Part 24

on second floor are symbolic mural paintings, “Criminal Law,” by Vincent Aderente, and “Civil Law,” by Arthur Foringer, made in 1911; panels 11 by 12 feet; in the judges’ chambers is a portrait of Honorable Henry Baldwin, former member of the Mercer County bar, and Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1830-44. On courthouse grounds is the monument, granite and bronze, to soldiers of Mercer County in the war of 1861-65.

The Humes Hotel, at the northeast corner of the Public Square, built, 1817, then known as “The Hackney House,” oldest hostelry in the county, had as guests Marquis de Lafayette in 1824; his room, No. 12, is open to guests; President Taylor and Buchanan, and General John B. Gordon of Georgia also visited here. The celebrated Harthegig healing springs, named after an Indian chief, is near Mercer; Indians claimed it healed them of many diseases. HOPE MILLS was the birthplace and the early home of George Junkin, D.D., who was father-in-law of General Stonewall Jackson; his father was a captain in the War of 1812. GROVE CITY is a picturesque college town, being the home of Grove City College, founded by Dr. Isaac C. Kettler. Buhl farm, near SHARON, is a recreation park for citizens of Shenango Valley and has club house, swimming pool, golf, tennis, and baseball grounds.

XXXV

ARMSTRONG COUNTY

Formed March 12, 1800, and named for General John Armstrong, who commanded the expedition against the Indians at Kittanning in 1756, and destroyed their town; a hilly and well-watered region with fine farming lands on bottoms and hills. Bituminous coal and limestone are found in all parts of the county; cannel coal of excellent quality, oil, gas, and iron ore; the plate-glass industry at Ford City is said to be the largest in the world. Historic places are, site of Fort Jacob; Battle of Blanket Hill; and point where Washington and Gist crossed the river, not marked.

KITTANNING, county seat, settled in 1804; population 7153; on site of an Indian village of same name; later it was one of the French and Indian forts, extending via Venango and Fort Le Boeuf to Erie. An Indian trail left Horse Shoe Bend at Kittanning Point, Blair County, and came through Cambria County to Cherry Tree, Canoe Point, Indiana County, crossing from there to Kittanning. The courthouse, jail, and sheriff’s house are built together, of fine cut stone from Catfish Quarry, Clarion County, cupola, 108 feet from the ground, foundations, 7 feet wide, sunk in solid rock 24 feet below the surface; architect, James McCullough, Jr., Kittanning, built, 1870-73.

At MAHONING, in 1780, was a fierce encounter with the Indians by General Brodhead, commander of Fort Pitt, and Captain Samuel Brady, and another encounter at Brady’s Bend. Captain Brady fought in the Revolution, at siege of Boston, in the massacre at Paoli, and in 1779 was ordered to Fort Pitt. FORD CITY, population 5605, has statue of Colonel J. B. Ford, father of plate-glass industry. Several fine churches are here.

XXXVI

INDIANA COUNTY

Formed March 30, 1803. Named for Indians; early settlers, mostly Scotch-Irish, who not only had the Indians to contend with, but also venomous reptiles and beasts of prey, with which the country abounded; near the cabin door one would hear the quick snap of the viselike jaws of the wolf, one could see the panther crouching in a tree, or the catamount glaring from a thicket. Chief industries, agriculture and coal mining; entire county is underlaid with bituminous coal of finest quality; glass and brick-making are important; electricity and natural gas solve the heating and lighting problems.

INDIANA, county seat, laid out in 1805; population 7043; courthouse, in center of town, brick and gray stone, Renaissance, built, 1871, jail in same style joins it, built, 1888. Town hall, brick with Cleveland limestone trimmings, Renaissance, built, 1913, architect, H. King Conklin, Newark, New Jersey. Savings and Trust Company, white brick, Renaissance. Presbyterian Church, semi-Gothic, Hummelstone, has fine windows, one by Dodge, New York, formerly with Tiffany. United Presbyterian Church, Moorish, brick, built, 1851. State Normal School, northeast of town on high ground beautifully kept, buildings all of stone or brick, modern school construction, contains good reproductions of famous paintings and replicas of celebrated sculpture, distributed throughout the

buildings as a decorative and educational element; portrait of Jane E. Leonard, principal since opening in 1875, artist, H. S. Stevenson, Pittsburgh, was given by the alumni; and interesting class windows in Leonard Hall, given by three separate graduate classes, makers, Rudy Brothers, Pittsburgh; near the borough is Devil’s Elbow, one of nature’s beauty spots.

Armstrong Spring, an old Indian camping ground, on Indian Trail, “Kittanning Path,” which passed north of the Rice Hill, west to this spring, in private property, and through normal school grounds to Kittanning, Armstrong County; over this trail Lieut. Colonel John Armstrong was sent with seven companies against Indians, at the battle of Blanket Hill, Kittanning, in 1756. Two miles west on Kittanning Pike is site of Clark’s blockhouse, first building in the county, the spring and part of old stone fort are still there, not marked.

CHERRY TREE, on Susquehanna River prominent point on old purchase line, in treaty of William Penn with the Indians at Fort Stanwix, 1768, also called “Canoe Point”; from here, the Indians carried their canoes to the Allegheny River at Kittanning, sixty miles away; a direct line between these two points formed part of the boundary of lands acquired from the Six Nations. Where original Cherry Tree stood is the meeting point of Indiana, Cambria, and Clearfield counties, monument erected by county commissioners; designed by E. F. Carr & Company, Quincy, Massachusetts, unveiled 1894; Governor Beaver made the address; inscription, “This monument is erected to mark Canoe Place, the corner of the Proprietaries Purchase from the Indians by Treaty at Fort Stanwix, New York, November 5, 1768.” In the southeast is a tunnel, part of old portage railroad through spur of Alleghenies, where the Conemaugh makes a bend of two and one-half miles. Near are Aurora Falls, for sixty feet over rock and through a picturesque gorge to the Conemaugh River (Kiskiminetas) which forms southern boundary, tributary streams fall twenty to thirty feet to the mile.

Near ARMAGH is the old Buena Vista Furnace, one of three operated in southeast section in the early forties, relic of the early iron industry when ore was taken from the hills, melted into pig metal, and transported to the markets over the old Pennsylvania Canal. BLAIRSVILLE, on proposed William Penn highway, settled, 1819, population 4391, named for John Blair of Blair’s Gap. First United Presbyterian Church, Tudor Gothic. LUZERNE is said to have largest electrically equipped coal (bituminous) operations in the world, and develops power to other operations within a radius of twenty-five miles. SALTZBURG, settled in 1817 by Andrew Boggs, is near site of an Indian village, beautiful Kiski Falls are here; several wells producing salt of excellent quality were put down from 1813 and later. ELDER’S RIDGE, academy, stone, built in 1816, was the first state vocational school in Pennsylvania. The underground railway was in active operation in Indiana County during the latter days of slavery.

XXXVII

CAMBRIA COUNTY

Formed March 26, 1804; named by early Welsh settlers for the Cambria Hills in Wales; has been called the Switzerland of America. Here are many places of historic and scenic interest. The old Kittanning Trail crossed the country in the north through Ashville, where there is an Indian burial ground. Near Carrollton is Hart’s Sleeping Place; he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence; the British made special exertion to take him a prisoner, so he wandered through the woods, sleeping in caves, being constantly hunted by the enemy. South is LORETTO, a quaint old mountain town with one street, and an almost entirely Roman Catholic community, founded by Prince Demetrius Gallitzin, who brought a colony of settlers into the Allegheny Mountains about 1796, and labored as a missionary in this district for forty years; he died in 1840; the church he built here has been rebuilt in a costly manner by Charles Schwab in honor of his birthplace. St. Francis College has the tomb and monument of Prince Gallitzin in grounds. Southeast is GALLITZIN at western end of a tunnel two-thirds of a mile long on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 2160 feet above sea; a bronze statue of the prince is here. PRINCE GALLITZIN SPRING, with a monument near by, is along the State Highway near Summit, on top of the Alleghenies.

Beyond is CRESSON, a noted and beautiful summer

resort; here is Mount Aloysius Academy and the State Tuberculosis Sanatorium No. 2. EBENSBURG, county seat, laid out in 1805; population 2179, is also a summer resort; through the woods and around the lakes of this region the rhododendrons grow as tall as trees and are gorgeous in their bloom. Descending along the upper waters of the Conemaugh, numerous vestiges are seen of the old Portage Railroad, a series of inclined planes, connecting the State Canal at Hollidaysburg east and Johnstown on the west. Dickens wrote of the scenery along the canal, “Sometimes the way wound through some lonely gorge like a mountain pass in Scotland.” Many dams, which are really lakes, have been built by manufacturers, the largest is three and one-half miles long, surrounded by wooded hills with here and there a waterfall.

JOHNSTOWN, population 67,327, at confluence of the Conemaugh River and Stony Creek, was founded in 1800 by a Swiss Mennonite, Joseph Schantz (Johns). A glance at the deep, narrow valleys, with their high inclosing walls, goes far to explain the possibility of so tremendous a catastrophe as that which overwhelmed Johnstown on May 31, 1889. Conemaugh Lake, two and one-half miles long, one and one-half miles wide, was reserved as a fishing ground by a club of Pittsburgh engineers, its waters were restrained by a dam 1000 feet long, built by the state as a reservoir to store water for the state canal during the dry seasons; a continuance of violent rains filled the lake to overflowing; the break occurred at three o’clock in the afternoon, a gap of 300 feet being formed at once. The water that burst through swept down the valley in a mass one-half mile wide, forty feet high, carrying everything in its way, completely destroying Johnstown and other towns and villages in its track, going 18 miles in seven minutes, the distance between Johnstown and the lake. The mass of houses, trees, machinery, railway iron and human bodies was checked by the railway bridge below Johnstown, which soon caught fire, probably burning to death hundreds of persons imprisoned in the wreckage. About 2205 lives were lost; in the Grandview Cemetery a large space is dedicated to the “Unidentified Dead,” with a Westerly granite monument, having heroic size statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity; sculptor, F. Barnicoat, Quincy, Massachusetts; there are 778 individual markers for the bodies, largely unidentified, laid out geometrically, so that from whatever angle the plot is seen, they are in curved rows.

Johnstown was an important shipping station on the canal connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. An interesting feature now remaining is the canal tunnel at bend of the Conemaugh, four miles east of Johnstown; second such tunnel built in America; constructed by the state about 1828 or 1830; the first is in Lebanon County, made in 1827. The Carnegie Library received by bequest from James M. Swank, historian and iron and steel statistician, his books and historical relics. Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Gothic, gray sandstone; the sills under the windows of the auditorium are dressed stones from the abandoned Pennsylvania Canal Locks, near site of the present Pennsylvania Railroad station; architect, George Fritz. First Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Walnut and Lincoln Streets, dedicated, 1913; modified English

Gothic, Cleveland gray sandstone and green tile, architects, Badgley & Nicholas, Cleveland.

The Cambria Steel Company began in 1840, when George S. King and David Stewart discovered a vein of iron ore about fifteen inches thick, on the Laurel Run, west of Johnstown; they built the first blast furnace in Cambria County in 1842, calling it the Cambria Furnace; in 1843 Dr. Peter Shoenberger bought out David Stewart’s interest; he was the great ironmaster of his time, conducting a chain of furnaces, forges and rolling mills, stretching almost 500 miles, from the old Marietta furnace in Lancaster to the Wheeling, West Virginia, iron works. The Cambria Iron Works were completed in 1853, and sold to a syndicate of Philadelphians who selected Matthew Newkirk as president; in 1854 they rolled the first iron rails; the first steel rails in America were rolled here in 1867 from blooms imported from England. Iron is the county’s chief industry.

XXXVIII

CLEARFIELD COUNTY

Formed March 26, 1804; named by the first settlers from a cleared field in the forest made by the Indians, site of “Chingleclamouche’s old Town,” said to have been the most considerable Indian village on the upper West Branch of the Susquehanna, now Clearfield Borough. The whole county is a continuous prospect of intensely picturesque scenery; surface mountainous, with ranges broken into innumerable, irregular spurs, indented by streams; from many hilltops views of the greater part of the county may be seen; the “Knobs,” its loftiest summit, is constantly in view, and the intermediate country, a panorama of natural beauty, ever changing in atmospheric effects; all the creeks, tributaries of the West Branch of the Susquehanna, have scenery which beggars description, a veritable feast for the painter, poet, and romancer; Moshannon and Clearfield Creeks had their beaver dams.

Up Anderson’s Creek, on the old Milesburg and Le Boeuf road, opened prior to 1802, a detachment of regulars marched against the British at Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Important Indian trails traversed this county, crossing the head waters of Clearfield Creek, Chest Creek, near “Hart’s Sleeping Place,” and the West Branch at Canoe Place. Another ran from Bald Eagle Creek where Marsh Creek empties, in Blair County, going west crossed Moshannon and Clearfield Creeks to Chingleclamouche; this was also called the Trader’s Path; none of the present roads are made upon the Indian trails. A mortar-shaped stone has been located about five miles east of Clearfield, on the State Highway, and has been marked by local Daughters of the American Revolution as site of an Indian mill for grinding corn.

Early settlers were mostly from older Eastern counties; these were followed by Germans, Irish, Scotch-Irish, and French. Chief industry, the mining of bituminous coal. In 1828 Peter Karthaus arrived in Harrisburg with six arks, laden with bituminous coal from his mines in this county, it was exhibited in front of the Capitol; not until about 1870 did the industry begin to assume any great magnitude; today the yearly output aggregates millions of tons, and the lower measures are not yet developed. Peter Karthaus also started the iron industry, near KARTHAUS, but it was short-lived; here, it is said, the first successful attempt was made in Pennsylvania to smelt iron by means of bituminous coal. Other important industries are vitrified brick, drain tile, and tanning.

CLEARFIELD, county seat; population 8529; on land owned by Abraham Witmer, laid out, 1805, in regular squares like Philadelphia; streets running east and west are named, those north and south numbered. Two small parks were reserved along the West Branch. Principal buildings are scattered. Courthouse, brick, Romanesque, built in 1860, architects, Cleveland & Bachus, contains portraits of former judges, among them Honorable John Holden Orvis; it is located in center of the original plan of the borough. Near are most of the churches, of which the Trinity Methodist Episcopal, Romanesque, and St. Francis’ Roman Catholic, Gothic, may be mentioned for architecture. The high school is well lighted and of best school construction; each of the principal towns of this county has its high school. Prominent men of Clearfield were, Honorable William Bigler, State Governor, and Honorable William A. Wallace, United States Senator; they are buried in Hillcrest Cemetery; a monument to Governor Bigler was erected by the state.

XXXIX

TIOGA COUNTY

Formed March 26, 1804; name, corruption of the Iroquois word “Tiagoa” (gateway); noted for its high altitude and wonderful views; part of Allegheny plateau, where it breaks into parallel flat-topped mountains, supporting, in shallow basins, several isolated bituminous coal fields. Heritage of timber is being dissipated; the State Tree Nursery at Asaph is trying to replace the great waste. Chief industry, agriculture, land for dairy purposes is among the finest in the state, several extensive milk condenseries. Indian trails crossed the county from Big Tree on the Genesee, among the Senecas, to the frontier at Northumberland. First great road was built by Charles Williamson of New York in 1792, agent for Sir William Poulteney, who had received a large grant of land in New York State, adjoining Pennsylvania, in the “Genesee Country,” home of the Seneca Indians; the road, commencing at Loyalsock, passed through what is now Williamsport, up Lycoming Creek to Trout Run, over Laurel Hill to “Block House,” now Liberty; here Williamson built a blockhouse of logs 20 by 40 feet, as place of refuge; to Peter’s Camp, now Blossburg, where coal was discovered in 1792; ending near Bath, New York, it opened up to settlers 15,000,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania north of Williamsport; this road is still used from Williamsport to Tioga County.

County seat, WELLSBORO, population 3452, named for William Hill Wells, United States Senator 1799-1814, laid out March 21, 1806, in a primeval wilderness. Courthouse, center of group of county buildings facing the public green, colonial with cupola, built in 1835, native sandstone and conglomerate, which was hauled on ox sleds for several miles over poor roads; high on the southwest wall is carved the outline of an eagle, insignia of one of the stonecutters from the neighboring Welsh settlement. Opposite, across the green, is the brick office of the Bingham Estate, built in 1855, and still occupied by the agent, patent of 1,000,000 acres, land mostly in northern tier, included site of Binghamton, New York. William Bingham, lived 1751-1804, was a Philadelphia merchant, member of Continental Congress, and of the United States Senate. Facing the courthouse is a Soldiers’ Monument to Civil War heroes, dedicated, 1886; also on the green is a monument to the late John Magee, who developed the coal fields and railroads of the county, a colossal portrait bust on polished granite pedestal; sculptor, Samuel Conkey, New York.

Best modern buildings are, The Presbyterian Church, Gothic, Ohio sandstone, erected in 1894, architects, Culver & Hudson, Williamsport, contains, among memorial windows, one to George Dwight Smith, killed in the battle of Smith Mountain; also Tiffany tablet to Mrs. A. C. Shaw, white marble, framed in mosaic of favrile glass. St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, fronting the green, is a choice example of Norman Romanesque, the last ecclesiastical work of the late Halsey Wood, New York, built in 1897,

native sandstone, windows furnished by Tiffany, are quiet and pleasing in tone, of unusual harmony with the masonry; pulpit and altar are also from the Tiffany studios; the church contains many fine memorials. St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church was remodeled from the old academy, locally an important and historic institution; standing on a hill the church raises aloft a gilded cross, impressive and beautiful above the surrounding foliage.

The broad main street is paved with brick, around a central strip of green grass, and shaded with fine old elms and maples. The Wellsboro Cemetery, purchased in 1855, was laid out by B. F. Hathaway, landscape gardener, of Flushing, Long Island; stone arch gateway, Romanesque, of local conglomerate, is memorial to Honorable Henry Warren Williams, Justice of Supreme Court, buried here; architect, J. H. Considine, Elmira; on summit of the knoll is the grave of George W. Sears, poet of outdoor life and wood lore, monument has bas-relief bronze portrait, set in granite; Honorable John J. Mitchell, Judge of Pennsylvania Supreme Court and United States Senator, is also buried here. Woodland Park, twenty-six acres, is owned by Leonard Harrison, Esq., who generously maintains it for public use; has surface of hill and dell, stretches of natural forest, and fine views from its higher outlooks.

Several citizens have grounds formally laid out, and planted under professional advice; of these, designed by Bryant Fleming, of Townsend & Fleming, Buffalo, is Chester Place, left to the borough by bequest, for a public library; the garden has an Italian roofed pergola ending with a marble bust and seats, on top of the terrace which divides the upper and lower gardens; a sundial, fastened to an old Spanish Renaissance capital, which came from the collection of garden marbles made by the late Stanford White, is on a rectangular plot of green, and forms the center of one garden room, surrounded by a brick walk, in turn framed by a broad border of shrubbery; into the brick pavement are set little marble panels, carved with designs of roses, birds, etc., other insets contain quotations appropriate to gardens; set into the wall outside at right and left of entrance, are tiles with trees in bas-relief, inside, correspondingly placed, are reliefs showing old Italian garden decorations, Socrates and Hercules.

Just outside of Wellsboro is an old covered wooden bridge, in Pine Creek Gorge, through which the Tyadaghton (River of Pines) runs, mountains rise perpendicularly on either side for 1000 feet; the gorge is sixteen miles long, filled with trout stream tributaries, where also bear, deer, and other game abound.

In MANSFIELD is a state normal school, on beautifully terraced hill, five buildings, brick with marble or brownstone and terra-cotta trimmings, built 1889-1909, later buildings, modified classic; contains many fine carbon prints of famous paintings and buildings, also plaster replicas of noted pieces of sculpture. Carnegie Free Library, classic architecture, built, 1912, light-pressed brick; architects for school and library, Pierce & Bickford, Elmira, New York.

XL

McKEAN COUNTY

Formed March 26, 1804; named for Thomas McKean, second Governor of Pennsylvania; mean altitude 1700 feet. Mount Jewett is one of the high points in the state; half a mile from Mount Jewett is the great Kinzua Viaduct on the Erie Railroad, said to be the highest bridge in the state across a ravine. The electric line to Olean, New York, eighteen miles, through Red Rock, reveals great scenic grandeur. Chief industry, producing and refining petroleum.