Chapter 1
My first remembrance is of a spacious room. On one side was the great stone mantle, worn smooth by frequent whetting of knives. A big hearth-stone fronted the fireplace with two andirons standing guard at its rear, while from one side hung an iron crane on which dangled various lengths of pothooks and usually one or more great kettles. A huge backlog was always in place with a bed of hot coals or a blazing fire in front. The fireplace had to do duty for the baking of hot breads between regular outdoor baking supply and to keep kettles bubbling. In cold weather it was the gathering place of the large family.
There was far more sentiment than genuine comfort about the fireplace in bitter weather, for the wide chimney allowed a strong current of heated air to pass out creating a strong draft against the group circled near. However, the ruddy glow from this cheery spot was wider spreading than that of the lantern hanging opposite -- of tin, perforated on all sides like an immense nutmeg grater. Its greatest virtue was its portability for at its best it emitted a dim yellowish light when the tallow candle inside was lit.
A spinning wheel stood in the chimney corner, with its tree-shaped rack for bundles of wool or flax. Also there was the long table, and the much prized dresser. These two larger articles and the chairs were the handicraft of the local wheelwright and cabinet-maker.
So photographic is memory that it does not omit the humble splint broom made by "Grandaddy Painter," the large straw clothes basket and the trundle bed.
I remember vividly a six-foot rocking cradle, fitted with a child's crib at one end and an open seat at the other. This cradle was always doubly full for our family consisted of six sons and two daughters, who every two years with clock-like precision claimed admittance to the crib and afterwards graduated to the seat. From there to be scattered far and near.
My grandparents, uncles, and aunts in fun called me "Peter the Redhead." Now, here, I wish to state that the woes of a child are not entirely within the confines of bodily pain. Many childish sufferings are unnoticed by his seniors, or, if observed, are only ridiculed; in after years they may appear even to himself to have been trivial. Nevertheless, they were poignant enough once. In those early years, two ever-present sources of annoyance were my hair and my name. In boyhood, my hair was fiery red and curly; making me more conspicuous, my eyes were black. To my sensitive nature, it seemed that everyone had eyes on my hair; the frequent references, even in an admiring way, abashed me; and, when others referred to it in sport, I actually suffered as if I had been taken in a crime, foolish as it afterward appeared, and I have always secretly pitied any boy with hair like mine.
I date a dislike for my name to a day when I heard my mother tell a friend how it was given. She said Father's brother, Peter, next to him in age, objected to my father's marriage. No doubt this was on general principles, as the helpful old maid and bachelor brother are always relinquished with regret. However, a rumor of his opposition had reached mother's ears, and, from that day, the name Peter did not exactly appeal to her. She continued to her visitor, "I would have like to have called my son John Wesley, but I told my husband to name the boy. I thought Peter was bad enough, but, when he added Snyder -- for his mother -- it was almost too much. However, it was impossible to make it any worse." I think my father's motive was to pour oil on the troubled waters, which, no doubt, it did for mother and my uncle afterward became good friends. Mother evened matters somewhat by naming her next son Henry Crull, after her father's first and her mother's maiden name. The third son bore the illustrious cognomen of John Wesley.
I remember being called the inelegant name of "Pete" but once, although for short I was often called "P.S." in our immediate family; but when Post Script was playfully substituted, I rebelled; there had to be some limit.
My forbearers [sic] were of that large class of American pioneers of colonial times now known as either Pennsylvania Germans or familiarly as Pennsylvania Dutch. They came to America in the early seventeen hundreds from Germany through Holland as they were fleeing from German conscription in Palatinate wars. At times they were for months awaiting transportation in ports of Holland, and one large group at least was many months dependent upon the grace of Queen Anne of England on their way to America. Small wonder that their nationality should become confused in the minds of the colonials of English extraction.
As the province of Hesse-Darmstadt in Germany as well as that of Mannheim were deeply involved in the Palatine wars and their Palatine princes busily conscripting the farmers on the land and then seizing the lands themselves, it was from the district surrounding Hesse that many fled to America. One of the most uncalled for innuendoes then is that the Pennsylvania Germans are descendants of the Hessians employed by the British. The truth is they were loyal and true citizens of their new land for almost a hundred years before the surrender at Yorktown. My great-grandfather [Dunkle?] served in the Fourth Division of the Cumberland Militia under Captain McKinney.
It is not to be supposed that these oppressed refugees had in their hands money to buy tickets for themselves and their families on the ships going to America. The ship's companies at Amsterdam were ready with a plan -- that of indenture. This was, in short, an arrangement with well-to-do colonials to pay the passage and keep the newcomer and family as unpaid workers for a specified time. Redemptioners they were afterwards called and even proudly called themselves that for they had redeemed themselves from serfdom.
At last after delays for arrangement of indenture papers they were off. Crowded into unsanitary and unseaworthy ships they faced a pitiful underrationing -- salt meat, salt fish, and beer were the staples. Passengers fortunate enough to be on the same ships with their chests broke into their cherished stores of seeds, grains, peas and beans intended for planting their future farms. With all their effort to supplement their poor diet, fever and dysentery took heavy toll. The youngest child of one of my [which?] ancestors was born and died on the passage.
These waves of German immigrants, with the one notable exception of Queen Anne's pensioners to Governor's Island, New York, were absorbed in Pennsylvania. This was due in large part to the previous visit of William Penn in Germany. His policies were very acceptable to the freedom craving immigrants. In 1682, the year of Penn's arrival, a number came over in response to his generous offer of free lands. It is here the place to say these Germans were not actuated as were the New England colonists by religious motives but primarily by actual destruction of their European homesteads. They were lovers of land and to land they came despite obstacles. The earlier arrivals once settled, their distressed fellow countrymen soon followed in waves of thousands.
As the lands near the port of entry, Philadelphia, were first occupied, the newcomers advanced further inland. Here the first temporary homes were mere dugouts, a cellar-like arrangement with a bank for a rear wall, a tier or two of logs and a make-shift roof.
My ancestors settled on a militia man's grant in what was then Cumberland County. The section was called Path Valley because from time immemorial it had been the trail of the Indians from north to south in their tribal affairs. Here in the foothills of the Tuscaroras, in present Franklin County, my forbearers [sic] saw many a bloody war with the redskins who resented the farming of their hunting grounds. Times were not easy with Colonial wars to be supported also. Farming must have been left often to the sturdy wives. Hewing out for themselves homes in the wilderness, they were indeed the sifted remnant, the survival of the fittest.
Increasing in wealth and numbers, they pushed westward into the rich limestone valleys of the higher Appalachians. In those days there was a fertile virgin land across the mountains. As the current of settlement went by, it had been left like an eddy behind a rock in a river, the passing side currents meeting again and slowly working their way back into the wilderness as fast as timber was needed for towns and cities or to fill the insatiable maws of the blast furnaces. Although the farmer followed this returning wave, the axe was more often heard than the sickle and the sawmill than the threshing machine.
There was one especially fine large land section thus passed by along the lower course of the Clarion River, then called Little Toby Creek. Still a portion of the public domain, its forests were, in 1810 when my grandfather first saw them, an unbroken unit. Rumors of it from traders and trappers had reached the home of my great-grandfather, Jacob Dunkle, and his sons. Four of them -- Michael, Henry, Peter, and John -- in the spring following the death of their father in Path Valley, left with their wives and children to trek directly across the Allegheny Mountains. My father was among the children and has often recounted to me that thrilling journey and the excitement it was to the younger members of the party. Double ox-teams were used, each Conestoga wagon loaded with farm implements, tools, seed, their choicest poultry and a pig. The family cow was tied behind each wagon in the caravan. Little furniture was carried for the load had to carry food and bedding for the trip, their clothes and cooking utensils. The older children walked at times and even mothers with babes in arms would climb the steepest hills to lighten the load.
On the Little Toby, now the Clarion River, in what was then Armstrong County, this group of brothers settled, not many miles from the Allegheny River. Each father with thrifty foresight covered with land patents what he felt he needed, and also as many acres as he felt his sons would eventually need. This was the day when daughters were rather out of the picture, for each was supposed to wed in due time and, of course, her husband would have a farm. Soon these earlier comers of about the time of my grandfather's trek were followed by friends and kin, among them were carpenters, masons, shoemakers and tanners, and wheelwrights. These last named included in their handicraft the making of spinning wheels and cabinet work.
Here again were enacted the scenes staged by their forefathers in eastern Pennsylvania but with several advantages for these were now a free, high-spirited people, well prepared to cope with pioneering. In the prime of life, with superb physiques, their wives were not only as willing but sometimes as capable as their husbands in wielding the axe or using the handspike. They brought with them their traditional customs and rather strict religion. My own family was not dead sure whether German Baptists or Quakers would someday predominate in heaven. This made them a little broader than some of the various cults who believed so whole-heartedly each of his own mysticism that he gave short shrift to any other. Again my family differed from most of its neighboring families in that they were English-speaking; most of the others spoke the hybrid Pennsylvania Dutch. However, their traditions were the same and so many and interesting they merit a special chapter.
Building at first temporary homes, they hastened to clear enough land to let in the sunshine for growing of grains and vegetables to vary their diet of wild game and herbs. What first comers went through was not easy, but they welcomed the additions to the growing community with open arms and cordially shared their frugal fare with a hospitality that was heartfelt.
In many respects they were a favored band. The Indians were not as many as in that crossroad of paths they had left. There was an abundance of fish in the streams and game in the forests. Not only a large part of their food was free for the taking but the deer provided them with moccasins and coats, the bear with warm robes for their beds, and wild turkeys and pheasants provided them with the softest of feather beds and pillows. The oak gave them material for the substantial furniture of that day and for farming equipment. Walnut and cherry were plentiful but utility rather than beauty had to be the creed, so these beautiful woods were piled with others for burning in clearing the land. Pine gave them shaved shingles, the chestnut split rails, and the maple the sweetest of the sweet. Nuts of many kinds were on the hills and the bottomlands were festooned with berries and wild grapes. The fertile, friendly soil responded as soon as sunlight and seed reached it. Hogs did not have to wait for crops to be grown for them as the white oak gave them immediate mast.
As soon as a crop of flax could be raised, it was sundried, fire-dried, broken, scutched, and heckled to remove the shove or woody fiber, after which it was spun and woven into grain sacks and clothing.
What an important man the wheelwright was in that community! He made the spinning wheels, looms, chairs, tables, chests of drawers as well as all the other needed furnishings, for very little household goods except an occasional heirloom was transported in the long journey. In the making of wagons he divided honors with the blacksmith who generally did the shoeing of the wheels.
Ships were far distant in those days and, oddly enough, little missed. Salt was the one indispensable commodity for which they could not find at hand or manage a makeshift. For that they had to send a canoe to Pittsburgh, many miles away. Tea and coffee were kept on hand for important functions such as weddings, that the feast might not be coldly set forth, and again at times of funerals for in that day the far-off guests were ever appropriately entertained. At all other times these resourceful folks knew how to brew acceptable cheering cups from grain and chicory, after they were correctly parched. Berry leaves such as raspberry and strawberry were substituted for tea and sassafras had not fallen into complete disuse in my boyhood. It was, however, more used as part of the bill of fare in early pioneer days, and as a spring medicine or alternative during my boyhood.
My father was nine-years-old when his father came to Clarion County and was often asked to visit a family established in the valley a year previously. They had their own grain and flour and the small boy looked forward very keenly to these visits and the treat he knew he would receive -- all the fresh bread and butter he could eat! One day he was asked over but there happened to be no bread for dinner. As he trudged home the three miles he said he was thinking all the way of the treat he missed.
