These are 2019 photographs of of the relocated John Markley house at the Penn Alps facility in Maryland. In the first photo, L. Dietle (me) and my granddaughter are standing in front of the house. Mr. Dietle and his granddaughter are descendants of John Markley of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Reportedly, the house was originally located north of the site of the present-day village of Salisbury and is believed to have been built some time before 1775.
According to the Elk Lick Township portion of the 1906 book "History of Bedford and Somerset Counties Pennsylvania" (Volume 2, page 68), "John Markley is considered by all the best authorities as having been the first settler here. He had taken up several tracts of land, but his home place was a large tract of several hundred acres, known under the name of ‘John’s Fancy,’ All the older part of the town of Salisbury was platted on this tract."
In the 1772 assessment for 1773 Brothersvalley Township taxes, John Markley is listed with 200 acres total, and ten acres cleared. This means Markley was in the area long before George Morgan had the Turkey Foot Road cut through what is now Salisbury, Pennsylvania in 1779 to supply Fort Pitt.
According to the article "The Markley House" in Volume LI, Number 2 of the "Casselman Chronicle" (2011), John Markley’s log house was donated to the Highland Association.
For additional information about John Markley, including a transcript of his will, see "John Markley Descendants by Ruth Markley (1980).
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