Area History: Harrisburg: from Vol II - Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857

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                             HARRISBURG

  This place, now the seat of government, was originally located and settled
by John Harris, and the place was founded, in 1762, by his son, John Harris,
Jun'r.  The son of the latter, Robert Harris, now alive at the age of
seventy years, has informed me of many facts connected with his family and
the original settlement.  I herein relate them, much in the manner I
received them from himself, "viva voce" in the year 1835, when visiting the
place.  Considering how recently it was but an Indian wild, and now so
populous and richly settled as the growing seat of government, it cannot but
prove interesting to the reader, as being in itself a proof of the varied
enlargement and advancement of our prosperous country, to wit :
  John Harris the first, and his wife Esther, the first settlers here, sat
down as Indian traders on the frontier while the Indians were still settled
in their town close by, at the mouth of the Paxton creek.  Many of their
graves were in Harris' orchard.  They were both born in Yorkshire, England,
and came out to Philadelphia as first emigrants with William Penn.  He died
in advanced age, in 1749.  His wife survived him ten years, having married
again to William Chesney, a resident on the other side of the river.
  Robert has heard his grandfather and grandmother Reed, in Hanover,
fourteen miles off (where they had a stockade defence) tell of the Indian
alarms, and of the people running in for protection; they had seen some
tomahawked.
  The first lots in town were valued by commissioners at from 10 to £60.
  From the market house back to the hills, and up to and over the state
house hill, was in woods when he was a boy.
  He, Robert Harris, was born in the present stone house in 1768.  The other
old house stood six or seven years afterwards, as a kind of store-house.
Two hundred people at a time came there to stop to find boats, &c., to go on
with.  He has seen three different houses there, one hundred and fifty feet
long, filled with skins.
  The fields cultivated were cleared before he was born, and were back of
this house, and from the river to beyond the market house.
  He thinks that John Harris saw William Penn here, or at Conois creek; he
always heard that he (William Penn) visited him on the Susquehanna; and that
he did much business for Penn's interest, and even talked of buying lands of
him, over on the other side, down to the Yellow Breeches creek.
  The wild turkeys and the deer were plenty in the revolution.  They used to
have as many of the former as they chose to shoot.  He and his father have
killed as many as twenty bears seen crossing the river.
  The Paxton boys assembled here; they came from Cumberland and Hanover, and
even as far as Franklin.  John Harris, the second, tried to prevent them.
Col. Smith was their principal man, and Col. Wilson Smith, of Waterford in
Erie county, of the legislature, is his son.
  Esther Harris, up near Juniata, must have been John Harris' wife; she was
resolute, masculine, capable of writing, and was the best trader of the two.
Would box Indian chiefs' ears if they got drunk and unruly.
  She carried her son John, born in 1726, to Christ church in Philadelphia,
to be baptized; he died in 1791, aged sixty-five.  He was the first born
white child hereabout, and the father of the present Robert Harris.
  He had not his title confirmed by Shippen until 1733, but bought long
before; it was about £5 per hundred acres, at first at 50s.
  There was an Indian town opposite to Harris' ferry, just where are heaps
of muscle {mussel} shells -- they ate them much; another town was at the
mouth of Canodoquinet creek, two miles above; and there was one below, about
two miles, at the mouth of Yellow Breeches, or Haldeman's bridge, which was
once James Chartier's landing, Indian agent.
  He has heard that they could assemble here seven hundred people by firing
a gun -- all came over then to this side.
  They had a battle at Mokonoy, six miles this side of Shamokin -- John
Harris, the second, was along; one hundred went up from here to inquire,
they surprised the party on the return, and killed sixteen to twenty men.
John Harris the second, in crossing the river had the man behind him, a
doctor, shot off.
  At the old church at Paxton, under Parson Elder, three miles from
Harrisburg on the road to Reading, they used to take guns and stack them
while in the church.  A party of Indians came and hid themselves for a week,
to attack them; they lost two as prisoners, who told the fact.  They shot at
some on their return, killed and wounded some.  They broke Major Burnett's
arm -- he died five years ago only.
  Robert Harris has seen five hundred pack-horses at a time in Carlisle,
going thence to Shippenburg, &c.
  The road from Robert Harris' on the Susquehanna, in or near Paxton,
towards Philadelphia by way of Lancaster and Chester counties, was procured
in 1736 by petitions of sundry inhabitants in said counties.
  John Harris, the first, is buried at the mulberry tree before his house,
and close to the block-house on the river bank.  He had seven children.
This Robert Harris saw the remains of the blockhouse and stockade which were
old when he was young.
  The large stone house where he dwells was built in 1766, by his father,
John Harris, the second.
  His grandfather, John Harris, had a stockade round his old house (in front
of the present one).  There an Indian came in with his gun and fired upon
the British officer therein; his gun flashed.  His grandmother, then there,
blew out the candle for concealment.  This was in the log-house before the
present residence.
  John Harris, the first, and his wife, who came from Yorkshire, were at
first livers at Philadelphia.  He often assisted at clearing lands in and
about Philadelphia.  He moved to Chester county; then to a place above
Lancaster, at the mouth of Canoy creek -- the same place where Haldeman's
mills now are, three miles above Columbia.  Then moved up to his place about
a quarter of a mile below here; then moved here for the sake of being nearer
the ferry.  It was a ford in summer time, and chosen because of the better
landing on the other side.
  There were troops at the block-house, and furnished guards to travellers.
Several travellers were occasionally wounded; some killed.  Robert has seen
one man that was scalped above Sunbury, and one here afterwards.
  The Indians came to John Harris'  trading store to get rum and ammunition;
a party got angry and tied him to the tree to burn him for refusing more
rum.  Another party came and released him.  He valued the tree, and
requested to be buried there; also two of his children are there.  His
faithful old black man was not buried there, (as some say) but where the new
Methodist church is built near by.
  He got money of Mrs. Logan's mother, at Chester, and called to pay
interest once a year.
  John Harris procured his patent of Shippen in 1733.  But the land was
purchased much earlier.
  John Harris owned all the town ground, eight to nine hundred acres; it was
laid out in 1785, and sold off in fee simple.  Lots in town sold first at 10
to £15, but now some would bring 2500 dollars to 5000 dollars !  Robert
Harris sold his family mansion and ground in 1835, to Elder for 5000
dollars, built in 1766.
  The first old log-house was gone before Robert Harris was born.  He saw
the orchard there, all killed since, one old cherry tree only is standing.
  There are several present log-houses still in the town, but now
weather-boarded.  Houses here are generally brick of two stories; several of
white frame.  The bridge across to M'Clay's island, in two divisions done
1816 -- began three years before.  This is the only stone house, save that
of M'Clay at the other end, in the town.  It is very large, and fronts the
river at the lower end.
  His grandmother rode once on urgency to Philadelphia, the same horse, in
one day !  At one time, when at Big Island on trade and hearing of her
husband's illness, she came down in a day and a night in a bark canoe !
  His grandfather farmed fields; he was the first who used a plough along
the Susquehanna.  He was a brewer in England.
  The Indians went away to Shamokin and Seeling's Grove, and Muncey, and
there lived, while John Harris, the first, lived down here.  He traded for
furs.  Robert Harris often saw many families in bark canoes come down here
to trade, and go down to Lancaster.  Harrisburg built up very fast, even in
the first year; five to six hundred people in three years.  Government came
here in 1809-10.
  Esther Harris laid the foundation of the brick house, now Carson's, five
miles up the Susquehanna.  When the Indians made an invasion they shunned to
attack it, because the scaffold holes in the walls scared them off, as
supposing they were loop holes for guns !
  One of the Harrises was a wild devil, of great agility and strength, who
liked to encounter five or six Indians at once at grip and wrestle.  He
could beat them too, at their play at foot ball.
  Once Esther Harris showed her courage and management, when on an occasion
of sending her maid up stairs, she put her lightened candle into a powder
cask as a stand upon a sudden call down stairs, thinking it was flaxseed !
Mrs. Harris ran up and took it out carefully with her own hands.
  June 19th, 1733, Shekallamy, a chief, by Conrad Weiser, as interpreter,
said that he had before, together with Sassoonar, sent a letter to John
Harris, to desire him to desist from making a plantation at the mouth of
Choniata, (Juniata) where Harris had only built that house for carrying on
his trade, that his plantation, on which he has houses, barns, &c., at
Paxton, is his place of dwelling, and that he has no warrant for any
settlement at Choniata, and might have only intended to clear some land to
raise corn for his horses, but that they should give the necessary orders in
it.  Shekallamy, acting for the Six Nations, then said, he had no ill will
to John Harris, but that he is afraid that the warriors of the Six Nations,
in passing there, will see it and take it ill.
  Mrs. Esther Harris, was an excellent swimmer, and could use fire arms like
a hunter.  Even her grandaughter, Mrs. Mary Hana, the widow of Gen. Hana,
who is now alive aged about sixty-eight, and has learned several girls of
her day to swim, as seen by Mr. Fahnestock.
  The Indians were all great friends to John Harris, and afterwards became
as friendly to his wife.
  A letter from the justices of the peace in Berks county, of the 23d July
1755, sent express to Governor Morris, signed by Conrad Weiser and five
others, says, "as all our Protestant inhabitants are very uneasy at the
behaviour of the Roman Catholics, who are very numerous in this county, some
of whom show great joy at the bad news lately come from the army, we have
thought it our duty to inform your honour, and to ask that they may be
disarmed.  We have reason to believe that those who live in Cussahoppen,
[believed to be now present Summany town], where they have a very
magnificient chapel, and have had large processions, have bad designs, and
besides it is reported and believed generally, that in that neighbourhood
there are thirty Indians lurking for prey and well armed".  [This is another
reason, perhaps, why the people of Paxton, &c., all Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians, believed that their own Indians were misled and made hostile,
as expecting great support from distant Indians in the French and papal pay
and interest.]
  A letter from the Rev. John Elder of Paxton, to the secretary, R. Peters.

                                        Paxton, 9th November, 1755.
  I have just now received an express, informing me that out of a small
party on guard last night in Tullyhoe's gap of the mountain, five were
killed and two wounded.  Such shocking accounts we frequently receive, and
though we are careful to transmit hem to Philadelphia, and remonstrate and
petition from time to time, yet to no purpose, so that we seem to be given
up into the hands of a merciless enemy.
  There are within this few weeks upwards of forty of his majesty's subjects
massacred on the frontiers of this and Cumberland counties, besides a great
many carried into captivity, and yet nothing but unseasonable debates
between the two parties of our legislature, instead of uniting on some
probable scheme for the protection of the province.  What may be the end of
these things, God only knows; but I really fear that unless vigorous methods
are speedily used, we in these back settlements will unavoidably fall a
sacrifice, and this part of the province be lost.
  If I have expressed my sentiments with too much warmth, you will be kind
enough to pardon me, as it proceeds from a hearty regard to the public good.
                                            Sir, your obedient servant,
                                                         JOHN ELDER
      [The subscriber was the first minister of the Presbyterian church.]
      [Note -- He had also a colonel's commission -- was born in Ireland and
was sixty years minister of the Presbyterian church.]

                    "The flying rumours gather's as they roll'd,
                     Scarce any tale was sooner heard then told;
                     And all who told it, adding something new,
                     And all who heard it, made enlargement too !"

  Letter from Edward Biddle, at Reading, to his father, James Biddle, in
Philadelphia.
  "I am in so much horror and confusion, I scarce know what I am writing,
[at Sunday, one o'clock.]  The drum is beating to arms, and the bells
ringing, and all the people under arms.  This moment express has arrived from
Michael Reiss, at Tulpehoccan, eighteen miles off, who left about thirty of
their people engaged with an equal number of Indians at said Reiss'.  This
night we expect an attack.  truly alarming is our situation.  The people
exclaim against the Quakers, and are scarce restrained from burning the
houses of those who are in this town.  Oh my country !  My bleeding country
!-- My love to sister and Jemmy.
                        Your affectionate son,
                                  E. BIDDLE.

  Peter Spycker, writing from Tulpehoccan, says that "the people, hearing a
firing, and running there, found the Indians (four) sitting on children
scalping them : three of them are dead and two alive without scalps.  Thence
went to the watch-house of Derrick Sixth, and found six dead bodies, four
being scalped.  They have burned four plantations."
  In council, 25th August, 1757 -- A petition was received from the
inhabitants of the township of Paxton, setting forth that the evacuating of
fort Hunter is of great disadvantage to them, that fort Halifax is not
necessary to secure the communication with fort Augusta, and is not so
proper a station for the batteaux parties as fort Hunter, praying that the
governor would please to fix a sufficient number of men at Hunter;s, under
the command of an active officer, with strict orders to range the frontiers
daily.  It is said at same time that fort Halifax was built by Colonel
Clapham without the orders of Governor Morris, and is in a bad situation,
where none could be protected by it in batteau parties, it having no command
of the channel.  Although the fort or block-house at Hunter's (mills) was
not tenable, being hastily erected and not finished, yet it was the best
situation upon the river for every service, as well as for the protection of
the frontiers.
  In September 1755, Conrad Weiser, in his letter to the governor, states
that on the 7th inst., he went by orders to meet the Indians at John Harris'
ferry.  He found several had gone up the river to settle about Shamokin.  He
found there, however, "the Belt" and Seneca George, and five or six other
elderly men, and fifty or sixty others.  The Belt said the Six Nations were
now resolved to revenge the death of Braddock, and drive away the French,
"which the great general could not do because of pride and obstinacy, and
for which the most High had thus punished him".
  Harris' ferry, the 8th January 1756.  The governor, R. H. Morris, held a
treaty here, having Conrad Weiser as interpreter, and James Hamilton,
Richard Peters and Joseph Fox, commissioners, present; the Belt of Wampum
and the Broken Thigh, with their families, the former a Seneca, the other a
Mohock, which was adjourned to Carlisle, because of only one house at
Harris'  to accomodate them.  At Carlisle, they were also joined by John
Hamilton and William Logan, and by Mr. George Croghan, from his residence at
Aucquick, [also Awkwick.]
  Mr. Hamilton informed the council, that in November 1755, he was at John
Harris', and finding the people collected there in the utmost confusion, and
in continual fear of being fallen upon by a large body of French and
Indians, who were said to have passed the Allegheny hills in their march
towards this province, he was induced to offer a great reward to Aroas,
(Silver Heels) to go up the east side of Susquehanna as far as Shamokin, to
ascertain the facts in the case, and he being since returned and now
present, was asked to relate the facts of his journey.  He had gone as far
as Nescopecka, where he found one hundred and forty warriors in their dance,
and who expressed much anger against the English, and an intention to fall
upon them to the eastward.
  Abraham Horn, of Northampton, and Peter Frailey, of Orwickburgh, (now
dead) were the leading and influential persons, who most caused the removal
of the seat of government from Philadelphia to Lancaster, by a resolution of
March 1799.  They were supported by the members from Bucks county and all
along the Delaware (so says secretary Trimball.)
  The subject had been before agitated several times, and it would have been
carried on one occasion, but for the casting vote of John Channon, of
Huntingdon, in the senate.
  The sale of the state lands was procured by the influence of banqueting
parties and good suppers, by "the committee of vigilance", so called, and
since called borers, so first named after 1812, at Harrisburg.  This measure
gave great offence to many back members.
  The most offensive case, and most prominent as a final and leading measure
of removal, was the case of the removal of the court of justice in Wayne
county to Bethany.  This was procured by old Samuel Preston, (died in 1836)
a surveyor and postmaster, who acted in Wayne county as agent for Henry
Drinker's lands.  The last was a Philadelphian.
  When they went to Lancaster, it was called a temporary object, for ten
years only.  They continued there until 1812.
  The Paxton boys, being memorable in their day, and being often spoken of
in these pages, we here add some special facts concerning them, to wit :
Thomas Elder, a gentleman of the bar at Harrisburg, now about seventy-five
years of age, tells me that his father, the Rev. Mr. Elder, rode after the
Paxton boys, and got at their head to turn them back, and they declared they
would shoot him down.  They were generally from Hanover, fourteen miles off.
They took sacrament at the Paxton church, before going.
  Elder's father was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister, the first for
Paxton church.  He came from Ireland to it, about the year 1732; lived to be
eighty -- died in 1792, and had been the minister there sixty years.  The
Indians came twice to destroy his congregation in time of worship; one time
they laid about, seeking their chance for a week; but having come on Monday
and laying about so long, they had to go away; in doing so they killed and
wounded some whom they met.  Major Burnett was wounded in his arm.  Two
prisoners who escaped told these things.  At another time, they saw all the
congregation bring their arms and stack them at the door.  One of their
prisoners escaped and gave the alarm, and they were repulsed with some blood
on both sides.  Mr. Elder remembers several Indian families still near here
in his early days.
  Mr. Fahnestock, aged sixty-six, remembers to have seen several of the
leaders of the Paxton boys; he named Stewart, Colhoun, Smith and Dickey.
This last was the grandfather of the present Robert Dickey, who is
doorkeeper to the senate.  They lived to be aged men, in and about Harrisburg.
  The Love rock, near M'Clay's house was a place of Indian resort and
council -- part of it has been blown off.

  A letter from Harris, to Conrad Weiser, dated June 30 1755, at Paxton, to
wit :
  "I am sorry that I have occasion to inform you of such melancholy news.
On Monday, the 22d inst., was killed and scalped three persons by Indians,
near our fort, at Wills' creek.  [Wills' creek was near Chambersburg.]  And
within three days after, upwards of twenty of our inhabitants have been
killed or taken near Fort Cumberland.  William Chesney is come home, who saw
a little boy in our fort who was scalped last week, and likely to live.  In
short there seems to be nothing but desolation on the Potowmac.  There was
not scarce an hour since the army marched, but news of alarm comes down the
road, that it will probably be stopped by the enemy; one soldier was found
upon it killed.  Our own Indians are strongly suspected for several reasons;
first their deserting our army, all except about six men, and also, by
English goods or arms found on one Indian killed last week by one Williams,
which articles were delivered but lately out of our fort to Indians then
there.  I think it advisable that you should use endeavours to find out if
our own Indians are concerned, so that we might with the least delay, lay
some schemes for revenge, before they can find time to use us as they have
done our fellow subjects and acquaintances.  We need men to be directly
raised for our defence, and to guard provisions, &c., to our camp and army".
[The foregoing letter shows perhaps the grounds of the massacre of the
Conestoga Indians by the Paxton boys.  They believed too, that the two or
three persons killed at Quitepahilla, not far from Harris' ferry, eighteen
miles towards Reading, were destroyed by their own Indians, just before they
went off.  John Harris above was son of the first John Harris, an original
settler.]
  A letter from John Harris, at Paxton, October 29 1755, to Edward Shippen,
Esq., Lancaster, says :
  "We expect the enemy upon us every day, and the inhabitants are abandoning
their plantations, being greatly discouraged at the approach of such a
number of cruel savages, and no present sign of assistance.  I had a certain
account of fifteen hundred French and Indians being on their march against
us and Virginia, and now close upon our borders; their scouts scalping our
families on our frontiers daily.  Andrew Montour and others at Shamokin,
desired me to take care, that there was a party of forty Indians out many
days, and intended to burn my house and destroy myself and family.  I have
this day cut loop holes in my house, and am determined to hold out to the
last extremity if I can get some men to stand by me.  But few can be had at
present, as every one is in fear of their own families being cut off every
hour.  Great part of the Susquehanna Indians are no doubt actually in the
French interest, and I am informed that a French officer is expected at
Shamokin this week with a party of Delawares and Shawnees, no doubt to take
possession of our river.  We should raise men immediately to build a fort up
the river to take possession, and to induce some Indians to join us.  We
ought also to insist on the Indians to declare for or against us, and as
soon as we are prepared for them, we should bid up the scalps, and keep our
woods full of our people upon the scout, else they will ruin our province,
for they are a dreadful enemy !  I have sent out two Indian spies to
Shamokin; they are Mohawks."  [John Harris went up with a party of forty men
to make discoveries, and to fight as far as Shamokin, they there saw strange
Indians painted and dancing, and received advice from Andrew Montour to
hasten back, and by the longest route on the eastern side, but they chose
the western, and were attacked, and lost half a dozen of their men, &c.
  Paxton was the earliest name; it at first embraced several townships now
nearest to it.  The present Thomas Elder, Esq., remembers when there was but
one German family in all the country.  The first settlers were all
Scotch-Irish.  Their minister, Mr. Elder, was also a colonel at the same
time -- thus showing what a fighting race they must have all been against
the heathen.
  I visited Paxton church, built of lime-stone, quite old.  The graveyard
near is surrounded by a good stone wall, and has many head-stones.  The
tombstones of marble, were of James and John Harris, Wiliam M'Clay, William
Wallace, Hugh Wilson, Gen. Simpson, Thomas Forster, Krauch, Kelso.  The Rev.
John Elder had a double width of marble.  There are headstones of Duncans,
Stephens, Acols, Fulton -- this last, perhaps, of steam memory !  Older
stones were of red slate stone, and the inscriptions illegible and rude.  I
thought many of these may have been of persons killed in Indian wars.
  In this church there have been several cases of public confession, before
the congregation, of fornication, saying, after the covenanters'  way, "for
my own game, have done this shame, pray restore me to my lands again, "&c.
The present Thomas Elder has seen these things of both sexes !  Mr. Walters
also saw it done up the Juniata, Mifflin county.  The church is near to the
woods, behind and aside of it; and its front opens to a beautiful cultivated
country, lying below it.  It is three miles from Harrisburg, near the
turnpike to Lebanon.
  The tombstone of Gen. Simpson says that his family settled in Paxton in
1720.  It must have been earlier than any lands were sold on patent.
  In continuation with Harrisburg, we may pertinently mention that even
Carlisle, a few miles off, though settled so late as 1750, was so far a
frontier then, as often to be subjected to Indian alarms in the vicinage,
and to have had many characteristics of a FRONTIER TOWN.  It was a place
originally noted for its "beaver dams" probably formed our of the Le Tort
creek; a name it received from James Le Tort, once a noted French trader and
interpreter, as early as 1712.  This was once his frontier and home.  When
this town was begun, it was then the Shawnee home, they dwelling until then
round and about the "beaver pond".  They moved off, leaving only one of
their families behind, in the wigwam of "Doctor John".  Doctor John and his
family were all killed in 1768, by some of his neighbours, and it excited
much indignation among the better portion of the white settlers.
  Many aged persons, still alive in Carlisle, remembered very well when all
the carriage of goods and stores westward from Carlisle was done wholly on
pack horses, coming and going in whole companies.  Only as long as twelve
years ago, there were not more than three wagons in all Shearman valley --
all was drawn on sleds, in summer as well as winter.
  A Mrs. Murphy, who died in that valley in 1830, aged nearly one hundred
years -- having lived a long life there among the Indians.  She remembered
seeing the first wagon arrive at Carlisle, and the indignation it excited
among the packers, as likely to ruin their trade !  The pack-horses used to
carry bars of iron on their backs, crooked over and around their bodies --
barrels were hung on them, one on each side.  She remembered that the first
Indian tract to go westward, was to cross at Simpson's, four miles below
John Harris' (Harrisburg);  then across Shearman's creek at Gibson's; then
by Dick's gap; then by Shearman's valley by Concord to the Burnt Cabins;
then to the  waters of the Allegheny, and down the river.
  Shearman's valley was named after an Indian trader, who lost his life in
fording it with his horse and furs.  In this valley I saw a real "leather
stocking" in the person of a Mr. Stewart -- twenty-five years ago he had
killed as many as sixty-three deer in a season; he goes out in snow time in
preference, and lays out all night.  It was in this valley that I heard of
Wm. Penn's iron spur, left on his visit to Susquehanna, near Columbia, and
now in the possession of Lewis Pennock, in London grove, Chester county.