Part 28

The Woman’s Clubs are seeking to improve conditions, sanitary and scenic; to widen the life of the town and in every way make it more in unison with its natural surroundings. In the limited space of the narrow valley, land is too precious to be used except for buildings, but the hills are so magnificent that they look to them for the necessary beauty; Flagstaff Park has natural effect. The first railroad in Carbon County and one of the oldest in the United States, is the famous SWITCHBACK, a gravity road, extending from Mauch Chunk to SUMMIT HILL, opened in 1832, for bringing coal from the mines to the canal; used now only for pleasure; a double track is laid to the summit of Mount Pisgah, 2322 feet distant from the foot, at an angle of twenty degrees, with elevation about 900 feet above the river. Scene from the top is superb, with a succession of mountain ridges rising, range after range, with distant view of Lehigh Water Gap, and farther to Schooley’s Mountain in New Jersey. The principal attraction at Summit Hill is the burning mine, discovered to be on fire in 1859. General Craig of Revolutionary fame resided here.

LVIII

ELK COUNTY

Formed April 18, 1843; possesses everywhere great scenic beauty; a large herd of elk, last-known herd of the Black Forest, still existed, for which the county was named; the last elk was killed in 1857. The Black Forest formerly covered a vast area of northwest Pennsylvania, the deep green of the hemlock giving a mystery of blackness; here many varieties of large and small animals abounded. Climate and geological formation differ from surrounding counties in ratio of altitude; the growing season is usually two or three weeks later on account of late frosts; agriculture is now chief industry. Bituminous coal was discovered by “Blind Mike” on Priest’s Land at St. Mary’s in 1853, and is continuously worked. Natural gas, oil, high-grade clays, and shale are other mineral resources. Jimanandy Park, 3600 acres of almost virgin forest, stocked with deer; through which a trout run flows, is the property of heirs of Senator James K. P. Hall, and Honorable Andrew Kaul; permission to inspect the park may be obtained at office of J. R. P. Hall at St. Mary’s.

RIDGWAY, county seat, laid out in 1843 and named for Jacob Ridgway, Philadelphia, who was United States Consul at Antwerp; population 6037. Courthouse, center of town, built in 1872, brick, with clock tower, surmounted by a large statue of Justice; stands in a well-kept park with jail in the rear. Main Street, very wide, paved with brick, has many fine residences. Forest Lawn Cemetery contains the Hall and Hyde family mausoleums and a large community mausoleum built in 1912. ST. MARY’S, ten miles from Ridgway, along the state road through beautiful scenery, is largest town in the county, population 6967; known as the Summit City, on a high plateau, altitude 1660 to 1950 feet. Has wide streets paved with brick, and is surrounded by a fertile farming country. The Charles A. Luke Memorial Park, four acres, acquired by gift in 1873 for the public, was laid out by George C. Miller, landscape gardener of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1914, through St. Mary’s Village Association.

St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, oldest and largest in the county, built in the fifties by the German Catholic colonists, from plans made by the late Ignatius Garner, native undressed sandstone, recently dressed with cement, spoiling its rusticity. In St. Mary’s Cemetery are buried Baron Van Essel and many war veterans. Large German Benedictine College and Convent conducted by the Sisters of St. Benedict, established, 1862, is one of the three schools in America which teach the Della Sade system of voice culture, introduced by the venerable Sister Marie who learned the system of the great Italian master. In the Convent is said to be an original Van Dyke painting. Sacred Heart Church, native sandstone, Gothic. The Shiloh Presbyterian Church is an ecclesiastical building of native sandstone. At St. Mary’s and Kersey Road is a small chapel, wood, old German design, built in 1870 by the late George Decker, in fulfillment of a vow; prayer service is held here at stated times.

Going east from Kersey, road leads through “The Barrens,” a sandy rocky stretch of land denuded of vegetation by forest fires, on the old Bellefonte Pike. Scenery is wonderful toward MOUNT ZION, where there is a typical country church and burial ground. At Mount Zion corner, the road takes three courses; left leads to BYRNEDALE with its fifty coke ovens, coal tipples, and washer plant. WILCOX, in northern part of county, lying in the famous gas belt of Elk County, has large glass factory. A few miles back is TAMBINE; near here President Grant, guest of General Thomas Kane, spent a day fishing for trout. From Wilcox, along the Big Level Road, is Rasselas; here Captain (later General) Kane pinned a buck’s tail on the hat of Hiram Woodruff, first member recruited for the Bucktail Regiment. On the old Milesburg and Clermont Pike, William C. Walsh carried the first mail through this section in 1828.

LIX

BLAIR COUNTY

Formed February 26, 1846; named for Honorable John Blair, native of this county, and public-spirited citizen; in 1820, he laid out, and was President of the Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana Turnpike, first in this section. Blair County lies in the beautiful Juniata Valley, settled by Scotch-Irish, English, and Germans; much of the soil is very fertile. Chief industries, agriculture, coal mining, and manufacturing. It is the center of a network of roads, mostly built as turnpikes from 1830-50; now state roads.

TYRONE, altitude 692 feet above sea level, population 9084; outlet for important bituminous coal products; lies in a basin formed by the base line of old Tussey, a famous mountain, and the bold ridge known as Bald Eagle. The home of Captain John Logan, eldest son of Shikellamy, was at mouth of Bald Eagle Creek; second son, James Logan, the Mingo chief, named for Secretary Logan of Germantown, went west to the Ohio; his son (Tod-kahdohs) married a daughter of Chief Cornplanter. About three miles east from Tyrone is the Sinking Valley, named from the Sinking Creek, an underground watercourse; near is BIRMINGHAM, with a pleasure ground, where there are one hundred springs and a large cave; a school for girls is here.

ALTOONA, population 60,331; altitude 1171 feet above sea level; founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1850, consists almost entirely of their shops and workmen’s houses. St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, native stone, first built in 1858; second building in 1881, using the same stone; Gothic, F. C. Withers, New York, architect; has an English window, also one by Tiffany, “The Resurrection,” exhibited in Paris in 1900; memorial to Almet E. Read, Esq.; brick rectory and school, gift of General John Watts De Peyster, as memorial to his daughter, first school for advanced education in Altoona.

In the Logan House, built, 1854, by the Pennsylvania Railroad, was held the conference of the loyal war governors in 1862, namely, A. G. Curtin, Pennsylvania; John A. Andrew, Massachusetts; Richard Yates, Illinois; Israel Washburn, Jr., Maine; Edward Solomon, Wisconsin; Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa; O. P. Morton (by D. G. Ross, his representative), Indiana; William Sprague, Rhode Island; F. H. Pierpont, Virginia; David Tod, Ohio; N. S. Berry, New Hampshire; Austin Blair, Michigan; to devise ways and means for coöperating with President Lincoln in suppressing the Rebellion. King Edward VII, as Prince of Wales, stopped here. On the William Penn Highway, formerly an old portage road, is site of an early historic hotel, “Fountain Inn,” mentioned by Dickens in “American Notes”; here William Henry Harrison stopped overnight on his way to Washington in 1841, to be inaugurated President of the United States; Henry Clay and Jenny Lind also stopped here.

Near junction of Sugar Run with Burgoon’s Run, three miles south of Altoona, in 1781, Indians killed a number of militiamen from Fetter’s Fort, built in 1775, by firing on them from ambush. A monument dedicated in 1909, marks the place where the wife of Matthew Dean and three of their children were killed by Indians in 1788, while he and the other children were working in the fields. In Blair County are also sites of Fort Roberdeau, built, 1778, and Fort Lowry, 1779, unmarked. Magnificent views from Nopsononock, at summit of the Alleghenies, Prospect Hill, and Kittanning Point, where the Pennsylvania Railroad is carried around the famous Horseshoe Curve. A little farther, the Pennsylvania Railroad passes through a tunnel two-thirds of a mile long, 2160 feet above sea level.

Lakemont Park is a noted place of scenic beauty near HOLLIDAYSBURG, population 4071, county seat, laid out in 1820; named for James Adam Holliday, who lived here prior to the Revolution. Courthouse, Romanesque; built 1876-77; remodeled and enlarged in 1906; on grounds are jail, feudal style, architect, John Haviland, and a Soldiers’ Monument. Highland Hall, stone, colonial doorway, with beautiful grounds, is now Miss Cowles’ school for girls. Entrance to old Presbyterian Cemetery is a Norman gate, designed by Price J. McLanahan, Philadelphia, hewn timbers, held in place by bolts of wood, supporting a red tiled roof. Main street is part of the old turnpike between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, shaded by beautiful old trees; here in days of the canal, in 1834, boats met the Portage Railroad at foot of the Alleghenies; freight and passengers were carried over the mountain by inclined planes and stationary engines; by this means travel from eastern Pennsylvania was continued through the Ohio River to the Mississippi. Charles Dickens took the trip over the mountain in 1842; the Allegheny Portage Railroad in boldness of design and difficulty of execution compared well with the passes of the Simplon and Mont Cenis. “Ant Hill” woods, almost within town limits, were said to be the only hills of the kind in this country; they were written up in the _Century_ magazine by Dr. McCook; a hill was taken to the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; they are now level with the ground, through vibration of the trolley. Less than a mile from town are “Chimney Rocks,” famous council chamber of the Indians; with view of unsurpassed beauty of the Juniata Valley, old Portage Road, and Allegheny Mountains. On western slope, much of the Portage Road is used for the highway; the Monumental Arch is still standing.

LX

SULLIVAN COUNTY

Formed March 15, 1847, named for General John Sullivan; is noted for picturesque scenery, mountains, valleys, lakes, streams and waterfalls, forests, and distant views. Either the scenic Williamsport and North Branch Railroad or the state highway, that parallel each other and enter the county near Muncy Valley, lead to beautiful Eaglesmere, 1900 feet above sea; on Lewis Lake, one and a half miles long, one-half mile wide; depth never definitely determined, fed by subterranean waters. About the shore, tree bound, with luxuriant growth of rhododendron and laurel, and rock faced to deep water, there are lovely nooks, and a bathing beach of white sand at the northern end. Passing from Eaglesmere through “Celestia,” where the lands were deeded in 1864, by Peter E. Armstrong and wife, to “Almighty God”--the deed may be seen at the county courthouse--one comes to LAPORTE, population 175; highest and smallest county seat in Pennsylvania, 2000 feet above sea level, with its natural beauties, including “Lake Mokoma,” is also an attractive summer resort. It was laid out in 1850, by Michael Meylert, who owned the land and built the first courthouse; present building, facing the park, is Romanesque; brick; beautiful Lombardy poplar trees are in the yard. Within the last twelve years advanced civilization has penetrated into Sullivan County in good state highways, rural mail

routes, telephones, and several borough and township high schools. The streets of LaPorte are wide and well kept, and the park is in care of the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society.

At the top of the mountain, on the road toward Sonestown, is “Fiester’s View,” where the deep valley of Muncy Creek, walled on the east by the towering North Mountain, 3000 feet above tide, near Nordmont, is beautiful beyond description. At the junction of the Big and Little Loyalsock Creeks is the pretty little town of FORKSVILLE. Dr. Priestly purchased a large tract of land about here, laid out roads, and made many improvements. Four miles distant, on the state highway toward Hillsgrove, on Kings Creek, is Lincoln Falls, a waterfall about 30 feet in height at the head of a gorge with perpendicular walls of rock, varying from 50 to 80 feet in height. A few deer, quite a number of bear, foxes, rabbits, and squirrels are in this county; a state game preserve is in the southeast near Jamison City. There are some good trout streams, and the lakes are well stocked with fish. The most valuable industry is coal from the Bernice coal fields in the east. The production of hemlock tanned sole leather is important. Farm products and dairying are general.

LXI

FOREST COUNTY

Formed April 11, 1848; named for its great variety of timber; hemlock and pine, east; dense forests of deciduous trees west along the Allegheny River. Game large and small abounds; streams are full of brook trout. Atmosphere is fragrant with health-giving ozone, strengthening the weak and restoring those affected with lung trouble. Chief industry is lumbering; in western part agriculture, and the growing of fine apples.

David Zeisberger, first white man in Forest County, came in 1767, Moravian missionary to the Monseys, a wild and warlike tribe; he stayed two years in their three villages, Goshgoshunk (Holeman’s Flats), Sa-quelin-get, Place of Council (Tionesta) and La-hun-ichannock, Meeting of the Waters (East Hickory), and migrated with them to Fort Pitt. After Monseys, came the Senecas under Cornplanter, in 1770. First settler Cyrus Blood, surveyor, who cleared land for Marienville, first county seat, and improved it. “The Big Level,” name of old state road, 1728 feet above sea, follows northeast from Marienville to Mount Jewett, McKean County, roadbed compact and solid, 100 feet wide, was first made in Cyrus Blood’s time. On this road is Beaver Meadows, formerly a dam built by beavers, which backed water over an area one and one-quarter miles long by one-eighth mile wide; dam four and one-half feet high.

Along the Guitonville road toward Marienville, on a high plateau with two miles of straight, natural, firm roadbed, is Job’s Pinnacle, from which is a fine distant view of Tionesta Valley; a mile farther, Pisgah, also a pinnacle, is on Salmon Creek Hill; the whole hill is composed of magnetic iron ore, on a sandstone foundation, above shale and slate stratification; in surveying, the magnetic attraction is so great the needle is paralyzed; it is a mass of rocks; another magnetic iron ore hill is Bald Bluff, where lightning strikes freely. Stony Point, back of Salmon Creek Hill, near Newtown Mills, is the highest land; scenery about here is so beautiful at the mouth of Salmon Creek, that Erion Williams, the early surveyor, called it Eden revived. Beautiful scenery is along the State road parallel with the Sheffield & Tionesta Railroad, crossing a large iron bridge over Tionesta Creek at Nebraska, two miles farther, over another iron bridge, and three miles to Ross Run. This land produces oil and gas in good quantities.

At Kellettville, on the Tionesta, pieces of ancient pottery have been exhumed, showing that this was the home of a race older than the Indians, who had not made pottery in this section; three miles above Kellettville is a long sloping rock in the bed of Tionesta Creek, “Panther Rock,” where Ebenezer Kingsley, a pioneer hunter, shot many cougars; state paid twenty dollars bounty for a panther, twelve dollars for a wolf. Picturesque falls are on Blue Jay Creek; near its mouth is Rocky City, on Tionesta Creek, a vast aggregation of rocks like tall towers, with grand scenery, nearly opposite is a prehistoric square hole forty feet deep, no record of its formation.

TIONESTA, population 642, county seat, incorporated, 1852. Principal buildings, Courthouse on high ground in public square of two acres, brick, built 1870, architect, Keene Vaughn, contains proof copy of “Zeisberger preaching to the Indians in Forest County in 1677,” engraved by John Sartain, with a volume of Zeisberger’s Life and Notes, a gift from the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia; and a receipt signed by David Zeisberger, framed in wood of the wild cherry tree under which, legend says, he originally preached; also portraits of prominent men of Forest County. Jail, brick and stone, in courthouse ground, built by Van Dorn Prison Company, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1895. The Forest County National Bank, native stone, Romanesque, built, 1899, architect, C.M. Robinson, Altoona. Presbyterian Church, brick, 1910, on site of old wooden church, built, 1851; and Methodist Church, brownstone, built, 1909; both contain memorial windows.

LXII

LAWRENCE COUNTY

Formed March 20, 1849; named for Perry’s flagship, in the Battle of Lake Erie, which was named in honor of Captain James Lawrence, United States Navy. Lawrence was mortally wounded in the War of 1812, on the frigate _Chesapeake_, against the British ship _Shannon_; as he was carried below he said: “Don’t give up the ship.” Chiefly settled by Scotch-Irish. The old canal to Lake Erie, built in 1833, went through center of the county, and did much to develop the resources--bituminous coal, iron ore, and limestone. Chief industries, manufactories and agriculture. Many beautiful drives are all through the county in every direction.

The Moravian missionaries, David Zeisberger and Gottlob Senseman, were the first white men who dwelt here, long before the county was formed; they migrated with the Indians from Bradford County, through Forest County, and were the greatest missionary power to them. They were visited by Glikkikin, a renowned warrior of great eloquence, who with his escort, purposely tried to refute the doctrines of Christianity; they were received by Anthony, a native convert, who treated them courteously and made such an impressive speech on Christian doctrine that he astonished the visitors; Zeisberger, coming in then, confirmed his words, and Glikkikin, instead of delivering his speech, replied: “I have nothing to say. I believe your words.”

On return to his town, he advised the savages to go hear the Gospel; he made them another visit, informed them that he had determined to embrace Christianity, and invited them, in the name of his chief, Packauke, to settle on land on Beaver River, near his town Kaskaskünk, now New Castle; this land was to be for the exclusive use of the mission. The offer was accepted, and on April 17, 1770, they left Oil Creek in fifteen canoes; in three days they reached Fort Pitt, proceeded down the Ohio to Beaver River, and ascended that river to the locality given, now Moravia, passing an Indian village, near present Newport, of women, all single and pledged never to marry.

When encamped, they sent an embassy, Zeisberger, and Abraham, a native, to Packauke, who were received by the chief at his own house; he gave them welcome and pledged protection; they built houses, cleared land, planted, and prepared for winter. The Indians began to visit them, the Monseys from Goshgoshünk were the first to cast their lot with the Christian Indians; Glikkikin soon came and became a Christian force. Finally the Monseys adopted Zeisberger into their tribe; the ceremony took place at Kaskaskünk; they invested him with all the rights and privileges of a Monsey; this proved a complete triumph and was the source of much good influence among Indians. White settlers began to come after Wayne’s Treaty of Greenville, in 1795.

NEW CASTLE, county seat, incorporated as a city in 1869, population 44,938, was laid out, at the junction of the Shenango, Neshannock, and Mahoning Rivers, where they form the Beaver River, in 1798, by John C. Stewart from New Castle, Delaware. It has natural gas, fine churches, schools, public buildings, bridges, and many beautiful residences, including that of Ex-Lieutenant Governor William M. Brown, on the North Hill. Courthouse, colonial, built in 1852, in spacious grounds, on a hill in east part of the city. The first Methodist Episcopal Church has a memorial window to Ira D. Sankey, the singing evangelist, who was born and lived here; subject, “Ninety and Nine”; maker, Sellars, New York; also Hofmann’s “Christ” in stained glass. High school, brick, of best school construction, well lighted; has reproductions on the walls of fine works of art. The Oak Park Cemetery has some beautiful memorials.

This is one of the manufacturing communities of western Pennsylvania, which form the greatest industrial district in the world; within a radius of sixty miles of New Castle, the annual tonnage is over 200,000,000, while the combined annual tonnage in and out of Liverpool, London, Hamburg, Suez Canal, and New York is 116,000,000. The American Sheet and Tin Plate Mill is said to be the largest in the world; they constructed a miniature playground for the only exhibit sent from New Castle to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915; it showed the kind of humanitarian work done by the company, and was representative of this city, where the playground has done a vast amount of good among the foreign population employed in the immense furnaces; engineering works; and the great cement plants making 5000 barrels of Portland cement daily. The United States Steel Corporation, Carnegie Steel Company, maintains children’s playgrounds, with a moving picture theatre, average attendance 1800 children daily; The “Rosena” blast furnace yard is kept like a park in grass, flower beds, and neatness.

Cascade Park has great natural beauty. A part of the beautiful Slippery Rock is in the southeast of this county. At Mount Jackson is Battery B Monument in honor of the Round Head Regiment. NEW WILMINGTON, population 8861, has Westminster College, under United Presbyterian administration; near here was the McKinley blast furnace, owned and operated by President McKinley’s father. His son worked here as a boy.

LXIII

FULTON COUNTY

Formed April 19, 1850, named for Robert Fulton. The Tuscarora Mountains rise like a huge barrier on the eastern boundary, with numerous other ridges and peaks. Streams that flow into the Potomac River are largely fed by splendid limestone springs. From the Susquehanna to the Ohio River the scenery cannot be surpassed for picturesque beauty; far sweeping valleys, rugged mountains, grand forests, form a constantly changing panorama. It is both beautiful and historic. The Chambersburg and Pittsburgh Turnpike, built in 1814-15, now the Lincoln Highway, was first an old Indian trail from Harrisburg, through Fort Louden, Clinton County, and westward to Bedford, crossing the center of the county.

In the days following Braddock’s defeat in 1755, this region became the arena in which the red warrior of the forests and the white frontiersman fought to the death. Not a valley, creek, nor mountain range, site of modern city or town, but what was the scene of thrilling events, some of which influence the world for all time. Early settlers were Scotch-Irish, on the Aughwick, and in the great cove. Chief industries, iron ore, bituminous coal, and agriculture. Dickey’s Mountain, in the southeast, is rich in hematite and fossil ores.

MCCONNELLSBURG, county seat; population 689; land granted to William and Daniel McConnell by