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Reprinted from The Mountaineer-Herald newspaper—October 16, 2002. Written by June Fether.

  Spirit Night Enchants Nearly 700 Phasmophiles

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  Bicentennial News. . .

  On October 31st, the Cambria County Commissioners will announce the establishment of the county’s Bicentennial Committee who will organize the 2004 celebration. Several members of the Society’s board have been attending preliminary meetings along with Committee Chairman Dave Knepper of Cambria County’s Office of Community and Economic Development. There will be much more to come from this group of public spirited people concerning our county’s 200th Anniversary Celebration.   

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  Out of YESTERYEAR

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Their gray hair said it all: They were too old for Uncle Sam to call them to military duty. But the “old men of Cambria County” didn’t let that stop them from serving their country through the winter of 1861-62.

A writer from the Philadelphia Press, assigned to cover the Civil War from a military camp near Harrisburg, wrote of his surprise at seeing a new company marching through Camp Curtin, sporting gray hair and beards. After all, 45 was the cut-off age for being called to serve; these men were clearly 60.

“On inquiry, I found they hailed from Cambria County,” the writer reported.

“I had seen … many things that would lead one to ponder upon the justice of the cause in which we have unsheathed the sword,” he wrote. “Yet never, until I stood in the presence of those old men, did the grandeur, the righteousness and glory appear to me.

“Here were fifty-odd men, whose prime of life had passed and whose lives had been spent in the enjoyment of the benign institutions bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, offering their lives as a testimony of their devotion to those institutions,” the Civil War correspondent wrote. The article, reprinted in the Dec. 12, 1861 edition of “The Alleghenian,” Cambria County’s weekly newspaper, appears among accounts of the “Silver Grays” that have been researched and compiled by Helen Paige and Linda Braund.

By January of 1862, the Silver Grays had settled in the camp’s frame barracks among a couple thousand regular troops awaiting deployment to various battlefields. A correspondent, writing under the pen name, “High Private,” sent weekly accounts of the hometown boys—and old men--to the editor of “The Alleghenian.”

“I write amid the noise and bustle incident to a general boarding tent in which can be distinguished the Irish brogue, the sweet German accent and the crackling Welsh, beautifully interspersed with the euphonious English,” High Private recounted.

The young recruits, he said, were enjoying their halcyon days, but also possessed courage, patriotism and all the attributes they would need to “sober down in the face of the enemy.”

The Silver Grays, he said, were treated with respect and viewed as providing a good example for the younger men. “There is a deeply rooted sentiment of respect to age which imbues the human heart,” High Private wrote.

“Officers and privates pay all deference to the whitened locks of many of the members of our company,” High Private told his Cambria County readers.

Dropping a familiar Cambria County name, he wrote, “Were old John Burgoon to perambulate the camp grounds, he would receive more sincere and heartfelt salutations than would be awarded to the chief officer in command.”

Beyond moral support for younger soldiers, the Silver Grays were charged with taking care of the arsenal and warehouse containing the public stores in Harrisburg.

They claimed “Excelsior!” as their motto and “onward and upward” as their destination. Their numbers, 90 percent of whom were from Cambria County’s northern reaches, had reached 73 “good men and true.” Four of them were assigned to “recruiting” in the hope of keeping their ranks at minimum.

High Private’s letters conveyed an awesome sense of patriotism, pointing out how much the men appreciated the food they were served (“We have an abundance and of the very best quality”) and  the clothing they were issued (“It is of good quality and well made”).

In one dispatch to the home front, High Private conveyed the gratitude of the troops to the newspaper’s editor for his gift of a keg of tobacco, referring to its “assuaging properties.”

In another humorous but brief item, “The Alleghenian” printed a correction of sorts. Another newspaper had reported that a Silver Gray named Robert McCracken had wandered away from camp and was found “decidedly drunk for an old man but pleading hard and promising to stop these youthful indiscretions.” The inaccuracy was based on the fact that no such person existed, Thomas A. Maguire wrote to the newspaper. “The reputation of the Silver Grays is of too much value to ourselves and our friends to allow such a story to stand,” he said.

In January, High Private reported that the weather had spanned the gamut from Indian summer to cold and blustery. “At this moment, the campgrounds present one entire mudpuddle,” he wrote. “All hands are praying fervently for a freeze that their pedal extremities may once more rest upon the top of Mother Earth and not be brought into quite so close proximity with those of the antipodes.”

By early March, notice was given that Camp Curtin was being cleared out. Troops would march into battle with the Grand Army of the Potomac.  And, after securing the camp for a while, the “Old men of the Mountain” would go home.

Muster Roll: Silver Grays

As reported by “High Private” for the Alleghanian on February 20, 1862. 

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Medical Society Notes Anniversary

The Cambria County Medical Society is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.  The earliest records attainable reveal that the society came into existence in 1852, with Drs. Michael Hay, William Vickroy, John Lowman, Campbell Sheridan and Levinus Marbourg, all of Johnstown,  listed among the first members.  Meetings, primarily held  to exchange  professional information, were scheduled alternately between Ebensburg and Johnstown, but interest at that time lagged, mainly due to difficult travel conditions on horseback or by buggy.

In succeeding years, especially following the Civil War, membership interest grew, and by 1882  the society was flourishing,  just to be followed in a few years by a tragic event: Johnstown's devastating 1889 Flood.  The city was in shambles, and with it, the society's home and all records were swept away.   Faced with an even greater loss,  the physicians homes, offices, equipment and medicines  were destroyed.   And, adding to the  tragedy that day - six Johnstown  doctors  perished in the flood.  The loss was enormous, but with the eventual recovery of the city, Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital was founded to memorialize the assistance given by the Red Cross following the flood.   Lee Hospital  was founded in memory of  Dr. John K. Lee,   who had  perished in the flood waters.

Fighting illness in this mountain county was always a challenge and pages from the Society’s recorded history over the past hundred years are filled with heroic efforts to provide and improve health care. The society’s files include our county physicians’ management of epidemics and early industrial accidents, and the pioneering, improving and adapting of their medical and surgical techniques to the immediate need Nationwide. Cambria Iron Company in Johnstown was recognized as first in the nation to establish its own industrial hospital to care for employees injured on the job.

There are  many other accomplishments but space permits just a few more notes of general historical interest.  The first physician in Cambria County is believed to be a Dr. Francis, who came to Ebensburg in 1796, after he and his wife walked from Philadelphia, a journey that required two months. They remained there until about 1820.

Ebensburg's most colorful physician was noted to be Dr. Armand Aristre Rodriques who located there in 1839, and is reported to be the attending physician at the death of  Father Demetrius Gallitzin.  Among the unusual treatments recorded was the use of clover as a blood purifier.

From the years of care by our earliest county doctors to today's specialized physicians, theirs is certainly a proud history! It is a history  of  long hours of dedicated,  professional and humanitarian service  - always  for  improvement of the public health.  The by-laws in part read..."to make the medical profession more useful to the public in the prevention  and management of disease... in prolonging  and adding to the comfort of life...to uphold the ethics and dignity of the medical profession ... enlighten the public on matters of  public health and hygiene...."  

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U.S. 1880 Census Online

  USA Today reports that the 50 million entries of the U.S. 1880 census is now searchable online thanks to thousands of volunteers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  The result of the 17 year project is found at www.familysearch.org.

  The 1880 census is significant to Afro-American history in two ways. It is the first census to list former slaves and the second census to list blacks as people and not pieces of property.

  For genealogists, this is the first census to list the names and birthplaces of parents, giving researchers much more of a lead in tracing their roots.

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