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When I was doing an article on slaves and servitude in Union County, I found my interest in the subject suddenly deflected by a revolutionary war personnage not often mentioned in local history circles: Capt. John Lowdon, onetime innkeeper in Lancaster, owner of the land on which the town of Northumberland is located, first associate captain of a company of riflemen in Col. William Thompson’s battalion in the Revolutionary War, member of the Supreme Executive Council (1776) of Northumberland County, and resident and owner of most of West Buffalo Township in what became Union County in 1813. As the owner of at least four slaves, two of whom are named in Linn’s, “Annals of Buffalo Valley,” Chloe (a real Congo, said Linn) and Phillis, Lowdon had attracted my attention for the slaves and servitude study, but he captured me completely as I read more about him. For the moment I forgot about slaves and servitude. Why? It may seem incredible, but it was the sheer distance between where Lowdon lived on a farm northwest of Mifflinburg, and where he went to church, the Buffalo Church at Buffalo Crossroads, riding there on horseback, that won my respect. It seemed to me— a total Scot and half Presbyterian— that he was either a man deeply committed to his predestined salvation, or else he was one tormented by his questioning of it. Whatever he was, he was a most unusual man, and I sympathized with him. Around 1770, Lowdon had entered the Northumberland area (not yet a county), in which his wife Sarah owned much of the land. Having left his work as an innkeeper in Lancaster, Lowdon must have sensed adventure and opportunities in the wilds of Central Pennsylvania, and he proceeded to “develop” his land— that is, Sarah’s. In 1772 he laid out the town of Northumberland, selling most of the land to Reuben Haines, who in 1775 purchased all of it and founded the town. Just what Sarah Lowdon was doing at this time, or where she was is not clear. In 1772, Lowdon moved to a farm which he called Silver Springs, northwest of Mifflinburg, and presumably Sarah with their five children accompanied him; but sometime before 1775 she died, and the children were sent to Hempfield to live with Lowdon’s mother. At this point, Lowdon most certainly needed slaves, although he was not alone in his commodious hewn log house. With him lived his unmarried brother, Richard. He also had loyal friends and neighbors who, as modern people would see it, were not exactly close by. Robert Barber, Paschal Lewis, Col. Thomas Clarke (also a slave owner) and Henry Pontius were his best friends, all of whom lived well, even elegantly, in a magnificent wilderness. In proper time, Lowdon’s log house accommodated a second wife, Ann, two children, his brother, Richard, Chloe, Phillis, and two servants (or slaves). A farmer and hunter by choice, Lowdon’s abilities caused his fellow citizens to select him to perform many civic duties. He served on a commission to make the Susquehanna River navigable from Bald Eagle Creek to Penn’s Creek. After North-umberland became a county, in 1772, he was appointed a trustee to buy ground for a courthouse. He was active in the local councils organized to prepare for war against England. In September, 1776, he was appointed justice of a Council of Safety with Samuel Maclay, Samuel Hunter and others. When he heard the news of Bunker Hill, he formed his own company of riflemen and rode to Boston to fight for his country and General Washington. When he returned, he continued to serve his local government. According to Linn’s, “Annals of Buffalo Valley,” Lowdon was a large, well-built man with a round face, conspicuous in the Buffalo Crossroads Presbyterian Church in his buff and blue uniform, silver knee and shoe buckles. When he died in 1798, his loyal friends, Paschal Lewis, Robert Barber, and Col. Thomas Clarke, with his black slave, Mel, accompanied his body by raft down Penn’s Creek to the river, thence to Columbia where Lowdon was buried. Later, the slaves went by the same route to Two Hill, Columbia, a refuge for freed and runaway slaves, maintained by Samuel Wright, Lowdon’s son-in-law. On a Sunday afternoon in early February, I drove with Mary Koons and Katherine Roush of Mifflinburg in search of Cpt. John Lowdon’s farm, Silver Spring. Certain that she had located it, Katherine drove with exactitude to a part of Union County, I had never seen. Proceeding north on Eight Street out of Mifflinburg we turned west finally along a ridge that paralled Jones Mountain. The winter landscape and sky’s cold light accentuated the bony haunches of the mountains, setting in relief every tree, bush, stone and a lone farmhouse on a hillside overlooking a large colorless spring in the gully below it. “That’s it,” said Katherine, stopping the car, and we looked as if expecting to see Lowdon, if not his ghost, coming out of the house. “This is the location?” After scrutinizing the large clapboard dwelling, we decided to follow the route Lowdon must have taken to visit his friends at White Springs. Heading across Rt. 45, past the Church of the Brethren, we finally connected with a road which passed directly in front of Paschal Lewis’ stone house, now owned by Myron Eberhart. Before us stretched the blue magnificence of Jack’s Mountain, (a friend of mine says that it should be called Penn Mountain) and we agreed that the early settlers here possessed qualities unknown to twentieth century people. © Copyright 2008 by Mifflinburg Telegraph Weekly Newspaper Top of Page |
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