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 58
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Springfield township became famous because of the excellence of its schools, its three academies becoming well known throughout a wide area of the country. The first of these, at West Springfield, was founded in 1853, and in 1855 had 165 pupils, with four teachers. Among its principals were John A. Austin, W. H. Heller, Joseph H. Colt and C. C. Sheffield. It was burned down in 1859 and two or three years later re- built of brick. The East Springfield Academy, built in 1856, started with 150 scholars. It was a rival from the start of the older school. The first principal was B. J. Hawkins, and in 1858 L. W. Savage held the position of head teacher. The development of the public school system, under the fostering care of the State, proved detrimental to these private educational enterprises, so that in the course of a few years they came into the possession of the public school directors, the East Springfield Academy wholly so, and the West Springfield one partly so, there being two teachers in the public school section and three in the academy. When the two first academies had run down the third was established, North Springfield Academy dating from 1866, and continuing for a long period as a select school, at length went the way of the others. all being now incorporated in the public school system. Perhaps the first schoolhouse of the township was that built on the Joseph Eagley place, near the lake very early in the past century. The material was logs, and the chimney of sticks and clay, with a fireplace of stones. In 1818 James Porter was teaching in a log schoolhouse that stood in what is now East Springfield, and William Clark, a Mr. West and a Mr. Smith
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were other teachers of the East Springfield school. In 1822 Louisa De Wolf taught school in a vacated log house in the Ferguson neighbor- hood, about three miles southwest of East Springfield. Not long after this school was taught in a similar building a mile east of East Spring- field, in the summer by Jane Ferguson and in the winter by William Branch. About the year 1827 a frame schoolhouse stood in the Vande- venter neighborhood, in which Hiram Dixon was one of the early teachers. The public school system grew apace in Springfield until there are now fifteen schools within the township.
The earliest of the common thoroughfares in the township was the Ridge road, which, passing throug the centre, forms the main street in the villages of East and West Springfield. From the close of the War of 1812, until the railroad was opened in the beginning of the fifties. travel over the Ridge road was very extensive, requiring numerous public houses on the route. Scott Keith opened a tavern at East Springfield in 1832, that quickly became one of the best known and most popular houses between Erie and Cleveland. In 1822 William Doty moved from North East to East Springfield and took charge of the old Remington house, which he kept until his death in 1864. The East Springfield post- office was the first in the township. The postoffice at West Springfield was established in 1838 or 1839, with Samuel Castle as the first post- master, and the office at North Springfield was opened some time after 1860. On the night of December 6, 1814, the West Springfield post- office was broken into, robbed, and set on fire by burglars, and destroyed, with the store to which it was attached. Two of the robbers were caught, convicted and sent to the penitentiary.
Methodism in Erie county began in Springfield township, when Mrs. John Mershon, who had been married the year before, in 1800 induced Rev. John Bowen to hold services at the Mershon home. It resulted in the organization of a class in 1801, and the erection of a meeting- house in 1804, about a mile south of West Springfield. The denomina- tion grew rapidly until in time there were four societies in the township. The Cottage church which stood on the Ridge road about a half-mile west of West Springfield, was begun in 1830 and finished in 1836. The present church at West Springfield, a brick building, was erected in 1854. and the church at East Springfield, also of brick, was built about 1866. The second parsonage in Erie Conference was built at Springfield. The first Presbyterian church in the township, a log cabin, stood on the old portion of the cemetery grounds, and was built in 1804. A preaching point was established at Springfield in that year by Rev. Robert Patterson of North East, who was then the only settled minister in the county. The congregation was organized in 1806, by Rev. Johnston Eaton, pastor of the church at Fairview, who assumed the same relation with the Springfield church in 1808, and this relation continued until November 8, 1814. The original congregation consisted of about thirty members,
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and Isaac Miller, James Blair and James Bruce were the first elders. The Presbyterian church was built in 1844 at a cost of $4,000. The Christian church at East Springfield was organized with twelve members in 1826 by Rev. Asa C. Morrison and Rev. Joseph Marsh was its first pastor. The church was built in 1839. The Baptist congregation was also organized in 1826 and erected a church in 1833. This building was sold to the township for a town hall, and in 1858 a new church was erected at West Springfield. Rev. Asa Jacobs was the first pastor. The Universalist congregation was organized in 1848 at West Springfield and built a church in 1850.
The cemetery at East Springfield is the principal burying place of the township and consists of eighteen acres of high gravelly land just north of the village. It was orginally the burial ground of the Presbyterian church, to which other land was added by purchase. The cemetery was surveyed in 1864 by John H. Millar and graded by Robert P. Holliday and the first interment was that of Henry Keith in August, 1864, before the work was completed. The original officers were William Holliday, president ; I. Newton Miller, secretary; T. Webster, treasurer ; William Cross, Samuel Holliday, Henry Teller, J. M. Strong and Samuel H. Brindle, managers. Judge Cross was elected president in 1878. The cemetery is tastefully laid out, kept with the greatest care and is the pride of the people. Funerals come from Girard, Elkcreek and Conneaut. During the war for the Union, Springfield contributed 150 men to the army. Every one of the patriots who has passed over, has a headstone in the cemetery at the expense of the township.
The village of East Springfield, the earliest of the small communities that sprang up in the township, and the most active, was incorporated a borough September 5, 1887. At that time it had a population of about 400, and with three churches, a large school, a hotel, one general store, two groceries, hardware, millinery and drug stores, harness shop, tailor shop, meat market, three smithies, a wagon shop, furniture store and undertaking establishment, and other business enterprises, with a resi- dence section exceedingly attractive, was a fit candidate for promotion.
West Springfield almost as old, and always distinguished by its modern and progressive spirit, possessing three churches, a school, a cheese factory, hotel, stores, tile works, blacksmith shops, a doctor and numbers of fine residences, is the second village of the township.
The third to bear the township's name, North Springfield, came with the railroad, beside which it stands. It occupies a portion of the John Holliday farm, and is supplied with stores, school and other adjuncts of a self-contained rural community.
The public men from the township have been: In the State Legis- lature, Thomas R. Miller, David A. Gould. I. Newton Miller, Col. E. P. Gould (then resident in Erie), S. D. Ware; associate judge, William Cross : prothonotary, Major S. V. Holliday; county superintendent of
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schools, L. W. Savage; register and recorder, Samuel Rea. Jr., Henry G. Harvey ; county treasurer, Thomas J. Devore ; county commissioner, Thomas R. Miller, Richard Robinson; director of the poor, Thomas R. Miller, John Spaulding, J. O. Smith; county auditor, John Eagley ; mer- cantile appraiser, Samuel Rea Jr., Perry Devore ; county surveyor. Robert P. Holliday, George M. Robison, E. J. Hollenbeck. Hon. Humphrey A. Hills, who moved into Springfield from Conneaut in 1863, was previously a county commissioner, deputy marshal for taking the census of 1850, commissioner to fix the boundary line between Erie and Crawford, and a member of the State Legislature. E. B. Ward, the Detroit millionaire, was a native of Springfield township, where he began life as a fisherman and sailor. Springfield citizens who have become residents of Erie are Samuel Rea, Col. E. P. Gould, Joseph Patterson, Hon. A. E. Sisson and Frank R. Simmons.
Vol. I -- 34
CHAPTER XVI .- SUMMIT.
ERECTED IN 1854 .- WHO THE EARLY SETTLERS WERE .- THE OLD FRENCH ROAD-THE RAILROAD THE MILLS, CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS-NOTED CRIMINALS.
The last of the townships of Erie county to be organized was Summit, which was created in 1854 out of the western part of Greene, the eastern part of McKean, and a small section from the north of Waterford. Sum- mit is also the smallest of the townships, having an area of 13,143 acres. Its name would suggest that it has the highest land in the county, but this is not so, for there is a general slope upwards to the New York State line, the highest point in the county being in Venango or Greenfield. Summit township proper cannot claim early settlement-that is to say, during the beginnings of the Nineteenth century; but settlements on the land embraced in the township began at a very early date. The first settler was George W. Reed, a son of Col. Seth Reed. Col. Reed, as has been already related, did not long remain in Erie, removing to the Walnut creek valley in South Millcreek in 1796. His son George the same year took up land in Summit and moved onto it. but he remained only a few years, changing his residence to Waterford, where he died in 1847. A tract of land in Walnut creek valley was taken up by Thomas Rees in 1197, but he never occupied it. Oliver Dunn located in the western part of Summit in 1792, but afterwards removed to the Elk creek valley in McKean. In 1800 James and Ebenezer Graham came with their families from Centre county and settled in Summit at what has come to be known as the Graham neighborhood. They were followed soon by Eli Webster and Abijah Hull, who located in the same vicinity. Eli Rockwell went in 1801 and Daniel Lee in 1802. Among other early settlers were Thomas Rees, Jr., and John Way. P. S. Wooley located about 1823 and James Jackson in 1825. The original settlers were chiefly American Protestants. Soon after the erection of the township a large influx of Irish and German Catholics occurred, until at length fully a quarter of the population were of that faith.
The earliest church organization in the township was the Hamlin Methodist Episcopal, in 183%, and the building was erected in 1852. Emanuel Church of the Evangelical Association was formed in 1838, and its church was built in 1863. The United Presbyterian church at
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Five Points was organized in 1842 with about twenty-five members, and at the time was called the Elk Creek church, and later the Mckean church. It was originally connected with the church of the same denom- ination at Waterford, by having one-fourth of the time of the minister, Rev. John J. Findley. The church building was erected in 1848. Another congregation of the U. P. church was formed at Whiteford's Corners, where fortnightly services were held in the schoolhouse. St. Matthew's Catholic, near the Hamlin Methodist Episcopal church, was erected in 1867 on land deeded to the society by George Reynolds. At that time a congregation was organized, but it has since been connected with the "Beech Woods" church.
Summit township's roads include the oldest in this part of the State. the military thoroughfare constructed by the French in 1153, which ex- tended the full length of the township. Portions of that road are still in use. The Waterford Turnpike, built in 1806-09, extends diagonally through the centre of Summit township from north to south. The con- struction of this road was the cause of the abandonment of the old French road as a through thoroughfare. Portions of that first road are occupied by both the Turnpike and the Waterford Plank road. The last named road is also largely within the boundaries of Summit, but it was not built until 1850-51. The eastern part of Summit township is traversed by the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad. from its northern boun- dary almost to its southern extremity, and there are three way stations on this section of the road-at Langdons, Jackson's and Sampson's.
There are railway stations in Summit, but no villages, and even postoffices are lacking. At one time and another there have been three. a postoffice having been established at Jackson Station soon after the road was opened in 1864, another at the White Church on the Waterford plank road and a third at Whiteford's Corners. All were abandoned, although after a time the last mentioned was revived under the name of Godard. That, however, was before the time of the R. F. D. service. Having no villages there have been no settled industries-or rather, putting it the other way round, and properly,-having had no permanent industries there were no villages. The township is deficient in streams of sufficient volume to furnish power. There are but two, and both are, within the confines of the township, nothing more than the headwaters of streams. Walnut creek crosses the northeast corner and on this in the early days there were four sawmills, but from failure of power as well as the exhaustion of the timber they were in time abandoned. In the eighties two other sawmills, using steam power, were operated, one near W. A. Bean's, and one at Sampson's, on the railroad. Soon the material upon which they depended was exhausted and they were moved away. The collection of houses that each attracted were abandoned when the mills were. At Whiteford's Corners there is a country store, a school house and a number of neat farm houses. The township being
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devoted largely to dairying, two creameries have for years been successful- ly operated, the Excelsior, on the road from the Lake Pleasant road to the Waterford plank road, near the railway, and W. A. Bean's. The Rey- nolds stone quarry near the Catholic church, owned for years by John Lininger, has for a long time been profitably worked, and there is a smaller quarry, called the Liddell quarry, near the Turnpike. There has been drilling for oil in the township, but without satisfactory results.
The earliest school of which there is any record was that which occupied a deserted log dwelling in which Abijah Hull had lived. The teachers were William Graham in 1818 and a Mr. Huff in 1819. Eli Webster was a resident of the same locality, and his house, on a cross- road that intersected the French road, when vacated became a school in which Moses D. Morey taught during the winter of 1820-21. The next summer Miss Almira Drown taught in the same building. In the winter of 1821-22 Eli Webster taught in a house that had been vacated by John Highland, at Hull's Corners, and in the summer of 1822 Miss Drown taught school on Graham Hill. In 1822 there was a substantial building for school purposes, erected in the Graham neighborhood, and in this school Squire Webster taught as late as 1833, and the venerable gentle- man continued to teach in various schools until 1842. With the public school law of the state in force schools multiplied until the township boasted of nine free schools.
Summit township has furnished but two county officers, both county auditors-Eli Webster and John L. Way. In 1821 James McKee was convicted of murdering a sailor man, near the little brewery that used to stand near the northern boundary line of the township, and was sen- tenced to seven years imprisonment at Philadelphia, but died a few months afterward and in 1872 Joli A. Hans, who had removed to Erie from Summit, was convicted of murdering Mrs. Catharine Hannan on December 26, 1874, and was sentenced to a term in the penitentiary at Allegheny. Soon after his discharge he died in Erie.
CHAPTER XVII .- UNION.
EARLIEST SETTLERS FROM IRELAND-BUILDING OF MILES'S MILLS-RAIL- ROAD AND OIL BOOMS, LUMBER AND WOODWORKING INDUSTRIES.
When the great forest covered the face of the earth in this part of the State of Pennsylvania, that region that was in the course of human events to be Union township, Erie county, was remote from the avenues of travel. There were no routes or roads leading to it, nor navigable streams by which it could be reached. The south branch of French creek flows through the township, but that branch was not the traveled one of the upper branches of old Venango river. There was some traffic up the other branch to Wattsburg but none along the south branch by any of the whites that came into this region. For this reason the permanent settlement of Union was not rapid during the first years of the county's history. As originally laid out Union township extended from the Crawford county line to the old state boundary line, including what was set off as Amity township, and in the same laying out, Wayne and Concord of today composed the one township of Brokenstraw. But so sparsely settled had this region been, that all the territory between the Crawford county and old state boundary lines, and from Le Bœuf and Waterford township to the Warren county line, embracing four town- ships at present, constituted but one election district, and this continued until 1821.
One reason for the tardiness in the settlement has just been given. Another is that in Union township there are no extensive tracts of level land, such as would tempt those who were selecting lands to be made into farms-and of course the great majority of the seekers for homes in a new country had in mind the farm. When Union township came to be cleared up, it was the lumberman who took the leading part, and after openings had been made in the forest and the green fields appeared, where agriculture was not feasible, that twin science, grazing or dairying, came in. So that in the process of time all that region became more prominent for its dairy products than for the grain produced. The butter and cheese of the Greenfield, Venango, Amity and Union belt took rank as equal to the best in any of the markets of the county. But all this is latter day wisdom with reference to a section this chapter has not yet obtained settlers for.
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The first permanent settler in Union township was Hugh Wilson, who came from the north of Ireland, and took up land in 1797. He made a good start that year, for he came early. The next year he secured neighbors. Andrew Thompson with his wife and four children, Matthew Gray with his wife and son Francis B., and Robert Smith taking up land in the vicinity. Better than that, in 1798 John Wilson, his father came direct from Ireland with two daughters, sisters of Hugh. to make their home in America. Jacob Sheppard went in in 1798, but went out again immediately, returning in 1820, however, to become a permanent resident from that time on. Sheppard was from the Susquehanna valley and had not been weaned from the old home by his first visit into the northern and western wilderness. John Fagan was another who moved into Union in 1998 and then moved out again, but he changed to Millcreek, becoming one of the leading farmers on the East Lake road. William Miles moved from the Brokenstraw section into Union in 1800, and his brother-in-law, William Cook, followed from the same section in 1801. During the same year, it is recorded, Abel K. Thompson with five sons and two daughters, and Ferdinand Carroll and family, direct from Ireland, came into Union township. Union has, therefore, the credit of being the first section of Erie county to have immigrants direct from the old sod. So far as has been written down or as tradition preserves it, settlement paused in 1801. There were no new permanent acquisitions until 1816. in that year James Smiley with his wife and six children being added to the colony. Richard Shreve moved in from Crawford county in 1820: Levi Barnes and Abram Emerson came from central New York in 1821. Daniel Dunham be- came a resident in 1836, and that is the date when the settlement began that established most of the families of Union township of the present day.
The first name enrolled as a settler was a Wilson. The first death was of a Wilson, John, the father of Hugh, who died in 1799. The first child born was Martha, daughter of Hugh Wilson, in 1800. The first marriage (and it was the first in the southern part of the county) was Elizabeth Wilson, a sister of Hugh, to William Smith in 1799-and the second was that of Sarah Wilson. another sister, to Thomas King. Elizabeth Wilson Smith died in Wayne township August 6, 1875, at the age of 99 years-but three older women than she ever lived in Erie county. Hugh Wilson was one of the first justices of the peace in Erie county, having been commissioned by Governor Mckean in 1803. Mr. Gray, who came in 198, started the first tannery in Union township and Mr. Smiley, a settler in 1816, was for years in charge of the mills of Mr. Miles, at Miles's Mills.
The most prominent of the earlier settlers of the township, both in the history of Union and of the rest of the county, was William Miles. He was a native of Ireland and was brought to America when eight years
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of age, his parents settling in Eastern Pennsylvania. When a mere youth he volunteered in the Revolutionary army, was taken prisoner when Freeland's fort in Northumberland county was captured, in 1778, by the Indians and British, and was sent to Quebec and kept in confine- ment for five years. His father was killed in the engagement. When released, after American independence had been acknowledged, Miles returned to the Susquehanna valley, was appointed to survey the Tenth Donation district in this county, decided to remain here, took up land, opened a trading station and boat-landing at Wattsburg, which place he surveyed and named in honor of his father-in-law, moved into Union, built mills on the south branch of French creek at what eventually be- came Union City, afterwards bought land in Girard township, opened roads, established postoffices, and was in fact, one of the most active, enterprising and useful men the county ever possessed. He died in Girard in 1846, aged eighty-seven years. He was the founder of Union City, which was at first called Miles's Mills. His brother-in-law, Wil- liam Cook, who followed him into Union from Concord, was surgeon in the army of the Revolution.
The principal industries of Union township, and of the borough, have from the start been those dependant upon or connected with the forest. The cutting of the timber with which the hilly slopes were densely covered, began with the Nineteenth century-almost with the first settler. The first mill built by Mr. Miles was erected in 1800 and 1801-a sawmill and grist-mill combined. From that time to the present the sawing of lumber, and the allied industries of the furniture factories, the barrel factories, the planing mills and door factories, have been the chief industries of the place and flourish to a greater extent than any- where else in this part of the state, Union City's chair factories and their product being known far and wide. At one time there were fifteen sawmills in the township.
The industries started by William Miles when he moved from Con- cord in 1800 were of the greatest importance to the people of the time, for the sawmill and the gristmill enabled them to take one step forward out of the hardships that distinguished the life of the pioneer. Quite a settlement in time collected about the mills, but it was more than half a century after the mills had been built and after they had been burned down and rebuilt, before the collection of houses began to assume the character of a real village. In 1855 H. L. Church, A. L. Summerton and D. M. McLeod moved in from Warren, and acquiring the mills, rebuilt them, started a store and sold some lots of the farm property they had secured. This proceeding started things at Miles's Mills. Much of the land in the neighborhood was owned by James Miles, a son of William. and under his direction David Wilson platted the Miles holdings into town lots. At about the same time that portion of the vicinity which later
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came to be known as Summerton Hill, was surveyed into town lots. Now all this activity came about for the reason that something modern was coming that way. In 1852 James Miles had been elected a director of the Sunbury & Erie Railroad. The original survey of the line carried it eastward by way of Wattsburg. But Mr. Miles, as a director, worked for and succeeded in getting a change of plan by which the route was carried through Union and up the valley of the south fork. With the coming of the railroad the breath of life was imparted into what had theretofore been an unpromising mill village. The railroad was opened to Union in 1858, and it began already to be a town. In 1859 P. G. Stranahan moved in from the Moravian Flats and, purchasing some of the Miles property, opened a section south of the creek. In 1862 the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad was built through Union, and this furnished an additional impetus to the boom, greatly increasing the value of land on the south side.
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