Major Uriah Barber: Pioneer, Settler, Politician (1761 - 1846)

By Dr. Cora Tula Watters

The narrative of Uriah Barber is full of one cliff hanger after another as Barber, veteran of the Revolutionary War, and his younger step-brother Isaac Bonser lead five families across the new nation from Northumberland County in Pennsylvania to the Ohio River Valley.

Dashing Uriah, his wife Barbara, blond, intelligent and pregnant, head south with their six children and nanny, lovely Rachael Baird. Heading down the Susquehanna River with Isaac, wife Abigail their four children, the Wards, Beattys and McAdams, who were newlyweds. Two keelboats were constructed to float them down the long and twisting Susquehanna to Paxtang, present day Harrisburg, where they exchanged their boats for Conestoga wagons and horses. Needing another man to pole the second boat, dark handsome Shawnee scout Jacob Early was hired in Sunbury. When they reached Paxtang he returned home taking with him the heart of Rachael Baird.

Crossing the breadth of Pennsylvania on what is now Pennsylvania Turnpike, they encounter everything from broken axles, tornadoes, critically ill children, another pregnancy and a wagon tumbling over the mountainside taking everything.

They finish their journey aboard an amazing three-story high majestic keelboat named the Floating Palace. Just when they need him most Early shows up to help them finish their journey on the Monongahela, then the Ohio where they encounter sandbars, underwater trees and river pirates.

The rest of the story tells how Major Barber settled in southern Ohio and carved his name forever in the history of Scioto County. The tale is full of passion, love, hope, humor and tragedy enough for a Shakespearean play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452065502

Dr. Cora Tula Watters

The author, Dr. Watters is the great-great granddaughter of Uriah Barber. This relationship to the protagonist has given her a lifetime of information via family stories about Uriah and his adventures. Her aunt Juanita Ruth Barber Brown, great granddaughter of Uriah, has been a constant asset to the author as she took the facts and spun them into an exciting narrative of one of the first settlers of Scioto County, Ohio. A professional genealogist Watters has included a wealth of information for those interested in the not only the families in Scioto County, Ohio but also those where the tale began in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Her work as an editor-contributor to several encyclopedias and other reference works, has made her a stickler for historic accuracy, including the clothing, music, and events during the years contained in everything she writes. This is especially true in regard to her crafting the story of Uriah Barber. However, don’t let this faithfulness to details make you assume her writings to be dry. Quite the contrary. Dr. Watters has been compared to both Michener and Twain, and draws the reader into the story by her descriptive passages. You may well find it difficult to lay this book aside once you start reading so it is suggested you make time in your busy schedule to take an exciting journey back in time from the introduction of the Indigenous Peoples to Turtle Island, through the middle of the 18th Century when this nation was in the throes of youth, and ending mid-20th Century.

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction: From the Ice Age to 1731

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Appendix A: Physiognomy and Abilities

Appendix B: List of First Scioto County Settlers

Appendix D: Miscellaneous Information—

Fashions, Recipes, Songs, Etc.

Bibliography

Dedication

This co-effort in which Aunt Ruth and I have been deeply engrossed during the past forty years or so, is finally coming to fruition with this book about our ancestral Grandfather Uriah Barber.

We dedicate this to the young ones in today’s family and to the future children of our family so they will know where it all began.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Creator for the gift of an inquisitive mind and the capacity for crafting words into prose and poetry…To my loving parents I have an abiding gratitude for sharing the wonderful family stories, always supporting and encouraging my efforts, while expecting only that I do my best.

My profound gratitude goes to my mother’s youngest sister, Aunt Juanita Ruth Barber Brown, who has always been like my big sister. She’s the one who assigned me the stimulating and exhausting task of chronicling the historical narrative of our shared ancestor, Grandfather Uriah Barber.

For several years, as this story became a reality Aunt Ruth has been my head cheerleader, my toughest editor, the provider of almost endless family stories, never without prudent suggestions and the financial Angel. Through it all she has remained the world’s most strident leader in eradicating the word gotten from all dictionaries.

Finally, to my dear friend Kelly Young, who took on the gargantuan task of professionally readying my work for the publisher, I give my love and gratitude beyond measure.

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URIAH BARBER

1761 - 1846

Prologue

This is the saga of Uriah Barber (1761 - 1846), the only child of Nathanial and Mary Waters Barber. Major Barber served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Afterwards, he was a pioneer-settler of the Lower Scioto Valley in southern Ohio where he also served in the newly formed Ohio Militia.

He and his step-brother Isaac Bonser led a total of five families, including their own, totaling twenty-eight individuals[1] from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania to the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers at the end of the 1790s.

From Sunbury, Pennsylvania they poled three keelboats down the Susquehanna River to Paxtang,[2] then traded them for five Conestoga wagons to begin a long treacherous journey across the nearly new Pennsylvania Road. After a southwest jog down into Redstone they boarded a custom-built huge keelboat and headed to the Ohio River via the Monongahela River.

The journey took more than four months, from early April to mid-August, to arrive at their journey’s end, but I’m sure it seemed more like four years.

My grandfather Jesse Barber, a strong, moral, well-respected and loved man, was the role model I used for his grandfather Uriah. And from all I read and heard about Uriah, they were very much alike.

Every effort has been made to make this as genealogically, geographically and historically accurate as possible. Most of the details of Uriah and Isaac were found in old records and others were taken from family Bibles, journals or through family tales. Poetic license has been used to make the story take on life in this biographical narrative of those brave, strong families who endured all sorts of hardships to start their new lives in the Ohio Country.

The character of Jacob Early was born in my imagination to fill the need of a sixth male to assist the others on the keelboat trip from Sunbury. Matthew Morrissey literally appeared from nowhere one late night while I was writing as a terrible storm came up on the Pennsylvania Road.

Additionally, names and ages were given to some of the Wards and Beatys where no names were found.

To make it easier for you to familiarize yourself with the characters, I have borrowed a devise used by other writers. Included is a chart of all the characters until they embark on the Ohio, for you to refer to if necessary. Please refer to Appendix A: Physiognomy and Abilities beginning on page 318.

Introduction: From the Ice Age to 1731

The Settlers from Beringia

There needs to be clarification added here which is not found in most historical narratives glorifying the settling of America by Europeans. Actually, America had been inhabited for hundreds of centuries before the advent of the invaders.

The Original Americans crossed from Siberia via the Bering land bridge which covered approximately one-thousand miles north to south at its greatest extent. It connected what is now Alaska and eastern Siberia, at different times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene Era. The glaciers melted, resulting in the exposure of the strip of land where the Siberians crossed in search of food. The grassland steppe, which included the land bridge, stretched for several hundred miles on either side and is known as Beringia.

It is thought that a few thousand descendants of these Siberian immigrants survived the last ice age eventually populating the Americas.

Fossils of birch, poplar and spruce are found, proving they once extended beyond their present range, indicating periods of combined higher temperatures and humid weather. Uncommon in the prairie-like dry tundra landscape were huge mastodons which fed on the shrubs growing there.

Other land animals migrated from Asia to North America through Beringia. Mammals including: proboscideans and lions, distant relatives of the Troodon, Triceratops and the Tyrannosaurus Rex all of which originated in Asia. The only way they could reach the New World was to cross the Bering land bridge. Had this isthmus not existed at that time, the fauna of the world would be very different.

Land Ho! First Come First Served

Centuries after the first people came to North America, it was a convenient hypothesis that the land in this uncharted territory was open to anyone wishing to settle here. This ignored the existence of millions of indigenous people inhabiting the region.

The genesis of this erroneous thinking spread with the accidental discovery of the New World in 1492, by Columbus and the Spaniards. Next to arrive were the French, followed by the British, each staking their claim to this so-called New World. Eventually the British conquered the others thus beginning the influx of Scots, Irish and English relocating to Turtle Island, home of the American Indians for thousands of years.

When the Europeans arrived in America it appeared to them to be a wild, untamed paradise in contrast to the grossly overspent land they left on the other side of the Atlantic. Generally they’d failed to use proper agricultural practices, devastated the woodlands for lumber for building and heat, then failed to replant seedling necessary for regrowth of their forests. Water sources were polluted beyond the limits of safety and most of the immigrants came looking for a homeland like theirs had once been.

In contrast, the indigenous people of the Americas chose to live in harmony with nature, and kept their world pristine as it was when their ancestors arrived from the Bering Straits. No paperwork documented land ownership as the concept of owning land was alien to them. Most tribes respected other tribes’ territorial rights.

The Europeans did not acknowledge this was home to the original inhabitants for over twenty-thousand years; they elected to take what land they wanted with no regards to the original people’s rights. They referred to the American Indians as savages and mistook their hospitality for ignorance.

It didn’t take too many decades for the Europeans to become spoilers to the paradise they found when they came to this country.

Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

Northumberland County began after the French and Indian War with the migration of settlers and soldiers following the banks of the Susquehanna River seeking land. The Shawnee town of Shamokin (from the Saponi Algonquian Shumounk, meaning place of the horn), was renamed Sunbury. The county was founded on March 21, 1772, with Sunbury named as the county seat. In the early 19th Century, Sunbury was the hub of activity due to its location at the forks of the Susquehanna River.

Northumberland, the tenth county to be organized in Pennsylvania, eventually increased to fifteen-thousand square miles, covering the Susquehanna Valley, including all the land west of the Lehigh River to the Allegheny River, and all of the land south of the New York State border to Juniata County.

As European settlers moved into Northumberland County, the Indian trails were replaced by bridle paths. These trails enlarged gradually to widths adequate for the Conestoga Wagons used by ever-growing number of immigrants moving west carrying with them all the belongings necessary to start new homesteads.

It is to be noted that large numbers of Pennsylvanian Indians had been forced to relinquish their lands earlier when Europeans moved into the area. Some (mostly Iroquois) remained to fight with the British against the Colonists.

By 1745, many of the Pennsylvania and Maryland Shawnee had relocated to southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers…to the exact spot where the Barbers and their entourage would head a half century later in 1796.

The Shawnee, and a few families from other Indian Nations, lived there but a short time when the raging Ohio and Scioto Rivers flooded them out. Ironically, those same rivers would chase the white settlers from the short-lived town of Alexandria.

The majority of the Lower Shawnee Town residents[3] moved up the Scioto to higher ground between the present towns of Chillicothe and Columbus, while the remainder blended into the Appalachian foothills of Scioto and Adams County as well as the neighboring states of Kentucky and West Virginia.

Colonial America

Since there were no homes like those they left in Europe, the newcomers wrongly assumed that the land was theirs to take. Feeling superior, they failed to understand why the local natives didn’t accept the stealing of their lands. Europeans selected a piece of land to erect a temporary cabin in which to live while building a permanent home as time and money allowed.

The finished homes often consisted merely of a large multi-purpose room used for sleeping, eating, conversing and working. Older children slept in the loft while the grownups keept the babies with them in the communal room where they placed them in cradles near enough to the fireplace for warmth, but far enough away to be safe.

Mattresses on the bigger children’s beds were rough cloth bags filled with straw which often poked through the loose-woven material and made sleeping far from comfortable. Ropes supported those mattresses.

Parents faired not much better sleeping in short jack-beds that were built smaller than regular beds in order to save space. A normal size person was unable to fully extend their legs and had to draw them up in a quasi-fetal position.

These rudimental homes were extremely cold during the winter months having only a single large fireplace to keep them warm and in which to cook their food. Fireplaces were so large that the Colonists could burn huge logs in the fireboxes in an effort to keep warm.

Not only did water freeze during the winter inside the homes, the ink in ink wells froze also. Even in the hottest weather the fire was kept going in order to cook their meals. The smell of smoke permeated everything.

Furniture was sparse and rustic. The table was often just a board placed on two sawhorses. If there was only one chair the father had first choice with the rest of the family sitting on the floor. If a family had enough room they might have a large bench called a settle. These benches were made with a high back and sides, rather like church pews today. They weren’t very comfortable, but at least it was better than sitting on the floor, particularly in cold weather. In place of glass covering the small windows, fat was rubbed on cloth or paper to make them translucent to allow light to permeate the interior of the cabins, and protecting the residents from insects and inclement weather.

In addition to one-room houses, there was a variety of other styles to suit the taste and finances of the owner. One was the saltbox, named for the shape which looked like the boxes that held salt in those days. Closets were a premium as space was critical. If there was a closet it was a small private room where honored people met with the families. Clothing was hung on pegs on the wall and kept in trunks.

Water was obtained from nearby streams, or a well dug by the men in the family. In those days people didn’t bathe regularly and when they did, used a large tub filled with warm water and placed near the fireplace. For toilets small buildings, named privies or necessaries, were constructed.

Everyone in the Colonial family pulled their share. It was a hard, but fulfilling, life as they carved out an existence on the frontier. Everyone had a job to do. The children had chores; the fathers hunted, provided firewood, built the dwellings and did the plowing. The mothers and children helped tend to the gardens which were critical to feeding the family all year round. In addition, the women made nearly everything for the home: candles, soap and spun yarn to weave and knit warm clothing. They also cooked the meals and did the laundry by hand. This was a sunup to sunset job. Colonial children pitched in wherever needed and worked right along with their parents. Even the smallest youngster had things they could do.

Chapter One

Nathaniel, Mary and Uriah Barber

It was the middle of the 1700s and the embryonic nation was still forming. The British were struggling to retain control when Nathaniel Barber and Mary (nee Waters) lived in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian Mountain area.

Unfortunately little is known of Nathaniel, other than he was born in 1731 in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, and died in 1779 in Muncey Twp. in that same county.

His first wife was Mary Waters, whose history is almost as obscure as was her husband’s. We know her father was Thomas Waters and he lived in Philadelphia. She was born in 1727, and passed away before her spouse in 1778, in Muncey, where she and Nathaniel spent much of their lives together.

Their only child, Uriah, was born in 1761 within the walls of Fort Augusta, there in the Appalachian Mountains in the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania. The fort was built five years earlier by Col. William Clapham on a site sixty miles from Sunbury.

The British built Fort Augusta to protect their troops during the French and Indian War. Ironically, it later provided safety for the Colonists from the British who built it. Fort Augusta was named by King George III, in honor of his mother.

Largest of all the provincial forts, it was 204 x 204 sq. ft. with four corner bastions, housing at least six buildings, a well and an underground powder magazine. It was built with palisades to protect the inhabitants from attack from the river side. Designed to comfortably hold four-hundred men, it lasted from July 1756, was used throughout the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion, and ended as an active military fort in 1765.

The Powder Magazine still exists, and is a reminder of this magnificent fort which played such a vital role in preventing the French from taking this valley. Fort Augusta was, as Harry S. Knight, Esq., so eloquently stated, the stronghold in the wilderness where it was determined whether the language of the North American Continent should be English or French, whether the dominant race should be Anglo-Saxon or Latin, whether its laws be based upon the Common Law of England or the Code of France.

Today the local Northumberland County Historical Society operates the Hunter House, located at 1150 North Front Street, Sunbury, a museum on the site of the old fort. It, in addition to housing historical and archaeological artifacts, also contains the Genealogy Society with information on the early families of Northumberland County.

1700s in Northumberland County

It was a hard life for Mary Waters Barber and the other Colonial women living on the frontier during the 1700s, Not only did they have to work long hard days on everyday household chores, they also had to work in the garden; make clothing, soap and candles; and gather medicinal and culinary herbs and roots. Imagine how the multiple layers of clothing they wore in both summer and winter made their work even more difficult to complete.

These pioneer women also learned how to defend their families and homes, and kill if necessary. Few owned guns but were adept at handling axes, knives and garden tools for both tools and defense.

The Nathaniel Barber family was like the other colonists carving a life out of the wilderness. They probably lived in a log cabin built by Nathaniel with the help of neighbors. If they were fortunate, they had some small livestock to help provide food in addition to what Nathaniel shot in the woods. Having only one child, at least the monetary demands were not as pressing as neighbors with a new child every year.

Barbara Clingman, Future Wife of Uriah

Light-haired, blue-eyed Barbara Clingman was the third daughter of well-to-do German immigrants, John Michael and Mary Elizabeth (Miller) Clingman. They lived in Philadelphia, the bustling capitol of the colonies.

It was a gentler life. Girls were taught basic household skills as well as music, art and other artistic pursuits. Many of the affluent homes had harpsichords where the girls learned to play the songs of the day, plus the classics. For those less financially well off, there was likely a dulcimer or some other smaller instrument.

Young men were educated in reading and mathematics more commonly than their female counterparts and often apprenticed in their father’s business.

They tended to marry young, girls as early as thirteen or fourteen, and if not someone’s wife by the time they were twenty-five the family was socially humiliated. Marriage was not usually for romantic reasons, but more often for economic benefits.

During the Revolutionary War middle-class and wealthy women in Philadelphia formed organizations to help with the war effort. They gathered in homes or in churches to spin material which they turned into clothing for the troops who had no uniforms. Those with literary skills wrote articles to the local papers about the war, and others started scrap drives. Everyone kept busy doing what they could to do their part for the war effort.

Women of means sometimes did a few household chores but most had servants. There were shops where needs could be purchased, not raised or made as with those on the frontier. So they did no garden work, unless they chose to grow flowers or herbs.

Philadelphia women were garbed fashionably in lace-embellished clothing, wearing either dress and undress fashions[4], and all covered their heads with a variety of millinery, mostly broad brimmed flat-topped hats decorated with a variety of items nestled on the top.

Men who weren’t serving in the army wore long outer coats over shorter waistcoats which came down several inches over the breeches, covering their thighs. From the upper knee down they wore leggings that reached to the top of their feet.

Both sexes wore dark shoes and the children’s clothing was scaled-downed versions of the parents. Colors of the clothing added subtle hues to the streets of Philadelphia. It was a stark contrast to the just developing western frontier.

Putting One and One Together

Years were spent solving the puzzle of how the two young Colonists met. Perhaps they ran into each other in Philadelphia during the war, or perhaps she visited relatives in Northumberland County. With this thought, I began researching all the relevant companies and battalions of the Revolutionary War in which Uriah served. What a lengthy chore that turned out to be! Finally records revealed that her father was a captain who lived in Northumberland County! I had never even considered that possibility.

It was obvious that western Pennsylvania was safer than the Philadelphia area during this time, with the British fighting the Colonists on many fronts. So the Clingmans relocated to Northumberland sometime after 1771, before the war involved them directly.

The next step was to find out when Germans John Michael and Mary Elizabeth Clingman moved from Philadelphia to the county where Uriah and his family lived. After checking the places and dates where the Clingman children were born, the window of time became apparent as to when the move occurred. Other children were born after the Clingmans moved to Northumberland.

John Michael Clingman was a captain in the 7th Co., 10th Battalion, Lancaster County Militia. None of which correlated with units in which Uriah served. This might have been a boon not having to serve beneath the command of his father-in-law.

Barbara’s parents were wed in Philadelphia at St. Michael’s and Zion Church. The Rev. John C. Andrea was the Lutheran minister who married them.

1787

Records from Loyalsock in Lycoming County (formed from Northumberland County in the 1790s) list their first township officers for the year 1787. That list showed Uriah Barber as constable thereby beginning his life of public service as an elected official.

Private Uriah Barber, 5th Pennsylvania Regiment

This section addresses only the battles of the American Revolutionary War in which Uriah Barber was involved. At the beginning of the war there was no professional Army, Marines or Navy. Militia provided defense for their own areas and were under trained.

Without the training and discipline found in professional armies, the militia were not easily controlled but were larger in number and able to overwhelm the enemy with their size, if not their military training. In many places there was no money for uniforms so the militia dressed in their regular clothing.

Private Uriah Barber served under General John Sullivan, commander of the 5th Pennsylvania Regiment which was active from 1775 until 1783. This regiment was part of the Continental Army under the command of General George Washington.

Battles in which the 5th Regiment participated were: Brandywine - 1777, (1-year prior to Uriah’s enlistment), Germantown - October 4, 1777-1778, Monmouth - June 28, 1778, and Springfield - 1778.

Trying Times

In 1778, when Uriah was seventeen, he lost his beloved mother Mary, with the same dark blue eyes as her son. She was only forty-one and his father forty-eight. What a tragedy for the young man who had no siblings, grandparents or other relatives to comfort him. Nathaniel and Uriah struggled doing both his and Mary’s chores, leaving the widower little time or strength in his aching heart to console his son.

After his mother passed, Uriah spent much time in the nearby woods, the place that he liked best. He especially loved the redolency of the towering pines. Since he was a small boy, he would ask his parents for permission to go into the shady, cool woods where he loved to sit quietly with his back against a tree. There was a majestic red oak he considered his own special tree. He was only six when he selected one of the small, hard acorns on the ground beside him. He tucked it in his pocket and took it home to keep in a special box. Whenever he was lonely for the woods he’d take the box out of the trunk where he kept his clothes. Carefully he would open the lid, reach in and remove the special acorn to hold in his hand. If he closed his eyes he could smell the pines.

Silently he sat, his back propped against his oak. He lost track of time as he remained quiet for hours watching the deer and other animals pass, not knowing the boy was among them. By the time Uriah was ten he had learned to recognize the scent of the different animals. He knew when rain was coming. His dark curly hair got curlier; the leaves showed their undersides and if the wind was right he could smell it.

He read the warnings the birds gave when a storm was imminent. They fled quickly, flying low into the protective middle branches of the thick, endless forest of huge trees. It was there he felt closest to God. After his mother’s passing he often asked God why He took her. The songbirds comforted him with their lyrical music and the breeze whispered to him to be strong like the mighty oak he sat against.

Not many days following the death of his mother, Uriah had gone deep into the woods, deeper than he had ever gone before. He walked silently so he wouldn’t disturb any animals. All he could hear were the centuries old sounds of virgin woods. Suddenly he was startled when a Mohawk youth appeared out of nowhere. The two startled young men stared at each other in silence. Then as quickly as he appeared the skin-clad Iroquois melted into the forest. Many times after that Uriah wondered if it had been an apparition or sign or if it really happened at all.

Nathaniel, who had been married more than half his life, was having a difficult time both physically and emotionally without a wife. There was a comely widow he had seen often in town. She had lost her husband almost exactly the same time his Mary had passed. He knew little about the widow other than her husband had been killed in combat in New Jersey and left her with two small children, a girl and boy. Their surname was Bonser.

One afternoon Barber summoned up his courage and greeted the widow and her children, as they passed by near the church. She nodded slightly then went her way, children in tow, leaving a scent of lavender behind.

A few days later Nathaniel saw them in town. The Widow Bonser was wearing a fashionable, but practical gown, and a stylish flat brimmed hat that allowed her brown curls to frame her heart-shaped face.

Nathaniel tipped his hat politely then spoke Good Day, Miz’ Bonser. and was rewarded with a smile and a nod from the Widow Bonser. This encouraged the widower and he entered into a casual conversation with her. Before the end of the encounter he knew her name was Elizabeth and the children were Rhoda and Isaac. He also knew that Elizabeth Bonser smelled like lavender.

A few days later she invited him and Uriah to dinner. Nathaniel eagerly answered Yes we’d like that thanks.

This was the beginning of a very brief courtship. Soon Nathaniel and Elizabeth were married and he moved her, Rhoda and brother Isaac to the Barber’s home.

Even with the difference in the step-brother’s ages, they bonded quickly and became inseparable. Neither of them had brothers and Isaac became the little brother that Uriah always wanted and Uriah was the longed for big brother Isaac thought he’d never have.

Sadly, not long after they married, Nathaniel took sick and Elizabeth was once more made a widow when Nathaniel passed away in 1779, at their home in Muncey Township. Its logical that Uriah would have stayed in his family home with his step-mother, Rhoda and Isaac, as they were the only family he had, and he was their’s. His well-known sense of humor and good personality brought some cheer into the sadness the four of them shared.

Chapter Two

Uriah Barber and Barbara Clingman

in Northumberland: 1761-1796

Two years later Uriah left and married the blond-haired Barbara Clingman. They had been courting several months before Uriah summoned his courage to ask for her hand in marriage. From different social backgrounds, the Clingmans preferred Barbara had fallen in love with someone on their social level, but she was already twenty years old and soon would be an old maid. So they reluctantly gave the couple their blessings.

The Clingmans wouldn’t hear of their third daughter marrying in the small rustic church in Sunbury, so made arrangements to travel to Philadelphia where Barbara and Uriah could be married in the same church where the Clingmans had wed years before.

Like most grooms-to-be, Uriah was oblivious to all the details to a wedding and was relieved to have the bride’s family handle the whole affair.

Wedding Attire of the Well to Do

Girls from wealthy families wore velvet gowns in winter and silk in warmer weather. No dress of linen or fine wool for Barbara, that was for the girls from common folks. The color of the dress selected by the bride and her mother was important in determining future good fortune. Pink was considered to bring bad luck except for a May wedding. Green was shunned because some people believed it invited fairies to the ceremony. However: It is hard to imagine the pragmatic Clingmans thinking this. Green also was feared to attract rain, the nemesis of all brides. Barbara and her mother selected blue silk for the wedding gown. Not only did it symbolize purity, fidelity and eternal love, it brought out the blue in her eyes.

During the 18th century, the gown and petticoat were the main items of a woman’s dress. The gown consisted of a bodice and skirt sewn together with the skirt open in the front forming a triangle area allowing the separate petticoat beneath to be seen. This was not an undergarment it was an essential in women’s clothing.

Barbara, the Bride

On Barbara’s wedding day she chose soft silk undies with lace trimmings and tied at the waist with a blue ribbon to match her gown.

Barbara’s gown, called Jesuit, flared out and down to sweep the floor. It was barely darker than the laced trimmed petticoat which was the same color as the gown. The same shade of blue was featured in her lace gloves which didn’t extend over the fingers.

At her throat was a lace-trimmed ruffle called a tucker. She covered her corn-tassel colored blonde hair during the ceremony with a delicate small blue swath of lace and had a matching wide-brim flat-top hat ready for when they left the church. Her silk shoes were fashioned from the same color silk as the gown. The twenty-year old Nordic girl made a lovely picture on her wedding day.

Uriah, the Groom

The handsome groom with his dark curly hair, wore the traditional garb of the day for men and boys. White breeches fitting close to the thigh and reaching over the knee, silk stockings that extended from above the knee to the soft black leather shoes that closed with a buckle on the side.

He selected a fine ecru linen shirt, which made his bright blue eyes stand out in his tanned face. Shirts in the midst of the 18th Century were worn as an undergarment. It extended from neck to the bottom of his waistcoat. There were ruffles at the neck and cuffs to reflect the importance of the day. Over all this he donned his best black waistcoat. Under his arm he carried a black three-sided cocked hat made from beaver felt.

The Wedding

So it was the day the young lovers were married in a high society wedding in the packed Lutheran St. Michael’s and Zion Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania three years after the war raged there.

A few days later they returned to Northumberland and set up housekeeping in the small home Uriah built for them on his father’s land near the home place. He continued to care for his step-mother Elizabeth, and became a surrogate father to his step-siblings.

It is certain that Isaac learned lots of skills from his big brother, including games popular with children at that time. Uriah wanted his little brother to be equal or even more capable than the other children.

Whenever Elizabeth allowed, Barbara invited Rhoda to their home to visit and play games and share knowledge with her little female in-law.

Colonial Children’s Games and Activities

Game came from the Old English word gamen meaning joy, fun and amusement. The Old High German word gaman means nearly the same, joy or glee. The original version of the word began around 1300 and remains in use today slightly altered.

Children in the Colonies had no ready-made games so made up their own, or played the same games their parents or grandparents enjoyed when they were young.

Some were similar to those that the American Indian children played. One was making a hoop and pushing it with a stick to see who could make it stay upright longest. Pick up sticks was another that knew no cultural bounds, as was foot races.

Children still play the old games like leap frog, hopscotch, sack races and hide-and-seek. Thanks to the example set by Ben Franklin with his kite experience, kites were another option for passing one’s time.

There weren’t many options for indoor games but children played with tops, puzzles and word games. Those who could read passed time that way, Dolls were made from rags or corn husks. Other games required nothing but a keen imagination.

Schools in the 1700s

During the time of the Revolution many parents taught their own children due to a shortage of schools and textbooks. To help assist in teaching, the parents used a Bible, and a hornbook; a wooden board with a handle that was worn around the neck,

There likely was a lesson sheet of the ABCs, in both cases, a copy of the Lord’s Prayer, and a series of syllables attached to the board. This was all protected by a thin layer of cow’s horn.

Families like Uriah’s in-laws, had fancy hornbooks decorated with jewels, leather and might include a pointer made from ivory. Most everyday people had hornbooks that were plain with a string around the handle so the student could wear it around their neck. Wealthy children usually had a private male teacher, while mothers were the teachers of the economically depressed Colonist children.

By the 1750s, literacy rates were the highest in the New England colonies, with averages of 75% for males and 65% for females. The literacy rates were found to be lower in the Middle and Southern colonies.

Children didn’t have Bic pens with a variety of point choices. They used a quill dipped in ink. To prevent it from spreading they used a compound of powder-like sand called pounce. For the recipe, please refer to Appendix D: Miscellaneous Information: Fashions, Recipes, Songs, beginning on page 335

One advantage to having a big brother, Isaac had someone to teach him fishing, hunting and survival skills which would be paramount in their future as explorers and trail blazers in the Ohio Country, and Elizabeth, his mother, encouraged Barbara to make certain both of the children learned the basics of education and the finer things of life, even though they lived on the frontier.

The Brothers First Trip to Ohio: 1795

In the Federal Census of 1790, in Northumberland County, Uriah is listed as head of household with three males under sixteen, and two females in the household, plus one other. (I surmised them to be their sons, one daughter and Barbara. Perhaps Rachael Baird was the other.)

In Isaac’s home he is listed as head of household with three females living there. (likely his mother, sister and Abigail)

A few years later in 1795, when Uriah was thirty-four and Isaac twenty-three a group including their families and several others hired the two brothers to travel to the Ohio Territory to look for home sites there.

The men traveled light selecting a canoe for the journey down the Susquehanna River until they reached the Pennsylvania Road leading to Fort Pitt. At Harrisburg, then Paxtang, they probably bought horses for the trip across land, and then built a flatboat for the journey down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.

old indian trail pa.jpeg

Pennsylvania Road: 1795

They traveled light so they could move overland if necessary when they reached the undeveloped territory at the end of the journey.

The Barber family may have initially come into Pennsylvania from Connecticut from the NE corner to Sunbury.

When they traveled to Philadelphia they took the Susquehanna River south to Paxtang, from there they took Pennsylvania Road to the East to Philadelphia.

Going by flatboat at The Forks of the Ohio, they continued their journey as they poled their way down the Ohio River to their destination.

Marietta: 1788

First Permanent Settlement in the Northwest Territory

Seven years earlier, in 1788, soldiers of the Revolution and members of the Ohio Company of Associates, moved upriver from the area Uriah and Isaac would soon enter. The earlier pioneers established Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory. This paved the way for others out to the east wanting to settle the West.

This group of early pioneers were referred to as the first forty-eight and the founders of Ohio as they were selected and sponsored by the co-founders of the Ohio Company of Associates, Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler. They were known as the best of New England (Massachusetts and Connecticut) culture…Revolutionary heroes.

In the unusually severe winter of 1778 Putnam and the first forty-eight men cut trails across the mountains and met at the Youghiogheny River where they built two flatboats. The larger one weighed forty-five tons and was called both the Adventure Galley, and the Mayflower in honor of the Pilgrim ancestors. The three-ton boat was named Adelphia. In addition, they built three canoes.

This small fleet carried the men to the Monongahela River and ultimately to the Ohio River. From there they made their way to the Ohio Country and the Northwest Territory.

On April 7, 1788 the First Forty-eight arrived at their destination where the Muskingum River empties into the Ohio River.

The Shawnee and other Indian nations who made their homes in the Ohio Country were not pleased with the arrival of the settlers who immediately started construction of two forts, Campus Martius, which stood at the site of the museum which today bears its name, and Picketed Point. No effort had been made to make a treaty with the Indians to purchase the land in that area. The new people just took it as their own.

It needs to be stated here that following the Revolutionary War, the new nation found itself short of finances but with more than ample natural resources. To recompense the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, the government paid them with warrants for land in the Northwest Territory.

However, there was a serious problem with these warrants. The Federal Government didn’t own the land. Regardless they offered tracts on which to settle to the veterans until the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 that would cede ownership of the Northwest Territory to the government. The problem was it still belonged to the Ohio Indian nations already occupying the land.

When the step-brothers made their journey, no settlement other than at Marietta had been made on either side of the river and they assumed they could claim a homestead on this unmarked land as compensation for unpaid military service, including Uriah’s and all the men serving in the Revolutionary War

Uriah and Isaac reached the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers in August, and knew at once this was the journey’s end. They spent as much time as they could exploring the area then headed back to Sunbury, retracing the route they used to come to Ohio. It was critical to get across the highest of the Alleghenies before hard winter set in.

Much of the earlier locations in this book are located in the area of the Susquehanna River, and its tributaries, which drain nearly half of the area of Pennsylvania, much of it in the Appalachian Mountains.

Most of the western part of Pennsylvania is drained by the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which join at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio. In addition, other important parts of this system are the Beaver, Clarion, and Youghiogheny rivers. From the Monongahela, our families debarked down the Ohio to their future homes in the wild and beautiful Ohio Country.

With their purpose completed, the men started the demanding journey home to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, to where the families of John Beaty, William Ward, Ephraim Adams, and the Barber/Bonser wives and children were eagerly awaiting for their report.

There are other family accounts that Isaac came to Ohio alone but our family history included both of the brothers making the trip. It wasn’t likely that the older brother would send Isaac alone on such an important journey. So we presented it as we were always told by our family elders. However: there was an ongoing erroneous family story stating that upon Uriah’s and Isaac’s return to Northumberland they found their families had been massacred. This was readily disproved by historical data showing the same Bonsers and Barbers were there waiting in Sunbury as when the men left. Not even one family member passed away during the time the men were off on their trek to Ohio. All were still there, alive and well, with the area Indians having dispersed throughout Ohio, and neighboring states some years earlier.

There were two documented incidents when the Sunbury area folks had to stay in the Fort when renegade Iroquois attacked. Although there were homes and property burned no one in our family was done physical harm.

Chapter Three

Preparing To Leave For Ohio: Spring 1796

The men spent weeks getting ready for the arduous move to Ohio. They planned to arrive in August, the hottest part of summer and their families prepared to leave from the homes where they had spent their lives.

It was their final spring in Pennsylvania. The trees were just filling out, the birds had returned from their winter vacation in the south, and the sweet wild strawberries were theirs for the picking. The air was redolent with fragrances of various flowers wakening from their winter rest. It was a good time to be alive.

Who knew what lay ahead for them after they loaded their crafts and shoved off down the winding Susquehanna River where they would continue until they reached the point of disembarking near Paxtang. There they would continue by wagon on a torturous journey over the towering Appalachian mountain trail called the Pennsylvania Road which the State built earlier in the century. Past endless tree limbs thrusting out in a frantic effort to revert to the primordial wilderness, the Barber entourage would struggle through dense forests, abuzz with insects looking for a human to bite.

Long days were ahead - days filled with endless rocking and bumping, lurching and jerking in Conestoga Wagons, over the stumps, fallen limbs and rain-created ridges carved in the middle of the tortuous Pennsylvania Road they had to suffer to get to Fort Pitt.

The beating of their bodies against the hard wooden seats would cause the adult bones to ache and be stiff for days and days until they purchased keelboats, which would take them down the mighty Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.

Secretly the womenfolk fretted about exchanging the comforts they knew so well for the wild unknown making the long trip to Ohio. Even worse, they were apprehensive about what they would find when they arrived there. It would take months, barring illness, accidents, broken axles and splintered wheels.

Barbara was especially apprehensive since she was expecting their fifth baby sometime in early July. They weren’t planning to add to their family before they settled in Ohio, but she got pregnant when Uriah returned in October. This meant she would spend the most miserable time of her pregnancy bouncing along in a wagon on the long Pennsylvania Road. To compound the situation some of it would be in the heat of summer.

Being a stoic person, she set her mind to making the best of the situation. Unlike most of her peers she wasn’t apprehensive about bearing however many children God sent them, nor did she worry about herself, or any of the infants dying in childbirth. This positive attitude would take her and her family through many trials in their lives.

Thank God for Rachael Baird agreeing to join them on the trip. She was an 18-year old who lived in Northumberland County who apparently worked for the Barbers. There is an unknown person listed in one of the Barber census records in Northumberland, which I believe was her. Rachael’s parents were James Baird, who died 5 Mar 1802, at their home in Northumberland and Isabel or Elizabeth Newby. For a genealogy of Rachael’s family, please see Appendix A: Physiognomy and Abilities beginning on page 318.

Uriah would have little time to help Barbara, having his own difficult job of safely guiding the large flatboats down the river. Their first born daughter, Hannah, twelve, was a good cook and considerable help with her siblings, but with all the pressing chores, Rachael was a god-send.

Elizabeth, Uriah’s step mother had moved to Fort Pitt to live with her daughter Rhoda, after she married a boy from that town. Barbara was relieved because she had worried how Elizabeth would handle such a trip. Elizabeth White Bonser Barber passed away in Fort Pitt two years later in 1798.

Of course the Clingmans were very apprehensive about their daughter Barbara making the trip in her condition, and begged her to wait until after the baby was born. Her father promised to take her and the baby to Ohio when they were better able to travel, but Barbara couldn’t bear for her family being separated again for any length of time. Uriah had only been home for a few months and she remembered how hard and lonely it was for her and their children while he was gone to Ohio. So she gently refused her father’s concerned offer, and he wished she had married a farmer instead of a man with wanderlust.

Barbara was strong and healthy, and believed all would go well with this child, having had no trouble delivering the other children. A strong woman, Barbara maintained a regular schedule of work and social activities during her pregnancies. Her mother had given her a book by well-known physician and author, Dr. William Buchhan. In this book Advice to Mothers, he advised exercise in moderation, suggesting slow, short walks in the country, or gentle motion in an open carriage. In conclusion, the good Dr. advised against dancing and other great bodily exertions in later months.

Barbara laughed as she read this knowing any gentle motion would end the day they left the keelboat behind and climbed up in the seat of the Conestoga for the bone-jarring trip to Redstone.

By this time hostile Indians were practically non-existent. Only the Iroquois in New York were near the Barber/Bonser section of Pennsylvania, It is documented that most of the Shawnees, and related tribes had been forced not only from Pennsylvania, but had moved further west of the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers where our Northumberland pioneers were headed. In fact, about fifty years earlier, the Pennsylvania Shawnees had built a village, Lower Shawnee Town, on the exact site where the pioneer village Alexandria would be built.

The children who would soon leave Northumberland County were like all other children. Those of school age were excited that spring was finally here and the long cold winter over. On the newly warm days they could run barefoot through the tender soft green grass and soon they would only have to wear shoes to church. The youth were looking forward to something totally new to experience. It would be hard to leave their relatives and friends behind and they were having trouble sleeping…eager for the biggest adventure of their young lives.

The little ones didn’t understand what was going on and probably wondered why their mothers and sisters were packing some of their toys and clothes and a whole lot of other things in big trunks and crates.

The males were filled with that special inner drive most