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Transcribed and Donated by Norma Jennings
Norma did considerable research in Pennsylvania and West Virginia about 20 years ago looking for her ancestor Thomas Jarrard. Although he lived in Beaver Co. Pa. and Brooke Co. W. Va. then, the local historians informed her that Tomlinson's Creek and where Thomas Jarrard lived was in Hancock Co. West Virginia now. For more information on the family of Thomas Jarrard, visit Norma's webpage http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jennings/manuscript/jargen2.htm
One of Thomas Jarrard's neighbors when he first arrived in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, was William Scott, son of the Reverend George Scott. All indications are that our Thomas Jarrard traveled to Beaver Co., Pennsylvania in 1799 with the group of thirty four young married couples that accompanied the Rev. George Scott on his way to accept the call of the Mill Creek Presbyterian Church. Thomas and Rebecca were listed in the 1800 census of Beaver Co., Pennsylvania with one infant daughter.
Mill Creek is considered the oldest of the Presbyterian denomination in Beaver Co. Religious services were held as early as 1784, but there were Presbyterian settlers in the area much earlier. An account of that early trip to the Ohio Valley is found in the entries in the Reverend George Scott's diary of 1799.
This little journey took the little wagon train three weeks to travel across Pennsylvania.
The Scott family association is of particular interest to my particular branch of the family because we also have ancestors of Scott family descendance who married into the Snider/McCorkle lines. Cornelius Gooding, the second husband of Rebecca Jarrard, was first married to a granddaughter of George Scott's. Members of this family also married into the Harrison family, progenitors of two United States Presidents.
These families migrated to the same communities and have intermarried for over two hundred years. The great grandfather of Rev. George Scott, the first pastor of Mill Creek, was a member of the Scottish Parliament before the union of Scotland with England. George's great grandfather John Scott and his wife Jane Mitchell, of Scotland, emigrated to America in 1720 and located in Bucks Co., Pennsylvania on land upon which the first log college of Pennsylvania was built. His father, also named John Scott was a ruling elder in the church at Mt. Bethel, the Moravian settlement about one and a half mile from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. George Scott was born near Crooked Billet Tavern in Bucks Co, 1 November 1759, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1793, studied divinity and taught at Princeton College for the next three years. His diary contains many interesting stories of his life and many associates. His log college sent many young men out in the ministry. His son John W. Scott was the father of the first wife and grandfather of the second wife of the late ex-President Benjamin Harrison.
When John Scott died in Hamilton Co., Ohio in 1815, John Garrard was listed as a witness in his will.
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