spring. After 
 the service an aged lady approached 
 him and asked him if his mother was 
 a McClintock. He answered affirm- 
 atively, and was then told that his 
 venerable uncle, his mother's brother, 
 was living in the neighborhood, and 
 that the lady to whom he was speak- 
 ing was his aunt, and the children 
 who accompanied her were his cou- 
 sins. In accordance with the hospi- 
 tality of the time he became their 
 
 guest and visited ihem on his fre- 
 quent journeys through the valley. 
 The McClintocks came from Medway, 
 Mass., and the McClures settled in 
 Boston as early as 1729. 
 
 The MeCIures of the Cumberland 
 and Shermans Valley usually impute 
 their ancestry to the early settlers of 
 the name in Chester county, but the 
 claim is an exceedingly vague one, 
 especially as William McClure of 
 whom, so far as I know, no one has 
 ever written, built a mill on the west 
 branch of the Conococheague Creek, 
 near Mercersburg, where the old Hies- 
 ter mill now stands, as early as 1746. 
 This is not only a case of a missing 
 ancestor but of missing posterity. 
 We know that he had a son Thomas 
 M-cClure, who recovered in the courts 
 of Cumberland county for materials 
 furnished for the erection of the mill; 
 that he had another son Patrick Mc- 
 Clure, who interited one half of his 
 lands under his will on record in Lan- 
 caster county, and finally settled at 
 McClure's Gap side by side with Rob- 
 ert McClure, the great-grandfather of 
 Colonel A. K. McClure, and that he 
 had a daughter Mary McClure, who 
 married John Scott, an early settler 
 on the Antietam, in Washington town- 
 ship, just across the line from An- 
 trim. The old homestead which John 
 Scott built is still standing. The only 
 one of Mary McClure Scott's sons who 
 had chidren was Dr. James Scott, of 
 Virginia. He married a daughter of 
 Bessie Lewis, the sister of George 
 Washington. The Scott family of Vir- 
 ginia have long been in search of their 
 McClure ancestry, but it was only 
 lately that they were able to obtain 
 any knowledge of the situation of the 
 Scott homestead, or of the identity of 
 their McClure ancestor. 
 
 Discursive as has been this paper 
 so far, I hope it is not entirely want- 
 ing in suggestiveness. My aim Is to 
 interest those who can assist me in 
 finding missing ancestors and in plac- 
 ing misplaced ones in their true rela- 
 tion to their posterity. There are 
 many persons who would be happy to 
 help me if they knew something of 
 the searches I am making. 
 
 I want them to know. 
 
 I want information concerning the 
 progenitors of the Bards, especially 
 
David and William Bard, or Baird, the 
 grandfather and great grand-father of 
 Richard Bard; to learn the name and 
 parentage of the wife of Archibald 
 Bard, or Beard, of "Carroll's Delight;" 
 the exact relationship of Richard Bard 
 and his wife, Catharine Poe, to the 
 children of Capt. John Potter, the first 
 sheriff of Cumberland county; data 
 concerning the Bards, of Bardstown, 
 Ky.; the parentage of Elizabeth Dee- 
 mer, the wife of the Rev. David Bard; 
 and any stray bits of Bard history. 
 
 I want the missing link that will 
 mend the chain of descent of Conrad 
 Bonbrake, of Washington township, 
 from Daniel Bonbrake, of Grindstone 
 Hill. 
 
 I want to connect the Breckenridges 
 of Kentucky with the Breckenridges 
 of "Culbertson's Row." 
 
 I want to trace the lineage of the 
 Culbertsons of "Culbertson's Row" 
 back to the plantation of Ulster. 
 
 I want a complete history of the 
 Elder family, of Path Valley, and I 
 particularly want the story of James 
 Elder, who was 106 years old at his 
 death, and of his wife Elizabeth, who 
 died at 104. 
 
 I also want to trace all the descend- 
 ants of John Jones, who settled in 
 Cowan's Gap after the Revolution, and 
 reached the remarkable age of 113 
 years. 
 
 I want to determine the kinship of 
 tho McDowells of Mt. Parnell, the 
 McDowells of Kishacoquillas, and the 
 McDowells of Virginia and Kentucky. 
 
 I want to ascertain whether Thomas 
 Poe of Conococheague was akin to 
 the Anglo-Irish Poes of Counties 
 Louth and Tipperary; or to the Poes 
 of Drum, County Cavan, to which 
 John Poe, the great-grandfather of Ed- 
 gar Allan Poe, belonged; or the 
 Powell-Poes, of Clonfeacle, County 
 Tyrone. 
 
 I want data for a complete genealo- 
 gy of the Pomeroys. 
 
 I want to supplement the easily ob- 
 tainable knowledge of the Reishers, 
 or Chambersburg, with equally full 
 information of their kinsmen, the 
 Rishers of Western Pennsylvania. 
 
 And to conclude the list with which 
 I began, I want to know all that I can 
 learn of the forebears of the Shields 
 and Wilson families. Judge Gillan, in 
 
 his paper on the Wilson family, did 
 not tell us the name of the father of 
 John Wilson, and the grandfather of 
 Surah Wilson, the founder of Wilson 
 College. It was Moses. I want some 
 Pharaoh's daughter to lift this Moses 
 out of the bulrushes, so that, guided 
 by a rod whose lineage runs back to 
 Adam, he may lead the lost tribes of 
 the Wilsons of the Conococheague. 
 out of the Wilderness, in which their 
 shades are wandering, into their an- 
 cient heritage of reverence and affec- 
 tion. 
 
 Of the Conococheague ancestors 
 whose names have disappeared from 
 our midst — to use a favorite phrase 
 of the gifted writers of "Duffield Drip- 
 pings" and "Markes Markers" — I 
 would write at length did not time and 
 space forbid. While I shall not at- 
 tempt to present the families I have 
 named in alphabetical sequence I may 
 say of them as a whole that their his- 
 tory and that of their kinship by inter- 
 marriage is the early history of the 
 whole Conococheague region. Each 
 of them is allied to the others by ties 
 of blood that made the early tax-lists 
 the threads for a magic carpet that 
 like Solomon's had the power to waft 
 their children wherever it was the de- 
 sire of their hearts to be set down. 
 Like the ancient nomads our early 
 settlers quickly disappeared from the 
 haunts that charmed them, but unlike 
 the nomads they left traces behind 
 them that it is our pleasure to search 
 out and to celebrate. When Green- 
 castle has an "Old Home Week" the 
 chosen orators for the occasion tell of 
 Col. John Allison, the founder, al- 
 though there are no Allisons there to 
 hear them. Had John Wallace, who 
 platted the town of Waynesboro, been 
 able to return to it in its centennial 
 year he would have found no Wallaces 
 but instead a teeming swarm of skill- 
 ed mechanics issuing from the huge 
 factories that have replaced the sim- 
 ple workshops of his time. Mercers- 
 burg still has its legends of the 
 Smiths — "Squire William and Captain 
 James, typical pioneers, both of them 
 — but the descendants of these early 
 worthies have disappeared from the 
 neighborhood and are scattered over 
 the West and South, and it may be 
 doubted if many of the dwellers m 
 
8 
 
 the modern town have ever heard the 
 Btory of the achievements of the cap- 
 tain of the "J^hicii Hoys" when the in- 
 cipient village was still called Smiths- 
 town. I may pause to add that the 
 first defiance of the military authority 
 of Great Britain in America occurred 
 at old Fort Loudon after James Smith 
 and his followers defeated the Indian 
 traders in the Bis Cove in 1765 and 
 afterward besieged the garrison in the 
 fort until the arms taken from the 
 people in the mountains were surren- 
 dered. Even in Chambersburg it is 
 not unlikely that the surnajiie of its 
 founder will become a reminiscence 
 before many years have sped. 
 
 It is a strange feeling that comes 
 over a man who tries to repeople a 
 country as it was within fifty years 
 of its first settlement. If he goes on 
 a journey a missing ancestor is apt 
 to peep out at him from almost 
 every bush. With me on the trol- 
 ley as far as the eastern limits of 
 Stoufferstown is a journey of kaliedo- 
 scopic reveries. Passing the hospital 
 to the top of the hill on the new Bal- 
 timore avenue I am at once a subject 
 for many vivid impressions and mem- 
 ories. On my left is the Falling 
 Spring and in the far distance, al- 
 most behind me, I can catch a climpse 
 of the old Pritts house, built by Jos- 
 eph Chambers, a son of the founder 
 of Chambersburg, and inhabited for 
 many years my his son-in-law, the 
 Rev. John McKnight, and later by 
 Joseph Pritts, editor of the "Whig." 
 The quaint white mansion, now the 
 home of my friend, Augustus Duncan, 
 HiSq., was buiit by Judge James Rid- 
 dle, the grandfather of Mrs. Kennedy, 
 on what was originally the Baird plan- 
 tation. Thomas Baird, the first set- 
 tler, was the great-grandfather of the 
 distinguished scientist, the late Prof. 
 Spencer Fullerton Bairl, of the Smith- 
 sonian Institution. East of the Baird 
 land, along the Falling Spring, and 
 up Hawthorn Run to its source, was 
 the Gass tract. The Gasses were 
 fullers and the elder Benjamin Gass 
 built a fulling mill near where the 
 old StoufTer Mill has long stood. The 
 western part of the Gass tract was 
 sold to Robert Jack, who kept the first 
 tavern in Chambersburg on the site 
 of the old National Bank. The Jacks 
 
 were among the earliest settlers in 
 Guilford township. Patrick and James 
 Jack, brothers, were the first comers. 
 Patrick was one of the founders of 
 the Falling Spring Presbyterian 
 church. He removed to North Caro- 
 lina with his family. James was the 
 father of Robert Jack. He owned 
 the lands around New Franklin, after- 
 wards the Snyder farms. His other 
 sons were James, Patrick and John. 
 James settled near Newvllle and was 
 the father of a large family of sons 
 and daughters. His daughter, Mary 
 Jack, married John Herron, and be- 
 came the ancestress of the Herron 
 family of Pittsburgh. Patrick lived 
 in Hamilton township and was the 
 father of John Finley Jack, a member 
 of the Chambersburg Bar. It was 
 from this Patrick Jack that came the 
 famous myth of Captain Jack, some- 
 times called the "Wild Hunter of the 
 Juniat:a." When he was a young man 
 he was captain of a company of 
 scouts on the Conococheague and was 
 designated by Croghan to beat up the 
 savage allies of the French in front of 
 Braddock's march. With his men 
 dressed as Indians he appeared in 
 Braddock's camp, but his reception by 
 that doughty and self-sufficient war- 
 rior caused him to withdraw with his 
 command. He was afterward a cap- 
 tain in the Revolution, as was also his 
 nephew, John Jack, a son of Robert. 
 John Jack, the son of James, remov- 
 ed to Westmoreland county, where he 
 assisted in promulgating the Hannas- 
 town Declaration of Independence and 
 was active in defending the frontier 
 against the Indians during the Revolu- 
 tion. John Jack's daughter Mary mar- 
 ried William Thompson, a son of 
 Thomas Thompson, of Hamilton town- 
 ship. William Thompson and Mary 
 Jack were the great-grandparents of 
 Josiah V. Thompson, of Uniontown. 
 who was a prominent candidate for 
 the Republican nomination for Gover- 
 nor in 1906. The Gass lands passed 
 into the possession of Robert Jack's 
 sons, one of whom, James Jack, kept 
 the hotel in the public square in 
 Chambersburg in which the first 
 courts of Franklin county were held. 
 This Jack plantation extended across 
 Baltimore avenue and included the 
 famous Shetter's woods, in which Gen. 
 
Robert E. Lee had his headquarters in 
 1863. A part of the Jack farm be- 
 came the property of John Brown, the 
 first postmaster of Chambersburg. 
 Behind Shetter's woods, which are no 
 longer in existence, was the first 
 Chambersburg race course in the early 
 years of the nineteenth century. 
 
 A drive along the Falling Spring 
 road is exceedingly interesting. At 
 its beginning, a short distance east of 
 the Stoufferstown school house, the 
 Falling Spring once had an under- 
 ground passage, in which the Nugent 
 outlaws sometimes hid their plunder. 
 The Nugent homestead was further 
 up the Falling Spring, northeast of the 
 Reformed Mennonite Church. All this 
 territory, from the limits of Chanf- 
 bersburg almost to the head of the 
 Falling Spring, became the property 
 of Abraham Stouffer, the ancestor of 
 our Stouffer family, and included the 
 Baird and Gass tracts, the village of 
 Stoufferstown and the two Stouffer 
 mills. At the head of the Falling 
 Spring were the early Lindsay farms. 
 The Lindsays were one of the early 
 noteworthy families of Guilford town- 
 ship. Somebody must help me to 
 differentiate them and their descend- 
 ants before I can write their history. 
 Above the head of the Falling Spring 
 were the farms of two of my great- 
 grandfathers, Balser Oberkirsh and 
 Frederick Hoffman. I am at a loss 
 even when I attempt to write of my 
 own kin, although I spent a part of 
 my youth on the Hoffman land, then 
 the Geesaman farm. Adjoining the 
 Hoffman plantation was the home- 
 stead of John Forsyth, whose sons 
 were cousins and criminal associates 
 of the Nugents. To the southeast- 
 ward was the old Guilford Manor, of 
 which I might have something to say 
 it I were writing of land jobbing under 
 the Penns in the eighteenth century. 
 On this manor Edward Crawford ob- 
 tained large tracts of land, some of 
 which remains in the Crawford name 
 to this day. 
 
 A trip by automobile or a carriage 
 drive over the Bedford turnpike from 
 Chambersburg to Fort Loudon reveals 
 a romantic country once peopled by 
 historic families. This is especially 
 true of Hamilton township, including 
 the L north of the turnpike. On Back 
 
 Creek, above Brake's Mill, were the 
 plantations of William Ramsey, after- 
 wards owned by his sons William, 
 Thomas, Benjamin and John. Will- 
 iam Ramsey's descendants are to be 
 found in Pittsburgh, in Washington 
 county, Pa., and in Harrison county, 
 O., but strenuous efforts were requir- 
 ed on their behalf to identify the old 
 Ramsey homestead, and so far it has 
 been found impossible to establish 
 their exact relationship with the old 
 Ramsey family of Bucks county, to 
 which they undoubtedly belonged. 
 William Ramsey, the eldest son of 
 William Ramsey, the first settler, 
 was an ensign in active service in the 
 Revolution. He was a member of 
 Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church. 
 One would imagine that the Revolu- 
 tionary privileges to which his de- 
 scendants are entitled could not be in 
 doubt, but notwithstanding this ap- 
 parent certainty I was shown what 
 purported to be a full genealogy of 
 the family, no part of which was capa- 
 ble of verification. I believe that all 
 the Ramsey families of Franklin 
 county, of which there are three dis- 
 tinct branches, belong to the same 
 stock, but in all my efforts to trace 
 the connection the proofs have eluded 
 me. This is all the more to be re- 
 gretted because there is reason to be- 
 lieve that the Ramseys of Burnt 
 Cabins are descended from William 
 Ramsay, a brother of Dr. David Ram- 
 say, the distinguished historian, while 
 it is not improbable that Major James 
 Ramsey, the great-grandfather of 
 President Benjamin Harrison, was of 
 the same family. County records are 
 seldom sufficient to establish a lineage 
 of any family and, strange to say, 
 even with a family as noteworthy as 
 the Ramseys, Bible records are 
 scarce. 
 
 West of the Ramsey plantation, 
 partly in Hamilton and partly in St. 
 Thomas townships, were the Shields 
 lands and the broad acres of the Wil- 
 sons. Two of the Ramseys, Benjamin 
 and John, married Shields girls, sis- 
 ters, and the only living descendants 
 of John Wilson bear the Shields name. 
 Part of the WMlson lands were origi- 
 nally settled by Capt. Joseph Arm- 
 strong, an officer in the French and 
 Indian War and a member of the As- 
 
10 
 
 Senibly. He took great Interest In the 
 Construction of the "new road" for 
 (Jencral nraddock, even advancing 
 tjionej' for the payment of the road- 
 makers out of his own purse. On the 
 7th of August, 1755, while Dunbar, 
 the Tardy, was making his hasty 
 flight down the Cumberland Valley, he 
 organized a company of voluntary 
 associators among his neighbors for 
 the defense of the frontier against in- 
 cursions of the French and Indians. 
 His sons, John and Thomas, were pri- 
 vates Id this company. John Arm- 
 strong, the eldest son of Joseph, re- 
 moved to Orange county, N. C, before 
 the Revolution. His record in the 
 Revolution was a noteworthy one. 
 He entered the Continental service as 
 a captain in the 2nd North Carolina 
 Regiment, September 1, 1775; was 
 major of the 4th North Carolina from 
 October 6, 1777, to July 17, 1782; was 
 appointed deputy adjutant general to 
 General Gates, August 3, 1780; and 
 became lieutenant colonel of the 1st 
 Rej?iraent, North Carolina Line, July 
 17, 1782. He retired January 1, 1783. 
 He had a son Joseph. Thomas Arm- 
 strong, the second son of Captain Jos- 
 eph, removed to Orange county, N. C, 
 before the Revolution. He entered 
 the Continental service, April 16, 
 1776 ,as a first lieutenant in the 5th 
 Regiment, North Carolina Line, and 
 was promoted to be captain, October 
 25, 1777; he served to the close of the 
 war. Captain Armstrong was wound- 
 ed and taken prisoner at Fort Fayette, 
 June 1, 1779, — exchanged in December, 
 1779, he was captured the second 
 time at Charleston, May 22, 1780, and 
 exchanged in July, 1781. Joseph Arm- 
 strong, the third son of Joseph, the 
 elder, was born in the Conococheague 
 Valley in 1739 and died in 1811. He 
 was too young to be enrolled as a 
 member of his father's company, in 
 175.', but it is probable that he saw 
 service before the close of the French 
 and Indian War. In 1776 he was Colo- 
 nel of the 5th Battalion, Cumberland 
 county militia. Among the captains 
 of companies in his battalion were 
 
 Samuel Culbertson. George Matthews 
 and James McConnell, all members of 
 Rocky Spring Church. The Rev. John 
 Craighead, the pastor, was a private in 
 Captain Culbertsons company. The 
 battalion saw service in the winter 
 campaign of 1776-77. In his will he 
 left his farm on which he lived to 
 Joseph Armstrong, son of his brother 
 John, of Orange county, N. C, after 
 the death of his wife; the "upper 
 place" he directed to be sold and 
 named as beneficiaries of the fund — 
 Mary, daughter of Patrick Jack; Mary, 
 daughter of Robert McConanghy, and 
 wife of Jacob Cassatt; Samuel Arm- 
 strong and John, sons of John Flnley, 
 dec'd; Joseph Armstrong, son of John 
 ijiackburn, Ohio; and George Arm- 
 strong, Esq., of Greensburg, Pa. 
 Colonel Armstrong married Elizabeth 
 Flnley, daughter of John Flnley. Sh© 
 died March 11, 1820. They had no 
 children. James Armstrong, fourth 
 son of Joseph, the elder, was colonel 
 of the 8th Regiment, North Carolina 
 Line, from November 26, 1776, to June 
 1, 1778. He afterward commanded a 
 regiment of Rangers, and was report- 
 ed among the killed and wounded at 
 Stone Ferry, June 29, 1779. William 
 Armstrong, fifth son of Joseph, the 
 elder, removed to Orange county, N. 
 C, before the Revolution, where some 
 of his descendants still own the old 
 homestead. He entered the Continen- 
 tal service, January 4, 1776, as an en- 
 sign In the 1st North Carolina Regl- 
 met, and was promoted to be second 
 lieutenant, April 10, 1776, first lieuten- 
 ant, January 1, 1777, and captain, Au- 
 gust 29, 1777. He retired January 1. 
 1783. Captain Armstrong was wound- 
 ed at Ramsour's Mill, June 20, 1780. 
 The family Is now extinct In Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 I would like tu continue my journey 
 around Mt. Parnell and visit the early 
 settlers — the Dixons, the Campbells 
 and the McDowells — In their homes, 
 but time admonishes me that the way 
 is long and that I have taxed your at- 
 tention sufficiently. 
 
Mm 
 
 ll'Jciff 
 
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