The story of Johnstown : its early settlement, rise ... - JohnstownCafe

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poor protection against the rigors of a northern winter. Clothing was insntticient
and food not to be obtained without incredible toil
KoaiJs, mills, stores
and markets were unknown. Savages liirkid in the thickets, eager to strike a
blow at the detested in\-aders. Fenimore Cooper's ••noble Indian" was not
the variet\' encountered b\' these immigrants. But the\' were of stalwart
stock, full of pluck and energy, resolute and courageous, heroes without
epaulettes, who boidh' severed the ties that boimd them to civilized life and
undertook to make the untrodden wilds subservient to their interest antl happiness.
The high purpose and patient entlurance of these leabhearted men
advance-guards of the better epoch just dawning— recei\ed their appropriate
reward.
]\Iany of them acquired a competence, liN'ed to l>ring up their families
comfortably, enjoyed the re-^pect attaching to honorable age, and at length
descended to the tomb as shocks of wheat fully ripe for the harvest.
l\Irs. Alcorn was carried off by the Indians, but Michael Rager reared
twent\"-seven lust\' sons and daughters, and the McGuires populated a considerable
jiortion of Allegheny tciwuship. John Storm built the first gristmill,
and a Welsh colon}-, headed b\- the Re\-. Kees Lloyd, in \-'j6 settled the
ridge seven miles west of tl;e summit. The name of Cambria was applied to
the new township as a reminder of the dear old home across the Atlantic.
iNIr. Llo\d surveyed a town, which he called Ebensburg in compliment to his
son Ellen. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the celebrated Pliiladelpliia phvsician and
patriot, it is interesting to note, sold the lands to the pilgrims from Wales. A
number of Welshmen also selected farms on Blacklick Creek, a tributar\- of
the Conemaugh, and located the village of Beulah, t\\i3 miles west of Ebensburg.
An advertisement bearing the signature of MorL^an J.
Rhees. printed
in a Carlisle paper in May, 1797, is a curious illustrati'Ui ui the inducements
the ••Cambrian Settlement'' had to offer. An e;\act cop}' sheds light upon
b}'gone methods of marketing real estate :
"This settlement, although in its infant state, offers considerable encouragement to
Emigrants, and others, who have an enterprising spirit, and are willing for a few vears to
undergo, and surmount diflicuities in the acquirement of Independence.
"Several families are nov.- on the land, and many more have engaged to follow in the
Spring, when a town namejd Beul.xh, one mile square, will be laid out
;
acres of which
will be givL'n and sold for the sole benefit of the firsit settlers, viz :
fcir public Building's
Schools, a Librar}-, the encouragement of .Agriculture, and Manufacture, and ::oo acres in the
settlement for the dissemination of Relisious knowled:.'e
"Such institutions, it is presumed, must have a tendency to promote the welfare of the
settlement, and be of public utility to the neighborhood in general — a neighborhood which
the late Jtjhn Craig Miller, Hs.-j , did not he'-:itate to declare, would I'ecome in time. 'The
Garden of I'ennsylvania.' The situation is certainly healthy, fertile and pleasant. The
surveyor, J.
Han is, Esq., certir.es ' that the spot on which the settlement is formed, consisting,'
of 20,000 acres, is in quality good, and in general, sui^ciently level for cultivation : that most
i
of the tracts (400 acres each altotrether tillable, that the whole is proper for pasture and
wheat, alioundim; in meadow, which mav be watered bv numerous streams