Journal of Samuel Maclay: While Surveying the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnemahoning and the Allegheny Rivers, in 1790 (Metalmark)
(
The Journal of Samuel Maclay is one man’s account of a ...)
The Journal of Samuel Maclay is one man’s account of a 1790 surveying expedition, commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, to explore the newly purchased land in northwestern Pennsylvania, including the headwaters of the west branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnemahoning, and the Allegheny Rivers. The journal, published in 1887 with ample historical annotations by John F. Meginness, provides a richly detailed record of Maclay’s travels in the “New Purchase” over five months, ending along the Juniata River in the Kishacoquillas Valley. It preserves both the physical landscape and the cultural milieu of the state between the American Revolution and the turn of the century, as seen through the eyes of an observant surveyor. Day-to-day details of dining and travel, as well as Maclay’s personal interjections, help establish the greater historical and cultural context of this pivotal era in Pennsylvania’s expansion.
Samuel Maclay was an American surveyor, farmer, and politician.
Background
Samuel Maclay was born on June 17, 1741, in Lurgan township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Charles and Eleanor (Query) Maclay.
In 1734, his father and grandfather, John Maclay, had emigrated from the north of Ireland.
Career
In 1767-68, Samuel Maclay appears as an assistant to his brother, William Maclay, who, during a trip to England, had secured the approval of the proprietors of Pennsylvania to his own appointment as deputy surveyor of Cumberland County. In 1769, Samuel began surveying the "Officers' Tract. " He became one of the large landowners of this region, settling in Buffalo Valley probably about 1770. He engaged in farming and surveying, owned at least one slave, and soon enjoyed a position of leadership in the affairs of the county.
On July 29, 1775, he became a justice of the quarter sessions. Being one of the local court circle, he naturally became a member of the local committee of correspondence at the opening of the Revolution. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of militia, and on July 4, 1776, was a delegate to the convention of "Associators" at Lancaster, where the state militia was organized.
In 1787, he entered state politics through his election to the lower house of the legislature; he served in this position until 1791. On February 23, 1792, he was appointed an associate judge for Northumberland County. On October 14, 1794, he was elected to Congress as a Republican. Northumberland County, where the noted liberals Joseph Priestley and Thomas Cooper, had just settled, was overwhelmingly Republican, and "Samuel Maclay's influence, from his good character and ability, was almost unbounded".
In 1795, however, the Rev. Hugh Morrison, a Presbyterian minister, led a determined opposition against the Jeffersonians, and, like Father Peto before Henry VIII, he lectured Maclay from the pulpit. Maclay withdrew from the congregation, and most of the members followed him.
In 1799, Morrison brought suit for slander, which was finally discontinued. The attack merely increased Maclay's popularity with his own political group. In Congress, with no less ardor than his brother had shown in the Senate in the years 1789-91, Maclay promptly identified himself with the Opposition. The French minister, Adet, wrote that "nos amis" in Congress had calculated a plan to defeat the Jay treaty and throw the onus upon the administration.
Maclay introduced the resolution, but his strategy failed: "Even the gentleman from Pennsylvania's promptitude failed him, " chided one member, adding: "and the promptest man certainly he was he had ever known". But the gesture strengthened his popularity at home. In 1797, Maclay was again elected to the lower house of the state legislature, and from 1798 to 1802, he held a seat in the state Senate, serving in 1801 and 1802 as speaker of the latter body.
On December 14, 1802, he was elected to the United States Senate, but he took little part in the debates. He voted consistently for administration measures, proposed no less than three amendments to the Constitution, and introduced the resolution calling for the investigation of Senator Smith of Ohio, charged with being in collusion with Aaron Burr. In 1809, before his term had expired, he resigned his seat, probably because of ill health.
Maclay died on October 5, 1811, at his home in Buffalo Valley.
(
The Journal of Samuel Maclay is one man’s account of a ...)
Personality
Like his brother, Maclay was an aristocrat of the frontier, an intense individualist who belonged in a spirit neither to the "eastern men of property" nor to the frontiersmen. In a speech in Congress, he revealed his conflicting leanings: he would use the national territory for the advantage of speculators as well as settlers by dividing it into both large and small tracts.
He was an expert marksman and a good mechanic, but his frontier environment would no more permit him to embrace Federalist politics than it would allow him to use the handsome coach which he is said to have abandoned when his democratic neighbors objected to such evidences of the aristocracy. His training in the classics and his large library also tended to give him less in common with his neighbors.
The Journal of Samuel Maclay written during a surveying expedition on the western rivers of Pennsylvania in 1790 reveals almost as much of these dual characteristics as the more famous Journal of William Maclay.
Connections
On November 10, 1773, Maclay was married to Elizabeth, eighteen-year-old daughter of William and Esther (Harris) Plunket. Samuel Maclay had six sons and three daughters.