Mount Union borough

The Shaver Stone House

Two early stone houses in Mount Union have both been called the oldest, each within its own place. Charles Howard Welch’s 1909 history calls the stone mansion just east of town, erected in 1818 and belonging to Mrs. W. T. Sheaffer, probably the oldest house in its section. The same history says Major John Shaver built a stone house east of town in 1818, and we read the two as one house. Welch calls the house John Sharrar built in 1841 the oldest, as well as the first house in what is now Mount Union Proper.

The histories do not agree on when Shaver came. Welch says he came from the Aughwick Valley about 1797. J. Simpson Africa’s 1883 county history says he settled first in Germany Valley and moved to near what is now Mount Union in 1802, and that his son Nicholas, born in Germany Valley in April 1801, was eleven months old when the family came to the farm. John W. Jordan’s 1913 history of the Juniata Valley says Shaver located at Oughwick Mills about 1784 and changed his home to Mount Union in 1802.

Welch says Shaver bought land from William Morris and the Colestocks, and that at one time he owned all the land now in Mount Union, from Division Street to the river. The Morris tract, which Welch puts at 217 acres and 40 perches, was patented to Shaver on February 12, 1824. Africa, writing in 1883, says Morris built a mill and log house near where the old Shaver stone house now stands. Welch and Jordan agree that Shaver was born September 11, 1762, and died October 16, 1829. His wife was Mary Glass, who Welch says died April 14, 1845, in her 75th year. Welch and Jordan both name ten children: Samuel, Jacob, John, Henry, Nicholas, Ann, William, Catherine, George and Peter. Jordan says their son John was once sheriff of Huntingdon County. Both histories also say that at one time the Shavers and their relatives by marriage owned one continuous line of farms about five miles long, from the bend in the Juniata River where the creosoting plant then stood, up through Hill Valley, almost to where the Brewster tannery stood. A sketch of a grandson, J. West Shaver, in the 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia says John Shaver was “a major in Washington’s army during the Revolutionary war.”

Welch says the couple are buried in the cemetery just east of the stone house, and Jordan places Shaver in the family cemetery at Mount Union. Find a Grave gives a different place. Its memorials list John and Mary in Mount Union Cemetery, also known as the IOOF or Odd Fellows Cemetery, and photographs posted there show a stone for each. His stone calls him Major and gives the date October 16, 1829. The 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District says the Independent Order of Odd Fellows established that cemetery in 1872, 43 years after John Shaver died. Find a Grave also lists a separate Shaver Cemetery at Mount Union with six memorials, among them Jane Hanawalt Shaver, whom Jordan names as the first wife of the son John. The sources we read do not say which ground Welch and Jordan meant, or whether any grave or stone was moved.

John and Mary’s son William lived in what Welch calls the “stone mansion,” and was captain of the Aughwick Valley militia until it disbanded in 1852. He died in 1855. William’s daughter, Nora in Welch and Narcissa in Jordan, married Dr. William T. Sheaffer on February 25, 1875, by Jordan’s account. When Welch wrote in 1909, the old stone house was occupied by W. T. Sheaffer. Welch also says E. K. Rogers, who had driven boats between Lewistown and Huntingdon, settled in that house in 1858, when James Thompson occupied one end of it.

The inventory in the 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District lists the Shaver house as built in 1818, with a historic use as a dwelling and a 1994 use as an American Legion post. It also says the facade was radically altered about 1911.

Welch says the Sharrar house’s owner kept a store there in early days. Africa’s 1883 history describes a stone house on the canal bank that “served the double purpose of dwelling and store.”

Jordan writes that Major Shaver “erected a large store house on the present site of Mt. Union,” and that William was born in 1804 in a log house “where the Shaver store house now stands.” The Jordan passages we read do not say whether that building was the stone house.

Welch places the first store in the section along the canal, flourishing in the late 1830s, just north of the Sheaffer home. The county histories and the nomination we read give no account of a store or tavern inside the Shaver stone house.

Checked against the record. We read the printed pages of Welch’s 1909 history, Africa’s 1883 county history and Jordan’s 1913 history, and the Shaver House entry in the 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District. The nomination dates the Shaver house to 1818, and Welch gives 1818 for the house Major Shaver built. Reading Welch’s stone mansion as the Shaver house is our inference from the matching date and place, and the story says so. We also read the Find a Grave memorials for John, Mary and Jane Hanawalt Shaver, its listings for both cemeteries, and the grave photographs posted for John and Mary. Those pages are built by contributors. The photographs show the stones, not when they were set or whether any grave was moved. The coordinates Find a Grave lists for Shaver Cemetery fall near East Pennsylvania Avenue, the street the nomination gives for the Shaver House, so it may be the cemetery Welch meant. That is our guess, not a finding. The 1897 sketch gives no unit or date for his war service, and we found no service record that settles whether he served or how he came by the title. Still open: the deeds for Shaver’s purchases from William Morris and the Colestocks, John Shaver’s will and probate file, a burial register, a service record, and where Jordan’s store house stood. If you know where the Shaver store house stood, we would like to hear from you. Our search of the Huntingdon Journal for October 1838 to November 1839 found no account of a store or tavern in the house. The first store in the section, by Welch’s account, stood along the canal just north of the Sheaffer home. If that home is the Shaver stone house, the store stood beside it, not inside it.

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