About John Mattingly of Mount Savage, Maryland

This information clarifies the identify of John Mattingly of Mount Savage, Maryland as he is referenced in History of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Mount Savage, Maryland, compiled by Nancy E. Thoerig and published by the church in 2004.

Lannie Dietle and Michael McKenzie report in their book In Search of the Turkey Foot Road, edited by Nancy E. Thoerig and a 2011 publication of the Mount Savage Historical Society, "Although we are not students of Mattingly genealogy, it seems likely that the John Mattingly who is cited on page 48 of the 1909 "The Catholic red book of Western Maryland" as being the first Catholic settler in the area at the time of the French and Indian War may not be the same John Mattingly who married Onea Arnold in 1797, and may not be the same John Mattingly who patented lots 3373 and 3374 (the present-day Amanda Paul farm) in 1819."

Dietle and McKenzie expound, "Although Mattingly genealogy is peripheral to this study, we note that Thomas A. Stobie of Overland Park Kansas has written on his genealogy website that John Mattingly, born
1773, was the husband of Onea Honor (Arnold) Mattingly who died in 1823, and was the son of Henry Mattingly, born 1751. According to the 1787 Deakins‘ list, a Henry Mattingly owned lots 3366 and 3367, which were along the present-day Bald Knob Road.

"Barry Thoerig reports that a William R. Mattingly had at one time posted information on the RootsWeb website that indicated that John Mattingly was born June 1, 1773 in Allegany County Maryland, and was married to Onea Honor Arnold who was born March 3, 1776 in the same county. William R. Mattingly also reported that John and Onea had a son Sylvester born on December 17, 1817. (The Maryland Historical Trust Inventory of Historic Properties) indicates that Francis and Sylvester Mattingly inherited the present-day Amanda Paul farm from John Mattingly in 1845, and then Sylvester bought out Francis on September 26, 1846. This information on Sylvester Mattingly indicates that William R. Mattingly was researching the same John Mattingly who once owned the present-day Amanda Paul farm. Sylvester and his wife Ellen are buried in the Saint Patrick‘s Catholic Church Cemetery."

The Turkey Foot Road followed, generally, present-day Maryland State Route 36 from the Narrows in Cumberland to Barrelville, and then through Arnold's Settlement (early Mount Savage), on its way from Fort Cumberland to present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvannia, and on to Pickawillany  (present-day Piqua, Ohio).

Share the story of the legendary Turkey Foot Road

"Chances are, when you read the book, you will discover new
facts about your ancestors; and you might uncover connections with other folks you know, or will come to know, that you otherwise never would expect."

In its heyday, the Turkey Foot Road was a primary route west into the frontier, which at that time in our region was anywhere west of the Conococheague. In the mid-1700s, the Wills Creek region included the entire Wills Creek drainage area -- seemingly undefined by boundaries and governed collaboratively by the colonies of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. It was, as "In Search of the Turkey Foot Road" co-author Lannie Dietle once described it to me, "a howling wilderness."

This is where our ancestors, migrating from Europe to seek religious freedom and economic opportunity in unexplored territory, braved the elements and encountered the Indians to claim land, build homes, settle communities, and leave legacies that today are our roots and our hometowns.

Share the story of the legendary Turkey Foot Road, almost lost in time, but captured by co-authors Lannie Dietle and Michael McKenzie from the memories of Salisbury, Pa., Mayor Harry Ringler, Sr., and the research of Mount Savage amateur historian and archaeologist Francis Bridges, and others.

Chances are, when you read the book, you will discover new facts about your ancestors; and you might uncover connections with other folks you know, or will come to know, that you otherwise never would expect. While serving as editor for the project, I grew to know my ancestry better; and I found that I share genetic connections with both Dietle and McKenzie.

So join the fun, and share the story. You will find new friends, and perhaps a relative or two.

Feel free to print our promotional flyer and post it in your school, library, post office, etc., or include it, or an item about the book, in your historical or genealogical society or family newsletter. All proceeds from sales benefit the Mount Savage Historical Society.

Turkey Foot Road 1906 view

Mount Savage Historical Society
P.O. Box 401
Mount Savage, Maryland 21545
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FIGURE 102 CUTLINES -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2010 -- Contact: NancyE.Thoerig@verizon.net

MUCH IMPROVED – In 1904, four Allegany County road directors and Engineer George G. Townsend designed a plan to improve the hillside route along Jennings Run, which primarily entailed protecting the roadway from flood damage when the run “got up,” an ofttimes occurrence. Townsend writes in a 1906 “Good Roads Magazine” article (Appendix 19 in Dietle and McKenzie’s “In Search of the Turkey Foot Road” book): “This wall is 231 ft. long, of good sandstone, laid in first-class Portland cement mortar. Another shorter, but higher wall, similarly constructed, protects an exposed point farther up the stream.” Realignment of both the road and the run was necessary in 1957, to construct the current Maryland State Route 36 corridor. Parts of this wall remain visible, and segments of the old road remain in use today.

Turkey Foot Road 1897 view

Mount Savage Historical Society
P.O. Box 401
Mount Savage, Maryland 21545
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FIGURE 169 CUTLINES -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2010 -- Contact: NancyE.Thoerig@verizon.net

WAGONS HO! -- From the bottom left corner, wagon wheel tracks lead into a curving dirt road that hugs a craggy cliffside, along a portion of the historic Turkey Foot Road between Corriganville and Barrelville, Md. The authors of “In Search of the Turkey Foot Road” consider how road builders might have cut primitive routes through rock and tackled other difficult obstacles to forge and improve westward routes through the Wills Creek Narrows in Cumberland and the Jennings Run gap in Corriganville. The authors selected this view from the 1897 book “Artwork of Allegany County Maryland” to be the cover for their book, published by the Mount Savage Historical Society.

New book retraces historic Turkey Foot Road

Mount Savage Historical Society
P.O. Box 401
Mount Savage, Maryland 21545
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NEWS RELEASE -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2010 -- Contact: NancyE.Thoerig@verizon.net


MOUNT SAVAGE, Md. – Along the northwestern Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania border, an Indian trail led traders, drovers, travelers and settlers into the American frontier. The primitive road that evolved from this ancient route spawned scattered settlements that today are our hometowns.

“In Search of the Turkey Foot Road: From Fort Cumberland to the North Fork of the Youghiogheny,” by Lannie Dietle and Michael McKenzie, retraces this historic and nearly forgotten route, highlighting the part between Cumberland and Confluence, Pa.

The Mount Savage Historical Society is publishing the work , as announced by President Dennis Lashley. Visit http://www.mtsavage.info/ to see sample pages.

The serious reader soon finds that this 342-page book is more than a story about a road. The Turkey Foot Road, disguised by different names, still takes us where we need to go; and this historic transportation corridor continues to define us today as descendants of those who braved the elements and events of the early American wilderness to make homes, and leave legacies, in a boundless new land of opportunity.

Co-authors Dietle and McKenzie, and Editor Nancy E. Thoerig, found that they share ancestors who traveled this road and settled along it. They suspect that many thousands of Americans similarly can trace their lineage to settlers along the Turkey Foot Road.

Relying on maps, property surveys, aerial photographs, crop marks, landscape scars, oral traditions and local guides (namely Salisbury, Pa. Mayor Harry Ringler, Sr. and Mount Savage amateur historian and archaeologist Francis Bridges), Dietle and McKenzie delineate the route in detail. Assisted with their GPS coordinates, a dedicated hiker might set out to walk the 18th century route from Cumberland to Harnedsville, Pa. The authors also identify key points between Harnedsville and Pittsburgh.

“In its heyday,” Dietle summarizes in the final chapter, “the Turkey Foot Road was an early route west. It helped to settle the towns and environs that interest us most: Barrelville and Mount Savage in Maryland; Wellersburg, Pocahontas, and Salisbury in Pennsylvania.”

Dietle continues, “The road also serviced points farther west, such as Springs, Savage, Confluence, Harnedsville, and so forth, all the way to Pittsburgh. By 1820, the United States population had grown to 9.6 million, and about half of it had moved west of Cumberland. As this tremendous migration and population growth occurred, some of the people along the Turkey Foot Road moved on, helping to settle and populate the great American west.”

The antecedent to the Turkey Foot Road, traditionally called the Turkey Foot Trail, was an Indian trading path. In 1749, the colonies of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, at the request of the Miami Indians, improved this route to facilitate easier trade between Pickawillany (Piqua), Ohio and Wills Creek (Cumberland), Md.

English trade flourished along this primary corridor into the contested Ohio territory, and tensions with the French mounted. Thus, the early Turkey Foot Road, the authors contend, provoked the first large scale attack of the French and Indian War, at Pickawillany in 1752.

George Washington made the earliest mention of Turkey Foot the authors found, in reference to the confluence of the Casselman River and Laurel Hill Creek with the Youghiogheny River, at present-day Confluence, Pa. Most likely, the authors believe, the road takes its name from this destination.

“In Search of the Turkey Foot Road” is a fascinating read through history in our own backyards. Meticulously researched and abundantly documented, with almost 80 appendices and 460 maps, figures and photos, the book is sure to tickle any reader’s curiosity about the people, places and events that transpire along the Turkey Foot Road.

Drawing upon his ancestral connections and childhood memories in Somerset County, Pa., Dietle writes from his home in Houston, Texas, where he works as principal designer for an engineering firm that makes seals for oilfield equipment.

Descended from one of the first settlers in Mount Savage, McKenzie led the project’s local research endeavors. He lives in Barrelville and works as a diesel locomotive mechanic at the CSX shop in Cumberland.

Proceeds benefit the Mount Savage Historical Society. Visit http://www.mtsavage.info/ to see sample pages, a general overview and chapter summaries, biographies for the co-authors, editor and contributors, and to contact Becky Korns, MSHS secretary, to order.

*****
NEWS STAFF: For more information on the Turkey Foot Road project, or to arrange an author’s interview, write NancyE.Thoerig@verizon.net.

Turkey Foot Road history becomes personal

Published in Cumberland Times-News Sunday, November 14, 2010.
(Beginning mid-October 2010, the Times-News limited Letters access to online subscribers.)

Historic roads take us where we want to go, and they transport us to where we come from.

Our fortune to live in such a notably historic place in America gives us an advantage, if we explore it, to understand how the past shapes our present. That dynamic becomes personal when “In Search of the Turkey Foot Road: From Fort Cumberland to the North Fork of the Youghiogheny,” by Lannie Dietle and Michael McKenzie, retraces this mostly forgotten early route that breached the barrier of the Allegheny Mountains and opened travel westward for settlers from Wills Creek.

Dietle and McKenzie are collaborators on items and articles of historical interest in nearby southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern Maryland, posted at Dietle’s family genealogy web site Korns.org. This is their first book. It is a volunteer project to benefit the Mount Savage Historical Society, which plans to publish a CD with a print companion.

Mount Savage was a destination for settlers and travelers along the Turkey Foot Road, an upgrade of ancient Indian trails. At the town’s northern border with Pennsylvania, Arnold’s Settlement sprang up where Archibald Arnold (proprietor of Arnold’s hotel), and Logsdon, Durbin, Mattingly and McKenzie families (and relatives) stopped on their way west from Westminster in Carroll County, Maryland around 1770.

The Turkey Foot Road follows Wills Creek northwest out of Cumberland, and then Jennings Run west to Barrelville, where it tacks up the hillside to join Mile Lane in northeast Mount Savage. Then it scales Bald Knob Road, and at the top of the hill goes northwest to Pocahontas, Pa., then to Salisbury, Confluence, and the Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh.

As an early traders trail, the route forged on to Pickawillany, Ohio (present-day Piqua), where the French and their Indian allies waged a battle on the English in 1752. In this sense, Dietle and McKenzie suggest, trading activities along the Turkey Foot trail in the contested Ohio territory helped incite the French and Indian War.

George Washington made the earliest mention of Turkey Foot the authors found, in reference to the confluence of the Casselman River and Laurel Hill Creek with the Youghiogheny (at present-day Confluence, Pa.). Most likely, the road takes its name from this destination.

Drawing upon his ancestral connections and childhood memories in Somerset County, Pa., Lannie Dietle writes from his home in Houston, where he works as principal designer for an engineering firm that makes seals for oilfield equipment.

Descended from Gabriel McKenzie, one of the early settlers who accompanied Archibald Arnold, Michael McKenzie led the project’s local research endeavors. He works as a diesel engine mechanic at the CSX Cumberland shop.

It was my pleasure to sign on as editor. The book is a fascinating read, meticulously researched and abundantly documented and illustrated with appendices, maps, figures and photos. It is sure to tickle any reader’s curiosity about the people, places and events that transpire along the Turkey Foot Road.

Dietle, McKenzie and I found that we have ancestors in common. Drucilla Ann McKenzie, a descendant of Gabriel, is my mother’s father’s grandmother. Drusianna’s son Ozias Weimer, my mother’s grandfather, was Johannes Weimer’s great-great-grandson. Ozias married Elizabeth Rose Breig, Martin Weimer’s great-great-granddaughter.

Martin and Johannes Weimer were brothers who emigrated from Langensoultzbach, France (in Alsace, on the border with Germany). Martin Weimer, also Dietle’s ancestor, built the first house in Salisbury, Pa., Dietle documents, and owned property along the Turkey Foot Road.

Visit http://korns.org/Turkey-Foot-Road-Book.pdf to see sample pages from the book; among them are the Table of Contents, and first and last chapters. Watch for announcements about availability; or enquire at MountSavageHistoricalSociety.org.