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Title: The Importance of Marking Historic Spots, an Address
Author: Henry W. Shoemaker
Release Date: February 9, 2022 [eBook #67367]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPORTANCE OF MARKING
HISTORIC SPOTS, AN ADDRESS ***
The Importance of
Marking Historic Spots
An Address
By HENRY W. SHOEMAKER
[Illustration]
At Dedication of Marker
Nittany Furnace, Near State College, Pa.
October 30, 1922
_Tribune Press_ [Illustration] _Altoona_
The Importance of Marking Historic Spots
An Address by Henry W. Shoemaker
DR. SPARKS, DEAN WATTS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
Probably the first attempts at marking historic spots in Pennsylvania
were made by the Indians many centuries ago. We of today are merely
followers in their footsteps. Two of the most conspicuous examples
are the hieroglyphic rocks on the Allegheny River, near Franklin,
formerly called “Venango”, in Venango County, and the so-called
Picture Rocks on Muncy Creek, in Lycoming County. Both were said to
commemorate military victories, though the rocks on the Allegheny River
were chiselled at a much earlier period than the mural paintings of
Muncy Creek. The hieroglyphics are crude affairs, but the painting
on the “Picture Rocks” were said to be of rare beauty and marvelous
coloration. The rocks of the Allegheny River will defy time, but the
rapacious lumbermen who insisted on running logs off the mountain top
above the “Picture Rocks” at that particular spot destroyed forever
this master-work of the redman’s artistry. Unfortunately we do not
know the particular events which these early memorials were supposed
to commemorate. All is shrouded in mystery so that the mere event of
erecting and dedicating a marker does not insure its legend being
permanent. When the white men came on the scene the Indians renewed
their earlier custom of carefully marking historic spots in several
gruesome manners. After Major Grant’s defeat in 1757 in Western
Pennsylvania the victorious Indians (they were on that occasion
worthy of the appellation of savages) took particular pleasure in
beheading all dead Highlanders who had participated in that unpleasant
engagement, and impaling their heads, draped with caps and kilts, on
the stakes which marked their race ground, as they called the path
where they made their enemies run the gauntlet, near the stockade
of Fort Duquesne. This was their way of marking an historic spot,
and it was also a war memorial to the Highlanders who they looked
upon as their most dogged and unflinching foes. There was a kindly,
almost fraternal feeling born of the hardships of forest life among
Virginians, Royal Americans and Pennsylvania Riflemen recruited largely
among the borderers and the redmen, but the Highlanders looked upon the
Indians with an uncompromising hatred, and would give no quarter. When
General Forbes’ Scotch regiments approached the scene of this grisly
memorial several months later they were shocked at the sight which met
their eyes; there was too much realism displayed by the Indians in
their choice of materials to mark that particular historic spot. It was
the same as if the Allies had used German skulls instead of helmets to
celebrate their victories! The Indians also had a habit of marking the
spots near where they scalped white victims, their method being to sink
a tomahawk into the branches or trunk of a large tree for every white
man scalped. Peter Grove, the Ranger, tells of surprising an Indian
scalping party asleep under a giant oak on the banks of Sinnemahoning
Creek, in what is now Grove Township, Cameron County. On a branch
which overhung the stream nine tomahawks were imbedded. Another method
was to cut a nick or blaze in the tree, and the white men went them
one better by “nicking” their rifles and pistols. The venerable W. H.
Sanderson, who resides near Mill Hall, Clinton County, says that he
recalls that the rifle belonging to his grandfather, the noted scout
and scalp-hunter, Robert Couvenhoven, who died in 1846, had thirteen
nicks on the stock. It is generally supposed that Couvenhoven slew at
least twice that number of redskins, as the bounty on Indian scalps was
around $150 for an adult male and $50 for females and children, but
he may have changed rifles as time went on. As Indians became scarcer
and bounty funds non-available, the early white hunters adopted some
of their tactics by blazing trees where they had made a big general
killing of game or else some particularly large elk or bear. They
also nicked their rifles to mark the number of deer put to sleep. It
was these sanguinary forms of human achievement which seemed alone
worthy of commemoration in the bold life of the frontier. Little care
was taken to distinguish the graves of the dead, at first a heap of
stones to keep off wolves, later a stake, a shingle or a chunk of rough
mountain stone seemed enough to mark the last resting places of the
departed. In fact, there was an awful vacuum of nearly a century before
marking historic spots came back into vogue in Pennsylvania, when
there were no battles or butcheries, or big game slaughters worthy of
perpetuation. Even the Civil War did not kindle the spirit of statues,
markers and monuments to Pennsylvanians at once, not until other
States began erecting monuments at Gettysburg, and then Pennsylvania
lagged lamentably. However, when at length the historic spirit was
kindled the fervor of the people have exceeded all bounds. Pennsylvania
is fast becoming the State of Memorials, and most of them are well
worth while. Apart from the magnificent statues and other memorials
at Gettysburg, Civil War heroes are remembered in all the cities of
the State. Individual efforts, or local skirmishes are also fittingly
commemorated like the “high water mark” of General Pickett’s charge at
Gettysburg, and the “Furthest East” memorial at Wrightsville, formerly
Dagonoga, where the Pennsylvania Volunteers held back General Gordon’s
cavalry until the bridge across the Susquehanna was fired, and the
valuable stores in Lancaster County saved from the Confederate hordes.
Churches all over the State contain medallions, tablets and stained
glass windows in memory of devoted pastors, church workers and churchly
benefactors. Schools perpetuate the names of popular teachers, or great
men, by their names, or by tablets placed in the halls or corridors.
Hon. Gifford Pinchot wisely created the plan of naming groves of
ancient trees after historic characters, like Alan Seeger Park, Joyce
Kilmer Park and Dr. J. T. Rothrock Forest. But we are here today to
speak of the most permanent form of all historical commemorating, the
marking of historical spots. It is not battlegrounds alone that will
tell the history of our people in the years to come, but the landmarks
of domestic activity, commerce and manufactures. It is fitting that an
important stage in the industrial development of Pennsylvania, like
the charcoal iron furnaces should be marked. Every one of them, as far
as known, should be as adequately commemorated as is this one here
today. It is astonishing how little is known concerning the charcoal
iron industry, which is only now going out of existence. Centre County
had one or two of these old furnaces, notably the one at Curtin, in
operation until very recently. No general comprehensive history of
this industry has ever been published; it is kept alive by fragments
of history, fugitive literary pieces, tradition, that is about all.
Yet it was not only important commercially, but historically valuable
and picturesque from a social and literary viewpoint. These feudal
lords, the Ironmasters, were the big men of their day, the Schwabs,
Donners and Replogles of an earlier generation, yet how few of their
names remain. It was timely to mark this old furnace, to save it from
oblivion by reviewing its history and to inspire other communities to
do likewise. Some are of unknown locations, and their names only remain
on bits of old stove plates. There is a rich field of research for the
antiquarian and writer, just to confine himself to the history of this
charcoal iron industry.
Perhaps the great American novel, the great Pennsylvania novel at any
rate, will be a story laid about one of the baronial estates of the old
Ironmasters. Was ever a more delightful, or perennially interesting
book written than Georges Ohnet’s novel, “Le Maitre des Forges”,
translated into English as “The Ironmaster”? It was even more popular
some years ago than today, for it was dramatized and played all over
the United States, rivaling “The Lights o’ London” as a melodramatic
success, and was also the name of a noted race horse. Surely this
great novel of Pennsylvania will take its plot from the lives of our
early Ironmasters, or in some sketch of Indian forays along the Blue
Mountains of Berks County during the French and Indian War. If marking
these old furnaces begets the great novel, then those devoted souls
concerned in marking this historic spot today have builded better than
they knew. It will serve as a landmark to link the earlier days of
this part of Centre County, with its busy, teeming present, the great
intense life of State College, and the industry of the olden times.
They have one point in common. Old Nittany Mountain looks down on
both, impartial in shedding her glories of sunlight and shade. Nittany
Mountain is feminine, for she is named not for an Indian chief, but
for two beautiful Indian maidens named Nita-nee, one a great war queen
of the very long ago, the other a humbler maiden who lived not far
from Penn’s Cave, and was loved and lost by Malachi Boyer, a Huguenot
pioneer from Lancaster County. And in closing let us say we hear a
lot about a so-called Nittany Lion. Do we not mean “Mountain Lion” or
panther, for in the old days the panther, or Pennsylvania lion, was
very much in evidence hereabouts, roaring terribly at night from the
mountain tops, answering one another from Tussey Knob, the Bald Top
and Mount Nittany. It is the noble supple animal, the Pennsylvania
king of beasts, and not the shaggy African man-eater, that should be
the patron of the courage, force and persistence of our State College
youth. If you are not sure of what it looked like, there is a finely
mounted specimen in old “College Hall”. Let us follow in history’s
paths, marking the worthy footsteps of our predecessors where they have
builded wisely, and always conforming to local color, local traditions,
local pride, so that we may in our turn re-enact the splendid chain
of destiny from redmen to pioneers, from farms, furnaces and mills,
down to the great day of this locality when State College shall have
realized the ideal of her founders, as the foremost inland school of
learning. And every step made in that direction should be marked,
as her leading friends and sons have done with the scene of this
old-time industrial plant and furnace. All these are mile-stones in
the greatness of Centre County and Penn State, in the creation of a
definite tradition and legend, which shall be her crown.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Obvious spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Punctuation and grammar were retained as in the original.
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HISTORIC SPOTS, AN ADDRESS ***
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