52 Ancestors - Week 4 - Witness to History
By Cynthia Keefer Patton
Thinking back on the stories of my father's family, living in Western Pennsylvania, some since before the Revolutionary War, there are a lot of times they were a witness to history in the making. It is hard for me to imagine my Revolutionary War Patriot, Barnett Cunningham facing the situation so soon after emigrating from Ireland to start a new life in Penn's Woods.
When Barnett and his half-brother James Torrance brought their families from Cumberland County to settle and start farming in Fayette County, they built a small church near where they lived. Tyrone United Presbyterian Church is still used and is the oldest church in the area. They both served as elders for more than 30 years.
Barnett was born in 1736 in Ulster, Ireland and was 24 when he married Anna Wilson probably in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. When the Revolution began, he joined his fellow Irishmen and enlisted. He served as a Private in Major John Murray's Company, 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment.
After the war, he returned to farming. He acquired a lot more land in the area, and some of my distant relatives still reside on these properties.
Many of his descendants have gone on to serve as well, in various wars to follow. Those include my father Clyde Keefer, who served in the Army Air Corps/Air Force during World War II in Japan; my older brother David Keefer, who served with General Petraeus during the first Gulf War; and me, who was called to active duty soon after 9/11 to serve in Kuwait with the 3d Personnel Command, Third Army.
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