James Guffey and Mary Findley

---

---

Husband James Guffey ^{1 2 3}

---

           Born: 1736 3
     Christened: 
           Died: 9 Mar 1806 1 2
         Buried: 

---

         Father: William Guffey (1698-1783) 1 2 4
         Mother: 

---

       Marriage: 

---

   Other Spouse: Margaret Campbell (      -1781) 1 2 3 - 1763 2

---

---

Wife Mary Findley ²

---

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

---

         Father: William Findley (      -      ) 2
         Mother: 

---

---

Children

---

1 F Sarah Guffey ²

---

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

---

2 M William Guffey ²

---

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

---

---

General Notes: Husband - James Guffey

---

In 1780 he purchased a farm of several hundred acres constituting a part of what became Sewickley township. The title deeds for this and other lands that came into the possession of the Guffeys were preserved in the family archives. On one of them is the bold autograph of Richard Penn.

About this time the first coal mines in western Pennsylvania were opened up by the Guffeys on their own land. The first coal sent down the Ohio from Pittsburgh was shipped in 1817. The Guffeys, in company with Joseph Cowan, first tried the shipment of coal to Cincinnati in a flat boat, but with meagre success, and the enterprise was abandoned. In 1826, however, they resumed the operations on what was then considered an extensive scale. The method was to mine the coal in fair weather and allow it to accumulate until winter. It was then hauled in sleds to the river bank and left there until the time of spring freshets, when it was loaded on flats with wheelbarrows and taken to Cincinnati. When the coal was disposed of the boatmen were compelled to walk the entire distance home.

He was a scholarly man, having enjoyed a liberal education in the east. To his other attainments he added the knowledge of jurisprudence, and held accordingly a commission as a magistrate under the reign of King George III, in which capacity he exercised practically all the powers of a common pleas judge. His will written by himself in 1806 was long preserved. It was a remarkable document, drawn with consummate skill and mastery of legal technicalities.

About the year 1783 he bought a large tract of land near what is now West Newton, Pennsylvania, and the larger portion of his descendants were living in Westmoreland county many years thereafter. Quite a number of the ancestors of the Guffeys and Campbells were killed or taken captive by the Indians in their incursions on the settlements. They were among the pioneers of the present great Monongahela river coal trade, the manufacture of salt and distilling.

1 George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: L. H. Everts & Co., 1882), Pg 707.

2 John W. Jordan, History of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Genealogical Memoirs, Vol. III (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), Pg 337.

3 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Genealogical and Personal History of Western Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915), Pg 993.

4 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Genealogical and Personal History of Western Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915), Pg 993, 1343.