Laurel Hill Settlement’s Cold Case
It was around 1776 when Edinborough Smith, a founding member of one of Cambria County’s first black settlements, came to our area. His 1865 murder, during a robbery in his mountain home, would be a cold case for many years. The cache is located in the midst of this community that was known as the Laurel Hill Settlement. Information for this cache was exerpted from a recent heritage article in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat (http://tinyurl.com/ykzny7y ) and a 2003 article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (http://tinyurl.com/yzgs9p6 ), describing the research project conducted by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association. The links are dead, but trying to find updated links to the articles. Link to the cemetery is http://cambriahistory.blogspot.com/. Another more recent article is available at https://www.tribdem.com/news/juneteenth-in-johnstown-panel-explores-laurel-hill-settlements-history-significance/article_d97e2024-0956-11ee-8c93-37ed865df438.html.
In the coroner’s inquest, it was found that Edinborough was killed by a blow to the head. It was noted that there was a suspicious looking man with red hair, who was in the area about the time of the murder.
Evidence found in the 1895 obituary of his son John, indicated that his father’s murderer had confessed. The murderer was later hit by a train while in a drunken stupor!
Edinborough owned the land with his brother-in-law John Harshberger and John’s father, William. The research indicated that the family probably raised livestock and cut timber, since the ground was too rocky to raise crops. After the land was sold following the death of John Harshberger, the land was sold, but his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, refused to leave. When the new owners came to evict them, “Elizabeth came down the trail with a stick that she used to kill snakes and beat the two men away from the land! When Elizabeth went to court for assault, the attendees were so amused by the story and impressed with her tenacity that she was acquitted.”
The burial ground for the townsfolk can be found at the reference point coordinates. There you’ll find the grave markers for John Smith and John Brown, Civil War veterans who both served in “colored” units. You’ll have to retrieve information from their markers to find the final coordinates! Two additional Civil War veterans are also buried there, but their stones are not legible. The cemetery is visible from the new cache site.
Take some time to look around and explore the area. Remnants of some of the buildings and a spring can be found along the road that is near GZ. Daffodils were coming up in random places, most likely were planted near homes.
The cache hike is just over a mile round trip on an abandoned impassable “road” extending beyond the end of Mountain Road. The passable portion of Mountain Road ends just inside Laurel Ridge State Park immediately beyond private property that is posted on the right.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.