USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 79
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 79
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 79
USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 79
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 79
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The war with England of 1812 interfered with the commencement of operations, and noth- ing was done.
In 1814 a supplementary act was passed ex- tending the time for commencing the work for three years from February 22, 1815, In 1818 another supplementary act was passed reviving the original aet and again extending the time for commencing the work for five years. The financial depression consequent on the War of 1812 still delayed the enterprise, and on March 29, 1819, another supplementary act was passed, Section 1 of which provided for the creation of five companies to make the road from Northum- berland to the West Branch, at or near the mouth of Anderson's Creek, as follows, viz .:
No. 1. To make road between Northumberland and Youngmanstown.
No. 2. To make road between Youngmanstown and Aaronsburg.
No. 3. To make road between Aaronsburg and Bellefonte.
No. 4. To make road between Bellefonte and Phil- ipsburg.
No. 5. To make road between Philipsburg and river Susquehanna, at or near the mouth of Anderson's
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Scetion 4 authorized the issuing of letters- patent to No. 2, under certain conditions.
In 1822 another supplementary act was passed, again extending the time for commene. ing the work for four years.
In 1823 still another supplementary act was passed, of which Section 1 consolidates compa- nies 1, 2 and 3, of the act of 1819, above men . tioned, under the name, style and title of the Bellefonte, Aaronsburg and Youngmanstown Turnpike Company.
Section 3 authorizes the issuing of letters-pat- ent by the Governor when a certain number of shares have been subscribed to the stock, and provides " that the said subscribers and those who may hereafter subscribe shall have perpet- ual succession, and shall have, enjoy and possess all the powers and privileges and authority, and be subject to all the duties, qualifications and restrictions given and granted by the acts to which this is supplementary."
Section 5 empowers and authorizes the com- pany to commence their section of the road at Youngmanstown or Bellefonte, or at any point where they may think proper on the Centre and Kishacoquillas turnpike, south of Belle- fonte, and to proceed to lay out and complete the road from the point so fixed, by the nearest and best route, to Aaronsburg, and thence to Youngmanstown.
Section 6 extends the time of commencing for five years from first Monday of April, 1826.
On September 24, 1825, the requisite number of shares of stock having been subscribed and the other requirements of the acts of Assembly having been met, the Governor, John Andrew Shultze, issued letters-patent incorporating the company. The company was organized with James Dan- can as president, and let the work to contractors in four sections, the third of which extended from Aaronsburg to Roush's, at the foot of the Narrows ; the fourth from Roush's to Mifflin- burg ; whole length, thirty-four miles. The road extends from Mifflinburg to the Old Fort, where it connects with the road of another turnpike company running from Bellefonte to Lewistown. In pursuance of what was then the policy of the State in the furthering of publie improvements within her borders, the State subscribed to and |
was the owner of a large portion of the stock of the company, and had the appointment of a por- tion of its managers. In course of time it became the policy of the State to dispose of its stock in all corporations of this kind. The stock was sold at public sale, and bought by General Abbott Green, of Lewisburgh. After the death of General Green the stock changed owners, and eventually was mainly owned by John C. Motz, Esq., of Woodward, Centre County, Pa. For nearly forty years a contest was going on between the different owners of / the State stock and the other holders of stock for the control of the affairs of the company, which more than once required the interposition of the courts. But for the last few years peace has reigned.
A road had been made at a comparatively early day from Sugar Valley through the mountains to White Deer township which passed through the northern and mountainous portions of Hartley, Lewis, West Buffalo and White Deer townships, which formed the most direct route of communication between the valleys of White Deer and Bald Eagle. This road was usually in a very bad condition, owing to the fact that the people in some of the town- ships through which it passed had to travel a days journey to get to it, in order to repair it ; and that it was never used by them, but entirely by persons outside. This state of things con- tinued for many years until at last a company was formed to build a turnpike road through the Sugar Valley Narrows, under the name of the Sugar Valley and White Deer Turnpike Company. This company commenced making the road at both ends of the Narrows, and be- coming straitened for funds, in 1851 the Company received financial aid from the state and the road was finished. After collecting toll a few years it was found that the income of the roadl would not keep it in repair, and it was abandoned and thrown back upon the town- ships through which it passed.
The maintaining of these roads had long been felt to be a grievous burden to the tax-pay- ers of West Buffalo, Lewis and Hartley, but more especially to the latter two. In response to their complaints, the Legislature of the State,
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in May, 1871, passed an act requiring the com- missioners of the county to take charge of these mountain roads through the Brush Valley and Sugar Valley Narrows, and. keep them in repair at the expense of the county, so far as they lay in the county and beyond the settled portions thereof. For the passage of this the citizens of the townships named owe a debt of gratitude to Hon. A. II. Dill, who was at that time a member of the State Senate, who dared to do what he thought to be right.
at public expense, to subserve private or in- dividual interests, an act of Assembly was passed which declared that it should not be lawful for the Court of Quarter Sessions of Union County to grant a view to lay out a new public road in the townships of Hartley, West Buffalo or Lewis unless the petition for such view was signed by at least one-third of the taxables resident within the township. Mr. McCall died within a couple of years after the completion of the road for which he had so long contended, and his property passed into the hands of Mr. Ario Pardee, of Hazleton, who changed the mode of getting the lumber to
In 1852, or thereabouts, John McCall became the owner of a large body of land, covered with a heavy growth of fine white pine timber, on the head-waters of the South Branch of , market by clearing out White Deer Creek, and White Deer Creek, lying partly in Centre floating the logs by means of splash dams to the mouth thereof, opposite to which, at Wat- sontown, he had large saw-mills. The McCall road has ceased to be of any public or private use and is no longer kept in repair ; but the act requiring one-third of the taxables to sign the petition for a new road in the townships named is still the law of the land. County and partly in Union County. He built a saw-mill on said tract and made other im- provements with a view of engaging in the manufacture of lumber on a pretty extensive scale for that day. But he had no road to his saw-mill, it being situated about three miles from the Brush Valley Narrows road (the near- est public road), and a precipitous mountain There are at present in the county of Union four hundred and fifty-six miles of roads and in Snyder six hundred and seventy miles. intervening. He applied for a view to lay out a road from his saw-mill down the waters of White Deer Creek, and thence across to the RIVER, CREEK AND CANAL IMPROVEMENTS. -The first act concerning the improvement of the Susquehanna River and its branches was passed by the Legislature March 9, 1771, which declared the Susquehanna River a public high- way to Wright's Ferry, Juniata River to Bed- ford and Franklin and Penn's Creek twenty miles along its course from its mouth. Com- missioners were appointed to attend to the clear- ing the rivers and creeks of obstructions, and with power to receive and collect subscriptions for the purpose. John Lowden, William Ma- clay, William Patterson, Reuben Haines and Thomas Holt, members of the commission, re- sided in the territory here treated. It is not known that much was done toward the im- provement of Penn's Creek under this act. neighborhood of what was called Rengler's saw- mill, where it would intersect an already exist- ing road. This was a distance of at least eight miles through an unbroken, howling wilderness, and his application for a road was contested at every point by the townships through which it would have to pass. Views, reviews and re- reviews were had and exceptions filed to every report, until at length a compromise was effected under which, by act of Assembly, commissioners were appointed to lay out a State road from the Brush Valley road at a certain point named, by way of MeCall's saw-mill to Schreyer's Gap, in Clinton County. This road ran about two and a half miles through Hartley township,' Union County, and about a half-mile in Miles town- ship, Centre County, before it reached the line of Clinton County. West Buffalo and Lewis townships each contributed two hundred dollars towards the making of the road.
Sherman's Creek, in Perry County, was de- clared a publie highway by act of Assembly, February 6, 1773. A Mr. James Patton had erected a saw-mill dam across Sherman's Creek near its mouth, thus proving an obstruction to
To head off all future attempts of a similar kind in the way of having publie roads made lits passage. On complaint of a number of
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persons living near to the creek that this dam was a hindrance to navigation, the act mentioned above was passed. As it explains the manner of constructing carly dams, the bill here given-
"Section I. Provides that the said James Patton, and 'all and every person or persons claiming under him, and all and every person or persons whatsoever, having already erected any mill-dam or other ob- struction across the said ereck, where the same has been or can be made navigable for rafts, boats or canoes, shall make open and leave the space of twenty feet in breadth near the middle of said dam, at least two feet lower than any other part thereof; and for every foot that the dam is or shall be raised perpendicular from the bottom of said creek, there shall be laid a platform, either of stone or timber, or both, with proper walls on each side, to confine the waters, which shall extend at least six feet down the stream, and of breadth aforesaid, to form a slope for the water's gradual descent, for the easy and safe passage of boats, rafts and canoes through the same.' The section further provides a penalty for not con- structing these dam-shutes within eight months from date of act-six months' imprisonment or £50 for- feiture, one-half to the informer and the other half to the Overseers of the Poor of the township wherein the offender resides.
"Section II. Provides against the construction of 'any wear, rack, basket, fishing-dam, pond or other device or obstruction whatsoever within said creek,' for taking fish, with the penalty of one month's imprisonment 'without bail or mainprize,' or £10 fine.
"Section III. Makes it the duty of the constables of the respective townships adjoining the creek to in- spect the dams therein and make information against offenders. This they must do once every month throughout the year under a penalty of twenty shill- ings.
"Section IV. Provides against fishing at the shutes of the dams so constructed, by 'net or seine,' within twenty perches above or below the same, under a penalty of £5.
"Section V. Is a proviso that the act shall not be taken to preclude fishing with a seine or net in other places in the creek, except at or near the shutes.
"Section VI. Declares the creek a public highway so far as the same is navigable for rafts, boats or canoes.
"Section VII, Provides that James Patton's dam shall not be affected in any way other than is speci. fied by the act."
In 1816 the Legislature appropriated two thousand dollars to remove obstructions and improve the navigation of Sherman's Creek be- tween Craighead's mill-dam and the junction of
the creek and Susquehanna River. Francis Gibson, William Bower, Samuel Anderson, John Creigh, Robert Adams and others were appointed commissioners to superintend the work. The time for attending to these duties was extended until 1822. The creek was made navigable for small crafts as far as Gibson's mill.
A convention was held at Paxtang on the 19th of October, 1780, to take measures for the in- provement of the Susquehanna River. Charles Smith, Anthony Selin, William Wilson, Fred- erick Antes, Aaron Levy, Andrew Straub and others were delegates. They resolved to solicit subscriptions, to be received in money, grain or produce of any kind, to be paid in at Boyd & Wilson's store, in Northumberland ; Teutzer & Derr's mill, at Derrstown (now Lewisburgh) ; Selin & Snyder's, in Penn township (now Selins- grove). Nothing further has been learned of their success. Three of these men here named were founders of towns,-Selin of Selinsgrove, Aaron Levy of Aaronsburg, and Straub of Straubstown (now Freeburg).
On the 31st of March, 1785, another act was passed authorizing the appointment of new commissioners. Section III. declared that " Whereas the extensive counties which are watered by the River Susquehanna and the numerous branches thereof are stocked with immense quantities of oak, pine and other trees suitable for staves, heading, scantling, boards, planks, timbers for ship-building, masts, yards and bowsprits, from which great profit and advantages might arise to the owners thereof, if the same could be conducted in rafts and otherwise down the said river to the waters of the Chesapeake, which trees must otherwise perish on the land whereon they grow." Section IV. declared the Susquehanna a public highway within this State upwards to the North- umberland, and then by each of the two great branches. Four years after this act, and on September 29, 1789, an act was passed by the Legislature which authorized the State to ex- pend twenty-five hundred pounds for the im- provement of the Susquehanna River above Wright's Ferry (now Columbia, Lancaster Co.) Timothy Matlack, John Adlum and Samuel
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Maclay were appointed commissioners to survey and examine the proposed improvements. Sam- uel Maclay, in his journal, says they began the work April 26, 1790. They examined first the Swatara, then the West Branch. " The Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation," in a memorial to the Legislature, estimated that two thousand three hundred and twenty pounds would be needed for the improvement of the Juniata River to Frankstown, giving also amounts in their opinion necessary for other rivers and erceks. The Legislature passed an improvement act April 13, 1791, by which eight thousand three hundred and twenty pounds was granted for improvements on the different rivers and creeks of the State; of this amount, three hundred pounds was for use from the mouth of the Juniata to the West Branch; two thousand three hundred and twenty pounds, as suggested by the society mentioned, for the Juniata River from its mouth to Frankstown.
A meeting of influential citizens was held at Harrisburg, August 13, 1795, to remove the obstructions on the Susquehanna from Wright's Ferry to the Maryland line. Five commissioners were appointed to raise money and apply it for the purpose. Three of the commissioners were General John Bratton, of Wayne township, Mifflin County (now Bratton township) ; Colonel Ephraim Blain, Cumber- land; and George Gale, Esq., of Maryland. The Legislature of Maryland had authorized a lottery to raise fifty thousand dollars, to be appropriated to elearing the river in that State. Money had been advanced, and the work was to begin in August, 1796.
In the year 1796, Zachariah Poulson, an editor and printer in Philadelphia, published a pamphlet, entitled " A Description of the River Susquehanna, with observations on the present state of its trade and navigation, and their practicable and probable improvements." It contains an account of the river and the advan- tages to be derived from its improvement, from which the following is quoted :
" The West Branch of the Susquehanna is at present navigable for boats of ten tons about one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, to Sunbury. A person who
had been with a boat of that burthen, laden with pro- visions for the surveyors in the western part of Penn- sylvania, informed Mr. Cooper, of Manchester, Eng. (who had been gathering information concerning America), that he stopped at the Whetstone Quarry, in the forks of Sunbury, and could have gone fifteen miles further."
Of the Juniata River the writer says,-
" It flows through the Allegheny Mountains from the west, pursues an irregular and winding course into the Susquehanna through a mountainous, broken, but cultivable country. It is navigable one hundred and twenty miles from its mouth, and forms, with the Susquehanna, the most important of all the commu- nications between Lake Erie with the western country and the Atlantic. In the spring of one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five Mr. Kryder came down from his mill, near the Standing-Stone on Ju- niata, in the neighborhood of Huntingdon, and about eighty-six miles from the Susquehanna, in a flat-bot- tomed boat, with one hundred and seventy barrels of flour. He passed Wright's Ferry in the morning, and was at Havre de Grace with time enough in the even- ing of the same day to put his flour on board a shal- lop, which delivered it at Baltimore the next day at twelve o'clock."
The trip was made from Wright's Ferry in twelve hours, and in the month of May, 1796, a trip was made from the same place in seven hours. Captain Charles Williamson, in his " Description of the Genesee Country," written in the year 1799, also gives the account of Mr. Kryder, and further says, -
"He built a sort of boat he called an ark ; it was long and flat and constructed of very large timber, such as he supposed would suit the purpose of build- ers. This vessel, or float, carried three hundred bar- rels of flour. This man had the courage to push through a navigation then unknown, and arrived safe at Baltimore, where he received from the mer- chants a premium of one dollar above the market price for every barrel. Thus encouraged, the same person has been down every year since, and has made so considerable improvement on this sort of boat, that arks are now used which carry five hundred barrels. As they are never intended to be used except for descending in high water, they are navigated by three to five men, and will float down at the rate of eighty miles per day."
The ark was a large, strongly-built and high- sided flat boat, formerly in almost universal use on the rivers of Pennsylvania (particularly the Susquehanna and its tributaries) for the trans- portation of all kinds of produce down the streams to market. They were, of course, never
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intended to be brought back up the stream, but were sold for building lumber or other pur- poses, at the place where their cargoes were dis- posed of. In a note to the " Description of the Susquehanna," 1796, an account of the arks is also given,-
" The boats which come down the Susquehanna in the spring are from fifty to seventy feet long, and about fifteen feet wide, carrying from one to three hundred barrels of flour, and navigated by four men. They are built, without any iron or caulking, of two- inch plank, jointed and pinned in a frame, and draw from twelve to eighteen inches of water. These boats, not being intended to return, are sold as plank and scantling nearly at their original cost. Behind these smaller boats, from five to eight tons burthen, may be towed for the purpose of carrying up returns. Neither these boats nor any other calculated for the Susquehanna can navigate the bay any further than Havre de Grace."
The smaller boats here mentioned were known as keel-boats, and were brought back up the rivers by the use of setting poles. They were used on return trips for the transportation of groceries, hardware, iron, gypsum and general merchandise. The gypsum was used as a fertil- izer.
The first shipments down the rivers were of lumber, of which Poulson says : "Large quan- tities have been brought down the Susquehanna from the distance of three hundred miles above its mouth during the freshets of spring, and rafts of boards, masts and all kinds of timber have been floated from the State of New York and the head-waters of the Susquehanna, as well as down the Tioga and Juniata branches for several hundred miles in their different wind- ings." In the year 1790 " The Society for the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation " estimated that " one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of grain had been brought down the Susquehanna " that year, . .
. and of that amount "Juniata, (the lands on the banks of which are but in an infant state of cultivation,) afforded a considerable portion." The report of the society also stated that " In the year 1788 large quantities of wheat and flour were carried up the river for the use of settlers in Northumber- land County (which then embraced, west of the river, all of Union and Snyder Counties and a considerable region to the northward and west-
ward). In 1790, after the month of March, thirty thousand bushels of wheat returned down the stream from the same county."
The rapid settlement of the interior of the State and the cultivation of the lands demanded an outlet to market, and every step taken towards the improvement of inland navigation was an incentive to agricultural improvement. In January, 1791, Penn's Creek, in Snyder and Union Counties, Little Juniata, in Perry County, Conococheague, Spring Creek and Tus- carora, in Juniata County, were all declared public highways.
It will be remembered that Penn's Creek was declared a highway in 1771, as was Bald Eagle Creek to Spring Creek, in Centre County. Concerning the former measure, Mr. R. V. B. Lincoln says : Among the commis- sioners named in the act for the improvement of Penn's Creek were John Lowdon, William Maclay and Reuben Haines. On April 3, 1792, another act was passed making the creek a public highway up to the mouth of Sinking Creek (Spring Mills). About the beginning of the present century the first arks were built upon the upper part of the course of the creek, and run down at the time of the spring freshets, freighted with the productions of the country. The navigation of the stream was difficult and dangerous, and the arks were frequently " staved," with serious loss to the owners of their cargoes. Various attempts were made to raise money to improve the navigation, with indifferent success. Under the act of 1771, which applied to the twenty miles above its mouth, the commissioners tried to raise money by private contributions, and as that portion of the stream was comparatively free from obstruc- tions, it is reasonable to suppose that they were in a measure successful.
On March 31, 1807, it was enacted "That Samuel Templeton, George Long, Robert Bar- ber, Peter Fisher, James Duncan, Adam Wilt, Christopher Seebold, Jr., and George Weirich be and are hereby appointed Commissioners to raise by way of lottery $1000, to be by them applied for removing all natural and such arti- ficial obstructions as are not authorized by law out of Penn's Creek, in the County of North-
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umberland, from the mouth thereof to Green's saw-mill (late Marston's)." The act further pro- vided that before the commissioners proceed to place tickets on sale, they shall lay the lottery scheme before the Governor for his approbation, and shall give bonds for the faithful per- formance of their duties. Robert Barber was appointed treasurer, and in October they adver- tised a scheme of cash prizes amounting to thirty thousand dollars, but nothing came of it. The lottery did not take place, but arks still continued to be run with varied success. superintend the expenditure of the said appro- priation." This money was not all expended within the bounds provided by the act. There was a balance of about two hundred dollars left in the hands of the commissioners, and on March 3, 1829, another act was passed, Section 1 directing the commissioners appointed under the act of April 10, 1826, to apply the unex- pended balance of the former appropriation for the improvement of Penn's Creek within a dis- tance of six miles from the line between Union and Centre Counties, in the county of Union. By Section 66 of an act of Assembly passed March 26, 1821, the sum of two thousand dollars was appropriated to improve the navigation of Penn's Creek, in the county of Section 2 of the same act appropriated an addi- tional two hundred dollars to be applied to the improvement of said creek "at a point not higher up than Spring Mills, in Centre County, Union, to be paid on warrants to be drawn by , and not lower down than a distance of six the Governor on the State treasurer in favor of miles below the Centre County line." The work Robert Barber, Jr., and Peter Richter, who done in the improvement of the creek consisted in removing rocks from the bed of the creek and building wing-dams where the stream was wide and shallow, so as to confine the water within narrower limits and thus deepen the channel. were appointed commissioners to superintend the judicious expenditure of the same from the mouth of the creek to the Centre County line. The act provided that the Court of Quarter Sessions of Union should appoint viewers to examine the work and report to the court; and upon that report being certified to the Governor, the warrant for the money should be drawn.
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