Photo from Warren Centennial An image of the first block house built in Warren, constructed in 1795. According to the April 18, 1895 Warren Evening News, Daniel McQuay “who was in the employ of the Holland Company, put a floor in this building and occupied it as a dwelling, thus earning the distinction of being the first inhabitant of the town.”

Daniel McQuay.

He was Irish but it’s not clear when he came to the United States.

It’s not clear where he went after here.

It’s not clear where he’s buried.

But some sources give him a notable distinction – the first European inhabitant of Warren County.

Here’s what I’ve learned about McQuay (and, obviously, photos are going to be tough with this one).

Schenck’s History of Warren County includes McQuay on a list of “206 of the earliest residents of Warren County….”

The 1808 tax rolls in Brokenstraw Township (the whole western half of the county at that point) record McQuay as owning 400 acres and two oxen.

Those residents came here between 1797 and 1802. But it’s possible that McQuay was here earlier.

According to a page on the Warren County Historical Society’s website, McQuay “came to Warren around 1798 to work for the Holland Land Company in Warren.”

But an article on county place names note that the Holland Land Company – which bought up swaths of western Pennsylvania – had a warehouse in Warren as early as 1795 (the year Warren was surveyed) or 1796.

Egle’s history of Pennsylvania details some of those early “adventurous pioneers.

“John Gilson, James Morrison, and Martin Reese were the first to occupy the river flats in and adjoining the town of Warren; Joseph Marsh and Robert Russell, in the beech-woods, now Farmington township; the Morrison, English, and Marsh families on the Kinzua flats, twelve miles above Warren; Robert Miles, John Barr, John Dickenson, the Hood and Stewart families, the hardwood uplands of Sugar Grove; and Daniel Horn and Abram Davis, on the upper waters of the Brokenstraw, where the borough of Columbus stands.”

There are some familiar last names there. McQuay comes in next.

“Lower down on that stream, James White, Andrew Evers, Robert Andrews, Joseph and Darius Mead, and Daniel McQuay cleared land for farming in connection with their lumbering operations, and still below them, as the valley widened near its mouth, farms were opened by Matthew Young, who gave to Youngsville its patronymic, John McKinney, Hugh Wilson, and Joseph Grey.”

Eagle notes that McQuay was also involved in early timber operations that saw lumber floated from here to New Orleans.

“Of the pilots and hands employed, Daniel Horn and some others would return by sail vessels to Baltimore, and from thence travel home on foot. Dan. McQuay and some others made some return trips on foot all the way from New Orleans.”

Where McQuay came from or where went isn’t quite clear. There’s a Matilda McQuay (1792-1868) that’s buried at the Old Presbyterian Cemetery in Pittsfield. Her stone says she was the “wife of Daniel McQuay.”

If that’s this McQuay’s wife, there’s an age gap but that’s not entirely unreasonable.

It’s not surprising that there are legends and possible myths that have grown up around many of these settlers, McQuay included.

From the Library’s book on the Warren Centennial: “The first wheat raised in this county was in Pittsfield by McQuay. He winnowed the chaff from two bushels, put it in a bag, put the bag over his shoulder and carried it through the forest to Meadville, where it was made into flour and he brought the flower back. Do you comprehend the strength and endurance required to perform this act? Two bushels of wheat weigh 130 pounds – a good list for most persons; and when carried a mile will certainly weigh twice as much. The distance to Meadville is 60 miles. How much did the bagweight before it took it from his shoulder in the mill at Meadville? Let the young men of this city figure it out. How many at this day have the strength and fortitude for such an accomplishment? And yet we talk about hardships!”

Arch Bristow in Old Time Tales of Warren County – filled with its own share of likely legends – wrote that McQuay “was known to every Warren County settler from Tidioute to Sugar Grove, was keeper of the Holland Land Company’s store house at Warren.

“McQuay was a real Irish wit, a bit of the ‘ould sod’ if ever there was one. He smoked a blackened clay pipe and would have carried a blackthorn shillalah if such a thing could have been cut in the neighboring thickets.

“Dan McQuay was fond of fun, fight and whiskey and bits of his rollicking Irish wit still linger among the Warren County hills.”

Bristow wrote that McQuay “made at least two rafting trips from the Brokenstraw Valley to New Orleans and made the journey back afoot. His first trip was in 18O6, when Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville were small river towns and all else between a wilderness, with trails traveled only by Indians and wild animals. When one considers for a moment the terrific hardships of such a trip, one realizes that Dan McQuay must certainly have considered Warren County a pretty good locality.”

Evidently, McQuay “had a whole repertoire of old Irish ballads brought direct from County Kerry” and “a deep chested, powerful voice but rarely let it out. When there was whiskey available, McQuay always managed to have some and a certain amount mellowed him with thoughts of old Ireland,” Bristow wrote.

It was that mood that prompted the ballads.

“When in this mood he sang the old ballads for anyone who would listen, or sang them alone in the woods, swinging his stout axe on some hidden hillside. Some of McQuay’s songs sung on the rafts, in the early taverns, in the forests, were picked up and sung by other men at their work, or amusements. A few of these quaint old ballads brought to Warren County by Dan McQuay in the days of log cabins, tallow dips and flintlock rifles have been handed down to men and women still living. When Dan McQuay sang his old Irish songs, he closed his eyes and sang in a low voice; he was like a medium in a trance, lost to the world, carried away by the song.

“When he finished the last line he would suddenly open his eyes, straighten himself and snap out ‘That’s all’…. A good deal of McQuay’s singing was done on warm summer evenings when a group of men would be loitering on the river bank, or on a raft. It is said he had always worked up a more or less emotional state in his audience when he reached the last verse.”