The design, object, and aim of the following pages can be summed up without any circumlocution. Some ten or twelve years ago, a large volume of "Historical Collections of Pennsylvania" was published by Sherman Day, which gave a brief history, among others, of the counties composing the Valley of the Juniata. This work was followed by a compilation, by I. D. Rupp, Esq., entitled "A History of Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Centre, Union, Clinton, Juniata, and Columbia counties." The last, as far as our valley was concerned, was almost a reprint of the first, with some few additions gleaned from the Colonial Records and the Archives of the State. Both these works were most liberally subscribed for; in fact, the compilation of the counties had upwards of a _thousand_ subscribers in Huntingdon county (Blair not then formed) alone! The inducements held out, in order to gain such an extensive list, were, that the works would be graphic histories of the _early_ settlement of this country. In this they signally failed. True, here and there they gave an account of some early occurrence; but they were exceedingly brief, lacked detail, and in many instances were found grossly inaccurate. Of course, they gave universal dissatisfaction, because the subscribers looked for a faithful record of the stirring events which occurred when this portion of the land of Penn was "the dark and bloody ground." The descendants of many who figured in the trials incident to the settlement of the valley are still living. The fireside recitals of these events made them "as familiar as household words" among those who are now fast passing away; but they search _all_ histories in vain to find a faithful account of more than a moiety of the struggles, trials, and personal adventures of the pioneers, as well as the many cold-blooded Indian massacres and depredations which spread desolation through the land, and laid waste the homes and firesides of so many who located in what was then a wilderness. Let me not be understood as attempting to deny the merits of the works of which I have spoken. As _modern_ histories, giving accounts, or rather descriptions, of the country as it was at the time they were issued, they were faithful records. Indeed, I will do Mr. Rupp the justice to say that I consider his compilation all it professes to be, according to his preface, in which he says: "A full and minute history of these counties can only be expected after a greater accumulation of historical facts is extant for that purpose." The facts necessary to give a minute history of the early settlement of the Juniata have been accessible, although it must be admitted that those who could give them from reliable personal recollections have nearly all passed into "the valley and the shadow of death."