Captain Henry Pawling

  Noted events in his life were:

• Property, 1740. I came into the Cumberland Valley in the 1740's when I purchased lands in southern Antrim Township. My holdings lay in the path of what was to become the King's Highway, a primitive route designed by colonial authorities to connect the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers. I had come from the rural area near Philadelphia in what is now Montgomery County. After erecting my log home, I married Mary Nicks, daughter of a neighbor, Nicholas Nicks.

I farmed my grant and eventually used my dwelling as a tavern to accommodate the traders with their pack trains engaged in the profitable Indian trade with the tribes of western Pennsylvania. A mill was also built along the stream, which ran through the property, but the tavern was the principal business.

The pack trains coming down the Valley from posts along the Susquehanna River and Carlisle or those returning from western Pennsylvania would stop at Pawlings. Here they could rest their animals before resuming their 'journey. As many as several hundred horses could be seen at a time as they pastured in the grass and wooded lands adjacent to the tavern, located south of present day Greencastle.

After a rest of from three to seven days, the trains were reloaded to continue westward or to their eastern places of business. Those who were bound for the west would follow the stream at the tavern to the creek. From there they would use a path along the bank of the West Conococheague which led to Black's Trading Post in what is now the Mercersburg area. From here they would continue into the mountain country to the west. This route, like others, connected the interior settlements of Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, and western Maryland, by way of the Potomac River, to the port of Alexandria, Virginia.

Records of Cumberland Valley's early years tell of the retreating army of Colonel Thomas Dunbar resting at Pawling's following the defeat of Braddock's forces in July of 1755. During the wars with the French and Indians it was called the “limit of safety on the western frontier.”

• will. The abstract of his will reads as follows:

Will Abstract:
PAWLING, HENRY, Antrim. December 31, 1762/19 April 1763.
Wife Mary. Dau. Eleanor, and son Henry, minors.
Exs.: bro.-in-law, Henry Pawling of Phila., bro.-in-law, Henry
Prather and wife Mary Pawling.
Wit: Wm. Allison, Henry Hunzan, Robt. McCrea. A. 105-6.

Henry married Mary Heickes.