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EDITORIAL NOTE:
We have decided to feature in this issue excerpts taken from Bausman's History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania and its Centennial Celebration, 1904.
The name "Beaver" was doubtless given to the county from the stream and town so called which were within its limits at the time of its erection, and the town had been named from the stream. As to the origin of the name of the stream itself, we need be in no doubt. It was a translation into English of the Indian word for beaver, after which much-prized animal the aborigines had named the stream. This word in the Delaware tongue was Amockwi. The Delawares called the stream
Amockwi-sipu or Amockwi-hanne, literally, "Beaver stream." They gave this name to the creek on account of its being a favorite home of the beaver. The French, who were the first whites to reach this region, merely translated the Indian name for the stream, calling it, as we learn from a map in Pouchot's Memoires, "Riviere au Castor" ("Beaver River"), and the English, when they came, did the same thing, as all the early journals, etc., as Weiser's, Post's, and Croghan's, name the stream Beaver. Previous to the laying out of a town and outlots at the mouth of this stream, under the Act of September 28, 1791, the point was known by the Indian names of Sawkunk and Shingoe's town, and by the English as "the old French town"; later it was called McIntosh, from the fort there, and the town laid out by the legislative action referred to was called Beaver, and, in intention at least, marked as the county seat of the new county which was in near prospect of erection. It was natural, therefore, that when the time arrived for the erection of that county, it should receive a name associated with the most important stream and locality belonging distinctively to its territory, and it was accordingly called BEAVER.
Fort McIntosh stood on the wide plateau on which the town of Beaver, the county-seat of Beaver County, is built, on the verge of the high bank above the Ohio River, its southwest bastion being perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet from the end of the present Market Street. It is difficult to arrive at a correct impression of the appearance which the structure presented. It is described as having been a regular stockade work but the only picture of it which has any claim to genuineness represents it as being built of timbers laid in courses like masonry. This picture, of which we give a reproduction on the opposite page, should however, be correct, as it was published in the Columbian Magazine, of Philadelphia, within a month or two of the date of the demolition of the fort, and was accompanied with the following text.
FORT McINTOSH was situated upon a high flat, or level piece of ground on the west (north) side of the Ohio, and about half a mile below the junction of that river with Beaver-River, commonly known by the name of Big-Beaver Creek. It consisted of a number of log buildings which altogether formed nearly a tetragon, at each corner of which there was a bastion. The Fort was entirely built of logs; and the houses for the accommodation of the officers and soldiers were very commodious; they were roofed with shingles, and the windows were glazed.
This fort was built by General McIntosh in 1779 (read 1778, Ed.); and has, lately, been entirely demolished; it having been deemed unnecessary to continue a garrison of soldiers at this part of the Ohio. The latitude of this place is 40 degrees, 41', 36".
In the closing part of March, 1790, Jacob Colvin and his wife Mary started in the morning from the house of Mrs. Colvin's father, Samuel Van Swearingen, to prepare for their home a house and garden on the farm which is now occupied by William Ramsey, and owned by John Morton, situated in Hanover Township. This couple had been married something over a year, and took with them their child. They had worked all the forenoon and were on their way back to the house; Mrs. Colvin riding behind her husband on the same horse, and carrying her little child, perhaps four months old, upon her lap. Without any warning, when about one half mile from her father's house, and on his farm, two sharp rifle-shots rang out upon the air and the balls passed through her body, and also through the arm and side of the husband. The husband and wife both fell from the horse.
Mr. Colvin got to his feet and endeavored to assist his wife, but, seeing that she was beyond help, and that the Indians were approaching, he managed to get on his horse and escaped to the house. The shooting attracted the attention of the neighbors, and within a couple of hours a rescuing party was formed and proceeded to the place of the murder. They found the body of Mrs. Colvin, who had been scalped, and that of her babe, which had been brained upon the side of a tree. Other neighbors soon arrived and a party was formed which followed the retreating savages to the bank of the river at the mouth of King's Creek in what is now Hancock County, W.Va. The pursuers did not dare to cross the river and that was the end of their search. Among the settlers, who followed on this search, were James Whitehill and William Langfitt, grandfather of Joseph A. Langfitt, President of the Federal National Bank of Pittsburgh, Pa. This murder was the last committed by the Indians within what is now Beaver County.
The first section of this Act defined the limits of Beaver County as follows:
That those parts of the counties of Allegheny and Washington included within the following boundaries, viz., Beginning at the mouth of Big Sewickley Creek on the Ohio River; thence up the said creek to the west line of Alexander's District of Depreciation Lands; thence northerly along the said line and continuing the same course to the north line of the first donation district; thence westerly along the said line to the western boundary of the State; thence southerly along the said boundary across the Ohio River to a point in the said boundary, from which a line to be run at a right angle easterly will strike White's Mill on Raccoon Creek, and from such point along the said easterly line to the said mill, leaving the said mill in the County of Beaver; thence on a straight line to the mouth of Big Sewickley Creek, the place of beginning; be, and the same is
hereby erected into a separate county to be henceforth called Beaver County; and the place of holding the courts of justice shall be at Beavertown, in the said county.
The construction of roads in a region so generously provided by nature with streams and rivers as is Beaver County, necessitates the building of bridges, and this work was early undertaken in the county. The bridges erected in this county were generally of the most primitive kind, and were built of wood, but many have in recent years been replaced by strong and beautiful structures of stone and steel. But several of the earlier bridges were quite substantial. A good bridge was built over the Conoquenessing on the New Brighton and New Castle grade. One over Raccoon Creek, Murdocksville was noted in its day, and has now been replaced by a fine iron structure built jointly by Beaver and Washington Counties, the dividing line between the counties being right on the bridge.
In the great modern development of "rapid transit" by street railways, and in the application of electricity as the motive-power and for other uses, Beaver County has had her part. September 17, 1884, the Beaver Valley Street Railway Company was organized, and obtained its charter on the 23rd of that month in the same year. Ground was broken for this road, May 6, 1885, and it was opened for travel July 4th of that year. The capital stock of the company was $30,000. Horse cars were used, which ran from the station of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway in New Brighton, through that town and Beaver Falls, to the foot of College Hill.
The first officers of this company were: M.L. Knight, President; Colonel Jacob Weyand, Vice-President; J.F. Merriman, Secretary and Treasurer; Hon. Henry Hice, John Reeves, Jacob Weyand, J.C. Whitla, H.W. Reeves, Joseph Snellenburg, and M.L. Knight, Directors: and Lycurgus Richardson, Superintendent. On the resignation of J.C. Whitla and Joseph Snellenburg their places were taken by George W. Coates and James M. May.
This road was sold to the Beaver Valley Traction Company in July, 1891. By them the line was extended and opened through for traffic to Beaver, December 5, 1891, the motive-power being changed to electricity.
Beaver County may be said to be in general a very healthful region. In its principal towns, boards of health are established, which discharge measurably well their duties. Two well-equipped hospitals, the Beaver Valley General Hospital at New Brighton, and the Beaver County General Hospital at Rochester, are doing good work, and are generously supported by the citizens of the county. Their history is briefly given below.
This region has been comparatively free from serious epidemics of dangerous diseases. Smallpox has rarely shown itself in epidemic form. Cholera made its appearance here during the periods in which it became prevalent throughout the Union. Great alarm was felt and there were fatal cases in different sections of the county. The disease first appeared in July, 1834. The first case was that of Samuel Hooper, who contracted it in Louisville, Ky. He got as far as Freedom on the steamboat Byron, where he died. The next case was that of Captain Ephraim Knowles, of the steamboat Eclipse, who was set ashore at the mouth of the Big Beaver, and died in five hours after being stricken. In August of that year the village of Fallston suffered severely from the disease. On the eighth of the month Dr. Chamberlin reported the following deaths from cholera asphyxia as occurring under his observation.James Mcllroy, Douglas McIlroy, Mary Smith, Mary Worcester, Robert McCreary, Mrs. Baxter, Thomas Sloane, Richard Baxter, and John Collier, all of Fallston. Other fatal cases were those of James Fowler, James Alexander, Mrs. Venatta, Mrs. Dean, Mrs. Gormley, James Courtright, John Murphy, and Alexander Murphy.
A teacher of national reputation, who taught in the common schools of the county, and who was for a year and a half principal of the old Beaver Academy, was the Rev. John W. Scott, D.D., LL.D., father of the first wife and grandfather of the second wife of the late exPresident Benjamin Harrison. He was born in Hookstown, January 22, 1800. He was for over four years the Professor of Mathematics in Washington College, Washington, Pa.; for over sixteen years a professor in Miami University; four years in Farmer's, now Belmont, College, which he aided in establishing; ten years in Oxford Female College; eight years in Hanover College; two years in the Presbyterial Academy of the old Presbytery of Sangamon at Springfield, Ill.; and seven years in Monongahela College, Pa.; in all an educational career, including the period of four years in which he assisted his father, Rev. George M. Scott of Mill Creek, in preparing students for college, of over sixty years. He was at the time of his death probably the oldest educator in the land.
Other prominent educators who were born in Beaver County, but whose work was, for the most part, done outside of the county, were Rev. A.M. Reid, Ph.D., long the principal of Steubenville (Ohio) Female Seminary-, A.R. Whitehill, Professor of Physics in the West Virginia University, Morgantown, W.Va.; G.A. Langley, J.M. Schaffer, D.K. Cooper, S.B. Todd, William M. McCollough, and D.C. Coffee.
The first paper published in Beaver County of which any copy is known to be in existence was the Minerva of Beavertown, issued every Saturday by John Berry; the first number being dated November 4,1807. It was a four-page sheet, the pages ten and a half by seventeen inches in size, and was sold at two dollars per year. The motto of the paper, taken from Cowper's Task, was: "This folio of four pages; happy work! What is it but a map of busy life, its quotations and its vast concerns." In the center of the head-line was a somewhat crude representation of the goddess whose name it bears (Minerva). The first and second pages were taken up with European news. The third page had a notice that Coulter, Bever & Bowman had begun building a paper-mill at the mouth of the Little Beaver; and also the proclamation of Governor Thomas McKean, offering a reward of $500 for the arrest and conviction of the person who murdered James Hamilton, September 23rd last past; said Hamilton having accompanied William B. Irish, deputy marshal in the District of Pennsylvania, George Holdship, Esq., and Eunion Williams, agent of the Pennsylvania Population Company, to dispose William Foulkes.
The editor said, "The Minerva shall be strictly impartial, free from influence of party and political prejudice. He will not assume the office of Dictator and will gladly receive and publish political essays when such are written with moderation and couched in respectful languages. It shall never become the channel through which partizans may give vent to their gall."
The Beaver Falls Union and Beaver County Advocate, published weekly by the Beaver Falls Press Association, the successor of the Gazette, was begun January 6,1838, with B.B. Chamberlin, Esq., as editor. It was a six-column four-page paper, subscription price, two dollars per year, and contained a large amount of reading matter, mostly general news, political and miscellaneous reading, but not much attention was paid to the local news. It was the only paper then in the county outside of Beaver. It war, a strong Whig paper. B.B. Chamberlin, Esq., retired from the paper, January 12, 1839, and gave his reasons in an editorial one column in length, dwelling on the necessity of a paper. During his work on the paper, his office was in New Brighton, while the publication office was in Fallston.
The paper was continued in operation until March 2, 1839, when it was discontinued, the last paper published in Fallston. After that time the papers representing the two towns were wholly operated in New Brighton.
The New Brighton Times was started October 21, 1857, by W.H. Johnston of Butler, Pa. It was a neat paper, but was short-lived, being discontinued the latter part of the same year. January 21, 1858, it was revived by William B. Lemmon, who had an interest in the Butler American, which he sold to his partner in January, 1858. Mr. Lemmon was born in Lancaster County, Pa., December 9,1809, and died June 25,1879. He moved to Butler in early life, where he was educated and taught school in that county. Later he went to Allegheny and learned the tinner's trade, and went back to Butler County. He worked in the old car factory in New Brighton for a while, operating a hydraulic press. After the suspension of his paper he worked in Merrick & Company's foundry. The Times was published in the old Shuster building. The paper was discontinued in 1865.
February 28,1866, O.P. Wharton printed a paper in Allegheny, Pa., and dated it at New Brighton, called the Beaver Falls New Era. It lasted but a few weeks.
