Ole Bull, Founder of Colony in Potter
County, Born February 5, 1810
Several years ago more than one thousand persons from every section of Pennsylvania, and not a few from Southern New York State, journeyed to a most out-of-the-way place up in the wilds of Potter County to do homage to the memory of a great man, and to view the scene of one of the saddest failures in the history of the settlement of our great Commonwealth.
This pilgrimage was to the land of Ole Bull, the great Norwegian violinist, who during his lifetime played before the royal families of Europe and distinguished personages all over the world.
Ole Bornemann Bull was born[born] in Bergen, Norway, February 5, 1810, and in his earliest childhood developed a fondness for music, especially that of a violin.
Ole was destined for the church but failed to pass the necessary examination, and at once decided that he would make music his vocation in life. He became a pupil of Paulsen for a short time, about the only instruction he ever received from a master.
It was upon a visit to Paris that Paganini heard of the youthful genius and saw in him the latent possibility of a great musician. He encouraged him to become a violin virtuoso. His first appearance on the concert stage was with Ernst and Chopin, and he was received with such approval that it was not long before his fame had spread over the entire continent of Europe.
At a time before his talent was appreciated he had become so despondent that he attempted suicide by drowning in the river Seine, but was rescued by a young French woman, Alexandriene Felice Villeminot, whom he married in 1836, and with whom he lived happily until her death in 1863.
He married a second time in 1870, taking as his bride Sara C. Thorpe, of Wisconsin. Ole Bull died on the island of Lyso, near his native Bergen, in Norway, August 17, 1880.
Ole Bull first visited the United States in the winter of 1843–44. He had grave doubts of the success of an American tour but was persuaded by friends to come here. His success was instantaneous. He was received with wild acclaim and the financial returns were far beyond his fondest dreams.
He again returned to America in 1852, and it was during this concert tour that he went to Williamsport and played before a vast audience, when the newspapers of that time wrote of him as “an attractive figure with gold snuff box, diamond-studded buttons in his shirt and his fingers almost covered with rings.”
Certainly a fastidious personage and one with such talent could not fail his audiences. The bow with which he produced such perfect melody contained a large diamond setting which sparkled as he drew it across the strings.
During his trip to Williamsport Ole Bull was entertained in the home of John F. Cowan, and the attention of the great violinist was called to certain tracts of land owned by Cowan situated in Abbott and Stewardson Townships, Potter County, and the great advantages of this location for colonization purposes, which so impressed Bull that he visited the site and noting a striking resemblance to his native Norway, decided at once to found a colony of his countrymen at this spot on the headwaters of Kettle Creek.
The following year about thirty of his countrymen, forming the advance guard, arrived in this country and proceeded to their new home in the wilderness. These adventurers were not of the ordinary immigrant class, but persons of culture and refinement, many being musicians of repute.
Ten days following the arrival of the first settlers, 105 other colonists joined them and settled in one of the four villages. These brought a minister and religious services were begun the first Sunday following.
The first difficulty encountered by these new arrivals was the transportation of their personal effects, which could only be hauled by wagon and then under the worst conditions imaginable.
Ole Bull’s colonization scheme attracted much attention, and friends and admirers of his contributed stock, machinery and farming implements. Among those who thus offered encouragement was Henry Clay, of Kentucky, who gave blooded horses and cattle, descendants of which are still among those in use in Potter County.
Four villages were laid out: Oleona, named in honor of Ole Bull; New Norway, New Bergen and Walhalla. Sixteen houses were soon under construction at Oleona, all finished within a year.
Ole Bull soon after his arrival selected a site for his castle and garden. Soon as the spot was determined upon, a flag pole of beautiful straight pine was cut, trimmed and placed. By arrangement the name by which the town was to be known was to be pronounced as the flag was unfurled to the mountain breeze; “Oleona” was the name of the home of the Norwegians. Thirty-one cheers, one for each State, were given and three long ones for Ole Bull.
The evening was one of rejoicing and celebration. Bonfires were burning everywhere. Ole Bull made an address and then, taking his violin, played an anthem suitable to the occasion. At the conclusion of the hymn of liberty of old Norway, a gentleman representing the State of Pennsylvania, stepped forward and welcomed Ole Bull and the Norwegians to the United States of America, and to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Old Bull turned his attention to the erection of his castle, which was built on a high eminence, about 200 feet above the valley below. From this site he could view every part of his colony. A great retaining wall was built at its base, extending one hundred and twenty feet in length and rising to a height of sixteen feet. This wall gave to the place the appearance of a large fortress and resembled some ancient castle of the old world.
A broad road was constructed leading up to the castle, which was broad enough to drive three teams abreast.
Any one familiar with the conditions these colonists had to face, in an almost unbroken wilderness, far from any base of supplies with little money and less business sagacity, can realize that the colony was doomed to failure the very day it started. Bull was compelled to abandon his project with the loss of his wealth, and again play in concert to recoup his fortune.
Ole Bull was a musical genius, but building five cities in the wilds of Potter County was a different thing than playing Beethoven’s Eighth Sonata on a violin. He could move audiences but not mountains.
The title of the lands he bought was defective, and, while it has been charged that he was defrauded by Cowan, there is no evidence to substantiate that. Cowan took back the property and refunded Bull the purchase money.
The castle was never fully completed and never occupied by Bull. The doors and windows were never put in place, and soon after this breaking up of the colony the building began to fall into decay until all that now remains are the cellar and retaining wall.
Ole Bull never again visited the scene of his visionary paradise, but his name is still perpetuated in the town of Oleona.
Dr. Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen,
Died at Northumberland February 6, 1804
Dr. Joseph Priestley was born near Leeds in Yorkshire, England, March 13, 1733. He died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, February 6, 1804.
Joseph was the youngest of nine children. His father and grandfather were prosperous cloth makers, employing, for that age, a large force of workmen. From his parents, who were strict Calvinists, Joseph inherited a deeply religious nature. He attended the school of the neighborhood and at eleven had read most of the Latin authors, and in a few years had made considerable progress in Greek and Hebrew, with some knowledge of Chaldee, Syrian and Arabic.
He began to experiment at the age of eleven, when he selected spiders and insects and placed them in bottles to ascertain how long they could live without fresh air.
A few years later he made “electrifying machines,” and a kite of fine silk, six feet wide, which he could take apart and carry in his pocket. The string was composed of thirty-six threads and a wire, similar to that used by Dr. Franklin, in Philadelphia, to “bring electric fire from the clouds.”
At nineteen, Priestley was sent to Daventry, where he embraced the heterodox side of almost every question, as he afterwards wrote of his three years at Daventry: “In my time the academy was in a state peculiarly favorable to the serious pursuits of truth, and the students were about equally divided upon every question of much importance, such as ‘Liberty and Necessity,’ the ‘Sleep of the Soul’ and all the articles of theological orthodoxy and heresy.”
After leaving Daventry, he preached for three years to a dissenting congregation at Needham. In 1761 he was a professor at Warrington Academy. While here he published several of his books and made such experiments in electricity and “fixed air,” that the results began to be noised abroad. He married, while at Warrington, a daughter of a wealthy iron manufacturer, a Mr. Wilkinson.
In one of his visits to London he met Benjamin Franklin. He became a member of a famous club which met at the London Coffee House, and here he interested Franklin in his experiments, and they became the closest friends. Both became members of the Royal Society and both in turn received its highest honor, the Copley medal. Each obtained from Edinburgh University the degree LL. D. Oxford conferred a like degree upon Franklin, while for a space of a century it ignored his heretical friend.
In 1860 a statue of Dr. Priestley was erected at Oxford by Prince Albert, afterward King Edward.
Franklin wrote to Priestley, in 1777: “I rejoice to hear of your continual progress in those useful discoveries. I find you have set all the philosophers of Europe at work upon fixed air (carbonic acid gas); and it is with great pleasure I observe how high you stand in their opinion, for I enjoy my friend’s fame as my own.”
When Franklin was in France during the closing days of the Revolution, Priestley was there pursuing literary work. He was afterward made a citizen and offered a seat in the National Assembly.
Shortly before the American Revolution, Priestley wrote anonymously three pamphlets in defense of the colonies. His influence was potent.
Dr. Priestley announced his discovery of “dephlogisticated air” (oxygen) in 1774, to a large assemblage of philosophers who were dining at the house of M. Lavoisier in Paris. This was man’s first introduction to the mighty element that makes one-fifth of the atmosphere in volume and eight-ninths of the ocean by weight, besides forming one-half of the earth’s solid crust and supporting all fire and all life.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Priestley did not have a biographer worthy the name, for his life is full of dramatic incidents, scientific attainment, learning and human interest.
We find him the central figure in the great gatherings of that day, receiving the highest honors of his own and other Governments, and, when the tide turned, denounced, persecuted, the victim of the mob, home and library burned and pillaged. Through all the changes of this eventful life we find him the same able, earnest, fearless and cheerful spirit to the end.
Dr. Priestley, disregarding the warning of David Hume, and against the wishes of his philosophic friends, took up the cause of liberty in religion. In his letters he makes a strong appeal for Christianity. His desire was to revive in France and England the simple spiritual communion of the early church.
He published many works upon his religious views which made him the most hated man in England. He was everywhere detested. The streets of London were strewn with scurrilous handbills and caricatures of him. Even his fellow associates in the Royal Society turned their backs upon him.
But it must be remembered that the men, at home and abroad, who opposed Priestley’s doctrines, were the very men who honored him as a man.
At Birmingham, in 1791, the last great religious riot in England occurred. It is often spoken of today as “Priestley’s Riots,” for the doctor was the chief object of the mobs.
It was during a celebration on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, at which Dr. Priestley was not present, that the cry of the mob was “Church and King.” Dr. Priestley had favored the agitation, then rife in Birmingham, for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The mob suddenly marched toward his home and Dr. and Mrs. Priestley, who were playing a game of backgammon, barely succeeded in escaping. The doctor was pursued for several days and his life threatened.
The mob vented its rage by pillaging Priestley’s house and tearing it to pieces. The rioters made a pyre of his furniture, manuscripts, priceless apparatus, a library of 30,000 volumes, his private correspondence, and his diaries, and all were destroyed by fire.
In 1794 Dr. Priestley came to America and settled at Northumberland, Pa. Here he erected a fine house and laboratory, and resumed his experiments, which resulted in the discovery of three new gases. Here he wrote many books.
Dr. Priestley made trips to Philadelphia, where he lectured on historical and religious subjects, founding, in 1796, the first Unitarian Church in that city.
The University of Pennsylvania offered him the chair of chemistry, and afterward its presidency, but he preferred the quiet of his home at the “Forks of the Susquehanna.”
In 1874 the chemists of America met at Northumberland to celebrate at the grave of Dr. Priestley the centennial of his great discovery. Messages were flashed across the Atlantic to chemists who met the same day at Birmingham to unveil a colossal statue[statue] of the man whom that city had, eighty years before, driven from the streets, and burned his home and possessions.
Dr. Joseph Priestley was one of the most distinguished adopted citizens of our great State.
Western Boundary in Dispute—Jail at| Hannastown Stormed February[February] 7, 1775
Virginia, by virtue of her “sea-to-sea” charter, made an indefinite claim to all lands west and northwest of her coast line. She therefore held that the region about the forks of the Ohio belonged to her. Accordingly, in 1749, the Ohio Land Company obtained from King George II a grant of half a million acres on the branches of the Ohio. The object was to form a barrier against the French and to establish trade with the Indians.
Christopher Gist was sent to explore the country, and, with eleven other families, he settled within the present limits of Fayette County.
A fort was begun in 1754 on the present site of Pittsburgh, but the French captured the Virginians, finished the fort and named it Fort Duquesne. In November, 1758, General John Forbes captured the fort from the French. It was rebuilt and named Fort Pitt.
Before 1758 the western part of Pennsylvania could be approached from the east only by the route of the Juniata and the Kiskiminitas. In that year Forbes finished as far as Loyalhanna the road previously begun from Fort Loudon by way of Bedford. Many Scotch-Irish settlers seated themselves in the Ligonier Valley at Hannastown, and about the forks of the Ohio, and, with settlers from Maryland and Virginia, they possessed the land in comparative quiet until Pontiac’s War.
Pittsburgh, begun in 1760, was cut off from communication during Pontiac’s conspiracy, and had it not have been for Colonel Bouquet’s victory over the savages at Busby Run in 1764 it might have been entirely destroyed.
The growth of Pittsburgh was slow. England after the French and Indian War had forbidden colonists to settle west of the headwaters of the rivers in the Atlantic basin, and the settlers on Redstone Creek and the Cheat River were at one time driven off by the same British proclamation. A law was passed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania which imposed a death penalty, without benefit of clergy, for trespassing upon lands not purchased from the Indians.
But the continued accession of emigrants into this region made it necessary to erect a new county, and the General Assembly, February 26, 1773, established Westmoreland County, which included all of the southwestern portion of the province west of Laurel Hill. Robert Hanna’s settlement, on the old Forbes road near the present site of Greensburg, was made the county seat and named Hannastown.
When Virginia saw that Pennsylvania was extending jurisdiction over the forks of the Ohio she renewed her claims to that country.
The Earl of Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, asserted that Pittsburgh was outside the limits of Pennsylvania. In this contention he was supported by Colonel George Croghan and many others, who believed that the five degrees of longitude which were to be the extent westward of Pennsylvania placed the Monongahela beyond the limits of that province. Croghan maintained that the limits were at the Alleghenies or Laurel Hill Range, “having heard, among other things, that a degree of longitude at the time of the charter of William Penn meant forty-eight miles.”
At the close of 1773 Governor Dunmore appointed Dr. John Connelly, a Pennsylvanian, as commandant of the militia of Pittsburgh. He took possession of Fort Pitt and changed its name to Fort Dunmore.
Connelly defied Pennsylvania authority and commanded all the people to appear as a militia under the authority of Lord Dunmore.
Arthur St. Clair, Prothonotary, Clerk, and Recorder of Westmoreland County, had Connelly arrested and bound over to keep the peace. St. Clair reported his actions to Governor Penn, who sent to Lord Dunmore a draught of the lines of Pennsylvania as surveyed by David Rittenhouse, William Smith and Surveyor General John Lukens, showing that Pittsburgh was east of the westernmost limit of the grant to the Proprietaries.
Dunmore demanded better evidence and that St. Clair should be dismissed from office for committing Dr. Connelly to jail.
A large company paraded in arms through the streets of Pittsburgh, and opened a cask of rum. St. Clair issued an order for them to disperse.
The Sheriff allowed Connelly to go to Pittsburgh under promise to return. He traveled about collecting adherents, and on the day he was to return he appeared before the Hannastown court house at the head of 200 men, all armed and colors flying. He placed sentinels at the door and kept the magistrates from entering unless they agreed to act under Virginia authority, and he demanded their decision in writing.
The magistrates declared they would continue to act under authority of Pennsylvania, when Connelly, a few days later, had them arrested and brought before him in Pittsburgh. When they refused to give bail, he sent them to the court of Augusta County, at Staunton, Va.
Governor Penn advised the three magistrates to get bail, but sent the Attorney General of Pennsylvania and James Tilghman, as commissioners to induce Lord Dunmore to join with the Proprietaries in a petition to the King to have the boundary line run and marked, and in the meantime to agree to a temporary line of jurisdiction, suggesting that the Monongahela River would answer for a line.
The application to the King was consented to, but the boundary was not agreed upon.
The adherents of Virginia increased in strength at Pittsburgh, and it became impossible to collect taxes imposed by Pennsylvania. How these troubles would have ended is unforeseen, for during the latter part of 1774, the attention of all the western frontier was turned to the Indian invasion, since known as Dunmore’s War.
While this war was confined to the western border of Virginia, the inhabitants of Westmoreland County organized, under command of St. Clair, assisted by Colonels Proctor and Lochrey and Captain James Smith, and put the frontier in a state of defense.
On February 7, 1775, by order of a Virginia magistrate, a man named Benjamin Harrison with an armed party broke open the jail at Hannastown and set free the prisoners. Robert Hanna, who was a magistrate, read to them the riot act, but Harrison said he did not regard that act, or those who read it, or those who made it. Two weeks later Hanna and another magistrate, James Cavett, were arrested and confined in Fort Dunmore, where they remained for months.
The controversy got into Congress, but the Revolution brought about a more amicable feeling, and by 1779 the Virginians and Pennsylvanians agreed to a settlement.
A commission surveyed the boundary by extending the Mason and Dixon’s line to its western limit of five degrees. There a meridian was drawn as far north as the Ohio.
Ceding her western lands, north of the Ohio to Congress in 1784, Virginia had no further interest in the boundary and the next year Pennsylvania alone extended the meridian to Lake Erie.
After the Revolution, affairs in Western Pennsylvania were generally peaceful.
First Members of Susquehanna Company
Settle in Wyoming, February 8, 1769
The Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, determined to hold possession of lands in the Wyoming Valley, which were claimed by the Connecticut settlers, sent Captain Amos Ogden, John Anderson, Charles Stewart, Alexander Patterson, John Jennings and several other Pennsylvanians and New Jerseymen into that section with the intention of becoming lessees or purchasers of the proprietary lands at Wyoming.
They established themselves on Mill Creek, December, 1768, where they erected a small fort or blockhouse, this settlement being within the Manor of Stoke, which had been located and surveyed for the Proprietaries December 9 of that year.
The Susquehanna Company, which had been organized at Windham, Conn., July 18, 1753, determined to take possession formally of the lands located at Wyoming, purchased by them from the Indians at Albany. The first forty settlers under this company arrived at Wyoming February 8, 1769. A large body, led by Major John Durkee, with authority from the Susquehanna Company, arrived at Wyoming from Connecticut and New York May 12, 1769. They immediately began the erection of about twenty substantial and commodious one-story log cabins. A few days later 150 additional settlers arrived.
The Connecticut settlers finished the erection of their first twenty-five cabins by May 20 and a week later began the erection of the stockade to surround them, which, when completed, they named “Fort Durkee,” in honor of their leader, Major John Durkee.
Governor John Penn was immediately advised of the arrival of the Connecticut settlers, and he at once planned to discourage their permanent location and directed letters to Colonel Turbutt Francis, then in command of the small garrison of provincial troops stationed at Fort Augusta, and to John Jennings, of Bethlehem, Sheriff of Northampton County. These letters urged them to discourage unlawful settlements, but to use force, if necessary, to drive them off.
May 24 Sheriff Jennings arrived at Wyoming and read the Governor’s proclamation to the “intruders.”
An exciting occurrence took place when “Colonel Turbut Francis, commanding a fine company from the city (Philadelphia), in full military array, with colors streaming and martial music, descended into the plain and sat down before Fort Durkee about the 20th of June, but finding the Yankees too strongly fortified, returned to await re-enforcements below the mountains.”
Another version of the affair is: “June 22 Colonel Francis, with sixty men, in a hostile manner demanded a surrender of our houses and possessions. He embodied his forces within thirty or forty rods of their (the settlers) dwelling, threatened to fire their houses and kill our people unless they surrendered and quitted their possessions, which they refused to do; and after many terrible threatenings by him he withdrew.”
Soon as Major Durkee, who had been in Easton on court business, returned to Wyoming and learned of the hostile demonstration of Colonel Francis and his small force he set about to strengthen the defenses of Fort Durkee. It was at this time, July 1, 1769, that the major compounded and originated the almost unique name “Wilkes-Barre” and bestowed it upon the settlement and territory at and immediately adjacent to Fort Durkee.
Governor Penn was fully aware that the Yankees were determined to keep possession of the lands upon which they were settled, and on August 24, 1769, wrote to Colonel Francis at Fort Augusta, directing him to raise an expedition to assist the Sheriff of Northampton County in executing the King’s writ, and concluded as follows: “It is hoped you will be able to procure the people to go without pay, as they have already manifested a very good disposition to bring the intruders to justice.”
The attempt to serve these writs in September, 1769, precipitated the first of the so-called Pennamite-Yankee Wars. The Sheriff approached a number of the settlers at work, and they were attacked by men of his posse under the command of Amos and Nathan Ogden, and “several of the settlers were beat and wounded.” This action and its results may be understood from a letter written to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut:
“In September Amos and Nathan Ogden, with twenty-six others armed with pistols and clubs, assaulted and wounded sundry of our people, whereby their lives were endangered. The same month thirteen of our people in three canoes loaded with wheat and flour, about sixty miles below Wyoming, were met and robbed of their canoes and loading by thirty armed men who came from Fort Augusta, about one-half mile away.
“In the same month came the trial of many of our men at Easton; the charge against them was riot. * * * In the course of the trial challenge was made to a juryman for having some time before expressed an opinion openly against our people; but neither that nor any other exception would prevail. The jury were treated with wine by the King’s attorney before verdict, which verdict was brought in against the prisoners, and they condemned them to pay a fine of £10 each, with large costs, in which was included the cost of the wine the jury were treated with.”
Some paid the fine, others were imprisoned. These later escaped from jail at Easton September 24, and a reward of £60 was offered by the sheriff for their apprehension. None of the twelve was captured, for they all fled to Connecticut.
Another skirmish took place in November, 1769, between the Yankee settlers at Fort Durkee and a small party of Pennsylvanians under the command of the Ogdens.
On the afternoon of November 11 Captain Ogden, apprised of the approach of Sheriff Jennings and his “posse comitatus,” gathered together his whole force of Pennamites, numbering about forty, and dashed rapidly and unexpectedly on a small party of Yankees, among whom was Major Durkee, and captured them.
Captain Ogden, also a justice of the peace, prepared legal papers for the commitment of Major Durkee in the city jail at Philadelphia, shackled him with irons and sent him under heavy escort to Philadelphia, where he was imprisoned. Emboldened by their success, Ogden and his men that night surrounded Fort Durkee and fired upon the men within.
Sheriff Jennings and his posse arrived upon the scene the next morning (Sunday) and paraded the whole body of Pennamites, about 200 in number, before Fort Durkee. While Jennings was carrying on a parley with the Yankee garrison, Ogden and a party drove off all the horses and cattle belonging to the Yankees.
The following day the Pennamites assembled in front of Fort Durkee, where they threw up breastworks, upon which they mounted a four-pounder brought from Fort Augusta. They demanded the surrender of the fort, or its destruction. Deprived of their commander and having nothing but rifles, the Yankees agreed to sign articles of capitulation.
By the terms of this agreement all but fourteen of the settlers were to leave the region within three days; the others were allowed to remain and live at Fort Durkee until His Majesty’s decree should determine who had proper title to the lands at Wyoming.
Ogden and his men, however, starved out the fourteen settlers who remained, and in a short time they were compelled to follow their companions in exile.
John Penn, Last of Proprietary Governors,
Died February 9, 1795
John Penn, son of Richard, and grandson of William Penn, the founder, arrived in Philadelphia October 30, 1763, and assumed the duties of Deputy Governor.
John was the eldest son of Richard, and was born in England in 1728. At the age of twenty-five, he first visited the Province of Pennsylvania, and ten years later, he came bearing the commission of Deputy Governor. The day he arrived to assume his office was on Sunday, and was marked by the shock of an earthquake, which the superstitious interpreted as an evil omen to his administration.
At the time of his appointment as Governor, his father was proprietor of one-third of the Province, and his uncle, Thomas, of two-thirds, the latter having inherited the share of John, the oldest of the three original proprietors, upon the occasion of his death in 1746.
When John Penn arrived as Deputy Governor he was received with great demonstrations of respect, and many entertainments were given in his honor, one of which was a civic feast which cost £203 17s.
The administration of John Penn began when the Province was in the throes of the terrible Pontiac War, and the condition along the frontier was deplorable. The “Paxtang Boys” soon thereafter murdered the Moravian Indians in the work house at Conestoga, and Governor Penn issued several proclamations, offering rewards for the chief actors in that affair.
On July 7, 1765, Governor Penn again declared war against the Shawnee and Delaware Indians, and sent Colonel Bouquet to Fort Pitt, who subdued the savages.
On March 22, 1765, the obnoxious Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament, and the real troubles for Governor Penn began in earnest. This in addition to the long controversy with the Government of Connecticut over the claims of the Susquehanna Company for lands in the Susquehanna Valley.
Early in 1771 Governor Penn was called to England by the death of his father, leaving the government of the Province in the hands of the Council, of which James Hamilton was President, who thus for the third time became in effect Governor.
On October 17, 1771, Richard Penn, second son of the late Richard, arrived in the Province, bearing the commission of Lieutenant Governor. His administration was marked by the troubles with the Connecticut settlers, which extended throughout his administration, a little less than two years.
He was well fitted by nature and education to serve as Governor and when his commission was unexpectedly revoked August 30, 1773, there was much genuine regret among the people of the Province.
In May, 1772, he married Miss Mary Masters, of Philadelphia, and on being superseded as Governor, he became a member of Council.
A few months later the merchants presented him with an address and invited him to dine with them. He had acted with prudence and manliness in difficult times, and the people believed in him.
Governor John Penn was present at the dinner. Robert Morris, who presided, placed one on his right and the other on his left, but the brothers did not speak. Richard had been deprived of his office without cause and he resented it. However, Richard was induced to execute in May, 1774, a release of his claim, and a reconciliation took place when John appointed him naval officer, and Richard, accepting the position, called to thank him.
Richard was intimate with members of the Continental Congress and when, in 1775, he returned to England, he was intrusted with the last petition from the Colonies ever presented to the King. He was examined respecting American affairs at the bar of the House of Lords and gave testimony so favorable to the Colonial cause that he incurred the displeasure of the Peers.
Upon the death of his father, February 4, 1771, Governor John Penn inherited the one-third of the Proprietary interest.
Soon after John Penn again assumed the gubernatorial powers his attention was directed to Indian hostilities on the western border of the Province. Then soon came the harsh measures adopted by Parliament toward the Massachusetts Colony, especially toward the town of Boston.
A public meeting was held in Philadelphia, but the Governor refused to convene the Assembly, and another meeting was held, at which nearly 8000 persons were present and John Dickinson and Thomas Willing presided.
The outcome of these meetings was a movement to urge the convening of a Continental Congress and committees to that end were appointed. The first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, September 4, 1774.
Without manifesting partisan zeal, Governor Penn was believed to sympathize with the Colonies, though he mildly remonstrated against the system of congressional rather than Colonial action.
During the stirring times of the early days of the Revolution, Governor Penn was only a witness to the proceedings in the province he claimed as his own.
On September 28, 1776, the Assembly, which had existed for nearly a century under the organic law of William Penn, ceased to exist, and John Penn was shorn of his power as Proprietary Governor of Pennsylvania.
After he was superseded in authority by the Supreme Executive Council, he seems to have submitted gracefully to the progress of events, which he found himself unable to control, and remained during the Revolution a quiet spectator of the long struggle without manifesting any particular interest in its result.
He married Anne Allen, daughter of William Allen, Chief Justice of the province.
In person he is described as of middle size, reserved in manners and very nearsighted.
When Howe sailed with his army from New York to make a mighty effort to end the Revolution by capturing Philadelphia, the Continental Congress, July 31, 1777, recommended to the Government of Pennsylvania to make prisoners of such of the Crown and proprietary officers as were disaffected.
Accordingly a warrant was made out for the apprehension of the former Governor, John Penn, and his Chief Justice, Benjamin Chew. Some of the City Troop made the arrest.
Both Penn and Chew refused to sign any parole, and they were taken to Fredericksburg, Va., under care of an officer and six of the troopers. They were soon paroled and resided at the Union Iron Works until May 15, 1778, when Congress discharged them from their parole.
Penn continued to reside in Bucks County, where he died February 9, 1795. He was buried in the aisle of Christ Church in front of the chancel, nineteen feet from the north wall. He was sixty-seven years old.
Munley and McAllister, Mollie Maguires,
Arrested for Murder of Thomas Sanger
and William Uren, February
10, 1876
Thomas Munley and Charles McAllister were arrested February 10, 1876, charged with the murder of Thomas Sanger and William Uren, at Raven’s Run, near Ashland, Wednesday, September 1, 1875.
These two Mollie Maguires were brought to trial in June 1876, at Pottsville. Munley was tried first, before Judge D. B. Green, and a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree was returned July 12.
It was in this case that Hon. Franklin B. Gowen, assisting the prosecution, made his memorable address against the Mollie Maguires.
To return to the crime, which followed in two weeks the murders of Gomer James and Squire Gwyther.
Facts brought to light by James McParlan, the Pinkerton detective, who joined the Mollies under the name of James McKenna and lived among them until he collected sufficient evidence to send so many to the gallows that they ceased to function as an organization, are as follows:
On the eventful morning, Hiram Beninger, a carpenter connected with the colliery owned by Heaton & Company, near Ashland, was on his way to work, when he noticed two strangers sitting on some lumber near the carpenter shop, but such being a common occurrence he passed by, but remembered their personal appearance. John Nicolls noticed three strangers resting on some idle trucks as he passed by to enter the colliery, one of whom addressed him, when he returned the salutation and almost immediately noticed the two others, where the carpenter found them. He also remembered how they were dressed, and the fact that they spoke to him, he could recall many details in their clothing and personal appearance.
About fifteen minutes afterward Thomas Sanger, a boss in Heaton & Company’s colliery, accompanied by William Uren, a miner, who boarded in his family and who was employed in the same mine, came along the road, carrying their dinner pails in their hands.
Sanger was a man greatly respected by his employes and neighbors, about thirty-three years of age, and while he had long been in the employ of the firm, he had failed to make any enemies, excepting among the Mollies. He had been several times threatened, but more recently believed the anger of his organized enemies was buried, forgotten, or appeased. This proved to be a great mistake.
Sanger and his companion had not gone far from the Sanger home, when they were both fired upon and both mortally wounded, by the same strange men noticed by the carpenter and Nicolls.
Beninger heard the shots, and rushed out of the shop, and saw Mr. Robert Heaton, one of the proprietors of the colliery, firing his pistol at and running after two of the murderers.
Two of the five assassins at this moment stopped in the flight, turned and fired their revolvers at Heaton, but without hitting him. Mr. Heaton boldly stood his ground and continued to empty his revolver at the strangers.
The five men then quickly turned and ran up the mountains. Heaton followed and when opportunity offered he continued to fire at them, but apparently none was wounded.
It was this dogged and determined courage of Mr. Heaton which made him a marked man for the nefarious organization of murderers, and which eventually drove him from the coal regions to reside elsewhere.
Had any of the others who witnessed the exchange of shots between Mr. Heaton and the Mollies been armed and helped in the uneven chase, some of them might have been killed or captured.
The assassins made good their escape in the timber and bushes of the mountains.
Both Sanger and Uren were removed to the home of a neighbor named Wheevil, where every attention was given them. Mrs. Sanger soon arrived and almost immediately that a physician came into the house Sanger expired. Uren, who had been shot in the right groin, about same place as Sanger had been hit, lingered until next day, when he died. Neither man retained consciousness long enough to give any coherent description of the manner in which they had been attacked.
Mr. Heaton was eating his breakfast when he heard the firing, and at once his mind reverted to the men he had seen sitting by the carpenter shop. He seized his pistol and ran out of the house. He first saw Sanger, groaning on the ground, who said: “Don’t stop for me, Bob, but give it to them!”
Heaton then gave the chase, as before related.
A young Williams, who wanted to join Heaton in pursuit, was prevented by his mother, but they both saw the men attack Sanger and were able to relate the manner in which the cold-blooded murder was committed.
The careful description of the story of this murder as related in the Shenandoah Herald, gave McParlan the clue which he pursued in running down the murderers. It was at this time that he was believed to be the worst Mollie in the world and was in constant danger of being killed by people who did not know his true character.
On February 10, 1875, Captain R. J. Linden, a fellow Pinkerton operative with McParlan, captured Thomas Munley at his home in Gilberton. Charles McAllister was apprehended at the same time.
McAllister demanded a separate trial and George Kaercher, Esq., the District Attorney, elected to try Munley first.
McParlan voluntarily testified in the case, and his evidence was so accurate and convincing that no other verdict could be possible.
The wonderful address of Mr. Gowen, and those of General Charles Albright, Hon. F. W. Hughes, and Guy E. Farquhar, Esq., added just the argument which the jury required to find a just verdict of “guilty of murder in the first degree.”[degree.”]
In November McAllister was convicted.
Munley was hanged in the Pottsville jail August 16, 1876, and McAllister was hanged later.