Robert Johnson, Bridgeville Pioneer . February 6, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

February 6, 2020

Robert Johnson, Bridgeville Pioneer

One of the most interesting persons to crop up in our review of “Pop” Ferree’s workbooks is a gentleman named Robert Johnson, or on occasion, Robert Johnston. He is mentioned prominently on page 46 of “Bridging the Years”, the official publication of Bridgeville’s Golden Jubilee in 1951, in an article entitled “Bridgeville’s First Factory”.

According to this source, Mr. Johnson is the same gentleman who became famous as the first excise tax collector to be tarred and feathered by the Whiskey Rebels, at Pigeon Creek, on September 6, 1791. The description of the grist mill he built a dozen years later is confirmed by several entries in Mr. Ferree’s workbook.

Despite his traumatic experience in 1791, Mr. Johnson continued his career as a tax collector. A notice in the December 14, 1793 Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette informs those distillers who have not “entered their stills according to law” are subject to suits and seizures.

The same year John Neville mentioned him in a notice requiring distillers to register at one of several sites, including “the house of Robert Johnston in Allegheny County”. I believe the subject was a tenant of Neville’s at Woodville at that time.

He apparently retained his position after the Rebellion was quelled. On August 12, 1797, he put a notice in the Weekly Gazette advising “Auctioneers … to settle up their businesses by June 30, 1797. He signed it as “Collector of the Revenue, 4^th Survey, District of Pennsylvania”.

In 1803 he is listed as a signer of a petition, headed by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, requesting removal of a federal judge. In 1809 he is identified as one of three trustees (the others are Thomas Alexander and Ephraim Herriot), residents of Fayette Township, charged with the responsibility of collecting debts owed to one Jesse Craton.

Mr. Johnson’s first appearance in the Ferree Workbook is on April 15, 1796, when he purchased a plot containing forty acres from a man named Peter Body, for 200 pounds (one thousand dollars). An examination of the survey for this property, which was originally part of Benjamin Rennoe’s warrant, suggests that this site was primarily Fryer’s Hill, bounded by Bower Hill Road and McLaughlin Run.

Fourteen years later Johnson sold that property to John Herriot for eight hundred dollars. In 1820 Herriot sold it to William Fryer for thirty-five hundred dollars.

On March 18, 1803, Johnson purchased a “zig-zag strip” four perches (sixty-six feet) wide totaling less than three acres for building a “water works”. He intended to remove water from Chartiers Creek downstream from the present Bethany Church to power a water wheel for a grist mill, returning the spent water to Chartiers Creek near the mouth of McLaughlin Run.

A plot of the survey for this site suggests that he planned to dig a ditch roughly parallel to Washington Avenue, zig-zag across at Sarasnick’s, and terminate at what is now Triangle Park. Apparently that is where the mill actually was constructed.

It’s easy to wonder how the mill was configured. A typical overshot wheel mill of that era needed a head (elevation difference) of about ten feet to be effective. Chartiers Creek slopes about twenty feet per mile as it meanders around Bridgeville, a distance of two miles. It would be possible to run a ditch at that slope along the zig-zag and still have a head of ten feet.

According to the article in “Bridging the Years”, the mill went into operation in 1803. The authors reported having the saw mill account books in their possession; one wonders what has happened to them. The customers in the account books are a splendid record of the local residents at that time, including Presley Neville, William Herriot, Moses Middleswarth, Moses Coulter, George Vallandingham, and Francis Lesnett, among others.

Also in Mr. Ferree’s workbook is a document dated October 24, 1805, signed by Daniel Herbert, owner of land downstream from the spot where Johnson removed water from Chartiers Creek, confirming his agreement with the removal of the water, providing it doesn’t cause “stagnation and corruption” of the water downstream.

On May 27, 1807, Johnson purchased four hundred acres of land west of Chartiers Creek from Presley Neville for $4500. This is the site originally warranted to John Campbell as “The Mouth of Millers Run”. It extends along the west shore of the Creek from Coal Pit Run to Millers Run. Neville had acquired it from Campbell’s sister following his death.

Early in 1810 Johnson added to this property by acquiring “Brighton’, 100 acres southwest of his Campbell land, from Daniel Morgan for ten pounds (fifty dollars). He then sold his Fryer’s Hill land to John Herriot for eight hundred dollars.

Johnson’s Will, dated June 2, 1814, is included in Mr. Ferree’s workbook. In it he leaves his wife eighty dollars a year, household furniture, horses, cows, and “one rom in the house”. The 474 acres is subdivided into four lots, one for each of his surviving children.

A transaction dated July 4, 1815, records a transfer from Johnson to Samuel Stewart (apparently his son-in-law) of the zig-zag strip for $150. So far we have found no record of its final disposition.

Still lots of questions, but it does appear that Robert Johnson was a significant person in this area at the turn of the nineteenth century. If the mill was indeed at the Triangle Park site, one wonders how he obtained permission to discharge the spent water on someone else’s property.