Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
Huntingdon, who was a benefactor of the University of Pennsylvania,
had her titled name given the city. The then University Provost, Dr.
William Smith, became owner of the town site, and thus remembered her
generosity. About fifty miles southwest of Huntingdon, amid the
mountains, is Bedford, noted for its chalybeate and sulphur springs,
discovered in 1804, which have long been a favorite resort of
Pennsylvanians on account of their healing waters. The whole country
thereabout is filled with semi-bituminous coal measures, furnishing a
lucrative traffic.
Diminishing in volume, our attractive Juniata flows through a rough
country above Huntingdon, after threading the pass in the lofty
Warrior Ridge. Extending off to the southwestward is Morrison's Cove,
a rich valley under the shadow of the long mountain ridge, which was
settled in 1755 by the Dunkards. These singular people, among whose
cardinal doctrines are peace and non-resistance, were attacked by the
Indians in 1777, who entered the valley and almost exterminated the
settlement. Most of them bowed submissively to the stroke of death,
gently saying "Gottes wille sei gethan" (God's will be done). One,
however, resisted, killed two Indians and escaped; but afterwards
returning, the Dunkard Church tried him for this breach of faith, and
he was excommunicated. In this region is the Sinking Spring, a strange
water course originally appearing in a limestone cave, where it comes
out of an arched opening, with sufficient water to turn a large mill;
but it soon disappears underground, the concealed current being heard
through fissures, bubbling far below. Then it returns to the surface,
flowing some distance, enters another cave, passing under Cave
Mountain, and finally reappears and falls into the Juniata, making, in
its peculiar waywardness, as remarkable a stream as can anywhere be
found. Here our famous Juniata River, dwindled to a little creek,
comes down the mountain side, and we penetrate farther by following up
the Little Juniata. It has brought us, through the great ridges, into
the heart of the Appalachian region, to the eastern base of the main
Allegheny Mountain, on the flanks of which are its sources. It has
displayed to us a noted valley, full of the story of early Colonial
contests, massacres and perils, the scenes of the fearless missionary
labors of Brainerd the Puritan and Loskiel the Moravian. Brainerd
recognized the pagan idolatry of the Indians, and did not hesitate to
take the Bible to their solemn religious festivals and expound its
divine principles, to spoil the incantations and frustrate the charms
of their medicine men. Once a Nanticoke pontiff got into a hot
argument with Brainerd, saying God had taught him religion and he
would never turn from it; that he would not believe in the Devil; and
he added that the souls of the dead passed to the South, where the
good lived in a fair city, while the evil hovered forever in outer
darkness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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