Person:Robert Semple (11)

Hereditary Sempill Lords of Blackburn, Kirkhouse, and Long Dreghorn & Clan Sempill

Robert Semple descended from the Semples of Kirkhouse, Scotland.

Bagby, Alfred. King and Queen County, Virginia. (New York: Neale Pub. Co., 1908), Page 378.

This from Col. Fleet of Culver: Thos. Walker, ancestor of the distinguished Dr. Thos. Walker, and Riveses of Albemarle (see Thomas Walker (explorer)), and Gov. Thos. Walker Gilmer (see Thomas Walker Gilmer), was from K. & Q." - Semple, John and James S., were sons of Rev. James Semple of England. John settled in King and Queen, marrying a Miss Walker. There son, Robert B.A. Croghan[sic] Semple[recte] married Lucy Clark, and their son, Major Croghan, then a mere youth, held the fort at Sandusky against Gen. Proctor (see Henry Procter (British Army officer)) with a large force of Indians and whites. He also distinguished himself at Tippecanoe (see Battle of Tippecanoe).

Arthur, Stanley Clisby; Charles Patton Dimitry; and George Campbell de Kernion. Old Families of Louisiana. (New Orleans, Louisiana: Harmanson, 1931), Pages 355, 361, 2009.

Page 355 - Robert Semple, brother to Steele Semple -
Page 361 - Robert Semple, a brother of Sarah Jane Semple who married Col. Thomas Butler (q. v.), was descended from the Semples of Kirkhouse, Scotland.
Samuel Semple of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

See Clan Semple

2799 Ritner Highway, Seven miles from Carlisle, West Pennsborough Township.

The Mount Rock tavern site is the oldest rural tavern stand in western Cumberland County. Robert Dunning claimed the property in the spring of 1735. When the next owner, John Miller, advertised to rent the tavern stand in 1770, he claimed that the tavern was "antient".

The Mount Rock Tavern was mentioned in numerous travelers' journals. The earliest reference is from a band of Moravians who were traveling through the county in 1753. They preferred to stay here instead of with the Irish in Carlisle. In 1759, Charles Frederick Post, a Moravian missionary, stayed at Mt. Rock because Shippensburg, 16 miles away, was overflowing with people fleeing from the Indians.

In 1794, George Washington left Carlisle with 14,000 troops headed for western Pennsylvania to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. Many of his troops camped at Mt. Rock. After they left, the tavern keeper submitted a bill for clothing, spurs, and a pistol that the soldiers had taken with them.

In 1798, the property was put up for sale. It included 500 acres of limestone land, the stone tavern, a log house and log kitchen, and a still house and spring house "on a large, never failing Limestone Spring".

By 1833, the stone tavern had been replaced by this brick house. It continued to serve as a tavern and then a store for many years. The log house on this site belonged to a relative of the present owners who moved it here from the Newburg area. The stone mile marker in the side yard is one of only two that survive along this road. It marks 7 miles to Carlisle and 14 miles to Shippensburg.

Samuel Sample, from Carlisle, Pa., moved to Pittsburgh about 1806. His father, Robert Sample visited the Beaver Valley at a very early period and purchased several tracts of the “Donation Lands,” but did not settle upon them. He returned to his home at Carlisle, Pa., where he soon died. His sons, Samuel and James, came together and settled on these tracts, about 1807. Samuel and his brother-in-law, James McMurray, were in Captain Kildoo’s Company during the War of 1812.
Joseph McMurray, a Revolutionary soldier, in 1808 settled on the land lately owned by Joseph Anderson, having come from near Chambersburg, Pa. Samuel Sample married his daughter, Esther, about 1809. Mr. McMurray lived on his place in the valley until his death in 1847.
In 1810-1811 there was a great flood in the Beaver River and its branches, and nearly all of the bottom lands were overflowed. It was the greatest inundation ever known to this section.
Joseph McMurray lived on his place in the valley until his death, at an advanced age, about 1847. His wife survived him about one year. Mr. McMurray lived at Crow's Bottom, on the Ohio river, in Beaver county, about a year before removing to Lawrence county.
Mrs. Samuel Sample (Esther McMurray) was born on the 1st day of January, 1787, and is consequently now in her ninety-first year. Samuel Sample died in April, 1870, aged eighty-five years. They never had any children. Mr. Sample and James McMurray, his brother-in-law, were at Erie during the war of 1812, in Captain Kildoo's company.
When the Samples and McMurrays first settled on the Beaver the country was wild and new and the only roads were Indian trails and bridle paths, with the exception of the New Castle and Beaver State Road, which was laid out as early as 1800 but not worked very much for many years.

XLVIII. ELIZA HAMMOND, (MARY, MATTHEW, JOHN, JOHN), the youngest daughter of James and Mary Brown Hammond was born in White Deer Valley, Lycoming county, Pa., June 24, 1804, and died October 5, 1850. Being her youngest child, and but two years of age at the time her death occurred, the compiler has no recollection of her, but as a fitting tribute, a sentence, embodied in five words, which has been repeated by her pastor and by many of her acquaintances in the hearing of the writer, and which is expressive of every virtue, is here repeated: “She was a good woman.” She married, in 1832, SAMUEL SHANNON*, son of David and Ann Sample Shannon, born at the Stone Tavern, Northumberland county, Pa., August 9, 1798, and died May 2, 1880; his remains, together with those of his wife, are buried in the graveyard at the Warrior Run Church.

*Samuel Shannon born in 1718, emigrated from the Province of Ulster, Ireland, in 1749, and settled in Bucks county, Pa. He was the father of eight children, viz.:
1. Margaret Shannon, born April 19, 1743;
2. Jean Shannon, born May 21, 1745;
3. Mary Shannon, born October 25, 1747;
4. John Shannon, born June 30, 1751;
5. Samuel Shannon, born November 4, 1754;
6. David Shannon, his third son, married Ann Sample, daughter of Captain Robert Sample who served in the Tenth Regiment Pennsylvania Continental Line, and who was one of the original subscribers of the Society of the Cincinnati. They had nine children, as follows:
a. Ann Shannon, born August 1, 1780, married William Wilson;
b. Jean Shannon, born June 30, 1783, died young;
c. Margaret Shannon, born September 8, 1785, married Joseph McGuire;
d. Mary Shannon, born October 27, 1787, married ____, Belles;
e. John Shannon, born April 8, 1789, married and removed to Iowa;
f. Elizabeth Shannon, born July 8, 1796, married ____, Scott;
g. Samuel Shannon, born August 9, 1798, married Eliza Hammond;
h. James Shannon, born November 2, 1800, never married;
i. Robert Shannon, born April 18, 1802, married Maria DeFrees.

About the year 1790, David Shannon removed to Northumberland county, locating about two miles north of Fort Freeland, where he eventually erected the Sone Tavern, which to the present time stands, a substantial and well known landmark, on the highway between Milton and Williamsport.

JUDGE ROBERT SEMPLE. The career of a lawyer is a succession of contests, and the successes made in the legal profession are probably more than in any other calling in the life examples of the “survival of the fittest.” To become distinguished at the bar requires not only capacity, but also sound judgment and persevering industry, and these qualifications are admirably combined in Judge Semple. He was born in Wilkinson county, Miss., November 5, 1850, the fifth of ten children born to the second marriage of Robert Semple, whose father (ie. Robert Semple) was an officer in the United States army holding his commission from President Washington. His father (ie. Robert Semple) emigrated from Scotland about 1755, and settled in Cumberland county, Penn., where during the war of the Revolution he was sheriff. He was descended from the Kirk house branch of the noble Scottish family of Semple, who for over 600 years were barons of wealth and power in the west of Scotland in the barony of Renfrew and held large possessions in the counties of Lenark and Ayr.

Of the two sheriffs of Cumberland County whose election was announced, Nov. 5, 1776, Henry Makinly received 170 votes and his brother-in-law, Robert Semple, 490. Pennsylvania Archives, 6th ser., vol. 11, p. 157.

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Robert Semple

A 1776 Partially Printed Document from the Press of John Dunlap, Printer of the Declaration of Independence, reads as follows:

This document appears to be a contract of payment between two men and the High Sheriff of the County of Cumberland for forty pounds, in part the document reads,

“Know all men by these presents that we Randie [sic] Chamber and James Chamber both of Cumberland County, Yeoman are held and firmly bound unto Robert Semple, Esq; High Sheriff of the County of Cumberland in the sum of forty pounds – Lawful Money of Pennsylvania, to be paid to the said Robert Semple, or his certain Attorney, Executors, Administrators or Assigns; for which Payment well and truly to be made and done. We do bind ourselves, and each of us, for and in the Whole our, and each of our heirs.”

January 1776 Writ at the University of Virginia. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, Charlottesville, VA

Robert Semple, Sheriff of Cumberland County, Pa., is ordered by John Agnew to collect money from George Gibson in settlement of a suit and damages in the case of Gibson vs Ephraim Blaine.

On the verso is a computation in Wilson's hand, of charges, including attorney's fees, levied on Gibson's house in Carlisle.