AIthough the record of John Armstrong, Senior, is fairly complete,1 and biographies of his sons James and John are available because, like their father, they both served as Congressman,2 that of his wife and her family, his father, brothers and sisters are sketchy. This paper undertakes an examination of the family with emphasis on those members.
According to his tombstone in the Old Carlisle Cemetery, John was born in 1717 at Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, in the Ulster portion of Ireland. His father was James Armstrong; his mother's name is not known. In 1895 one James Lewis Armstrong copied a gravestone inscription in Aghavea Parish Cemetery, one mile from Brookeborough:
Here lies the body of James Armstrong, son to Edward, also son to Margaret, who died Sunday, May 1745, aged 50 years.3
It may well represent the grave of the father of Colonel John Armstrong of Carlisle, who seems to have had five brothers and five sisters:
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
1. Edward, the oldest, named for his grandfather, died in Ireland before his father, James. Some descendants came to America.4
2. James, who died .in Juniata County, Pennsylvania c. 1774, was a private in the militia company captained by James Patterson in 1758. Indians captured his wife and two children on 27 January 1756, but she was released a year later at Fort Augusta.5 After his death by drowning, letters of administration were issued 23 April 1774. The younger of the ten surviving children went under the guardianship of their uncle, John Lyon.
3. George lived in Bedford in 1769. Colonel John mentioned "my brother George" as a militia captain in 1758 and "my late brother George" in 1785. He rose to the rank of colonel in the militia.6 In 1758 he was commissioned to lay out a road to Fort Duquesne. On 2 April 1766 he received a Pennsylvania license to many Martha Turner, probably a sister of his sister Rebecca's husband. George's last years seem to have been spent in Bedford.
4. William was a surveyor in Mifflin County, where his home near the site of Fort Granville by 1773 was a Presbyterian preaching point. He died late in 1784. Colonel John in 1755 referred to "my brother William. " He later became a lieutenant in the militia.7 His wife was named Rebecca.
5. Andrew, living in Ireland in 1795, was named in Colonel John's will.8
6. Margaret married John Lyon in Ireland and came to Pennsylvania in 1763. They were the great-great-grandparents of James G. Blaine of Maine, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1884.9
7. Ann married William Graham and lived in Juniata County.10
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