USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 53
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North Girard has a number of small manufactories devoted to the production of novelties, principally of wood. The Eclipse Co., chartered in 1909, was organized by W. E. Abbey in 1892 as the Eclipse Manufac- turing Co., to make wooden ware for household use. The Wells & Abbey Manufacturing Co. organized in May, 1909, turns out sleeve boards,
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knife trays, coat racks and specialties of that sort. Fire destroyed their building in July, 1909, but work was resumed in the old foundry while a fine new building was being erected. The L. Hopkins Mfg. Co. dates from about 1904, and makes clothes driers, sleeve boards, etc. Frank Hopkins began business in the manufacture of household specialties of wood and iron in 1904. The Empire Co., chartered in 1909 with S. C. Long as president and W. C. Lewis, secretary and treasurer, began in 1908 the manufacture of wooden coat hangers and other household spec- ialties. William Skivington began business in 1894 as the Gem Manufac- turing Co., and his product is clothes racks and other wooden ware.
Girard has two banks. The first organized as a private bank in 1859 by R. S. Battles and C. F. Webster, continues to do a banking business up to the present time. In 1863 a charter was granted to the First National Bank of Girard, of which Mr. Battles was president. Upon the close of the term of the charter, the business was wound up in an honorable fashion and the National Bank ceased to exist.
On August, 24, 1904, the National Bank of Girard was opened for business, with a capital of $50,000 and these officers: H. G. Harvey, of North Girard, president; J. C. Murphy, vice-president; O. M. Sloan, cashier.
In 1893 the Robert Wilcox public library was built at Girard. It was made possible by a bequest for the purpose by Mr. Wilcox, which was added to by an association, principally of ladies, organized for the purpose. The library is self-supporting.
About ten years ago the borough of Girard inaugurated important public improvements. On August 6, 1896, the borough council adopted a plan for a sewer system, which is being carried out. In the summer of 1899, provisions were made for a supply of water, which is obtained from a system of wells, ensuring pure water. In the fall of 1899 arrange- ments were completed for lighting the town with electricity, the borough installing its own plant. In 1900 a fire department was organized on the volunteer plan, and consists of the A. F. Dobler Hose and Ladder Co., equipped with a hand hose truck and a hand hook and ladder truck, and the Citizens Hose Co., equipped with a hand hose truck.
Public men furnished by Girard were: Senate, George H. Cutler, president of that body when the office was second only to Governor ; Congress, W. C. Culbertson ; Associate Judge, Myron Hutchinson, James Miles ; Assembly, Theo. Ryman, Leffert Hart, Henry Teller, Geo. P. Rea, H. A. Traut; District Attorney and afterwards Register in Bankruptcy, S. E. Woodruff; U. P. Rossiter was elected District Attorney in 1893; Sheriff, George W. Evans; Prothonotary, James C. Marshall, Samuel Perley ; County Treasurer, Jeremiah Davis, A. A. Hopkins; County Sup- erintendent of Schools, L. T. Fisk, T. M. Morrison; County Commis- sioner, Myron Hutchinson, James Miles, E. C. Palmer ; Mercantile Ap- praiser, D. W. Hutchinson, J. M. Ball; Jury Commissioner, Wm. Biggers,
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C. H. Nichols ; Director of the Poor. John Hay, Wm. Hopkins; County Surveyor, George Platt, Dan Rice, Jr .; County Auditor, James Miles, Philip Osborn.
Senator and Secretary of the Interior Teller of Colorado, was a res- ident of Girard while a boy; D. W. Hutchinson, Register of the U. S. Land Office at Bismarck, S. D .; Marcus N. Cutler, long a department clerk at Harrisburg, and T. C. Wheeler, appointed by President Lincoln U. S. Assistant Assessor, were all natives of Girard.
CHAPTER VIII .- GREENE.
CONDITIONS THAT INFLUENCED ITS SETTLEMENT .- THE NEW ENGLAND CONTINGENT AND THE WELSH COLONY .- VILLAGES AND INDUSTRIES OF THE TOWNSHIP.
Greene was one of the sixteen original townships when the county was laid out in 1800, but it was then known as Beaver Dam; and that continued to be its name until 1840, when it was re-named in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary fame. The western boundary has twice been changed, first by adding a section of Mckean, and again in 1854 by contributing a portion of the township of Summit, created that year. Its greatest dimensions are seven miles from north to south and six miles from east to west, and its area is a trifle more than 22,000 acres.
Being of the original townships, and approximately near to the lines of travel, settlement began early. The first persons to select homes in the township were Peter Himebaugh and Conrad Wineman, two Penn- sylvania Germans, who went in in 1800, selecting lands in the Valley of Le Bœuf creek, where they remained until they died. About two years later Jacob and Samuel Brown, Thomas Bunnell and John and Ambrose Coover settled in Le Bœuf Valley. In the spring of 1802 Thomas Hinton and five sons and two daughters made their homes in the north- east corner, and, being Welsh people, that section has ever since been known as Wales. The Hintons were followed by the Jones, Knoyles, Morgans. Wilkenses, and others, Welsh people all. For about twelve years Greene had no accessions. Being an elevated section and the land hardly as arable as that of the plain to the north, or the wider valleys to the south, new comers were not attracted in that direction. Between 1816 and 1818, however, there occurred a fresh influx. A colony of New England people came in, among whom may be named Cyril Drown and sons, Martin Hayes and sons, Isaac and David Church, Benjamin Gunnison, Roger Root, David Edwards and S. T. Rockwood. Wm. B. Weed and William Yaple settled at what came to be known afterwards as Weed's Corners, when the entire country south to Lake Pleasant was an unbroken forest. The immigration of the Germans began in 1833, when the Hirts, Pringles, Kellers and others settled on and near the Wattsburg road. Mr. Kuhl and his sons moved into the German settle-
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ment from Millcreek in 1835. The Irish began to arrive in the township in 1836 and settled mostly on the Kuhl road not for from the Germans. Among them the Barrys, Gallaghers, Morrisons, McManuses, Cosgroves and McGinneses were first. H. L. Pinney bought a farm in Greene in 1843. E. O. Pinney rented a farm in the same year and bought it in 1846. Martin Pinney moved into Greene in 1851.
Greene township roads came as they were needed, and therefore were not all laid out at once, nor even early. The first of the main roads was that from Harborcreek to Wattsburg, made in 1810. The Lake Pleasant road was opened from Erie as far as the Hayes place in 1821-22, and was completed to French creek in 1826-27. The Shunpike, con- structed, as its name would imply to avoid the payment of toll on the Waterford Turnpike, was built in 1827-28. The Wattsburg plank road was laid in 1853, but, proving to be a losing speculation, was sur- rendered to the township in 1865. The plank road had been con- structed largely along the original Wattsburg road, but from the Siegel place adopted a new route. The old road to Wattsburg by way of Philips- ville continued in use and is traveled to this day.
From Greene township not a few of the more important of the streams of the county derive their source-Mill creek, Four-mile creek, Six-mile creek, and Le Bœuf creek. These furnished power for the mills of the early days-and there was more milling in the township then than at present. Sawmills were comparatively numerous, for it was a well-wooded section, but in the course of time the timber was thinned out to such a degree that one after another the mills were abandoned. Miles Brown, a son of the Brown who was one of the first comers, built a sawmill early in the century on Le Bœuf creek, in the section that was first settled. The Kane sawmill near the northern boundary and David Ripley's sawmill, about a mile north of St. Boniface's, both on Four- mile creek were early mills, and there were two others on Six-mile creek, north of Wales. Jacob Brown's grist-mill built in the beginning of the century, and operated until it was burned down in 1872, was the only grist-mill the township ever contained. There were other sawmills -one on Le Bœuf creek, one near the Lake Pleasant road, a third near John Evans's and a fourth at Bogus Corners, but all were long since abandoned.
There are no incorporated towns, and no settlements that are en- titled to be called villages even, in Greene township. There are, however, many neighborhoods or thickly settled localities known by distinguish- ing names, that have long endured and are very much a part of the tra- ditions of the county. The earliest of these is Wales, settled almost entirely by Welsh immigrants. In this neighborhood sprang up some of the accompaniments of rural village life : the store, the smith's shop, the school, the church. There was a Presbyterian congregation organized in 1849 by Rev. G. W. Cleaveland, that erected a church in 1851. At about
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the same time a church of the Methodist Episcopal denomination was established at Wales. St. Boniface village, as it has been called, though it is not in reality a village, derives its name from the Catholic church located there. It is on the Wattsburg road and is the heart of the German settlement. The colonists came in as early as 1833, but the church that gave the locality its name was not organized until 1857, when Rev. J. A. Oberhofer gathered together some forty families and formed the church. The first church was erected in 1854 but in 1867 it was destroyed by fire. The congregation was for some years without a church, when Father Oberhofer, who had built the first edifice, was returned to the charge, and again undertook the work of building, the result being a handsome and enduring structure that cost when built in 1873, $4,000. In the meantime there arose a dissension in the church, the German element and the Irish falling out. The Celtic people left and set up a church of their own, building in 1870. The final site of the second Catholic church is on Kuhl Hill. Eventually the priest settled at St. Boniface's also ministered to the congregation at St. Peter's, as it was called, and good feeling was finally restored, thoughi contained in two separate churches. St. Boniface is Hamot in the postoffice directory. In time it acquired a country store, a smithy, a wagon shop and a church school. East Greene postoffice and a school-house are situated at Bogus Corners, near the centre of the township, and the postoffice was estab- lished in 1829. The German Lutheran church, half a mile west, was built in 1857, and near by a graveyard, a grocery and a saloon came very near to entitling the place to be ranked as a village. Weed's Cor- ners is a collection of farm-houses, and began with the settlement of William B. Weed in 1828. West Greene, in the southern part of the township, is a cross-roads collection of houses, with a cheese factory, built in 1873 and a Methodist church, a store, blacksmith shop and school house. The church was organized in 1827 and held meetings in private residences and schools until about 1848, when a chapel was built. This served until 1883, when an attractive frame church was erected. There was a Free-Will Baptist church for several years at West Greene, but the organization was abandoned after a number of years. In addi- tion to the churches located at the villages or cross-roads above enun- erated there was a United Brethren church organized in 18:1 that built near the head of Lake Pleasant in 1822, and another United Brethren church, or society, that for years met at the house of David Ripley in the northwestern part of the township.
There were no schools in Greene township prior to 1825. Soon after that date one was built in the eastern part ; a second two miles south and a third on the farm of W. B. Weed. These were all built about the same time. One of the first teachers was Mrs. Brace, a pioneer of the township, from Connecticut. The public schools of the township are the Kuhl, on Kuhl Hill: Drown, on the Wattsburg road ; Bogus Corners ; Vol. I-31
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New, near Wales; Weed, on the Lake Pleasant road; Lawrence, on the same road; West Greene, and the Brown, near Le Bœuf creek.
The public officers furnished by Greene township were: Capt. Thomas Wilkins, collector of the port of Erie; Jonas Gunnison ( father of Judge Frank Gunnison) a prominent attorney and member of the Legislature; Rodney Cole, William B. Weed and Albert B. Gunnison, County Commissioners ; Ora P. Gunnison, Deputy Sheriff, Assistant As- sessor of Internal Revenue, Collector of Internal Revenue, Mercantile Appraiser and Clerk of the County Commissioners ; Horace L. Pinney, George H. Myers, Jury Commissioners ; E. O. Pinney, Trustee of Erie Academy ; Wm. E. Hayes, County Auditor ; A. S. Pinney, Treasurer of the City of Erie.
CHAPTER IX .- GREENFIELD.
CHOSEN FOR A LOCATION BY JUDAH COLT .- CENTRE OF THE PENNSYL- VANIA POPULATION CO. FOR A TIME .- GREENFIELD PEOPLE OF NOTE.
Barring the French appellations Greenfield is the oldest geographical name in Erie county, and in the matter of settlement falls just one year short of being even date with the earliest. It owes its name and its early settlement to Judah Colt, who, though reckoned as a settler of 1796 when he took up his residence in Greenfield, was in reality among those who found the way to Erie in 1795. It is already related in these pages how he and Mr. Porter came from Canandaigua by way of Buffalo and the lake, passengers on the "shallop" of Capt. Lee, to Presque Isle in the late summer of 1795, and his coming to Erie (or Presque Isle) at that time was with the purpose of establishing himself in business. That year, the first of the permanent settlement, he bought 400 acres of land. But he did more. He looked the ground over, and reached a deter- mination. So, instead of remaining he returned east to carry out a purpose he had formed. That he had applied himself to obtaining in- formation while here is very clearly shown by his procedure after re- turning east. While here he had learned that the Pennsylvania Popula- tion Company had obtained title to all the land in the Triangle. The spring after his return he proceeded to Philadelphia, and there endeavored to buy from the Population Company 30,000 acres of the eastern end of the Triangle, offering a dollar an acre for that area of land. His offer was not accepted. but the officials of the company, impressed with his energy and satisfied that he had the desirable business qualifications, made him an offer to serve as their agent in the new country, which was such an advantageous proposition that he accepted it, and at once pro- ceeded to business. How he fitted himself out has already been related. Before the end of the summer of 1796 he was settled in Greenfield.
He was preceded by two brothers-in-law, Elisha and Enoch Marvin. In 1797, early, these with Mr. Colt established themselves in about what is the centre of Greenfield township as it is known today, and the place came at once to be known as Colt's Station. The same year there was considerable of an influx, including Cyrus Robinson, Henry and Dyer Loomis, Charles Allen, Joseph Berry, John and William Wilson, James
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Moore, Joseph Webster, Philo Barker, Timothy Tuttle, Silas and Wil- liam Smith, Joseph Shadduck, John Daggett and John Andrews. Now. not a few of these names will be recognized as of the earliest settlers of North East, and lest there may seem to be an incongruity in this statement, it is proper here to explain that the original Greenfield ex- tended to the lake shore, and that what is now the township of North East, was at the beginning known as Lower Greenfield. These settlers were from the East, chiefly New England whence Mr. Colt had come, and represented the tide of immigration into the new country which Mr. Colt had expected to bring about, and the early advent of so many from New England will explain why Mr. Colt was so desirous of closing that bargain for 30,000 acres of land which he went to Philadelphia to accomplish. The North East township land was a part of what con- stituted the tract lie desired to purchase.
There has been no reason assigned for the selection of the lofty site chosen for Colt's Station. It was not far from the highest altitude at- tained by any portion of Erie county, for, as a matter of fact, the highest land in the county is in the southeastern corner of Greenfield or the northeastern corner of Venango. But it was all forest then, the forest primeval and well-nigh the forest impenetrable. It stretched unbroken in every direction. It is more than probable the reason for establishing his station where he did was that, being so elevated, it appeared to him better fitted to become a desirable section, for at the beginning of the lake shore plateatı, along its entire length there was a strip of greater or less breadth that was of a wet or somewhat swampy character. No other good explanation seems available, for one of the first under- takings of Mr. Colt was to construct a road from the station to the lake shore, at the mouth of Sixteen-mile creek, where a port was established and supplies for the interior were received from Buffalo and carted all the way up the difficult road to the depot of the Population Company. This road was the first road cut through the forest after the advent of the permanent settlers, and was second only to that made by the French more than forty years previously, from Presque Isle to Le Bœuf. The lake terminus of this road of Mr. Colt's came to be known as Freeport, and, though no longer a port of entry is still known by that name, at any rate to the people of North East. Soon the road was extended south- ward to a place called Greenfield Village, or Little Hope ( the latter not a very promising name, to be sure). The extension occurred in 1298, and the reason for it was that Mr. Bissell had established a landing there on French Creek. Later that year the road was again extended southerly to the forks of French Creek, which later became the borough of Wattsburg at the southern edge of Venango township. In 1800 another road, farther east, was cut through the woods from North East through Greenfield to Wattsburg. Between 1804 and 1806 a third road was constructed from Colt's Station, by way of Philipsville to Waterford.
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The road from Wesleyville to Colt's Station, to this day known as the "Station road," was made in 1830, and it was extended to Mayville, N. Y., at the head of Chautauqua Lake.
After Colt's Station had been established a considerable colony sprang up around it. In 1798 Mr. Colt brought his wife, and for a time the settlement grew. But before long, convinced that it had been a mistake to locate where he did, Mr. Colt, in 1804, removed to Erie and continued there until his death in 1832. He was over seventy-one years of age when he died. On Mr. Colt's departure the greater portion of the colony also left, many going into Lower Greenfield or North East, as it had then come to be known. Enoch Marvin, one of the brothers- in-law who had helped to form the settlement, became the Population Company's agent in the Beaver Valley, but his brother Elisha remained at the Station until his death in 1829. His wife died there also in 1858, and at that time their son, William E. Marvin, who had lived with his mother until her death, removed to North East.
The earliest mechanical industry of Greenfield was the sawmill of Leverett Bissell at Little Hope and it was the existence of this mill that brought about the extension of that first road southward. Mr. Bissell was a Revolutionary soldier, and among the earliest of the settlers, took up a soldier's right of 400 acres. In addition to his mill he established a landing on French creek, at which batteaux unloaded supplies from the country south and west. In the course of time considerable of a village sprang up around the mill and landing and varied industries were established, besides the sawmill, a feed-mill, two cheese factories, a blacksmith shop, creamery, cheese box factory, a shingle mill, besides stores, a schoolhouse and perhaps thirty houses. It is still the most con- siderable village of the township. In 1824 a sawmill was built in the southern part of the township by John Whiteside. For a long time, however, dairying has been the chief industry of Greenfield, aside from agriculture. There is an obstacle to the completely successful prosecu- tion of farming in the late frosts, which are especially troublesome in the otherwise fertile valley of French creek. Being on the opposite slope of the dividing ridge, and cut off from the influence of the lake, and being moreover, of so much greater altitude, this climatic condition is a serious detriment.
The people of Greenfield are an industrious, thrifty class, but it is not a wealthy community. It is, however, a law-abiding and intelligent people. Schools were early established. In 1816 A. Young taught school two miles east of Little Hope, and had a fair degree of patronage. In 1820-21 a school was begun at Colt's Station. Subsequently, the public school laws encouraging education, the system grew, along with the gen- eral development of the free school idea and just at the beginning of the Twentieth century, Greenfield, in line with the most progressive of the townships, established a high school.
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In church matters Greenfield may seem to have lagged behind. In religion it did not. The first religious service ever held in Erie county was that conducted at Colt's Station on July 2, 1807. There were about thirty persons present, from Greenfield, North East and Venango, and Mr. Colt, who presided at the service, read a sermon. The township is not very thickly populated now. It was very sparsely settled then. It is due to the fact that the population is so scattered that there are not more church organizations. The Methodist Episcopal church near Little Hope was organized in 1836, and erected its meeting house in 1850. The church has maintained its organization ever since. In 1868 a parsonage was built. The Free-Will Baptist church was organized in 1881 and in 1882 dedicated its church, which stands near Shadduck's Corners. The United Brethren formed an organization about 1875, and for several years met in the schoolhouse nearby; erecting for themselves a house of worship in the Walling neighborhood in 1893.
Men who have been honored by their constituents, by being elected to public positions, were Mark Baldwin, county auditor in 1833; William E. Marvin, county commissioner in 1845; William Parker, county com- missioner in 1853, and J. Ross Raymond, member of House of Represent- atives, first in 1892. A native of Greenfield, and still a property owner in the township, Emory A. Walling has thrice -- indeed four times-had the distinction of being elevated to positions of trust. Soon after being admit- ted to practice at the Erie bar he was, in 1881. elected district attorney, his home at the time of his election being North East. Before his term had ex- pired, however, in 1884, he was chosen by the voters to represent the county in the State Senate. In 1896 he was elected President Judge of the Sixth District, and in 1906 was re-elected, being the only president judge re-elected in the history of the district.
But not all of Greenfield's men worthy of note came into positions of publicity where their names were handed down to posterity in the public records. There were heroes and honorable men of humble life who well deserve to have monuments erected to their memory. Such a man was J. W. Babcock. When just crossing the threshold of manhood he had the great misfortune to be crippled for life. While at work in the woods he was struck by the branch of a falling tree and his right arm so severely injured that it withered and became useless forever after- ward. It was a dreadful handicap to enter upon life's career with, and quite enough to discourage most men. But Mr. Babcock took up the duties of life with unabated courage. He made his one hand serve for two. In the labors of the farm he contrived to get along and get along well. With his left hand he cut wood, and built buildings, he managed his horses and cattle, and attended to the duties of the field. He married and reared a family. With all these duties a man not crippled would have found his hands full. But Mr. Babcock added to them those of a teacher of Sunday and day school, in the performance of his duties
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in the latter even making the quill pens for his students. He was also the friendly adviser of everyone who had troubles and gave ready response to every one in distress. Always cheerful, his example was an inspiration to the entire community. So good a man was entitled to a good wife. And such she was. How could it be otherwise with him as a constant companion and an ever-present example? She was the nurse of the township, and to those of her sex was a constant reliance. J. W. Babcock and his wife were the friends of everyone, and everyone was a friend to them. Today their only monument is a stately pine in the little cemetery. A shaft of granite with the noble record inscribed upon it would be as appropriate in the case of J. W. Babcock as in that of any other man who ever lived.
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