State Capital Removed to Harrisburg by Act
of February 21, 1810
Very soon after the close of the Revolution there began an agitation about the removal of the seat of the State Government from Philadelphia.
In March, 1787, the Assembly, then a single branch, resolved that Philadelphia was “an unfortunate location” and expressed by their votes its determination to build a State house at Harrisburg on a plot of ground the property of the Commonwealth, etc., being four and a half acres, conveyed by John Harris in 1785. Harrisburg was then a town of nearly 600 inhabitants.
Action was not taken, but again in subsequent sessions, as in 1795, the House voted thirty-six to thirty-four in favor of moving the seat of Government to Carlisle. The Senate did not concur.
In 1798 the House agreed to remove to Wrightsville, York County, “without delay.” Again the Senate refused to concur.
But in 1799 the effort in favor of removal was crowned with success. Both branches voted this time to remove to Lancaster, then a town of great importance, by far the most considerable in the interior. Accordingly, in December, 1799, the Legislature met in Lancaster, continuing to do so until the spring of 1812, when the seat of Government was removed to its present location in Harrisburg.
The provisions of the Constitution now require that no removal can hereafter be made without the consent of the people at a general election, and, although there have been many attempts made to relocate at Philadelphia and elsewhere since 1812, it is hardly probable that any other city or section will ever be acceptable to the citizens.
It appears the choice of Lancaster was not as satisfactory as expected as agitation for another removal was almost immediately commenced. On December 9, 1801, a motion was made by Stacy Potts, of Dauphin County, seconded by Mr. Lord Butler, of Luzerne County, calling for the appointment of a committee to consider and report on “the most eligible place to fix the permanent seat of government of this State.” The House voted to consider the report, January 13, 1802, but nothing further was done during that session, except an attempt to introduce the measure under a fresh dress. A measure was introduced for the erection of a structure for the “safe preservation” of the State papers. Under this thin disguise, the subject of removal was very skillfully avoided by those opposed to removal in a debate extending through December, 1802, and ending latter part of the following January.
Senator Laird, January 4, 1809, presented the petition of sundry inhabitants of the town of Northumberland, at the forks of the Susquehanna, setting forth the central situation of that growing town, and showing the advantages of fixing the State government there, offering accommodations for the officers of the State and members of the Legislature, and praying a removal of the seat of government thither.
This petition was referred to a committee consisting of Senators Laird, Heston, Doty, Hiester and Laycock.
The committee shortly after submitted a report recommending the removal of the seat of government to the town of Northumberland. The Senate, however, when the report was under consideration, struck out the word “Northumberland,” and from that moment onward the subject was constantly agitated.
On February 17, 1809, the Senate, in Committee of the Whole, endeavored to have the words “City of Philadelphia,” inserted as the place for the seat of government, but, on vote, the motion was lost when only eight Senators supported the motion. Then another effort to insert the name of Northumberland was made, also Middletown, and Harrisburg. Northumberland received only seven votes, but when Harrisburg was voted upon the Senate supported it by a vote of fourteen to ten, but the House refused to consider the bill during that session. No further action was taken until February, 1810, when a bill passed both branches of the Legislature and became a law, February 21, 1810.
This act consisted of ten sections and provided “that within the month of October, 1812, all the offices attached to the seat of government of this State shall be removed to the Borough of Harrisburg,” etc.
Robert Harris, George Hoyer and George Ziegler were named in the act as commissioners to superintend and direct the removal of books, records, papers and other documents, etc., and to provide good and suitable rooms and apartments for the accommodation of the Legislature and the State departments.
The Governor was directed to accept “on behalf and in the name of the Commonwealth the offer of ten acres of land in or adjoining the said Borough of Harrisburg, at $100 per acre, made by William Maclay, adjoining to the four-acre lot formerly appropriated by John Harris for the use of the State,” etc.
Appropriations were made for the payment of this land and for the erection of office buildings. The Governor was authorized to appoint three commissioners to fix upon a site, procure plans for and superintend the erection of the buildings.
Governor Simon Snyder appointed William Findlay, Richard M. Crain, George Bryan, John B. Gibson and William Gibbons as commissioners and they selected Stephen Mills as architect.
A supplement to the act passed February 7, 1812, provided that all the offices should be removed to Harrisburg during the month of April. A second supplement passed March 10, 1812, directed “the clerks of the two houses, on or before the 1st of June next (1812), to remove or cause to be removed all the papers, records, books and documents belonging to each house aforesaid, together with whatever furniture may be thought fit for removal.”
From these records it is ascertained that the Government of the State was removed in all its departments, in the year 1812, from Lancaster to Harrisburg, and that the first organization at the latter place was in December of that year.
The first sessions of the Legislature were held in the old court house.
The cornerstone of the capitol was laid Monday, May 31, 1819, by Governor William Findlay. The construction was rapidly pushed forward, and the building made ready for occupancy in December, 1821.
The Legislature met in the new capitol, Wednesday, January 2, 1822, when proper ceremonies were held in honor of the event. This building was destroyed by fire February 2, 1897.
The present magnificent capitol building was constructed by a Commission composed of Governor William A. Stone, Edward Bailey, William P. Snyder, Nathan C. Schaeffer and William H. Graham. Other officers of the commission were T. L. Erye, superintendent; Robert K. Young, general counsel; Edgar C. Gerwig, secretary; Joseph M. Huston, architect, and George F. Payne, contractor.
The capitol was dedicated, October 4, 1906, when President Roosevelt delivered the oration, and was entertained at luncheon by Governor Pennypacker.
Service and Captivity of Captain John Boyd,
Born February 22, 1750
One of the distinguished patriots of the Continental Army during the Revolution was Captain John Boyd, a frontiersman, who suffered Indian captivity and lived to rejoin his family and again become one of the foremost citizens of his time.
The Boyd family gained a foothold in America when John Boyd, the emigrant from the North of Ireland, landed on these shores in 1744, and settled in Chester County. He married Sarah De Vane, and they removed to Northumberland County, where they continued to reside until their decease. They were the parents of three patriotic sons—John, born February 22, 1750; Thomas, born in 1752, and William, born in 1755.
William Boyd was a lieutenant in the Twelfth Regiment of the Continental Line, under Colonel William Cooke. He fell at the Battle of Brandywine.
Thomas Boyd was a lieutenant in General John Sullivan’s command when he made his successful campaign against the Six Nations in Northern Pennsylvania and Southern New York in 1779. Lieutenant Boyd was in charge of a scouting detail on the march when he was captured by the Indians and Tories under command of Colonel John Butler, near Little Beard’s Town, in the Genesee.
Boyd was surrounded by a strong detachment of the enemy, who killed fourteen of his men. He and a soldier were captured and only eight escaped. When General Sullivan learned of Boyd’s fate the advance was quickened in the hope they could reach him, but on arriving at Genesee Castle his remains and those of the other prisoners were found, surrounded by all the horrid evidences of savage barbarity. The torture fires were yet burning. Flaming pine knots had been thrust into their flesh, their fingernails pulled out, their tongues cut off and their heads severed from their bodies.
John, the eldest brother, was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Continental Army in May, 1777, which rank he held until February, 1781, when he received a captain’s commission from the State of Pennsylvania, which had resolved to raise and equip three companies of Rangers for the defense of the western frontier, then sorely distressed by the hostile incursions of the savages. It was to the command of one of these companies, that Captain John Boyd was promoted.
In June, 1781, while marching his men across the Allegheny Mountains, he fell into an ambuscade of Indians near the headwaters of the Raystown branch of the Juniata River, in Bedford County, and was made a prisoner with a number of his soldiers, and led captive through the wilderness to Canada.
Captain Boyd was confined during his imprisonment in Canada on an island in the St. Lawrence, near Montreal.
In the spring of 1782 an exchange of prisoners took place and he was returned to Philadelphia with a number of his fellow soldiers.
Previous to his capture he had been engaged in the Battles of White Plains, Germantown, Brandywine and Stony Point. He was one of the fifty who composed the “forlorn hope,” led by Mad Anthony Wayne at Stony Point, who met within the fort. He was at West Point and witnessed the execution of the unfortunate Major Andre.
At the time of the ambuscade Captain Boyd was wounded during the skirmish, but after his capture and in spite of his wounds, he made a desperate effort to escape by running, but was pursued and received three terrible gashes in his head with a tomahawk when he was re-captured.
The Indians immediately struck across the country, reaching the West Branch of the Susquehanna near the mouth of the Sinnemahoning Creek. They also had another prisoner named Ross, who was wounded even more severely than Boyd, and could travel no farther. He was fastened to a stake, with his arms tied behind his back; his body was cut with sharp points and pitch-pine splinters stuck into the incisions; the fire was lighted and the savages danced around him in fiendish glee. His tortures were terrible before death relieved him.
During this tragic scene Captain Boyd, faint from the loss of blood, was tied to a small oak sapling, in such a position that he could not refrain from being a silent spectator of the horrible scene; realizing that he was soon to suffer the same tortures.
He summoned up all his courage and resigned himself to his fate. Certainly his thoughts must have reminded him of the sufferings of his heroic brother only two years before, almost in the same manner.
While the incarnate fiends were making preparations to torture him to death by inches, he sang a pretty Masonic song, with a plaintive air which attracted their attention and they listened to it closely until it was finished. At this critical moment an old squaw came up and claimed him for her son. The Indians did not interfere and she immediately dressed his wounds and attended to his comfort, carefully guarding him during their journey to Canada.
This old squaw accompanied Captain Boyd to Quebec, where he was placed in a hospital and attended by an English surgeon. When he recovered he was turned out on the street without a penny or a friend.
He found a Masonic Inn and made himself known to the proprietor who cared for him until he was exchanged.
The old squaw who befriended him belonged to the Oneida tribe. Captain Boyd remembered her kindly as one of his best friends and frequently sent her presents of money and trinkets. On one occasion he made a journey north to visit her in her aboriginal home and personally thank her for saving his life.
Captain Boyd, in partnership with Colonel William Wilson, operated a mill on Chillisquaque Creek, Northumberland County, for many years.
He was one of the surviving officers who enjoyed the provisions of the act of Congress, May, 1828.
He was a delegate to the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution December 12, 1787.
He was an elector of President and Vice President in 1792, when he voted for Washington and Adams. He was appointed by President Washington Inspector of Internal Revenue for Pennsylvania. He also served as Register and Recorder of Northumberland County.
Captain Boyd married May 13, 1794, Rebecca, daughter of Colonel John Bull, famous Revolutionary officer. They were the parents of five daughters and two sons. He died February 23, 1831.
Simon Girty, the Renegade, and Indians
Attacked Fort Laurens, February
23,1779
Brigadier General Lachlan McIntosh, who had been sent by Congress and General Washington to restore peace on the harried western frontier of Pennsylvania, relieved General Edward Hand of his command at Fort Pitt.
A treaty of peace with the Delaware Indians was concluded September 17, 1778, and General McIntosh immediately prepared an expedition against the British post at Detroit.
On October 1, the army, consisting of 1300 troops, of whom 500 were regulars of the Eighth Pennsylvania and Thirteenth Virginia, marched from Fort Pitt down the Ohio, to the mouth of the Beaver.
Four weeks were occupied in building a fort within the present town of Beaver, which was named Fort McIntosh, in honor of the commanding officer.
A herd of lean cattle arrived at Fort McIntosh November 3, and on the 5th the army began its march, but they did not reach the Tuscarawas River until November 19.
In accord with a provision in the treaty with the Delaware, General McIntosh was pledged to erect a protection for the Indian women and children. During the march to the Tuscarawas a Delaware chief was shot by a Virginia militiaman, and many Indians deserted the American force.
General McIntosh, with great reluctance, determined not to continue the campaign so late in the year, and to employ the troops and make a show of enterprise, he began the construction of a stockade fort at Tuscarawas, where the army then encamped and from which place it would again set out in the spring on another attempt against Detroit.
The fort was named Fort Laurens, in honor of the President of the Continental Congress.
Before this fort was finished General McIntosh realized he could not get forward a sufficient quantity of provisions to maintain his large force in the Indian country long enough even for an expedition against the Sandusky towns.
The Virginians were enlisted only until the end of the year, the weather became intensely cold, starvation and deep snows threatened, which seemed enough to discourage any commander and the general was forced to march his army to the Ohio.
He left 150 men of the Thirteenth Virginia, under command of Colonel John Gibson, one of the stoutest-hearted of the frontiersmen. Colonel Daniel Brodhead, of Northampton County, with a detachment of the Eighth Pennsylvania, formed the winter garrison at Fort McIntosh, while General McIntosh took up his quarters at Fort Pitt much chagrined over his disappointments.
The little garrison at Fort Laurens experienced a terrible winter. They were short of food and clothing. The troops hunted until driven out of the woods by the hostile Indians.
The erection of this fort in the very heart of the Indian country greatly provoked the Wyandot, Miami and Mingo tribes, and they plotted its destruction. Early in January, 1779, they began to prowl about the post.
General McIntosh promised to send provisions to the post by the middle of January, and Captain John Clark, of the Eighth Pennsylvania, was sent from McIntosh with fifteen men to convoy the pack horses loaded with flour and meat to the relief of the post on the Tuscarawas.
This detail reached the fort January 21, and two days later set out on their return to the Ohio. Three miles from the fort the party was attacked from ambush by seventeen Mingo Indians, under the leadership of Simon Girty, the renegade and Tory, and two soldiers were killed, four wounded and one captured.
Captain Clark was forced back to Fort Laurens, but a few days afterward he again started and led his little detail through without molestation. Girty led his captive soldier to Detroit, and while there raised a much larger force and returned to the vicinity of Fort Laurens, where he arrived about the middle of February.
Fort Laurens was now surrounded by a band of 200 Miami and Mingo Indians led by Girty and Captain Henry Bird. Colonel Gibson succeeded in sending a messenger through the savage lines, who carried the distressing news to General McIntosh.
On February 23, 1779, a wagon was sent out from the fort under an escort of eighteen soldiers to haul some firewood which had been cut by the troops. About a half a mile from the fort the little party passed an ancient Indian mound behind which a band of Indians lay hidden. The Indians burst upon them, both front and rear, and every man in the detail was killed and scalped except two, who were taken prisoners.
The Indians then planned a regular siege upon the fort and endeavored to starve the garrison into surrender.
Colonel Gibson dispatched another messenger, who eluded the watchful Indians and reached Fort McCord March 3.
In the interim the condition in the garrison became desperate. A sortie in force was contemplated but the strength of the savages caused this plan to be abandoned. The Indians paraded over the crest of the hill within plain sight, and about 850 warriors were counted. It was afterward learned that 200 had been marched to make a show, four times the strength.
Captain Bird after this stratagem, sent in a demand for surrender, promising safe passage for the soldiers to Fort McIntosh, but Gibson sternly refused. The Indians then promised to withdraw if Gibson would furnish them with a barrel of flour and a barrel of meat.
Bird believed the garrison was reduced to its last ration and would, of necessity, refuse the request, and therefore he felt certain that in a few days the garrison must surrender.
Gibson had but a few barrels of food, and that in bad condition; but he quickly complied with the demand, sent out two barrels and said he had plenty yet inside. They enjoyed a feast on the flour and meat, and on the following day left that vicinity and returned to their towns in Northwestern Ohio.
On March 23, General McIntosh appeared with his relieving force of 300 regulars and 200 militia escorting a train of pack horses with provisions. For more than a week the men had subsisted on roots and soup made by boiling raw hides.
The famished troops sallied forth, and fired a volley to express their joy. The shooting frightened the pack horses, causing them to stampede through the woods, scattering food in every direction. Many of the horses were never recovered and the food lost.
By the middle of May the garrison was compelled to return to Fort McIntosh to escape actual starvation. The fort was finally dismantled and the men returned to Fort Pitt.
General Jacob Brown, Hero of War of 1812,
Died February 24, 1828; Native of
Pennsylvania
When General Jacob Brown died in Washington, D. C., February 24, 1828, a monument was erected over his remains in the historic Congressional burial ground, which bore the following inscription:
“Sacred to the memory of General Jacob Brown. He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of May, 1775, and died in the city of Washington, commanding-general of the army, on the 24th of February, 1828.
“Let him who e’er in after days
Shall view this monument of praise,
For honor heave the patriot sigh
And for his country learn to die.”
Then this surely was an unusual man and such is the fact.
He was born of Quaker parentage, in the house long since known as the Warner mansion, about three and a half miles below Morrisville, on the banks of the Delaware River, where his father lived until the son Jacob was grown, and they removed to New York toward the close of the century.
From his eighteenth to his twenty-first year Jacob Brown taught school at Crosswicks, N. J., and passed the next two years in surveying lands in Ohio.
In 1798 he opened a select school in New York City, and at the same time studied law.
Some of his newspaper essays attracted the attention of General Alexander Hamilton, to whom he became secretary while that officer was acting General-in-Chief of the army raised in anticipation of a war with France.
When those war clouds disappeared Brown went to northern New York, purchased lands on the banks of the Black River, not far distant from Sackett’s Harbor, and founded the flourishing settlement of Brownsville, where he erected the first building within thirty miles of Lake Ontario.
There Brown became county judge; colonel of the local militia in 1809; brigadier general in 1810; and, in 1812, received the appointment of commander of the frontier from Oswego to Lake St. Francis, a line two hundred miles in extent.
During the War of 1812–14, he performed most conspicuous service, receiving two severe wounds in battle.
At the second attack upon Sackett’s Harbor, May 27, 1813, when the news of the approach of the British squadron reached there Colonel Backus was in command. General Jacob Brown was at his home, a few miles distant. He was notified and arrived before dawn of the 28th. He sent expresses in all directions to summon the militia to the field, and fired guns to arouse the inhabitants.
As rapidly as the militia came in they were armed and sent to Horse Island, where it was expected the enemy would attempt to land. On the appearance of some American gun boats the British squadron went out on the open lake. But when the enemy discovered the real weakness of the defenders, the squadron returned on the morning of the 29th and landed a large force on Horse Island.
The militia had been withdrawn from the island to the mainland, and fled at the first fire of the invaders.
This disgraceful conduct astonished General Brown, who rallied his troops, when he discovered the store houses and a ship in flames, set on fire by Americans who believed their militia was in full retreat. This caused General Brown to redouble his exertions to rally the militia. He succeeded, and so turned the fortunes of the day in favor of his country.
When Sir George Prevost, mounted on a high stump, saw the rallying militia on his flank and rear, he believed them to be American reinforcements and sounded a retreat.
For his conduct in the defense of Sackett’s Harbor, Brown was made a brigadier in the United States Army.
General Brown made the only redeeming movement in Wilkinson’s disgraceful expedition down the St. Lawrence River against Montreal, November, 1813. Brown captured and held the post at the foot of the rapids, which movement permitted the union of the several armies, or the defeat would have been even more disastrous.
General Brown was severely wounded at the repulse of the British at Fort Erie, August 15, 1814.
Both parties prepared to renew the contest, and General Brown remained in command. On September 17, he stormed the attacking forces by a sortie from the fort, and won a brilliant victory. This saved Fort Erie with Buffalo, and the stores on the Niagara frontier.
Public honors were bestowed upon Generals Brown, Porter and Ripley. Congress presented each with a gold medal.
To the chief commander, General Brown, it was said, “no enterprise which he undertook ever failed,” and the city of New York gave him the freedom of the city in a beautiful gold box. The Governor of New York presented him with an elegant sword.
At the function in New York City, held February 4, 1815, Mayor DeWitt Clinton presided, and the aldermen and principal citizens hailed him as the hero of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane.
The citizens of Philadelphia gave him a great public banquet at Washington Hall, Chief Justice Tilghman presiding, and Major Jackson, vice president.
The sanguinary battle near the cataract of the Niagara is known in history as the battle of Lundy’s Lane.
The British had just been defeated (July 5, 1814), at Chippewa, and were smarting under the disgrace of having their veteran troops defeated by raw Americans.
General Brown was ably supported by General Scott in this action and both were severely wounded. The command devolved upon General Ripley who disobeyed General Brown’s orders, lost the advantage of a brilliant victory, and was soon replaced by General E. P. Gaines.
At the close of the war, General Brown was retained in command of the northern division of the army, and was made general-in-chief, March 10, 1821, which exalted position he held with honor and credit till his death.