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History of Cambria County, V.1

  HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY. 209
of the Mountain House at Cresson it is the leading summer resort of this vicinity.

LORETTO.

     This pretty village is the second oldest settlement in the county. As we have noted elsewhere, Captain Michael McGuire located there in 1788, when it was a part of Huntingdon county, and died there November 17, 1793. It was known as the "McGuire Settlement" until in 1799 Father Gallitzin established a Catholic mission there and named it Loretto, for the famous Loreto on the Adriatic coast, Italy, which seems to have been spelled with one "t." On the occasion of the centenary celebration of the parish on October 10, 1899, the Rev. Ferdinand Kittell published a souvenir of Loretto, prepared with skill and carefulness. It is a volume of 405 pages, with much detail of family and church history, which included a chapter on Captain Michael McGuire, by William A. McGuire, Esq., a lineal descendant.
     Loretto was originally in Frankstown township, Huntingdon county, but after the organization of Cambria it was a village in Allegheny township. In 1816 it was plotted into town lots by Father Gallitzin, as he acknowledged the map "to be his act and deed." It consisted of one hundred and forty-four lots in three tiers, divided by two streets sixty feet in width, and three cross streets of equal width. The central row of forty-eight lots are one hundred and sixty feet in depth, and the others two hundred feet.
     Loretto is about seven miles in an easterly direction from Ebensburg, and was incorporated as the borough of Loretto by the Act of March 8, 1815.
     Among the early settlers with Captain Michael McGuire and his wife Rachel Brown, were Cornelius McGuire, William Dodson, Michael Rager, John Storm, John Douglass, William Meloy, Luke McGuire who married Margaret O'Hara, Richard Nagle, Richard Ashcroft, James Alcorn, John Trux and John Byrne.
     The souvenir of Loretto contains the names of all the families, and those of the children, with dates of birth and death from November 17, 1793, to October 10, 1899, which renders it very valuable for genealogical purposes.
     The surnames are: Adams, Bradley, Brown, Burgoon, Burke, Byrne, Christy, Conrad, Coons or Kuhns, Dimond,

     Vol. I-14


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Created: 27 Mar 2006, Last Updated:
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Lynne Canterbury, Diann Olsen and contributors