Part 27

BUSHKILL, another haunt for nature lovers, and SHOHOLA, all remarkable for beautiful falls, glens, caves. In writing of the Delaware Valley, Edmund Clarence Stedman says: “But here there is no swooning of the languid air, and no seeming always afternoon; it is a morning land with every cliff facing the rising sun; the mist and languor are in the grain fields far below; the hills themselves are of the richest, darkest green; the skies are blue and fiery; the air crisp, oxygenated, American; it is no place for lotus eating, but for drinking water of the fountain of youth, till one feels the zest and thrill of a new life that is not unrestful, yet as far as may be from the lethargy of mere repose.” Among the artists who have painted here are, William M. Chase, J. Alden Weir, Swayne Gifford, Carroll Beckwith, Henry Satterlee, Charles C. Curran, W. A. Rogers, and Benjamin Constant, France.

LI

PERRY COUNTY

Formed March 12, 1820; named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry; lying between the Tuscarora and the Blue Mountains, it abounds in beautiful scenery, low hills, rich valleys, and abundant streams. Chief industry, agriculture.

NEW BLOOMFIELD, county seat, settled in 1820; streets run due east and west, north and south. Courthouse faces the center square; colonial with cupola, brick; built in 1868; fireproof annex, built, 1892. Soldiers’ Monument in the square, memorial to soldiers and sailors of Perry County. Among the good church buildings may be noted the Methodist; architect, M. A. Kast, Harrisburg. SHERMANSDALE was in 1720 an Indian village. At MARYSVILLE a long stone arch bridge on the Pennsylvania Railroad line crosses over the Susquehanna River from Rockville, Dauphin County. The Marysville Civic Club has done much for the improvement of the town, and has beautified the town square and schoolyard.

Beyond DUNCANNON, where an immense traffic in coal and iron is carried on, one goes through the valley of the beautiful Juniata; the scenery along this river, as one crosses ridge after ridge of the Alleghenies is most picturesque, and the region traversed is full of historical reminiscences of the struggles of the early Scotch-Irish colonists with the Indians, and of the enterprise of David Brainard and other missionaries. At MILLERSTOWN one threads the Tuscarora Gap, where the railway, river, road, and canal squeeze their way through a narrow defile; this lay in the land of the Tuscarora Indians.

JUNIATA COUNTY

LII

Formed March 2, 1831; name, from the Juniata River, was given by the original people who lived in this region, and who were obliterated by the Iroquois; root of word means “a stone.” “Standing Stone” may be regarded as translation of “Onojutta-Haga” or the Juniata people. A mountainous country with many fertile valleys, situated between the Tuscarora and Blue Ridge Mountains, famous for its scenery, with the blue Juniata making a wide sweep. The old Pennsylvania canal followed its banks throughout its whole course. First settlers were mostly Scotch-Irish.

The old homestead of Francis Innis, one and a half stories, stone, east of McCoysville, is still in possession of descendants, now used as a spring house; his two children, captured by the Indians, were recovered among those delivered to Colonel Bouquet in 1764. Another old landmark, eight miles away, is the D. B. Esh house, on east Waterford Road, built by Mr. Graham in 1802; has an open stairway carved by hand. First road laid out in 1768, was from Sherman’s Valley to Kishecoquelas Valley. The historic road between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, through the famous Jack’s Narrows, over which stage coaches traveled, is now part of the William Penn Highway. Sites of Forts Bingham and Patterson will soon be marked by the General Thomas Mifflin Chapter,

Daughters of the American Revolution. Chief industries, agriculture and manufactories.

MIFFLINTOWN, county seat, population 1083, joined with its twin borough, MIFFLIN, on Pennsylvania Railroad main line, by bridge over the Juniata, was laid out in 1791 by John Harris, and named in honor of the governor of the state, General Mifflin. Courthouse in center of town on Main Street, built, 1874, brick, Georgian, with Ionic porch and cupola; in the yard is a monument, surmounted by a spread eagle, to Civil War soldiers from Juniata County, erected in 1870. The churches are of good architecture, and the graded high school is said to be the best between Harrisburg and Huntingdon.

LIII

MONROE COUNTY

Formed April 1, 1836; named in honor of President James Monroe. The Pocono Mountains and long, fertile valleys cover the surface. Chief industries, farming, lumber, and manufacturing. In the southeast, where the Delaware River turns suddenly at Mount Kittatinny, towering 1600 feet above it, is the Delaware Water Gap, with views of great distance from the highest point; near are the Wind Gap and Smith’s Gap; William Penn’s famous Walking Land Purchase ended near here. The Milford Road, laid out about 1800, from Easton, leaves Delaware River at Water Gap village, thence four miles to Stroudsburg, then to Bushkill and beyond.

STROUDSBURG, county seat; population 5278; first settled by Jacob Stroud, laid out at right angles, with a liberal plan of broad avenues, and houses set back thirty feet from the sidewalk, resembles a New England village. Courthouse, built, 1890, of rough stone, with high chimneys and belfry, contains portraits of judges; with jail and county house forms group facing the public square. Churches are of all principal denominations. The National Bank and other buildings are chiefly by Lacy & Son, architects. A fine stone and iron bridge, built by the state, over Broadhead Creek, connects the two boroughs of Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg; it replaced a wooden one, over one hundred years old, carried away by the freshet in 1862. In 1755, Indians crossed over the old bridge, burned Dansbury Mission and other buildings, leaving Stroudsburg without a house or resident. Ephraim Collver, who had a grist mill there, escaped with his family to the Moravians at Bethlehem.

About 1756, a line of forts were erected to protect the frontier settlements; sites are unmarked; Fort Norris at Greensweigo, Eldred Township, on road toward the Minisinks, eighty feet square, was completely stockaded. Fort Hyndshaw, at the mouth of Bushkill Creek, was built for the Revolutionary War. Fort Hamilton was built in 1757, some one hundred feet beyond the Lutheran Church in western part of the town. Fort Penn, center of town, was residence of Jacob Stroud, who died in 1806; here in 1778, he cared for thirty or more persons, fugitives from the Wyoming massacre, who crossed the Pocono plateau with great toil and distress, later proceeding to their former homes in Connecticut. At Locust Ridge in Wyoming Valley, a battle was fought called the Pennamite War, between Connecticut claimants and Pennsylvanians. General Sullivan and his troops, in 1779, laid out a road through this county, from Wind Gap to Stoddartsville, Wilkes-Barre, and on, continuing an expedition from Easton to Genessee Valley, against the Indians; it may still be traced almost the entire way. General Daniel Brodhead and most of his male relatives from Monroe County, were in the Revolutionary War.

Monroe County was a portion of the lands of the Minisinks; there were several Indian villages; the Delaware chief, Tedyuscung, born on the Pocono Mountains, resided here. It is said that the first white settlement in Pennsylvania was at Shawnee, by the Low Dutch or Hollanders, in “Meenesink,” many years before William Penn’s charter. When Nicholas Scull surveyed the land for the province, Samuel Depui was here; he purchased land in 1727 from the Minsi Indians, now site of Shawnee, an attractive village, five miles east of Stroudsburg; and the same property later from William Allen, 1733, for whom the oldest survey in the county was made.

LIV

CLARION COUNTY

Formed March 11, 1839; named from Clarion River. The scenery is beautiful and diversified; at the highest point, over 1600 feet above sea level, a flagstaff has been erected; from here, on a clear day, may be seen the bridge at East Brady and four villages in the far distance. Hills and valleys are dotted here and there with oil and gas wells. There are beautiful views along the Clarion and Allegheny rivers and Redbank Creek; the scenery at East Brady is notable on account of the precipitous hills and winding streams. First white settler was Captain Samuel Brady of Revolutionary fame; his parents having been killed by Indians, he swore vengeance against them. He conducted an expedition in 1779 under General Brodhead, who had started with a large force from Fort Pitt. The Indians had become troublesome along the Allegheny River; Brady, in advance with scouts, discovered them on a flat rock at a place which is now East Brady; he took possession of a narrow pass, and when the Indians arrived, he opened fire, with the main army in the rear; escape was impossible, and nearly all were killed or taken prisoners.

In early days this region was called “The Iron City,” on account of its many furnaces; forty were in operation at one time, they are now cinders and banks of earth. The oil production in this county has been wonderful; 5000 oil wells were drilled in Clarion after 1870, and there is still much wealth in it; other industries are gas, coal, and agriculture. Two long tunnels are at Madison Furnace on the railroad between Clarion and Franklin; it is said there are but two longer ones in the world. The first bridge was built across Clarion River in 1834. The present one, which is of fine construction, is the third.

CLARION, population, 2,793, made county seat in 1840; is finely located on a hill 1500 feet above sea level, on the Bellefonte and Meadville Turnpike. Public buildings face the park; Courthouse, third reconstruction, completed in 1882, Georgian; architect, Mr. Betts; contains portraits of judges. Jail, Norman architecture, stone with brick front, was built in 1874. Connected with the State Normal School is a stone chapel containing busts of Abraham Lincoln and Henry W. Longfellow; also Navaree Hall, Spanish architecture, stone, brick, and concrete; architects, Allison & Allison, Pittsburgh.

Among the six churches are the Methodist and Presbyterian, stone, Roman architecture. The Woman’s Club has accomplished much for civic improvement, changing the cemetery from an unsightly spot to a place of beauty, planting the park with shrubbery and flower beds, and starting a free public library; in the park is a monument to Civil War soldiers. At FOXBURG is a fine free, memorial library; colonial; native sandstone; architect, Arthur H. Brockie, Philadelphia. In the “Memorial Church of Our Father,” native sandstone; architect, James Sims, Philadelphia; is a painting by Edwin Howland Blashfield, “The Angel of the Resurrection.”

LV

CLINTON COUNTY

Formed June 21, 1839; named for DeWitt Clinton. Has superb scenic beauty; lofty mountains, rolling hills, and highly productive valleys border the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. About one-fourth is State Forest Reserve of mountainous wilderness, where large and small game, trout, and other fish abound. Chief industries are in vast deposit of commercial clay, from which is made fire, building and paving brick, tile sewer pipe, and concrete blocks; and a large chemical plant, very important in war chemicals; agriculture, including tobacco growing; several creameries and a large milk condensery.

LOCK HAVEN, with advance road signs, county seat; population 8559. Through the efforts of the city government, Board of Trade, and Women’s Civic Club, John Nolen, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was engaged to prepare a formal “City Plan” for the future growth and development of the city. This plan includes no radical changes or extravagant improvements, but conforms to the requirements of a small community. Embraces simple, but definite plans for the esthetic improvement of the fronts of the Susquehanna and Bald Eagle Rivers, between which Lock Haven is situated. The proper location and grouping of future public buildings, with a civic center at Monument Place, the intersection of the two main thoroughfares.

The installation of modern street lighting systems with underground wires. And the gradual improvements in store fronts and business places.

It calls for the establishment of drives, playgrounds, and parks; the acquiring of a woodland reservation, adjoining Highland Cemetery, at the edge of the town, for a public park; and purchase of an outlying mountain top for future recreation. Much of the plan has been carried out. A unique and beautiful parkway has been made by utilizing the abandoned basin of the old canal, which cut through the heart of Lock Haven; it had become a dump heap, but under the Nolen plan was filled, and has blossomed into one of the show places of the city, with flower beds, lawn, trees, and special landscape garden effect at each end. The river front has been made into a park, at entrance to the bridge, over the Susquehanna, a modern structure built by the state, which replaced a picturesque, covered bridge built, 1855, about 800 feet long; it includes the old toll house, pronounced by Mr. Nolen a valuable asset for the city. A smaller, quaint, old covered wood bridge, same period, about four miles from Lock Haven, spans Bald Eagle stream, on Bald Eagle Valley Road; near is the Clinton “Country Club” house, artistically built of cobblestones, architect, Lester Kintzing, New York.

The Courthouse, red brick and brownstone, surmounted by two dome-shaped towers, built in 1869, on site of an earlier one built, 1842, is on Water Street facing the river. On the river front is a stone marker, inscription, “Located in the stockade of Fort Reed, built, 1775, for defense against the Indians.” On the river road, leading to Williamsport, near McElhattan, is site of Fort Horn, stone marker, both placed by the Hugh White Chapter, D. A. R., to mark the last two, of the trail of stockade fortifications, built along the river in defense of the pioneer settlers. Where Lock Haven stands was original site of several Indian villages; burial places; and marked one of their great thoroughfares from the north to the coast. Granite monument to 1938 soldiers of Clinton County in the Civil War is in center of city.

St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, stone, Gothic, with spire, built, 1852, on Main Street, has memorial windows by Tiffany and Lamb, New York, and chancel window from England. The Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholic Church, built, 1905, and rectory, 1915, Gothic, with two towers, Hummelstone brownstone, architect, J. A. Dempwolf, York, Pa., corner of Water and Third Streets, is on site of an earlier church, built in 1857, dedicated by Rev. John C. Gilligan, pioneer missionary. Central State Normal School, on ground given by Philip Price of Philadelphia, founded, 1871, includes twelve buildings, on thirty-two acres of land, commanding extended view; the main building was erected in 1890, architect, A. S. Wagner, Williamsport; art course includes the theory and practice of teaching art; industrial art and lectures on art history; reproductions of paintings, and European architecture, also replicas of sculpture, are placed about the buildings.

Ross Memorial Free Library, on Main Street, opened, 1910, further endowed by the late Wilson Kistler, sends traveling libraries to rural schools; contains painting by E. H. Shearer, “Ole Bull’s Castle in Potter Co.”; a noteworthy collection of North American Indian relics, 10,000 pieces, owned by Dr. T. B. Stewart, has been offered as a loan to this library, the collection is especially rich in local relics of domestic life and implements of war. “The Fallon House,” built in 1855, still in excellent condition, is said to have been built with funds of Queen Isabella II, of Spain, who invested largely of her private fortune in Pennsylvania, for a retreat in case of revolution. In Highland Cemetery is an exact reproduction of the St. Martin’s Cross, 16 feet 8 inches high, on the Island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, erected in 1914, in memory of Samuel Richard Peale.

LVI

WYOMING COUNTY

Formed April 4, 1842; named from the Wyoming tribe of Indians who occupied the land when the white settlers came; name signifies extensive flats.

Lies in the northern opening of the wonderful Wyoming Valley, celebrated for its fertility and beauty; surface diversified by numerous spurs of the Appalachian system, which tower into lofty peaks; Mount Solecca, 1000 feet above the river; Mount Chodano, nearly opposite, about the same height; Mount Metchasaung, still higher, at La Grange. Several lakes are well stocked with fish; the largest, Lake Cary, three miles long, one mile wide, is surrounded by lofty pines and hemlocks. Glen Moneypenny, six miles below Tunkhannock, is a wildly picturesque location; many such are to be found among the mountains of this country.

This beautiful setting was the scene of Indian plottings that culminated in the Wyoming Massacre in 1778 (see Luzerne County). The following year General Sullivan’s army passed through this region, on march to subdue the Six Nations, and encamped on the shore of the Susquehanna River at Tunkhannock, where the tannery now stands. Forty years ago passenger pigeons were so plentiful that when they flew across a town in dense flocks, they obscured the sun; one colony occupied a strip of woodland in Wyoming County, seven miles long by three miles wide; Alexander Wilson wrote of counting ninety nests in a single tree. Chief industries, agriculture and manufacturing.

TUNKHANNOCK, county seat; population 1736, first called Putnam, after General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary War; settled, 1790; was incorporated 1841. Lies due north and south, east and west. Courthouse on Courthouse Square has two marble tablets in the corridor, with names of Revolutionary War soldiers buried within the limits of Wyoming County, placed by Tunkhannock Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. The Soldiers’ Monument is on the same grounds. Among the churches of different denominations, the Methodist may be mentioned for Gothic architecture. At FACTORYVILLE is the Keystone Academy. Crossing Tunkhannock Creek, near Nicholson, is the Tunkhannock Viaduct, said to be the largest concrete bridge in the world, 2375 feet long, 240 feet high, above water level; height from bedrock 300 feet; carries the double tracks of the main line of the Lackawanna Railroad from mountain to mountain across the valley.

LVII

CARBON COUNTY

Formed March 13, 1843; named for its coal deposits; coal was first discovered by Philip Ginter in 1791, on top of Sharp Mountain, now town of Summit Hill, nine miles southwest of Mauch Chunk. In 1818 the Lehigh Navigation Company and the Lehigh Coal Company were formed; under skilful management the almost insuperable obstacles in the way of transportation were overcome; boats 18 feet wide by 25 feet long, two or more hinged together, were floated by artificial freshets on the Lehigh; owing to the great fall in the river and consequent rapidity of its motion, dams were constructed near Mauch Chunk, with sluice gates, invented by Josiah White, a manager of the Navigation Company; they were the first on record used permanently; Lehigh coal is the hardest known anthracite in the world. Other mineral productions are iron, slate, and mineral paint. Wire rope was first invented in Mauch Chunk.

The first settlers were Moravian missionaries who, in 1746, purchased 200 acres on the north side of Mahoning Creek above its mouth, for converted Mohican Indians; each Indian family possessed their own lot of ground and Gnadenhütten became a town; the church stood in the valley, with the Indian houses forming a crescent on one side, on the other side was the missionary’s house and burial ground. The road to Wyoming lay through the settlement, being the

famous Warrior’s Path over Nescopec Mountain. In August all partook of their own first fruits in a love feast. Christian Ranch and Martin Mack were the first missionaries residing here; several parts of Scripture had been translated into the Mohican language; the Holy Communion was administered every month, the Indians calling that “The Great Day.” In 1749 Bishop (Baron) John de Watterville went to Gnadenhütten and laid the foundation of a large church; Indian congregation 500 persons. After Braddock’s defeat in 1755 the whole frontier was open to the savage foe; suddenly in 1757, the mission house on the Mahoning was attacked and burnt by French and Indians, and many inhabitants were murdered; a broad marble slab, placed there in 1788, near LEHIGHTON, marks the grave of those massacred.

In 1756 Benjamin Franklin was authorized by the Provincial Government to erect forts on the Lehigh; one opposite Gnadenhütten was named Fort Allen, for William Allen, the Chief Justice. At WEISSPORT, in the rear of the “Fort Allen House” may be seen the well dug under Franklin’s supervision; it was within the inclosure of the fort and supplied the soldiers with water. Weissport was settled by Colonel Jacob Weiss, Quartermaster General in the Revolutionary Army, on site of Fort Allen. Municipal parks are at Lehighton and Weissport, given by Jacob Weiss. Also at Lehighton is All Saints’ Chapel, early English Gothic.

In 1780 Andrew Montour, leader of an Indian party, captured the Gilbert family, twelve persons, and took them over Mauch Chunk and Broad Mountains into the Nescopec path, across Quakake Creek to Mahoning Mountain and over wild and rugged country to Canada; eventually they were all redeemed at Montreal, in 1782, and returned to Byberry. A view of great scenic beauty is from Prospect Rock, over the Nescopec Valley; Cloud Point, frequently covered by vapor, may be seen; near is Glen Thomas with a picturesque Amber Cascade, named for David Thomas, pioneer in the iron trade. GLEN ONOKO, two miles above Mauch Chunk, with its wild beauty, total ascent over 900 feet, forms the channel for the clear stream which flows over innumerable cascades to the Lehigh; the most noticeable are “Chameleon Falls,” fifty feet high, and “Onoko Falls,” ninety feet high, with overhanging rocks, covered with moss and ferns.

MAUCH CHUNK, county seat, population 3666; Indian name means Bear Mountain; first settled in 1815; has one principal street, following the tortuous course of Mauch Chunk Creek as it winds through a narrow gorge between three high, steep, and rocky mountains, averaging 850 feet above the town. The important buildings are directly on this street. Courthouse, Norman, brownstone, quarried at Rockport, Carbon County; built in 1894. Jail, where some of the Molly Maguires were executed. The Dimmick Memorial Library, built in 1890, brick. Churches here and in East Mauch Chunk are unusually handsome. St. Mark’s Protestant Episcopal, Gothic, stone, has memorial windows by J. & R. Lamb; the reredos is very beautiful. First Presbyterian, colonial, brick, has a memorial window by John LaFarge, and one by Tiffany. The Immaculate Conception, Roman

Catholic, also has fine stained-glass windows. St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal is the oldest church in the town.