John Armstrong Sr. Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

War in the Peaceable Kingdom by Brady J. Crytzer

Posted by Colin Calloway on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off War in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Kittanning Raid of 1756 by Brady J. Crytzer Westholme Publishing, 256 pp., cloth $28 The title of this book describes its content and contribution better than does the subtitle. The Delaware town of Kittanning on the Allegheny River was an important place – the residence of the war chiefs Shingas and Tewea (Captain Jacobs) and the source of multiple...
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Fulton County: Where Country is Still Country

Posted by Anne Lodge on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off When the first settlers wandered into the Great Cove – a deep basin formed by the southern ranges of the Kittochtinny and Tuscarora mountains – they discovered strikingly beautiful valleys, incised with sparkling streams, whose only intrusions were Indian trails and remote packers’ paths. During the two centuries since its settlement, the picturesque mountain ridges and...
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Bedford County: From Indian Trails to Tourist Resorts

Posted by William Clark on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off In the summer of 1728, thirteen brave pioneers made their way north through the wilderness from Virginia. The trail brought these Virginians into the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, where they settled, only returning to Virginia to bring their families north. The area was rich with game and several trapped along the streams. One built a gristmill and another a trading post. These members...
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The Wissahickon Valley: To a Wilderness Returned

Posted by Joseph Conwill on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off The rural Wissahickon Valley, near center-city Philadelphia, typifies the rugged landscape which greeted the first white settlers. Today, its huge hemlocks and towering sycamores contrast markedly with the busy factories and row houses only a mile away. But this valley of contrasts has always been different from the surrounding region. A century ago, when most of America was rural or wild, the...
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Cambria County: Coming Full Circle

Posted by John Coleman on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off Located in the highlands of west-central Pennsylvania and amidst forbidding mountains – the Allegheny escarpment and the Laurel Ridge standing sentinel on its eastern and western borders – the territory that would become Cambria County was not easily accessible to early Pennsylvanians. Migrants bound westward during the second half of the eighteenth century avoided its...
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Armstrong County

Posted by Betty Seanor on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off Editor’s Note: With this article, this magazine begins a series to highlight historical events and persons within various counties. Focus will also be directed at the counties’ historical societies. Kittanning, the seat of Armstrong County, is the oldest identified Indian town in Western Pennsylvania. While the state is planning celebrations to commemorate the Revolutionary...
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The French and Indian War and the Revolution

Posted by William Hunter on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off If in spite of all the Bicentennial reminders the Revolutionary War seems somewhat far away, the French and Indian War must seem so much more remote as to be irrelevant. The familiar Pennsylvania events of the Revolution – the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, the Valley Forge encampment, the Declaration of Independence – took place in the settled parts of the State, the battles were fought...
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The Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania

Posted by John Trussell on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off With some conspicuous exceptions, Pennsylvania was largely on the outskirts of the scenes of Revolutionary War military operations. True, in December, 1776, Gen. George Washington brought the remnants of his retreating army from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, using the area in the vicinity of McKonkey’s Ferry as the jumping-off point for the Christmas-night crossing of the Delaware and the...
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A Historical Sketch of Indiana County

Posted by Clarence Stephenson on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off Indiana County was named for the native Indians. During historic times the two principal tribes were the Delawares and Shawnees. Being reluctant to give up their lands, the Indians struggled desperately to keep out the tide of European settlers. Perhaps the first white settler to enter Indiana County was James LeTort, an Indian trader, about 1726-27. A place called “Letart’s...
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Blair County: Center of Transportation

Posted by Robert Blackson on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off Blair County was among the last counties created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. One factor which delayed the establishment of an additional county in the southern portion of central Pennsylvania was geography. The rugged, eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, in which Blair County was eventually located, diverted settlers to other areas. Only after the discovery of iron ore...
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