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Port Royal Borough
History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania...
Edited by F. Ellis and A. N. Hungerford.
Published in Philadelphia by Everts, Peck & Richards, 1886
Pages 801-805
CHAPTER XIII.
PORT ROYAL BOROUGH
(PERRYSVILLE).
by A. L.
Guss
Thomas and James Wilson were sons of George Wilson, and were born in Armagh, Ireland. George died in 1746, and his wife, Jane, in 1776. James, after spending some years at the mouth of Licking Creek, removed to Virginia, where he died in 1808. Thomas was a justice of the peace in Cumberland County, and one of the men who helped drive out squatter trespassers on the unpurchased lands of the Indians in 1750. He took up a large tract where Port Royal borough is situated. One tract was warranted February 3, 1755, and had two hundred and forty-two acres; the other, June 9, 1763, had one hundred and six acres. The lower tract he called “Armagh” and the other “Addition,” surveyed, April 26, 1765, by William Maclay. George Armstrong’s land bounded above on the river. Wilson moved on his lands in 1771, and assumed prominence in the early settlement. He was called “Thomas Wilson, Creek,” to distinguish him from the one at the mountain. His son, George, sheriff of Mifflin County in 1791, and his grandson, Sheriff W. W. Wilson, of Mifflintown, recently deceased, were men well known in their day.
Henry Groce bought two hundred and twenty-three acres, April 27, 1812, at the mouth of Tuscarora Creek, and laid out a town, April 15, 1815. At that time Commodore Perry’s fame was on everybody’s lips, in consequence of his great victory on Lake Erie, in which several of the Juniata boys had participated. Hence the town was called “Perrysville” until 1874, when it was changed to “Port Royal,” which before this had been the name of a post office established at Saint Tammany town. It was removed to Perrysville about the time the railroad was built. It is a common notion that the post-office was called Port Royal because the name “Perrysville” was already applied to an office in Allegheny County, but this is a mistake. When the office was established it was not in Perrysville; and, besides this, prior to the canal and railroad, Saint Tammany was a much more important point than Perrysville. Its history will be found under the head of Turbett township. The railroad company changed the name of the station December 1, 1875. The borough has no record of the change.
The town was incorporated April 4, 1843, and it first appears on the tax-lists as a separate district in 1856, prior to which date it was included in Milford township assessments. J. W. Rice, Samuel McFadden and George McCulloch are named in the act to give proper notice of the first borough election under the incorporation. Before the incorporation Groce sold the farm to Benjamin Kepner, but excepted the lots numbered 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 43, 62 and 65. This was April 16, 1827, and it is fair to infer that he had not sold more than these eighteen lots up to that date. The plan of the town is recorded at Lewistown, in book M, p. 53, September 13, 1815. The post-office was moved to town in 1848, where it was kept by Robert Logan and afterwards by Dr. G. I. Cuddy, John B. Henderson, John Lukens, John M. Thompson, James M. Alter, James Wharton and Miss Maggie Wharton.
The first store was kept by Benjamin Kepner in a stone house next the river, and said now to be the oldest house in town. Gideon Thomas built the warehouse owned by Noah Hertzler. The borough contains three churches, an academy, four stores, two hotels, three confectioneries, a drug-store, a foundry, planning-mill, printing-office, bank and other business places and one hundred and thirty-five dwelling-houses.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.—The first school-house at Perrysville stood on the river-bank, on a lot now owned by William Wagner. John Gish taught here. It was burned in 1825. School was kept in it as early as 1816. The second house was where Mrs. Henderson’s house stands. The third, and first under the free school system, stood opposite Buck’s store. Another house was on Middle Street, and cost one hundred and fifty dollars. John McLaughlin and David Powell taught in it before 1834. The borough was organized as a separate school district April 5, 1856. The directors were Solomon Kepner, Jacob Koons, Isaac Frank, Adam Holliday, Richard Bryon and George W. Jacobs. The present school building was erected in 1870. The lot cost two hundred and twenty-five dollars, and the house about fifteen hundred dollars. It is a two-story brick, and has three rooms. There were one hundred and seventy-one pupils in 1884.
PERRYSVILLE BRIDGE COMPANY.—The Perrysville Bridge Company was incorporated April 16, 1829; supplementary act, April 15, 1834. The first bridge was built at this place in 1831, and was broken down by snow in 1839. The heavy snow crushed down the roof into the middle of the bridge, and then, by its leaning weight, burst out the arches, so that the whole structure fell down upon the ice upside down, so completely wrecking the timbers that scarcely a piece was fit to be used again. The piers and abutments were sold by the sheriff to satisfy some creditor. The purchaser turned in the title to the company. A bridge was built in 1842 at a cost of five thousand dollars, and was washed away by the floods October 9, 1847. This blow broke up the company; but a new one, composed largely of the same men, built another bridge in 1851, and raised it five feet higher than the former one. It cost about four thousand five hundred dollars, and it was first crossed on the 10th of September. The incorporators were Stewart Turbett, John M. Pomeroy, Samuel Okeson, Wilson Laird, John Esh, John Kepner, George I. Cuddy. Like those at Mifflin and the new one at Mexico, it still remains a toll-bridge, in which honor Juniata County alone along the river has unenviable distinction.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.—The first sermon preached in this vicinity was by Rev. Charles Beatty, August 24, 1766. His journal will be found on pages 80, 81 and 82. The first Presbyterians in this section worshipped in Lower Tuscarora Church. The members having increased along the lower part of Tuscarora Creek, services were occasionally held in school-houses. At length the Lutherans of Church Hill entered into arrangements with the Presbyterians to help repair their church, and for this they were granted the use of it on the alternate unoccupied Sundays. Mr. Williamson preached here; also Mr. Thompson, during his ministry (1847-64). In 1852 a new brick church was built in Perrysville, costing about six thousand five hundred dollars. In 1856 part of the roof was blown off. In 1880 and later repairs were made. At first the members belonged to the Lower Tuscarora Church, and were served by its pastor. A separate body was organized October 14, 1865. The name was changed to Port Royal in 1883. The parsonage was built in 1869. The membership at its organization was two hundred and thirteen. The first pastor was Rev. William Y. Brown, installed June 7, 1866; continued to June 5, 1870. Rev. James H. Stewart was called and installed August 15, 1871; continued to October 29, 1877. Rev. R. F. Wilson was installed March 27, 1879, and in 1886 continues in charge. Of the two hundred and thirteen original members, twenty years ago, fifty remain. Samuel Buck has been superintendent of the Sunday-school for twenty years. The elders at the time of the organization were John McLaughlin, James McLaughlin, D. W. Flickinger, John Koons, George W. Strouse, all of whom were officers in the parent church. Since then there have been installed Dr. G. M. Graham, October 31, 1865; David Wilson, Isaac Hawn, Samuel Buck, A. J. Patterson and Robert E. Flickinger, February 13, 1870; David S. Coyle, Uriah Wise and D. Nelson Van Dyke, May 4, 1879. Present session: (John and James McLaughlin), Graham, Wilson, Buck, Coyle and Van Dyke. The present pastor preached an historical discourse on the twentieth anniversary of the congregation, October 11, 1885, which has been published.
THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH.—The Lutheran Church in Port Royal is a continuation of the organization at Church Hill, sometimes called “Lower Tuscarora” and “Rice’s Church.” The date of its organization is lost, but is was probably before the beginning of the present century. Church Hill is the oldest German Church west of the river.
In a sermon now before us it is stated that at the time of the early settlements (whatever period this comprehended) there were “no people of any other nationality here (in Tuscarora Valley) except Scotch-Irish, and no people of any other creed besides Presbyterians. All people of other national ancestors, or religious creeds, are importations made long since those times.” As a matter of fact, there were a few persons of other creeds from the earliest settlements.
There were some Episcopalians in the region, and they once held services at McLaughlin’s, in Turbett. The Baptists and others also had a small sprinkling of adherents among the early settlers. The Thomas family (1786) were Welsh and Baptists. The Beale family were originally English and Quakers. Daniel Okeson and Peter Kerlin, in 1786, and Thomas Van Swearingen, in 1793, were descendants of the ancient Dutch settlers on the Delaware. The Germans settled in the east end of the county as soon as any one settled in the west end; and they were not far behind them in entering Tuscarora Valley, as the following shows: Benjamin Kepner, 1772; George Crain (Grahn), 1774; Philip Strouse, 1776; Andrew Kounts, 1789; Major Benjamin Kepner, John Kepner, 1790; Conrad Shuey, 1791, a French Huguenot; Christian Brandt, a Mennonite, 1796; Leonard Groninger, Stephen Doughman, Samuel Kepner, 1797; Jacob Kountz (now Coons), 1798; Peter Rice, 1799; Valentine Weishaupt, 1800; Philip Saylor, Jacob Hench (Huguenot), John, Jacob and George Rice, 1801; Henry Rice, John Suloff, John Weimer, Henry Ache (now Aughey), 1803; Father Zachariah Rice, 1809. These citations might be very greatly extended, but they prove that men of other creeds and nationalities were not far behind the first settlers in Tuscarora Valley, and were not “importations made long since.” The lands under William Penn and his heirs, and under the Commonwealth, were free and open to all. As those who bought out the first settlers earned their own money, and paid the price agreed upon, it is difficult to see in what sense they are “importations.”
The Rices, the two Kepners, Groninger, Weishaupt, Weimer, Suloff, Saylor and other families were the active members in the erection and sustaining the church on the hill.
It will be seen, under the head of Turbett township, that there was a church building at Church Hill already in 1802. This congregation received pastoral visits from Rev. William Scriba, and probably others from Carlisle. Rev. George Heim, coming from Snyder County, also preached to them for a few years. Rev. John William heim preached his first sermon “in Tuscarora Valley, Rice’s Church,” on the 26th of June, 1814. (See history Lebanon Church, in Tyrone township, Perry County, for biography of Rev. Heim.) He was followed by Rev. Charles Weil, S. R. Boyer, Jacob Martin and Levi T. Williams. The charge was then divided and Rev. P. Willard succeeded at Mifflintown, and Rev. Peter P. Lane, in the spring of 1852, became pastor of the Lower and Upper Tuscarora, otherwise known as Church Hill and St. Paul’s Churches. He remained about four years, and was followed by Rev. P. M. Rightmyer for six years; Rev. A. R. Smith, for two years; Rev. Samuel Yingling, for one year; Rev. Thomas C. Pritchard, for three years. Then came a fourteen-year pastorate of Rev. H. C. Schindel, followed by Rev. A. H. Spangler, the present pastor. The church was moved to town and the corner-stone of the present brick building was laid August 6, 1855. Rev. Dr. D. H. Biddle preached the sermon in the Presbyterian Church. It was dedicated August 5, 1855, the sermon being preached by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Kurtz. The building is seventy-five by forty-five feet, with a basement for Sabbath-school purposes. The auditorium seats about six hundred persons. The cost of the church was about five thousand dollars. The church elders then were Daniel McConnell and Joseph K. Kessler, and the deacons were George Boyer and Samuel D. Kepner; Rev. P. P. Lane was the pastor and Jacob Speicher the contractor. The parsonage of the church was built in 1861, during the pastorate of Rev. P. M. Rightmyer, and cost about two thousand three hundred dollars. The lots on which the church and parsonage stand were purchased from John Kepner, and the adjoining hitching-ground from John Hughes. The congregation in 1886 has about tow hundred and sixty communicants. On December 25, 1854, Christian Hartman and David Kepner, in behalf of Lower Tuscarora, and Jacob Bushey, in behalf of Upper Tuscarora, released the interest of those congregations in the Lutheran parsonage in Mifflintown to the congregations east of the river.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH in Port Royal is the oldest church building in the borough. After repeated efforts to get the date of its organization, we can only guess that it was built about 1847. It is a substantial brick building, and the church here constitutes a pastorate, together with those at Spruce Hill, Ebenezer and Reed’s Gap.
PORT ROYAL BRANCH BANK.—This bank was organized in September, 1867. The late Joseph Pomeroy was its first president. The cashiers have been Samuel Buck, T. Van Irwin, J. H. Irwin, Mason Irwin and W. C. Pomeroy. The Directors are J. Nevin Pomeroy, Amos G. Bonsall, Noah Hertzler, L. E. Atkinson, Philip M. Kepner, W. C. Pomeroy and Joseph Rothrock. The same board manages the Juniata Valley Bank of Mifflintown.
TUSCARORA LODGE (formerly Perrysville Lodge), of Port Royal, No. 556, I.O.O.F., was organized in 1859. It has thirty-five members. They own a hall, built in 1875, which cost, including the lot, about two thousand dollars.
The Port Royal Times, the only paper ever published in the west end of the county, was started in 1876 by John W. Speddy, who has conducted it successfully ever since. It is neutral in politics and devoted to local news.
AIRY VIEW ACADEMY.—In October, 1852, David Wilson, in connection with David Laughlin, opened the Airy View Academy at Port Royal. Mr. Laughlin was elected the first superintendent of the public schools of Juniata County. The Airy View Academy has been in almost continued operation since its organization, and is now (1886) conducted by Professor Wilson, who, as a successful teacher, has exerted a great influence for good on many of the young men of this as well as of other counties, who were his pupils.
I. N. Ritner, a citizen of Port Royal, who was lieutenant in the famous Forty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers, has since the war entered the ministry in the Baptist Church and is now preaching in Philadelphia.
Colonel John Armstrong, in a letter August 20, 1756, gives an account of one of the prisoners taken at Fort Granville, named Peter Walker, who “made his escape in the night somewhere about the Allegheny Mountain, and fell down Juniata to the mouth of Tuscarora, where my brother George was encamped.” Captain George Armstrong, then encamped at Port Royal, was on his way to Kittanning. He most probably went up Licking Creek by the Fort Granville path. He afterwards owned the farm just above town.
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© 2013 by Michael Milliken
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