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| Juniata College Seal |
Two weekends ago I returned to central Pennsylvania to go to my 35th college reunion (wow!) at Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA. Huntingdon is in Huntingdon County which is adjacent to Centre County, where my 5th great-grandparents, Richard Bailey (Abt. 1735 -- 811) and Mary Wilson (1740ish - abt 1808), settled in about 1790. I decided to take a drive over to Baileyville PA to see the area where my ancestors had lived.
I knew from "The History of Baileyville -- the town, the ironworks, and the railroad (1790-2013)", a book I'd obtained from the Baileyville Community Hall some months ago, that, at the time the book was written, Richard and Mary's home still existed. It had been updated and was still lived in. I decided to go find it. It's a good thing I brought friends with me as the address is down a private drive and I was too shy to trespass by driving down to knock on doors to ask about the house. But we encountered a nice couple out for a walk who confirmed the house was there and gave us permission to go down their drive.
This what Richard and Mary's house looks like now. I couldn't get a view of the front because there was a huge tree in the way, but the side view shows a pretty home off what had been Bailey Square. (As someone lives there I don't feel comfortable putting their address on the Internet without their explicit permission, so I'm not.)
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| Home of Richard and Mary (Wilson) Bailey, side view Photo by me* Click to make bigger |
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| Home of Richard and Mary (Wilson) Bailey, front view Photo by me* Click to make bigger |
The following are the views around the house, showing that Richard and Mary chose to settle in a beautiful, fertile valley to make their home.
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| Centre County, PA view from the Richard and Mary (Wilson) Bailey farm Photo by me * Click to make bigger |
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| Centre County, PA view from the Richard and Mary (Wilson) Bailey farm Photo by me * Click to make bigger |
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*If you would like to use any of my photographs featured on this page for non-commercial purposes, please credit and link back to this blog. If you wish to use any of the material on this page for other means, please seek my written permission. Jo Allison Henn
"The History of Baileyville -- the town, the ironworks, and the railroad (1790-2013)
What a beautiful place to live, and to think their house survived all these years, amazing!
ReplyDeleteIt really is! (on both.)
DeleteI'm sure Richard and Mary would be pleased to know the owners are taking good care of the home they lived in. It looks beautiful. Were you able to go inside? I found my g-g-grandparents' home in Butler County, PA, but have not yet been able to go see it in person. One of these days....
ReplyDeleteHi Nancy. Sorry for the late reply. I got a bit overwhelmed and then behind in my emails.Catching up today. It is beautiful there. I didn’t even ask to go inside. I’m rather shy and I just couldn’t have asked that. It was down a private lane and I was having enough of a debate with the friends who were with me about going down it to see if the House was still there, (They won & I was still very uncomfortable until after we talked to people out for a walk wondering what strangers were doing on their land,. One was into local history and quite helpful in pointing out the property & house when I showed them my documents. They gave us permission to go look.)
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