|
Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 4, 2015 20:54:09 GMT -5
Conclusively inconclusive. Figures. Well, it can go in the folder that says "HOLD FOR FURTHER FINDINGS."
|
|
|
Post by timniesen on Feb 12, 2015 13:19:05 GMT -5
Rich, I concur with your analysis, inconclusive evidence. Yet, I remember being mocked and attacked on the former site for even suggesting that Sam Houston was in Pennsylvania in the 18th century. Alas, those were the fun days of Bigfoot and company. Here is a further extract, explaining the relation of Houston to Buchanan: "John McClellan had previously lived in Franklin County (PA). He belonged to a family still numerously represented in that region. He settled on the river bank at the present site of Patterson. ... McClellan's wife was window Houston, whose maiden name was Catherine Buchanan, a sister of the father of President Buchanan. Her husband belonged to the family of that name in this region, from whom the celebrated Sam Houston, of Texas, was descended." Tim P.S. Rich, I know nothing about the geography of this region of Pennsylvania. If you have any information, please provide information.
|
|
|
Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 12, 2015 19:35:16 GMT -5
Tim, Central Pennsylvania is smack-dab in the Appalachian Range -- mountains and valleys running SW to NE from Tennessee up into New England covered with pine forests. My drive from State College (my home) to Lewistown was about 35 miles and went over what is accurately known as "Seven Mountains." It's all like the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia -- until you get east and southeast of Harrisburg. Then it is flatter and more rolling.
|
|
|
Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 14, 2015 17:04:57 GMT -5
Check out Bill Bryson's book "Walk in the Woods," which is now a new movie. Great read and told me all I ever might want to know about the Appalacian Trail.
|
|
|
Post by timniesen on Feb 17, 2015 13:20:21 GMT -5
Rich and Allen, I was not referring to the general area but rather the specific PA towns mentioned in the 1886 book. I am going to write to the historical society associated with the general area mentioned, seeking if they have further information to provide on this this thread. Perhaps they own the very map which Rich saw a long time ago. Certainly this area was part of the greater Lancaster County from which the Scotch-Irish began their long journey Southward and Westward. In an unpublished essay done by Lancaster County historian Samuel Evans, he explains that the usual sequence of events was that the Scotch-Irish emigrants bought the very cheap lands of South-Central Pennsylvania. They first cleared the heavily forests of Lancaster County, the smaller, parcel by parcel, after which moving to the South and West after selling the cleared land to the Penn. Germans, who used the rich limestone soil for agriculture. The Scotch-Irish used the wood for the creation of charcoal, which was used for the early furnaces of Lancaster County and elsewhere. Whiskey was also a major source of both cash and entertainment. In contrast, Southern Lancaster County was not suitable for farming because of its inferior soil, and a Scotch-Irish elite, mainly Democratic, remained the majority there. This had a major impact upon the UGRR because the dense forests of Southern Lancaster County became the perfect cover for this covert activity. There was a small but vocal faction of radical anti-slavery Presbyterians in Lancaster County, including Samuel Evans and others. My research has found that the UGRR station masters were sometimes the grandsons of former slaveholders. Their former slaves often became domestic servants in their families and remained friends. The Quakers are usually thought of as being anti-slavery, but it is often forgotten that they had been the largest slaveholders in Pennsylvania! Tim
|
|
|
Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 17, 2015 14:57:46 GMT -5
Not sure if I understand your research location goals here. The Lewistown area around which I saw the Sam Houston Birthplace on a map (that would have probably only been a "modern" road map as I had no access to historic maps then) is nowhere near Lancaster County (which is, as you say, in southern Pennsylvania). Lewistown is in Mifflin County next to Center County which is the geographical center of the state. The Lewistown Sentinel is the local newspaper that has printed many articles on the three Alamo defenders who lived there. The Mifflin County Historical Society would indeed be a place to check on Houston. Lewistown is in the middle of the Appalachians, but Lancaster is on the flatlands between the Susquehanna River and the Delaware/Chesapeake Bay area.
|
|
|
Post by sloanrodgers on Mar 30, 2015 22:22:53 GMT -5
It's nice to be remembered Tim, but I don't remember commanding a company. Everyone that knows me likes that I stick to primary and contemporary evidence. I admit I'm not much for speculation on 3rd or 4th hand accounts decades after an event. This issue seems deader than Old Sam Houston.
|
|
|
Post by Rich Curilla on Mar 30, 2015 23:36:21 GMT -5
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas were like a giant migratory river running N.E. to S.W. No reason to doubt Houston ancestors being from Pennsylvania. I just don't doubt Sam's Natural Bridge, Virginia, birthplace.
|
|