What’s in a name? Early families set the template for infrastructure, growth in Westmoreland

By PATRICK VARINE TribLive

On a hill in Murrysville near the Allegheny County border sits Sardis Cemetery, where some of the graves date back to the 1700s.

At the far end of the cemetery, a soldier-capped memorial towers over the headstones. It was commissioned in memory of Civil War veterans, and its various sides bear names easily recognizable to residents in nearby towns: Aber. Beighley. Borland. Staymates. Haymaker. Rutter. Ritchey. McWilliams. Swank.

Many of those surnames live on not just through family lineage, but through the township and borough roads named in their memory.

The following are vignettes from the three-volume “History of Westmoreland County,” published in 1906 and compiled by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. They detail the day-to-day lives of some of the men and women who helped shape the region into what it is today. While it is by no means a comprehensive list, most of the surnames are likely to sound familiar.

Swank

Before pioneer John Swank settled in the Ligonier Valley, his maternal great-grandfather, John Moore, was a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1776, later serving as the first president judge of Westmoreland County and eventually a member of the state Senate. Swank’s grandson, James M. Swank, was born in Loyalhanna Township in 1832, and went on to work as editor and publisher of the local Whig newspaper, which later became the Cambria Tribune and then the Johnstown Tribune. He later became head of the American Iron & Steel Association in Philadelphia.

Irwin

Col. John Irwin was born in 1739 or 1740 in County Tyrone, Ireland, arriving in America in 1762, where he was shortly thereafter appointed a commissary in the British army. He took a tract of land along Brush Creek and built a large log house and other farm buildings in an area he nicknamed “Brush Hill.” During the Revolutionary War he was appointed deputy commissioner for issue in the Continental Army’s western division. In 1787, he began representing Westmoreland County in the Philadelphia assembly for several sessions, before being appointed associate judge of the county in 1794.

Irwin’s daughter, Mary, wed a man named John Scull, who moved from Philadelphia to Western Pennsylvania in 1786, founding the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies, the Pittsburgh Gazette, which still exists today as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Irwin’s nephew, also named John, founded the borough bearing the family name.

Ruff

Enos S. Ruff, son of Jonas and Ruth (Hissam) Ruff was born in December 1838 a few miles north of Mt. Pleasant. He grew up to become a farmer in nearby Hempfield, and was an early proponent for the introduction of better roads in Westmoreland County, organizing a company to buy a stone-crusher to create crushed-gravel roads despite opposition by some residents. His family is the namesake of the Ruffs Dale neighborhood.

Stauffer

Christian Stauffer emigrated to the U.S. in 1749 from the Palatinate on the Rhine, bringing his wife and two sons, settling in Lancaster County. His grandson, Rev. Abraham Stauffer, was born in 1752 before moving to Fayette County, where he followed in his father John’s footsteps and became a Mennonite preacher. His grandson Joseph, born in 1836, attended school in Mt. Pleasant and went into the mercantile trade and dealing in coal, coke, banking, iron and steel. In the late 1870s, he and his brother began to operate coal mines and coke ovens in Upper Tyrone, carrying that work on through three decades as Joseph R. Stauffer & Co.

Gongaware

This family surname appears with a number of different spellings throughout the decades, including Gangawere, Gangwehr and Gangawher. It is German in origin. Michael Gongaware was born in Northampton County in 1730, but moved to Westmoreland County early in life, settling on a farmstead near Harrold’s Church, the earliest German Reformed and Lutheran congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains when it was founded in the 1770s. He was a clock-maker by trade. He and his wife, Catherine, had a son, Philip, born in 1760. A later member of the family, Philip P. Gongaware, moved to a farm in the Irwin/North Huntingdon area which was known as “Straw Pump,” better known today as the name of one of the local fire companies.

Borland

John Borland was a farmer near New Kensington. He and his wife Mary had a son, James Borland, in 1848. James learned the carpenter’s trade and lived in Upper Burrell, Apollo and Vandergrift Heights over the years. His son Harry Borland was born in 1871, working briefly as a telegraph operator before starting a career at the Apollo Iron & Steel Co.

Haymaker

Christopher Haymaker, a German immigrant, came to the U.S. a few years after the nation’s founding, in 1788. His son Jacob was one of the earliest residents of the former Franklin Township, which would later become Murrysville. He served as justice of the peace and fathered three sons, John, George and Michael, who all became wellto- do farmers and leading men in the township.

Guffey

John Guffey, the son of Alexander and Jane Guffey of Sewickley Township, was born in 1833. In his early life he was engaged in the timber and coal business, but was the first of his family to engage in the oil business, helping to develop the original oil-producing regions of Western Pennsylvania. In 1974 he was elected county sheriff, serving during the 1877 railroad riots when rail workers in Greensburg, Latrobe and surrounding towns stopped working to protest wage cuts. Then-Gov. John Hartranft called in the National Guard to quell the unrest and confront hostile crowds that were blocking strike-breaking trains in Westmoreland County.

Sheetz

John A. Sheetz of Monessen was a cabinet maker and undertaker, born in 1873 in Somerset County. He purchased and renovated a hotel in the city, which he expanded to accommodate between 30 and 40 guests, naming it the Sheetz Hotel. He also served as a tax collector in Greensburg for several years.

Silvis

Hezekiah J. Silvis was born in Westmoreland County, becoming a cabinet maker and painter and marrying Lucinda Amment. The couple’s son, Elias H. Silvis, was born in 1849 in the former Franklin Township. He became a farmer and eventually built a farmstead of more than 60 acres in Hempfield.

Westmoreland was the first Pennsylvania county established west of the Allegheny Mountains, the eleventh overall and the last created under the British government, according to Robert Van Atta’s “A Bicentennial History of the City of Greensburg.” In 1790, when the first federal census of Westmoreland County was taken, just over 16,000 people lived there. By 1880, that number had risen to more than 78,000 and by 1910 the county’s population had nearly tripled to more than 230,000.

The county’s population reached a census peak of 392,294 in 1980. Since then, it has declined in each decennial census down to 354,663 in 2020.