On December 18, 1818, a select committee of five members was appointed in the Senate of the United States, to investigate the conduct of General Andrew Jackson in connection with the Seminole War. Of this committee Senator Lacock was chairman, and author of the report made February 24, 1819, which severely arraigned Jackson with the violation of the Constitution and International Laws. This action of the committee made Jackson and his friends furious, he threatening members of the committee with personal violence. Lacock was unafraid and wrote frequently about Jackson’s boasting only in public, and that he should never avoid him a single inch. The clash never came, and they left the capital on the same day, and in the same public conveyance. General Lacock was one of the most active promoters of internal improvements in the State of Pennsylvania. Soon after his term in the United States Senate had ceased, he entered heartily into the scheme for uniting the waters of the Delaware and the Ohio by a State line of Canals and railroads. On April 11, 1825, he was appointed one of five commissioners to make a complete survey of the route for the contemplated improvements. On February 25, 1826, the Legislature authorized the commencement of the work on the canal. General Lacock was chosen to supervise the construction of the Western division of the canal from Pittsburgh to Johnstown. The first canal boat built or run west of the Allegheny Mountains was named the “General Abner Lacock.” It was built at Apollo by Philip Dally. Later General Lacock repeatedly served Beaver County in the State Legislature, and in 1836 was appointed to survey and construct the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, known as the “cross-cut canal,” connecting the Erie division of the Pennsylvania Canal with the Portsmouth and Ohio Canal, contracting in its service in that year his last illness. Besides those named, General Lacock held, or was offered many other positions of high public trust, both in this and other states. Abner Lacock obtained the title of General in the early part of his public career while serving as an officer of the Pennsylvania militia. As early as 1807 he was a brigadier general, commanding a brigade in the counties of Beaver and Butler. General Lacock was the friend and earnest champion of the common school system, which when first proposed was very unpopular in Pennsylvania. His library was one of the largest in Western Pennsylvania, and was partially destroyed by a flood in the Ohio River in 1832. General Lacock was of medium height and well proportioned. He was strong and athletic. He was the father of a large family, but there are no living male descendants of this distinguished citizen. He died at his residence, near Freedom, on Wednesday morning, April 12, 1837, after a long and painful illness. ---------- Family of Richard Bard Captured by Indians April 13, 1758