Survey
to
Frederick Swagerty,
 Dec. 13, 1769 from a warrant issued to John Gallaher on September 8,1755 Cumberland Pennsylvania, Fermanagh Twp.
This rendering is a 1904 true copy of an original survey on file in the Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs, Harrisburg. 
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website   
 Copied Survey  Books
  C- 63  p177

Map of Perry County   The modern map (below) shows the peninsula of land as in above survey, as Cocalamus Creek flows around the peninsula and then turns south to flow southwesterly and into the Juniata River just below Millerstown.   U.S. Route 17 follows the Sunbury Path.   The old road connected 18th century settlers in south Fermanagh and Greenwood Townships  with  the Susquehanna River to the east about ten miles away.

 Frederick Swagerty
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania 

Land Research and Narrative by Iris Teta Eubank Wagner.

Rapho Township Map #40 Frederick Swygart

Evidence from the land records of Lancaster County and the 1763 tax record of Fermanagh, show that Frederick probably moved from Rapho Township in Lancaster County in early 1762 or 1763 to settle on unwarranted land in Fermanagh Township in Cumberland County.

Evidently, in 1763  there was still a threat of Indian attack west of the Susquehanna, and settlers in numbers fled to safe territory east of the Susquehanna.  As an example, Joseph Greenwood, who lived in Pfoutz Valley and for whom Greenwood Township is named, is on the list of Fermanagh taxables in1763 for 500 warranted acres.   In 1764 he removed temporarily to Paxton Township, on the east side of the Susquehanna River, away from the Indian threat.  In 1767 he returned to his 500 acres, which were now in Greenwood Township. Other settlers who had fled in 1764 also returned to their land.  Joseph Greenwood  is on the 1768 Tax List for Greenwood Township.

1763 Tax List of Fermanagh Township, Cumberland County
There are fifty-one entries on this first tax list of Fermanagh Township in 1763.  Nineteen entries are settlers on unwarranted land, as was Frederick.

Frederick, too, may have had to leave the area in 1764 because of the Indian threat.  His earliest land record in Cumberland County is West Side Application # 3414, Tract # 60, surveyed May 10, 1768, shown below on the Greenwood Township Warrantee Map.

e Shown below by Tract #   are descriptions of Frederick's four land tracts - those that are known at this time.  Further study of deed records is ongoing.

 e First Survey, Tract # 60 -  On April 11, 1767 Frederick made application to have 200 acres surveyed on the east side of Cocolamus Creek.  One-hundred and seventy-three acres were surveyed on May 10, 1768, for Frederick Sweikert, Appl. # 3414.  John Ross' # 3413 application is listed just above Frederick's.  Below, the West Side Application record.  (Note:  It was Pennsylvania land law of the time that the applicant applying for unwarranted land had to accept the number of acres surveyed.)

 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website, Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.

Greenwood Township was formed in 1767, therefore Frederick's Tract # 60, surveyed on May 10, 1768 was located in the newly formed township.  The first paragraph in the chapter on Greenwood Township, written by A. L. Guss, from Ellis & Hungerford describes the boundaries of  Fermanagh at the time Greenwood was erected, and this boundary remained until 1789, when Mifflin County was created.  Notice, particularly the phrase, ". . . except that portion of the present Greenwood Township lying north of the mouth of Cocolamus Creek, which then belonged to Fermanagh Township . . ."

Where Frederick lived    All of Frederick's records in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, from 1770 through 1782 are in Fermanagh Township.  Evidence of the records so far leads to the conclusion that Frederick lived on the land he surveyed in the right of John Gallaher in 1769, Tract # 77 a & b.  1782 is the last list of taxables on which he is included in Fermanagh Township.  In 1783 he is included on the first List of Taxables in Greene County, North Carolina.

Greenwood Township Warrantee Map "A" -   pdf file
area west and north of Cocolamus Creek was Fermanagh Twp. until 1789
Greenwood Township Warrantee Map "B" - Warrantees' names and Tract #'s - pdf
Greenwood Twp, Cumberland County, became Greenwood Twp, Perry County in 1820.

Frederick's Tracts # 60  -  # 76 abc  -  # 77 ab
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website, Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.
(Frederick's tracts and adjacent land holders in bold line and numbers,)

e Second Survey, Tract # 77 a & b - On December 13, 1769, Frederick surveyed in the right of John Gallaher's warrant dated September 8, 1755.  After this 1769 survey, Tract # 77a, 48 acres and Tract # 77b, 105 acres, were not resurveyed until 1820 for Henry Gable (# 77a, 48 acres), and in 1822 for the heirs of George Neigley (#77b,105 acres). 

Tract # 71  David Miller's improved Tract in 1780, the year he bought James Gallagher's 222 acres.

Tract # 78  was James Gallagher's 222 warranted acres, which reached to the Juniata river. James
Gallagher was Commissioner of Ferries in early Fermanagh. From Tracts 71 and 78 David Miller developed Millerstown.  Harrison Hain's  History  of  Perry County is in digital  format on Google Books.

eThird Survey, along Little Mahantango Creek
is located about five miles northeast of the other tracts.
On September 7, 1770, 159 acres in Greenwood Township on Little Mahantango Creek were surveyed to Frederick Swagarty on his West Side Application # 5413, dated March 31, 1769, a  tract in the southwest corner of present Susquehanna Twp,Juniata 
County, near the Perry Co.line.
        True copy from 1904 of an original survey on file in the Pennsylvania                   
        Department of Internal Affairs, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.                                                                                                           
                           .
 From John Woolf Jordan's history of the Juniata Valley :
      "The first settlement back from the river [Susquehanna] was commenced in August, 1766, when
       James Gallagher warranted a tract of 211 acres near the southwest corner of the township
       [Susquehanna Township] ".  Gallagher later sold the property to Samuel Osborne, another early
       settler.

From Ellis and Hungerford's history :
      "Samuel Osborne, one of the commissioners to run the line [of Greenwood Township], lived in the limits of
       the present township [1886] of  Susquehanna, and owned, at the time, the tract in the southwest
       corner  of  the township, now owned in part by Levi Light.  Samuel Curran, the other commissioner,
       resided near Cedar Spring Church, now in Walker Township."

  James Gallagher's Survey
  on Little Mahantango
  At left is James Gallagher's tract of
   211 acres on Little Mahantango Creek
    in Greenwood Township, surveyed on
    March 31, 1770, by order to survey
    # 929 on August 22, 1766. This tract
    is adjacent to Frederick's Mahantango
    tract, shown above.  This Gallagher
    tract was sold to Samuel Osborne,
    and by  the early 1880's it was owned
    partly by Levi Light.

     True copy from 1904 of an original survey on file in the Pennsylvania
     Department of Internal Affairs, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

                                                                               _____________
 

e Fourth Tract # 76 abc - deeded to Frederick from William Patterson on November 7, 1781.
Excerpt from the deed :

 " . . . I, William Patterson of Cumberland County have sold to Frederick Swagert one-hundred and ten acres of land situate in a long square piece and Beginning at David Miller's [Tract # 71] Northeast Corner a Dead Oak & extending along Thomas Bull's [Tract # 79] line to said Frederick's line to Cocalamus Creek in Fermanagh Township, Cumberland County, in consideration of fifty pounds specie, being part of a Tract of Land granted by the Proprietaries to Samuel Harris of New Jersey . . ."

Tract # 79 was Thomas Bull's survey in the right of John Gronow's warrant of April 7, 1774.  John
Gronow was Thomas Bull's father-in-law.  Thomas Bull married Sarah Gronow.   John Gronow warranted and patented Gawen Erwin's early tract which is located along Cocalamus Creek between James Gallagher's 222 acres and John Gallaher's 159 acres, in whose right Frederick surveyed in 1769.

Tract # 76 was Samuel Harris' "Master Tract"  - 308 acres - from which William Patterson must have bought from Samuel Harris and had surveyed the Tracts #76 abc. 
                                                                 ______________

St. Michael's Churchyard  A satellite view of the old churchyard where numerous gravestones can be seen.  The location is about four miles northeast along Sunbury Path from where Frederick lived on Tract 77 a&b, and just a short distance south on Millrace Road where it turns southwesterly.
 (see map below)

 St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church|

Two of the three oldest gravestones still standing in St. Michael's Churchyard mark the grave sites of Frederick's son and daughter Frederick and Elizabeth.
          Frederick Swigorty :  September 1, 1761 - March 4, 1777
          Elizabeth Swigorty :   1756 - February 2, 1777

The baptismal record of St. Michael's began in October, 1774, by the minister of the congregation, Rev. Michael Enderlin.  Elizabeth Schwigerty, age nineteen,  and her younger sister Maria Schwigerty, age sixteen, were baptized and confirmed on October 30, 1774. Elizabeth may well have been a twin sister to her brother Abraham Swagerty, by proof of document to have been born in 1755.

 mypennsylvaniagenealogy.com 

(more to come of Frederick's records in Fermanagh Township, Cumberland County
 - Revolutionary War service, Tax Records, etc.)

Original Narrative Copyright © Iris Teta Eubank Wagner 2009

_____________

Sources :

 Pennsylvania Department of Internal Affairs, Harrisburg, original surveys.   The Pennsylvania  Archives, Harrisburg. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website. Digital Documents,

 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Pennsylvania State Archives, Digital Documents,
 including Land Records (East Side Applications, Westside Applications, Warrant Register,
 Patentee Register)

 My Pennsylvania Genealogy website.  Embedded maps in PDF format of each county in
 Pennsylvania.

 F. Ellis and A. N. Hungerford, editors,  History of that Part if the Susquehanna and Juniata  Valleys, embraced in the Counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Everts, Peck, & Richards, 1886.

 John Woolf Jordan, Librarian, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, A History of Juniata Valley and
 its people, Vol.I, illustrated, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, New York

Harrison Hain, History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, Including Descriptions of Indian and Pioneer Life from the Time of Earliest Settlement, Hain-Moore Company, Publishers, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Rev. David H. Focht, A.M., Churches Between the Mountains : A History of the Lutheran Congregations in Perry County, Pennsylvania, Chapter V, Section III, St. Michael's Church in Pfoutz's Valley, Greenwood Township.

Silas Wright, History of Perry County, in Pennsylvania, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Millerstown, 1872, Wylie & Griest, Printers, Bookbinders and Stereotypers, 1873.

Ralph Beaver Strassburger and William John Hinke, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 ( the signature edition, p466) of the Ships' Lists, Pennsylvania German Society, 1934.

Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, Third Edition, Ancestry Publishing, 2006.

Irene M.Griffey, Earliest Tennessee Land Records & Earliest Tennessee Land History, Clearfield Company, Inc., reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc, Baltimore, Maryland, 2003, pp384,385.

Thomas Perkins Abernethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee : A Study in Frontier Democracy, Chapter: Jackson, Blount, and Sevier, Southern Historical Publications No.12, University of Alabama Press, 1967, p173.