Maybe you know of the road and area known as Logan’s Ferry, but do you know who the Logans were? This month, Our Local Heritage is honored to have the impeccable Dr. Reid Stewart, a local historian and retired pastor, tell us the Logans’ story:

John Wood Logan was a man for his time. He built a gristmill on Little Puckety Creek about 1835, laid out the first town in northern Westmoreland County, PA. In 1855, began a lumberyard, became progenitor of a family of bankers, lawyers, and judges, and served as the first elder of the Parnassus Presbyterian Church in what since 1931 has been the southern part of New Kensington, PA.

He was born September 22, 1804, in Logans ferry, Allegheny Co., PA, on the farm of his parents, Alexander and Elizabeth (Watt) Logan who had been pioneers on the opposite side of the Allegheny River before they moved in 1803 to Logans Ferry where Alexander Logan operated an inn, entertaining such people as the Englishman author Charles dickens, Aaron Burr, and many others. Logan not only fed them but ferried the visitors across the Allegheny River from the Pennsylvania Canal on the west side of the river to the inn on the east bank. Alexander Logan also kept a store in Logans Ferry.

John Wood Logan had been named for his father’s good friend, John Wood, for whom Wood Street in named in down town Pittsburgh. John Wood enjoyed hunting and visited the Logan family, taking a liking for his young namesake; he left him his favorite horse and his best rifle when he died. Young John Wood Logan grew up in family engaged in enterprises for public service.

He set his eye on a young woman who lived on the hill along what became Seventh Street Road above the Logan farm which bore the warrant granted in 1769 with the classical name of “Parnassus.” He courted Eliza B. Stewart (born Nov. 28, 1818), daughter of pioneers William and Mary (Reid) Stewart, both natives of Franklin Co., Pa. William was a founding elder of Puckety Associate Reformed Church, after 1858 United Presbyterian. The two young people were married May 21, 1835, by Rev. Jonathan G. Fulton, Eliza’s pastor. The year after this wedding, Alexander Logan died and willed the northern part of his farm to his son John Wood Logan.

There was no Presbyterian church nearer then Plum Creek Presbyterian Church, New Texas, now Plum Boro, Allegheny Co., PA. Where the family rode each Lord’s Day. John Wood Logan gave ground near the Logan Family Burial Ground for construction of a small frame Presbyterian Church. His brother Hugh’s wife, who was an Episcopalian, canvassed the area to see what denomination the people were interested in having organized a congregation. The majority of people in the area wanted a Presbyterian Church. A congregation was organized in the new little frame church in 1842, and elected John Wood Logan as the first ruling elder. The congregation grew slowly and steadily. A cemetery grew around the Logan family burials, the first of which had been Theodosia Logan, a sister of John Wood Logan, in 1808.

In 1855 John Wood Logan laid out the village of Parnassus. The Allegheny Valley Railroad built tracks through the village that year, which gave commercial impetus to the area. Workers on the railroad lived in the village, and businesses began to build in the village. In the 1860’s John and Eliza Logan built a large red brick house on the west side of ht railroad tracks on Sixth Avenue; after the Logan family no longer lived in this house which is still standing in good shape, the Trinity Hospital, later becoming Citizen’s General Hospital of New Kensington, PA, began in this building. The Logan’s son William Reid Logan’s “T” shaped red brick house stands at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Fourth Street, at the south end of the same block. By 1857 there were six houses, two blacksmith shops, a railroad station, gristmill, tannery, church and store in Parnassus. A decade later in 1867 the village had grown to twenty-one houses, two stores belonging to A.B. Copeland and William Stewart [Eliza (Stewart) Logan’s older brother], a meat shop, tannery, a railroad station, a Presbyterian Church, carpenter shop, brickyard, and gristmill. When the village was incorporated in 1872, it was a bustling place. Among the original councilmen were John Wood Logan’s son William Reid Logan and his nephew by marriage, John Calvin Stewart, son of shopkeeper William Stewart.

John Wood Logan received appointment as the first postmaster of Parnassus Post Office in 1858. The letters were so few that they could be kept in a small box at that time.

In 1863 at the call of Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtan, who feared an invasion by the Confederates, a company of men was recruited under a great oak tree in the Parnassus Presbyterian Churchyard. This was the only company in the Civil War that was solely recruited from Allegheny and Lower and Upper Burrell Townships. When the train left Parnassus with the company of young men, the patriotic John Wood Logan was found on board intending to be mustered in with the younger men, one of whom was his son William Reid Logan, but his son James Addison Logan was sent after his father to bring him home knowing that he was too old for such duty.

The company which became Co. of the 54th Regiment of Pennsylvania Militia who thought they would be sent to Gettysburg, but instead were shipped out eastern Ohio to capture the Confederate raider, General John Hunt Morgan, who had been raiding the countryside gathering horses, supplies and wagons, as far north as the Confederates ever reached. Somehow the local company captured Morgan, but there is no consensus among the men as to how it was accomplished, but they gloried telling that they had captured General Morgan, which no company of soldiers had been able previously to do. The surprise ending of the story is that Morgan dug his was out of his Ohio prison and escaped within weeks; of course, company K was not guarding him at that point.

At the time of Eliza (Stewart) Logan’s death on October 7, 1873, the couple was living in Pittsburgh, PA. A special train was chartered to bring mourners to the Parnassus Presbyterian Churchyard of the committal. John Wood Logan returned to Parnassus about 1884, died there July 1, 1889, and was laid to rest beside his wife of thirty-eight years. A large pink granite shaft makes the site.

The John Wood Logans had four children reach adulthood. Alexander Watt Logan, their first child was a banker and local businessman. William Reid Logan engaged in banking, the lumber business, civic duties, and died in California. James Addison Logan was admitted to the bar of Westmoreland Co., PA, in May, 1863, served as judge of the Tenth Judicial District in 1871-79 in Greensburg, PA, and they became general solicitor of the Pennsylvania Railroad removing to Philadelphia, PA; he was on the bench when Burrell Township, Westmoreland Co., PA, was divided into Lower and Upper Burrell Townships in 1879. Alice Miltonette Logan married William F. Wilson and resided in Parnassus; she was buried beside her parents in the Parnassus Presbyterian churchyard. There are stained glass windows in the Parnassus Presbyterian Church, now used by the Logans Ferry Presbyterian Church, commemorating John Wood Logan, Eliza (Stewart) Logan, and Alice (Logan) Wilson.

John Wood Logan was a man who had the best interests of his family, his church, and his community ever before him throughout his long life.