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 59
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In 1865 the village was incorporated as the borough of Union Mills. The same year James Sill. P. G. Stranahan and Joseph Sill bought the Black farm and laid it out in lots. In 1866 James Sill bought the Tour- tellott farm on the north side, and in 18:3 E. W. Hatch acquired the Smiley farm adjoining, both of which were laid out in lots, and con- siderable of the property sold. At about the same time T. B. Shreve laid out an addition south of the A. & G. W. Railroad.
The impulse given to the development of Union by the building of the Sunbury & Erie Railroad was followed by another and stronger, imparted by the discovery of petroleum in the vicinity of Titusville. This important new development found the region destitute of means of communication. Not only were there no railroads, in the oil region. but the wagon roads were few and wretched. Much of the oil produced was sent down the creek in barges. Much was teamed over the terrible highways to Union, which was the nearest railroad station. Three re- fineries were in operation in 1862, and a number of large cooper shops were driven to the limit of their capacity by the demand for barrels- for all the oil, crude and refined, was then shipped in barrels. But the people of Union had not been sufficiently far-sighted to anticipate events. If they had been they might have induced the Oil Creek Railroad to have made Union its northern terminus. There was no James Miles in the directorate of the Oil Creek road, so it went to Corry, and when at last the Union & Titusville Railroad was built, in 1871. it was forever too late, for the oil center had shifted, as it has so often done and the railroad enterprise was a losing venture. But Union was not asleep. The refineries were lost. In their stead, however, there was built at Union the largest manufactory of barrels on the continent. It was begun by Woods & Johnson in 1870, and was prosperous until develop- ments in the oil business produced the pipe line and the tank car.
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The experience that came out of the era of oil was not lost upon the people of Union. They took for a motto "circumspice." Manufacturing was the desideratum. About them was the raw material in what seemed to be inexhaustible abundance. Out of the forests upon the sloping hills and the valleys between they had found material to meet the demands of the cooperages in the days of oil. Out of these same forests other things might be manufactured. There was little delay. The planing mills sprang up and the shops in which furniture was made. They grew in dimensions and increased in numbers until Union City,-for its charter was amended in 1871, changing the name-became a centre for the manufacture of furniture and especially of chairs.
Union City's growth has been steady, and it has been symmetrical. The residential sections show thrift and culture and domestic taste. There are no sections of the town that can be said to be down at the heel. The residences are neat and attractive in the localities where wealth has not come; in the sections of the well-to-do they are handsome; in all parts of the town the buildings are well kept up and the grounds are well cared for. It is well provided with churches, liberally sustained.
The Presbyterian congregation, organized in 1811, worships in a church that was dedicated in 1824, replacing an older church that had been outgrown, and a fine chapel, the gift of Mrs. Jane Gray, the widow of Robert Gray, was added in 1879.
The Methodist Episcopal congregation was organized in 1817, its first church built in 1847, and a second one in 1862.
St. Teresa's Catholic church was organized in 1857, and under Rev. T. Lonnergan, of Corry, who took charge in 1860 a church building was erected. The parochial school was built in 1866 and enlarged in 1875. A new church was built in 1906 at a cost of $15,000, and is in charge of a resident pastor.
The Baptist church was formed in 1859 and in 1862 Rev. A. B. Bush became pastor and during his term of service a place of meeting was erected.
The United Brethren society, begun in 1822, in 1876 erected a church building.
Episcopal services were first held in 1866 in the old Town Hall. A building lot was bought in 1877; the corner stone of a church was laid in 1888, and the completed church dedicated September 21, 1893. On April 3, 1894 the mission became a regularly organized parish, connected with the diocese of Erie.
Evergreen Cemetery. the principal burial place of the county, owes its existence to David Wilson, who laid out the grounds and was the first president of the association. It was dedicated in 1865. The soldiers' monument in this cemetery was dedicated on May 30, 1884. The Catholic cemetery was consecrated in 1860.
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Union City, like many another community has had to come through the fiery furnace of affliction to be brought into the sure and safe upward way. Of the furnace of affliction Union certainly has had its full measure of experience. The first of its trials by fire was the conflagra- tion that has come to be known in local tradition as the Brooklyn fire. Brooklyn is the section south of the creek-across the river from the original town of Union, so by analogy the name was bestowed upon it. On the 26th of December, 1829, fire started in the Stranahan block on Main street and rapidly spread both ways, stopped at the north by the creek and at the south by the end of the built-up section. There were three blocks burned over, including twenty-seven, buildings. The loss amounted to $15,000, and was the most serious in the history of the place. The fire, it was learned after careful investigation, had its origin in a box of waste that stood in the hallway in the centre of the block, ignited spontaneously. It was a severe loss to the town, though the buildings destroyed were wooden.
The energy of the citizens quickly turned the loss to profit. In the course of a few years the burned district was rebuilt. and the new struc- tures were mostly of brick, and in nearly every instance a great im- provement upon what had been. Near the centre of the burned district in 1884 the town hall was erected, a handsome brick building with accommodations for the town clerk and other officers, council meetings and public gatherings, as well as for the storage of fire apparatus. The Brooklyn fire besides opened a chapter of municipal development, that followed up by others has rounded out the record of the borough into a very respectable narrative. Before the fire the borough had the creek and a crude fire extinguisher. During the fire both had to keep their distance, so that both were saved to become a text for a lecture that the people took to heart.
Immediately steps were taken to perfect an organization for fighting fire. Two well-drilled hose companies and a hook and ladder company are the result, all of the volunteer order, but each paid an annual stipend by the borough council. The membership of the companies take pride in their work, and each has provided itself with comfortable club rooms, secured a large contributing membership and maintains a high efficiency in the working force. It was but a partial remedy to obtain the services of willing workers as firemen. More was needed. Water. In 1893 a waterworks system was established, a suitable location being selected where the water of a number of strong springs was impounded, a reser- voir constructed and pipes for gravity service laid.
Experience demonstrated that emergencies were likely to arise in which the water service from the springs would not be adequate to the demand. There had been a disastrous fire in 1882 that began in Hineman & Cheney's chair factory and burned eight buildings, involving a loss of $50,000. In 1884 a row of business buildings on Main street
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adjoining the Johnson House were burned, resulting in a $12,000 loss. In 1895. a fire that started on the second floor of the Cooper block caused a loss of $27,000. In 1906 the Standard chair factory was destroyed with a large loss, and in 1907 the Union City chair factory fire with a still larger loss. These all demonstrated an imperative need; for more water. This was provided by building a station and installing powerful pumping engines just east of the bridge in order that water from the creek might be pumped into the mains, supplementing the ordinary water supply, and now the community feels a tolerably high sense of security.
Public improvements did not end with providing a water supply. There were other things the progressive community demanded. Paving and a system of sewerage were soon regarded as necessary, and the beginnings came contemporaneously. In 1899 three of the principal streets were paved with vitrified brick, and in these very properly, sew- ers were laid. A general sewer system for the horough was not adopted at the time, however. That came later. In pursuance with the require- ments of the State Board of Health a plan is maturing, the borough for the present being permitted to make use of the creek.
Along the lines of civic development, to meet the modern demands of business as well as of private life, the postoffice department has recognized the needs of this busy, thriving community, by establishing a letter carrier service. This was inaugurated December 1, 1903, under Postmaster D. A. Wright. The city's health, also, is now cared for by a sanitary board. Electric lighting came in 1901, and at the present the streets, as well as the residences and stores, are well lighted, the Union City Electric Light & Power Co. furnishing light for the borough under a five-year contract.
There have been two disastrous floods in the history of Union City, the first in 1882. Ten years later the worst ever known in that valley occurred. Bridges were swept away, the railroad tracks inundated, and in the borough the water flowed across Main street cutting great gullies in the roadway and working extensive damage.
Union City became an industrial centre when Miles's saw and grist- mills were built in 1800, and from that time to the present through a (lecade more than a century the place has been a centre of manufacturing in lines connected with wood-working. Many enterprises large in their day have vanished, some, as in the case of the oil barrel factories, having gone out through the necessities of the changing business situation. There still remain some industries that have continued, through changes of owners and something of change in the character of their product, for more than sixty years. An example is the mill of H. Clark & Son, on the South Branch of French creek at the eastern end of the borough. This industry was established in 1842 by Clark & Sherwood, who sawed
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lumber. Originally, it was an ordinary country sawmill, but, passing successively through changes of ownership-J. B. Clark & Bro., then Haniel Clark, then Haniel Clark & Son, (the present firm name, although Haniel Clark has been dead for ten years)-enlargements and additions were frequently made, the product varied. "D" shovel handles and pork barrel staves and at length sash and doors and interior wood finish, until at the present its business of producing fine interior wood finish has become so extensive as to require a branch at Corry.
The history of the Caffisch Bros.' mill, still in operation, covers even a greater space of time. Started in the thirties by Peter Thompson and C. P. Rouse, Brunstetter and Bentley, W. Hunter, and others, it came into the possession of Caflisch Brothers twenty-four years ago. A planing mill was added seventeen years ago, and there have since been other additions and enlargements, the product being lumber of the order generally known as "bill stuff." Younger in years and of a different line are the two gristmills that continue to do a prosperous business to the present time. The Stranahan mill built in 1870 by a stock com- pany, of which P. G. Stranahan was the organizer, was sold in 1880 to the Camp Milling Co. and greatly enlarged. It was operated as a flouring mill until 1907, when it became a feed mill, though the company continues to be merchants in flour. The Clark mill was built by Haniel Clark & Co. in 1887, engaging in the manufacture of flour and feed. Its capacity at the start was 100 barrels per day, but later it was enlarged to 200 barrels capacity. The product of this mill is sold and shipped over a territory of a radius of 150 miles.
The furniture business, however, is what distinguishes Union City, and several factories of gigantic proportions establish the right of Union City to the title of the principal furniture town of the State. Not a few of these enterprises have suffered from fire, but generally they have recovered and resumed on a larger scale than before. The Standard Chair Co., organized in 1898 and incorporated in 1900, was burned in 1903, but was rebuilt on a vastly larger scale at once, the product being wooden, upholstered and roll-seat chairs. The Shreve Chair Co., incor- porated in 1903, manufacturers of wooden and cobbler-seat chairs and rockers, is established in mammoth buildings, near the Erie Railroad. The Novelty Wood Works Co., established in 1884 and incorporated in 1900, manufactures furniture, and has never known anything but pros- perity, its history of a quarter of a century being one of constant enlarge- ment. The Universal Chair Co., chartered in 1909, engaged in the manufacture of high-grade box-seat chairs, has for its officers B. W. Middleton, president ; Willis Baker, vice-president and secretary, and E. B. Landsrath, treasurer. The Lewis P. Hanson Company for a number of years conducted a successful business in the manufacture of chairs. It was founded by Blanchard & Hanson, Mr. Hanson at length succeed- ing as sole owner. Upon the death of Mr. Hanson, his widow continued
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the business. In 1907 the factory was destroyed by fire, but Mrs. Hanson at once proceeded to rebuild, a brick structure of three stories with cement floors and larger in area than the old replacing the loss. The most notable case of factory resurrection is that of the Union City Chair Co. Burned in 1907, the company proceeded at once to rebuild. The old factory was of wood. The new, completed in 1908, is of brick and cement. It is equipped throughout with the most modern machinery and appliances and, profiting by costly experience, had made provision against a recurrence of the disaster by establishing its own system of fire protection which consists of a reservoir of great capacity back on the hills, from which the water is conveyed to the pipes of the sprinkler system with which the building is provided. The Union City Chair Co. was incorporated in 1900.
There are other wood-working industries, connected in a way with the furniture factories. The J. F. Kamerer Company dates from 1901, but originated many years ago in the mill established by J. F. Kamerer, the company being formed upon his death. The product is lumber, wood novelties and chair stock. Of the same order is the Variety Turn- ing works, established about 1894, and managed by Charles Eastman.
Union City's banking experience in the past was not altogether satisfactory. For many years, and during his lifetime Ezra Cooper con- ducted a banking business with something of success, but generally there was disappointment attending the business of banking, or resulting therefrom. More than one serious failure occurred, the most notable being that of the Union City National Bank early in the eighties. In financial matters as well as other lines of business, however, Union City learned its lesson well, and at length this important adjunct to general business came to be established upon a sound footing. The National Bank of Union City was chartered in 1898 with a capital of $50,000. It was not the successor of the Farmers' Co-operative Trust Co., a private banking concern that had been for a time engaged in business, and which it immediately supplanted, but establishing itself at once, rapidly acquired strength and prestige. In 1906 the capital was increased to $100,000, and in 1908 erected a handsome new banking house, built by Hoggan Broth- ers of New York, specialists in that line, who furnished it with complete modern equipment throughout. The Home National Bank was chartered in 1907, with a capital of $50,000 and opened for business September 23, of that year, in temporary quarters on Crooked street. Its officers were D. G. Smiley, president ; Rulaf Fuller, vice-president : James M. Dunbar, cashier ; F. D. Smiley, assistant, and D. G. Smiley, E. A. Shreve, L. D. Shreve, Rulaf Fuller, W. M. Rouse, F. J. Kamerer, Edwin P. Clark, George W. Brooks, W. E. Everson, W. M. Hawthorne, and J. M. Dun- bar, directors. In July, 1908, a handsome new banking house was com- pleted and occupied.
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Union City can boast of one of the handsomest school buildings in the county. It is a brick structure, occupying a commanding position, and built to meet not only present requirements but the demands of the future. Work was begun upon it in July, 1906, and it was ready for occupancy at the close of the summer vacation in September, 1907.
Another important addition to the borough was made in 1901, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. erected the attractive brick station which the greatly increased business of the place demanded. It is modern in every respect and cost $10,000 or more.
On November 3, 1908, a charter was granted to the Union City Free Library Association upon the petition of a large number of the ladies of the town, representing the various societies or clubs of women then in existence. The first officers were Mrs. Ida B. Moore, president ; Mrs. Emma Hubble, vice-president ; Mrs. F. E. McLean, treasurer ; Mrs. C. J. Mahoney, secretary, and Miss Hellen T. Slack, librarian. It is a pro- vision of the charter that the income from voluntary contributions shall not exceed $10,000 per year, other than the income derived from real estate. The library and reading room that have been established are sup- ported partly from donations and what the borough council has contrib- uted, and partly through the efforts of the lady corporators, in the way of markets and such enterprises.
Union City and township have furnished the following public officers : Assembly, J. R. Mulkie; sheriff, F. E. Staples ; county treasurer, W. O. Black, C. W. Keller ; county commissioner, Robert Gray, William Put- nam, A. O. Gillett, Clinton B. Smith ; jury commissioner, P. G. Stranahan, James D. Phillips, G. G. Smith ; county superintendent of schools. Charles Twining ; director of the poor. Andrew Thompson, M. B. Chamberlain, Jefferson Triscuit ; county surveyor, David Wilson; county auditor, Robert Gray, Thomas Woods ; county detective, Dan. Mitchell; mercan- tile appraiser. John C. McLean.
CHAPTER XVIII .- VENANGO.
FIRST EXPLORED BY WILLIAM MILES IN 1285 .- HEAD OF NAVIGATION ON FRENCH CREEK .- PROMINENT MEN OF EARLY TIMES. -BOROUGH OF WATTSBURG.
But two of the townships of Erie county, bear names of Indian derivation. One of these is V'enango, which was the name given by the French to that branch of the Allegheny river now less appropriately designated French creek. According to all rules the right to bestow a name rests with the discoverer, and therefore, when the French, who first explored it, called the stream the Venango river, they not only exercised a just prerogative, but bestowed upon it a title fit and proper, derived as it was from the aborigines, and indeed by them bestowed upon the stream for reasons good and sufficient to themselves before the Frenchmen came. The real or proper orthography of the word is said to be Innungah, which form was altered by the French to accord with their interpretation of the Indian pronunciation The naming of the Venango river is attributed to the Senecas, who, when they drove the Eries out and took possession of the territory found rudely carved on a tree at the mouth of the stream, an indecent figure, probably intended as a cartoon to insult the conquerors. V'enango was one of the original sixteen townships, but, located in the southeastern corner of the Triangle, had two of its boundary lines surveyed years before the county of Erie had an existence. The eastern line was established in 1788 by the com- mission which determined that the western boundary of New York State was on the meridian of the western extremity of Lake Ontario. The southern boundary line was surveyed by the joint commission of New York and Pennsylvania in 1787. The northeastern part of Venango township is said to be the most elevated land in the county.
There is no doubt that the first white man who visited Venango township was William Miles, who in 1285, came out into that particular section of the great forest along with David Watts as a surveyor. He became so enamored with the flats at the junction of the east and west branches of French creek, that when he had completed his report upon going east, he returned in 1295, and took up 1,400 acres of land including the site of Wattsburg. He was followed in 1296, by Adam Reed and his son James, who located 400 acres of land on the east branch of the
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creek, and later built the first mill in the township. Thomas Smith settled at Lowville in the same year and was soon followed by Burrill and Zalmon Tracy. In 129% John and David Phillips acquired 1,100 acres on which Phillipsville now stands, the name of course being derived from those pioneers. In 1798 William Allison and wife with their son James, from Northumberland county, settled near Lake Pleasant. In 1822 Samuel Low and his brother-in-law, Dr. Wright, both from Genesee county, N. Y., settled at Lowville. Timothy Butler and his father, from Onondaga county, N. Y., came to the township in 1816; John R. Smith, about 1826; David Bailey in 1828, and Dr. D. T. Bennett in 1829. Wil- liam Blore, the Chapins, the Tituses and others took up their residence in Venango in 1830. The Norcrosses and Davisons, who had located on the high land close to Lake Pleasant, changed to Millcreek. John Warren, another of the early settlers, moved to Erie in 1810. During the period from 1810 to 1820 there was little increase, but about the latter year a new influx. mostly from New York State began, and their descendants generally remain. For many years the nearest stores were at Erie and Waterford and the nearest gristmills at North East and Union. Most of the earliest settlers were Scotch Presbyterians from the Susquehanna Valley. The first child born in the township was Robert, son of William Allison, in 199. The first death was that of Adam Reed, in 1805. Samuel Henderson came from Carlisle in 1795 with William Miles, and the winter of that year he engaged in driving pack-horses to and from the mouth of French creek. He and his brother Stuart located 400 acres of land in the spring of 1198 and then went to Fayette county and married.
A complete list of the early settlers is afforded by the schedule of taxable citizens made in 1800, which has these names: William Allison, Hezekiah and Philo Barker; Henry Bontz; John Boyd; John, William and Thomas Carnahan; John Clark; Thomas Davison, Sr .; Francis, Robert, George, Arthur and Thomas Davison, Jr .; John and William Dickson ; Bailey, John and James Donaldson; John Dickson, Jr .: Sam- tiel and Stuart Henderson ; Stephen Hazleton; James and John Hunter ; Thomas Hinton, Jr. ; Robert and Wilson Johnson ; John B. Jones : Caleb Lyon ; David McNair ; Joseph McGahen ; William Miles ; Barnabas Mc- Cue ; Andrew Norcross ; John, James M., and David Phillips; Thomas Prentice : James Perry ; James M., Thomas E. and Robert R. Reed ; Ralph Spafford; Thomas, Samuel and John Smith; Benjamin Saxton ; Zalmon and Burrill Tracy; Nathaniel Wilson; John Warren and John Yost.
Company E, of the 136th Regiment of Pennsylvania militia was mustered in Venango township for service in the war of 1812, with Wil- liam Dickson as captain and Robert Davison as lieutenant. In April, 1813, Dickson moved from the county, when Lieut. Davison assumed command. The company was called out June, 1813, and guarded the
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ship-yard at the mouth of Cascade creek, where Perry's ships were being built, and when the fleet sailed were ordered home, but were ordered out again when news came that the British had burned Buffalo.
There are no railroads in Venango, but the common roads are num- erous and many of them among the first constructed in Erie county. The Wattsburg and North East road, through Greenfield dates back to 1798. The road from Waterford to North East, through Phillipsville and Colts station was laid out in 1804. The Erie and Wattsburg road, by way of Phillipsville was opened in 1809, but was changed in 1828 and improved in 1832. The Lake Pleasant road, from Erie to Wattsburg by way of the lake, was begun in 1821 and finished in 1821. The Erie and Wattsburg plank road was completed in 1853, but abandoned in 1865, when the indignant farmers had made a wreck of every toll gate on the route. Thereafter it became a public road. The other roads, namely, the Watts- burg and New York, to Clymer; the Union and Wattsburg, and the Wattsburg and Corry, have all been in use for more than a half century. For many years the North East and Wattsburg road was much in use for conveying goods between Lake Erie and the Allegheny river.
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