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 Pattersons in my family, so I can’t say which one this is.

Companion, schoolmate, and friend,
Thou hast reached thy journey’s end;
Though thy days here on eart have been few
Thous hast a long eternity in view.

Bright were they prospects of a useful life,
But now thou art done with all worldly strike;
Though thy mind was soaring to things noble + high;
Thy body is now mingling in the dust to lie.

For diligence, application, and attention,
A youth of thine equal I can hardly mention;
By reading, and study from morning till night,
To excel, and improve was all they delight.

Yet he who ruled all things according to his will
Has called thee a noble station to fulfil;
Thy pure spirit from thy body has fled
And now thou art numbered with the dead

Written by Henry Wolf for the use of John Patterson
Tus. Academy, September 24th A.D. 1845