Clay: the first settlers

From the county histories, on Clay township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1883, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.

Besides the pioneers named, others are recalled by very old present inhabitants, of Matthias Saylor, John Chilcote, George Stever, Cornelius Poston, Zachariah Lovett, and Daniel Gosnal. In Smith's Valley, beginning near the line of Clay township and going north, there were Jacob Barnett, Andrew Park, John Chaney, John Park, Jr., Philemon Reynolds, Michael Bauman, Hugh Johnson, and John Park, Sr. Reynolds was a colored man and a slave, who purchased his freedom, and afterwards bought from his former master six hundred acres of land opposite Cassville for one hundred dollars. Mr. James L. Glasgow now owns and resides on a part of this land. In Hare's Valley John Shields, James Campbell, Jacob Crotsley, Henry Freed, William Wright are remembered as very early residents. Probably not many of those named were original settlers in the township, but many were the children of pioneers, and nearly all left children, who have in their turn multiplied till their families are numerously represented here. Some of these pioneers came here from Maryland, over Indian trails that were not passable except on foot or with single animals, They brought their scanty effects on their backs, or on the backs of horses and cows, and drove the few sheep and swine that, if spared by the wolves and bears, were to be the beginnings of their future flocks.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,559,092 of the scanned text

Quoted from the county histories

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