In the early 1830s, Lot 38 in Apollo Borough, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, became the common strand that bound together three families—the McIlwains, the Smiths, and the Hornes. At the center of this story stands Jane Gordon, my husband’s 2nd great grandmother, whose marriages and descendants secured her family’s legacy within the town’s history.
The town of Warren, later renamed Apollo, was carved out of a larger tract known as Warren’s Sleeping Ground. This land, patented in 1815 to William Johnston and Thomas Hoge, became the foundation for the community that followed. In 1816–1817, Johnston laid out 50 lots along the Kiskiminetas River, bounded by Water Street and Back Street, with cross streets like Main, Indiana, and Coalbank.
As the canal era dawned, the town expanded beyond its original grid. In 1830, John Andree and John McIlwain added an 11 acre tract north of the first plan, still within Warren’s Sleeping Ground. Known as the “New Addition to Warren,” it was subdivided into numbered lots, with land pledged for a meeting house, school, and cemetery. McIlwain, described in an 1829 deed as a merchant, emerged as one of the town’s first developers.
On April 6, 1832, McIlwain and his wife Jane, together with Andree and his wife Elizabeth, sold Lot 38 on Bason Street to Francis M. Thompson for $53.75½. The lot measured 50 feet in front, bounded by Lot 39 to the south and the canal to the north. This transaction, recorded in Armstrong County deed books, shows Jane was examined separately by a justice of the peace to confirm her voluntary consent. McIlwain’s role in selling Lot 38 was part of his wider activity as a land developer, acquiring tracts at sheriff’s sales and co‑founding the New Addition to Warren with John Andree.
The sale of Lot 38 marked not only the beginning of its recorded history but also the transformation of Warren’s Sleeping Ground from a legally claimed but undeveloped tract into a community of homes and families. Through McIlwain’s vision, the Sleeping Ground became both a stage for his family’s legacy and a landscape woven into the everyday lives of Apollo’s settlers.
McIlwain died around 1837, leaving his estate unsettled. Creditors pressed the Orphans’ Court in 1839 to force his administrators to account for debts, showing that his finances were complicated and contested. For his widow Jane, this meant uncertainty until her remarriage to John T. Smith around 1840, who stabilized the family’s place in Apollo. Smith became a civic leader in Apollo, serving as tavern keeper, councilman, and school director. By the mid‑1850s, deeds show Lot 38 adjoining Smith’s property, and in April 1859 he purchased portions of Lots 38, 39, and 40 from the Townsend family for $200. Lot 38, once conveyed by McIlwain, was now firmly in Smith’s hands. After Smith’s death in 1864, his estate was managed by Jane and Alexander Gordon (likely her brother), but that same year he also appeared in the records in another capacity—as executor of John McLaughlin’s estate. Acting with Julia McLaughlin, he sold undivided half parts of Lots 37, 38, and 39, tied to McLaughlin’s mill property, to Jeremiah Brenner for $3,000, tracing the title through prior owners.
In March 1876, John Smith’s heirs sold adjoining lots to William H. Way for $1,050, but Lot 38 soon returned to family ties. In September 1879, under an Orphans’ Court decree, the heirs finalized the sale of Lot 38 to Moses and Elizabeth Horne, my husband’s 2nd great‑grandparents, for $353.19. The court enforced the agreement after Jane Smith’s death, with administrator James Guthrie and the Smith heirs—including Electra, Erastus, and John Milton Smith, Martha Evans, and Violet Jack (recorded as Violet, though she was Eunice Jack)—signing the deed. The transfer carried deeper meaning: Moses’ daughter Amanda had married John Milton Smith, son of John T. Smith and Jane Gordon, making the Hornes both neighbors and in‑laws. Financial hardship struck in August 1883 when Horne faced judgment, and Lot 38 was seized in a sheriff’s sale. Auctioned to D. D. Lloyd and later conveyed to the Apollo Savings Bank, the property passed permanently out of family hands. What began with McIlwain’s careful subdivision in 1832, nurtured by Smith’s civic leadership, and bound by the kinship ties of the Hornes, ended in institutional ownership.
Lot 38 tells a story of prosperity and struggle in a canal town, where land became the thread linking families and shaping their daily lives—even as it slipped away in hard times. More than land, Lot 38 is part of my husband’s family history in Apollo.
References
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, 1838–1842, image 55, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1830–1835, images 105–106, and 391, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1852–1853, image 428, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1857–1860, image 341, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1863–1864, image 628, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1877–1879, images 251–252, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1881–1891, image 634, FamilySearch.
- Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Orphan Records 1805–1831, image 374, FamilySearch.
- Henry, M.D., Thomas James, 1816–1916 History of Apollo, Pennsylvania: The Year of a Hundred Years, pp. 19–21, The News-Record Pub. Co., Apollo, Pennsylvania, 1916.
- Indiana County, Pennsylvania, Deeds 1855–1857, image 508, FamilySearch.
- U.S. Federal Census, Apollo, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, 1850.
