Franklin township, Morris township

Drowned At Gray's Fording

The mouth of Spruce Creek at the Little Juniata, from a stereograph made between 1859 and 1862Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-F-F11077). Creative Commons Zero (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons. CC0

Did you know? Robert McCartney, one of the earliest prominent settlers of Franklin Township, was drowned on Wednesday, January 27, 1813, fording the Little Juniata at James Gray's fording, near the Dr. McPherran place.

He was remarkable for his height, six feet and six inches. Up to February 11 his body had not been recovered, and his administrators offered a reward of twenty dollars for its recovery.

The fording was James Gray's. On the Morris side of the river, opposite the mouth of Spruce Creek, Gray laid out a village he called Graysport, which he advertised in the Huntingdon Gazette in April 1824. At that time he lived above the village, at the place called Gray's Fording, where he had a tannery. From about 1850 the village went by the name of its railroad station, Spruce Creek.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-30 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

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