I began my investigation into my ancestors with a question: how did their lives ultimately fashion the life of their descendants? What influence, in other words, did they have on later generations, including myself? When I realized that I have a heritage initially established in the wilderness of what was then “Penn’s Woods,” the vastness of the Allegheny Mountains, my natural question was, “What does this have to do with me? What part of that experience lives in me, if any?”
Pine Creek Gorge from Colton Point, photograph by author from July, 2022
The problem with this query is that, given the status of these ancestors—frontiersmen and, later, farmers and lumbermen—there is very little recorded. There are no journals of those from the late 1700’s and early 1800’s—indeed, I can’t even presume that these people, descended from Germans in the Holy Roman Empire and peasants no doubt, could even read and write. There’s also the trouble that most information tends to center on the men—it is enormously difficult to learn about the women of that time.
But there is, as I’ve noted in previous posts, a single book by Philip Tome, son of my sixth great-grandfather and half-brother to my fifth great-grandfather (and possibly brother to my fifth great-grandmother as well, though that’s a story for another time) might point to their lives at least. Hence his title, Pioneer Life. But how much of it is even true?
It has often been said that Philip’s book is a compendium of tall tales, one of which I’ll present here. But I also have come to appreciate that Philip’s book tells a story—a series of anecdotes, really—but lacks a plot. That is, there is no sense of how he felt about the experience of living as a pioneer, hunting elk in a range populated with wolves, cougars, and bears, where his nearest neighbors were miles distant. What effect did this have on him? How did it change him, or make him grow? It is impossible to say.
But let’s look at one of the strangest stories he offers.
In 1799, says Philip, his father Jacob was at Irving Stephenson’s tavern at the mouth of Pine Creek when he learned of a horse called Blue Dun. The horse, stubborn and strong, could barely be taken from the stable by three men. Jacob sees the attempt, laughs at the charade, and makes a bet: for a wager of twenty dollars—and this would have been no mean sum then—plus four bottles of wine and four dinners, he will remove the horse from the stable, without any trouble, by himself.
The other men readily accept, thinking the task is impossible. They soon begin to doubt the wager, thinking Jacob will be killed by the horse. Jacob makes one stipulation: that he could strike the horse as he chose. This is ultimately accepted with the added stipulation that he cause no “material harm” to the horse.
When he opens the door to the stable, the men are sure he’ll be killed, to which Jacob replies, “I have to die but once.”