N
V( )1.. 1.XX1V.
CENTR
E HALL,
8 ISTORICAL NOTES.
By MR. J. D. MURRAY.
plains. His practice exten led from Spring Mills to Bralsharg, and from Nit-
tany Mountain to the Seven Mountains. He wis married to a Miss Pot ar,
whose relatives lived at Potters Mills. Afosr living at Eirlytowa un-
til his family was pretty well grown up, he moved to Potters Mills, where the
younger Potters, James and John, who were the leading spirits of the day, re-
sided. They were the descendents of Gen. William Potter, who figured as a
Revolutionary soldier and came to this valley in 1787. At time slavery
still existed in Pennsylvania: parsons had a legal right to own and sell colored
y
5s
)
that
1
wyrsla
peop «
slaves, man and wife, and forty bundles of straw for a large tract of land.
State officials on the first of March, 1780, passed a law for the gradual abolition
of slavery.
bat we do know that it was abolished.
will at first be inclined to think that Geo, Potter made a very poor bargain
for himself by taking the two slaves aa i forty bindles of straw for so large and
fi 12 a tract of land, and the way things turned out are inclined
think he did, but fortune has many freaks, and it was one of those deceitful
freaks of fortune that caused Gen. Potter's bargain to prove a failure.
Gen. Potter came to this valley shortly afier the Revolutionary war, in
wa also
1773; he and his exploring party cama up the West Branch, then up Bald Ea-
gle Creek, and crossed ovr Nittany Mountaia, south somewhere, not far above
or below where Centre Hall is now located. When be came to the top of the
moufitain where ha could see across the valley five miles in extent, in the exe
altation of his heart he exclaimed, “My God, what »
Al that time all the land he had his eyes
mont, to the state of Penasylvania, and Mr, Potter at oute wwe arrangements
Just how much land his warrant
lies 1"
of land there,
0s X Lue
govern-
contained we are
This
fees,
to have a survey made.
not prepared to say, but it must have been a good many thousand acres,
Inud east him at government prices $1.23 per not including the
which would not amount to much per acre oun so large a tract. He gave Mr.
Huston about five hundred acres of this laad for forty bundles of straw and
acre,
the two negro slaves. In a few years the slaves ware set free and he had noth-
ing; Mr. Huston had his land aod improved it, and it is in the hands of his
descendents to this day and is very valuable. Had the slave law not been re-
pealed in Pennsylvania in 1780, the good value would likely have fallen on Gen
Potter's side. We were informed by Virginia slave holders waoen amouog them
ten years after the rebellion, that man and wife, slaves, if they were healthy,
and had no bad habits, were worth a thousand dollars eac 1, and their children
often became very valuable to the owner of the parents,
At
he colonies and state, that
Gen. Potter was a very large land holder: his estale was immense.
that tima there was an old Eaglish law in force iat
was called the entailment law. By this law all real estate came into the hands
of the eldest son, but for soms reason this entailment law regard ng the Poller |
estate, was broken in open court by heirs of the est and ia consequence of
this they all inherited alike. J. & J. Potter was the name of the firm that did
business for many years at what was aod is yet called Potters Mills. John and
James Potter were their names; they were men who did nearly all the business
that was done in this part of the valley. The farmers had implicit confidence
in the Potters; it was Potters in whom the farmers believed: they would ignore
their own judgment and yield to a higher if not $0 correcta judgment, Every-
thing they had to sell went to Potters; all the money the farmers were saving
above a scant living, was given to Potters; they were a savings bank for every
their ways of
living and had extravagant ideas; they were mena who were very
rated by the honest, Many of the farmers of that
person, but, the bank did not save. They were extravagant in
much over-
day
could Lave exercised better judgment but most of them were afraid to depend
the
Ww 'y
hard working farmers.
in matters of business on their own judgment. Potters seemed to have
reputation of being fair dealers with their m any customers and in tha
ymanry of the plains, There
the
vi
to know about Polters
were some, however, who had less opportunit
than the farmers, and who seemed to be more suspicious,
About the year 1830 there was an old farmer came from the eastern part
of the state to visit some of his friends in Centre county, had
lived in the east. That old gentleman had been a farmer in the east and WAS
also engaged in other business, and had the
who former y
sreby gained quite a compe tency. |
The fame of the Potters was not only great at home, it had gone out over the
land. This old gentleman being of an inquisitive nature, no doubt b ‘gan to
¥ i
King Solomon's
greatness, she came to the conclusion shie would visit the King in order to sat-
feel like the Queen of Sheba, after hearing so much about
isfy herself whether all those reports were trus, but she found his greatness ex-
ceeded anything she had ever heard and she returned to her own country say-
ing, “‘the half has never been told.” We do not think this is, however, quite
a parallel case with the Queen's visit, It differs in some respects; in the first
place we are not told that this old gentleman did dir sweily visit the Potters, but
came more like a spy io the Potter's country, believing the information he
could ferret out by observation and hearsay would be more valusble informa- |
tion for him to form his verdict upon than he would be lik#ly to get by a di-
rect audience with Potters themselves, at any rate we d) not believe he would
say ‘the half has not been told,” but are rather inclined to think he would |
say, ‘there has been too much told.” From whale could hear and see and |
learn by close observation, was, that the Potters were the biggest fish in ll
the plains, puddles at that time, but before he left for his eastern home he |
made known to his friends and relatives, with whom he had been sojourning |
and enjoying their hospitality for a half fortnight, his emphatic verdict, whieh
was this, “these Potters will break up.” Of course, this declaration met with
much opposition; his friends, who were also Potters friends, tried to show him
the impossibility of such a calam’'ty; they showed him the amount of the best
land they owned, two or three mills, a store, still house, a large interest in the
Lewistown Bauk; that they were honorable men to deal with and were hold-
ing all the custom of this part of the valley as well as from other districts.
But the old gentleman was obdurate and went away chanting the same old
roug, “they will break up,” with some variations in it such as, “in Jess than
five of ten years,”
In some five or six years the sad news was heralded over the country
that thie Polters, wi'h the Lewistown bank, had failed. This Lewistown bank
was a bank of issue and the news of its failure caused profound consternation
among the people. This happened about the year 1816 or 1847 (we have no
correct data.) The most of the money that was in circulation in this county
was the Lewistown, some Lancaster Bank money also some Middletown, but
principally Lewistown. Many a man who had any money would search his
pockets to ascertain whether he had any of the then much despised Lewistown
money. It was reported at that time that one man when he heard the news
of the failure thrust his hands into his pockets only to find that he had no
money of any kind,
It was undoubtedly a great misfortune: many of our forefathers lost
largely of their hard earned money; some old persons who were living on a
meagre income had their deposits there, Old “uncle Bammy Huston’ (as he
was familiarly called,) lost twelve thousand dollars through Potters, but it
was not 80 hard on him, he still had enough left. Francis Alexander, father
of James Alexander, was more fortunate than sone others; he had been a ten.
ant farmer for some time under them and had accumulated money, but left it
in their hands, and we don’t know whether it was Mr. Alexander's native
caution that prompted him to buy from the Potters quite a large tract of land,
still in the hands of his son and daughters, but by doing so he saved his mon-
ey aud the transaction was honest, even though he was prompted to do so by
the verdict rendered by our old eastern friend, as we have qqoted so often,
When the dark clouds of dispondency had partly passed away and the
sky became more serene, many of the good people expre-sed their opinion that
they believed it was a blessing in disguise that the Potters failed and left the
country. They were not bad people to live among, but they seemed to have
too much power and influence. It had a tendency to weaken the confidence
the people should have had in themselves during their reign. It was almost
an impossibility for one farmer to borrow a hundred dollars from his neighbor,
Potters had all the money the farmers or any other person had to put out at
luterest; the farmers did not trust each other, there was in their estimation
AVA
{ A vicious mountain fire raged in the
[ Seven Mountaius Tuesday afternoon,
| the
{ house and stable of John Harper, near
| Potters Mills, set fire to nearly every
and resulted in the destruction of
{dwelling in the settlement at Huyet
{ mill along the pike,
| Huyett’'s stave mill,
badly scorched
Perry Krise's
| buildings, licked up the latter's fences
i thous.
and destroyed thousands and
{ ands of young trees, and today, (Wed-
| nesday) the fire is going merrily on,
| performing the same escapades that it
did when the flames were only a
hours old,
few
THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE
| The fire originated by a spark
| the chimney of BE. Klinefelter's
M. Huyelt's
doal’s Gap,
who lives at E
| stave mill, in back of
yer, This was at about
OLCe se
extinguish the flames, bt
began to spread and grew to such Pro-
portions that human efforts to extip-
guish them were utterly useless,
Fhe fire divided, ove branch of the
First Moun-
down
flames runpiog down the ©
tain,
and Sand Mountains and
Flat,
time the rag
Treaster
White Oak
an :
and the other
Iu x little more than hour's
flame reached the
ino
Bellefonte nid Lewistown pike, and
threatened the destruction of « very
dwelling aud all the improvemeuts in
back of P Mills,
Mr. Huyelt had abou
staves at his mil
the settlement otters
seeing that the flames
his cutive piant, his men
work in advance of the
prep:
ception and defeat,
wsaible
balled only aller
Fhe fire
the settlement
strug
vicious eve ex perience
were accustomed
fires Fhe smoke
imes that an ol
ed
t
tinguished
Lhiere was
threatenino
selves,
While Mr. Huyet
doloz their 1
and adjoining pro
ing others safe,
Frauk Pennington
demons to save the
outbuildin
stable and
proved more than they «
plishi. After repeatedly extin
1
SDAY, MAY
the flames on one or the other build-
lugs, struck up
flames i
+ uitaneously
On the house and stable, and
ie to baffle them,
abile and withuild
household Oils ¢
{ tally test ro
i Were
to Mr
+ fay {
arn
he best slong
Hurg
ire,
i rr tus
el i
Siulima
the
Irvin, which was befor
{ the
of Comin
Ia the caw
L
the court when the last
ynwenit
against K
issue «
Reporter went to press, the defendant
was found guilty of the fifth count: us-
Ing unknown iostruments to produce
of ti
Reeder and Quigley, defer
in
reasons to be Oh
an abortion, the death e woman
ensuing,
ant's counsel wed for a new trial,
#1 within ten days and
June ar-
neanwhile
arguments to be heard at the
gument court. Defendant
held under $4,000 bail sure'y approved
by the court,
The second week of April term of
court opened at 9.30 Monday morning
with Hon, John G
The most important case (hat
to have been tried was that
Steruberg Lyon, vs. Gustave Lyon,
but on Saturday last satisfactory terms
of settlement were agreed upon and
the case fully settled, hence is not on
the calendar for the week.
The six cases on the week's list in
which A. D. Potts is plaintiff and A.
McCoy and J. Frank McCoy trading
as A. McCoy & Son, were all eontin-
ued on account of the illness of one of
the principals.
W. I. Henry va. Flora I. Lucas; set-
tied,
Robert Kinkead vs, Rose L.
continued,
8. M. Btaneliff & Co, vs, Thomax B.
Way, et al; settled.
8. M. Stanelifft & Co.
township; settied,
Lehigh Valley Coal Co. va. Jacob |
Falmer, adm'r; continued. i
Laura H. Mull, et. al Coaldale
Mining Co.; continued,
J.B. Ard ve. J. N. Everts; settled, |
After the list had been called Mon
day morning it was found that the
cases intended to be tried had been |
settled and consequently there was
nothing for trial and court adjourned
until 2 p. m. In the afternoon a jury
was called in the ease of Lehigh Vale
ley Coal Co. va, Bamuel Marsh, et al
The case of 8. M., Btancliff & Co.
use of Thomas Meyers va. Adam Cow-
her, et. al, was called on Tuesday
morning. After the close of the ti
mony the court ordered a compulsory
pon sult; court immediately granted a
rule to strike off non suit. Court ad-
Love on the bench,
was
of Rose
Pierce;
Huston
t
VE.
Va,
[Continued on page Ma.)
3
Journed at 1.50 p. m,
{
fn
$ ¥
Mr. Ja
mine Aflier
the mine he alts
rightfully be
R ese & eg
: $4: $
ah sili sU
the raiiroad iron which
longed to Reese & Sona
seizad t
stilted,
bv Mes
Hicks,
were Int preset
hirvie, Bower
day was occupied
by the
case, much interest being
the many nice legal (question
Wp
Weal
The Vrevinet
“West
name of
Precinet will be thi
the new voling district in!
Potter township if the ieport’ of Come
missioners 8. I). Rav, . W. Patter
son and George Keller is finally cone
firmed by the Gourt,
Fhe line beginning at couniy live
runs west of Samuel Slack, of
George Spangler, aud W. PF. Roc key,
from which point it runs north on the |
ennt
cast side of Dr. Lee's farm, crossing
the North precinet Hoe a little
that point, thence west on the south
veel of
side of the John Commiogs and Bit.
ver farms to the Harris township line
This bit of territory taken from Potter
North will reduce its_vote by about
twenty-five,
The West precingt will # over.
whelmingly Democratic and the
South precinet Democratio mejority
will be reduced to a very. narrow
margin,
minis
Sate Demooratio Kditorini Assoelation
The aunual meeting of the State
Demoeratic Editorial Association was
held Wednesday of last week at Har
fisburg, at which the following oMocers
were elected: President, P, Grey
Meek: vice presidents, J. Irvin Rieele
and Jere Zosmeor: Feerelary treasurer,
W. I. Hastings; executive committee,
J. Irvin Bele, Jere Zeamer, P, Grey
Meek; D. A. Orr, George E. Elwell, J,
W. Maloy, John B. Colston, John P.
‘J
dw
1901.
very thimsy basis, 18 endeavorin
the removal of the State capital by
the constitution, }
years, and never ected much
. so :
indgiiierent and through
overwhelmige wit] ye
egation, whieh 1 1 i
i]
out the Ht
the
LO DALIOL
ye iy i
election next fall or a year later, bi
3Y 1 rE.a1 ito
ana siaort-sigril
| known and fre
authorize such
used res
11 woud
3
iiiealn
{
iV
3
to work u A
a vote of
Thi
sport
i
been agitated in
Pl
1011
Fyeac
sR
. Even the ladelphia
op sit wa de
The P
reform and an honest vot
would be
With I hiladeiphia ®
andulent
it the Legisiatore
5 Yolo.
vot
1 machine in th
ir of tl
the
a4 Ccer-
ad © unty
the groaping of
¢an mark
ae primaries bn can -
Tolers
¢
i
j18 yt
118 meets
pnonents of
Grovernment
N ev erthe i088
Boalsburg
ial sehool organized a
4 society with DD. 1. Mothershs
bie Jodoun, vice pres.
: Uharles Fisher, secretary: Irvin
wigler, editor :
Fred W. Weber
Mever drove to Hells
. .r 1%
} SEL EEC
ident {
and J. Heary
* Saturday
Frank and Janet MeFarlane entert
ed friend mm Mifflin o
v
$y '
5 f
0d
$itg~
unity Sinaavy.
bury,
Dr. Kidder re.
: Lhe masons have
for the addition of an
raging Boal
allie Mo()
Sun visited Lis
week in
Ww al
r= the
pnalian is
ir 4 John Bricker
burg Monday where he secur-
z Bros. have open-
He
Tn _—
Linden Hall.
Wm. Worrel, of Cambria county,
into Fergus Potter's
eit Lhiouse as "E381
ive fe
t's Lo move
fs iis goods are
riacriy of this place, but
ast two vears has been living
Abe county
Mr. and Mrs Samuel Goss, of Pine
Grove Mills, spent Sunday with J. AH.
Hoss and family, |
Among the visitors to the county
seat from this place the past week
were, James Kiwport, Mrs, Perry Cole, |
Mt Freda Hess, aud Mrs, F, E, Wie |
land,
The macons have completed the
work on Robert MeClellan’s barn wall
and have begun work on the wall for
the new mill whieh J, BH. Ross will
erect this summer
F. E. Wieland at Peunsylvania |
Furnace this week attending to the
loading of several ears of hay and oats |
which he is shipping from there
Irvin Burris, formerly of this place,
but now of Centre Hall, spent a short |
time looking up old friends here ou
Tuesday,
Little Bertha Bradford, who has!
been quite ill with toosilitis, is ime!
proviog, and Mrs. Edward Lucas, |
who had been quite fli with fever i]
now able to sit up,
Oecar Goodlander' spent 80 nday
with his flily st Pardee,
Miss M Dale is teaching music
in Linden Hall and vicinity; she has
n class of thirty-three snd it takes all
ker time to give each one a lesson once
i week.
A gang of gypsies have pitched their
tent in Cartin’s woods, south of town.
and have made known their intention
to remain several weeks,
APSA
J. W. Wolf, of Ardmore, is confined
was |
is
Bipes and W. P, Hastings,
¢
Yo bg with bronchial pneumonia,
consdsting of
¥Yaer, Jeanie
Carrie
following
ser
@ 1 bas pleased a
1y Father, in His ali Providenoe
Ve § frievd and classmate Lizzie
£ us by death, we desire to
: OUr sense of her troe worth and of the
Erosl joss and sfMiction the we hool, sud we our-
selves, as weil as her relatives apd family, have
Eustaioed, and we sccord ugly %
Resolve, That we unanis
on ol our affectionats
our Heav-
fo re
Keller,
place on
otsly join in the ex-
regard for one who
: ied 4 blameless 1if 5, Was pire
a disposition and correct in
Boar midst
i, amiable
fmt
That we thank God for the Christian
he sed before us, and pray that we
grace 1o follow {Land that we may reach the
same happy rest which we believe she has bow
entered, And teste that we extend 1o the be-
reaved family out most sincere condolence and
inToke upon them and us the consolation of In
vine grace
HE ROY
example
may have
i ————
John MeClenahan Dead
John MeClenahan, of Potters Mills,
died Wednesday night at 11 o'clock at
the uge of fifty-five years. He had
been ill all winter from con sumption.
Funeral will take place Saturday
morning; interment at Milroy.
The deceased leaves a widow and
five children, namely: Mrs. Mollie
Perkins, Altoona: Jesse, Erie; Harry
and Lot, Philadelphia; Cora aad
Sallie at home.
———.
Uncisimed Letters,
The following Jetlers remain wi the Oentre
Hall postofice unclaimed Mrs Katie C. Braham ,
Mr. C. C. Fraser, Mr. £4. Hoover, John Hamil
ton, T. Temple Jackson, Miss Maudie Smith, T.
K. Bwigart, Joo. Ulrich, Mr. R. J. Woll, Look
Box 290. Persons oiling for above lola Please
sale they are advertised.
GM. BOAL, P.M.
nn,
Dr. Alexander is being treated at
the German Hospital, Philadelphia,
by Dr, Deamer. The last news from
him states that he is linproving,
The bill appropriating $1,0000000 to
the publie schools to make up the cut
made by the Governor two years ago,
passed finally Wednesday. La
Secretary Long bas appointed a
board of naval officers, headed by Cap-
tain Converse, to consider the desira-
bility of having the torpedo boats ren-
dezvoused at some central p
where they may be taken out o
ter during periods of ina
’
/