“Corporate America is taking over and putting people in our government. They have the government on their side and they’re making it harder for farmers to be farmers.”
ajh
Feds take aim at organic farmer in Pennsylvania
Tag Archives: Pennsylvania
Well, I never. Ben Franklin wasn’t keen on non-British immigrants, particularly Germans into Pennsylvania.
“Few of their children in the country learn English… The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages … Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”
…the language so vexing to him was the German spoken by new arrivals to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, a wave of immigrants whom Franklin viewed as the “most stupid of their nation.”
ajh
Fasnachts! Kinda like donuts & from Pennsylvania Dutch country!
courtesy of Denise Bachman of the Observer-Reporter
“Another food of choice on Shrove Tuesday are fasnachts, a yeast-raised, fatty doughnut-like treat traditionally eaten in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Fasnachts are made from potato dough and are fried. They became popular in the southeastern part of the state when Pennsylvania Germans started to make them as a convenient and easy way to use up the fat and sugar in their pantries before Lent. Fasnacht is German for ‘fast night.’”
ajh
There’s Got To Be A Connection — Somewhere
Let me give you a scenario.
Two men, both named Jabez, both with the surname Darling, both born in the 18th century. There’s got to be a familial connection, right?
Well, that’s what I’m thinking. Unfortunately, I haven’t found it yet.
The first Jabez died during the American Revolution. He was caught up in a nasty back-and-forth between the colonists and the Brits and their Native allies.
Before the Revolution, there was conflict between the colonists in the Wyoming Valley, a region in northeastern Pennsylvania. Connecticut had claimed the northern part of Pennsylvania as its own. Of course, Pennsylvanians thought otherwise. Hence, a series of skirmishes known as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars ensued, which were interrupted by the Revolution.
Jabez Darling was on the losing side, though he may not have lived long enough to feel the repercussions. Most of the Connecticut settlers, the Yankees, lost their land.
In 1778, the British, their redcoats and their Indian allies, swept through the Wyoming Valley, burning and killing and scalping along the way. When word of the first killings reached the civilians, most of them fled in what was described as the Great Runaway. Those who remained stayed to fight and protect what was theirs. Jabez was one who stayed behind. He was killed on July 3rd, 1778, just two years after the Declaration of Independence was drafted in Philadelphia, during an attack on Forty Fort, not far from Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.
Another branch of the family, on the Hill side, was there, too, at the time. Martin Tidd, future father-in-law of James Hill, witnessed the same events. He probably knew the Darling family and Jabez Darling in particular. Both the Darlings and the Tidds had come from Connecticut, making them Yankees. Yankees didn’t come from New York. They were from New England.
Martin Tidd, like many of the Darlings, ended up in Ohio, thanks, at least in part, to Congress intervening and settling the land disputes in favor of the Pennsylvanians. Connecticut claimed land in the Ohio country, too, what was called the Northwest Territory.
A portion was set aside for Connecticut known as the Western Reserve. Part of the Western Reserve was for those who had lost property by fire, intentionally set by the British and their allies to terrorize the citizens, during the Revolution. Thus, the term Fire Lands was used to describe this area.
Many of the Connecticut settlers of the Wyoming Valley took advantage of the opportunity and left for what would become the state of Ohio. Martin Tidd did so. He was among the first settlers of Youngstown in 1797, a small band which included his daughter Sarah Tidd and her husband, his son-in-law, James Hill.
Another Jabez Darling, my ancestor who was apparently named after the Jabez who was killed in 1778, went to Ohio, too, after having lived in New York for decades. There he died, in 1836. Who his parents were is unclear, though I am convinced there is a connection to the previous Jabez who died in 1778 during the Revolution.
Another connection is David Darling, a longtime resident of Seneca County, New York, who shows up at Jabez’s youngest son’s farm in Washington County, Iowa in May of 1871. Jabez’s son, Ezra Darwin Darling, had married one of his boss’s daughters in New York and then left for Iowa after the well-to-do father didn’t take it well. I’m guessing that David Darling is an uncle of Ezra and brother of Jabez the Younger.
Now, I just have to prove it. I have some digging and poking around to do. Hopefully, I can piece it together, finding a clue here or there.
ajh
Blessed Are The Dead
Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord
Hear what the voice from Heaven proclaims
For all the pious dead.
Great is the savour of their names
And soft their sleeping-Bed
They die in Jesus and are Blessed
How kind their slumbers are
From suffring’s and from sins released
And freed from every share.
For from this world of toil and strife
They’re present with the Lord
The labours of their pious life
End in a large reward.
— from the gravestone of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents
The Draft of 1863
Finally some evidence of John Boal, my great-great-great grandfather, during the Civil War. His name is on a list of Class I men ready to be drafted. It was compiled by a Capt. James Matthews, Provost Marshal, in June and July of 1863.
| Name: John Boal Birth Year: abt 1840 Place of Birth: Pennsylvania Age on 1 July 1863: 23 Race: White Marital Status: Unmarried (Single) Residence: Big Grove, Johnson, Iowa Congressional District: 4th Class: 1 |
His age is off, perhaps “underreported” to the authorities. He was born in 1836, so he was probably actually 27, not 23. Perhaps he thought he might be left behind if he was considered too old.
The major giveaway that it’s him is Big Grove Township and Johnson County. This is where he later married and near where his father William is buried, in the Oakland Cemetery near Solon.
Now I just have to track down his unit (or units). He probably served in a unit from Pennsylvania.
ajh
June 23rd, 1757 — The Death of John Tidd
Sometimes my ancestors weren’t so lucky.
On June 23rd, 1757, during the French & Indian War — what some have described as the first world war and known outside of North America as the Seven Years’ War — John Tidd, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, was murdered and scalped by “a large body of Indians” near Fort Hamilton, Pennsylvania, in what is now the borough of Stroudsburg in Monroe County.¹
ajh
1. Fort Hamilton was a “palisaded house, with four half-bastions, 80 feet square, and garrisoned by 60 to 100 men and horses.” It was “built by the Pennsylvania colonial militia from plans by Benjamin Franklin.”
250 Years Ago Today — March 17, 1764
On St. Patrick’s Day in 1764, somewhere in Ireland, a little baby boy was born. He was christened James. Born to a man named Boal and a mother whose name is lost.
It was a Saturday. An ocean away, in British North America, New York City had just begun the tradition of celebrating the day, the first five years without a parade.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, life went on for James. He became a linen and carpet weaver, trades probably learned from his father. James wed in 1787.
James left for America in 1790 with his wife Elizabeth and two children, Margaret and George. They left from Londonderry in the North.
Being poor, “the trip was made by the cheapest passage.”
It was not a pleasant journey.
“The voyage of three months was a stormy one, during which the ship sprang a leak, and much of the cargo, including some of the goods belonging to the Boal family, was thrown overboard.”
They were devout Presbyterians.
At least one grandson of James, John Shannon Boal, fought in the Civil War.
I doubt James could fathom the chain of events he had instigated with his decision to leave Ireland. How could he foresee that a descendant would write about him on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth and that the day, a truly Irish one, would be so widely celebrated?
ajh
James Hill and His 400 Acres
Last night I found another record. It was nestled among the Pennsylvania Land Warrants, 1733-1987. The database I used was on Ancestry, but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a site with even more details, and it’s free.
A James Hill is documented on Ancestry as having 400 acres of land. It was actually 426 acres, according to the notation in the books. That is quite a swath of land.
The warrant is dated July 19, 1792 and the land is located in Luzerne County. It may have been Northumberland County at the time. There are some named Jordan who also acquired land in Luzerne County, brothers-in-law and other relatives of James Hill through his wife Mary. The Jordans, except one, claimed land in November of 1789. That exception was John Jordan, who claimed land in August of 1792.
So what the heck is a land warrant? I was wondering the same thing myself.
“An application was a request to purchase a certain amount of land in a particular locality from the State government. The successful applicant received a land warrant from the State Land Office, and both the applications and warrants are filed in Record Group 17, Records of the Land Office, at the Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.”
James returned the land on May 6, 1794, though why he did isn’t known. Nor do I understand how this ‘return’ process works.
I will be browsing through the records in other counties as well.
ajh
James Hill, Shoe-maker
Here is more evidence supporting my theory that James Hill of White Deer Township — then in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania and what is now Union County — is my ancestor, the same James Hill who married Sarah Tidd and died in Hardin County, Ohio in 1862.
In White Deer Township in 1796, James Hill is living in a small cabin and working as a shoemaker. A John Hill is nearby, residing in a cabin, presumably a larger one. He, too, is a shoemaker.
My ancestor, James Hill of Hardin County, Ohio—born in June of 1763 in Pennsylvania, was also a shoemaker.
“James Hill was a shoemaker by trade.”
ajh
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 