In 1782 James Lyon, a boy of six, was captured by the Indians in a Westmoreland County raid and remained with his captors until 1785 when by terms of the Treaty of Fort McIntosh he was returned to the Fort and then to his home.
So impressed had he been by his life at Fort McIntosh that he returned to Beaver in 1800 as a merchant and in 1803 married Electa Smith, daughter of a Revolutionary general and Beaver's first school "marm". By a patent from Governor Mifflin in 1808 he received a tract of land at Third and Commerce and here raised a family of nine, many of whose descendants are familiar Beaver Valley names, Darragh, Lacock, Wilson and Allison.
After his death the property was purchased, and was used successively as a hotel, as a school for the Beaver Academy, and then became the National Hotel. In 1887 part of the land was sold to the Park United Presbyterian Church and the building to Senator Matthew Stanley Quay, who in turn sold it to attorney James Cunningham who had enlisted there at the hotel as a drummer boy in the Civil War.
It became the Parkview Apartments and in 1975 was razed to provide space for parking and activity areas of the Park United Presbyterian Church, the owner of the property.