Western Pennsylvania Genealogy
Compiled by Douglas H. Lusher


Family Group Record



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[Father] Aggas and Unknown




Husband [Father] Aggas 1 2

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 1796 - Westmoreland Co, PA 2
         Buried: 
       Marriage: 



Wife Unknown 1

           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 


Children
1 M Sylvanus Aggas 1 2

           Born: Abt 1785
     Christened: 
           Died: 1868 - ? Butler Co, PA
         Buried: 
         Spouse: [Unk] Gillespie (      -      ) 1
         Spouse: Elizabeth "Betsey" Gordon (      -Bef 1883) 3


2 M Abner Aggas 1 2

           Born: Abt 1790
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 




General Notes: Husband - [Father] Aggas


He was killed by the Indians during one of their hostile forays through Westmoreland.


General Notes: Wife - Unknown


In 1796, Mrs. Aggas, a widow, accompanied by her two sons, migrated from Westmoreland County, PA, to Butler County and settled upon a tract of land in the present township of Center. Prior to this, her husband had been killed by the Indians during one of their hostile forays through Westmoreland.
Illustrative of the life in the wild woods at this time, it has been related that Mrs. Aggas and her children, in taking possession of their newly acquired home in Butler County, encamped at a spring, where such resources as they possessed were utilized to the end that the night might be passed comfortably. Mrs. Aggas was not suited with the spring and its surroundings, and as considerable time yet intervened before the close of the day, she arranged to find a better spring and place to build a habitation. A dense forest, however, cumbered the surface in all directions, and she needed to travel but a few hundred yards to pass up one slope and down another, to become lost. During the last hours of daylight, bewildered and frightened, she pushed her way from thicket to thicket, over hills and across narrow valleys, endeavoring to find her way back to her little boys (the oldest being then about eleven years of age), but she failed in all her efforts, and at length, amid the darkness of the forest, sank utterly exhausted at the foot of a huge oak, where a sleepless night was passed listening to the howling of wolves, and other dreadful noises. With the coming of daylight, she again attempted to find her way back to the encampment, or to some settler’s cabin, but she failed again, and a second night was passed in the forest alone, though she managed to crawl up into the forks of a large tree where three great branches started from a common center. On the morning after the second night’s stay in the woods, she found a path traveled by a few white settlers, and, meeting some distant neighbors, was enabled by their directions and by walking a long distance around, to return in safety to her children, whom, it is to be presumed, were also safe, yet wondering at her long, unaccountable absence. [HBC 1883, 384]

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Sources


1 —, History of Butler County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1883), Pg 384.

2 James A. McKee, 20th Century History of Butler and Butler County, Pa., and Representative Citizens (Chicago, IL: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., 1909), Pg 607.

3 —, History of Butler County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1883), Pg 340, 384.


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