HISTORY: “Valley of the Conemaugh” by Thomas J. Chapman, 1865 Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Diann Olsen , September, 2008 Copyright 2008 All rights reserved. http://http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ _______________________________________________ THE VALLEY OF THE CONEMAUGH. BY THOMAS J. CHAPMAN. ALTOONA, PA.: McCRUM & DERN, PRINTERS. 1865. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER X. BIOGRAPHICAL. In this chapter we shall present biographical sketches of some of the prominent early settlers of the Conemaugh valley. REV. D. A. GALLITZIN. Rev. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin died at Loretto on the 6th of May, 1840. For forty two years he exercised pastoral functions in Cambria county. The venerable deceased was born in 1770, at Munster, in Germany. His father, Prince De Gallitzin, ranked among the highest nobility in Russia. His mother was the daughter of Field Marshal General de Schmeltan, a celebrated officer under Frederick the Great. Her brother fell at the battle of Jena. The deceased held a high commission in the Russian army from his infancy. Europe, in the early part of his life, was desolated by war-the French revolution burst like a volcano upon that convulsed continent: it offered no facilities or attractions for travel, and it was --------------------------------------------------------------------- 176 THE HISTORY OF determined that the young Prince de Gallitzin should visit America. He landed in Baltimore in August, 1782, in company with Rev. Mr. Brosius. By a train of circumstances in which the hand of Providence was strikingly visible, his mind was directed to the ecclesiastical state, and he renounced forever his brilliant prospects. Already endowed with a splendid education, he was the more prepared to pursue his eccle- siastical studies under the venerable Bishop Carroll, at Baltimore, with facility and success. Having completed his theological course, he spent some time on the mission in Maryland. In the year 1789, he directed his course to the Alleghany mountain, and found that portion of it which now constitutes Cambria county a perfect wilderness, almost without inhabitants or habitations. After incredible labor and privations, and expending a princely fortune, he succeeded in making "the wilderness blossom as a rose." His untiring zeal has collected about Loretto, his late residence, a Catholic population of three or four thousand. He not only extended the church by his missionary toils, but also illustrated and defended the truth by several highly useful publications. His “Defence of Catholic Principles" has gained merited celebrity both here and in Europe. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 177 In this extraordinary man we have not only to admire his renunciation of the brightest hopes and prospects; his indefatigable zeal -- but something greater and rarer -- his wonderful humility. No one could ever learn from him or his mode of life, what he had been, or what he had exchanged for privation and poverty. To intimate to him that you were aware of his condition, would be sure to pain and displease him. He who might have reveled in the princely halls of his ancestors, was content to spend thirty years in a rude log cabin, almost denying himself the common comforts of life, that he might be able to clothe the naked members of Jesus Christ, the poor and distressed. Few have left behind them such examples of charity and benevolence. On the head of no one have been invoked so many blessings from the mouths of widows and orphans. It may be literally said of him “if his heart had been been made of gold he would have disposed of it all in charity to the poor."* To this sketch may be properly appended the following: Princess Amalia Gallitzin, a lady distinguished for talent and a strong propensity to mysticism. She was the daughter of count ----- * Mountaineer, May 14, 1840. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 178 THE HISTORY OF Schmeltan, and lived, during a part of her youth, at the court of the wife of prince Ferdinand, brother of Frederick the Great. She was married to the Russian prince, Gallitzin; and, as much of his time was passed in traveling, she chose Munster, in the center of Germany, for her permanent residence Here she assembled around her some of the most distinguished men of the age, Hemsterhuis, Hamann, Jacobi, Goethe, Furstenberg, and others. The two first were her most intimate friends. She was an ardent Catholic, and strongly given to making proselytes. With the exception of her excessive religious zeal, she was an ex- cellent lady in every respect. In the education of her children, she followed Rousseau's system. The princess is the Diotima to whom Hemsterhuis, under the name of Dioklas, addressed his work On Atheism. She died, in 1806, near Munster. Her only son was a missionary in America.* GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. General St. Clair was born at Edinburg, in Scotland, and accompanied the fleet under Admiral Boscawen to America, in 1755. He ----- * Encyclopaedia Americana, Vol. V. p. 361. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 179 was a lieutenant in the British army under General Wolfe. When the French war was closed, he had command of Fort Ligonier assigned to him; and also received a grant of one thousand acres of land in that vicinity, which he fancifully chose to lay out in the form of a circle. Here he settled, and was appointed to several civil offices under the government of Pennsylvania. When the Revolution commenced, he embraced the American cause, and in January, 1776, was appointed to command a battalion of Pennsylvania militia. He was engaged in the expedition to Canada, and was second in command in the proposed attack on the British post at Trois Riviers. He was afterwards in the battle of Trenton, and had the credit of suggesting the attack on the British at Princeton, which proved so fortunate. In August, 1776, he was appointed a brigadier, and in February, 1777, major-general. He was the commanding officer at Ticonderoga when that post was invested by the British, and evacuated it July 6, 1777, with such secrecy that a considerable part of the public stores were safely conveyed away. Charges of cowardice, treachery, and incapacity were brought against him in consequence, but a court of inquiry --------------------------------------------------------------------- 180 THE HISTORY OF honorably acquitted him. He afterwards joined the army under General Greene, in the south, and at the close of the war returned to his former residence. In 1783, he was a member of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and the same year was elected president of the Cincinnati Society, of that State. In 1785, he was elected to Congress, and in February, 1787, was appointed president of that body. In October following, he was appointed governor of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio, an office which he retained until November, 1803, when he was removed by Jefferson in consequence of the too free expression of his political opinions. He had previously, in 1790, been the unsuccessful candidate of the federal party, against Gen. Mifflin, for the office of governor of Pennsylvania, under the new constitution. In 1791, he commanded an army against the Miami Indians, and was defeated on the 4th of November, with the loss of six or seven hundred men. He was on that occasion worn down by a fever, but neverthless exerted himself with a courage and presence of mind worthy of a better fate. He was borne on a litter to the different points of the battleground, and in this condition directed the --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 181 movements of the troops. On this occasion a portion of the citizens were loud in their censure of his conduct; but a committee of inquiry of the House of Representatives acquitted him from blame. He resigned his commission as major-general in 1792. With the profuse liberality of a soldier, he became reduced in his old age to poverty, and resided in a dreary part of Westmoreland county, on the Chestnut Ridge, a little south of the turnpike. He applied to Congress for relief. His claims on the sympathy of his country were listened to with indifference, and admitted with reluctance. After a long suspense, he obtained a pension of sixty dollars per month. He died August 31st, 1818, in his eighty- fourth year.* RICHARD B. McCABE, ESQ. Richard Butler McCabe, Esq., first saw the light in the county of Cumberland, now Perry, in Pennsylvania, on the 5th day of August, 1792. His grandfather, Owen McCabe in the Colonial Records erroneously called McKibe was a native of Tyrone county, Ireland, and came to this country at an early age. His first ----- * Day's Hist. Col. pp. 686, 687. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 182 THE HISTORY OF home was in Lancaster county, where he intermarried with Catharine Sears, and subsequently moved with his wife and eldest son, James, the father of Richard, to Sherman's Valley; these two were the first white men who settled in the valley. Their settlement was named Tyrone township, in memory of the childhood's home of the elder McCabe. Tyrone Iron Works and Tyrone City, on the Central Railroad, also derive their name from the same hardy pioneer. The life of a settler in that unprotected frontier country, constantly exposed to hostile incursions of Indians, full of peril and hardships of every kind, was well calculated to educate him to endure with patience and fortitude the toils and privations of camp life. When the War of Independence broke out, the brave old pioneer, with two hardy and stalwart sons, Robert and William, in company with Nicholas Hughs, Richard's maternal grandfather, and two equally gallant sons, shouldered arms and went to Bunker Hill. This event was celebrated at the time in verse, by a rustic poet of the neighborhood. From the family of the deceased's mother descended the founders of many distinguished and wealthy families of the south and west. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 183 James McCabe, the father of Richard, was regarded by his cotemporaries as a man of the purest integrity, scrupulously, conscientious in all his dealings, brave, kind, and generous. Before Forbes approached Fort Duquesne, or Armstrong burnt Kittanning, a company was formed at or near Carlisle, the first that ever, in Pennsylvania, pursued the Indians as far as the Alleghany Mountains. James McCabe was a lieutenant in that company. The Indians had been down in Sherman's Valley, plundering, capturing, and destroying. The company pursued them as far as the heads of Blacklick, in Cambria county; here they halted, being without guides, and not knowing how many foes they might have to encounter west of the mountains, and turning back, started for the Muncey towns, on the Susquehanna. In 1795, the father of Richard died, leaving the child in the exclusive care and control of the widowed mother. The population being sparse, she was almost his only companion, and nobly did she perform the sacred duty which her Heavenly Father had assigned her. * * * * * The period of his early boyhood passed; he left his quiet and romantic home in the coun- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 184 THE HISTORY OF try, and was bound an apprentice to a carpenter; but not liking this occupation, he went to Philadelphia. The war of 1812, having just broken out, he entered himself on board a privateer which was about starting on a cruise; but one of his brothers learning the facts, pre- vented his departure. This was a most fortunate occurrence, as the vessel proved to be a pirate craft. Thus diverted from his purpose, he went to Richmond, Va., where, it is thought, he read law for a short time. Returning again to the interior of Pennsylvania, he became clerk in a store. In 1815, he went to Pittsburg, passing through this county, [Indiana,] then almost a wilderness; there he entered a counting house, but soon returning to the country, he passed a few years as clerk, and finally manager, of several iron works. Marrying about 1820, he removed to Harrisburg, where he entered the office of the Secretary of State. While thus engaged, he returned to the study of the law, under the supervision of the Attorney General of the State, Mr. Elder. After his admission to the bar, he went to Huntingdon, and commenced his professional career. Subsequently he removed to this county, where he resided until his death -- a period of more than thirty years. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 185 He enjoyed for the most of the time a lucrative practice. During one term he served as prothonotary of the county, and performed the duties of the office to the entire satisfaction of his fellow citizens. His antiquarian researches were extensive; no man knew more of the early history of our State. He was a frequent contributor to the periodical and newspaper literature of his time; his style of composition was simple and unadorned. He was an admirable writer of narrative, and his Brady, and other sketches, found in almost all histories of Pennsylvania, are well known to every school boy. At the close of his life he was engaged upon a biography of the Priest of the Alleghany Mountains, the Russian prince, Gallitzin, which promised to be a most charming and interesting work. In his social intercourse, Mr. McCabe was kind and obliging. His charity knew no bounds; he gave freely, without hope, desire, or expectation of reward. He did not permit his left hand to know what his right did, and many a widow and orphan had cause to bless, without knowing who was the benefactor. Modest almost to a fault, he abhorred parade and show, and desired that his place of burial should not be marked with stone or monu- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 186 THE HISTORY OF went, only by trees and flowers. In the family circle he was uniformly kind, gentle, and cheerful, never permitting an ill-natured word against a neighbor to be spoken in his presence without rebuke. In politics and religion, he was much in advance of the present age. He spoke with scornful contempt of the tricks of mere politicians. No inducements of worldly advancement or fortune were sufficient to seduce him for a moment from the path of rectitude. No man can justly charge him with a single departure from truth and honor. He died January 10th, 1860, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. HON. MOSES CANAN. The old men, whose histories connect the present generation with the past, are rapidly passing away. Soon the last one, whose birth dates back into the previous century, will be gone. Conspicuous among this class of deaths is that of Hon. Moses Canan, who died September 29, 1863, in the 80th year of his age, more than half of whose long life was spent in Cambria county, in active participation in all things ----- * Blairsville Record, Jan. 25, 1860. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 187 connected with the prosperity of its people. This fact will justify us in occupying more than the usual space, in our paper, in giving a sketch of the life and character of the deceased. Judge Canan was born in Huntingdon county, Pa., March 1st, 1784. After enjoying the advantages of the best schools in the borough of Huntingdon, at the age of sixteen he entered Dickinson College at Carlisle, and enjoyed the advantages of that excellent institution for four years. He then entered the law office of Judge Rawle, of Philadelphia, and pursued his studies there for three years. In 1807, he was admitted to the bar, soon after married, and at once entered into an extensive and lucrative practice in Huntingdon and adjoining counties. A short time prior to the breaking out of the war of 1812, the young attorney had located himself on a beautiful farm on the "blue Juniata," near Alexandria, in his native county, and devoted a portion of his time to agricultural pursuits. Surrounded by all the luxuries of life, in the receipt of an ample income, enjoying all the bliss and happiness of domestic life in the society of his youthful companion and two little daughters, his was a home ardently to be desired. But, in the midst of all this domestic bliss, he heard his country call for --------------------------------------------------------------------- 188 THE HISTORY OF brave men to repel an insolent foe, that would trail, in foul dishonor, the glorious emblem of his country's greatness. In answer to the call he voluntarily forsook the comforts of home, the society of his loved ones, and organizing a company of volunteers, composed of his kinsmen and his boyhood companions, in the winter of 1812-13, marched to the Niagara frontier. His love of military life was always of the most ardent kind, and he freely contributed of his time and means informing and keeping up military organizations. For many years he was major of a battalion, Cambria county volunteers. He organized, and for years commanded, the "Cambria Guards," a company of the "Frosty Sons of Thunder," which was the germ from which sprang a company that aided in planting the stars and stripes in the "Halls of the Montezumas," as well as another which has nobly defended the old flag, in many a hard fought battle, since the commencement of the present unholy rebellion. So strong was the love of the deceased for military life, and so true his patriotism and devotion to country, that the infirmities of age, alone, prevented him from again buckling on his sword, and rushing to the defence of the old flag when wantonly assailed by domestic --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 189 traitors. Although too old to take an active part, his sympathies and his prayers were with and for his country, and to his latest hour he indulged the fond hope that the Union would be preserved. He attended the first court held in Cambria county, in 1807, and for more than fifty years, with one or two exceptions, was present at every term. In the spring of 1818, he took up his residence at Ebensburg, and became fully identified with all the interests of the county. His practice at this time, and for many years subsequently, was very large in Cambria and adjoining counties. He was retained on every important suit, and was proverbial for the great care with which he prepared his cases, and for the fidelity with which he watched over the interests of his clients. His even temper, sociability, and kindness of heart made him a favorite with all the members of the bar. He retained their esteem during a long life, and, as a body, they followed him to the tomb. Extensive as was his practice, and greatly occupied as was his time in the duties of his profession, yet his great industry his willingness to work late and early, connected with his regularity of habits, enabled him to devote considerable time to literary pursuits. For about 30 years he was more or less connected. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 190 THE HISTORY OF with the editorial department of some one of the county papers. He was frequently called upon to deliver Fourth of July orations, and lectures upon different subjects. In the preparation of his editorials, orations, and lectures, he bestowed great care. His style, as a writer, was concise and pointed, and his productions will compare favorably with those of the best writers of his day. In all things calculated to secure the improvement of the material condition of the county, he freely gave his time and money. Ever anxious to elevate the moral condition of the people, his voice, his pen, and his purse, were always freely employed in advocating and supporting all movements in that direction. But, prominent among all others, was his desire to improve the intellectual condition of the people. His efforts in this behalf were unceasing, and the results were such as to redound to his credit, and should cause, not only his family, but the present and future generations, to revere his memory. Through his efforts an academy was established at the county seat, endowed by the State, and supplied with the best teachers the country could afford. This institution gave to the country many young men who have since distinguished themselves in the pulpit, at the bar, in the --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 191 army, and in the varied duties of life. Upon the first introduction of the free school system it was violently opposed. In the front ranks of its friends stood Judge Canan, who, sacrificing political preferment, and every selfish consideration, freely committed himself to the task of defending the system and laboring for its success. For many years he was a member of the Board of School Directors, and lived to see the system overcome the violent opposition of its enemies, and secure an abiding place in the affections of the people. A long life, usefully spent, is now ended. The faithful attorney and upright judge – the useful citizen and pure philanthropist – the kind husband and indulgent father -- the devoted patriot and consistent christian has departed. It can be truly said, he died as he lived, without an enemy. He is gone from our midst, but the memory of his usefulness -- his kindness of heart -- his devotion to his country, his family, and his God -- will live after him.* HON. JOHN CUNNINGHAM. John Cunningham was born near New London, Chester county, Pa., February 17, 1794. ----- * Cambria Tribune, October 30, 1863. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 192 THE HISTORY OF About three years afterwards he moved to Kishacoquillas valley, Mifflin county, and there, at the age of sixteen, it was his misfortune to be left fatherless; from that day he was cast upon his own resources, not only for his own maintenance, but, being the oldest son, for the maintenance also of a dependant mother and several brothers and sisters. He at once devoted himself to learning a trade, and, this accomplished, he labored for several years as a journeyman to obtain the means to support his mother and her family. In the spring of 1818, he removed to this county [Indiana]; and in the fall of the same year, took up his residence in this town. Having made a profession of religion before he came here, he at once identified himself with the few in the neighborhood who loved the Savior; through his influence, in part, a prayer-meeting was established and kept up, and occasional preaching secured, until in September, 1822, the Presbyterian Church of West Union (the name and location were afterwards changed to Blairsville,) was established. From that day to this our departed father has been identified with the existence and prosperity of this church. He was one of the original thirty-three who covenanted --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 193 with each other and with God to walk togther as a Church of Christ. Of these but five or six are now on earth; but three are now members of this church, and but one of them has been connected with it all the time since its foundation, at the organization of the church. Mr. Cunningham, though then comparatively a young man, was chosen and ordained one of its Ruling Elders. This office he held for nearly forty-three years, and how well and faithfully he discharged his duties, you are all witnesses. Pre-eminently wise in counsel, prudent in action, self-denying in labor, and spiritual in heart, he was almost from the first, and has ever continued to be, the recognized leader and main dependence of the Session. For thirty years he was the superintendent, and almost the life, of the Sabbath School. He was for a much longer period the centre around which the prayer-meeting lived and had its being. He has been the main pillar of this part of the church of Christ: the head, the father of this congregation, to whom we all looked with the confidence and affection of children; and now, as our eyes follow his prepared flight, we instinctively cry, with the anguish of a bereaved Elisha, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horse- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 194 THE HISTORY OF man thereof!" On whom shall the mantle of our departing Elijah fall? Help, Lord, for the goodly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. Not less closely has our venerated father been connected with the growth of this town. He came here when the place where Blairsville now stands, was an almost unbroken forest. He built and used as a workshop the second tenement which was erected in it, and cut with his hand-axe a path diagonally across the town (a town then only on paper) from his own lot to the lot of Mrs. Shields, which contained the only other house in the place. From that day to this he has been identified with the material, intellectual, moral, and religious welfare of the town. He had a large part in all plans and labors for its improvement. He was trusted and honored by his fellow-citizens by being called to a large share of the official duties connected with the government. Nor was his influence circumscribed by the limits of his own immediate borough and neighborhood, The county and the State felt it; the dignity and honor with which for a number of years he filled the position of Associate Judge was one of the ways in which this influence was exerted. It is not too much to --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 195 say, that such were his endowments of mind that if he had enjoyed in early life the advantages of education which are now within the reach of every child in the State, his name would have been known and his influence largely felt in the councils of the nation. He was possessed of a wise and large hearted patriotism. No man who has passed from earth since the struggles of our country with perfidious treason and gigantic rebellion began, has left a fairer record on this point than he. I do not consider it improper here to say that I know the joyful satisfaction and honest pride he felt, when two of his sons went out as representatives of the family in the armies of the nation. “You are doing right. It is your duty to go -- it is the duty of all to go who can." These were his unselfish -- his right loyal -- his noble words. Such were his feelings at the commencement of the war, and they remained unchanged, except in ever-increasing intensity, to the last. It was with him a cause of devout thankfulness to God that he lived, like our martyred President, to see rebellion receive its death blow, and to behold his country rise in majesty and glory above the dark clouds that have for years enveloped her. Such was he as a citizen, and altogether it is --------------------------------------------------------------------- 196 THE HISTORY OF no disparagement to others to say, that no man has held a higher place in the confidence and esteem of all who knew him than he, that none was more beloved, especially by the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the afflicted than he. The natural traits of his character were marked. They were gravity, integrity, firmness, straight-forwardness, candor, generosity, benevolence, humilty. These natural endowments were largely sanctified and directed by divine grace. His religious character was one of great symmetry and consistency. It was one which pre-eminently approved itself to the judgment of all who knew him. It bore successfully the applications of that severest of tests given by the Great Master himself. "By their fruits ye shall know them." It was not one which depended for the demonstration of its genuineness on frames and feelings and ecstasies. He died April 26, 1865, in the 72d year of his age.* CHRISTIAN HORNER, ESQ. Christian Horner, Esq., died at his residence, in Jenner township, Somerset county, on Friday, the 6th of October, 1865. Born in Frank- ----- * From a Discourse by Rev. George Hill, of Blairsville. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH 197 lin county, on the 25th day of January, 1778, he was, therefore, 87 years, 8 months and 12 days old at the date of his death. Mr. Horner was married the first time in 1799, by Rev. Mr. Stoy, the founder of Stoystown, in Somerset county. The same year he removed within the present limits of Cambria county, and first located near where the reservoir now is. He was compelled to camp out with his family, under a tree, till he had a cabin erected to protect them from the winter. This was the year before Johnstown was laid out by Joseph Johns, and several years before Cambria county was erected. Subsequently, Squire Horner, as he was familiarly called, removed to the farm on which Joseph Geis now lives, in Richland township, and within three miles of Johnstown. Here he resided till 1847, when he removed to Somerset county. Mr. Horner, in common with the residents of Cambria county, at that early day, had to endure great hardships. Salt could not be procured at any nearer point than Bloody Run, in Bedford county. Here the settlers, their only road a narrow bridle path, would annually resort, and exchange their furs for iron and salt, and then lead their horses, laden with these necessary articles, over the mountains to their --------------------------------------------------------------------- 198 THE HISTORY OF homes, in the then wilderness. Salt at that day cost four dollars per bushel, and money was much scarcer than greenbacks are now. John Horner, the father of Christian Horner, at an early day, dedicated the lot on the bank of Stony Creek, now adjoining Sandy Vale Cemetery, as a family burying ground. The first person buried in this lot, was a daughter of Christian Horner, who died some time in the year 1800. In 1809, Gov. Snyder commissioned Mr. Horner a Justice of the Peace for Conemaugh township, Cambria county. It will give some idea of Esq. Horner's jurisdiction, when we state the fact that Conemaugh township then embraced the territory in which are now included the townships of Conemaugh, Croyle, Summerhill, Jackson, Taylor, Yoder, and Richland, and the boroughs of Johnstown, Conemaugh, Prospect, Millville, Cambria, and Wilmore. This office he held until his removal to Somerset county, in 1847. Mr. Horner was married the second time in 1828, and leaves a widow to survive him at the age of 82 years. He had in all fifteen children, eleven of whom are living. He also leaves one hundred and seventeen grand-children, and one hundred and two great grand-children to mourn his death. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 199 Esq. Homer's remains were brought to this place, and interred in the Horner family burying ground, where his daughter has slept for 65 years, on Monday, the 9th inst. A large number of our citizens turned out to pay their last tribute of respect to his memory. Thus, at a ripe old age, has passed away another of Cambria's pioneers. Soon the last will be gone, and then will perish much that ought to be carefully gathered for the pages of history. A narrative of the trials undergone, and the scenes witnessed by Mr. Horner, in the early days of the settlement of this county, would make a volume at once eloquent and thrilling, a volume which our sons and daughters could read with far more profit, than anything presented in the pages of fiction. We little know, and still less appreciate the toils, the privations, the dangers, our fathers endured, in order that they might make this wilderness “bloom and blossom as the rose" for us. Honor to their memory! Peace to their ashes! * SAMUEL SEYMOUR. With the name of Samuel Seymour, but few ----- *Johnstown Democrat, Oct. 18, 1865. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 200 THE HISTORY OF of the present citizens of Johnstown are familiar; though in his day he was a conspicuous man in this community, and will be remembered by some of my older readers. Mr. Seymour was a citizen of one of the eastern States, and was by profession an artist. I use the term artist in the sense in which it was used fifty years ago, and not as applied to daguerreotypists, photographers, and so forth. He was a skillful and talented disciple of Angelo and Rembrandt, of Reynolds and West. In the early part of this century, he accompanied the expedition of Colonel Long to the Rocky Mountains. That part of our country which is now included in the States of Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and others, was then almost a terra incognita. It was a soil that had scarcely been pressed by the foot of a white man. Mr. Seymour, desirous of transferring to his canvas the wonders and beauties of that hitherto unrevealed region, and of seeking adventures of a new and thrilling character in those western wilds, forsook the ease and safety of home and friends, and volunteered in that arduous undertaking. He ascended with Col. Long the towering peak that still bears his name, and that stands, as it will ever stand, a --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CONEMAUGH. 201 giant sentinel to guard the route to the Pacific shores. The drawings which illustrated Col. Long's narrative of his expedition, were by the pencil of Mr. Seymour. He was an engraver as well as painter, and his name may be found in many of the illustrated works of forty or fifty years ago. The few works of Mr. Seymour that have descended to our day, show him to have been a man of exquisite taste and culture. One of his oil paintings is in the possession of the writer. It represents a young lady whether it is a portrait, or a mere fancy-sketch, perhaps will never be known. "She sits, inclining forward as to speak, Her lips half open, and her finger up, As though she said, 'Beware!'" The latter years of Mr. Seymour's life were spent in Blairsville and Johnstown. In the former town he made the acquaintance of the writer's father, who was also an artist, and became a frequent visitor at his house. About the year 1832, perhaps, he came to Johnstown, where he continued to reside until the period of his death, which occurred in May, 1834. He was aged about 50 years. He died in extreme poverty; for it is a singular fact, that genius and wealth are rarely found together. Where Mr. Seymour was buried is 202 known to the writer. A few months ago, he, in company with a friend, searched among the old monuments in the Union Graveyard for his tomb, but was unable to find it. If he was buried there, as in all probability he was, there is no mark by which his last resting place may be distinguished. Pittsburg is taking measures to erect a suitable monument to the memory of her painter, Blythe, a man of similar genius and misfortunes; should not Johnstown make an effort to perpetuate the name of the great artist who died and lies buried within her limits? THE END.