We have spent the past three days discovering the places and events of St. Clair’s adulthood. He lived in Western Pennsylvania from the age of twenty-six until he was forty, then again when he was sixty-nine until his death at eighty-one. It was here that he gained and lost thousands of acres of property, served in a variety of official positions, and fathered four of his seven children. He built a mill and later an ironworks.
During those three days we stayed in a condo that occasionally had one bar of telephone connection and a network modem that didn’t work more often than it did, so I was unable to post updates, but I made incredible progress on my research.
Many people in modern Westmorland County have helped me find information on St. Clair, particularly Shirley Iscrupe of the Pennsylvania Room of the Ligonier Valley Library, and Susan Somers, History Professor at St. Vincent College in LaTrobe, who gave me all her files on St. Clair, saving me months of searching,
While I was busy gathering information, Robert and Akalena were able to visit Falling Water, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and take a pleasant drive through the countryside.
We are staying two hours north of Westmorland County, primarily because we have timeshare points we want to use and this is where we could find a spot to trade, but that also will enable us to drive to our next timeshare in Vermont just east of Fort Ticonderoga, in one day.