 |
Thank You... Mr. Daniel J. Byrne! Valley of the Pines is a wonderful work of research, writing, artwork, and photography by third cousin once removed, Daniel J. Byrne (1931-2000). Although I never met Daniel I believe we have some things in common. Along with the genealogy, the history, his artwork and photography, Daniel writes about his childhood life on the farm in Cambria County near Ashville, Pennsylvania. Research resulted in Daniel writing about early Indians and of the history of the first European settlers in the area, their families, |
|
| and theirs all the way to Daniel's family. Unfortunatley this book is no longer in print. The author got a copy by placing a request at several of the rare book websites and waiting for the book to become available.
The father of Daniel, Warren L. Byrne (1895-1975) was raised in Byrnesville and married Della McConnel from the Patton area. Daniel tells us that when Warren was courting Della, they would take the train back and forth between Barnesboro and Patton. The genealogical information in the book includes 215 individuals. The most common surnames and the number of those individuals with the surname is as follows: |
||
Sunday, March 8. 2009
Valley of the Pines
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
| This book is a great resource. An example of the writing of Daniel J. Byrne can be found at the end of the entry on Raphael Byrne (1855-1909), Poor Raphael Byrne where Daniel describes a bit of the life of a logger in early Cambria County. More about Valley of the Pines in the words of Daniel J. Byrne below. |
|
THE VALLEY OF THE PINES Some of the first inhabitants of this Cambria County Valley could have raised corn here 2,500 years ago, made clothes with thread, and imbalmed their dead. And were seven and eight feet tall. Then there were the Delaware and the Shawnee that we named lakes and rivers after. Leya was a beautiful young Shawnee, raised by a Delaware chief. She wanted to run free, and hunt like the men. She couldn't conform to the Lenapi's customs. Elk Horn, who was the chief's son, and Leya fell in love, but since they were, now, brother and sister--- The Indians were forced out of their country and the timber people moved in -----The Rafters -----The Loggers. Then the great log drives down the Susquehanna began. Joe Conrad built an Iron furnace, and called it Ashland. They made iron for four years and built a town, now Ashville. Then the Settlers the Conrads and the Suttons moved into the Valley of the Pines to saw timber and build farms. Dave Sutton built a log house and barn. His wife died and Polly Ivory's husband was killed under a load of lumber. So they teamed up to raise their sixteen kids. ~D. J. Byrne |
