Local History: Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Altoona, Blair Co., PA - Counties

Contributed by Judy Banja jbanja@msn.com

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               Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                               by J. N. Tillard

            Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                       Sketches of Early Local History

AUTHOR'S NOTE - The following articles were written for the Altoona Mirror at 
odd times, several years ago, the subject matter having been gleaned by the 
author partly from various publications; partly from the folk lore stories he 
beard told in the old Pottsgrove flour mill during his childhood, and partly 
from personal observation.

                                             J. N. TILLARD DECEMBER 1, 1911

                    Making New Counties In The Olden Times

                Bedford County, Which Included What Is Now Blair,
                       Had Rather Indefinite Boundaries

THE counties or this province of Penn were originally laid out in large lines 
with rather indefinite boundaries and the people of this generation may not 
all know the facts in reference to the formation of the counties in which 
they live, and may be a trifle interested in a few figures that will indicate 
the marvelous development of this new country within the memory of living 
man.
  In the original plot about all of the territory between Westmoreland County 
and the state line was included in the great county of Bedford. On September 
27, 1787, the legislature passed an act erecting a new county to be called 
Huntingdon, the lines of which were described about as follows: "Beginning in 
the line of Bedford and Franklin Counties where Skinner's Road, leading from 
Shippensburg to Littleton crosses the Tuscarora Mountain; thence in straight 
line to the Old Gap in Sideling Hill, where Sideling Hill Creek crosses the 
mountain; thence in a straight line to the northerly side of Sebastian 
Shoub's Mill, or Raystown Branch of the Juniata; thence in a straight line to 
the Elk's Gap in Tussey's Mountain, computed to be about nineteen miles above 
Huntingdon, or Standing Stone, and from there in a straight line to the Gap 
of Jacob Steven's Mill, a little below where Woolery's Mill formerly stood in 
Morrison's Cove; thence in a straight line to the southerly side of Blair's 
Mill at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains, etc."
  It will be seen by the quaint language and method of description of the act 
that the legislators were hard put to find well known land marks in 
sufficient numbers to get their bearings. It was a pretty wild country they 
were surveying by rule of thumb and its potentialities of development in the 
next hundred years was but dimly realized. And indeed it will be seen that up 
until the coming of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in the middle of the last 
century, the development was very slow, though the Pennsylvania Canal had 
done much to settle the territory and clear out the wilderness. In 1840 the 
population of the boroughs of Huntingdon County were as follows: Huntingdon, 
1,154; Alexandria, 574; Petersburg, 196; Hollidaysburg, 1,896; Shirleysburg, 
247; Williamsburg, 637; Birmingham, 235; Frankstown, 357. The intermediate 
stretches were very sparsely settled, as the entire population of the big 
county was only 35,484. But it had grown rapidly at that, for when the first 
census was taken in 1790, the population of the county was only 7,568, and in 
the meantime large slices had been taken off the original territory in the 
erection of Centre and Cambria Counties.
  The centre of population had steadily moved westward and Hollidaysburg had 
already outstripped "Mother Huntingdon" in the matter of population, and 
Altoona, yet unborn, was to awaken at the sound of the locomotive whistle to 
overshadow them both. Up to and for some time after the Revolutionary War, 
this section was regarded as a wilderness, for the most part given up to wild 
beasts and wild men, the most valuable section being along the banks of the 
"Sinking Run" near Arch Spring, where lead was found in considerable 
quantities, and, as ammunition for rifles was a prime necessity in those days 
and lead mines scarce, the state set great store by this mineral. However, 
the Indians were just as fully alive to the value of the find as the white 
man, after they had generally abandoned bow and arrows for the white man's 
weapon and made so many excursions in war paint to the vicinity that the 
state abandoned the mines.
  One of the earliest settlers in Sinking Valley was Captain Porter, and he 
found life very difficult. Even before the lead was discovered, the Indians 
found materials for weapons in abundance along Sinking Run, as the stream was 
lined with white flint stone which made admirable arrow heads, and the red 
man, though of roving habits, still kept his eye open to all such sources of 
supplies and zealously guarded them from invasion.
  Captain Porter one day went to the mill, located near Barree, leaving his 
wife alone, and he had not been long gone when she spied an Indian coming 
toward the house. Mrs. Porter did not do any fainting stunt, or go into 
hysterics, but, arming herself with the captain's sword, and an extra gun 
that he had left at home, she partially opened the door and awaited 
developments. Very shortly a crouching Indian stealthily poked his head into 
the open door when the husky woman cleft his skull and jerked his body into 
the cabin to make way for the companion that she judged was with him. The 
other redskin soon presented himself and shared a like fate, and then 
believing that she heard stealthy footsteps on the outside, after waiting 
awhile, she mounted the ladder to the loft, intending to shoot through the 
loop holes, but the Indian followed her in and up the ladder, when she shot 
him dead at close range and, reloading her rifle, went down and out in search 
of her husband, whom she met on the trail. The couple went back to the mill 
settlement and the next morning a party of men, led by the captain, returned 
only to find that another party of Indians had burned the buildings.
  Truly this is a young country when the aborigines contested every foot of 
the ground with the grandfathers whom some of us still remember having seen 
in the flesh, and while a recital of its history must necessarily be brief 
because so little time has been covered, yet the very nearness of the events 
that seem to belong to a remote age, lends considerable interest to the 
telling.

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