Todd from PA
Full Member
What's the story behind Oley cannon
Reading Eagle - Google News Archive Search
Reading Eagle - Google News Archive Search
Most interesting is that one of these cannon made it to nearby Knauertown, where it may still be in the neighborhood...
"...Warwick Furnaces, manufacturing cannon and similar supplies for the Continental
army. John Knauer (son of Christopher) owned and operated ironworks at Knauertown and manufactured the first round iron in the United States. The British, learning of these furnaces, determined to destroy them, but the troops sent out on that mission were repulsed after proceeding as far as Fountain Inn, now a part of Phoenixville, near Valley Forge. Many of the supplies at the furnaces were hurriedly buried in plowed fields, and lost for the time being, and some of the old cannon and ordinances of war have been found within the last generation.
One of the plowed-up cannon, which had been spiked and had to he set off with a fuse, was used to celebrate the Fourth of July and battalion days. At one of the battalion day meets at Knauertown the muzzle burst off and a fatal accident was barely escaped, one of the pieces coming down through the roof of a porch that was crowded with people. This old Continental cannon was later stolen, first from the Republicans and then from the Democrats, to "shoot out" of the country any Republican or Democrat moving out. As there were no wheels under it Mr. Knauer's teams and log wagon were used to haul it from place to place. Eventually, to avoid strife and conflict between the two parties, it was taken and sunk in Mr. Knauer's upper mill dam, in eighteen feet of water. But someone "squealed," and again the opposite party obtained Mr. Knauer's log chains and hoists from his mill, and with boats and a raft to complete the equipment raised it one night and laid it away along the race bank in the woods until it was again used to "bang" another party out of the country. It was once more captured by the other party one night and taken up on the hill near the falls of French creek, where it was dropped, muzzle down, into an old abandoned well, which was filled up with rock and stone. There it still remains, but there are few living today that know of its existence."
RootsWeb: PA-OLD-CHESTER-L Re: Re: [PaOldC] Knauer - Part 2 of 3 Parts. If not interested, don't read 2&3
Reading Eagle - Google News Archive Search
Reading Eagle - Google News Archive Search
Most interesting is that one of these cannon made it to nearby Knauertown, where it may still be in the neighborhood...
"...Warwick Furnaces, manufacturing cannon and similar supplies for the Continental
army. John Knauer (son of Christopher) owned and operated ironworks at Knauertown and manufactured the first round iron in the United States. The British, learning of these furnaces, determined to destroy them, but the troops sent out on that mission were repulsed after proceeding as far as Fountain Inn, now a part of Phoenixville, near Valley Forge. Many of the supplies at the furnaces were hurriedly buried in plowed fields, and lost for the time being, and some of the old cannon and ordinances of war have been found within the last generation.
One of the plowed-up cannon, which had been spiked and had to he set off with a fuse, was used to celebrate the Fourth of July and battalion days. At one of the battalion day meets at Knauertown the muzzle burst off and a fatal accident was barely escaped, one of the pieces coming down through the roof of a porch that was crowded with people. This old Continental cannon was later stolen, first from the Republicans and then from the Democrats, to "shoot out" of the country any Republican or Democrat moving out. As there were no wheels under it Mr. Knauer's teams and log wagon were used to haul it from place to place. Eventually, to avoid strife and conflict between the two parties, it was taken and sunk in Mr. Knauer's upper mill dam, in eighteen feet of water. But someone "squealed," and again the opposite party obtained Mr. Knauer's log chains and hoists from his mill, and with boats and a raft to complete the equipment raised it one night and laid it away along the race bank in the woods until it was again used to "bang" another party out of the country. It was once more captured by the other party one night and taken up on the hill near the falls of French creek, where it was dropped, muzzle down, into an old abandoned well, which was filled up with rock and stone. There it still remains, but there are few living today that know of its existence."
RootsWeb: PA-OLD-CHESTER-L Re: Re: [PaOldC] Knauer - Part 2 of 3 Parts. If not interested, don't read 2&3
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