Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton One of the county's earliest English settlers, Daniel Jackson (think Jackson Run), is buried somewhere here at the Wetmore Cemetery.

I’ve got a folder where I throw potential story ideas for this space.

Sometimes they sit there for months. They all need more information but sometimes that information just isn’t available.

So here’s a few where I’m sharing what I’ve got: One of the county’s first settlers, a Civil War letter and a card from a “burial association.”

Very Early Settler

I run the bike-hike trail often and noticed that there’s a map of graves at the Wetmore Cemetery.

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton This card for the Office Union Burial Association was sent to an East Branch woman in 1914.

That includes the grave for one of the first European settlers in what is now Warren County.

“Daniel Jackson … was a native of Connecticut, but came here from the vicinity of Ithaca, N. Y., in the spring of 1797, and settled upon a tract of land (since known as the Wetmore farm) bordering the run which still bears his name, and distant about one mile north of the town of Warren,” per Schenck’s History of Warren County.

He came to the county via Buffalo to Erie to Waterford and then with canoes down French Creen and up the Allegheny and then the Conewango.

Jackson first shows up in county tax records in 1806, according to Schenck’s History of Warren County. He owned 130 acres, two cows, one horse, two oxen, two inlets in Warren and a sawmill.

The mill he built on Jackson Run was believed to have been the first built in the county in about 1800.

That led to the first lumber raft to originate in the county.

He also built the first frame house in Warren in 1805 and was cleared the next year by the county to host one of its first taverns.

Jackson met a unique demise in 1830.

Schenck tells that story: “He was commissioned a justice of the peace under the administration of Governor Snyder, and continued to discharge the duties of the station. It was in the honorable discharge of his official duty as a magistrate that he was assailed by Nehemiah Waters and inhumanly bitten in the thumb of his right hand. So envenomed was the wound that his strength of body and constitution (although superior to that of most men of his age) could not resist its influence, and its baneful effects soon set at naught the sedulous attention and skill of his medical assistance and took entire possession of his system.

To the last he retained the entire possession of his faculties, and bore the most agonizing pain with a patience and resignation becoming the dignity of christianized old age.”

In short, he died by being bit in the hand.

George B. Quigley

It should surprise no readers of this space that one of these stories includes a letter home from a Union soldier during the Civil War.

A 1970 article in the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine

George B. Quigley enlisted in the Bucktails very early in the Civil War – Aug. 1.

“Quigley, 19, was a clerk for A.E. Hall, Warren merchant,” that article explains.

He was discharged on a surgeon’s certificate and that appears to extend from a rather unlikely incident. He sustained a “rupture of the right side caused by a fall.

“This happened while Quigley was carrying a comrade’s gun in addition to his own in June 1861, while on skirmish duty,” the article states. “The gun belonged to McMurray who was answering a call of nature. As a result Quigley afterwards wore a truss.” That most likely references a brace.

He wrote home after days of fighting as part of the Seven Days Battles which saw in excess of 34,000 casualties. The letter was published in a July edition of the Warren Mail.

“Dear Mother: – I am yet in the land of the living. I have been two days’ fighting and come out unhurt. It seems that God has spared my life to fit for the old flag once more.”

Amering Williams was hit with a shell the first day. It did not hurt him much. He is fit for duty now. The Raftsmen’s Guards now number 30 men. All of the Warren boys are taken or killed but three – James Walker, Pete Rose and myself. Mother, I have done my duty. It would be a great sight to you to see our regiment in battle.

The Bucktail Regiment now numbers 120 men, wounded and all, that we can account for. Pat and Roscie Hall and the Trask boys are missing. The others you would not know. Abisha Baker was in the first. I don’t know whether he is dead or not.

We are a little “band of brothers” now ready to meet the foe. You will hear all about the battle before this reaches you. Don’t worry about me. Good bye! From your Son, Geo. G. Quigley

According to the 1970 article, Quigley lived in Elk Township for a time before moving to McKean County and then Bowling Green, Ohio.

He died at the San Diego Naval Hospital in April 1927.

Burial Associations?

I was given this card and was rather surprised that I couldn’t find anything about this organization.

It seems the idea is that people would pay into a pool intended to provide coverage for burial. It seems fair to consider it a kind of insurance.

The card was sent to Etta Eastman, who appears to have lived in the East Branch area.

But based on the other names on the card, this appears to have been a county-wide entity.

The secretary of the association also appears to have been an undertaker, H.H. Hull, who is buried at Oakland Cemetery so he was presumably from the Warren area.

Other members could be found in Pittsfield (Mrs. D.R. Brooks), Grand Valley (Frank Crippen), East Branch (L.F. Armitage), Garland (H.L. Quick), Chandlers Valley (F.J. Sands), Tidioute (Mrs. Eva Preston) and Endeavor (C.H. Sortorti).