IV.
Out of the Ashes
Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon of alternate sunshine and shadow, and as we neared the summit, glanced through several openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton County valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable range upon range of dark mountains northward. In the valleys here and there were dotted square stone houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs and chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to the scene. Some of these isolated structures were deserted, with windows gaping and roofs gone, pictures of desolation and bygone days.
Just as the crest of the mountain was gained, we came upon a stone house in process of demolition, in fact all had been torn away, and the sandstone blocks piled neatly by the highway, all but the huge stone chimney and a small part of one of the foundation walls. Work of the shorers had temporarily ceased for it was a Saturday afternoon. Affixed to the chimney was a wooden mantel, painted black, of plain, but antique design, exposed, and already stained by the elements, and evidently to be abandoned by those in charge of the demolition.
The house stood on the top of a steep declivity, giving a marvelous view on four sides, almost strategic enough to have been a miniature fortress!
It was the first time in a dozen years that we had passed the site; in 1907 the house was standing and tenanted, and pointed out as having been a temporary resting place of General John Forbes on his eastern march, after the successful conquest of Fort Duquesne, in 1758. Now all is changed, historic memories had not kept the old house inviolate; it was to be ruthlessly destroyed, perhaps, like the McClure Log College near Harrisburg, to furnish the foundations for a piggery, or some other ignoble purpose.
As we passed, a pang of sorrow overcame us at the lowly state to which house and fireplace had fallen, and we fell to recounting some of the incidents of the historic highway, in military and civil history, the most noteworthy road in the Commonwealth. The further, on we traveled, the more we regretted not stopping and trying to salvage the old wooden mantel, but one of our good friends suggested that if we did not are to return for it, we should[should] mention the matter to the excellent and efficient Leslie Seylar at McConnellsburg, who knew everyone and everything, and could doubtless obtain the historic relic and have it shipped to our amateur “curio shop.”
The genial Seylar, famed for his temperamental and physical resemblance to the lamented “Great Heart,” was found at his eyrie and amusement centre on top of Cove Mountain, and he gladly consented to securing the abandoned mantel. As a result it is now in safe hands, a priceless memento of the golden age of Pennsylvania History.
But now for the story or the legend of the mantel, alluded to briefly last year in the chapter called the “Star of the Glen,” in this writer’s “South Mountain Sketches.” The story, as an old occupant of the house told it, and he survived on until early in the Nineteenth Century was, that General Forbes, on this victorious eastern march, was seized many times with fainting fits. On every occasion his officers and orderlies believed that the end had come, so closely did he simulate death. But he had always been delicate, at least from his first appearance in Pennsylvania, though when campaigning with the gallant Marshal Ligonier in France, Flanders and on the Rhine, participating in the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy and Lauffeld, no such symptoms were noted. Although less than fifty years of age when he started towards the west, he was regarded, from his illnesses, as an aged person, Sherman Day in his inimitable “Historical Collections” states that there was “much dissatisfaction in the choice of a leader of the expedition against Fort Duquesne, as General Forbes, the commander, was a decrepit old man.”[man.”]
What caused his ill health history has not uncovered at this late date. It has been said that he was an epileptic, like Alexander and other great generals, or a sufferer from heart trouble or general debility. His military genius outweighed his physical frailties, so that he rose superior to him, but it must not be forgotten that he was aided by two brilliant officers, Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet.
His immediate entourage was a remarkable one, even for a soldier of many wars. Like a true Scotsman, he carried his own piper with him, Donald MacKelvie, said to be a descendant of the mighty MacCrimmons; and his bodyguard was also headed by a Highlander, Andrew MacCochran, who had been a deer stalker on one of the estates owned by the General’s father.