One of the asylums which has attracted more attention than many others is the Edwin Forrest Home for Retired Actors.

It was founded under the direction of Edwin Forrest, the famous tragedian, who by his will, dated April 5, 1866, bequeathed to his executors, James Oakes of Boston, James Lawson of New York, and David Dougherty of Philadelphia, all his property, with the exception of annuities to his sisters and some personal legacies, in trust for an institution “which they will call the Edwin Forrest Home.” He further directed that it should be established at his country place called Spring Brook, below Holmesburg, in the city of Philadelphia, which he had purchased some years before.

Mr. Forrest recommended that an application should be made to the Legislature for a charter to trustees, with authority to conduct the affairs of the institution in accordance with his plans.

Application was accordingly made, and on April 7, 1873, James Oakes of Boston, James Lawson of New York, Daniel Dougherty, John W. Forney, James H. Castle, John H. Michener, and the mayor of Philadelphia for the time being, were made a body politic by the name of the Edwin Forrest Home, with authority to carry out the designs of the donor.

The estate which Mr. Forrest left was largely in real property, land and houses, some of it unproductive and waiting for a market, so that there was no product from it. In addition there was a claim on behalf of his wife, who had been separated from him for years, which seemed to affect his property. She had been divorced in the State of New York, where the judge had allowed her alimony, three thousand dollars per year, and this claim was thought to be good against Mr. Forrest’s estate during the entire period of her life.

This condition embarrassed the executors, but a compromise was arrived at which released the property, upon payment of a large sum of money, by which the aggregate fund for the support of the home was considerably diminished.

The executors were not able to open the home until 1876, when it commenced with four inmates, William Lomas, George G. Spear, Mrs. Rhoda Wood and Mrs. Burroughs. To these old actors and actresses was shortly added Jacob W. Thoman, who had made his first appearance at the Chestnut Street Theater, Philadelphia, in 1834.

The location of the home was far out in the country and the actors who spent their life in the environment of the stage, would prefer to spend their declining days near the theatres, so that they could frequently visit them and renew acquaintances and friendships with old companions of the mask and wig.

The mansion was a fine house, and capable of being made comfortable. It was of old style, three stories high, skirted by broad pillared porticos, tastefully decorated with growing plants.

The halls and rooms were hung with portraits and works of arts, and marble busts of the great characters of earlier days were there in abundance. Many fine oil portraits of Forrest in different roles were among the collection of art. Many interesting play-bills of his early performances, and portraits of most of the actors who had won fame before the footlights were on the walls.

The bedrooms were each furnished with high-post bedsteads, and old types of bureaus and dressers.

The library was unique and wonderfully furnished, and the eight thousand volumes embraced the classics, treatises upon art, and interesting histories of the stage. In niches of the walls were busts of the nation’s great men. Art masterpieces in oil and marble were to be found in the old home.

The farm attached to the fine mansion contains one hundred and eleven acres.

Edwin Forrest was born in Philadelphia, March 9, 1806. He died there December 12, 1872.

His father was Scotch, his mother of German birth. He exhibited from early age a taste for the stage, and when eleven years old participated in theatrical representations as a member of an amateur club, sometimes performing female roles.

His first appearance on the regular stage was on November 27, 1820, in the part of Douglas in Home’s tragedy of that name.

A protracted professional tour in the west and south ensued, in which he won considerable reputation.

His first great success was achieved May 26, 1826, in the Park Theater, New York, as Othello. This led to a long engagement at the Bowery Theater, where he enjoyed extraordinary popularity.

In 1836 he crossed the Atlantic and first appeared as Spartacus in Drury Lane Theater, London, October 17. He achieved distinguished success, and acquired the friendship of Macready, Kemble, and others.

In 1837 he married Catherine Norton Sinclair, daughter of John Sinclair the singer, and soon afterward returned to the United States, where he was welcomed by enthusiastic audiences.

In 1845 Mr. and Mrs. Forrest returned to London. During this visit, which lasted two years, a rupture occurred in the friendly relations between Forrest and Macready, and to the zeal with which the friends of the former espoused his quarrel was due the disgraceful riot in New York, May 10, 1849, during an engagement of Macready at the Astor Place Theater. This was accompanied by serious loss of life.

Soon after Forrest separated from his wife, and between 1853 and 1860 he retired from professional life, but when he returned to the stage he filled the role of Hamlet with all his former acceptance.

Latterly he suffered considerably from illness, and his last engagement began on February 6, 1871.

He died of apoplexy, surviving the attack only half an hour.

He was a man of fine presence, well equipped for his profession, naturally frank and engaging.

A large part of his valuable library and Shakespeare collection, which he had spent many years in gathering, was almost entirely destroyed by fire in his house in Philadelphia, January 15, 1873.

War Hero, April 8, 1835

A monument to the memory of Colonel John Kelly was erected with impressive ceremonies April 8, 1835, in the Presbyterian burial-ground, in the borough of Lewisburg. A company of cavalry from Northumberland County, one from Union, and three infantry companies participated. General Abbott Green was grand marshal, with General Robert H. Hammond, General Michael Brobst, Colonel Philip Ruhl and Surgeon Major Dr. James S. Dougal as aids.

The parade was formed by the adjutant, Colonel Jackson McFadden, with the citizen militia on the right of line, followed by the veterans of the Revolutionary War and those of the War of 1812, and hundreds of citizens.

The most interesting feature of the large procession was a float which was drawn by four gray horses, upon which was placed the monument. Cavalry on either side acted as a guard of honor. In the carriages were the orator, General James Merrill, the clergy, and relatives of the old hero in whose honor the celebration was being held.

Upon its arrival at the ground, after the proper military manoeuver was performed, the monument was set by the architects, William Hubbard, F. Stoughton, Samuel Hursh and Charles Penny. The orator had a subject worthy of his best efforts, for such was Colonel John Kelly.

Colonel Kelly was born in Lancaster County, February, 1744. Almost immediately after the purchase from the Indians, November 5, 1768, he went to Buffalo Valley, in what is now Union County. There he endured hardships common to all the settlers who pushed out along the frontiers. He was in the prime of manhood, of a robust constitution, vigorous and muscular, 6 feet 2 inches in height, and almost insensible to fatigue, and so accustomed to dangers that bodily fear was foreign to his nature.

Colonel Kelly served in the Revolutionary War and distinguished himself in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In the course of one of the retreats Colonel James Potter sent an order to Major Kelly to have a certain bridge cut down to prevent the advance of the British, who were then in sight. Kelly sent for an ax, but represented that the enterprise would be very hazardous. Still the British advance must be stopped and the order was not withdrawn. He said he could not order another to do what some would say he was afraid to do himself—he would cut down the bridge.

Before all the logs were cut away he was within range of the British fire, and many balls struck the logs. The last log fell sooner than he expected and he fell with it into the swollen stream. The American soldiers moved off, not believing it possible to assist him to make his escape. He, however, reached the shore and joined the troops and managed to capture an armed British scout on the way and took him into camp a prisoner of war.

History records the fact that our army was saved by the destruction of that bridge, but the manner in which it was done or the person who did it is not mentioned.

After his discharge Major Kelly returned to his farm and family, and during the three succeeding years the Indians were troublesome to the settlers on the West Branch. He became colonel of the regiment, and it was his duty to guard the valley against the incursions of the savages.

When the “Big Runaway” occurred following the Wyoming massacre, Colonel Kelly was among the first to return. For at least two harvests reapers took their rifles to the field, and some of the company watched while others wrought.

Colonel Kelly had the principal command of scouting parties in the valley, and very often he went in person. Many nights he laid on the branches of trees without a fire, because it would have indicated his position to the enemy. He was skilled in Indian mode of warfare and was a terror to their marauding bands.

So greatly was he feared by the savages that they determined on his destruction and, being too cowardly to attack him openly, sought his life by stealth. One night he apprehended they were near. He rose early next morning and, looking through the crevices of his log house, he ascertained that two at least, if not more, were lying with their arms so as to shoot him when he should open his door. He fixed his own rifle and took his position so that by a string he could open the door and watch the Indians. The moment he pulled the door open two balls came into the house and the Indians rose to advance. He fired and wounded one, when they both retreated. When safe to do so he followed them by the blood, but they escaped.

After the capture and destruction of Fort Freeland, Colonel Kelly with a company of men went to the scene of the battle and buried the dead.

For many years Colonel Kelly held the office of Justice of the Peace, and, in the administration of justice, he exhibited the same anxiety to do right, which had characterized him in his military service. He would at any time forego his own fees, and, if the parties were poor, pay the constable’s costs, to procure a compromise.

While he was a devout Presbyterian he entertained an intense hatred for an Indian. When the Presbytery of Northumberland called on Colonel Kelly for a contribution to be used to evangelize the savages, he refused to give one cent, but said he would cheerfully subscribe any sum required to buy ropes to hang them.

Toward the end of a long and active life, Colonel Kelly became by disease incapable of much motion; and seldom left his home. He died February 18, 1832, aged eighty-eight years. He was greatly respected by his neighbors and friends, and it is little wonder that a monument was unveiled to his memory three years later.

The spring of 1856 the monument, together with his remains, were removed to the new and beautiful cemetery on the western border of the Union County seat.

The old colonel was survived by his wife, seven sons and two daughters. One son, James, was the father of United States Senator James K. Kelly, of Oregon.

John Armstrong, a trader among the Indians, residing on the Susquehanna above Peter’s Mountain, on the east bank of the river, and two of his servants, James Smith and Woodward Arnold, were barbarously murdered April 9, 1744, by an Indian of the Delaware tribe named Musemeelin in Jack’s Narrows, now Huntingdon County.

The murderer was apprehended and delivered up by his own nation and imprisoned at Lancaster, whence he was removed to Philadelphia lest he should escape or his trial and execution, if found guilty, produce an unfavorable impression on the Indians. This was particularly important, as a large council was about to convene at Lancaster.

Governor George Thomas directed that the property of Armstrong be returned to his family. He also invited a deputation of the Delaware tribe to attend the trial of Musemeelin and to be present at his execution, if such was to take place.

Nine of Armstrong’s relatives and neighbors went in search of the remains of the murdered men and to gather such evidence as they could about the details of the crime. They signed a deposition before James Armstrong, one of His Majesty’s justices of the peace for Lancaster County, dated “Paxtang, 19th day of April, 1744.”

These deponents testified that when they learned of the murder they met at the house of Joseph Chambers, in Paxtang, and determined to go to Shamokin and consult with Shilkellamy, the vicegerent of the Six Nations, what they should do concerning the affair.

Shikellamy sent eight Indians to accompany the deponents. The entire party then went to the house of James Berry, on Mahantango Creek, which empties into the Susquehanna above the mouth of the Juniata.

On the way to Berry’s three of the Indians ran away, but on the morning after their arrival there, the deponents, with the five Indians, set out in quest of the bodies.

They proceeded to the last known sleeping place of John Armstrong and his men, and a short distance from this place James Berry picked up the shoulder bone of a human being. He showed his find to his companions, and the action of the Indians at this time proved to the whites that they knew more about the crime than they had made known.

The party proceeded along a path three miles, heading to the Juniata Narrows, to a point where they suspected the crime to have been committed. Here the white men directed the Indians to go farther down the creek, but they hung back, and actually followed the white men. Some eagles or vultures were noticed and then the Indians disappeared.

At this place a corpse was discovered, which they believed to be that of James Smith; three shots were heard at a short distance, and the deponents, believing the Indians had fired them to advise the finding of another corpse, rushed to the place, but the Indians had run away. A quarter of a mile farther down the creek the corpse of Woodward Arnold was found lying on a rock.

The deponents examined the bodies of Arnold and Smith and found them to have been most barbarously and inhumanely murdered by being gashed with deep cuts on their heads with tomahawks, and other parts of their bodies mutilated. The body of Armstrong was believed to have been eaten by the savages.

This deposition was signed by Alexander Armstrong, a brother of John, the murdered man, who lived at the mouth of Armstrong’s Creek, above the present town of Halifax, Dauphin County; Thomas McKee; John Foster, who also lived on the west side of the Susquehanna; William Baskins, James Berry, who lived on the east side, near the Juniata, and John Watts, James Armstrong and David Denny.

The atrocity of this outrage was so revolting that a Provincial Council was held to take the matter into consideration, and it was finally resolved that Conrad Weiser should be sent to Shamokin to make demands, in the name of the Governor, for those concerned in the crime.

Mr. Weiser arrived at Shamokin, May, 1744, and delivered Governor Thomas’ message to Allummapees, then the Delaware King, a large number of that tribe and in the presence of Shikellamy and a small number of the Six Nations.

Following the presentation of the affidavit, Allummapees replied, confessing the guilt of Musemeelin. Shikellamy then arose and entered into a full account of the unhappy affair.

He claimed that Musemeelin owed Armstrong some skins, and that Armstrong seized a horse and rifled gun belonging to the Indian in lieu of the skins. These were taken by Smith for Armstrong.

When Musemeelin met Armstrong near the Juniata, he paid all the account but twenty shillings and demanded his horse. Armstrong refused to give up the animal, and after a quarrel the Indian went away in great anger.

Some time later Armstrong and his two servants, on their way to the Ohio country, passed by the cabin of Musemeelin, and his wife demanded the horse of Armstrong, but by this time he had sold the beast to James Berry.

Upon his return from a hunting trip his wife told Musemeelin of her demand to Armstrong. This angered the Indian, who determined on revenge.

Musemeelin engaged two young Indians to go on a hunting trip, but he led them to the camp of Armstrong and his men. When they arrived at a fire James Smith was sitting there alone. Musemeelin told Smith he wanted to speak with him privately, and they went into the woods. Musemeelin soon came back laughing, as he had killed Smith and shot Arnold, whom he found coming back to the camp.

The young Indians were terrified, but too afraid of Musemeelin to leave him. They soon came across John Armstrong sitting on an old log. Musemeelin asked: “Where is my horse?” Armstrong replied: “He will come by and by.” “I want him now,” said Musemeelin. “You shall have him. Come to the fire and let us smoke and talk together,” said Armstrong. As they proceeded, Armstrong in the advance, Musemeelin shot him in the back, then tomahawked him.

Shikellamy further said that the three Indians buried John Armstrong and that the others were thrown into the river.

Jacks Narrows, where this crime was committed, takes it name from Captain John (Jack) Armstrong, the victim.

Musemeelin was not convicted of the crime, but returned to his wigwam and was looked upon by his savage people as a hero.

Among the tragedies during the Revolutionary war, none seem more melancholy than those connected with efforts of the disaffected to escape to the enemy. During the winter of 1777–78, British agents were busy along the western frontier and as far east as Cumberland County, seeking to corrupt the frontier settlers, insinuating sentiments of discontent, assuring them that the American cause was sure to fail and making glittering promises of reward for those who should join the cause of the King.

One of the agents visited the valleys of the Allegheny Mountains in what is now Blair County, but then was a part of Bedford. He was successful in deluding a considerable band of ignorant frontiersmen by the most despicable methods.

This rascal held out to these mountaineers a vision of wholesale plunder and carnage on the property of their patriot neighbors. His appeals were made only to the vicious, who were promised if they would organize and join a force of British and Indians coming down the Allegheny Valley in the spring they would be permitted to participate in a general onslaught on the settlements and would receive their share of the pillage and, in addition to this, they should each receive grants for the lands of the rebel neighbors to the extent of 300 acres each, wherever they should select.

One of the men who entered into this despicable plot afterward confessed that it was the design to slaughter the peaceable inhabitants without mercy—men, women and children—and seize their property and lands.

In the northern part of Blair County is a deep valley called Sinking Spring Valley. It is still a wild and romantic country, but 150 years ago was singularly desolate and lonely and seemed a fitting place for the meeting of such conspirators as had been enlisted in this cruel Tory plot.

In Sinking Spring Valley the tory band held its gatherings during February and March, 1778. Many of the plotters were from the frontier settlement of Frankstown, near what is now Hollidaysburg. The leader was John Weston, a bold, lawless man, half farmer, half hunter, half civilized, who lived with his wife and brother, Richard, in a crude mountain cabin.

The British agent, having thoroughly enlisted Weston in the murderous enterprise, returned up the Allegheny, promising to be at Kittanning about the middle of April, with 300 Indians and white men, there to meet his mountain friends and with them swoop down on the other settlements, and make all of his partisans weary under the burden of their rich plunder.

Weston furthered the propaganda and enlisted thirty of his neighbors in the adventure. Alarming intelligence of the Tory plans leaked out, reached the larger settlement of Standing Stone, now Huntingdon, where it was reported that a thousand Indians and Tories were about to fall on the frontier.

A stockade had been built at Standing Stone, but its garrison never consisted of more than a score of green militiamen, and there was a general flight of the terrified people from the upper valley of the Juniata toward Carlisle and York.

The band of plotters was joined, about April 1, by a man named McKee, of Carlisle. He had been in communication with a British officer, who was confined in Carlisle, with other prisoners of war. He gave McKee a letter addressed to all British officers, vouching for the loyalty of McKee and his associates. This letter was to be used in securing protection and a welcome for the Sinking Spring Valley Tories when they should meet with the British and Indians on their flight to the Allegheny.

At the appointed time word reached the valley that a large force of Indians had gathered at Kittanning. The last meeting of the plotters was held April 10, in the forest, and thirty-one took the oath of allegiance and pledged themselves to follow Weston.

On the following morning, at the break of day they began their march over the mountains. In the afternoon of the second day they had come within a few miles of their intended destination, when they encountered a band of about 100 Iroquois Indians. The savages burst suddenly out of the thicket in full war paint.

John Weston sprang forward, waving his hand and crying out, “Friends! Friends!” The Indians were not in the British conspiracy, but were bent on a plundering raid on their own account and regarded Weston and his armed companions as a hostile party.

The Indian chieftain fired at Weston, and the Tory leader fell dead. His startled and horrified followers halted in dread astonishment. Another of the savages sprang forward and, before the ignorant borderers could recover from their surprise, tore the scalp from Weston’s head.

At this point McKee rushed out, holding aloft in one hand a white handkerchief and in the other hand the letter from the British officer at Carlisle, and called out to the Indians: “Brothers! Brothers!” The savages did not respond. Almost as suddenly as they appeared they vanished into the undergrowth, leaving the bewildered mountaineers alone with their dead and scalped leader. Weston was buried where he fell.

The Tories feared to go forward and even more to return to their homes. They held a consultation, when some declared their intention to return to Bedford County, but others feared arrest and determined they would seek safety elsewhere.

Hard was the fate of this company. Some of them wandered in the forests and perished from hunger. Some of them made their way to the southward, and reached British posts after great suffering. Five of them returned to their homes in Sinking Spring Valley and were seized by the aroused frontiersmen and lodged in the log jail at Bedford.

Richard Weston, brother of the slain leader, was caught near his home by a party of settlers going to work in the lead mines there, and he was sent under guard to Carlisle. Weston confessed the whole plot, but claimed he had been misled by his older brother. He escaped from prison before his trial, so his taint of treason was hardly to be blamed on his brother.

The Supreme Executive Council ordered a special court to try the prisoners at Bedford. It held two sessions in the fall of 1778 and spring of 1779, with General John Armstrong, of Carlisle, as president. The court failed to convict any of the defendants on the charge of high treason. The leaders were either dead or out of the country, and the few men brought before the court seemed to be sufficiently punished by their imprisonment and the contempt of their neighbors.

Those who fled away were tainted with treason and their estates were declared forfeited.

Captain John Brady was foremost in all the expeditions that went out from the West Branch of the Susquehanna settlements, and his untimely death, April 11, 1779, was the worst blow ever inflicted upon the distressed settlers.

John Brady, second son of Hugh and Hannah Brady was born in 1733, near Newark, Delaware. He came with his parents to Pennsylvania, married Mary Quigley, when he was twenty-two years old, and soon thereafter enlisted in the French and Indian War. On July 19, 1763, he was commissioned captain and assigned to the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment, commanded by Governor John Penn and LieutenantLieutenant Colonels Turbutt Francis and Asher Clayton.

The following year his command was with Colonel Henry Bouquet on his expedition west of the Ohio, and was actively engaged against the Indians who made terrible slaughter in Bedford and Cumberland Counties.

Captain Brady was one of the officers who received land grants from the Proprietaries, and, in 1768, he removed his family to Standing Stone, now Huntingdon. The following year he changed his residence to a site opposite the present town of Lewisburg. He was a land surveyor and his note books furnish much valuable land data.

In 1776 Brady removed to Muncy Manor, where he built a semi-fortified log house, known later as Fort Brady. It was in what is now the borough of Muncy, and was a private affair but was classed among the provincial fortifications.

In December, 1775, when Colonel William Plunket made his famous expedition to the Wyoming Valley, Captain John Brady was one of his ablest assistants. When the Twelfth Regiment of the Continental Line was organized under command of Colonel William Cooke, September 28, 1776, Captain Brady was one of the original captains. Two of Captain Brady’s sons married daughters of Colonel Cooke.

At the Battle of Brandywine the Twelfth was engaged under General John Sullivan and was cut to pieces in the desperate fighting near the Birmingham Meeting House. Captain John Brady was among those seriously wounded, and his son, John, a lad of only fifteen, who had come like David of old, with supplies for the camp and had remained for the battle, was also wounded, and only saved from capture by the act of his colonel in throwing the boy upon a horse when the troops retreated. So fierce was the fighting that every officer in Captain Brady’s company was killed or wounded, together with most of his men.

Captain Brady was given a leave of absence while the army was in winter quarters at Valley Forge, and during this time was at his home at Fort Brady. When the Indians became so troublesome between the North and West Branch Valleys, he removed his family to Sunbury, and September 1, 1778 returned to the army. He served for a time with Colonel Daniel Brodhead’s regiment at Fort Pitt.

James Brady, Captain John’s second son, who was himself a militia captain, was mortally wounded August 8, 1778, while he was working in the field near Fort Muncy. Young Brady survived his frightful wound for five days and died at Sunbury in the arms of his mother, an heroic pioneer woman.

Captain John Brady had taken such an active part in the efforts of the settlers to subdue the Indian atrocitiesatrocities, and his daring and repeated endeavors had so intensified their hatred, that they determined his capture above all other efforts.

April 11, 1779, Captain Brady went up the river some distance to procure supplies for those in the fort, and he took with him a wagon, team and guard, and was in charge of the party. They secured the supplies and were returning in the afternoon, Captain Brady astride a fine mare. Within a short distance of the fort, where the road forked, he was riding a little distance in the rear of the team and guard, and engaged in conversation with Peter Smith, who was walking. He determined that they would not follow the team, but would take another and shorter road to the fort. They rode and walked along together until they reached a small run where the same roads again joined. Brady observed, “This would be a good place for Indians to secrete themselves.” Smith replied “yes.” That instant three rifles cracked and Brady fell.

The mare ran toward Smith, who grabbed her and threw himself upon her back and in a few moments reached the fort.

The people in the fort heard the rifle shots and, seeing Smith on the mare coming at full speed, all rushed out to learn the fate of Captain Brady. Mrs. Brady led those of the party in reaching Smith’s side. Smith told them, “Brady is in heaven or hell or on his way to Tioga,” meaning that he was either killed or taken prisoner. Those in the fort ran to the spot and soon found the captain lying on the ground, his scalp and rifle gone; but the Indians had been in too much haste to take his watch or shot-pouch.

Samuel, known as “Old Sam,” Brady happened to be at the fort when Captain John Brady was killed, and it was he who rushed out, followed by some of the garrison, and bore his brother’s body into the fort.

Thus perished one of the most skilled and daring Indians fighters, on whose sterling qualities and sound judgment the pioneers so much depended.

His remains are interred in the old graveyard near Halls, where a heavy granite marker was erected bearing the inscription:

One hundred years after his death funds for a monument were raised by public subscription and $1600 secured, and on October 15, 1879, the shaft was unveiled in Muncy cemetery. The oration was delivered by the Hon. John Blair Linn, in the presence of an immense concourse made up of military and patriotic organizations and thousands of citizens, including several hundred of the Brady family.

In the Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States published in 1876, appears the following brief notice of a once prominent citizen of Pennsylvania:

“Abner Lacock, born in Virginia, in 1770. Without the advantage of much early education, he raised himself by his talents to eminence as a legislator, statesman and civilian. He filled various public stations for a period of nearly forty years; was a Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania from 1811 to 1813, and United States Senator from 1813 to 1819. He died in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, April 12, 1837.”

A search for further information concerning one of whom so little is known by the public, but who was honored with the highest offices in the gift of his neighbors and of the whole people of our State, reveals many interesting details and important events in the life of this man.

Abner Lacock was popularly known as General Lacock. He was born in Cobs Run, near Alexandria, Virginia, July 9, 1770. His father was a native of England, and his mother a native of France. The father emigrated to Washington County, Pennsylvania, while Abner was quite young, and settled on a farm.

In 1796 Abner removed to the town of Beaver, then in Allegheny County, and was one of the first settlers in that neighborhood.

His public career commenced almost immediately after his settlement at Beaver. On September 19, 1796, he was commissioned by Governor Thomas Mifflin a justice of the peace for Pitt Township, Allegheny County. This appointment made him the first public official within the present limits of Beaver County, which was formed out of parts of Allegheny and Washington Counties, March 12, 1800.

In his first office Lacock evinced such a natural strength of mind and sound intelligence that he was elected in 1801, the first Representative to the State Legislature from Beaver County, which post he filled until 1803, when he was commissioned the first associate judge for the new county, but he resigned at the end of the year to again enter the Legislature. The first session of court was held in Abner Lacock’s house, February 6, 1804.

After serving four successive terms in the House, in 1808, he was elected to the Senate, representing Allegheny, Beaver and Butler Counties in the upper body of the Pennsylvania Legislature with marked ability.

The War of 1812 with the agitation which preceded it brought him into the larger field of national politics. In 1810 he was elected by the people of his district as the “War Candidate” to Congress, when he showed such qualities of leadership that in 1813 the Legislature of his State with great unanimity elected him a Senator of the United States. He served in the House during the Twelfth Congress and in the Senate in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses.

General Lacock was a warm friend of Madison and Monroe, and a bitter enemy of Andrew Jackson. In his later years he was an Adams and Henry Clay Whig.

On December 18, 1818, a select committee of five members was appointed in the Senate of the United States, to investigate the conduct of General Andrew Jackson in connection with the Seminole War. Of this committee Senator Lacock was chairman, and author of the report made February 24, 1819, which severely arraigned Jackson with the violation of the Constitution and International Laws.

This action of the committee made Jackson and his friends furious, he threatening members of the committee with personal violence. Lacock was unafraid and wrote frequently about Jackson’s boasting only in public, and that he should never avoid him a single inch.

The clash never came, and they left the capital on the same day, and in the same public conveyance.

General Lacock was one of the most active promoters of internal improvements in the State of Pennsylvania. Soon after his term in the United States Senate had ceased, he entered heartilyheartily into the scheme for uniting the waters of the Delaware and the Ohio by a State line of Canals and railroads. On April 11, 1825, he was appointed one of five commissioners to make a complete survey of the route for the contemplated improvementsimprovements.

On February 25, 1826, the Legislature authorized the commencement of the work on the canal. General Lacock was chosen to supervise the construction of the Western division of the canal from Pittsburgh to Johnstown.

The first canal boat built or run west of the Allegheny Mountains was named the “General Abner Lacock.” It was built at Apollo by Philip Dally.

Later General Lacock repeatedly served Beaver County in the State Legislature, and in 1836 was appointed to survey and construct the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, known as the “cross-cut canal,” connecting the Erie division of the Pennsylvania Canal with the Portsmouth and Ohio Canal, contracting in its service in that year his last illness.

Besides those named, General Lacock held, or was offered many other positions of high public trust, both in this and other states.

Abner Lacock obtained the title of General in the early part of his public career while serving as an officer of the Pennsylvania militia. As early as 1807 he was a brigadier general, commanding a brigade in the counties of Beaver and Butler.

General Lacock was the friend and earnest champion of the common school system, which when first proposed was very unpopular in Pennsylvania. His library was one of the largest in Western Pennsylvania, and was partially destroyed by a flood in the Ohio River in 1832.

General Lacock was of medium height and well proportioned. He was strong and athletic. He was the father of a large family, but there are no living male descendants of this distinguished citizen.

He died at his residence, near Freedom, on Wednesday morning, April 12, 1837, after a long and painful illness.

During the French and Indian War of 1755–58, the barrier of the South Mountain shielded the settlers of York County, from the savage incursions that desolated the Cumberland Valley and other parts of the frontier of Pennsylvania. Yet occasionally a party more daring than the rest would push across the mountain and murder or carry defenseless families into captivity.

An affecting instance of this kind was the captivity of Richard Bard, which is narrated in detail by his son, the late Archibald Bard, of Franklin County.

Richard Bard owned and resided near a mill, which was later known as Marshall’s Mill, on the Carroll tract, in now Adams County.

On the morning of April 13, 1758, his house was invested by a party of nineteen Delaware Indians, who were discovered by a little girl named Hannah McBride. She was at the door and when they approached she screamed and ran into the house, where were Richard Bard and his wife, a child six months old, a bound boy, and a relative of the Bards, Lieutenant Thomas Potter, a brother of General James Potter.

The Indians rushed into the house, and one of them, with a large cutlass in his grasp, made a blow at Potter, who wrested it from the savage. Mr. Bard laid hold of a pistol that hung on the wall and snapped it at the breast of one of the Indians, but there being tow in the pan it did not fire, but the Indians ran out of the house.

The savages were numerous and there was no ammunition in the Bard home, and fearing a slaughter or being burned alive, those inside surrendered, as the Indians promised no harm would befall them. The Indians went to a field and made prisoners of Samuel Hunter, Daniel McManimy, and a lad named William White, who was coming to the mill.

Having secured the prisoners the Indians plundered the house and set fire to the mill. About seventy rods from the house, contrary to their promises, they put to death Thomas Potter; and having proceeded on the mountain three or four miles, one of the Indians sunk the spear of his tomahawk into the breast of the small child, and after repeated blows scalped it.

The prisoners were taken over the mountain past McCord’s fort, into the Path Valley, where they encamped for the night. The second day the Indians discovered a party of white men in pursuit, on which they hastened the pace of their prisoners, under threat of being tomahawked.

When they reached the top of the Tuscarora Mountain, they sat down to rest, when an Indian, without any previous warning, sunk a tomahawk into the forehead of Samuel Hunter, who was seated next to Richard Bard, killed and scalped him.

Passing over Sideling Hill, and the Allegheny Mountains, by Blair’s Gap, they encamped beyond Stony Creek. Here Bard’s head had been painted red on one side only, denoting that a council has been held, and an equal number were for killing him, and for saving his life, and that his fate would be determined at the next council.

While Mr. and Mrs. Bard were engaged together in plucking a turkey, the former told his wife of his design to escape. Some of the Indians were asleep, and one was amusing the others by dressing himself in Mrs. Bard’s gown. Bard was sent to the spring for water and contrived to escape, while his wife kept the Indians amused with the gown.

The Indians made an unsuccessful search for Bard, and proceeded to Fort Duquesne, then twenty miles down the Ohio River to Kuskusky, in what is now Butler County.

Here Mrs. Bard and two boys and girls were compelled to run the gauntlet, and were beaten in an unmerciful manner. It was at this place that Daniel McManimy was put to death. The Indians formed themselves into a circle round the prisoner, and beat him with sticks and tomahawks, then tied him to a post, and after more torturing he was scalped alive, a gun barrel was heated and passed over his body, and he was pierced in the body until he was relieved from further torture by death.

Mrs. Bard was taken from the other prisoners and led from place to place, until she was finally adopted into the tribe by two Indian men, to take the place of a deceased sister.

She was next taken to the headwaters of the Susquehanna, and during this journey she suffered much from fatigue and illness. She lay two months in this doleful situation, with none to comfort or sympathize with her, a blanket her only covering, and boiled corn her only food.

She met with a woman who had been in captivity several years and was married to an Indian. She told Mrs. Bard that soon as she could speak the Delaware tongue she would be obliged to marry one of the Indians or be put to death. She then resolved not to learn the language. She was kept in captivity two years and five months, during which time she was treated with much kindness by her adopted relations.

Richard Bard suffered extreme hardships in effecting his escape and return to his home, traveling over mountains thick with laurel and briers and covered with snow. His feet were sore, his clothes wet and frozen and he was often exhausted and ready to lie down and perish for want of food. His food during a journey of nine days was a few buds and four snakes, when he reached Fort Littleton, in now Bedford County.

After this he did but little else than wander from place to place in quest of information respecting his wife. He made several perilous journeys to Fort Duquesne, in which he narrowly escaped capture several times. He at length learned she was at Fort Augusta, at Shamokin, and redeemed her.

Before the Bards departed from Shamokin, Richard Bard requested the Indian, who was the adopted brother of his wife, to visit them at their home. Accordingly, some time afterwards the Indian paid them a visit, when the Bards were living about ten miles from Chambersburg.

The Indian remained there for some time and one day went to McCormack’s tavern and became intoxicated, when he fell into a brawl with a rough named Newgen, who stabbed the Indian in the neck. Newgen escaped the wrath of the settlers by fleeing the neighborhood. The Indian was attended by a physician and recovered, being nursed back to health by his adopted sister, Mrs. Richard Bard.

When he returned to his own people he was put to death on the pretext of having, as they said, joined the white people.