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"AN ENORMOUS DROVE OF SHEEP AND MUCH CATTLE"
Mary Truby Graff records a memory passed down through the Truby Family from 1772, about the trek of Christopher
Truby and his young family across Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains in May of that year. She reports
that our ancestor--the father of Catharina Truby Rohrer Marshall--"came to Bedford, now Westmoreland
County, in 1771 and selected a spot for his future home. He may have been pleased with the country when in [military]
service at Bedford in 1760" (page 18).
Christopher
(known as Stophel) and his wife Sybilla Bauman Truby
were traveling that spring with their children Christopher (aged 11), Michael (aged 10),
Catharina (aged about 9) and Elizabeth (aged about 4). They had invested their money
in livestock, and the family long recalled bringing this asset with them across the mountains to their new home. They
would have been following the historic Forbes Road.
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"Tradition says that [Christopher]
Truby brought with him over the mountains from the East, an enormous drove of sheep and much cattle. They became
very unruly and were difficult to manage, having only two drovers. Many went astray and were lost, but great astonishment
was expressed when they reached their destination. Mrs. Caroline (Houston) Stewart loved to tell this tale
from her grandfather, Michael Truby, who was ten years old at the time."
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SOURCE
Early History of Truby-Graff and
Affiliated Families
Mary Truby Graff
Kittanning, Pennsylvania: 1941
page 20
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| Anna Mary Rumbarger Marshall, 1921 |
THOSE DARK BROWN MARSHALL EYES!
This is a photo of Anna Mary Rumbarger Marshall (1838-1924),
the wife of William K. Marshall of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania. He was a grandson of Catharina
Truby Rohrer Marshall and her husband, John Marshall (1761-1806). The 1921 picture was taken by Kelz Studios of Reynoldsville, in her backyard at Beech and East Main Street. She is
about 81 years old here. Isn't she a typical, Pennsylvania German grandmother? The occasion for the photo
seems to be the visit from Kansas of her granddaughter Evangeline Seeley, daughter of Charlotte Elizabeth
Marshall Seeley (Aunt Lib). This branch of the Marshall Family had moved to Kansas in the 1890s; unfortunately,
we're not any longer in touch with these cousins.
In the 1970s, Laura Heffner Wilson (1900-1990) told me a story related to the dark fence rails
you see in this photo. She said that her Marshall Uncles (George, John, Will, Frank, Earl, Guy) all were terrible
teasers and that as a child, they told her she had to stay away from that fence. Apparently, she
and other grandchildren had been climbing it. They told her that her dark brown eyes came
from climbing on that dark brown fence. And I guess that's where the typical dark brown eyes
of the Marshalls came from--to heck with genetics!
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AND WHO CURES THE BEST HAM,
SIM OR SAM?
A quick visit in October 2008 with our cousin Alice
Stevens Marshall in Charlottesville brought to light this marvelous memory from her mother, Sarah
Todd Fletcher Stevens. Mrs. Stevens is a great-granddaughter of Simeon Hovey Marshall (1824-1912); and he was a grandson of Catharina Truby Rohrer Marshall (1764-1806) and her
second husband, John Marshall (1761-1806) through their son Samuel Marshall (1801-1835). S. H. Marshall moved his entire Western Pennsylvania family from Venango County to the area of Charlottesville
in the 1870s. One of his sons was named Samuel after his grandfather. This son is buried with his parents in Charlottesville's Oakwood Cemetery, but we all have forgotten anything about him--except
what Alice's Mom recalls in this brief family story:
"Sim and Sam Marshall
were brothers (not really--they were father and son, but that's how the family is remembering the story) who competed
strongly with each other at the Colle Farm for who cured the best Virginia ham. The competition, apparently, was legendary in the area of Simeon, Virginia--the
small crossroads near historic Colle, not far from Monticello--and the site of the current St. Luke's Episcopal Church.
Apparently, one way the family recalled the story was the juxtaposition of the nicknames, Sim and Sam. That Simeon
H. Marshall was called Sim back in Pennsylvania is verified in accounts of the time, which recall that the Marshall
House hotel in Franklin, Pennsylvania, was kept by Sim Marshall.
What wouldn't you give,
for a taste-test dinner at Mary Jane Hoover Marshall's table at Colle in the early 1880s, as her husband
Sim and her son Sam awaited your judgment about which ham was better?
I'm guessing their art is relfected in the continuing pride Virginia farmers take in preparing their hams: check out
this URL about "Dry-Curing Virginia Style Ham."
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| Signature of Charles E. Turk |
A BABY ON THE DOORSTEP -- AND
A COW AT THE GATE
Sam Turk of Emlenton,
Pennsylvania, is a great-grandson of John Turk and Mary Ann Marshall. In the summer of 2005, he told me the story of his great-uncle Charles
E. Turk, whose on-again, off-again presence in family records is a bit mysterious.
In May 1866, the Turk family awoke one morning to see a milk
cow tied to their fence. On their doorstep was an infant--the child who would
be reared by them as Charles E. Turk. The Turk family believed
that he was the unwanted child of a prominent local family’s unmarried daughter, and that family believed the Turks
would give the baby a good home. This, in spite of the fact that John and Mary Turk had three sons already [Elisha,
aged 10, Henry, aged 8 and Samuel, aged 3]; and that Mary would give birth to a fourth child [John] that December. The
cow, apparently, was a gift to help them out!
The 1870 Census
record for the Turk Family shows this boy as "Leewalt Charles Turk" -- a four year-old
child in the household. The census taker lists the Turk children in descending order according to age, with Anna (aged 1)
listed last. A line ( --- ) functions as ditto marks, indicating that each child's surname is Turk. This
line appears also for Charles, whose name is listed after Anna's name, and followed by the words Leewalt
Charles.
But could this boy's name be Charles Leewalt, since he is not listed chronologically with the other
children? An internet search for the surname Leewalt draws a blank, although there are phonetically
similar variations. But a lucky overview of the Robinson Archives in the Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, shows a Christopher Leewalt who has an account
with the Robinson store in 1865 and 1866. On 14 February 1866--three months before the child's birth--he pays off his
account ($70.80), and there's no further record of him in the store ledgers. He's the boy's father, isn't
he?
Sam recalls that Charles Turk never married and
led a somewhat destitute life in Parker and Edenburg (Knox)--this, in stark contrast to the success of his "brothers" Henry
Marshall Turk and Samuel Marshall Turk. Charles is listed as a brother
of Elisha Turk, in Turk’s 1887 obituary. Marge
Zollinger gave me a little book which had belonged to him, entitled Conklin’s
Handy Manual of Useful Information and World’s Atlas (Chicago, 1891), and I've passed it along to Sam. The signature, above, is from the front endpage of this booklet.
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| Sam Turk, restoring Turk Graves in the Marshall-Turk Plot of the Parker Presbyterian Cemetery |
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