The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-12-12
HOW A TOWN WAS BUILT.
Pretty Pennsylvania Maiden Furnishe,
Town Site.

HOW a TOWN WAS BUILT,
Pretty Pennsylvania Maiden Furnishes
Town Site.
Ann Crawford CHANGED to be pretty
girl and so Connellsville, Pa, was built.
Zachariah Cornell. hardy young
Yirginian, without much silver to jingle
in the pockets of his homespun trousers,
but with a great deal of hard sense
under his coonskin cap, iourneying
through the trackless woods OF the
farthest frontier that the white man
had THRUST into the Indian country,
came one eveningin 1771 to the cabin of
Captain William Crawford. This gallant
pioneer had built his log home on the
pleasant fiat just opposite this place, in
the shadow of an oak-grown hill be-
hind, and facing to the shallow cross
ing of the Youghiogheny. The geo.
graphical points of this early settlement
still survive in the recollection of few
old citizens, but all the other traces of
it have passed away. The little one
roomed cabin of Crawford has Iotted
AWAY; the wide-mouthed chimney which
once flung out its blue banner of civil
ization above the tree-tops has crumbled
to the earth; the building of bridges has
taken away the natural usefulness of
the crossing. Pretty much everything
is changed in appearance but the water,
which patters and ripples over the
stones of the shallow pretty much as it
dubbed and gurgled about the tall
boots of Braddoek's grenadiers when
they waded across here in 1855 on their
way to the slaughter; and the.cfossing-
place is called Braddoek's Ford to this
day.
Captain Crawford, whose after his
tory and terrible death are one of the
bloodiest chapters in the history of the
frontier, was a noted man. He had
carried the chain for young George
Washington in Virginia when they were
both stout lads of eighteen The two
young men, who were both strong, Wig
orous and excelling in athletic sports,
grew much attached to each other, and
remained fast friends to the day of
Crawford's death. Colonel Washing
ton, even then a noted man, had visited
Crawford's home here in 1770, the year
before Council came, and he and Craw-
ford had gone down the Yough, Monon-
gahela and Ohio rivers as far as to the
mouth of the Kanawha, on the lookout
for land which Washington wanted to
buy.
But | am keeping the young lady
waiting. Connell was Hospitality en-
tertained, of course. He had a travel
er's appetite, but when young Ann
Crawford bent before the fireplace to
turn the venison steak, which was
cooking for supper, he noticed that the
cheek the light famed on was redder
than the maple-leaf which the frost had
kissed; that her waist was round and
slender and 1.-THE like the hickory sap
ling in the wind; that her hair was
blaeker than the bearskin of his sad
die, and her eyes as deep and tender as
fawn's. Anyhow, he was in no hurry
to be gone next morning. He was
looking for good place to locate, he
said, and might as well look about that
neighborhoed for day, especially rs
Captain Crawford was Justice of the
Peace and surveyor as well, and could
give him much valuable information
So the young Virginan staid and staid,
looking at neighboring tracts of land
good deal, but at pretty Ann Crawford
good deal more. At last, with plenty
of messy log, and moonlight on the
Yough, and zephyr in the trees, no
doubt, young Council asked the lovely
Ann the old, old-fashioned question,
and with the usual hesitation and the
venerable blush that is worn to this day
on all such delightful occasions, and
yet never gets threadbare, Ann said she
would And so they were married,
and, after living near the old folks for
several years, moved across the river
some time between 17z3 and 1873, and
built a cabin near the spot on which
the Transallegheny House now stands,
on a tract of land which was desig-
mated in Connell's warrant of survey
as Mud Island, which includes the site
of the present borough of ConnellsviIe.
William Mccormick, who had also
married daughter of Captain Craw-
ford and located here in 1770, was the
first settler in Connellsville, and his
grandson, Hon. Provance Mccormick,
still living, is the oldest citizen of the
place.
Connell was shrewd man, and saw
that he had all the requirements of
thriving town here except inhabitants.
1t was the head of the boat navigation
on the Yough. Here the emigrants and
travellers to the west, coming over the
hills by way of Bedford, camped down,
built themselves flat-boats and made
ready to continue their journey by
water. They needed accommodations
and supplies, and there was
profit to be made out of them.
So Zachariah Council took out a char
ter and laid out the town of Connells-
vile in 1898. He made special provis-
ions for the accommodation of these
travellers, giving plot of ground beside
the river, in the heart of the town, to-
be forever free for the use of the inhab-
itants, 'and for travellers who may
erect thereon temporary boat-yards, OF
may from time to time occupy the
same, or any part thereof, for making
any vessels or other conveyances for
the purpose of conveying their property
either to or from said town"
This plot of ground still lies open
and common, though it is many years
since the last fiatboat, with its load of
household goods and farming nipple
ments, and mich COWS and children
grated over the shadows of the Yough.
The railroad has succeeded to the river
as an avenue of travel, and it has even
been suggested by some that it is en-
titled to administer on the assets of its
predecessor also, and take possession
of the old boatyard for "a depot.-Cor.
Pittsburgh Dispatch.
LIBERAL DAMAGES.
n Judry Tn ct Tod tbn Inn in Ea