his earliest childhood developed a fondness for music, especially that
of a violin.
Ole was destined for the church but failed to pass the necessary
examination, and at once decided that he would make music his vocation
in life. He became a pupil of Paulsen for a short time, about the only
instruction he ever received from a master.
It was upon a visit to Paris that Paganini heard of the youthful genius
and saw in him the latent possibility of a great musician. He encouraged
him to become a violin virtuoso. His first appearance on the concert
stage was with Ernst and Chopin, and he was received with such approval
that it was not long before his fame had spread over the entire
continent of Europe.
At a time before his talent was appreciated he had become so despondent
that he attempted suicide by drowning in the river Seine, but was
rescued by a young French woman, Alexandriene Felice Villeminot, whom he
married in 1836, and with whom he lived happily until her death in 1863.
He married a second time in 1870, taking as his bride Sara C. Thorpe, of
Wisconsin. Ole Bull died on the island of Lyso, near his native Bergen,
in Norway, August 17, 1880.
Ole Bull first visited the United States in the winter of 1843–44. He
had grave doubts of the success of an American tour but was persuaded by
friends to come here. His success was instantaneous. He was received
with wild acclaim and the financial returns were far beyond his fondest
dreams.
He again returned to America in 1852, and it was during this concert
tour that he went to Williamsport and played before a vast audience,
when the newspapers of that time wrote of him as “an attractive figure
with gold snuff box, diamond-studded buttons in his shirt and his
fingers almost covered with rings.”
Certainly a fastidious personage and one with such talent could not fail
his audiences. The bow with which he produced such perfect melody
contained a large diamond setting which sparkled as he drew it across
the strings.
During his trip to Williamsport Ole Bull was entertained in the home of
John F. Cowan, and the attention of the great violinist was called to
certain tracts of land owned by Cowan situated in Abbott and Stewardson
Townships, Potter County, and the great advantages of this location for
colonization purposes, which so impressed Bull that he visited the site
and noting a striking resemblance to his native Norway, decided at once
to found a colony of his countrymen at this spot on the headwaters of
Kettle Creek.
The following year about thirty of his countrymen, forming the advance
guard, arrived in this country and proceeded to their new home in the
wilderness. These adventurers were not of the ordinary immigrant class,
but persons of culture and refinement, many being musicians of repute.
Ten days following the arrival of the first settlers, 105 other
colonists joined them and settled in one of the four villages. These
brought a minister and religious services were begun the first Sunday
following.
The first difficulty encountered by these new arrivals was the
transportation of their personal effects, which could only be hauled by
wagon and then under the worst conditions imaginable.
Ole Bull’s colonization scheme attracted much attention, and friends and
admirers of his contributed stock, machinery and farming implements.
Among those who thus offered encouragement was Henry Clay, of Kentucky,
who gave blooded horses and cattle, descendants of which are still among
those in use in Potter County.
Four villages were laid out: Oleona, named in honor of Ole Bull; New
Norway, New Bergen and Walhalla. Sixteen houses were soon under
construction at Oleona, all finished within a year.
Ole Bull soon after his arrival selected a site for his castle and
garden. Soon as the spot was determined upon, a flag pole of beautiful
straight pine was cut, trimmed and placed. By arrangement the name by
which the town was to be known was to be pronounced as the flag was
unfurled to the mountain breeze; “Oleona” was the name of the home of
the Norwegians. Thirty-one cheers, one for each State, were given and
three long ones for Ole Bull.
The evening was one of rejoicing and celebration. Bonfires were burning
everywhere. Ole Bull made an address and then, taking his violin, played
an anthem suitable to the occasion. At the conclusion of the hymn of
liberty of old Norway, a gentleman representing the State of
Pennsylvania, stepped forward and welcomed Ole Bull and the Norwegians
to the United States of America, and to the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
Old Bull turned his attention to the erection of his castle, which was
built on a high eminence, about 200 feet above the valley below. From
this site he could view every part of his colony. A great retaining wall
was built at its base, extending one hundred and twenty feet in length
and rising to a height of sixteen feet. This wall gave to the place the
appearance of a large fortress and resembled some ancient castle of the
old world.
A broad road was constructed leading up to the castle, which was broad
enough to drive three teams abreast.
Any one familiar with the conditions these colonists had to face, in an
almost unbroken wilderness, far from any base of supplies with little
money and less business sagacity, can realize that the colony was doomed
to failure the very day it started. Bull was compelled to abandon his
project with the loss of his wealth, and again play in concert to recoup
his fortune.
Ole Bull was a musical genius, but building five cities in the wilds of
Potter County was a different thing than playing Beethoven’s Eighth
Sonata on a violin. He could move audiences but not mountains.
The title of the lands he bought was defective, and, while it has been
charged that he was defrauded by Cowan, there is no evidence to
substantiate that. Cowan took back the property and refunded Bull the
purchase money.
The castle was never fully completed and never occupied by Bull. The
doors and windows were never put in place, and soon after this breaking
up of the colony the building began to fall into decay until all that
now remains are the cellar and retaining wall.
Ole Bull never again visited the scene of his visionary paradise, but
his name is still perpetuated in the town of Oleona.
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Dr. Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen,
Died at Northumberland February 6, 1804
Dr. Joseph Priestley was born near Leeds in Yorkshire, England, March
13, 1733. He died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, February 6, 1804.
Joseph was the youngest of nine children. His father and grandfather
were prosperous cloth makers, employing, for that age, a large force of
workmen. From his parents, who were strict Calvinists, Joseph inherited
a deeply religious nature. He attended the school of the neighborhood
and at eleven had read most of the Latin authors, and in a few years had
made considerable progress in Greek and Hebrew, with some knowledge of
Chaldee, Syrian and Arabic.
He began to experiment at the age of eleven, when he selected spiders
and insects and placed them in bottles to ascertain how long they could
live without fresh air.
A few years later he made “electrifying machines,” and a kite of fine
silk, six feet wide, which he could take apart and carry in his pocket.
The string was composed of thirty-six threads and a wire, similar to
that used by Dr. Franklin, in Philadelphia, to “bring electric fire from
the clouds.”
At nineteen, Priestley was sent to Daventry, where he embraced the
heterodox side of almost every question, as he afterwards wrote of his
three years at Daventry: “In my time the academy was in a state
peculiarly favorable to the serious pursuits of truth, and the students
were about equally divided upon every question of much importance, such
as ‘Liberty and Necessity,’ the ‘Sleep of the Soul’ and all the articles
of theological orthodoxy and heresy.”
After leaving Daventry, he preached for three years to a dissenting
congregation at Needham. In 1761 he was a professor at Warrington
Academy. While here he published several of his books and made such
experiments in electricity and “fixed air,” that the results began to be
noised abroad. He married, while at Warrington, a daughter of a wealthy
iron manufacturer, a Mr. Wilkinson.
In one of his visits to London he met Benjamin Franklin. He became a
member of a famous club which met at the London Coffee House, and here
he interested Franklin in his experiments, and they became the closest
friends. Both became members of the Royal Society and both in turn
received its highest honor, the Copley medal. Each obtained from
Edinburgh University the degree LL. D. Oxford conferred a like degree
upon Franklin, while for a space of a century it ignored his heretical
friend.
In 1860 a statue of Dr. Priestley was erected at Oxford by Prince
Albert, afterward King Edward.
Franklin wrote to Priestley, in 1777: “I rejoice to hear of your
continual progress in those useful discoveries. I find you have set all
the philosophers of Europe at work upon fixed air (carbonic acid gas);
and it is with great pleasure I observe how high you stand in their
opinion, for I enjoy my friend’s fame as my own.”
When Franklin was in France during the closing days of the Revolution,
Priestley was there pursuing literary work. He was afterward made a
citizen and offered a seat in the National Assembly.
Shortly before the American Revolution, Priestley wrote anonymously
three pamphlets in defense of the colonies. His influence was potent.
Dr. Priestley announced his discovery of “dephlogisticated air” (oxygen)
in 1774, to a large assemblage of philosophers who were dining at the
house of M. Lavoisier in Paris. This was man’s first introduction to the
mighty element that makes one-fifth of the atmosphere in volume and
eight-ninths of the ocean by weight, besides forming one-half of the
earth’s solid crust and supporting all fire and all life.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Priestley did not have a biographer worthy
the name, for his life is full of dramatic incidents, scientific
attainment, learning and human interest.
We find him the central figure in the great gatherings of that day,
receiving the highest honors of his own and other Governments, and, when
the tide turned, denounced, persecuted, the victim of the mob, home and
library burned and pillaged. Through all the changes of this eventful
life we find him the same able, earnest, fearless and cheerful spirit to
the end.
Dr. Priestley, disregarding the warning of David Hume, and against the
wishes of his philosophic friends, took up the cause of liberty in
religion. In his letters he makes a strong appeal for Christianity. His
desire was to revive in France and England the simple spiritual
communion of the early church.
He published many works upon his religious views which made him the most
hated man in England. He was everywhere detested. The streets of London
were strewn with scurrilous handbills and caricatures of him. Even his
fellow associates in the Royal Society turned their backs upon him.
But it must be remembered that the men, at home and abroad, who opposed
Priestley’s doctrines, were the very men who honored him as a man.
At Birmingham, in 1791, the last great religious riot in England
occurred. It is often spoken of today as “Priestley’s Riots,” for the
doctor was the chief object of the mobs.
It was during a celebration on the anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille, at which Dr. Priestley was not present, that the cry of the
mob was “Church and King.” Dr. Priestley had favored the agitation, then
rife in Birmingham, for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The
mob suddenly marched toward his home and Dr. and Mrs. Priestley, who
were playing a game of backgammon, barely succeeded in escaping. The
doctor was pursued for several days and his life threatened.
The mob vented its rage by pillaging Priestley’s house and tearing it to
pieces. The rioters made a pyre of his furniture, manuscripts, priceless
apparatus, a library of 30,000 volumes, his private correspondence, and
his diaries, and all were destroyed by fire.
In 1794 Dr. Priestley came to America and settled at Northumberland, Pa.
Here he erected a fine house and laboratory, and resumed his
experiments, which resulted in the discovery of three new gases. Here he
wrote many books.
Dr. Priestley made trips to Philadelphia, where he lectured on
historical and religious subjects, founding, in 1796, the first
Unitarian Church in that city.
The University of Pennsylvania offered him the chair of chemistry, and
afterward its presidency, but he preferred the quiet of his home at the
“Forks of the Susquehanna.”
In 1874 the chemists of America met at Northumberland to celebrate at
the grave of Dr. Priestley the centennial of his great discovery.
Messages were flashed across the Atlantic to chemists who met the same
day at Birmingham to unveil a colossal statue of the man whom that city
had, eighty years before, driven from the streets, and burned his home
and possessions.
Dr. Joseph Priestley was one of the most distinguished adopted citizens
of our great State.
----------
Western Boundary in Dispute—Jail at| Hannastown Stormed February 7, 1775
Virginia, by virtue of her “sea-to-sea” charter, made an indefinite
claim to all lands west and northwest of her coast line. She therefore
held that the region about the forks of the Ohio belonged to her.
Accordingly, in 1749, the Ohio Land Company obtained from King George II
a grant of half a million acres on the branches of the Ohio. The object
was to form a barrier against the French and to establish trade with the
Indians.
Christopher Gist was sent to explore the country, and, with eleven other
families, he settled within the present limits of Fayette County.
A fort was begun in 1754 on the present site of Pittsburgh, but the
French captured the Virginians, finished the fort and named it Fort
Duquesne. In November, 1758, General John Forbes captured the fort from
the French. It was rebuilt and named Fort Pitt.
Before 1758 the western part of Pennsylvania could be approached from
the east only by the route of the Juniata and the Kiskiminitas. In that
year Forbes finished as far as Loyalhanna the road previously begun from
Fort Loudon by way of Bedford. Many Scotch-Irish settlers seated
themselves in the Ligonier Valley at Hannastown, and about the forks of
the Ohio, and, with settlers from Maryland and Virginia, they possessed
the land in comparative quiet until Pontiac’s War.
Pittsburgh, begun in 1760, was cut off from communication during
Pontiac’s conspiracy, and had it not have been for Colonel Bouquet’s
victory over the savages at Busby Run in 1764 it might have been
entirely destroyed.
The growth of Pittsburgh was slow. England after the French and Indian
War had forbidden colonists to settle west of the headwaters of the
rivers in the Atlantic basin, and the settlers on Redstone Creek and the
Cheat River were at one time driven off by the same British
proclamation. A law was passed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania which
imposed a death penalty, without benefit of clergy, for trespassing upon
lands not purchased from the Indians.
But the continued accession of emigrants into this region made it
necessary to erect a new county, and the General Assembly, February 26,
1773, established Westmoreland County, which included all of the
southwestern portion of the province west of Laurel Hill. Robert Hanna’s
settlement, on the old Forbes road near the present site of Greensburg,
was made the county seat and named Hannastown.
When Virginia saw that Pennsylvania was extending jurisdiction over the
forks of the Ohio she renewed her claims to that country.
The Earl of Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, asserted that Pittsburgh was
outside the limits of Pennsylvania. In this contention he was supported
by Colonel George Croghan and many others, who believed that the five
degrees of longitude which were to be the extent westward of
Pennsylvania placed the Monongahela beyond the limits of that province.
Croghan maintained that the limits were at the Alleghenies or Laurel
Hill Range, “having heard, among other things, that a degree of
longitude at the time of the charter of William Penn meant forty-eight
miles.”
At the close of 1773 Governor Dunmore appointed Dr. John Connelly, a
Pennsylvanian, as commandant of the militia of Pittsburgh. He took
possession of Fort Pitt and changed its name to Fort Dunmore.
Connelly defied Pennsylvania authority and commanded all the people to
appear as a militia under the authority of Lord Dunmore.
Arthur St. Clair, Prothonotary, Clerk, and Recorder of Westmoreland
County, had Connelly arrested and bound over to keep the peace. St.
Clair reported his actions to Governor Penn, who sent to Lord Dunmore a
draught of the lines of Pennsylvania as surveyed by David Rittenhouse,
William Smith and Surveyor General John Lukens, showing that Pittsburgh
was east of the westernmost limit of the grant to the Proprietaries.
Dunmore demanded better evidence and that St. Clair should be dismissed
from office for committing Dr. Connelly to jail.
A large company paraded in arms through the streets of Pittsburgh, and
opened a cask of rum. St. Clair issued an order for them to disperse.
The Sheriff allowed Connelly to go to Pittsburgh under promise to
return. He traveled about collecting adherents, and on the day he was to
return he appeared before the Hannastown court house at the head of 200
men, all armed and colors flying. He placed sentinels at the door and
kept the magistrates from entering unless they agreed to act under
Virginia authority, and he demanded their decision in writing.
The magistrates declared they would continue to act under authority of
Pennsylvania, when Connelly, a few days later, had them arrested and
brought before him in Pittsburgh. When they refused to give bail, he
sent them to the court of Augusta County, at Staunton, Va.
Governor Penn advised the three magistrates to get bail, but sent the
Attorney General of Pennsylvania and James Tilghman, as commissioners to
induce Lord Dunmore to join with the Proprietaries in a petition to the
King to have the boundary line run and marked, and in the meantime to
agree to a temporary line of jurisdiction, suggesting that the
Monongahela River would answer for a line.
The application to the King was consented to, but the boundary was not
agreed upon.
The adherents of Virginia increased in strength at Pittsburgh, and it
became impossible to collect taxes imposed by Pennsylvania. How these
troubles would have ended is unforeseen, for during the latter part of
1774, the attention of all the western frontier was turned to the Indian
invasion, since known as Dunmore’s War.
While this war was confined to the western border of Virginia, the
inhabitants of Westmoreland County organized, under command of St.
Clair, assisted by Colonels Proctor and Lochrey and Captain James Smith,
and put the frontier in a state of defense.
On February 7, 1775, by order of a Virginia magistrate, a man named
Benjamin Harrison with an armed party broke open the jail at Hannastown
and set free the prisoners. Robert Hanna, who was a magistrate, read to
them the riot act, but Harrison said he did not regard that act, or
those who read it, or those who made it. Two weeks later Hanna and
another magistrate, James Cavett, were arrested and confined in Fort
Dunmore, where they remained for months.
The controversy got into Congress, but the Revolution brought about a
more amicable feeling, and by 1779 the Virginians and Pennsylvanians
agreed to a settlement.
A commission surveyed the boundary by extending the Mason and Dixon’s
line to its western limit of five degrees. There a meridian was drawn as
far north as the Ohio.
Ceding her western lands, north of the Ohio to Congress in 1784,
Virginia had no further interest in the boundary and the next year
Pennsylvania alone extended the meridian to Lake Erie.
After the Revolution, affairs in Western Pennsylvania were generally
peaceful.
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First Members of Susquehanna Company
Settle in Wyoming, February 8, 1769
The Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, determined to hold possession of
lands in the Wyoming Valley, which were claimed by the Connecticut
settlers, sent Captain Amos Ogden, John Anderson, Charles Stewart,
Alexander Patterson, John Jennings and several other Pennsylvanians and
New Jerseymen into that section with the intention of becoming lessees
or purchasers of the proprietary lands at Wyoming.
They established themselves on Mill Creek, December, 1768, where they
erected a small fort or blockhouse, this settlement being within the
Manor of Stoke, which had been located and surveyed for the
Proprietaries December 9 of that year.
The Susquehanna Company, which had been organized at Windham, Conn.,
July 18, 1753, determined to take possession formally of the lands
located at Wyoming, purchased by them from the Indians at Albany. The
first forty settlers under this company arrived at Wyoming February 8,
1769. A large body, led by Major John Durkee, with authority from the
Susquehanna Company, arrived at Wyoming from Connecticut and New York
May 12, 1769. They immediately began the erection of about twenty
substantial and commodious one-story log cabins. A few days later 150
additional settlers arrived.
The Connecticut settlers finished the erection of their first
twenty-five cabins by May 20 and a week later began the erection of the
stockade to surround them, which, when completed, they named “Fort
Durkee,” in honor of their leader, Major John Durkee.
Governor John Penn was immediately advised of the arrival of the
Connecticut settlers, and he at once planned to discourage their
permanent location and directed letters to Colonel Turbutt Francis, then
in command of the small garrison of provincial troops stationed at Fort
Augusta, and to John Jennings, of Bethlehem, Sheriff of Northampton
County. These letters urged them to discourage unlawful settlements, but
to use force, if necessary, to drive them off.
May 24 Sheriff Jennings arrived at Wyoming and read the Governor’s
proclamation to the “intruders.”
An exciting occurrence took place when “Colonel Turbut Francis,
commanding a fine company from the city (Philadelphia), in full military
array, with colors streaming and martial music, descended into the plain
and sat down before Fort Durkee about the 20th of June, but finding the
Yankees too strongly fortified, returned to await re-enforcements below
the mountains.”
Another version of the affair is: “June 22 Colonel Francis, with sixty
men, in a hostile manner demanded a surrender of our houses and
possessions. He embodied his forces within thirty or forty rods of their
(the settlers) dwelling, threatened to fire their houses and kill our
people unless they surrendered and quitted their possessions, which they
refused to do; and after many terrible threatenings by him he withdrew.”
Soon as Major Durkee, who had been in Easton on court business, returned
to Wyoming and learned of the hostile demonstration of Colonel Francis
and his small force he set about to strengthen the defenses of Fort
Durkee. It was at this time, July 1, 1769, that the major compounded and
originated the almost unique name “Wilkes-Barre” and bestowed it upon
the settlement and territory at and immediately adjacent to Fort Durkee.
Governor Penn was fully aware that the Yankees were determined to keep
possession of the lands upon which they were settled, and on August 24,
1769, wrote to Colonel Francis at Fort Augusta, directing him to raise
an expedition to assist the Sheriff of Northampton County in executing
the King’s writ, and concluded as follows: “It is hoped you will be able
to procure the people to go without pay, as they have already manifested
a very good disposition to bring the intruders to justice.”