William McKinstry
William McKinstry
The Man Who Built the Myers and Tritle Building
Joan C. McCulloh
As restoration of the large redbrick building on the northeast corner of the Square, known locally as the Myers and Tritle building, has recently occurred, it may be well to remember the person who built that building, William McKinstry. In1792 William McKinstry about age eighteen left Belfast, Ireland, now Northern Ireland, and came to Philadelphia. During a deadly outbreak of yellow fever there he left that city, went to Lititz, Pennsylvania, for a short while and then went to the Frederick, Maryland, area. After some time there he decided in 1796 to walk west to Pittsburgh and perhaps to points beyond. As his walking route came through the newly established town of Mercersburg, he stayed overnight in Peter Whiteside’s hotel on the northwest corner of the Square, now (2026) the site of M and T Bank. It has been said that, when he came to Mercersburg, he had all of his possessions in a handkerchief at the end of a hickory stick. Although that story is probably apocryphal, it establishes the fact that he came with no worldly goods. During what he intended to be a brief stay in Mercersburg he met people also named McKinstry, but no relatives of his, who persuaded him to end his journey and to stay here. It is believed that he first was employed as a clerk in the store of James Buchanan, the father of the President, located on the first floor of his home, now the James Buchanan Pub, and that he eventually bought a store from the father of the President.
Young McKinstry was both industrious and enterprising. After a short time, with his earnings he began to purchase land, much of it farmland, and to build. He first built the stone building on the northeast corner of the Square as his store, now Stoner’s on the Square. He then began to build in brick and built several brick houses in town including some on the south side of East Seminary Street. He later built a large brick house on one of the farms he had purchased, now the farm owned by Mercersburg Academy. This house, in which he lived, was named Lastly Hall, although it was not the end of his constructing. In 1842 he bought the property that stood on the northeast corner of the Square and bordered East Seminary Street, tore it down, and built as his store the large redbrick building recently restored.
A person who saw possibilities, he not only bought land and built structures but also became active in the civic life of the town. Because he became Justice of the Peace about 1815, he was known as Squire McKinstry. A follower of the ideas and principles of Thomas Jefferson who advocated an agrarian society with a weak central government with much power given to the states, he entered politics as a Democratic-Republican and from1838 to 1840 served two terms in the Pennsylvania Legislature. In 1842 he established Mercersburg’s first newspaper, the Visitor. He contributed money for the macadamizing the road from Waynesboro through Mercersburg to McConnellsburg. In company with a mail contractor he established a four-horse coach line from Frederick, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Virginia. A devoted Presbyterian, he was faithful to his church.
Perhaps one of his most enduring contributions to the life of the town occurred in 1834. In that year the German Reformed Church, having decided to move its school from York, wrote letters to various towns requesting them to submit offers of pledge money to have the school moved there. Immediately, the men from Mercersburg, including McKinstry, raised ten thousand dollars, the largest sum any town was willing to raise, so that the school was moved here in 1835 and chartered as Marshall College in 1836. As part of his pledge McKinstry gave four acres on the eastern edge of Mercersburg, as a later author wrote, “an oblong square, containing four acres of ground, on a beautiful eminence, next adjoining the village,….” for the newly chartered Marshall College and thus established the site of Main Hall of Marshall College. These first four acres consequently became the first four acres of the campus of the Mercersburg Academy. McKinstry, who was named vice-president of the Board of Marshall College, served on that Board for many years.
In 1798 McKinstry married Elizabeth McGinly, and they were the parents of seven children.
After a long and useful life in this community William McKinstry, who in 1796 had intended merely to walk through Mercersburg on his journey westward, at age ninety-one passed away on April 23, 1861. With his interest in and concern for Mercersburg and his love of building there is little doubt that, if he were living today, he would heartily approve of the restoration of his building that he had built one hundred and eighty-three years earlier.
Notes: It is believed that McKinstry upon his arrival worked in the store and eventually bought the store of James Buchanan. Interestingly, their political leanings were in sharp contrast. McKinstry was a Democratic-Republican, but James Buchanan, the father of the President, was a Federalist, one who believed the ideas and principles of Alexander Hamilton, who advocated a strong central government. Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan as Federalists named one of their younger sons George Washington Buchanan.
Two of William McKinstry’s sons who lived locally were William D. McKinstry and Alex McKinstry.
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