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Here's a commencement booklet from the South Greensburg class of 1902
My dad, Bill Witherow. Thank you all veterans.
I recently received a picture of Bears School, an 8X10 and all children in the picture with the school in the background. My great grand mother, Anna Mary Brinker is in it, and her two sisters and brother Simon. Would guess in mid 1880's. I come back from Kansas every year and do research, but of course not this year. Can anyone help me with a little history of the school and where located? Thanking you in advance.
While unemployed and sheltering in place, I decided that I had plenty of time to create an educational website. The following is a link to my website; Union Uniforms at the Battle of Gettysburg. Hopefully I will be doing a representation later this year as a fundraiser for the historical society. Please take a look and let me know if you have any comments or question. Thanks!
Some light reading to share with my kinfolk while we are all sheltering inside.
A little church, a little history, a little family...
Here's a link to the limited publication, (available in Baltzer Myer's impressive library), of the 1922 "History of Old Zion" by Rev. Wm. A. Zundel, my great-grandfather.
Happy Easter to us all 🐣
On Liberty Road south of the Turnpike and Arona a culvert built by the Pennsylvania Turnpike is spotted along the south bound shoulder of Liberty Road. The stream turns to the left just before entering the culvert. If you look at that aerial you will see the same curve where the center line of the planned alignment of the South Pennsylvania Railroad was to be built.
I was down that spot today and across the road from the culvert is a blue vacant house with the signs telling people to remain away shows at the base of the sign as the property belongs to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This caught my attention and I immediately knew why as the curved stream is the center of the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railroad and therefor the house is also on that right of way which the turnpike purchased that right of way over 80 years ago and that they own that section including the house.
Even with the newly built turnpike realignment the turnpike is not using the true railroad alignment. If this is the case then all of the railroad alignment that I have documented is still owned by the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It also tells me they do know the true alignment and I didn't know this as well.
Most of you are aware that social singing played a large part in the community in the early days of this area. On Friday or Saturday evenings folks would meet at the one-room schools or other meeting halls or churches and welcome a music director to lead them in song. This booklet belonged to Betty Ritenour, one of our extended family members now long past. Betty's mother survived the great influenza epidemic of 1918, losing all her hair, and having to learn how to walk again, but living well in to the 1990's.
The planned right of way of the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railroad through the cloverleaf at the New Stanton turnpike interchange leading to south west corner of Old Stanton.
Gerhardt Tomas (Garret Thomas) is not a name often mentioned in the annals of Westmoreland history, but he was a mover-and-shaker in the German community of Hempfield. I’ve accumulated more knowledge than most people because he was the brother-in-law of my direct, maternal, immigrant ancestor, Jacob Milliron (Muhleisen).
Garret, brother Peter, and sister Anna Elizabetha arrived in America on the ship Phoenix in 1754 - four years after the Muhleisens. Peter married Eva Maria Six. They lived about ten miles west of the Millirons in Bethel Township of Berks County, and attended the Altalaha Church in Rehrersburg. Garrett married Maria Magdalena (Unknown), and they were with Hain’s Church in Wernersville - about 10 miles southeast of the Millirons. Also living in Bethel at that the time was Stoephel Harrold.
Those neighboring families, along with the Longs, all seem to have made plans together to move west. In the “First Purchase” of 1769, Thomas and Milliron purchased four adjacent tracts along Long Run, southwest of Irwin. However, they appear to have “flipped” those properties in favor of settling in Hempfield, where they might have established pre-1769 claims through Virginia. They were among a syndicate of men that laid early claim to land in Hempfield, which they divided up and expanded. An early Virginia record states: “Garret Thomas, 700 acres from near Harrold's, south to New Stanton - owned jointly with Stophel Harrold, Captain (William) Perry, Jacob Milliron, and Tobias Long, called "Great Bottom" as this was "indeed a great bottom land."
Garret was active in local government and church affairs. He was also a military man that served both in the local militia and in the Pennsylvania Line of the Continental Army under Colonel Christopher Truby. That association with Truby points to him as the person most likely to have scouted out the frontier tracts he and his friends later acquired.
He was associated with the first church at Harrold’s Town as a member of the Reformed congregation. There he was responsible for recruiting William Weber to serve as a Reformed pastor, and eventually pastor of the Milliron-Weber Church. Weber wrote in a journal that Garret Thomas provided his family with a crude dwelling where they nearly froze to death in their first winter in Hempfield.
Garret’s name appears on the plaque near Fort Allen memorializing the settlers that signed the famous petitions demanding more protection against marauding Indians. However, there is a better memorial in the form of his stone house that still stands about 2 miles south of Baltzer-Meyer. I can’t say exactly where it is because it’s situated in the backyard of a contemporary farmhouse, and I doubt the owners want a bunch of people stopping by to see it. Rather, I’ll just share what I know about it, having been granted a peek in the company of a researcher I met at Baltzer-Meyer.
Early settlers in WPA often replaced their original log homes with stone homes. From what I’ve seen, the newer ones in the area were built about 20 to 30 years later. However, the Thomas home looks to have been built earlier because the stone work is not as uniform as it was in later such homes. Also, it appears they had fortification in mind. The living quarters was on a second story over a ground-level floor space that served as a barn and work area - much like German and Swiss homes of that era. The only access to the living space was by a ladder or wood steps on the left side. The owners that I talked to thought it was by ladder, which was taken in at night. Also, it’s built into a hill, as were many early homes. There was probably a spring nearby. The owners still use the lower area for storage, but there was a fire upstairs that compromised the floor and masonry. So, they never go there anymore.
This is a structure that cries out for preservation, but it’s on private property and the owners don’t want to or can’t afford to pay the costs. At least they have a good roof on it for now.
- Contributed by Tom Chapman. More on Jacob Milliron at Facebook “Milliron Family Reunion.”
A whole community of Hahntown would not exist today had the planned South Pennsylvania Railroad been built in 1881-1885. The survey maps it’s precisely atop the aerial of the mining community south of Irwin, Pa.
What did you do at your playground and when?
The community of Centerville along the east side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike showing where the planned alignment for the South Pennsylvania Railroad was to be built in 1883-1886