Chapter 11
Pine (Including Boggs)
Part 2
The Pine township postoffice, Wm. Gallagher, postmaster, was established July 16, 1855, and removed to or merged in the Pine Creek Furnace one, May 21, 1872.
George Stewardson conveyed to William and Robert McCutcheon, proprietors of Ore Hill Furnace, 4,219 acres of those Wallis lands, September 7, 1849, for $13,804.82, which embrace the whole of tract No. 4142 and the residue of Nos. 4143-4-5 remaining after the sale of 119 acres and 13 perches to James Nolder, Sr. and Jr., for $297.70, and exclusive of interferences by older surveys, and parts of Nos. 4141 and 4149. John Cochran was first assessed with 163� acres of Nos. 4141 in 1841, of which Stewardson conveyed to him 109 acres and 74 perches, March 8, 1850, for $463, on which is the public schoolhouse at which the elections are held. He conveyed 114 acres and 95 perches to Barnabas Reedy, March 8, 1850, for $571.80. The tract covered by warrant No. 4148 corners the last-mentioned on the southwest, with a portion of which James McGinnis was first assessed in 1849, and to whom Stewardson conveyed 131 acres and 22 perches, July 27, 1859, for $1,049.
As late as 1808 there was an Indian camp west of Bull Lick, run on the north fork of Pine creek, on this tract. Some of the Indians were addicted to stealing. One or more of them stole some deerskins and other articles from Col. Robert Walker. Taking his gun he went to their camp the next day and told them that if they failed to return the stolen property on the following day he would attack their camp and chastise them all. They soon returned the stolen property.
Higher up the North fork, about 100 rods below the little hamlet called "Slabtown," are vestiges of an ancient earthwork�a circular basin about sixty feet in diameter, which appears to have been originally excavated to the depth of about three feet, which has been gradually filled up with a soft marshy soil, formed of decayed vegetable matter, until it is now within a foot below the surrounding surface. This formed soil is very soft, and when the writer's informant, Alexander T. Ormond, visited it several years since, he easily sunk a pole into it to the depth of thirty inches, where it struck against a hard substance which he concluded must be the original bottom of the basin. It approaches at the nearest point to within about four feet of the stream, and is connected with it by a trench about a yard wide, probably designed for an outlet for the water that would naturally collect in it. The old inhabitants of this region suppose that this curious basin was made by the Indians, but for what purpose is merely conjectural. Whether it is the work of Indians or of a prehistoric people is a question for the antiquaries.
These tracts were sparsely settled before they were sold in small parcels. They are still comparatively so. After they ceased to be required for Ore Hill Furnace, its proprietors conveyed portions of them, after the allotments had been made, to William McCutcheon and the heirs of Robert McCutcheon, respectively, in the partition in the court of common pleas of this county: 1860, June 18, to Robert Patrick, 98 acres and 120 perches, for $473.75; to Samuel Anderson, 54 acres and 96 perches, for $327; 19th, to Adam Reilstein, 58 acres and 108 perches, for $340.50; to Frederick Thran, 60 acres and 3 perches, $290; November 5, to John Houser, 60 acres and 38 perches; 1863, February 21, to John Adams, 98 acres, for $500; 1864, July 14, to Martin McCoy, 46 acres and 132 perches, for $234; December 2, to William C. Gibson, 48 acres and 16 perches, for $288; 1865, January 24, to William Anthony, 66 acres and 80 perches, for $465.50; to James Nolder, 40 acres and 157 perches, for $286; 26th, to S. M. Peart, 41 acres, for $346.10; 30th, to Leonard Brice, 91 acres and 140 perches, for $735; February 9, to George and John Kneas, 108 acres, for $540; May 1, to John B. Finlay, two parcels (subject to mineral rights), 135 acres and 135 perches, for $2,000; 23d, to James S. Cochran, 59 acres and 76 perches, for $250; June 3, to Robert Thompson, 190 acres, for $1,075, which he conveyed to I. H. McGee, February 6, for $4,000. Other small parcels may have been conveyed, the deeds for which have not been recorded.
Christian Shunk, who had made the manufacture of iron a specialty and the subject of thorough and extensive study, and had thus, and by his close and varied observation, become a good judge of the suitable locations for furnaces, in 1851 selected the site of Stewardson Furnace and the adjacent lands containing the requisite material for that manufacture. He, Alexander Laughlin and William Phillips erected this furnace and purchased various tracts of land. William and Robert McCutcheon conveyed to them 2,601 acres and 123 perches of the Wallis-Duncan-Stewardson lands, December 24, for $12,358.40. This furnace is situated on or near the northern boundary of the tract covered by the Wallis warrant No. 4144, about 375 rods slightly north of east in an air line from the Mouth of Mahoning, in a deep northern bend of this stream. It was built for coke in 1851, but was not then as such successful, and was changed to a charcoal hot-blast until the spring of 1855, when coke was successfully substituted. Its first product of pig-iron was in 1852. Shunk conveyed all his interest in this furnace, personal and real, to Laughlin & Phillips, December 2, for $5,000. Phillips conveyed all his undivided one-fourth interest therein to John Bert February 1, 1856, for $10,000, and Bert, the same day, conveyed his interest therein to Laughlin for $20,430.21, the respective contracts having been made prior to the dates of the conveyances. The furnace was burned down in September, 1858. It was soon rebuilt and went into blast in January, 1859, Its stack is forty feet high, the distance across the bosh being eleven and a half feet. This furnace produced in thirty-two weeks, in 1856, 1,147 tons of pig-metal�120 tons of which were by coke�out of limestone carbonate ore from the coal measures two miles around. The number of dwelling-houses for proprietors and employ�s is forty, nearly all frame, one and a half story. The proprietors' residence is a two-story brick, 38 X 52 feet, built in 1861, at a cost of $6,000; six of the employ�s' buildings are brick, one-story. A store is connected with the furnace, in which a general assortment of merchandize is kept, varying in value from $4,000 to $5,000. The quantity of land belonging to its proprietors in Pine and Madison townships is about 3,100 acres. The sawmill on Scrub Grass run on the Wallis tract, N0. 4143, was erected in 1866-7. After the death of Alexander Laughlin, Sr., this furnace and property became vested in his sons Franklin B. and Alexander Laughlin, by whom as partners the former has since been operated.(6)
Major portions of three of the Harmon, LeRoy & Co. or Holland Land Company's tracts were in the southeastern portion of this township, namely, of No. 3047, south of the Wallis tract No. 4147, between it and Pine creek; of tract No. 3141, east of the Wallis tract last mentioned; and of No. 3046, south of the last-named Holland one. Alexander Oliver was first assessed as a single man in 1808, and with 120 acres of the western part of No. 3141 and one horse, in 1809, at $140. The Holland Company conveyed to him 113 acres of allotment No. 7, tract No. 365, July 10, 1822 for $153.33. Noah A. Calhoun was first assessed with 150 acres of the Holland land, covered by warrant No. 3046, two horses and two cattle, in 1808, at $202. Paul Burti, by his attorney in fact, conveyed to him 197 acres and144 perches of allotment 4 of tract 368, September 22, 1813, for $247.35. It has been retained by him and his lineal heirs for more than sixty years. It is now owned and occupied by his grandson, James Calhoun. The latter has related to the writer that, between 1820 and 1830, it was not uncommon to see squads of farmers transporting potatoes on pack-horses, each farmer having two horses, along the road from where Belknap in Wayne township now is, to Kittanning, which was then their best market, where the price of those esculents was then twelve and a half cents a bushel. So many of them were carried over that road that Thos. Donaldson named it "Potato road," by which it was known for some years.
Burti conveyed to Peter Seegrist 480 acres adjoining Oliver on the east, consisting of allotments 2 and 6, tract 365, warrant No. 3141, September 21, 1814, for $600, with which the latter was first assessed the next year, and of which he conveyed 119 acres and 17 perches to Solomon Seegrist, February 10, 1823, for $299. After his death in 1853 his land was divided into two purparts by proceedings in partition in the orphans' court of this county, which were valued by the inquest at $1,621.71�. His eldest son, Peter Seegrist, during the pendency of those proceedings, conveyed to Samuel Mateer his undivided one-eighth part of 131 acres and 90 perches, of which those purparts consisted, for $125. Peter Seegrist, Sr., conveyed 121 acres and 58 perches of the quantity he purchased from Burti to Susannah Zimmerman November 1, 1837, which she and her husband conveyed to John Zimmerman, April 8, 1850, for $50. The latter was first assessed with a portion of No. 3141 in 1839. Other portions were conveyed: by B. B. Cooper to Ellen, Samuel and William Dill, 150 acres and 65 perches, October 7, 1819, for $300.80; to George Dill, same day, 89 acres and 85 perches, for $179; by Wilhelm Willink and others to George and Moses Dill 119 acres and 15 perches December 16, 1828, for $59.50; to Margaret Campbell 50 acres March 20, 1832, which she conveyed to Moses Dill, June 11, 1844, for $125.
Willink & Co. conveyed 84 acres of allotment 5 to Simon Robinson, April 14, 1837, for $40.
Southwest of that tract and south of the Wallis No. 4147, was the tract of the Holland Company's land covered by warrant No. 3027, traversed in a northwesterly course and nearly equally divided by Pine creek, 991� acres, somewhat more than half of which was on the north side of this stream. The patent therefor was granted to Benjamin B. Cooper October 18, 1826, who conveyed 180 acres, being all of allotment No. 6 and part of No. 3 of tract 369, lying on both sides of the creek, to Alexander White, November 1, for $90;(7) to Alexander McCain allotment No. 2, 126 acres and 74 perches, June 19, 1827, for $63.25, who conveyed the some to Francis Powers, December 31, 1834, for $253, and 110� acres of allotment 3 to McCain, June 17, 1828, for $50. Cooper conveyed allotment No. 5, 157 acres and 62 perches, to Major James White, of Wayne township, December 19, for $82.(8)
The Holland Company conveyed allotment No. 1 of tract 369, covered by the last-mentioned warrant, 126 acres and 74 perches, to John Yorkey, June 17, 1831, for $63.25, which Yorkey conveyed to Henry Bossinger, October 30, 1839, for $175, with which the latter was first assessed in 1840, and on which he erected a sawmill in 1846, with which he was last assessed in 1867, James Hannegan having inadvertently cleared several acres north of the line of his purchase, bought 50 acres in what is now the southeastern part of this township, which he subsequently conveyed to John Ludwick, with which and a distillery the latter was first assessed in 1851, and with a mill in 1852. Here were the Hannegan mills, grist and saw, with which Thomas Hannegan was first assessed in 1841; William Hannegan with the gristmill in 1842, with which James Hannegan, Jr., was assessed in 1843, and William with the sawmill. Ludwick conveyed this parcel of land to Robert E. Brown in 1849-50, whose administrator, by virtue of a decree of the proper court, for the specific performance of contract, conveyed it to John Jordan, July 24, 1867, for $854.77. Within this section of this township is the parcel of land purchased by Peter Beck from the Holland Land Company, now owned and occupied by his son Jacob Beck, and on which the former erected a gristmill many years ago, but which has not for a long time been used.
North of the LeRoy & Co. tract, No. 3141, lay the major portion of four contiguous tracts which formerly belonged to the North American Land Company, and which were included in the Orr purchase,(9) aggregating 3,800 acres, according to the original surveys. A narrow strip of the eastern end of each was in what is now Wayne township. Three of them were covered by warrants to Robert Morris,(10) Nos. 4528, 4533, 4534, and one to John Nicholson, No. 4580. The earliest settler on either of them appears to have been William Charlton, who was assessed with 999 acres of the Nicholson tract in 1810, at $256, and the next year with 750 acres, $350, 1 horse and 1 cow, $26. Abraham Zimmerman was assessed with 250 acres of one, or perhaps parts of two of the Morris tracts, at $125, 1 horse and 1 cow at $16. He was assessed with 1,200 acres of the Morris tracts, Nos. 4533-4, $1,200, 1 horse and 1 cow, $22. James White was first assessed with 100 acres of one of the Morris tracts in 1825, and with 350 acres in 1828; David Dormire, with 1 cow in 1827, at $6, and with 300 acres of the Morris tract, No. 4528, at $300, and 1 cow, $6, in 1828; Barnabas Reedy with 1,000 acres of the same in 1825, $500, and 1 cow, $6; Daniel Reedy with 100 acres in 1831, $100, and 2 cattle, $16. That tract was in what is now the northeastern part of this township;. John Edwards was first assessed with 60 acres of the Nicholson tract, No. 4580, 1 horse and 1 cow, $80, in 1830, and James Stockville with 550 acres and 1 cow $420.50, in 1834.
Such appear to have been the first, and perhaps the only, settlements on these tracts before they became vested in Gen. Orr. So far as the records show, he conveyed as follows: June 24, 1840, to Abraham Zimmerman, 300 acres, partly of No. 4533, and partly of No. 4580, for $150; April 12, 1843, 158 acres and 43 perches of No. 4534, to David Baum, for $395.62, who probably settled on during that or the next year; May 9, 1843, to James White, 110 acres and 80 perches of No. 4580, for $700; October 9, 57 acres and 143 perches of No. 4534, to Hugh R. Rutherford, for $300; September 18,1845, 116 acres and 82 perches of No. 4533, to Jonathan C. Titus, for $582.50; August 28, 1847, 235 acres and 80 perches of No. 4528, to George Reedy, for $824; November 13, 1847, 346 acres and 54 perches of No. 4580, to Jonathan C. Titus, for $582.50; November 13, 1847, 9 acres of No. 4580, and 337 acres and 54 perches of No. 4528, to David Dormire, for $1,019.81. The 1st December, 1849, was a comparatively brisk day in the conveyance of these lands, for on that day Gen. Orr conveyed 50 acres and 12 perches of No. 4580 to Elizabeth Reedy, for the nominal sum of $1, the rest of the purchase money having been paid by her husband in his lifetime; 96 acres and 74 perches of the same tract to Robert Reedy, for $289; 77 acres and 118 perches ditto to Geo. Rupp for $233; 142 acres and 92 perches ditto to John Edwards, for $997; and 171 acres and 74 perches ditto to George W. Goheen, for $229, with which, and one horse, he was first assessed, in 1850, at $230. During that year he erected his grist and saw mills; which were assessed the next year (1851) at $500, with a new house in 1852, and as a merchant in 1857.
Such is the origin of Goheenville, as yet but a hamlet, in the forks of the head branches of Scrub Grass, containing a public schoolhouse, a store, physician's office, three mills, blacksmith shop and a few dwelling-houses. Scrub Grass postoffice was established about a mile and a quarter northeast of this point in the summer of 1844, Wm. J. Calhoun, postmaster. It was removed hither in 1850-1. Its name was changed to Goheenville June 20, 1866, George W. Goheen being the second and present postmaster.
Gen. Orr also conveyed 249 acres and 137 perches of No. 4534 to William Heffelfinger, July 1, 1851, with which he was first assessed in 1833, for $898, and on which the latter erected a sawmill in 1855; 57 acres and 143 perches ditto to John Mortimore, September 26, 1855, for $725; 200 acres and 68 perches of No. 4528 to Thomas Richey, November 24, 1856, for $1,600; 15 acres and 11 perches ditto to John Gould, October 8,1867, for $470; 117 acres and 110 perches of No. 4533-4 to Anthony Hoover, May 3, 1868, for $2,589.12; 41 acres and 194 perches of No. 4533 to William H. Barrett, November 2, 1870, for $921.80.
STATISTICS.
The population of this township, by the census of 1860, the first after Valley township was taken from it, was, white, 1,406, colored, 115. In 1870 it was, native, 1,562; foreign, 80; white, 1,549; colored, 93. The present number of taxables, 413, and the present population about 1,900.
The mercantile appraiser's list shows the number of merchants to be (in 1876) 9, of which there is one, respectively, in the tenth, eleventh and thirteenth classes, and six in the fourteenth class
The assessment list for 1876 shows: Miners, 71; laborers, 67; teamsters, 8; blacksmiths, 4; carpenters, 4; physicians, 4; preachers, 3; railroad bosses, 3; stonemasons, 3; clerks, 3; peddlers, 3; fillers, 3; agents, 2; keepers, 2; engineers, 2; millers, 2; gentlemen, 2; apprentice, 1; barkeeper, 1; cokedrawer, 1; innkeeper, 1; coke boss, 1; manager, 1; quarryman, 1; painter, 1; undertaker, 1; wagonmaker, 1; stable boss, 1; superintendent, 1; telegraph operator, 1.
In 1860 the number of schools was 7; average number of months taught, 4; male teachers, 4; female teachers, 3; average monthly salaries of male $16.50, female $16; male scholars, 190, female scholars, 168; average number attending school, 168; cost teaching each per month, 38 cents; tax levied for school purposes, $639.74; received from state appropriation, $125.95; from collectors, $334.75; cost of instruction, $464; fuel and contingencies, $86.95; repairing schoolhouses, $10.87.
In 1876 the number of schools was 12; average number of months taught, 5; male teachers, 5; female teachers, 7; average monthly salaries of male $28, female $25; male scholars, 244, female scholars, 231; average number attending school, 247; cost teaching each per month, 74 cents; tax levied for school and building purposes, $2,284.10; received from state appropriation, $335.73; from taxes and other sources, $2,499.28; cost building schoolhouses, etc., $771.05; teachers' wages, $2,080; fuel, collector's fees, etc., $384.
GEOLOGICAL.
The following section, the lower portions of which were taken from the exposures of the north side of Mahoning creek near its mouth, and the upper portions on the south side of that creek, behind the tavern-house occupied by William Templeton, where the section was made in the course of the first geological survey of this state, under the superintendence of Prof. Henry D. Rogers: Ferriferous limestone, 15 feet; shale (ore), 35 feet; Clarion coal, 2� feet; shale, etc., 20 feet; Burkville coal, 1 foot; Tionesta sandstone, massive, 60 feet; shale, silicious, 25 feet; olive bituminous shale, 15 feet; Tionesta coal, 1� feet; Serel conglomerate, massive, also shaly, 100 feet; shale, sandy, partly carbonaceous, with seams of calcereous sandstone, from 1 inch to � inches thick, 20 feet; bituminous shale, 3 inches, Sharon coal, 2� inches; shale, sandy above, bituminous below, 3� feet; coal, 6 inches; thin, bituminous slate, with stone silicious layers, 11 feet; coal 1� inches; blue sandy clay, 2 feet; slaty sandstone, 25 to 30 feet, to the level of Mahoning creek. These soon disappear beneath the waters, with a dip of 5� S., 120� E.
None of the hills around are high enough to have the Lower Freeport coalbed, but both the Freeport limestone and Upper Freeport coalbed are seen on Scrub Grass creek, which enters the Mahoning two miles above its mouth. The coal is often so thinned away as to disappear and let the Mahoning sandstone rest upon the Freeport limestone. This is the case at the exposure on the north branch of Pine creek, where the Mahoning sandstone is exposed, sixty feet thick, cropping the hill. Here the lower shales of the interval between the two Freeport coalbeds are mostly dark brown and black, and contain layers of argillaceous iron ore. There seems to be just here a local dip to the west.
Says W. G. Platt, of the second geological survey of this state, who had this county in charge: The same rocks make the surface of Pine township as in Wayne, such of the lower barrens as are represented, being found in the ridges which form the watersheds between the north and south forks of Pine creek, and the north fork of Pine creek and the Mahoning, are of no commercial value, The lower productive measures outcrop in all the slopes overlooking the principal streams. The entire group is represented. The Upper Freeport and Lower Kittanning coals are in workable condition, and they have been developed, each unaccompanied by its limestone. The Upper Freeport coal has with it here a bed of fireclay of rather good quality, but somewhat unreliable in its outspread. It has been worked near Templeton. Stewardson furnace uses coke from the Upper Freeport coal. The ore smelted is the buhrstone, from six to eight inches thick. The limestone used for the flux is obtained from the ferriferous. The metal produced is the cold-sheet. The coal beneath the ferriferous limestone, viz., the Clarion and Brookville, are valueless, by reason of their small size, though above water-level. The Pottsville conglomerate is magnificently exposed in the neighborhood of Templeton, forming cliffs forty feet high. It runs along the slopes northwardly from Templeton to and up the valley of the Mahoning, past Stewardson's furnace, beyond which it sinks to water-level. The shales immediately underlying it are supposed to represent the Mauch Chunck red shales, or their equivalent, although the carboniferous limestone is not here seen. The sandstones which make the base of the slopes would, in this case, be the equivalent of the Pocono.
Structure�The rocks lie mainly in the synclinal of which the Barton House or Peart's eddy is the center. Here the ferriferous limestone is at its lowest level along the river front in this township; being close to the water's edge north and south from this point, the rise is short and rapid up and down the stream.
The levels above the tide, along the Allegheny Valley railroad in this township, are: Opposite Pine creek station, 812.1 feet; northwest outside corner Pine creek bridge abutment, one-tenth of a mile higher up the track, 812.1 feet; southwest corner of water-station platform, two and a half miles higher up the track, 822.4 feet; southwest corner of bridge abutment, one mile and two-tenths higher up the track, 821.6 feet; opposite Templeton station, five-tenths of a mile higher up the track, 823.8 feet; opposite Mahoning station, nine-tenths of a mile higher up the track. 824.3 feet. (Pennsylvania Second Geological Survey, N, p. 183).
Source: Page(s) 247-258, History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania by Robert Walker Smith, Esq. Chicago: Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1883.
Transcribed December 1998 by Jim Wise for the Armstrong County Smith Project.
Contributed by Jim Wise for use by the Armstrong County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/armstrong/)
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