James Cameron had already experienced a full life and retired to his farm in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania when he was urged to take command of a regiment of New York Highlanders in the Civil War. Historians report Colonel Cameron was the first soldier from Northumberland County to lose his life in the war. He was also the first officer of his rank in the Union Army and the first officer from Pennsylvania to fall in battle.
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William McKnight was one of the first settlers to apply for land in Northumberland County when the land office opened on April 13th, 1769. He was chosen as a member of the Committee of Safety for the county at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1776. However, both he and his wife died at the hands of Indians near Fort Freeland a few years later.
There are thousands and thousands of names associated with counties, towns, villages, and townships across Pennsylvania. They are all named for someone or something. What began as a hobby resulted in a book for a professor at Pennsylvania State College (Penn State University) in 1925. I've included a few of those origins in this post. Possibly it will inspire readers to investigate what's in a name in their communities.
The trials and subsequent hangings of two people in Montour County Pennsylvania for poisoning their spouses brought extensive newspaper coverage in 1857 and 1858. While many felt William John Clark was guilty of the crimes, more than one-hundred-and-sixty-five years later, questions remain on the guilt or innocence of Mary Twiggs. The last few hours of her life were recorded by local newspapers.
One of the most popular hymn writers in America, Robert Lowry graduated from the University of Lewisburg (Bucknell University) where he later taught and became Chancellor. “Shall We Gather at the River,” “Christ Arose” and “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” are among his best-known hymns, among the more than 500 he is credited with writing. "Shall We Gather At The River" is one of his most recognized but not his favorite hymn. He shared a humorous story on how well the hymn was liked. "Going from Harrisburg to Lewisburg once I got into a car filled with half-drunken lumbermen. Suddenly one of them struck up, "Shall We Gather at the River?"
Catherine Smith, widowed during the Revolutionary War, built a grist mill, and a sawmill, which were completed and in operation in the summer of 1775 on White Deer Creek. During the summer of 1776, there was an urgent demand for rifles for the Continental Army and for the use of the old men and boys who remained at home to protect the women and children from the sudden attacks of the Indians, while they were doing the work about the farm and the fireside. So, Catherine Smith installed a boring mill, and the records show that a great number of gun barrels were bored there. Pennsylvania named a mountain in her honor in 1925.
Philip Tome was an early settler of northern Pennsylvania who dictated the adventures of his life to a daughter shortly before he died. She wrote it down in shorthand, and it was published. Tome tells readers, “In presenting the following incidents of my life, to the public, I do not intend to claim for it beauty of expression, for it is the production of one born in the wilderness; one who is more conversant with the howl of the wolf and panther, and the whoop of the savage, than the tones of oratory, as heard in civilized life. "
Two Declarations of Independence were signed on July 4th of 1776 in Pennsylvania, one by the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia. The second was signed by illegal squatters, known as the Fair Play men in northcentral Pennsylvania.
Bishop Francis Asbury, the first of two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States preached in Sunbury, and a Montour County man with a familiar family name were both instrumental in early Methodism in Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Valley.
We’ve all heard the stories, and the saying that “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction.” It’s difficult at times to separate the facts from the folklore associated with many of the lumbermen, and the raftsmen, who plied their trade in the Susquehanna and Juniata Valley’s. Such is the case of a raftsman known as Cherry Tree Joe McCreery. The stories associated with Cherry Joe’s exploits are a mixture of truth and myth.
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