The 150th Pennsylvania

The colors of the 150th, on display at the state capitol

The year is 1862. The War of the Southern Rebellion has flooded field after field with blood and the dead. Though volunteers had already been sent from western Pennsylvania, being largely absorbed into the Erie Regiment, they were not the last. President Lincoln had, in May of the previous year, called for additional volunteers to be mustered and organized by their various state governments. One such regiment was the 150th Pennsylvania. The regiment itself was made up of men from across Pennsylvania, but companies C, H, I, and K all hailed from Crawford County. Their commanding officer, Henry S. Huidekoper was also from Crawford County. Though new, this regiment would serve with distinction in some of the most difficult battles of the last years of the war.

The Magnificent McHenry House Part 2 - Departures and Demises

A & GW Depot with McHenry House to the left in 1869

As with most establishments in the hospitality industry, success could not have been attained without competent management. The same holds true for the McHenry House, which appears to owe much of its heralded reputation to Superintendent, R. M. N. Taylor. (Mentioned in Part 1 of this series) Taylor had previously managed the Angier House in Cleveland, Ohio before being recruited away to Meadville. Given the accolades he would earn during his tenure at the McHenry, it proved to be a fortuitous move for all parties.

Famous Allegheny - Big Names from a Small School

Bentley Hall, Allegheny College

Nestled away at the top of the hill overlooking Meadville, Pennsylvania is Allegheny College which holds the title of 32nd oldest in the United States, having just celebrated it’s 200th birthday in 2015. The college came into being when Timothy Alden, a Harvard graduate, traveled to Meadville with hopes of founding an institution of higher education. He, along with other gentlemen of the town, took on the momentous effort of securing the school’s first trustees and petitioning the state for a charter for their institution. Alden would become the first president, as well as professor of Oriental Languages and Ecclesiastical History. The first freshman class was admitted on July 4, 1816, although at this point the college only really existed in name, as there was no set building for another four years.  Bentley Hall, the school’s oldest and most iconic building, was not built until 1820. By this time, a number of major contributions had been made to the school allowing the project to be possible, including a generous land grant by Samuel Lord Esq. (part of the original estate connected to the Baldwin-Reynolds House Museum). From these humble beginnings came a school that soon flourished and served to educate a number famous faces from the last two centuries.

Old Grey: The Tale of the Reisinger Rifle

Roe Reisinger in 1920

Editor’s Notes:

James Monroe ("Roe") Reisinger’s family came to the French Creek area from Lancaster via Beaver County. Descended from Hessian immigrants who arrived about 1750, the family settled in the 1840s along French and Sandy Creeks. Peter, Roe’s grandfather, was both a blacksmith and a whitesmith. The boys were encouraged to pursue advanced education and Peter’s son Charles moved to Meadville so that his children could attend the Academy. Three of the boys attended Allegheny College. 

At the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, James Monroe "Roe" enlisted in the 150th Regiment, Company H, and at Gettysburg was severely wounded while serving under color-Sergeant Samuel Peiffer. Following his nearly year-long hospital stay (until a bullet could be extracted from his knee), he was assigned to Company B of the 14th Reserve Corps and later served as an officer of the 114th US Colored Troops in Texas until 1867. Resigner was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by special act of Congress for his action at the McPherson barn at Gettysburg.

The Underground Railroad's Secret Operations in Crawford County

As we reflect on this country's African American heritage, it’s worth noting Crawford County’s role as a branch of the Underground Railroad. In the years leading up to the Civil War, area residents, like much of the state, predominantly held to anti-slavery views, even though the Census of 1810 shows that 32 slaves were registered by owners in the northwestern counties including Crawford. Pennsylvania, however, was among the first states that attempted to legislate the abolition of slavery beginning with the 1780 Act which prohibited residents from importing new slaves into the Commonwealth. This was further reinforced in 1788 by an amendment closing loopholes in the original Act that slave owners had been using to their advantage. 

While Pennsylvania may have chartered an anti-slavery course, at the Federal level the stance was much different. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 which, in effect, gave teeth to the Constitution’s provision under Article 4, Section 2, protecting the rights of slave owners to recover their property in the form of escaped slaves. When Pennsylvania attempted to extend freedoms to these escaped slaves in 1826, it sparked a legal debate concerning state versus federal authority on the matter.  With Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the issue reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court deemed the escaped slave law unconstitutional as well the previous Acts of 1780 and 1788. The harsher penalties imposed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 only aggravated Northern states which by then, were already teaming with slave owners, agents, and spies relentlessly hunting down escaped slaves without recourse.