Chapter XI: Introduction (10)

The next county to be formed was that of Wayne, which was set off from Northampton March 21, 1797, and formed the northeastern corner of the State.

Adams was erected from York January 22, 1800, and February 13 following Center was formed from parts of Northumberland, Lycoming, Mifflin and Huntingdon, and March 12 eight new counties—Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango and Warren—were formed. Thus, the remaining corner of the State was organized. The counties were taken from Lycoming and Allegheny, Westmoreland furnished a part of Armstrong and Washington yielded up a portion for Beaver, but Allegheny furnished the largest amount of territory for the new counties.

Indiana was cut from Westmoreland and Lycoming, March 30, 1803.

Six new counties were erected on March 26, 1804, when Cambria, Clearfield, Jefferson, McKean, Potter and Tioga were formed. The latter four being taken from Lycoming, while Northumberland helped with Clearfield, but Cambria was cut from parts of Huntingdon, Somerset and Bedford. Bradford and Susquehanna, were formed February 21, 1810, the former from Lycoming and Luzerne and the latter from Luzerne alone.

March 11, 1811, Schuylkill was formed from Berks and Northampton. March 6, 1812, Lehigh was taken from Northampton, and February 16, 1813, Lebanon was erected from Lancaster and Dauphin. Columbia and Union were erected March 22, 1813, both being taken from Northumberland. Pike was cut from Wayne, March 26, 1814, and Perry was taken from Cumberland, March 22, 1820.

The State remained thus until Juniata was formed, March 2, 1831, from Mifflin; Monroe was taken from Northampton and Pike, April 1, 1836; Clarion was taken from Venango and Armstrong, March 11, 1839, and on June 21 following Clinton was formed from Lycoming and Center. Wyoming was erected from Luzerne, April 4, 1842, and Carbon was formed from Northampton and Monroe, March 13, 1843. April 18 following, Elk was cut from Jefferson, Clearfield and McKean.

Blair was formed February 26, 1846 from Huntingdon and Bedford; Sullivan was taken from Lycoming, March 15, 1847; Forest was formed from Jefferson and Venango, April 11, 1848; Lawrence from Beaver and Mercer, March 20, 1849; Fulton was cut from Bedford, April 19, 1850, and little Montour was taken from Columbia, May 3, of the same year.

Snyder was formed from Union March 2, 1855, and March 29, 1860, Cameron was cut from parts of Clinton, Elk, McKean and Potter.

The last of the sixty-seven counties of Pennsylvania is Lackawanna which was cut from Luzerne, August 13, 1878.

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Public Education Established by Governor
George Wolf, Who Died March 11, 1840

George Wolf, the seventh Governor of Pennsylvania, was born in Allen Township, Northampton County, August 12, 1777, and died March 11, 1840.

He attended a classical school established in the county by a society formed for the purpose, which was presided over by Robert Andrews, A. M., a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. Here he acquired a good knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and of the sciences usually pursued in a liberal education. Leaving school he took charge of his father’s farm and also acted as principal of the academy in his native township. Before his majority he acted as clerk to the prothonotary, at the same time studying law under the direction of John Ross.

He early espoused the political principles of Thomas Jefferson, and when the latter became President he appointed Mr. Wolf Postmaster at Easton, and shortly after Governor Thomas McKean appointed him Clerk of the Orphans’ Court of Northampton County, which office he held until 1809.

In 1814 he was elected a member of the Legislature, and in 1824 he was elected a Representative in Congress, a position he acceptably filled for three terms.

In 1829 he was chosen Governor of Pennsylvania over Joseph Ritner.

Mr. Wolf was not an active aspirant for the office of Governor and received the nomination without knowing that any considerable strength in the convention was in his favor. He accepted the nomination, abandoned his lucrative practice and entered vigorously into the campaign.

At this period there began to be a change in the political horizon of the state. A fearful crusade was made against secret societies, which were denounced as tending to subvert government.

Commencing in the New England States, the reported abduction of a traitor to the Freemasons in Batavia, New York, assisted to spread rapidly the contagion, and party lines were almost equally drawn in the State of Pennsylvania. The Federal party lost its identity, and the Anti-Masons sprang up like mushrooms. Their candidate, Joseph Ritner, was defeated at the first election by seventeen thousand and at the second by only three thousand out of a poll of almost two hundred thousand.

When Governor Wolf came into office the financial affairs of the Commonwealth, owing to the extensive scheme of public improvements, then progressing at a fair rate, were in deplorable condition. There was but one course to pursue which would maintain the credit of the State and that was to push the works to rapid completion. This was done and in a few years he with others had the proud satisfaction of beholding how far these needed improvements went towards developing the great natural resources of Pennsylvania.

But the most substantial and enduring merit of Governor Wolf was evinced in his advocacy of a system of popular education.

James Buchanan, in a speech delivered at West Chester previous to the election of the Governor, had said: “If ever the passion of envy could be excused a man ambitious of true glory, he might almost be justified in envying the fame of the favored individual, whoever he may be, whom Providence intends to make the instrument in establishing Common Schools throughout the Commonwealth. His task will be arduous. He will have many difficulties to encounter and many prejudices to overcome; but his fame will exceed that of the great Clinton, in the same proportion that mind is superior to matter. Whilst, the one has erected a frail memorial, which like everything human must decay and perish, the other will raise a monument which shall flourish in immortal youth, and endure whilst the human soul shall continue to exist. ‘Ages unborn and nations yet behind’ shall bless his memory.”

To Governor George Wolf that honor was accorded.

The Governor, in his annual message, December, 1831 said in reference to this subject: “It is cause for no ordinary measure of gratification that the Legislature, at its last session, considered this subject worthy of its deliberations, and advancing one step toward the intellectual regeneration of the State by laying a foundation for raising a fund to be employed hereafter in the righteous cause of a practical general education. It is no less gratifying to know that public opinion is giving strong indications of having undergone a favorable change in reference to this momentous measure, and by its gradual but powerful workings is fast dispelling the groveling fallacies, but too long prevalent, that gold is preferable to knowledge and that dollars and cents are of a higher estimation than learning. I would suggest for your consideration the propriety of appointing a commission, to consist of three or more talented and intelligent individuals, known friends of a liberal and enlightened system of education, whose duty it should be to collect all the information and possess themselves of all the facts and knowledge that can be obtained from any quarter having a bearing upon or connection with the subject of education, and arrange and embody the same in a report to the Legislature.”

In compliance with this wise recommendation, Senator Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, was made chairman of the committee, which reported a bill, embodying what were believed to be the best features of those systems which had been most successful in other States, and at the session of 1834 it passed both branches of the Legislature with a unanimity rarely equaled in legislation. The bill was approved by the Governor April 1, 1834.

Although the school bill was adopted with comparative unanimity, it was at once attacked by a storm of opposition in certain sections of the State. The opposition was well crystallized when the Legislature convened in the fall of 1834.

Governor Wolf’s message was firm, but the members had been flooded with petitions for the repeal of the measure.

On April 11, 1835, Thaddeus Stevens, by a memorable speech and a remarkable parliamentary effort, swayed the opposition, and by a vote of 55 to 30 successfully defended the schools when threatened with destruction.

Thus public education in Pennsylvania was saved; but Governor Wolf, who had advocated it so strenuously, was defeated for a third term by Joseph Ritner.

Retiring from the gubernatorial chair, he was appointed by President Jackson in 1836, to the office of First Comptroller of the Treasury. After holding this position for two years he was appointed by President Van Buren to be Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, which he held until his death on March 11, 1840.

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Lands Set Apart for Soldiers of Revolution,
March 12, 1783

The soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line who served in the War of the Revolution were by act of legislation entitled to wild lands of the State and a large area of the northwestern portion of the State north of the depreciation lands and west of the Allegheny River was set apart and surveyed to the officers and soldiers.

As early as March 7, 1780, while the war for the independence of the American colonies was still in active progress, and being vigorously waged by the hostile armies in the field, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, by resolution, made a promise of “certain donations and quantities of land” to the soldiers of the State, known as the “Pennsylvania Line,” then serving in the Continental Army.

This resolution provided that these lands should be “surveyed and divided off” at the end of the war, and allotted to those entitled to receive them according to their several rank. In order to comply with the letter and intention of the resolution, an act was passed by the General Assembly on March 12, 1783, by the provisions of which certain lands were set apart to be sold for the purpose of redeeming the certificates of depreciation given to the soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line. It also provided that a certain tract of country, beginning at the mouth of Mogulbughtition Creek, now known as Mahoning Creek, in Armstrong County; then up the Allegheny River to the mouth of Cagnawaga Creek, in now Warren County; thence due north to the northern boundary of the State; thence west by the said boundary, to the northwest corner of the State, thence south, by the western boundary of the State, to the northwest corner of lands appropriated by the act for discharging the depreciation certificates; and thence by the same lands east to the place of beginning, “which said tract of country shall be reserved and set apart for the only and sole use of fulfilling and carrying into execution the said resolve.”

The territory thus set apart comprised parts of the present counties of Lawrence, Butler, Armstrong, Venango, Forest and Warren, all of the counties of Mercer and Crawford and that portion of Erie County which lies south of the triangle.

This territory was a wild and unbroken wilderness, except at the few places fortified by the French and later occupied by the English and Colonists during the Revolution.

The officers of the First and Second Battalions of the Province of Pennsylvania in the French and Indian War petitioned for and received twenty-four thousand acres of land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and these officers and their families thus became pioneer settlers in that picturesque valley, and now the veterans of the Revolution were given homes in the northwestern section of the State and there planted the settlements which have grown into the most important industrial centers of the Western Hemisphere.

The act of March 12, 1783, gave a clear title to the land, for under