John Armstrong
John Armstrong
"John Armstrong was born in the north of Ireland in 1720. He emigrated to Pennsylvania sometime between the years 1745 and 1748 and settled in the Kittatinny Valley, west of the Susquehanna River, then the frontier of the province. He was well educated and, by profession, a surveyor. In 1750, Cumberland John Armstrong was born in the north of Ireland in 1720. He emigrated to Pennsylvania sometime between the years 1745 and 1748, and settled in the Kittatinny Valley, west of the Susquehanna River, then the frontier of the province. He was well educated, and by profession, a surveyor. In 1750, when Cumberland County was formed, Messrs. Armstrong and Lyon, by direction of the Proprietaries, laid out the town of Carlisle. It was resurveyed by Mr. Armstrong according to its present plan in 1712. In 1763 his office in Carlisle with all his books and papers therein was destroyed by fire ; a great public loss severely felt for many years afterward in the adjustment of boundaries of tracts of land in the large district in which he was the public surveyor."
Source: By William M. Darlington of Pittsburgh, PA (Centennial Collection); The Pennsylvania History and Biography, Vol. I. (1877).
" John Armstrong was one of the brave officers who so nobly defended Fort Moultrie against the desperate attack of Sir Peter Parker when he visited Charleston harbor on a belligerent pleasure excursion. He was raised to the rank of Brigadier General and distinguished himself at the battle of Germantown and other places. After the Revolution, he was located in Pennsylvania and elected to Congress from that state. He was in all respects a worthy man and took his final leave of his friends in 1795."
Source: The Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution by L. Carroll Judson