Apr 14, 2012 17 min read

(Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the Sept. 25, 1983 edition of the Herald-Standard, a predecessor of HeraldStandard.com. It was part of a special edition marking Fayette County’s bicentennial.)

Their names are Jane, Mary, Ruth and Ella.

They have been merchants, farmers, teachers and pioneers. They taught us strength, courage, wisdom and loyalty. They turned the frontier into a community, a house into a home, a building into a church and eventually joined men in the world of business, politics, social reform.

Although often ignored and forgotten in history, women have been in Fayette County since the beginning. And for 200 years, they have helped the district grow and prosper.

Little is known about the women in Fayette County since the beginning. And for 200 years, they have helped the district grow and prosper.

Little is known about the women in Fayette County’s history, although they have been a part of the county long before it ever existed. Women moved into this area when it was still frontier – Indians as well as whites. History books mention Queen Aliquippa, an Indian who led a settlement of her people at Logstown on the Ohio River west of Pittsburgh, and was known to George Washington.

The pioneer women worked beside their husbands — while bearing and raising their children — to establish new life in the wilderness. As time went on, women established businesses, developed farms, entered careers in public life and social reform, and raised generation after generation of children.

Franklin Ellis entitled his history of the region in the 1880s: “History of Fayette County, Pa with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men.”

True, there are a number of women mentioned in Ellis’ book. A quick search through the index reveals that. But while one man may have a full page or as many as five or six to himself, more than 10 women can be found on a single page. The reason? They are all listed as wives and daughters.

For example, Reuben Hague, a resident of Georges Township who was born in 1809, is the subject of a story which includes his profession, military service, lifestyle and temperance for drinking. Ellis even goes as far as to note, “his neighbors say no harmful words about him.”

Hague also had three wives. Of these women — Mary Swan, Mary Lemley and Jane Abraham — nothing is mentioned but the dates they married Hague, how many children they had and when they died.

Women involved

Women of the 18th century exercised a great deal of freedom.

First of all, they had to. America was a struggling under-developed country that needed every pair of hands to feed and clothe its people and help the nation survive. Women took active roles in running their households. They opened and operated their own businesses. They were occupied with political and economic ideas, and more likely than not a quilting bee turned out to be a political discussion group.

In fact, American women usually looked down upon their European counterparts whom they considered frail and uninformed. English women were more concerned with fashion and romance novels than taxes and the price of tobacco. And rather than be annoyed, American men were proud of their women and depended on them heavily.

The second reason for American women’s freedom was the theory of supply and demand: women were scarce in the colonies. Men outnumbered women 4 to 1 in New England and 6 to 1 in the South.

Happy to have women in their lives, men generally treated them well, granting them privileges that extended far above the law. For example, many women of the colonial era voted in local elections. And while divorce was not accepted, mistreated wives would often run away with no need to worry about recriminations from the law because people generally would leave them alone. Since there was always work to be done, runaway wives could find jobs.

There was tremendous pressure on men and women to marry in colonial times. This could be unfavorable for women who ended up with a bad husband, since he had control of her property. Once widowed, women were pressured to marry again. However, a widow who decided to remain single could lead a happy and financially secure life and was generally well-respected by her community.

In addition to running farms and plantations, many women of the early days were merchants. In Fayette County these included Molly Crawford, who kept a small cake-and-ale shop along Route 40 in the mountains at the Summit; Beverly West, who advertised her services as a champion barber; Julia Wood, a Uniontown dressmaker; Margaret Allen, a licensed tavern keeper who gave her name to the locality of her shop, known for many years as Granny Allen’s Hill. (This is the hill on East Main Street between downtown and East End, crossing Redstone Creek on Eastern Bridge.) Allen died in 1810 at the age of 91.

An interesting tale was told by Ellis of Isabel Piper, who ran a tavern on the south side of Main Street in Uniontown with her husband James, called “The Jolly Irishman.” Ellis said James was a large, burly man while Isabel was small of stature.

He continued, “It was her custom to sit in the barroom, and spin while she chatted pleasantly with the patrons of the house. At night, she would frequently ask her husband, “Well, Jimmy, how much money did you make today?” His usual answer was “None o’ yer bizness, Bell.” But as he was generally pretty well intoxicated at that time in the evening, she often managed to secure a share of the proceeds and lay it by for a rainy day.”

Isabel outlived her husband and continued to run the tavern long after his death, until 1819.

Colonial women were also property owners, and for some that included slaves. In 1780, a law was written saying all slaves up to 31 years in age must be registered by their owners. In Fayette County, Nancy Brashear was the second-largest slave holder on record with 12 slaves.

Gallatin’s first wife

Women also became famous throughout the region as romantic victims, whose lives were weaved into folklore and song. Among the two most famous were Sophia Allegre Gallatin and Polly Williams.

Sophia was the daughter of a fiery Italian woman, known in local history books as “Madame Allegro.” She met Albert Gallatin in her home of Richmond, Va., during the late 1780s when she was the belle of the city.

The two fell in love and were married May 14, 1789, much against Sophia’s mother’s wishes. The Gallatins moved to Friendship Hill, Gallatin’s new estate in Springhill Township, Fayette County. Three weeks later, Sophia fell ill and died.

According to her wishes, she was buried in an unmarked grave. But later residents of the home reburied Sophia’s body and placed a stone wall around her grave as a marker. It exists to this day.

White Rock Tragedy

Polly Williams grew up near New Salem, the daughter of an impoverished family. As a teenager, she went to work for the well-off Jacob Moss family and soon caught the eye of a handsome and slightly older neighbor, Philip Rogers.

Williams’ family moved West, but she stayed behind. There was speculation of a marriage in the near future. But Rogers kept Polly hanging for two years. Finally, she confided to the Mosses she feared Rogers meant to kill her. But she said she’d rather be dead then live without him.

In August 1810, Rogers came to see Williams and told her they would be married by a squire at the top of Chestnut Ridge. They set out together on the 14-mile hike. The next day, four children picking blackberries found Williams’ crumbled body at the foot of White Rock,a steep outcropping on the mountain near Fairchance. She was still clutching a piece of laurel she had grabbed in her fall.

More startling, it was discovered her forehead was bashed in. Unrecognized, she was buried in an unmarked grave, but her body was exhumed a few days later when the Mosses speculated it might be Williams.

Roger was arrested but pleaded innocence, saying they had had a fight and Williams lost her way and fell. In a one-day trial, he was granted a quick acquittal but was condemned in public opinion. A popular ballad was written in Polly Williams’ honor and her grave at the Little White Rock Cemetery on the Hopwood-Fairchance Road continues to be honored today.

Attitudes change

Eventually as the United States became a nation, attitudes about women and their roles in society began to change. Economically, women were not needed as they once had been. The people began to accept European ideas of women.

The idea of the middle-class woman as a lady with her place in the home took hold. Professions were licensed and women were excluded. Poor women found work in industry. Ladies followed fashion and decorated their homes. They studied French, dancing, religion and embroidery. Ladies magazines sprang up across the country.

There were women who bucked the system, of course. But for them, opportunities were limited. Women who wanted careers were able to infiltrate the fields of writing, nursing and teaching during the 19th century. Because of women’s success, these fields eventually became almost exclusively feminine-filled and were later treated with lower pay and status than male-dominated fields.

Ella Peach

One of the most prominent career-women of the 19th century was educator Ella Peach of Uniontown.

Peach was born in 1852 and brought to the county as an infant where she was raised by an aunt, Clara Stevens. She started teaching at age 16, continuing to teach uninterrupted for 50 years almost every subject and grade and came into contact with almost every student in Uniontown during those years.

She was instrumental in establishing the Uniontown High School, starting work with the school as an assistant principal in 1885. Her title was eventually changed to vice principal, and she was bestowed the name “Mother of the High School.”

Peach died Nov. 23, 1918 during the worldwide flu epidemic. The heading on her obituary read, “Miss Ella Peach. Beloved by all. Passes Beyond.” An elementary school was named in her honor the next month. The Ella Peach School remained so until the 1950s when it was renamed Central Elementary School. Today the building, located at East Church Street and south Gallatin Avenue, is used as an administrative building for the Uniontown Area School District.

Famous marriages

Fayette County women also gained fame from famous marriages to rich and powerful men as the 20th century rolled in. Among them were Blanche “Honey” Hawes Thompson, second wife of coal magnate J.V. Thompson, and Lida Eleanor Nicholls who became the Princess of Thurn and Taxis.

Thompson grew up in Smithfield and married a racetrack man named Hawes from Johnstown. Her second husband was Uniontown coal baron J.V. Thompson.

Lida Eleanor Nicolls was born in 1875 and grew up in Uniontown, the niece of J.V. Thompson. In 1899, she married Lord Gerald Purcell Fitzgerald, an Irish nobleman who had come here to make his fortune in the coal fields.

The couple moved to Ireland where they lived in a castle, called “the Island,” until 1907 when the marriage was dissolved. Mrs. Fitzgerald took her three sons back to America, making her home in Uniontown and New York.

On Nov. 11, 1911, she married prince Victor of Thurn and Taxis. He was the son of Prince and Princess Egon von Thurn and Taxis of Balthavar, Hungary.

The couple spent time together in London until World War I when they moved to Hungary. They were separated frequently, but never divorced. The prince died in Europe in 1920, and the princess moved home, alternating her time between Uniontown and New York.

She became a legend in her own time in Uniontown until her death at age 90 in 1965. Her home, which was passed down to her son, Gerald, was located at the present spot of the Mount Vernon Towers apartments.

Many of the wealthy people in Fayette County who earned their fortunes from the resources of this land never attempted to pay anything back. Two who did are women: Mary Full Frazier and Sarah Boyd Moore Cochran.

Perhaps no one made a larger contribution than Frazier, who grew up in Perryopolis, inheriting her fortune from her uncle Alfred Fuller, who had gained it from the coal fields surrounding the town. Fuller died during World War I and left a $7.5 million fortune to his niece.

She married and moved away from Perryopolis in her youth and never returned, but Mary Fuller Frazier cared enough to remember her town in her will.

Hardly the average millionairess, Frazier was an eccentric who was so afraid of germs and diseases that she refused to shake hands with even her closest friends. She wouldn’t ride in an elevator if anyone else was in it, and she refused to speak to anyone unless they stood at least five feet away from her.

In an unexpected and magnificent gesture, Frazier left $1.5 million to Perryopolis after her death. The estate was used to build a school addition with library and a town square, install street lights, establish a scholarship fund, build a sewage plant and make other improvements. The principle of the estate continues to be used today.

Sarah Boyd Moore Cochran grew up a farmer’s daughter, marrying an Irish immigrant’s descendant named Philip Galley Cochran who was a coal and coke magnate. When her husband died in 1899 at age 50, Cochran built a home at St. James Park in Dawson. At the time, it was considered the most architecturally beautiful country residence in western Pennsylvania.

But after a visit to Europe and the Orient, she replaced the residence with a Tudor-style mansion built by the finest European and American craftsmen. The home was named Linden Hall.

Throughout her life, Cochran was nationally known for her liberal donations to churches and colleges. In loving tribute to her husband, she erected the Philip G. Cochran Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church Dawson. Among her many gifts were the Philip G. Cochran Memorial Hall at Otterbein College in Ohio and Cochran Hall at Allegheny College, Meadville. Cochran also built the Phi Si Fraternity House at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

After her death in 1936 at age 79, Linden Hall passed into the Moore family. The estate was bought by the United Steelworkers of America in 1976, restored and opened to the public for tours.

The midwife

While the county loved the tales of its wealthy women, more women of that time period were like Mary Bieniecz Zienkowsky, a Polish immigrant who came to America on her own and became one of the better known midwives in the area.

Zienkowsky spent over 50 years as a midwife and delivered over 5,000 babies in Newboro, Herbert, Searights, Keisterville, Ralph, Filbert, Fairbank and the mountain area of Fayette County.

She became a midwife after receiving a diploma and marrying an immigrant coal miner in 1922, about 12 years after she arrived at Ellis Island from her native Cracow. Zienkowsky made most of her journeys with a handgun she tucked away in a black satchel that contained scissors, cord, silver nitrate, bandages and a plastic sheet.

Truly a modern woman, Zienkowsky set out on her own for a new world at an early age, supported herself while she learned a profession, continued to work all her life despite the protests of her husband, managed to raise a family of five and gained the respect of her entire community.

Women continued to expand their opportunities as the 20th century progressed. They began entering higher forms of schools, including colleges. The first class of the Uniontown Hospital School of Nursing graduated in 1907.

Fayette Countian Margaret Daum became a nationally known opera singer who sang with the Metropolitan Opera during the 1930s and also appeared on popular radio shows.

Women in politics

Women also entered politics in the forms of school and municipal boards, recreation and welfare committees. Two women were elected county officials: Rebecca McDowell became controller in 1944 and Teresa Burns was elected treasurer in 1964. In the early ’80s, Nita Rich was appointed coroner. This fall, Norma Jean Santore is the Democratic nominee for sheriff.

One of the most interesting Fayette County women of the 20th century was Ruth Warman, a teacher, lawyer, judicial candidate and social activist.

Warman, who was born in neighboring Greene County, earned degrees in teaching and law. She started working as an instructor during the ’50s in the Confluence and Uniontown school districts, teaching languages and mathematics. In 1962, she took the Pennsylvania Bar exam. She went into practice with her husband, Myron, becoming the second female lawyer in Fayette County and the first to practice more than a month. The practice grew into a family business with the couple’s two sons, daughter and son-in-law joining them. Warman also became a judicial candidate for Common Pleas Court in 1973.

Warman was instrumental in helping to establish a women’s shelter, operated by the Family Abuse Council in Uniontown earlier this year.

Martha C. Hutchinson is another 20th century returner. Unlike 19th-century women, Hutchinson was employed for 35 years at Children and Youth Services of Fayette County where she retired in 1979 a executive director.

Coming from a family of social workers, Hutchinson also has many years of volunteer service to her credit. Social reform continued to be a large concern of modern-day Fayette County women. Anna Belle Dantzler Calloway, a native of Uniontown, has a long history as a social activist.

With degrees in social work and a doctorate in philosophy, Calloway began her career as a caseworker during the ’50s in state hospitals, continuing to work her way up the administrative ladder.

An affiliate of several professional and civil associations, Calloway has also been active in associations for black causes. During the 1970s, she was named administrator of the Fayette County Mental Health/Mental Retardation Clinic and went on to be named State Department of Public Welfare deputy secretary for the western region. Calloway married again in 1981 and moved to Los Angeles.

Women’s rights became a concern for many women in Fayette County during the late 20th century. Trudy Pariser became president of a Uniontown chapter of the National Organization for Women, and several organizations and agencies were opened that were specifically designed to help women get ahead.

Among the most unique and influential of these has been the Women’s Resources Center in Uniontown, founded by its director Kathy Haluska.

Haluska grew up in Brownsville, a quiet and reserved girl who desired making more than to be a wife and mother. But along the way, Haluska, now 31, discovered she wanted more.

For the past three years, she’s been director of WORC, a social agency that offers counseling for rape victims, displaced homemakers, battered wives and abused children as well as daycare and adult education programs. Prior to this, Haluska taught the illiterate, the handicapped and underprivileged — many of whom were poor.

The roll-call of women who have played a part in Fayette County’s history goes on and on. And everyday, more women are being added.

(Down through the years, thousands of women — so many that their names couldn’t possibly be listed — have played an unselfish, sincere role in various volunteer organizations that make a better community. One outstanding example is the hospital auxiliaries).

It is possible the future could include female judges and national politicians. The number of local physicians, representatives, administrators and writers is longer today than many had ever thought possible.