The Legend of Braddock's Gold During the time of his expedition into the North Huntingdon area, General Edward Braddock camped one evening with his army near what is now known as Circleville. That evening, Braddock sent two scouts to locate the river which he knew was nearby. These scouts traveled down the valley along the Crawford run area and finally came to the Youghiogheny River; however, these men did not know its true name. After this discovery, the two scouts returned to the Three Springs encampment and told Braddock they had found the river. Braddock then called his troops together and told them the scouts had located the river. According to the map George Washington had drawn for him, they were not too far away from Fort Duquesne where they had planned to attack the French and Indians. At this time, Braddock suggested they should have counsel among themselves in regard to the King's gold they were carrying for the payroll. Braddock requested that the men wait until after the battle to get paid because a number of them would be killed. Therefore, he reasoned there would be fewer to divide the gold. The men voted in favor of Braddock's plan. Braddock then suggested they hide the gold instead of taking it into battle, lest it fall into the hands of the French and Indians. It was decided that the two guides, with General Braddock as witness, would retrace their trail to the river and cache the gold until after the battle. The three followed Crawford Run to the river, buried the gold under a walnut tree, and returned to the camp. On the twelfth day of the expedition, the army moved out towards what was known as Charlie Larimer's farm. There they turned south in the direction of the river, thinking it was the Monongahela, though it was the Youghiogheny. They followed the river banks to the forks of another river located at what is now called McKeesport. This second river was the Monongahela, but Braddock thought it to be the Allegheny River. They crossed the Monongahela into what is now Duquesne. When they started down the river valley, they saw the Turtle Creek Valley, located on General Washington's maps. Realizing the mistake, they re-crossed the river at a point now known as the city of Braddock. The French and Indians were waiting in a narrow passage to ambush Braddock and his army. The result was a near massacre, with General Braddock mortally wounded. The remnant of the army hurriedly retreated up the valley of the Monongahela, eventually marching to Uniontown. There on top of the summit, Braddock's body was buried at a site near Fort Necessity. But what about Braddock's gold? It still remains buried somewhere near the Youghiogheny River. Top
of Page The western or Scotch-Irish Presbyterian settlement occurred largely in the areas of Circleville, Cavitt's Mills, and Robbin's Station. The first white settlers in what is now North Huntingdon Township were Mr. and Mrs. Mathias Cowan, who came in a covered cart in which they lived until building a cabin in the wilderness. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Cowan's brother, Abner Gray, was captured by the Indians. Among the earliest settlers were Colonel John Irwin and his brother, James, the Scotch-Irish progenitors of the Irwin family. After arrival in what later became North Huntingdon Township, Colonel Irwin began trading with the Indians. He took up a large tract that included the land on which the present borough of Irwin stands. His brother James settled on the site of Jacksonville (Jacktown). James' son, John, founded the town of Irwin. Not long after the arrival of the Irwins, a large number of other Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled along Brush Creek and to the north. Among these were the Boyds, Marshalls, Corrys, McCormicks, Osbornes, Simpsons, Temples, Wilsons, and Shaws. Most of them came after the Revolution and before 1796. The Township of Huntingdon was founded on April 6, 1773. At the same time, newly formed Westmoreland County was subdivided by the townships of Fairfield, Donegal, Hempfield, Pitt, Tyrone, Springhill, Menallen, Rostraver, and Armstrong. The incorporation took place at the first regular session of the Hannastown Court meeting in Robert Hanna's log hotel. The first county seat was located on the Forbes Trail three and a half miles northeast of the present town of Greensburg. Named after a place in England, Huntingdon's boundaries began at the mouth of Brush Run where it empties into Brush Creek. It went along Byerly's Path to Braddock's Road, then continued to the lines that marked the townships of Mount Pleasant, Tyrone, and Pitt. Huntingdon was later divided into smaller townships of North Huntingdon, East Huntingdon, and Sewickly. Shortly after Pontiac's War and the Battle of Bushy Run, a settlement known as Fort Waltour was started in the vicinity of Strawpump and Penglyn. Included among these early settlers were the Marchands, Studebakers, Whiteheads, Willards, Walthours, Sams, Sowashes, Harrolds, Millers, and Kunkles. Many of these early pioneers were of German extraction. After the Revolutionary War, there were disputes over whether Westmoreland was a part of Virginia or Pennsylvania. Governor Dunmore of Virginia, who claimed the area as part of Virginia, sent raiding parties of Indians and whites dressed as Indians to plague settlers of this region. Frequent attacks and massacres occurred in Huntingdon during the period known as Dunmore's War. Blockhouses were constructed throughout the area to protect the settlers during Indian attacks. Attacks occurred at Fort Walthour, Colonel Irwin's trading post at Brush Hill, Marshall's home at Circleville, the Brush Creek Lutheran Church, Davis's home, and Bryn Mawr. The dispute reached its peak with the burning of Hannastown in 1782. Violence erupted again in the township during the 1790's preceding the Whiskey Rebellion. Farmers demonstrated against a tax on the distillation of whiskey, and levied for the purpose of obtaining funds to help pay the Revolutionary War debt. A society known as "Tom the Tinker" threatened local residents who paid the tax by sabotaging stills. One of the well known journalists who spoke out against the whiskey tax was George Scull, founder of the Pittsburgh Gazette (now called the Pittsburgh Post Gazette). Huntingdon's principle stream was Brush Creek, the famous tributary during the seventeen hundreds in the Battle of Bushy Run during Pontiac's Conspiracy. North Huntingdon claimed it when the original township was divided. The first mills in the western part of the colonies were located on the banks of Brush Creek. Until 1852, when the Pennsylvania Railroad was constructed, North Huntingdon's chief industry was farming. After that, for more than three quarters of a century, it became one of the leading townships in the production of bituminous coal. Top of Page Coal was first used in this area by British soldiers at Fort Pitt before 1760. Coal was mined by the Guffeys and shipped in flatboats down the river to be sold in Pittsburgh as early as 1819, and small surface mines were operated by local farmers to supply their own needs. The coming of railroads allowed coal to become a major product. It allowed coal to be cheaply transported to cities to generate energy and make living more comfortable. The first railroad was built in the township in 1852. The first coal mine was opened in 1854 by Thomas A. Scott who was later to become the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The old "North Side" or "Oak Grove" was the first mine. It was a slope mine, sloping into the coal seam in the hillside of North Irwin, just to the North of the Irwin railroad station. In 1854, the Westmoreland Coal Company's Larimer slope mine was opened. Pulling two wheeled carts out of a slope mine was a slow way of removing coal. A faster method was drilling a shaft straight down some 200 feet to the coal seam and hoisting the coal out with steam power as was then being done in Wales, England. The first mine shaft sunk in the Pittsburgh coal region was east of Irwin at Shafton. In 1857, Hays, who owned the land east of the Union Cemetery, Warden, who owned between the cemetery and Irwin, and Shaw, who owned the land North of Brush Creek formed the Shafton Coal Company, which was sold to the Westmoreland Coal Company in 1880. The "Penn Shaft" of Shafton was located on the North side of present Rt. 993, about 200 feet east of Lime St. Other shaft mines were quickly opened. After the mines were opened, men were needed to work in them. They came from many countries; first from England, Wales, and the German mines. These first miners were generally made bosses because they spoke English and knew mining. Later, around 1890, the Irish and Scandinavians came here. Tenth Street in Irwin had a Swede Lutheran Church. With jobs to be had in the "New World" a flood of immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe to work in the mines. Passage was cheap. In 1904, passage to America was ten dollars, and Coal Companies paid agents two dollars per man to get workers. The work was hard. Miners were only paid for the usable coal they dug. Life in Europe was harder and most miners stayed to help build America. Wages were low compared to modern wages, but it was a better living than in Europe for most miners. In 1854, wages were thirty cents per ton of usable coal, loaded into a twelve and a half bushel (half a ton) mining car. Miners did not get paid for slate or coal powder. In 1872, the wage went up to seventy-five cents per ton, but the panic of 1873 and the oversupply of coal cut the wages to fifty cents per ton or two cents per bushel in 1876. Early miners were singers. There were long periods of waiting underground for the coal train to come, and singing helped to kill the loneliness of working underground. Typical was a song they sung about the 1876 wage cut. "Oh the bosses tricks of '76 they met with some success Until the hand of God came down and made them do with less They robbed the honest miner lad and drunk his flowin' bowl Through poverty we were compelled to dig them two cent coal" In 1889, the average daily wage for a Pennsylvania soft coal miner was $1.85. Miners did not work a full work year. At times they worked less than 100 days. The coal miner laborer was paid ten cents per hour for this twelve hour day. In 1900 the day was reduced to ten hours, and in 1912 to an eight hour day. The political power of the mine owners in North Huntingdon Township cannot be overestimated. By 1900, over one half of the male voters (there were no female voters then) worked in the coal mines. There were no organized mine unions. No federal laws protected the worker. The coal company owned the newspapers, so the mine owners policies prevailed. An example of the politics of that era is the fact that many miners got their first ride in a gasoline automobile in the 1908 elections. They would be carried from one mine town to another in an open car, told what name to sign in the voting place, vote for the mine owner's choice, then ride in the motorcar to the next mine town. A long struggle freed the miner's from the owner's yoke. Strikes came in 1894, 1897, 1910 (which lasted one and a half years), 1919 (when John L. Lewis was jailed by President Wilson), and in 1922 from April 1 to August 7. Large wage gains and improved working conditions resulted under President Franklin Roosevelt's administration with the passage of favorable union laws. Top of Page Townships were laid out by action of the local justices of the peace sitting as the county court of quarter session, subdividing the county for purposes of road maintenance, administering poor relief, conducting elections and collecting taxes. In 1803, the General Assembly regularized this process in a statute authorizing local courts to create townships within each county. Townships were also created by a special act of the General Assembly until this practice was prohibited by the Constitution of 1874. During the colonial period and the early republic, most township officers were appointed by county officials or the county court. The first general township law was enacted in 1834. Officers of Townships in the nineteenth century included assessors, three supervisors, a treasurer, a town clerk, three auditors and a constable. The assessing function gradually migrated to the county level, while collection of real estate taxes became fixed at the township level. The first law classifying townships was enacted in 1899. All townships became townships of the second class, except those certified to have a population density of 300 persons or more per square mile. The original law provided for automatic transfer into the first class upon certification of the required population density. About ten townships around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were certified as first class townships in 1900 and began to operate under the new form in1901. The 1917 Township Law provided for both first and second class townships. Separate laws for first class townships were enacted in 1931 and for second class townships in 1933. The First Class Township Law of 1931 ended automatic transfer into the first class when population density exceeded 300 per square mile. Approval of the voters in a referendum has since been required to create a first class township out of a second class township. The maximum number of possible wards was capped at fifteen by law. First class townships received important protection against annexation of territory by adjoining municipalities through the requirement of approval of any annexation by referendum vote of the entire township in 1937. Similar protection was long sought by second class townships, but was not finally achieved until after the 1968 amendments to the state constitution. This distinction encouraged creation of many first class townships The 1931 law was amended and reenacted as the First Class Township Code of 1949. This is the current Code, but has been amended in every session of the legislation since 1949. With the widespread use of the automobile in the 1920s, population and housing units began dispersing out of the states urban centers, with the trend accelerating after the end of World War II. First class townships' favorable location on the fringe of the growing metropolitan areas brought rapid growth in population. The past fifteen years have witnessed a peaking in the population of older, more central townships as the crest of population growth has moved out beyond them . Many have become mature, fully developed municipalities. Townships are given power and acknowledged the right to
use that power to circumscribe individual rights for the good of society at
large. People living in society need rules to govern their behavior. Government
is the vehicle which writes and enforces these necessary rules. Local government
performs this function for the community it governs. |
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