Richard Martin (1799-1869): Pine Grove Furnace Miller

Richard Martin’s son, Reverend Joseph Martin, wrote that his father’s daily book was the English Bible. “He read widely and of the best. He was a great admirer of Shakespeare and could recite passages by the page. Some part of Milton he admired, but would never let me read his description of Hell.  He said it was not true and was a chapter of horrors no good Christian should countenance.”¹

Reverend Joseph Martin wrote many reminiscences about his family, his neighbors and his life at Pine Grove; they were published in the American Volunteer newspaper.

“My father’s early life,” he wrote, “was under the religious training of the Presbyterians. His father, a Scotch Irishman, was a devoted member of that communion. After he came to Pine Grove, from necessity almost, he joined the Methodists. The nearest Presbyterian church was on the Walnut Bottom road between Centerville and the Stone Tavern, and there he often went from Pine Grove to worship. The Methodist preacher came, a class was formed, and preaching regularly established. He never forgot his early training and never fully accepted the Armenian theology.”²

“The religious life of Pine Grove was under the control of the Methodists. Every two weeks the preacher came. Usually there were two, a married man, and a single one…My father’s house was their house, and the best room was the preacher’s room. My special duty was to care for their horses, and I came to judge the preacher by his horse.”³

By 1830, Richard, his wife Rosanna and their family had moved to Pine Grove⁴ where Martin was employed as the miller from the 1830’s until the 1850s.⁵

Martin and his wife Rosanna had a least seven children born between 1832 and 1847; Robert, James, Joseph, Thomas, Albert, Jane and Amanda. Martin’s wife Rosanna died in the 1850s, and by 1860 he had remarried.

In one of Martin’s letters to his son, written during the last three years of his life, he wrote:

“This afternoon, though quite feeble, I went alone to the graveyard.⁶ There lies my three children, and your mother, the wife of my youth, and by her side ere many days I will lie. She was a rare precious woman. We knew each other all our lives, we loved as children at school. As I came back, I saw the sunset on the great mountain and the lovely meadows at the mountain’s base. For many a year I have seen it, and perhaps one reason why I remained here against the wish of so many was just the mountains, they are so much of me, and I hear the voice of God when I look at them.”⁷

Richard Martin died on October 30, 1869 in his 70^th year and was buried in the Old Cemetery at Pine Grove Furnace.⁸

His obituary, in the November 19, 1869 issue of the Carlisle Herald reads:

“Richard Martin of Pine Grove, in this county, died at his residence on the 30^th of October, at the age of 69 years, 3 months and 16 days. He was born in Path Valley, Franklin county, Pa., and moved to his late residence in 1826, where he lived, loved and respected by all who knew him until the day of his death.

Mr. Martin was a man of extensive and varied information, being a great reader of good and useful books, as well as of the current literature of the day. In his character and intercourse, he was marked for his strict and conscientious integrity, and hence enjoyed, in an unusual degree, the confidence of all who knew him.

He was for many years a prominent member and class leader in the Methodist church. His house was ever open and a common home of ministers of all denominations. He was “a lover of hospitality,” and many can testify with what cordiality he received and “entertained strangers.”

Though in his last days, rendered unconscious by his disease, there can be no doubt that his end was that of the Christian-it was peace. M.”