Tag: culture

  • Asia – Let’s Not Go There – Acts 16

    Asia – Let’s Not Go There – Acts 16

    The importance of this juncture in Paul’s journey, now with Silas and Timothy, cannot be overemphasized as these apostles are sent out beyond Asia into all the world of Euro-Asia.

    Asia – the BIG picture

    Growing up geographically-challenged (as my 5th grade teacher surely would have confirmed) in a small village far distant from Paul’s missionary journeys I was CLUELESS when I read Luke’s lists of places in Acts.

    Where were these cities? (Or were they states? Perhaps a province of some kind?)

    And ASIA? (That’s confusing.)


    Continents as I remembered (5? or 7?):

    • North America (That’s US.)
    • South America (Go toward Texas & keep going.)
    • Europe (Cross the Atlantic like Europeans did & founded 13 colonies in America)
    • Africa (everything south of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and all those jungle places south where Europeans brought slaves to America.)
    • Antarctica (it’s all ice and nobody lives there.. Is it the one on the South Pole or north?)
    • Asia (Russia, from where Europe ends west to the Pacific & India, China, Japan along the Pacific
    • Australia (How can an English island below Asia be called a continent?)
    C -

    Go into all the world GEOGRAPHY (remedial)

    Asia Europe Africa 21st c. view from Google Earth
    ASIA ~30% of land area of earth, part of Eurasia, ~17 million sq. miles
    Join me as I refresh some of my quite limited knowledge of geography - especially of Asia.

    Asia facts from WorldGeography.com

    • Asia is the largest and most populated continent
    • It shares land borders with Europe, which is not defined and hence share a landmass called Eurasia.
    • Afro-Eurasia is the name given to the landmass between Asia, Europe, and Africa.
    • Asia shares a lot of its extreme points with Europe, especially Russia.

    Cape Dezhnev, 66°4′45″N 169°39′7″W, located on the Chukchi Peninsular, between the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait [W. of Alaska] , is the easternmost point of mainland Asia.

    Pamana Island, 11°00′36″S 122°52′37″E, is the southernmost point of Asia, located in the Lesser Sunda Islands, East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia.

    The northernmost point on the Asian mainland is Cape Chelyuskin, 77°44′0″N 104°15′0″E. At 1370km from the North Pole, ..located at the Taymyr Peninsula,

    Westernmost Point In Asia
    • Cape Baba, 39°28′47″N 26°03′50″E, located on the Anatolian part of Turkey, is the westernmost part of Asia. Located in Babakale village also known as Father’s Castle in historical Troad. Apostles Luke’s journey around the cape, and Apostle Paul’s journey on land are recorded in the biblical book Acts of the Apostles.
    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Troas-1024x656.jpg
    Troas on Cape Baba in Babakale, Turkey [Turkiye] is the westernmost point in Asia.

    Asia Minor, Roman Remnant of a former Empire

    Zoom in with Roman military eyes toward a vast empire to the east situated on the westernmost shores of Asia, fixing your eyes on adjacent Aegean shores of 21st c. Turkiye.

    This geographical-historical view of the Asia minor region is provided only for its context of culture as it intersects with Paul's missionary journeys 'into all the world' of Eurasia.
    map of 1st century Asia
    Asia Minor

    Follow the southern coastline from nearest to Rome toward the east and riches of former empires.

    Rome’s region of ASIA MINOR

    • conquered via the vast Mediterranean and inland to the Taurus mountains includes [W. to E.]:
    • Pisidia [N. of Perga],
    • Pamphylia [along a coast N. of Cypress],
    • Cilicia [with its port city of Tarsus] and finally
    • Syria (at times including Judea).
    • Further Roman conquests inland to the north included:

    a large Roman province of GALATIA

    • N from Iconium and on its Western edge Antioch Pisidia, all of the central plain to the borders of
    • a more remote Cappadocia in the mountains to the north of Cilicia and Tarsus and Antioch Syria,
    • N to Bithynia and Pontus on the Black Sea and again toward
    • Phrygia along the mountainous borders with Asia Minor toward Mysia and the strategically situated Sea of Marmara between the narrow isthmus connecting the Black and Aegean Seas.

    In Roman times, however, when Paul journeyed there, the country was divided into two parts, one of which was known as Galatian Phrygia, and

    the other as Asian Phrygia, because it was a part of the Roman province of Asia, but the line between them was never sharply drawn.

    Source: BibleAtlas.org
    In ACTS 16 the Holy Spirit forbids Paul from sharing the gospel in Asia Minor on this second missionary journey.
    And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.
    – ACTS 16:6

    The Empires Before Christ

    Babylon captures Judah and brings its captives to the King of Babylon
    6th century Before Christ
    6th-5th centuries B,C. the Persian Empire (to the East) adds the Babylonian Empire to its captive provinces

    Paul, Silas and Timothy will know these events well from Scripture, but those are no longer the Empires of concern to either the Jews or Rome. In a more recent history of Judea and Eurasia one vast Empire rivals all others.

    356 BC – Macedonia

    Roman bust of Alexander the Great who conquered much of Asia and Europe

    Alexander the Great

    • Tutored by Aristotle
    • trained for battle by his father, Philip II

    Roman bust, 2nd century AD / Creative Commons license

    [Alexander’s] undermanned defeat of the Persian King Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela is seen as one of the decisive turning points of human history, unseating the Persians as the greatest power in the ancient world and spreading Hellenistic culture across a vast new empire.

    https://www.history.com/news/alexander-the-great-defeat-persian-empire

    332 BC – Tyre: a siege of Hellenism close to home

    The siege of Tyre was orchestrated by Alexander the Great in 332 BC during his campaigns against the Persians.

    source: Wikipedia

    The reign of Alexander the Great was short-lived. After subduing all of the Persian Empire, his army marched east and got as far as India before turning back home to Macedon. But he never made it home.

    At just 32 years old, Alexander died in Persia in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon.

    323 BC – 30BC – a Greek-ish Eurasia

    Click the link below to see a map of the Hellenized 'Greek-ish' world after Alexander the Great where the Apostle Paul now witnesses Christ. READ a detailed lecture on 

    https://brewminate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Alexander53-768×452.gif


    There were no more city-states. Monarchies prevailed, modeling themselves after Alexander’s empire. He had achieved a divine status in his lifetime, and his successors wanted to as well. They established “ruler cults” in which they were obeyed as kings and worshipped as gods.

    A sense of cosmopolis developed in the Hellenistic Age (“polis” plus “cosmos”). Worldly, experienced, and highly-cultured people used to live in small city-states and not worry about the world beyond, but now they had seen and even ruled this world and began to say they were no longer citizens of Athens, Corinth, and so on, but instead citizens of the cosmic polis (cosmopolis), the world.

    Highly Recommended Source – From a lecture by Dr. Frank Holt, Professor of Ancient History, University of Houston (10.15.2013)

    Paul and the Apostles sent out into all the world live in the crossroads between a culture of Alexander established just a few centuries earlier AND ambitious Roman Caesars reconquering lands and cultures to be absorbed into a new Pax Romana — IF you will surrender your land and its people into one international Empire of their Roman peace.

    Western Eurasia map AD50

    AD 50 – Eurasia

    The year in the middle of Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey.

    Rome had conquered the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt near Judea some time ago, but the Empire’s military defense of the Eastern front in Syria kept close eye on the Parthian Empire and frequently engaged in battle losing and retaking various land.

    A Greek-ish in culture of the Eurasian world remained reticent of Roman Legions suppressing unwilling rulers in uncooperative localities.


    Politically astute men like a Herod or Saul of Tarsus understood this ever-shifting landscape of living as part of the political leadership and military power of the Roman Empire.

    Paul would have been attuned to recent changes in both Asia and Europe as the Apostle now travels toward a new destination with Silas and Timothy. They seem to be travelling intentionally and slowly (which we might easily miss in these few brief verses of Acts.

    AD 43 – During those years after Paul had witnessed Jesus on the road to Damascus, just four years prior to his first missionary journey here and to Cypress, Rome had invaded Britannia in the West. Legions had also conquered Lycia on the SW coast near Asia Minor where previously they had sailed to and from Perga.

    Lycia Source: Wikipedia

    AD 46 – Just a year prior to Paul’s first missionary journey

    After the death of the Thracian king Rhoemetalces III in 46 AD and an unsuccessful anti-Roman revolt, the kingdom was annexed as the Roman province of Thracia. The new province encompassed .. the north-eastern portion of the province of Macedonia as well as the islands of Thasos, Samothrace and Imbros in the Aegean Sea.

    Source: Wikipedia

    Acts of the Apostles 16:

    Previously:

    As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.


    6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.


    These apostles sent out from Antioch Syria have traveled about half-way on this 2800 mile [4500 km] journey into a Greek-ish Roman-ruled world. Their remaining journey in Euro-Asia will include many more important cities where they will preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the upcoming year.


    And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

    Acts 16: route of the apostles Paul, Silas & Timothy headed toward Troas beyond Asia Minor. 
source: graceofourlord.com
    Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey – first half through Asia

    To be continued…

  • Church: Religion? Philosophic Discourse? or Cultural Calling?

    Church: Religion? Philosophic Discourse? or Cultural Calling?

    The instant you say, ‘church,’ you dip your toe into waters of reactions which you know not how hot or cold, how shallow or deep, how stagnant or storm-tossed the hearer of your faith.

    Do you dare even ask?

    • Are YOU a CHRISTIAN?
    • Where did you worship last Sunday?
    • Do you belong to OUR church?
    • What are you currently studying from the Bible?
    • Would you talk of JESUS with me?
    • May I SHARE the Good News of my Biblical Christian faith?

    Just imagine the wide range of reactions of any other soul to ANY of these questions of the faithful evangelical Christian daring to share the Gospel of their Biblical Christian church.

    An even more troubling question:

    Does a Christian dare engage OTHER ‘christians‘ in a conversation about Christ (the Namesake of our Christian faith) addressing ALL of these questions and more about our Biblical Christian faith?

    Have YOU, in fact, tested these troublesome waters?

    IF SO, perhaps you too have received a baptism of hot opposition or a cold withdrawal of the flesh from the waters of faith.

    That would be evangelism = a RED FLAG of RELIGION to which a world (inclusively with some calling themselves a ‘church,’) will often react with ears that do not hear, as well as the rhetoric of rebellion against the Lord God and anarchy against salvation of the sinful soul.


    • Perhaps evangelism nets too few caught in the rising waters of a cultural flood of this world reacting to the ‘church,’ by denying Christ Jesus.
    • Maybe a pure Biblical Christian faith offends some tiptoeing into the mire of murky waters of philosophic denial.

    The [*] wicked fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

    They act corruptly, they commit abominable deeds;

    There is no one who does good.

    Psalm 14 :: Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) * wicked – one who rejects wisdom in rebellion against God
    (Although some these wicked fools have crept into pulpits of places which call themselves, 'church.')

    ANY constant questioning of authoritative adherence to the Word of God, the Holy Bible of our Christian faith, should sound an alarm to the faithful:

    Beware of the tempter in sheep’s clothing.

    Who else would deconstruct the Biblical Christian foundation of the Church, only to reconstruct our faith by compromises of the only Truth, replacing authoritative Scripture with several shifting pebbles of heretical half-truths ‘reasoned’ by the wicked at war with Christ?

    So I ask you .. I ask us:

    Who are these 21st century Christians?

    What are YOUR answers to my earlier questions I dare to ask my fellow evangelical Christian believers and worshipers of Jesus Christ? (ADD your Comment on Scripture to this Saturday Post of TalkofJESUS.com) 
    Our church in Christ Jesus has no place for the unrepentant wicked fool; for our Gospel is for those who believe.
    

    I began this Saturday Post series as a deeper discussion of DOCTRINE (or teaching) of the Church. The alarm of the watchman on the wall rang in my ears while hearing about a subtle teaching, an undercurrent of doctrine seeping into the evangelical christian church.

    Evangelical RECONSTRUCTION was something I naively had never heard of; YET now I will raise the trumpet of warning to sound the alarm:

    Medieval church bell tower during sundown in valley

    Something’s wrong with our church!

    (Who wouldn't agree?)
     YES it is.

    So why not RECALL it?

    (Send it ‘back to the manufacturer? Can’t do that. So how can WE evolve the church into a 21st c. style faith?)

    Tear it down to the ground demolishing doctrine by doctrine.

    Then WE can RECONSTRUCT that which WE have deconstructed to fix the church how WE want.

    But WE had better do it subtly (so as not to offend anybody) and stealthily (without account of a foundational Biblical Christian teaching).

    A 21st c. RECALL of the CHURCH is just what WE need for OUR Evangelical Reconstruction of the Church into a socially acceptable gathering which will attract any follower from religions of every culture of our world.

    NOT!

    To borrow from the Apostle Paul refuting premises of clear untruths:

    By no means!

    Perfect Teaching (for God’s imperfect ‘church’)

    https://talkofjesus.com/talk-jesus-com/what-is-doctrine/
    διδασκαλία – didaskalia – doctrine (19x), teaching (1x), learning (1x). – source: BlueLetterBible.org

    Doctrine, whether by preaching or teaching or proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is foundational to faith and therefore never to be torn down by any mortal sinner. Scripture affirms God’s truth and the trustworthy teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ for those who believe.

    .. so that we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming, ..

    Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Church in Ephesus 4:14 Legacy Standard Bible

    This same Apostle (to the Gentiles) confesses in his first letter to the pastor, Timothy 1:15

    .. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

    And the Apostle Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying,

    “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

    the Good News of Luke 5:8 Legacy Standard Bible

    Some call Peter and Paul, Saints (and they are); yet all of God’s faithful are saints to the Lord.

    Psalm 34:9 (WLC 34:10) יְראוּ אֶת־יְהוָה קְדֹשָׁיו כִּי־ אֵין מַחְסוֹר לִירֵאָֽיו׃

    Yodh
    Oh, fear Yahweh, you His saints;
    For there is no want to those who fear Him.
    Do YOU FEAR THE LORD GOD, oh you sinner?
    
    The MARQEE denominational name of your 'church' matters NOT, my fellow sinner. 
    Seek the salvation of the Lord, my dear fellow saint, His redemption of your soul to eternal life witnessed in the Gospel of the Christ JESUS.

    Perfect Preaching (Teaching)

    Is based on & does not manipulate Scripture.

    THE LORD GOD IS! (God IS God and mankind is not.)

    God spoke to and through men whom the Lord God chose and commanded to write HIS words.

    “God is not a man, that He should lie,

    Nor a son of man, that He should repent;

    Has He said, and will He not do it?

    Or has He spoken, and will He not establish it?

    Numbers 23:19 LSB
    Do you really believe that? Can you affirm that ONLY Scripture Sola Scriptura is the inspired word of the Lord God?
    ONLY Scripture – Sola Scriptura

    All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness,

    2 Timothy 3:16 LSB

    NOT ‘some,’ NOT ‘select scripture’ ..

    AND separate from the truth that some church pastors will never reprove or correct those wayward weak sheep of their own flock,

    ALL of the WRITTEN WORD OF SCRIPTURE IS GOD INSPIRED!

    Mortal SINNERS DO NOT get to reconstruct what GOD has said.

    (But false teachers of every era subtly seek to lead Christ’s lost sheep into the abyss of disbelief.)

    Inerrant TRUTH: Our reasoned Biblical Faith

    Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”

    The Apostle John’s Good News for you is:

    .. that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

    Evangelical RE-construction of the Church

    Source material for the following is transcribed (written as accurately as possible) from the A.D. 2022 podcast 'Just Thinking,' previously recommended and linked on TalkofJESUS.com and used with permission of its author. - RH

    In deconstruction everything is a SOCIAL construction, including the church.

    Darrell Harrison
    By the way, this Saturday Post series, Church – Who are these 21st c. Christians? - is directed toward faithful evangelical Christians who fear God and believe Scripture as a warning and caution for infidelity to Christ we increasingly hear from the pulpits of our RE-engineered 21st c. 'churches.' - RH
    
    I will add brief comment to Harrison's outline below for your consideration and intentional thinking about the teaching of your church. Why not add your own thoughts in the Comments at the bottom of this post. 
    
    God-willing, we will continue the course of identifying the faithful of our 21st century 'Church' next Saturday.
    
    © Darrell B. Harrison and Just Thinking Ministries

    Evangelical Deconstructionism

    Most of the points quoted may be found in the Just Thinking Podcast near 1:32.

    FIVE-POINT PROGRESSION of Evangelical Deconstructionism

    1. EMBRACE and posit [plant or assume] the idea [philosophy] that the CHURCH is a SOCIALLY constructed system, NOT a divinely ordained idea [institution] that originated in the mind of God.
    2. ASSUME that this socially constructed system is designed to be exclusive of certain intersectional identities, traditions and behaviors.
    3. IDENTIFY subjective [reasoned in the mind] points or cracks in that socially constructed system that have failed [as reasoned by the philosopher] AND need to be fixed [or reconstructed].
    4. APPLY a hermeneutic [interpretive explanation] of SUSPICION to that SOCIALIALLY-CONSTRUCTED system so that ANYONE [who even remotely] connected to that system is deemed UNTRUSTWORTHY.. deemed an enemy.
    5. RECONSTRUCT this SOCIAL SYSTEM [church, etc.] into the IMAGE and likeness of the CULTURE with socially acceptable.. [everythingology].

    Have you heard the alarm?

    “Therefore watch out, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you:

    Acts of the Apostles 13:40 LSB [in context 13:23-41]

    Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

    Gospel of Matthew 7:15 LSB – a warning of Jesus

    “Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

    Gospel of Luke 6:46 LSB – CHALLANGE of the Lord Jesus Christ to followers


    What must we do?

    Does YOUR local church have a new cultural calling to evangelism?

    Please comment below on what you observe of Evangelical Deconstructionism?

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • Harnedsville – Some Pennsylvania History (c.1763-1783)

    Harnedsville – Some Pennsylvania History (c.1763-1783)

    PROLOGUE: My last “blog” post about my personal history was about Cortland Ohio. It featured my hometown and my Grandfather, William Alba Harned.

    My father was born in Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania. Both of his grandfathers had farms there and as a young boy I visited western Pennsylvania frequently. For now we will skip the generation of my dad, William E. Harned, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, to take a look back further into some more general history.

    Without boring you with generations of the Harned family tree or names that go back to an Edward Harned, who left Sandwich England for an English colony of Massachusetts, or stringing my connecting generations through New Jersey and other parts of Pennsylvania; I want to share a (rather long) excerpt of context of Pennsylvania history, all from one source. I trust you American history buffs will enjoy some of this.

    Link below to full article on Somerset Co. PA, location of Harnedsville PA 15424

    HARNED family – Some Pennsylvania History –Excerpt.

    We pick up the story of William Penn’s English lands about 250 years ago. I have highlighted first references to each year to help us follow the timeline of American History.

    Bouquet had met and defeated the Indians at Bushy Run, August 5, 6, 1763, thereby shattering Pontiac’s dream of redeeming the wilderness for the Red Man.

    CHAPTER IX – No Trespassing

    From a military point of view the lands west of the Alleghenies to the Ohio were now cleared of both French and Indians, and therefore subject to the seeds of English culture. A civilian, viewing the grounds from another angle, saw a hotbed of cross purposes. There were the hunter, the trader, the land speculator, the pioneer settler who based his land claims upon squatter rights, and the Indians.

    In 1767 there had been an extension of the Mason and Dixon line which showed that most of these citizens lived within the bounds of Pennsylvania, and a number in the future Somerset County. Sensing inevitable clashes among these people because of their different interests, John Penn, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, attempted to avert trouble by advising the Assembly to pass a law to remove the people now settled in these parts, and to prevent others from settling in this area of the province.

    With the exception of the strip of land now known as Allegheny, Northampton, Southampton, Fairhope, Larimer, and Greenville Townships, the remaining sections of Somerset County were included in this forbidden territory. Ostensibly the order was to prevent fresh clashes with the Indians from whom this land was not yet purchased.

    Accordingly John Penn appointed the Reverend John Steele of the Presbyterian Church at Carlisle, John Allison, Christopher Lemes, and James Potter to make known and explain the law to the settlers. Leaving on March 2nd, 1768, they traveled by way of Fort Cumberland, and the Braddock Road to the Western settlements.

    The following autumn, November 5, 1768, the Penns made another treaty with the Indians, called the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, in which all the forbidden lands were purchased from the Red Men for the sum of ten thousand pounds.

    After acquiring the Indian title the Penns immediately offered this land for sale for five pounds sterling per one hundred acres, and one penny an acre per annum quit rent. Just who was the first person to receive the first warrant in what is now Somerset County will probably never be known, but there is one warrant in Elk Lick Township that bears the date of April 12, 1769, or just nine days after the opening of the land office.

    CHAPTER X – The Promised Land

    Twenty-five years before the Reverend John Steele was commissioned to remove the settlers from this territory, an entry in an old diary discloses a scene along the Juniata River of a young man and his wife who are determined to “go on The Western Ride to the land of the Turkey Track.”– “they crossed over the river with many calls back and forth of sad farewells, and so off into the woods to the west-running waters.”–“Says he wishes to be reborn again, and so they go to the promised land.”

    More than ten thousand men, including the armies of Washington, Braddock, Forbes and Bouquet, crossed and re-crossed the promised land of Somerset County before there was recorded officially the name of one permanent settler.

    Most of this land was marked, “Indian Territory” on the maps and ledgers of the Penns; therefore anyone living here was, according to the provincial authorities, out of bounds, off the record and disinherited. But to neglect to enter a name on a docket in no wise affected the men and women who were clearing the land, building cabins, and reaping the golden ears from their patches of squaw corn.

    But when the time arrived, April 3, 1769 at 10 o’clock A. M., City of Philadelphia, for the sale of land and the collection of quit rents by the Penns, a survey and inventory of their flocks became a matter of prime importance. The disinherited automatically became bona fide citizens; subject to the benevolent governing powers of the Penns, and taxes.

    CHAPTER XI – Home to the Mountains

    The lure of far away places has always tugged at the heartstrings of people in every land; particularly when their pastures are not so lush. Having heard of the rich mountain valleys that lay among the great folds of the Appalachians, a group of people living along the mosquito infested flats of Essex and Morris counties in New Jersey decided to seek new homes in the virgin wilderness of the Penns’ domain.

    In the spring of 1770 a little band of these discontented settlers loaded their worldly goods upon the backs of their oxen, and started toward new homes in the western mountains.

    Following the general course of Braddock’s Road to the Negro Mountains, they swung into the narrow vale of White’s Creek and thence north to the Valley of the Laurel Hill Creek. Arriving here about the first of May they pitched their tents, after which the “men folks” went forth to select a portion of land on which to build a home for himself and his family. By mutual understanding among themselves each one was to be limited to such quantity of land as he could walk around in a single day. In all there were about eighteen or twenty families. Tradition gives us the names: Robert Colborn, David King, Oliver Drake, William Rush, Andrew Ream, Reuben Skinner, John Mitchell, John Hyatt, William Tannehill, James Moon, Edward Harned, David Woodmancy, John Copp, John McNair, Joseph Lanning, William Brooke, Jacob Strahn, Obadiah Reed, and William Lanning.

    With the Turkeyfoot settlers as their nearest neighbors these families flourished like the green bay tree; establishing permanent landmarks which are now known as the Jersey Settlement, Jersey Church, Draketown, Drake’s Mill and King’s Mill (two of the first grist mills in Somerset County) Harnedsville, forts and block houses which formed the nuclei of the present towns of Ursina and Confluence.

    Apple orchards, cleared lands, and military and civil records are fitting monuments for the spirits of these brave pioneers.

    Signs and symbols, carved in the rocks by the hands of our ancestors, are uncertain accounts of the lives they led. The most expert archaeologists disagree as to their exact meanings.

    Written words bind the past to the present as no other medium can. Unfortunately the early settlers of Somerset County were spare to the point of parsimony in their use of the quill and inkpot.

    Harmon Husband, riding horse back into the Glades in 1771 was farther removed from the Atlantic settlements than the sons of Penn were from the powers beyond the sea. In common with the hunters and a few settlers of the Glades, Husband now belonged to that small band of pioneers who had snapped the last tie that bound them to the traditions of the ages-in short he belonged to the disinherited.

    Before coming to the Glades Husband had spent his early boyhood days in Chester County, Pennsylvania and Cecil County, Maryland. As a young man he went to the province of North Carolina, where he gained property, position, and influence. In the role of a reformer he was instrumental in marshalling the forces of the common people in that province. He called them the Regulators or Sons of Liberty.

    The pivotal issue was taxes.

    Tryon, the provincial governor of North Carolina, was well versed in the well known, universal, and timeless game of subtraction and division; that is, taxing his subjects to the utmost to maintain himself and his small group of satellites in royal style. But Tryon made the fatal mistake, as many have before and since, of over-adjusting the thumbscrews of taxation. The result was rebellion, climaxed by the Battle of Alamance-the first battle of the American Revolution which was fought May 16, 1771. At the sound of the first clash of battle, Harmon Husband, the leader of the Sons of Liberty, jumped on his horse and fled.

    In fairness to Husband, who was a Quaker, indoctrinated with principles which would not allow him to fight, he had the courage of his convictions, and when forced to display these inner truths, there was no show of hypocrisy.

    There is a monument at Hillsboro, North Carolina to twelve of Harmon Husband’s compatriots who were hanged by the neck until they were dead by the British Governor on June 19, 1771, or about the same time that Husband was being reborn and rechristened in the cool shade of a Somerset County maple grove.

    CHAPTER XV – Revolution

    South of the line that forms the lower boundaries of Addison, Elklick, Greenville, and Southampton townships it is conceded that the Battle of Alamance was the first battle of the American Revolution with Harmon Husband as the leader of organized resistance to the British Crown. North of the Mason and Dixon line the poet tells us that it was at Concord where the “shot heard round the world” was first fired on the 19th of April, 1775.

    Both have ample proof for their opinions, while all agree that frontier Americans held high the torch of Liberty, and with their squirrel rifles, defended that light to their death.

    The pioneers of Somerset County (called Bedford County at the time) were no exceptions. Under the command of Captain Richard Brown, with James Francis Moore as first lieutenant, men from the region of the Turkeyfoot, Cox’s Creek Glades, Stony Creek Glades, and along the Forbes Road shouldered their flintlocks and joined Washington’s forces. Few returned.

    The account they gave of themselves is a saga in itself.

    On the home front there was far more excitement than in the year of 1763 when Pontiac let loose his savage wrath. The simple reason for this was that there were many more settlers here during Revolutionary days, and the battle lines were drawn on both sides of the mountains. The ablest fighters had emptied the buck horn racks of the best rifles, and had marched eastward to meet the Red Coats, leaving the older men and boys with worn and rattling flintlocks to guard their cabins and families against Indian raids from the west.

    With the British holding the western military forts it was their strategy to arm the Indians with long rifles, scalping knives, and fire water, and send them to the frontier settlements with murderous intent. The Indians, aided by a few renegade whites, such as the Girtys, cut a staggering red swath through the mountain clearings.

    Express riders, the spearhead of civilian defense, galloping from the Forbes Road to the Cox’s Creek Glades and Brothers Valley shouted to the panic stricken settlers:

    “James Wells from Jenner Fort shot by the Indians! Flee for your lives !” (Autumn of 1776)

    “The Indians have attacked Fort Stony Creek! One of our men killed !” (November 27, 1777)

    “Five people killed by the Indians over against the mountains!” (Shade Township, November, 1777)

    Harmon Husband removed his family to Fort Cumberland, himself returning to his farms near the close of the war to find (March 1783) that the Somerset settlement had not been invaded. By the spring of 1784 nearly all the settlers had returned.

    CHAPTER XVI

    Rum and Rebellion

    The final draft of a peace treaty between England and America was signed on September 3, 1783, leaving the swaggering young Republic to face the cynicism of the adult nations of the world.

    Growing pains of the infant empire were mistaken by the Old World for more serious maladies.

    The Big Three who held the bottle of Soothing Syrup for the wriggling young America were George Washington as President, Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasurer, and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State.

    Hamilton believed in a strong central power that would command the dignity and respect of the “common herd.” Jefferson had ideas of his own. Faced with a $77,000,000 war debt, Hamilton conceived the idea of placing a small tax on all spiritous liquors.

    At the time there were, according to estimates, 5000 distilleries in Pennsylvania with at least 24 within the present bounds of Somerset County.

    Now the idea of government officers entering private homes, measuring the products of the stills and collecting taxes for the same was not, according to the principles of the mountain settlers, among the ideals they had fought for. There was also the spectre of a swarm of these “revenuers” with their hands in the public coffers.

    The reactions of the mountain folk to these measures were mass meetings of protest, and some rather rough handling of Hamilton’s agents.

    CHAPTER XVII – Peace Comes to the Frontier

    The Old West was gone. The frontier that had been the Stony Creek Glades was pushed back to the Ohio and the Mississippi. The log cabin, the long rifle, the axe and the plow took the place of the bark huts and the stone hatchets of the Shawnees and the Mingos. Jehovah watched over the smoking chimneys of the clearings in the forests of the Alleghenies and the Laurel Hills, while Manitou shrieked in vain protest when the winter winds whistled between the black teeth of the spiked stockades.

    The settler’s keen axe was biting deeper and deeper into the bush. Log cabins mushroomed overnight, clustering together, and taking names like Berlin, Somerset, Meyersdale, and Stoystown.

    Whether the war-whoop sounded or not, the result was the same. Fearing to return to their clearings, many of their crops rotted on the vine, promising lean fare for the coming winter.

    Sickness and death have always dogged the footsteps of even the most hardy pioneers. Because no disciple of Hippocrates had come, or remained in the wilderness of Somerset County to aid and comfort the afflicted, each family resorted to healing powers at hand. Every cabin had its herb garden, or lacking that they stripped the bark from the wild cherry, the slippery elm and the sassafras to brew health restoring potions.

    In the days before the little red school house in Somerset County children were brought up in the way that they should go, without specialists to guide or perplex them in the rough hewn paths of learning. Boys were taught early the use of the Dutch scythe, the broad axe, and the flintlock. In the matter of letters few mastered the fine art of the three R’s.

    Those who did were introduced to them by the way of well thumbed Bibles.

    Girls were taught the tunes of the rhythmic whir of the spinning wheels and the intricate steps of the hand loom. One of the first attempts to bring regimented “book larnin’” into settlements of Somerset County was in the year of 1777. James Kennedy, one of Harmon Husband’s indentured servants, who was a poor hand at grubbing and picking brush, was chosen to lead, guide and direct the lives of the little children of the Somerset Settlement. The young schoolmaster, after surveying and questioning his home spun class for a few minutes dismissed school with the admonition, “Och! but you are set of young haythens.”

    Law and order were maintained in the clearings by adhering to the simple and age old verities that have served as cornerstones for civilized societies in all times. Without sheriff or justice, the thief and the liar were humiliated by public condemnation until the culprit sought peace of mind and body in some distant settlement where his sins could not find him. In the matter of more personal offenses against honor and virtue, the score was usually settled by other members of the families involved, in rough and tumble fights which in many cases developed into ear chewing and eye gouging matches.

    The vitriol of female wagging tongues was neutralized by the simple and effective device agreed upon by the more rigid pillars of the settlements. When the gossips appeared in their doorways, they listened with the usual absorbing feminine inquisitiveness while the mush bubbled in the pot, but discounted every dripping word as child’s chatter. In short the gossip was granted a license to talk, and even the “news” of an impending Indian raid caused not one stitch to be dropped by the knowing housewives. The spinning wheel, hand loom, and the backs of ‘coon and deer were sources of material for dress. The hunter’s frock, a knee-length fringed coat made of home spun cloth or buck skin was universally worn by the men. This garment was fitted with a belt upon which hung the tomahawk and scalping knife. Lapping over in the front it could be used for a pouch in which to carry provisions in the form of dried venison, salt pork and bread. Coon skin caps, buck skin shirts, and leather stockings were further protection against sleet and snow.

    Moccasins served as footgear. These were made of a single piece of deer skin with a gathering seam along the top of the foot, and another from the bottom of the heel, and tied about the ankle with thongs of deer skin. In cold weather they were stuffed with deer hair or dry leaves. During rainy weather and slushy seasons this gear was looked upon as “a decent way of going barefooted.”

    Among the various religious setttlements of the county their several faiths dictated their mode of dress.

    Moving on to this day, while touching area history about 100 years later:

    Harnedsville UMC Church

    The Harnedsville Church is located in the village of Harnedsville, just south of Confluence, Pa, in Somerset County.  The mailing address is: 1643 Listonburg Rd, Confluence, Pa 15424.

    Harnedsville Evangelical Congregation started about 1870, in a log school house at Walker’s Mill.  The first preacher was Rev. George White, a circuit rider from Preston Co., WV.

    In 1910, a new church was built in the village of Harnedsville on land acquired from Thomas and Elizabeth Bird.  It was dedicated as the “Memorial United Evangelical Church”.   It is the church in which we still worship.  In 1946, the Evangelical Church merged with the Church of United Brethren in Christ to form The Evangelical United Brethren Church.  In 1968, the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church united, and became the United Methodist Church, of which we are members today.

    Sunday morning worship is 9AM, followed by Sunday
    School at 10AM.

    Directions: From Somerset, take Rt. 281 south to
    Confluence, Pa.  Turn left on Rt. 523 and drive 2 miles.
    Church is on right.

    Pennsylvania is an interesting state with even more interesting history.  Before you visit Harnedsville, consider a visit to Gettysburg or the old home of American government in Philadelphia to learn much more.

    P.S IF you were following the Revolutionary War timeline and would like just another bit of PA history, about this time of year in 1777 our new government was running for their lives.

    Things began looking grim for Philadelphia, the old capital city, in September 1777.

    British forces under General William Howe had been advancing north from the Chesapeake Bay in an effort to capture the revolutionary capital, and American forces led by George Washington had moved south of Philadelphia to intercept the invading force. On September 11, Washington’s men clashed with Howe’s troops in the Battle of Brandywine.

    The battle was a catastrophe for the Continental Army.  Howe outmaneuvered Washington, and the rebellious colonists had little choice but to retreat

    On September 26, 1777, the British waltzed unopposed into the City of Brotherly Love.

    The delegates packed up their gear and hoofed it 60 miles west of Philly to Lancaster. On September 27, 1777, just one day after the British strolled into Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met in Lancaster’s county courthouse, a building that had been constructed in the town square in 1737.

    Just like that, Lancaster became the third capital of the fledgling nation. (Baltimore had also briefly served as the capital between December 20, 1776 and February 27, 1777.) The Continental Congress got some work done that day, including electing Benjamin Franklin as commissioner to negotiate a treaty with France, but the delegates didn’t have much time to get comfortable.

    ON THE ROAD AGAIN

    Even a 60-mile buffer from the British forces in Philadelphia seemed a bit thin given the easy march the red coats had just made into the old capital, so after one day in Lancaster, the Continental Congress again packed its bags. This time the delegates headed to York, Penn., which offered another 20 miles of cushion from the British. Plus, York was nestled on the western side of the Susquehanna River, which made it easier to defend from potential British encroachment.

    The Second Continental Congress had a longer stay in York. The delegates met in York’s courthouse from September 30, 1777, all the way through June 27, 1778, at which time the congress moved back to Philadelphia.

    Lancaster wasn’t the only unexpected capital in the country’s early days—Princeton, Annapolis, and Trenton all had stints of their own under the Articles of Confederation—but its time at the top was certainly the shortest. Today we tip our caps towards Pennsylvania in honor of the 236th anniversary of Lancaster’s brief moment in the sun.  Read the full text here: 

     

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