C'RIMKINK : PkNNSN 1,\ ANIA HolNDAkV CoN IROVKRSV. 5 I i) 



al^oul ihrcc months, vainly cnck'a\orini; to obtain a release. The 

 Ciovernor and C'oinuil of Pennsylvania were probably engaged in the 

 consideration of aftairs of a most auspicious nature ; but, in the latter 

 part of June, 1775, the sheriff of Westmoreland county, aided by a 

 posse of effective strength, proceeded to Pittsburgh and set the two 

 justices at large, taking Dr. John Connolly with him to Hanna's town ; 

 and on the records of the Westmoreland county court, July Term, 

 1775. there is found an action of Capias in Case, indicating an arrest 

 for damages, brought by " Robert Manna, I''.S(i. r. John Connolly." 



THE REVOLUTION. 



This case, however, was never brought to trial ; for public affairs 

 had taken on a new aspect. Our settlers for a time ceased to fight 

 each other, but stood together expectant looking for a contest with the 

 trained forces of the mother country. On April 19, 1775, Lexington 

 and Concord became noted names of history. The astounding news 

 from those villages had scarcely reached the Monongahela valley, 

 when public meetings were held on the same day, to wit, May 16, 

 1775, both at Hanna's Town and Pittsburgh. At Hanna's Town 

 the Pennsylvania adherents assembled ; at Pittsburgh, the Virginia 

 partisans. Each meeting passed a set of resolutions with equally 

 forcible approval of the armed resistance to the invasion of Ameri- 

 can rights by the English government, and equally urging united 

 action by force of arms successfully to sustain that resistance. We may 

 call these sets of resolutions, adopted on the same day by the separate 

 adherents of two colonial jurisdictions, the Monongahela Declaration 

 of Independence. They antedate more than a year the Declaration 

 of Independence adopted and read to the people at Philadelphia on 

 July 4, 1776, and they antedate the celebrated Mecklenburg Reso- 

 lutions of North C'arolina by four days. All honor to the Mononga- 

 hela valley ! 



A portion of the resolutions of the Westmoreland county meeting is 

 worthy of being copied : 



" Resolved, unanimously. That there is no reason to doubt but the 

 same system of tyranny and oppression [referring to the oppressive 

 measures of the British government] will (should it meet with success 

 in Massachusetts Bay) be extended to other parts of America ; it is 

 therefore the indispensable duty of every American, of every man who 

 has any pul)lic virtue or love for his country, or any bowells for pos- 



