The Callin Family History places him in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, after the Revolutionary War, but I have been unable to locate the land records that might confirm this, or service records that contain any family information.
I have written before, in Lafayette on the Brandywine and A #HamiltonMusical Intermission, about the records showing a James Callin serving in the 4th Virginia Regiment of Foot. So, of course, that raises the question: if our guy lived in Pennsylvania, why did he serve in a Virginia Regiment?
There may be a good answer to that question.
 |
| Map of Ohio, Monongalia, & Yohogania Counties. Yohogania County is in light blue. |
Yohogania County was created by the new state of Virginia in 1776, in an area long disputed between Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1773 the region had been designated Westmoreland County by Pennsylvania, and settlers were moving into the area from both directions. There were two men listed next to each other in the 1773 tax roles of Hempfield, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania: James Callen and Patrick Callen; Hempfield was located in the part of Bedford County that became part of Westmoreland County that year.
The disputed territories included the entire southwestern corner of what is now Pennsylvania, west of the Laurel Ridge (Allegheny Mountains) and south of the Kiskiminetas, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The disputes over which colony had authority over the area led to overlapping land grants to settlers and battles between Virginians and Pennsylvanians in the period 1774–1775. In 1774, a Virginian militia group even attacked and captured the Westmoreland County seat at Hannastown and arrested three Westmoreland County justices who refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Virginia.
On December 27, 1779, a resolution by the Second Continental Congress recommended to the two now-states of Virginia and Pennsylvania that, rather than continue to quarrel with each other as well as fighting the British, they should reach an agreement on the border situation. This was done in theory by an agreement reached by commissioners from both states in Baltimore in 1779 and ratified by the legislatures of both states in 1780. From 1782 to 1786, surveys demarcating the borders of Pennsylvania were completed. The areas of Yohogania County ceded to Pennsylvania included all of present-day Westmoreland County and parts of the present counties of Allegheny, Beaver, Washington, and Fayette.
The take away from this is that the James Callen listed in Hempfield in 1773 would have found himself living on land that was considered to be both Pennsylvania AND Virginia for more than a dozen years.
(There is a rather extensive history of the conflict, including more neat maps, at http://www.virginiaplaces.org/boundaries/paboundary.html).
Prior to the Revolution, the Virginia Regiment had a history of recruiting from Pennsylvania. The Virginia militia was established in 1607 and the main purpose of the Crown's militia was to repel invasions and insurrections and to enforce the laws of the colony. Militia service in Virginia was compulsory for all free males.
In 1754 the Virginia General Assembly voted to raise a regiment of 300 men and send it to the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers to defend the area against encroachment from the French. Most of the recruits were characterized by the commander, a Colonel George Washington, as "loose, Idle Persons ... quite destitute of House, and Home." There were frequent desertions because of poor supplies, extremely low pay and hazardous duty, so Virginia Regiment recruiters went to Pennsylvania and Maryland for men.
In contrast, the Quakers who ran the government in Pennsylvania were pacifists, and were reluctant to support fighting in any way. According to one account, "a wagon load of scalped and mangled corpses was drawn past the State House" and a group of "...Presbyterian Scotch Irish, fortified by whiskey and prayers and armed with long greased rifles, descended with blackened faces and Indian costumes upon Philadelphia," to impress upon the Friends the desperate nature of their situation. "The Quaker utopia by the Delaware (River) finally opened its eyes, a bit, to the terrible glow of burning cabins on the frontier." (The Callen Chronicles*, quoting from Bedford Village, written by Harvey Allen).
If the James Callen who lived in Hempfield did enlist in a Virginia Regiment, that could be a reflection of his feelings about the Pennsylvanian government.
After the French and Indian War, the Virginia Regiment was disbanded in May 1763, but at the outset of the Revolutionary War, less than a decade later, a Congressional resolution passed on 14 June 1775 authorized ten companies of expert riflemen to be raised for one-year enlistments as Continental troops. Maryland and Virginia were to raise two companies each, and Pennsylvania six. Pennsylvania frontiersman, however, were so eager to participate that on June 22 Pennsylvania's quota was increased to eight.
As noted in previous posts, James and Edward Callin appeared in the muster rolls of the 4th Virginia Regiment, from 1777. The Regiment was raised on December 28, 1775, at Suffolk Court House, Virginia, for service with the Continental Army. The regiment saw action at the Battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and the Siege of Charleston. Most of the regiment was captured at Charlestown, South Carolina, on May 12, 1780, by the British and the regiment was formally disbanded on January 1, 1783. Edward was not seen on the muster rolls after 1778, and James had also likely completed his service in 1779, returning to his home in what would soon be undisputably Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
Of course, pinning down exactly where he settled is still difficult, because there were many changes in the organization of Pennsylvania's counties both before and after the time we are searching in. What was called "Westmoreland County" depends on when you are asking. The records may simply not be available online, yet.
- -- --- -- -
*The 1773 Bedford County tax records for James and Patrick Callen and the muster rolls of James and Edward Callin, as well as a number of other miscellaneous records and the passage from Bedford Village are discussed in the Callen Chronicles, which is available in free/downloadable PDF format at www.callanfamily.net.
For a glimpse of how complicated the evolution of this area was, there are animated maps illustrating Pennsylvania county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation Pennsylvania County Boundary Maps" (1673-1878) which may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.
George Dallas Albert's History of Westmoreland County says that after the land office opened in 1769 there was a veritable flood of applications for land patents. Many were speculators, but many were also settlers. I found this description particularly amusing:
ReplyDelete"Of those people who took up land to live upon it, by far the largest proportion were emigrants, or the children of emigrants, of Scotch-Irish descent, themselves called Scotch-Irish. They claimed that they had been only denizens of Ireland, from where they emigrated and whither they had been transplanted from Scotland, the native country of their ancestors.
These were scattered all over the country, but they were to be found more noticeably in clusters where it was to be presumed that the land would grow more rapidly in value, and where there were more facilities for making money and living by thrift rather than by labor, but not at the expense of labor. There was quite a settlement of them about Pittsburgh, at the Forks of the Ohio, along the Monongahela and the other rivers, and along the main roads. But where were they not?"