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Judge Clover's account of early settlers
in Clarion County fails to mention Peter Walley and Joseph
Greenawalt. In the History of Clarion County,
by Aaron Davis, page 617 contains the following information:
"Peter Walley and Joseph
(?) Greenwald came to what is now the Independence school district
before the close of the last century. According to the statement
of some old residents, Greenwald settled on what is
now the McClure farm, and in 1797 erected a dwelling-house
of logs. About 1831 when Mr. John McGarrah purchased
his present home from Mr. Walley, he boarded for a
while with the Walley family, who told him that 'they
had cleared and seeded about three acres in wheat, in the year 1797.'
Mrs. Walley was a sister to Peter Greenwald."
Footnote: "Is it not Joseph Greenwald?"
The author made a mistake, corrected by the editor on the name Peter,
which was Mary Greenawalt Walley's husband's name. Her
brother was Philip Joseph Grunewald/Greenawalt.
On the 1877 map of Toby Township
in the Illustrated Historical Combined Atlas of Clarion County
by Caldwell, I saw the farms of McClure and McGarrah
in the south-western triangle of the township, across the river from Brady's
Bend. Toby Township, Clarion County,
was part of Armstrong until 1839. The early records
should still be in Armstrong County.
On that map there was still a W.H. Greenawalt
family in survey 3418, just north of the border with Madison Township.
On the 1810 census, Peter Walley's
father, Nicholas, was in Sugar Creek Township,
Armstrong County, but Peter was in Toby
Township, Armstrong County. Their surnames
were spelled Walhee. Joseph Greenawalt
was also in Toby.
Nicholas Walley died in 1811, leaving
a will in which he named his children. I have not found a death record
or will for Peter Walley, but a burial record for St.
Michael's Church in Fryburg, Clarion County,
says that he was buried in the church cemetery in 1836. That record gives
his wife's name as Mary Barbara, of Crown,
then called "the Wilderness." However, Mary was
a widow head of household on the 1830 census in Farmington Township,
Venango -- now Clarion County. I
believe that Peter died prior to 1830 and was re-buried
in the church yard in the year that the church was established -- 1836.
It would be important to Catholics to be buried in hallowed ground,
rather than in their farm field.
Mary Barbara Grunewald/Greenawalt Walley
was born on 1 Oct 1775 to John Grunewald and Anna
Barbara Schmidt at home in Macungie, now in
Lehigh County, PA. Her birth and baptismal records
are in The Goshenhoppen Registers 1741-1819, as are the marriage
of her parents and the baptism of her mother. The record linking
Mary Greenawalt to Peter Walley is in
Catholic Trails West, as are the baptisms of their daughter,
Mary, in 1799 and son, Nicholas, in
1801 at Sportsman's Hall, now St. Vincent's in Latrobe, Westmoreland
County, PA.
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