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George Kipple, adventurer
Among the Patterson papers is a letter dated August 27, 1880, six days shy of one century before my birth. It’s addressed to J. Patterson, and here’s where I get a bit confused. My family, as I’ve noted, has many people named John Patterson–direct ancestors as well as varying degrees of cousins. I know that some of these Pattersons were involved in the Tuscarora Academy and Tuscarora Female Seminary, two schools in Academia, Juniata County. This letter, from George Kipple in Willow Creek, Nevada, is sent to a J. Patterson who had been, it seems, Mr. Kipple’s former teacher. I’m guessing this was at the Tuscarora Academy, sometime in the…
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Will McDowell, RIP
Juniata County’s one and only museum is the Tuscarora Academy, the lone surviving building of a boarding school in the tiny village of Academia. Nearby the Tuscarora Academy was the Tuscarora Female Seminary, a boarding school for girls owned by my four-greats grandfather, Alexander Patterson. In an envelope addressed to G.P. Henry (Grace Patterson, my great great grandmother) were, as the label read, “old papers”– the will of Margaret Sigler, Ellie Stoneroad’s mother and Grace’s grandmother, and this handwritten tribute to William McDowell, a Tuscarora Academy student who died on September 20, 1845. The poem was written by Henry Wolf, “for the use of John Patterson.” There were plenty of John…
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Miss Margaret Sigler
Tucked among the many pieces of correspondence, envelopes, notes–and locks of hair–of my three-greats grandmother, Ellie Stoneroad Patterson, is this beautifully lettered acrostic. The poem spells out the name of Ellie’s mother Margaret Sigler. No author is listed, but assuming Margaret wrote it about herself and she did so while she was Miss Sigler and not Mrs. Stoneroad, the paper would predate 1835–the year of birth of Margaret’s first child, daughter Emeline. Many are the charming virtues of a lovely maid; In all her beauties there is no gloomy shade, Since the fair and lovely train, with spirits glow, So shall their modest actions and deportments show. Many are the direful modes…
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The Barnard statues
American sculptor George Grey Barnard was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Illinois before studying art in Paris. He received a commission in 1902 to produce sculptures for the new Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg and moved back to Paris to start work. Barnard’s sculptures–Love and Labor: The Unbroken Law and The Burden of Life: The Broken Law, flanking the front entryway–were unveiled in a public ceremony on October 4, 1911. The dedication ceremony was quite an affair, with an invocation by Barnard’s father, poem and song, a performance by the Commonwealth Band, an acceptance by Pennsylvania governor (and former Major Leaguer) John Tener, and an address by former Pennsylvania governor Samuel…
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Ellie’s new year’s resolution
Twenty-five-year-old Ellie Stoneroad, my third-great grandmother, resolved on January 1, 1868, to keep a journal for her eyes only. In her opening entry, she noted her mother’s recent illness, her existential boredom, her wish to do some good in the world, and her devotion to her god. Ellie continued to write from her Mifflin County home–for a while, anyway. She put pen to paper on January 2, 10, 17, 22, and 26; February 1, 4, 8, 9, 13, and 24; March 1, 11, 15, 25, and 30; April 14 and 26; May 3; June 3 and 8; and July 7. The new year’s resolution lasted for just about half a…
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JL Patterson, farmer
My great great great grandfather, John Lyon Patterson, wife of Ellie Stoneroad, lived on a farm in Pleasant View, Pennsylvania. His stone farmhouse stands today, along present-day Route 75 in Spruce Hill Township, Juniata County, not far at all from where I grew up. My family, or at least many parts of it, hasn’t moved far in well over a century. Grace Patterson Henry, JL’s daughter and my great great grandmother, assembled and saved many items and papers from both her mother’s and father’s families, and she’s the reason I have this amazing collection today. Among the items saved are those pointing to JL’s farming background. I found one of these items…
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In all the prime of his strength and usefulness
The Citizens Union Bank of East Waterford, Pennsylvania, was a small-town bank organized in 1922. A few of my family members were among the leaders of the bank, which rolled along through the 1920s before failing during the Great Depression. Its assets were transferred to the Port Royal National Bank in 1931. In my collection is a bound minute book from the Citizens Union Bank, giving reports of all board meetings from the bank’s founding to its dissolution. On April 14, 1926, the board passed a resolution mourning the passing of Dr. R.M. Quiq, longtime doctor in East Waterford and bank director. At the time of his death, Dr. Quiq…
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Artifact: PRR freight bills
I have a thick ledgerbook from S.E. Pannebaker’s lumber mill in East Waterford, Pennsylvania. Stuffed into the pages of the book are all sorts of interesting papers, including these bills for shipping two carloads of lumber from East Waterford, through Juniata County on the narrow-gauge Tuscarora Valley Railroad to Port Royal, and then along the Pennsylvania Railroad to transfer to the Erie Railroad for final delivery to the Standard Hardwood Lumber Co. of Buffalo, New York. None of these companies exist today–not even Standard Hardwood, whose address now seems to be the trackside location of a Laub warehouse.
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James Sterret on abolition and the election of 1856
One of the most fragile and tattered letters in this collection is one from James Sterret to his brothers, Robert and William, on September 24, 1856. (Note: In this letter, he spells his last name as “Sterret,” while other sources say “Sterrett,” so I will use his spelling in this post.) James was brother to Mary Sterret, who married Alexander Patterson, my five-greats grandfather whose past is well documented in this collection. James lived in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and was writing to his brothers and his friends back in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, in the final year of his life. In his letter, James was looking forward to the election of 1856, which was…
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Samuel Pannebaker’s car
Many of the papers in my grandfather’s collection came from John and Beulah Patterson, aunt and uncle to my great grandfather, both of whom died childless. Beginning in the early 1950s, my great grandparents lived in the same East Waterford house as the Pattersons, after moving from Harrisburg back to the old hometown. Following John’s and Beulah’s deaths, these papers, I surmise, stayed behind in the old home. When my great grandmother moved to spend the final decade of her life in the single-level house my grandfather built in Honey Grove for just that purpose, the papers moved with her. She died in 1994; my grandfather moved in for the final…