My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH KOONS. As in numerous other instances the name Koons is spelled in as many different ways as it is possible to spell it. The branch of the family whose history is here given prefer the form Koons and have adhered to it through generations. It may not be the original form, but it is a logical common sense form and answers the purpose as well as any.

The Koons family is of German origin and representatives of it have been coming to Pennsylvania at various times since as early as 1732. It is impossible to tell from the data at hand from which of these different representatives the subject of this sketch descended. His father was the second oldest child of a family of nine, seven sons and two daughters. The sons were David, Isaac, John, Adam, Jacob, George and Philip; and the daughters were Mrs. Willis and Mrs. Catharine Black. Isaac Koons was born near Lancaster City, Pa., where he grew to man’s estate and received a common-school education. From Lancaster he removed to Franklin county, where he learned the tanning trade, and from Franklin he came to Cumberland county, where he settled in the northern part of Newton township and engaged at tanning and farming. He was an active and prominent citizen and as early as 1818 was supervisor of Newton township. He died on March 18, 1874, and is buried in the cemetery of the Big Spring Presbyterian Church.

Isaac Koons married Jane Carnahan, and by her had nine sons, viz.: Robert, Isaac, John, William, Alexander, Thomas, Adam, James and Joseph. There was also a daughter who died in infancy. Of this large family of sons, Robert, Isaac, John, Thomas and Alexander are dead. Of the living, William married Mary Jane Stewart; Adam married Mary Mitchell, and James married Mary Thompson. These three live in Newton township and are engaged at farming.

Joseph Koons, the youngest of these nine brothers, was born in Newton township. He was reared on the farm and given a common-school education. When twenty-eight years of age he married Miss Louisa Sharp, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (McNitt) Sharp. After his marriage he for some time continued on his father’s farm, which was his home without interruption for forty years. In the year 1897 he went West and spent thirteen months in Indiana, on a farm which his wife had inherited, and then returned to his native county in Pennsylvania. In 1901 he sold his farm in Indiana and in the following year bought the well-known “Happy Retreat” farm, situated just outside the western bounds of Carlisle in South Middleton township. Here he and his family are now living. Joseph and Louisa (Sharp) Koons have issue as follows: Charles, Mary B., Martha, Ella and Jesse. Charles is married to Delia Logan and is farming the Koons homestead in North Newton township. Jesse is in the employ of the Westinghouse Company at Pittsburg, and the three daughters are at home at “Happy Retreat.”

“Happy Retreat” as a farm and a home has a somewhat interesting history. The buildings stand more than a hundred and fifty yards south from the turnpike and present an antiquated and romantic appearance. The house has a rough cast exterior and shows signs of age. The rear side of it faces toward the turnpike, which is accounted for by the fact that it was erected when the “Great Road” of Colonial days was yet the main highway up through the Cumberland Valley and was built to face upon it. Afterward the turnpike came and paralleled the “Great Road,” practically abolishing it, and improvements that had been made to conform with the latter were left away from and out of conformity with the new highway. It has borne the name “Happy Retreat” from time immemorial, and it has always been a query why it was so named. A story, somewhat like a tradition, says that it was the site where Indians once encamped and held a treaty with the whites, the outcome of which was so satisfactory that the place was ever afterward known as “Happy Retreat.” It may have been, but as there is nothing anywhere in the early records to justify such a theory, it is more likely that the story is the product of someone’s imagination. Two important treaties were held with the Indians at Carlisle, one in September, 1753, and another in January, 1756. In the former Richard Peters, Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Norris were commissioners for the Province and arrived at Carlisle some days ahead of several wagonloads of presents intended for the Indians, and as the Indians would not treat until they had been well bribed nothing could be done until the presents arrived and had been distributed. During this delay the Indians must have been encamped somewhere in the vicinity and it may have been on the place now known as “Happy Retreat.”

The “Happy Retreat” farm as at present constituted contains a little more than ninety acres of land. Originally it consisted of two tracts granted to John Montgomery at two different times by the Penns. On Sept. 19, 1772, Thomas and John Penn patented to him the first tract, and on June 24, 1800, John and Richard Penn, by their attorney in fact, Edmund Physick, patented to him the other. As John Montgomery was a resident of Carlisle as early as 1754 it is probable that he had possession of these tracts of land prior to the dates of his patents, but lacked formal title to them, which was a common thing with the settlers in the Cumberland Valley at that early date. On June 24, 1813, John Montgomery, surviving executor of John Montgomery, deceased, conveyed these two tracts as one body to George Fahnestock, and in the deed he gave described it as “a plantation situated in South Middleton township, containing 91 acres and 114 perches, called “Happy Retreat.” On July 26, 1813, George Fahnestock and Barbara his wife conveyed 45 acres and 137 perches of it to Solomon Gorgas, and on May 15, 1815, Solomon Gorgas and Catharine his wife conveyed the same back to George Fahnestock, by which several conveyances the title to the two tracts of land became legally vested in George Fahnestock in fee. On Sept. 23, 1824, George Fahnestock, of Allen township, and Barbara his wife, conveyed the two tracts as one to Margaret Bentz and Catharine Kane, of Manchester township, and Godlove K. Kane, of the borough of York, all in the county of York. On Aug. 27, 1828, Margaret Bentz, Godlove K. Kane and Margaret his wife, and Robert Symonds and Catharine his wife, all of York county, conveyed it to Daniel Dinkle of the same county, who on Feb. 19, 1830 (then of South Middleton township), conveyed it, and with it a tract of twenty-six acres in Frankford township, to John F. Stineman, of the city of Lancaster, who on March 6, 1832, conveyed these same properties back to Daniel Dinkle, whose executor, Robert Richey, on Oct. 1, 1855, conveyed “Happy Retreat” to John Sanderson of Carlisle. At that time “Happy Retreat” was bounded by lands of Jacob Duey, Judge Watts, James Hamilton, Esq., John Graham and John Noble, George Spangler and Johnston Moore, and contained ninety acres and eighty perches. John Sanderson died in April, 1862, and on Nov. 1, 1862, his administrator, Abraham Lamberton, and James A. Sanderson and Margaret his wife, conveyed it to Abner W. Bentz, who on April 1, 1865, conveyed it to James H. Graham, who on April 1, 1869, conveyed it to Tilghman Wickert, of Lehigh county, who on Jan. 30, 1873, conveyed it back to James H. Graham, who afterward conveyed it to William A. Coffee, who conveyed it to Joseph Koons, whose name introduces this sketch.