Forgotten Past

By Robert A. Jockers

PRELUDE
[Long Description]

Beyond the endless chain of the Appalachian Mountains the initial settlement of Moon Township began in the spring of 1773. Who were these pioneers? Where did they come from and what possessed them to leave the security of their homes to settle in a dangerous wilderness? The settlement pattern in Moon Township, often complicated by a three-stage process, was composed of not only permanent settlers but also squatters who occupied land grants that were owned by land speculators. To add to the confusion, the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia both claimed ownership of the Ohio Valley and each colony had its own land office and their laws conflicted.
During the frontier period the political overtones of the Pennsylvania / Virginia boundary dispute weighed heavily on the pioneer settler regarding the authenticity of his land title as legal jurisdiction vacillated between the colonies. This controversy was of grave concern as the frontier farm was the familys sole asset and was essential for their survival in a wilderness engulfed by poverty, hunger, disease and even death. The overwhelming demands of daily life left no time for formal education or social contact, thus most of the first-born were illiterate and loneliness prevailed on the frontier.
By the post frontier period the Revolution had been concluded and the nation turned its attention toward the Articles of Confederation and its failures. After many months of debating the great theories of government and practical politics the Continental Congress drafted the American Constitution. With new structure and theoretical concepts of government never before tested the decade of the 1790s became the most perilous in American history and many feared that the new republic might not survive.
The dawn of the nineteenth century brought new hope in the form of the Industrial Revolution. As the family farm developed and prospered, large processing facilities such as the gristmill, sawmill and fulling mill were necessary in order to process the increased production. With an expanding economy the farmers realized that their children could not compete without a basic education and so, along with a new church and blacksmith shop, a subscription school was built in the tiny village of Sharon. The village became a social gathering place and a respite from the demands of daily life.
By mid-century the rumblings of economic and social inequality were being felt. A decade later it erupted in Civil War. The post war period was one of transition in the township as people attempted to improve their economic circumstance utilizing new agricultural knowledge to increase production on the farm and new third generation homes to enhance their social status.
The enormous growth and development of industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced a period of great affluence. The new rich now found the confines of Moon Townships conservative farm community an ideal place in which to live and raise their families. Purchasing large farms they proceeded to create numerous grand estates in an area that became known as the Heights. Unfortunately, the excesses of the 1920s gave way to the great depression and a decade of pain and hardship only to be followed by the Second World War. The post war era was dominated by social demographics as the population shifted away from the city to the suburbs and Moon Township found itself evolving into an upscale bedroom community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 22, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465333506

Robert A. Jockers

Robert A. Jockers, D.D.S. has been a resident of Moon Township, Pennsylvania for the past 44 years. His avid interest in history led to the formation of the “Old Moon Township Historical Society” in 1975. As president during the next eight years, he coordinated the society’s bicentennial project by locating, aiding in dismantling, removing and reconstructing an original log cabin to “Robin Hill Park”. In 1988, Dr. Jockers’ manuscript on 18th and 19th century Moon Township history was published in the township’s Bicentennial Book. Later that year Pittsburgh History Magazine published the “Mystery of Middletown’ and in 2004, “Speculators and Squatters”. In 1990, Dr. Jockers wrote and directed the historical documentary “Born American”, depicting life in early Moon Township. He is currently the historical society’s archivist.

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Copyright © 2006 by Robert A. Jockers D.D.S..

Library of Congress Control Number:          2004099641

ISBN :                       Hardcover                       1-4134-7892-1

Softcover                        1-4134-7891-3

eBook                        978-1-4653-3350-6

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

I

II

III

IV

V

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

PREFACE

This book, in a sense, is a legacy to the future generations of Moon Township. There currently exists within the student population of our nation a belief that history has little value or significance in our modern day lives. Perhaps we need to reflect and understand, that who we are, how we think and what we believe as Americans were in large measure derived from the conscious perception of events and personal experiences of preceding generations. During the initial settlement period on the frontier men were faced with survival and were forced to discard their mantle of acquired custom. They regressed to a more instinctual behavior. From that frontier environment through generations of hardship and sacrifice there evolved new character traits and new strengths and from these a new American philosophy, culture, and civilization was born.

Moon Township was a microcosm of that evolutionary process and the experiences of her past generations in terms of both success and failure have provided a learning curve. Regardless of whether those experiences were in the political, economic, social, educational, or any one of a hundred different arenas the knowledge gained was enhanced and passed on to the next generation. Each succeeding generation then proceeded to further develop, diminish or eliminate those previously held concepts until today they form the basis of the complex modern society in which we live.

The significance of history then lies in the fact that knowledge of the past enables us to stimulate new thoughts and ideas and to understand previous missteps, learn from them and establish a more positive guide for tomorrow as we are both the heir to the past and ancestor to the future.

Hopefully, this book may provide some insight and understanding of how those who have come before us had struggled and sacrificed to build the world in which we live today. They have placed the gauntlet before us challenging us to protect, preserve and enhance for future generations the freedom that they died for and that we hold so sacred.

Robert A. Jockers, D.D.S.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my wife and soul mate,

Doris Johnson Jockers

For her encouragement, advice and understanding during the preparation of this book. Her tireless critiques regarding its readability and continuity were invaluable as she listened to my endless drafts and in the end proof read and edited the text in its entirety.

To my daughter,

Jill Susan Boyle

Graphic Artist, for the creation of a symbolically inspired jacket and her detailed restoration of my maps, and photographs. Each of the images and graphics required changes in font, resolution, and proper file and needed to be resized to accommodate publishing guidelines. Without her enormous skill and talent the physical appearance, usefulness and appeal of this book would have been greatly diminished.

To my son-in-law,

Gerald J. Boyle

Computer Consultant, for his continuous help on recapturing my lost manuscript on the computer, transferring the articles of contributing authors to the base manuscript, creating a structured form for the appendix and preparing the manuscript for publication by transferring the text to computer disk.

No one, much less the author, is knowledgeable of all of the aspects of Moon Township’s history. Therefore, I am deeply indebted to all those who have made contributions in specific areas:

Robert E. Harper, Attorney at Law, for his knowledge of the Montour family and their influence during the pre-frontier period.

Ronald L. Potter, Historical Photographer, for his research into the evolution of the co-operative farm and the development of the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport.

Donald A. Maloney, Teacher, for his research into the transition of the township’s economic base resulting in the development of our local office parks.

Gregory G. Smith, Moon Township Manager, for his administrative knowledge and expertise in township government

Dr. Dale Gass, for sharing his knowledge of the Carnot Crossroads area during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and kindly providing me with many of his old photographs.

Dr. Frank Braden, for sharing the original diary of William K. Nesbitt, dated 1873.

General acknowledgments are due to:

Ama Chambers, Secretary, for her help in alphabetizing the index of this book.

John Kennedy, Road Supervisor (retired), for his general knowledge of Moon Township during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.

To the many residents and former residents of the township whose privacy I have invaded in search of facts regarding their historic homes.

To the Moon Township Historical Society for their financial support in the publication of this history.

To the reader and the researcher for taking the time.

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I

THE INITIAL SETTLEMENT

1773-1781

Perhaps the most significant factor in the settlement of western Pennsylvania was an intangible energy known as the Westward Movement. This powerful sociological force stimulated the formation of new frontiers through man’s desire for economic, political, and religious freedom. Despite the dynamics of this force the settlement of Old Moon Township was neither an orderly nor a continuous process. Due in part to the areas remote location on the English frontier settlement was delayed. Political and legal controversy clouded the ownership of its landmass. Transient squatters and land speculators impeded its growth, and hostile Indian incursions during the American Revolution brought about its demise.

It is the purpose of this study to document the original settlement of Old Moon Township which began in the spring of 1773, and remained viable through the winter of 1781. This manuscript marks the first comprehensive attempt to identify the original settlers, specifically when and where they settled and what motivated them to leave the security of entrenched society to migrate into a dangerous wilderness. In doing so it was necessary to detail the complexity of the settlement process, as well as the political, economic, and social environment that existed during that time frame.

In spite of the fact that Moon Township was not incorporated as a governmental entity within Allegheny County, Pennsylvania until 1788, numerous events of historical significance had occurred during the initial settlement period and in the years prior to its incorporation. In this study the term Old Moon Township is used to describe the settlement of the sixty-six original land grants that comprise contemporary Moon Township and the four that make up the borough of Coraopolis.

Although this is a specific case study it is also a primer on the research of regional settlement patterns in southwestern Pennsylvania.

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT

As the English settlement of the Atlantic coastal frontier expanded the Native American Indian was forced to abandon his land and move west. As he did so, the English trader followed, arriving in the Ohio Valley sometime between 1735 and 1740. A little more than a decade later the vanguard of a squatter movement began to appear. The first English speaking settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains was established in the Monongahela Valley in 1751.¹ Nominal ownership of southwestern Pennsylvania at that time belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy as recognized by the Treaty of Easton (1758), the Royal Proclamation (1763), and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768). Settlers moving into the Monongahela Country were therefore seated without legal sanction and thus were squatting. In the ensuing years the squatter migration continued. They temporarily abandoned their frontier holdings during the French and Indian War (1754-1758) and the Pontiac Uprising (1763-1764). However by 1765, the squatter movement had established a number of small frontier settlements and was well ensconced in the Monongahela Valley.

"The documentary history of 1765, ’66, ’67 . . . speaks of no other settlements in western Pennsylvania . . . than those within or immediately bordering upon the Monongahela, upon Cheat, upon the Yough, the Turkeyfoot, and Redstone".²

Realizing the hopelessness of securing the evacuation of these various settlements, the Pennsylvania commissioners and the Iroquois chiefs finally agreed that land secession by the Indians was the only logical alternative. On November 5,1768, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix transferred a large landmass known as the New Purchase, from the Iroquois Confederacy to the Proprietary government of Pennsylvania.

THE LAND

When the Pennsylvania land office opened on April 3,1769, it was inundated with applications for warrants of survey within the New Purchase. Despite all the applications filed only three were located in Old Moon Township as settlement in the area was affected by a number of extenuating circumstances.

First, Old Moon Township was during this time a nondescript, uninhabited wilderness on the south shore of the Ohio River. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix had established the Ohio as a segment of the dividing line between the New Purchase on the south or English side and the Indian frontier on the north. The Iroquois Confederacy as nominal owners of southwestern Pennsylvania through previous conquests had invited the Delaware and Shawnee tribes to live there. During the Fort Stanwix conference however, neither tribe was invited to attend in spite of the fact that their villages and hunting grounds were being given away without their consent. This deliberate oversight angered the Delaware and Shawnee and renegade bands began to attack nearby settlements rendering the south shore of the upper Ohio extremely dangerous. As a result pioneer settlers were reluctant to seat themselves in such close proximity to the Indian frontier.

Second, the settlement process in southwestern Pennsylvania was adversely affected by a political dispute between the colonies. The conflict had arisen many years before over the ambiguous language in each charter describing their common boundary. In 1769, Pennsylvania claimed jurisdiction of the Ohio Valley as part of Cumberland County with its seat of justice at Carlisle, and Virginia claimed jurisdiction of the same area as a part of Augusta County with its seat at Staunton. This ongoing dispute caused many settlers, for whom the ownership of land was the primary objective, concern that title to the lands they had cleared and settled might never be perfected.

Lastly, the settlement process had been further complicated by the land policy of each colony. Pennsylvania’s land policy evolved from the 1730’s Law of Improvement and the 1750’s Pre-Emptive Law. The land was divided into three classes; Proprietary, reserved for the Penn family, Estate, reserved for the English nobility, and Common. Obtaining Pennsylvania title to common lands, which were sold in one hundred to four hundred acre tracts, was a long and cumbersome process. The settler was first required to apply to the local land office in writing. That application was then forwarded to the surveyor-generals office, which then sent a warrant of survey to the local deputy surveyor. After the survey was completed it was returned and placed on record in the surveyor-generals office. Following the applicant’s payment of the required purchase price for the land, a patent was issued and title was perfected.

In contrast, Virginia’s land policy was not as restrictive. Upon application, the Headright System allowed a settler 400 acres of unoccupied land free, if he were to build a cabin or raise a crop of grain, however small. After the survey was completed the Virginia land commissioners merely issued a Virginia Certificate which awaited caveat in the land office for a period of six months. If none was offered, a patent was issued and title was perfected.

A through examination of the earliest land records, specifically the applications, warrants, surveys, and patents relating to the seventy original land grants which comprised Old Moon Township revealed that in the spring of 1769 only three applications had been filed. These tracts were parcels of bottomland located between steep hills along the south shore of the Ohio River in what is today the borough of Coraopolis.

The earliest of the grants, a 335-acre tract, was a gift from the Proprietary government to Henry (Andrew) Montour for his services rendered as an Indian interpreter.

Pennsylvania New Purchase Application # 145

Henry Montour applies to the office for 300 acres of land upon the south side of the Ohio including his improvement & opposite to the Long Island about nine miles below Fort Pitt.³

Henry Montour’s Pennsylvania Application

According to English law each parcel of land required a title, and so at the time of granting Montour named his tract Oughsaragoh. On April 3,1769, a warrant, an order to survey and a permit to claim a tract of vacant land,⁴ was issued for the Oughsaragoh tract. Deputy surveyor, James Hendricks made the survey and returned it to the surveyor-generals office. A survey was delineation of a tract of land and "was not to encroach upon any area under settlement, improvement, or prior survey unless