AREA HISTORY:  History of Adams County, Chapter XIII, Adams County, PA

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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 71-78

CHAPTER XIII.

SKETCHES AND ETCHINGS-THE MCCLEANS-THE MCPHERSONS-GEN.REED-DR. CRAWFORD-COL. 
STAGLE-COL. GRIER-VICTOR KING-JUDGE BLACK-THADDEUS STEVENS-PATRICK MCSHERRY-COL. 
HANCE HAMILTON-THE CULPS-WILLIAM MCCLELLAN-CAPT. BETTINGER-JAMES COOPER.

The McCleans.-Among the earliest settlers in this portion of Pennsylvania, 1733, 
was William McClean, a Scotchman.  From this man has come a long race of eminent 
and influential men.  In Illinois is the rich and populous county of McClean, 
and in the southern portion of the same State is the town of McLeansboro, and 
from the Atlantic at least west to the Mississippi are to be found evidences of 
the McClean family in the lineal and latteral lines in nearly every State.  The 
name is spelled McClean mostly, as used by the family in Pennsylvania, but 
frequently the capital “C” is dropped, as we find it in Illinois.  The original 
William McClean settled in Montgomery County, and in two years removed to York 
County.  He had nine children.  His first was Archibald and second Moses, and as 
these two and their families are part of the history of York and Adams County, 
we confine our record to them.  Archibald was born October 26, 1736.

The other sons, younger brothers of Archibald and Moses, were William, Samuel, 
John, James and Alexander, all surveyors, and all at one time or another 
assistants to the eldest, Archibald, in the survey of what is now Mason and 
Dixon’s line.  Archibald and Moses became deputy surveyors of York County, 
Abraham in the east part of the county, and Moses in what is now Adams County.  
They laid out “Carroll’s Delight,” and Archibald, Moses and William, three 
brothers, secured fine farms in this tract.  All the McCleans were early and 
distinguished defenders of their country in the days of the Revolution.  
Archibald was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1776.  He was 
president of a revolutionary meeting in York for “taking effectual measures for 
putting a stop to forestalling, extortion and the depreciation of the 
continental currency.”  This was June 18, 1779.  No men in the country were more 
active and prominent in these terrible times than the McCleans.  Archibald lost 
nearly all his property by the depreciation of the continental money.

Moses McClean was born January 10, 1737, in what is now Adams County.  He died 
September 10, 1810.  Col. Moses McClean was one of the distinguished citizens 
and soldiers of the Revolution, being one of the first captains mustered into 
the service in Col. Hartley’s Eleventh Regiment, Pennsylvania line.  In 1780-83 
he was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature.  The eldest of Moses McClean’s 
children was William, who was born in York (Adams) County in 1777, in Carroll’s 
Tract, and died December 23, 1846, aged sixty-nine years.  His first-born was 
Moses, born in 1804, on his father’s farm in Carroll’s Tract.  He died September 
30, 1870.  William’s first-born was Moses, the father of Hon. William McClean, 
the present (1886) president judge of the court in this district.  The last 
above mentioned Moses McClean was born in this county in 1804; died in 
Gettysburg September 30, 1870.  He was a member of Congress in the twenty-ninth 
session-1845-47.  In 1855, the time of the Know-nothing party excitement, he was 
induced by the conservative element to become a candidate and serve a term in 
the State Legislature.  He was a member of Congress when war declared against 
Mexico.  

Ensign Jacob Barnitz, of Col. Swope’s regiment in the Revolution, married Miss 
McClean, a sister of Archibald and Moses McClean.  Barnitz and Moses McClean 
were prisoners, and suffered greatly at the hands of the British.  Barnitz was 
severely wounded and lost a leg.  The old hero, Moses McClean, removed to 
Chillicothe, Ohio, where he gained new honors and the trust and love of the 
people, and here he died September 10, 1810.

The McPhersons is another of the early and distinguished families which were 
here among the first, and for more than 150 years they have an unbroken line of 
leading and important citizens, each succeeding generation adding luster to the 
original.  (For full particulars of the family genealogy see Hon. Edward 
McPherson’s biography.)

Gen. William Reed was an officer in the Third Battalion of York County Militia 
during the Revolution.  He was chosen a member of the convention which framed 
the second constitution of Pennsylvania in 1790; became brigade inspector of 
York County Militia, April 25, 1800, and member of the State Senate from 1800 to 
1804; appointed adjutant-general of the State of Pennsylvania August 4, 1811; 
took sick and suddenly died June 15, 1813, at New Alexandria, Westmoreland Co., 
Penn., while organizing the State militia during the war of 1812-1815.  His 
remains were interred near Millerstown (now Fairfield), Adams County.

Hon. William Crawford, M. D., was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1760, received a 
classical education, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
and received his degree in 1791; emigrated to York County (now Adams County), 
and located near the present site of Gettysburg, purchased a farm on Marsh Creek 
in 1795, and spent the remainder of his life there practicing medicine among his 
friends, with the exception of intervals in which he was elected to office.  He 
was an associate judge, and was elected to represent York district in the 
Eleventh Congress, in 1808, as a Democrat or Republican, as the name was then 
generally termed.  He was re-elected to the Twelfth Congress to represent York 
District and to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses to represent a new 
district formed, of which Adams County was a part, serving continuously from 
1809 to 1817, after which he resumed the practice of medicine.  He died in 1823.  
Mrs. Edward McPherson is a granddaughter of Dr. Crawford.

Col. Henry Slagle (original spelling of this name was Schlegel) was born in 
Lancaster County, in 1735, a son of Christopher Slagle of Saxony, who came to 
this county in 1713, and put up a mill, one of the first, on Conestoga Creek.  
He was a soldier of the Revolution, commanding a battalion of Associators in 
1779; a member of the Provincial Conference and of the Convention of July, 1776; 
was appointed to take subscriptions for the Continental loan; was a member of 
the Assembly 1777-79; a member of the Constitutional Convention 1789-90, and 
associate judge in 1791.  He represented Adams County in the Legislature of 
1801-02.  An ardent patriot, faithful officer and an upright citizen.

Col. David Grier was born in Mount Pleasant, Adams (York) County, in 1742.  
Studied law and became a lawyer in 1771.  Became a captain in Col. William 
Irvine’s regiment for the war on independence.  His commission dated January 9, 
1776, and he was promoted major October 25, 1776.  He then was made lieutenant-
colonel of the Seventh Pennsylvania, and commanded the regiment after Col. 
Irvine became a prisoner.

Victor King had nine children:  Jean, born November 16, 1746; Hugh, born January 
19, 1750; James born September 22, 1753; Agnes, born March 10, 1756; Victor, 
born July 30, 1758.  The dates of the birth of Martha, Susana, William and 
Louisa Moffet King are illegible.  The brothers of Victor King, Sr., were James 
King, died in 1799, aged eighty-five; William King, died in 1794, aged eighty-
two years.  The three brothers, Victor, James and William, were the first 
settlers on the upper Great Conowago, tradition fixing the date of their coming 
as 1735.  Hugh King married Miss Vorhees in 1780.  This family brought the first 
foot-stove that was ever in the county.  The Kings, Bells and Vorhees families 
intermarried, and their representatives have been pioneers, treading closely 
upon the heels of the savages to the Mississippi, and their descendants are 
found among the most prominent people of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.  
The settlement of the Kings was called Tyrone and here were the early strong and 
characteristic men of the county found-Hance Hamilton, the McGrews, McIlhennys, 
Rosses and others.

Judge Jeremiah S. Black’s ancestors were Scotch-Irish and German.  The Blacks 
settled in what is now the southwestern part of Adams County, where James Black 
was married to Jane McDonough.  The brothers, Matthew, James and John Black, 
came from the north of Ireland about 1730, and landed in Philadelphia, where 
Matthew remained, but James and John pushed west across the Susquehanna to Marsh 
Creek, now in Adams County, James became a prosperous farmer, and from him 
Black’s Gap took its name.  John did not succeed financially as well as James.  
One of his sons was named James, after his uncle.  This James was the 
grandfather of Jeremiah S. Black.  He had the common education of the farmer’s 
boy of that day.  About the year 1770, he became engaged to Jane McDonough, and 
shortly afterward concluded to “go West” into the then dangerous wilderness of 
the Alleghenies.  He settled between what was afterward Stony Creek and 
Somerset, and cleared the land, and with the hard labor of his own hands 
prepared a home ready for Jane McDonough.  He then returned and married her, and 
the young couple went to their new home.  His wife soon persuaded him he had 
made a poor selection of ground and they moved to the farm called Stony Creek.  
Here James Black prospered and had a tannery, several farms and, in time, a 
tavern.  He was a justice of the peace, and was himself indicted twice during 
his term of office; once for tearing up a paper which he had been deceived into 
signing his name to, and once for heading a riot which cleared away some workmen 
who where building a bridge and not giving satisfaction to the community.

A son of this James Black, Henry, was the father of Jeremiah S. Black.  And 
James’ wife, Jane McDonough, was a sister of the bachelor millionaire McDonough, 
who died in New Orleans and gave so largely to New Orleans and Baltimore.  The 
Blacks and McDonoughs were each large families.  Robert Black now resides at 
Black’s Gap in Franklin County.  A. B. Black is living at Table Rock in this 
county.

It is greatly to be regretted that we cannot gather a complete genealogy of 
Judge Black’s ancestors and family, because we hold that no proper biography of 
a man can be written, more especially that of a man whose make-up presents such 
bold and striking characteristics of mind as are found in him, without first 
having a pretty full knowledge of the line of ancestors from whom he sprung.  
This is true of the individual as it is of communities and nations.  A great 
people or a great man is the gradual development of the preceding centuries-the 
strongest lines perhaps transmitted by heredity, modified, changed and directed 
by climate, soil, and a dry or humid atmosphere.  To these fundamental factors 
are the innumerable others of lesser force of times and circumstances.

In Jeremiah S. Black we have the finest type of the perfected outgrowth in 
America of the mingling of the strains of Scotch and German pioneers who founded 
this nation and reared the enduring structure of our Government.  The Dutch, 
stubborn tenacity and sluggish blood-the shrewd and rugged Scotch, traced with 
the impulsive and fiery Irish and all the descendants of religious heroes and 
martyrs-Protestants in their very blood and bones-the only one thing in its 
entirety they held in common.  From sire to son for generations had passed the 
strongest religious vein, producing Christian warriors, severe of conscience, 
disputatious and eager for disciples, who, in order that no sin might escape, 
punished the most innocent pleasures.

Physically as rugged and strong as they were mentally, they were a long-lived 
race of men, whose literature, whose investigation of the sciences, were squared 
rigidly to their interpretations of the Bible.  When we know something of these 
remarkable ancestors of Judge Black we have the key to many of the otherwise 
wonderful marks of the man himself.  From the humblest walks of backwoods 
farmers’ life he rose by his own inherent powers to become, and so he will go 
into history, as the best type of the great American descended from our 
Revolutionary fathers.

Judge Black was a sincere, eager churchman, who read his Bible daily, and 
regularly betook himself to the closet of prayer.  His every nature drew him 
toward the strong, argumentative, combative and eloquent Alexander Campbell, and 
he was therefore a member of the Christian Church.  He was the great layman to 
the Protestant Church, and when he set his lance and lowered his visor in the 
tilt at the infidel Ingersoll, he best described his position in the church as 
the “church’s policeman,” who was ready to receive orders from his superiors in 
command, but eager to fight the devil himself single-handed in a combat where no 
quarters were to be asked.  He took up the glove of the infidel, and unhorsed 
the “plumed knight,” was the first man in two centuries to tell the learned 
theologians of the world how to defend the faith in an age where reason and not 
the dungeon and burning stake are the implement of church war.  The “policeman” 
was the great captain, in fact, to the church militant; esteeming himself the 
humblest, he was the central and pre-eminent figure.  Let the churches of 
America inscribe upon his monument his dying prayer-nothing so full of trusting 
piety, so eloquent and touching has come back to use from the border land of 
that other world.

A lawyer, judge, politician, statesman and orator, writer and scholar, he 
adorned all alike.  The greatest advocate in his day, his decisions upon the 
bench became the fundamental law of the land; his speeches are models of great 
thoughts in the most vigorous English to be found in our language.

His biography should be fully written.  The world cannot afford to lose the 
lesson it will teach.  The story will interest, instruct and benefit all, and it 
will be the just tribute to the forefathers, the pioneers-Scotch-Irish and Dutch 
and Germans who were the immigrants to this portion of our country.

If Adams County is pictured to the mind as a dining table, then wherever Hon. 
Thaddeus Stevens sat was the head of the table.  The son of a Vermont shoe-
maker, born April 4, 1792, commenced life as a school teacher in York, came to 
Gettysburg immediately after he had been admitted to practice law in Maryland in 
1816, and opened an office in the east end of the McClellan House, now occupied 
by Col. John H. McClellan.  He at once became a leader at the bar, was several 
years a town councilman, a member of the Legislature, where he became the father 
of the Pennsylvania free schools.  He removed to Lancaster in 1841.  He entered 
Congress in 1849 and served two terms, then remained in private life and again 
entered Congress in 1859, where he remained until his death, August 11, 
1868.  He was the chairman of the ways and means committee in Congress at the 
commencement of the war, and was the one man great enough to rule Congress, the 
Senate and the President, and who comprehended the full import of the civil war 
at its commencement.  He proved himself the greatest parliamentary leader this 
country has had, not even excepting Henry Clay.  Indeed, Thaddeus Stevens was a 
wonderful man, whose history is a part of the history of our country during its 
most turbulent and trying times-such times only develop such men as was Stevens, 
where he won the distinguishing sobriquet of the Great Commoner.  Mentally and 
physically a strange compound of opposites, if they were not contradictions.  
Physically, defective in one of his feet; intellectually a trained athlete; a 
knight errant riding the whirlwind of the dark passions of mankind and 
delivering the blasting thunderbolts of his matchless invective against the 
oppressor of his fellow-man; his nature deeply charitable, lifting up the lowly, 
aiding the worthy, spending his last dollar when on his way to Baltimore with 
his carefully garnered gains to buy his first law library and he saw a slave 
parent and child being sold to be separated; he spent all he had and purchased 
the slaves and returned to Gettysburg with these instead of his promised books, 
and at the same time implacable against that portion of his fellow countrymen 
born to the ownership of slaves.  He loved children tenderly, and the highest 
praise that can be said of him is the love and respect his name ever conjures in 
the hearts of the men and women of Gettysburg who were children when this was 
his home.  

A diligent student of men and books he was a lover of field sports and games; of 
Puritan birth probably, he was one of the broadest and most liberal in faith and 
practice.  An extreme Federalist in the larger sense of the term, a Democrat by 
nature, a political revolutionist, who was intensely patriotic in his love of 
his government.  A criminal lawyer with few equals and no superiors, as a 
constitutional lawyer he was blinded by seething political passions.  His broad 
charity that carried a purse that had no strings, and his deep seated radicalism 
that would “organize a hell” for treason, were the strong lines in his nature.  
Charitable and combative his mastery of men made him a party destroyer and a 
party leader.  Here he was born to fight and command.  When he had carried the 
old Federal party long enough he crushed it and reared the Anti-Masonic party; 
tossing this aside when it had subserved his purposes, he became quiet 
politically for a time, until upon the ruins of old parties rose the Republican 
party, and here again was Stevens the master architect.

We know nothing of his ancestors and have no antecedent facts upon which we can 
see why he was the strange, strong and extraordinary compound he was.  We only 
know he rescued his name from deepest obscurity and wrote it in bright letters 
across the scroll of fame.  When his flaming sword fell from his nerveless grasp 
it passed to no lineal descendant’s hand.  He was the first and last of his name 
and race known to history.

Among the earliest settlers in what is now known as Adams County was Patrick 
McSherry, who was the progenitor of a long line of families of that name, where 
noble and honored sires were followed by worthy and illustrious sons.  Patrick 
McSherry was the father of James McSherry, the latter born July 29, 1776, near 
Littlestown, and died in the immediate neighborhood of where he was born, 
February 3, 1849, in the seventy-third year of his age.  James McSherry was the 
father of James McSherry, Jr., of Frederick City, Md., the historian who wrote 
the history of that State-a writer of great ability, and his literary 
productions rank among the best of American histories, and also father of Hon. 
William McSherry, of the vicinity of Littlestown, and the grandfather of William 
McSherry, attorney of Gettysburg.  Patrick McSherry’s name is perpetuated in the 
town of McSherrystown.  It was laid out as early as 1765 by him.  

His son James was the most successful political leader the county ever produced.  
If the reader will turn to the chapter, giving the county officials, he will 
find the name of James McSherry of more frequent occurrence than that of any 
other man; commencing almost immediately after the formation of the county as a 
member of the Legislature to which he was elected for so many succeeding terms, 
and he always ran ahead of any other candidate on the ticket.  From the lower 
house, he went to the State Senate, and from the Senate to the Congress of the 
United States-in the XVII Congress, 1821 to 1823.  He has been described to us 
as a man above the average in stature, quiet, dignified and of commanding 
presence, who never possessed the arts of the demagogue, who never intrigued for 
his own nomination, in fact hardly ever attended a convention in his life, and 
who when nominated, maintained his self respect.  All that was necessary to the 
voters who had known him all his life was for them to know that he was a 
candidate, and bitter as were the politics of that day, no party shackles could 
restrain great numbers of the opposite party from voting for him.  He understood 
his constituents, and devoted his political life to their true interests.  
Without being noisy, he had the courage of his convictions; without bluster, he 
was brave and resolute for the right.  His integrity was never questioned, and 
to his old neighbors and friends, regardless of party lines, the envenomed 
shafts of political malice, fell harmless at his feet.  His long political life 
is a demonstration that an office holder may live a clean, upright and entirely 
honorable life.

The well known name of Col. Hance Hamilton is inseparably connected with the 
early history of York and Adams Counties.  He was the Napoleon of the immigrants 
who settled the country immediately west of the Susquehanna.  He was born a 
leader of men, with that genius that founds empires, organizes States, and 
wields boundless control over great communities.  He was born in 1721, and died 
February 2, 1772, aged fifty-one years.  The executors of his will were John 
Hamilton, Robert McPherson and Samuel Edie.  His remains were first interred in 
Black’s grave-yard, on Upper Marsh Creek, where they reposed for eighty years, 
and were disinterred and placed in Evergreen Cemetery, Gettysburg.  The quaint 
lettered stone slab that was placed over his first burial lies prone upon the 
ground, and soon it will have faded away.  The county owes to its self-respect 
to put this grave in order and place over the ashes of the illustrious dead a 
suitable monument.  He was the first sheriff, elected in 1749, of York County.  
As this officer was then elected annually, in the 1750 election a riot ensued 
between the supporters of Hance Hamilton and those of Richard McAllister-the 
former the Scotch-Irish and the latter the Dutch candidate for sheriff.  There 
was then but one poll in the county, at York, and in McAllister Hamilton had an 
able rival.  Thus from the far backwoods of the outskirts of the county, came 
these two men as the strong men of York County.  McAllister could rally the most 
votes, but Hamilton could out-general him and was always triumphant.  In 1751 
Hamilton was again elected sheriff.  At the end of this term he was appointed 
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the county.  In 1756 he was captain of 
Provincial troops in the French and Indian war.  Was at Fort Littleton (Fulton 
County) from where he described in a letter the capture by the Indians of 
McCord’s Fort.  He was at this fort again in 1757; was in Armstrong’s expedition 
against Kittanning, where a bloody and important victory was won over the 
Indians.  May 31, 1758, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, First Battalion 
Pennsylvania Regiment of foot soldiers of the Province.  His will bore the date 
of January 27, 1772, four days before his death.  His estate amounted to over 
Ł3,000.

Nothing is now definitely known of his children.  The children mentioned in his 
will are Thomas, Edward, Harriett, Sarah (married to Alexander McKean), Mary 
(married Hugh McKean), Hance Garvin, George, John William and James.  None of 
his descendants are now living in this part of the country.

Hance Hamilton was a typical frontiersman, of great abilities and force of 
character.  He was but twenty-eight years old when first chosen sheriff, and 
died suddenly when only fifty-one years old.  Thus in twenty-three years he 
impressed his name upon the history of the country.  He was of pure Scotch 
blood.  Among the roll of “the forty-nine officers of Scotland in 1649” was Sir 
Hance Hamilton, who obtained adjudicated lands in the Province to the amount of 
1,000 acres.  

Culp, a name found in our ancient records, written in German and called then 
Kalb, but now goes into history as a part of the immortal story of the battle of 
Gettysburg-Culp’s Hill being one of the first points after Cemetery Hill for the 
tourist to look for.  The head of this family in this country was Christophel 
Culp, the father of Peter Culp, who was the father of Henry Culp, after whom 
Culp’s Hill is named.  The first Culp named above came to this country in 1787.  
He had four sons:  Christophel, Mathias, Peter and Christian.  The first died 
without issue.  To the others are born large families.

William McClellan (third) was the father of our present John H. McClellan, and 
was born June 21, 1763; married Magdalen Spangler, January, 1788, and died July 
27, 1831.  He was the son of William McClellan (second), born in Coleraine, 
Ireland, in 1735, and brought to Marsh Creek in 1739.  His second wife (Mary 
Reynolds) died in 1796.  William (third) had twelve children, of whom Col. John 
H. is now the only survivor.  He was sheriff of York County, elected and re-
elected at a time when men of personal force contested earnestly for this 
office.  For 150 years the family name of McClellan has been a familiar one to 
the people of this part of Pennsylvania, and as widely respected and honored.

Capt. Nicholas Bittinger died in Adams County in 1804, aged seventy-eight.  He 
was one of the first who took up arms in the war of the Revolution.  He was 
taken prisoner at the head of his column at Fort Washington.  He endured a long 
and hard captivity, which induced the disease that terminated his life.  He was 
a son of Adam Bittinger (Bedinger or Beedinger, as the name was at first 
spelled) who came to this country in 1736.  The father and son were members of 
the Committee of Safety for York County in 1775.  The Bittingers resided on 
Great Conowago, Menallen Township.

Hon. James Cooper was born near Emmittsburg, Md., August, 1809, received a 
collegiate education and entered the law office as a student of Thaddeus 
Stevens, in Gettysburg, in April, 1832, and was licensed a lawyer April 28, 
1834, and at once opened an office in Gettysburg.

He served a number of terms in the Legislature and was speaker of that body; was 
attorney-general of the State; two terms in Congress, and six years a United 
States Senator.  He was an active and earnest Whig in politics.  In 1857 he 
removed to Frederick City, where he renewed the practice of law successfully 
until 1861, when he was commissioned a brigadier-general in the United States 
Volunteers and went into the active service in command of a brigade; but not 
being in robust health, from the exposures and fatigues of army life, he 
contracted a severe attack of pneumonia and died at Columbus, Ohio, in March, 
1863, aged fifty-two years.

Mr. Cooper was a man of pleasing manners, about six feet two inches in height, a 
fine Grecian face, a fluent speaker and a brilliant and successful politician.  
In 1837 he married Jane Miller, of Carlisle, who is still living.  They had two 
sons and one daughter.  One of the sons died in the army, the other, Mathew, is 
living in West Virginia.  The daughter is the wife of Dr. Page, deputy surgeon 
in the United States Army at Fort Leavenworth.