Chapter 7
Red Bank Township
Part 1

Originally Organized in 1806 - Name derived from Red Bank Creek - Indian Appellations for that and Other Streams - The Creek Declared by Law a Public Highway - Flatboats - Red Bank Navigation Company - Site of the Indian "Old Town" - Yost Smith Church - Railroad Project Agitated in 1852 - Indian Arrow "Factory" - Method of Making Flintheads - Numerous Tranfers of Property - Freedom Village - Oil Wells - Phenix Furnace - New Salem - Albright Methodist Church - Independence - Milton - Methodist Episcopal Church - Assessment List of the Township for 1876 - Census and Educational Statistics - Rocks - Coal - An Interesting Cave.

 

The present township of Red Bank, in this county, contains only about one-sixth or one-seventh of the territory included within the limits of old Red Bank township, organized September 18, 1806. A glance at the county and township map shows that all of Red Bank and Mahoning and a part of Madison townships in this county, and of Red Bank, Porter, Monroe, Limestone, Clarion and Mill Creek townships in Clarion county were included in the original township of Red Bank.

The name of this township is of course derived from Red Bank Creek. The Indian name of this stream was Lycamahoning, derived from Lycoming and Mahoning - the former corrupted from Legauihanne, a sandy stream; the latter corrupted from Mahonink, signifying where there is a lick. Mahoni in the Delaware language means for a lick. Mahonitty means a diminutive lick and Mahonhanne a stream flowing from or near a lick. Lycamahoning, then, must mean a sandy stream flowing from a lick, that is, Sandy Lick, which was the name of this stream as late as 1792 from its source to its mouth, according to Reading Howell's map of that year. It bore that name even later. By the act of assembly, of March 21, 1798, "Sandy Lick or Red Bank creek" was declared to be a public stream or highway "from the mouth up to the second or great fork." The writer has not been able to ascertain just when, why, or at whose suggestion its original name was changed back to Red Bank, by which it has been known by the oldest inhabitants now living in the region through which it flows. Perhaps the change may have been suggested by the red color of the soil of its banks many miles up from its mouth. This stream, it seems, was first used by Joseph Barnett for the transportation of lumber in 1806, as related to Lewis W. Corbett thirty years ago by William Clark, who had been at that early period in Barnett's employ. Barnett, the first white settler in Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, settled at Port Barnett in that county prior to 1799. He and his brother-in-law, John Scott, erected a sawmill there in the spring or early part of summer in 1806. Several Indians were there the day the mill was raised, whom Barnett invited to dine with him. They accepted his invitation. After dinner one them remarked, "Dinner - Indian sleep an hour - then strong." They then went off into the woods, their host supposing that he would not see them again that day. They, however, returned in the course of an hour and vigorously aided in raising the mill and partook of supper. The first lot of lumber which Barnett and Scott sent down the Red Bank was a small platform of timber, which Clark aided in running to the Allegheny river with poles instead of oars as the propelling power. This was a rough stream on which rafting was then very difficult. Iron used to be transported in those early times on pack-horses, in wagons, and on sleds from Center county to Port Barnett, some of which was sent down this creek on rafts which were occasionally wrecked on a bar between Timber Island and the river. As the iron was thus scattered about on that bar it received and it has retained the name of "Iron bar."

There was a high flood in this stream in 1806 which reached eight to ten feet up the trees on the flat where Fair Mount now is, as related by Lewis Daubeurpeck, who saw the grass, sticks and other drift which the Indians told him were lodged in the forks of these two trees when that flood subsided. There were twenty-one feet of water on the riffle at New Bethlehem October 8, 1847, which swept away bridges, Hass', Knapp's, and Robinson's mills and mill-dams. Another one, September 28-9, 1861, twenty-two feet high, did less damage than the preceding one.

"Fishbasket Hill," a mile and a half above New Bethlehem, and about twenty-five rods below the mouth of Town creek, where Lewis Doverspike settled in 1870, and a short distance below Troy, are two of the localities on this stream from which the Indians formerly obtained lead ore, pieces of which David Doverspike gave to L. W. Corbett, then at New Bethlehem, who melted it. There were probably places where they concealed the ore which had been transported thither from Sinking Valley, in this state, or from the west.

One thousand dollars was appropriated by the act of assembly "making appropriations for certain internal improvements," approved March 24, 1817, for the purpose of improving the creek, and Levi Gibson and Samuel C. Orr were appointed commissioners to superintend the application of the money. By the act of April 4, 1826, "Sandy Lick, or Red Bank creek," was declared a public highway only for the passage of boats, rafts, etc., descending it. That act also made it lawful for all person owning lands adjoining this stream to erect milldams across it, and other water-works along it, to keep them in good repair, and draw off enough water to operate them on their own land, but required them "to make a slope from the top, descending fifteen feet for every foot the dam is high, and not less than forty feet in breadth," so as to afford a good navigation and not to infringe the rights and privileges of any owner of private property.

The first flatboat that descended this stream was piloted by Samuel Knapp, in full Indian costume, in 1832 or 1833- two boats loaded with sawed lumber, owned by Uriah Matson, which found a good market in Cincinnati, with the proceeds of which Matson purchased the goods with which he opened his store at Brookville.

By the act of assembly April 17, 1854, the Red Bank Navigation Company was incorporated, and authorized, among other things, to clean and clear the Red Bank, Sandy Lick and North Fork creeks of all rocks, bars and other obstructions; to bracket and regulate all dams erected therein; to erect other dams and locks; to regulate the chutes of dams; to control the waters by brackets and otherwise for the purpose of navigation; to levy tolls on boards and other sawed stuff, square and other timber, and boats that might pass down these creeks, to be collected at the mouth of Red Bank, and to be liens on the property upon which they might be levied, in whosoever hands it might be. Some of the members of this company who were engaged in the lumber trade commenced clearing these streams of obstructions before their charter was granted, and expended before and since it was granted and the company organized about $8000. In or about 1850 considerable blasting of rocks and of other work in clearing the Red Bank was done, under their direction, by Lewis W. Corbett, between New Bethlehem and the mouth, but principally at and for a distance of two and a half miles below Broken Rock.

A supplement to the foregoing act, passed March 28, 1860, provides that if persons shall, without the authority of the company, place any dam or other obstructions in the Red Bank, Sandy Lick or North Fork creek, the same shall be removed by the company at the cost of the persons placing them there; that the company may make such by-laws as may be necessary- such as do not conflict with the constitution and laws of the United States and this state- for the government of the company and the safe navigation of this stream, and to enforce them by fines, each not exceeding $100. Another supplement, passed March 18, 1867, gives this company the power to increase their capital stock to $20,000; to inflict a penalty of $5 on any person who shall refuse to return to the proper officer of the company the name of the owner of any raft, boat, logs, or other craft which he may be navigating or assisting to navigate on these creeks, or return them in any false name or false amount; if any person shall injure or destroy any dam, bridge, bracket, or other property of the company, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction in the proper court, shall be fined not exceeding $100, or be imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding sixty days, or both or either; the company is authorized to charge tolls additional to those prescribed in the charter, but not exceeding double those, upon any raft, boat, logs, or other craft "that may be run on any bracket flood raised by order of said company;" to require persons navigating these streams on freshet brackets to take out permits, and the penalty for neglecting or refusing to do so is $10 for each craft thus navigated, provided, that the company, before raising such bracket, shall give six days' notice thereof by a sufficient number of handbills at the most public places in Summerville, Brookville, Port Barnett, Reynoldsville and Richardsville. This supplement also provides that the company shall not be liable for damages that may occur in the navigation of these creeks, and that it shall, annually, on or before the first Monday of January, publish in a newspaper in Jefferson county a statement of its receipts and expenditures for the preceding year, showing how and on what account moneys were received and expended, sworn to by the treasurer, "and filed among the records of the court of common pleas of each of said counties."

In the northwestern part of this township is the territory covered by the Pickering & Co. warrant No. 439. In the sharp northern bend of the Red Bank, opposite the mouth of Town creek, was the site of the "Old Town," an Indian village, vestiges of which, such as stone and earthen mounds, kettles and other implements used by the Indians, were found by the early white settlers. Jacob Wells cut down a hickory tree, about eight rods south of the Red Bank, on this tract, in 1875, in the trunk of which he found an ounce lead ball, between which and the bark were one hundred and five concentric rings or annual growths. Hence, it may be inferred that the "Old Town" was located here prior to 1770. The date of that warrant is May 17, 1785, and that of the survey by George Woods, May 31, 1786. The patent to Pickering & Co., "including the Old Town," is dated March 25, and their conveyance to Yost Smith, August 17, 1820. He had probably on it in 1807, for he was assessed on the Red Bank list in 1808, with the land, and the next year with it and two horses, at $211.

The first bridge across Red Bank, at the northeastern part of this tract, was built in 1839, and its superstructure has since been twice rebuilt.

Contemporaneous with Yost Smith was Peter Stone, who settled about the same time, higher up on the same side of the Red Bank, on the John Anderson tract, call "Anderson's Choice," warrant No. 3837. The patent to Anderson is dated April 25, 1793. He conveyed parcels of this tract: one hundred acres to Timothy Jaynes, April 6, 1811, for $300, who conveyed the same to Catherine Evans, June 27, for $150; two hundred and twenty acres to Peter Stone, May 1, 1815, for $240, who conveyed fifty acres thereof to John Evans' heirs, February 18, 1841, for $200, and probably another parcel to J. Mercer, as the old map shows his name on a subdivision above the parcel retained by Stone. A ferry across the Red Bank, about half a mile above Millville, was kept by Stone for several years, and as late as 1825-7. He and his wife used to relate that in early times six or eight Indians were accustomed to stop at their house and trade; one time they went about a mile from there up the southeastern side of Red Bank, whence they returned with a considerable quantity of lead ore of good quality, which they carried to one or both of the Indian encampments at Smith's and at Leatherwood. Two Indians, John and Bill, staid over night at Stone's, in the latter part of October or fore part of November. Bill opened the door just before bedtime, snuffed the air, and remarked that there would be a fall of snow by the next morning. There was a considerable one during the night. Mrs. Stone related that a party of seven or eight Indians, in passing up and down the creek, annoyed her by their often-repeated begging. They were not otherwise troublesome. On one occasion she noticed that quite an old Indian, who had previously accompanied them, was not then with them. She inquired where he was. One of them answered: "He fell asleep, and cannot walk any more." Her inference was, as he had become burdensome to them, they had him killed.

A considerable number of Indians must have returned and settled along the Red Bank as late as 1815-16. James White, of "Mexico," informed the writer that three hundred of them, about that time, settled along this stream below Brookville, parley in Armstrong county. Respecting their return to this section, Dr. M. A. Ward wrote to Eben Smith Kelly at Kittanning, from Pittsburgh, January 18, 1817:

"I am not at all surprised that the sober, industrious, religious inhabitants of Red Bank should be highly incensed at their late accession of emigrants, not only because by them they will probably be deprived of many fat bucks and delicious turkeys, to which, according to the strict interpretation of all our game laws, they have as good a right, if they have the fortune to find and the address to shoot them, as any �dirty, nasty' Indians whatever, but because the presence and examples of such neighbors must have a very depraving influence to divert the minds of the farmers from the sober pursuits of agriculture and inspire a propensity for the barbarous pleasures of the chase. * * * But what is worse than all, I have heard that they love whisky to such an inordinate degree as to get sometimes beastly drunk, and even beat their wives and behave unseemly before their families, which certainly must have a most demoralizing tendency on the minds of the rising generation."

Stone's house was a favorite resort for lumberman in the rafting seasons on the creek. It is said they keenly appreciated same Stone's excellent cookery as well as her husband's whisky.

Above and adjoining Pickering & Co., No. 439, was "Henry Nulf's Improvement," two hundred acres, with which he was assessed in 1806 at $100. He did not reside here, but on one of the Joseph Thomas- Daniel Brodhead- tracts, on Town creek, in what is now Red Bank township, Clarion county, and was noted as a mighty hunter.

On November 19, 1818, he and Henry C. Barrett consummated their previous agreement to trade or exchange properties. Nulf conveyed to Barnett one hundred and fifteen acres and eleven perches of one of the Thomas Brodhead tracts for $450, and Barrett conveyed to Nulf lots Nos. 3, 4, and Half-lots Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 37, 46, 47, 48 in the town of Millville, situate on the Pickering & Co. tract 441, which they conveyed to Adam Mohney April 9, 1811, and he to Isaac Mohney October 28, 1816, and all his water-rights of Red Bank creek, so far as he had the right to obstruct its navigation by law, for the use of the mill in that town, for $450, the two full lots being valued at $100, the one half of the nine at $200, and the water-right at $150.

Returning from this digression into Clarion County, Nulf obtained patents for the land contained in his "Improvement" on the southeastern side of Red Bank creek November 29, 1826, founded on a warrant to him March 14, 1823. He conveyed parts of those two tracts: two hundred and fifty acres to Jacob Shick August 10. 1827, for $687.50; one hundred and ninety-two acres and sixty-two perches to Henry Nulf, Jr., September 30, 1830, for $154; and an equal quantity to Jacob Miller December 22, 1832, for $200. The first and only schoolhouse within the present limits of this township, prior to the passage of the school law, was erected in 1828 on the parcel of the "Improvement" conveyed to Jacob Shick, and now owned by John Harmon. It was a primitive log structure about 15 by 15 feet.

Above and adjoining "Nulf's Improvement" lay the James Coulter tract, warrant No. 3836, two hundred and twenty acres, the patent for which was granted to Coulter January 17, 1817, which he conveyed to William Freas May 7, 1820, for $840, one hundred and thirteen acres and one hundred and twenty-one perches of which the latter conveyed to Henry Freas September 3, 1823, for $420. They entered into a written agreement the same day, the purport of which is, that the tract they lived was bought in partnership from Coulter. It being understood that there was a mill-seat on it, they agreed to be equal owners of it, and of the water-right on Red Bank creek; the advantages arising therefrom to be equally enjoyed by both of them; no mill-race to be cut so as to injure adjoining land; the one acre of ground on which the mill was to located was to be of the part of the tract taken by William Freas, and each was bound in the penal sum of $1000 for the proper performance of his part of the contract. Henry Freas erected an oilmill on his part of this tract between 1825 and 1830, which he operated until 1834. William Freas was last assessed with his one hundred and ten acres in 1824, and the widow Sarah Freas with the same quantity in 1825.

Coulter conveyed _____ acres and ___ perches to Sarah Smith October 4, 1827, for $_____, which became vested in John Smith, who conveyed one hundred and twenty-nine acres and seven perches to Phillip Houpt May 13, 1837, for $1,290.63.

It is on this part of this Coulter tract that the Emanuel church edifice, brick, 28 x 38 feet, is situated. It was erected in 1851 under the directions of a building committee, which consisted of George Coleman, Philip Houpt, Jacob Shelley and Jacob Shick, and under a contract between that committee and Tobias Lanker. The church had been previously organized as an Evangelical Lutheran one by Rev. J. G. Young, who was for several years afterward its pastor. Its present membership is 63.

In January or February, 1852, that edifice was crowded by an assemblage of people of this region to consider the practicability of affording aid for the construction of a branch railroad from the Allegheny river along the Red Bank to Brookville. A very active member of that meeting was the late Thomas McCullough, who in a speech of an hour and a half adduced numerous facts, statistics and arguments by which to persuade the people that they would be greatly benefited by whatever contributions they might make for that purpose, and succeeded in favorably impressing his hearers with his views. They were ready to subscribe liberal amounts. But there were some opponents of that measure in that meeting, and I. W. Powell was requested to present the other side of the question. He did so, and he, too; succeeded in persuading his hearers not to contribute to that project, which lay dormant for more than a decade. The benefits resulting from the subsequent construction of the low grade or Bennett's branch of the Allegheny Valley railroad are yearly becoming more and more evident.

Adjoining the Coulter tract and "Anderson's choice," on the southeast, were the Joshua and Robert Anderson tracts, contiguous to each other, covered by warrants Nos. 3834, 3835, the patents for both of which were granted to Joshua Anderson, the latter February 24, 1801, which having become vested in James Anderson, his administrator de bonis non, John Galbraith conveyed two hundred and twenty acres to Jacob Mohney (of John) September 22, 1834, for $440, whose administrators conveyed the same quantity to John Mohney March 16, 1854, and he, the same day, to Adam Mohney, to whose estate it belongs, for $525.

There is on this Adam Mohney land a vein of what is commonly called flint, but is what geologists term quartzite, i.e., granular quartz. Quartz is pure silex, an essential constituent of granite, often occurring in pellucid glassy crystals and in masses of various colors more or less transparent to opaque. In the specimen from this vein which is before the writer at this writing there is a conglomeration of variously-colored material which is very hard. The color of some of it is almost white; of other portions blue, light and dark green, verging to slate, being the same color of the material of many Indian arrow-heads. In some of the cavities are small sparkling crystals. Boys in the vicinity of this vein, as the writer is informed, have struck fire from pieces of it with their knife-blades. The vein appears to be about eighteen inches thick and several rods long, and just above it is a spring of very good water. The present appearance of this vein indicates that large quantities of it have been excavated. From the quantity of the fragments of its material about two hundred rods distant from it, it is inferred that the Indians used it in manufacturing large numbers of their spear and arrow-heads.

About thirty-one years ago Enoch Buffington, who settled on the Big Mudlick about a mile northeasterly from New Salem, in 1836, found an iron tomahawk in his orchard, which appeared to be a place where the Indians made their spear and arrow heads. Another place of the same kind, where rings and tomahawks have been made, is about three hundred rods south, on Philip Doverspike's place.

Granted that spear and arrow heads were made here, the reader may be curious to know how the Indians made them, especially before iron and steel implements were introduced among them. From Jones' Antiquities of the Southern Indians, the writer has gleaned most of the following facts.

They had a limited variety of copper implements, which were of rare occurrence, and which were too soft to be of use in working so hard a material as flint or quartzite. Hence it is believed that they fashioned their spear and arrow heads with other implements than those of iron or steel. They must have acquired, by their observation and numerous experiments, a thorough and practical knowledge of cleavage, that is, "the tendency to split in certain directions, which is characteristic of most of the crystallizable minerals." Capt. John Smith, speaking of the Virginian Indians in his sixth voyage, says: "His arrow-head he quickly maketh with a little bone, which he ever weareth at his bracelet, of a splint of a stone or glasse, in the form of a heart, and these they glew to the ends of the arrows. With the sinews of the deer and the tops of deers' horns boiled to a jelly, they make a glue which will not dissolve in cold water." Schoolcraft says: "The skill displayed in this art, as it is exhibited by the tribes of the entire continent, has excited admiration. The material employed is generally some form of horn-stone, sometimes passing into flint. No specimens have, however, been observed where the substance is gunflint. The horn-stone is less hard than common quartz and can be readily broken by contact with the latter." Catlin, in his "Last Ramble Among the Indians," says: "Every tribe has its factory in which these arrow-heads are made, and in these only certain adepts are able or allowed to make them for the use of the tribe. Erratic bowlders of flint are collected and sometimes brought an immense distance, and broken with a sort of sledge-hammer, made of a rounded pebble of horn-stone, set in a twisted with holding the stone and forming a handle. The flint at the indiscriminate blows of the sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces, and such flakes selected as from the angles of their fracture and thickness will answer as the basis of an arrow-head. The master workman, seated on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his hand, holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of the same hand, and with his right hand, between the thumb and two forefingers, places his chisel or punch on the point that in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel or punch on the point that is to be broken off, and a co-operator- a striker- in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel or punch on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side below each projecting point that is struck. The flint is then turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side, and that is chipped until the required shape and dimensions are obtained, all the fractures being made on the palm of the hand. In selecting the flake for the arrow-head, a nice judgment must be used, or the attempt will fail; a flake with two opposite parallel, or nearly parallel, planes of cleavage is found, and of the thickness required for the center of the arrow point. The first chipping reaches nearly to the center of these planes, but without quite breaking it away, and each clipping is shorter and shorter, until the shape and edge of the arrow-head is formed. The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were broken on a hard substance. These people have no metallic instruments to work with, and the punch which they use, I was told, was a piece of bone, but on examining it, I found it to be of a substance much harder, made of the tooth- incisor- of the sperm whale, which cetaceans are often stranded on the coast of the Pacific."

In 1854, Lieutenant Beckwith saw a Pah-Utah Indian, seated on the ground, to make a fragment of quartz, with a piece of round bone, one end of which was semi-spherical, with a small crease in it, as it if were a thread, the sixteenth of an inch deep, an arrow-head which is very sharp and piercing, and in all respects similar to those in general use among the Indians of that region. He says: "The skill and rapidly with which is was made, without a blow, but by simply breaking the sharp edges with the creased bone, by the strength of his hands - for the crease merely served to prevent the instrument from slipping, affording no leverage�were remarkable."

In 1860, Caleb Lyon communicated to the American Ethnological Society the mode of the manufacture of arrow-heads of flint, glass, obsidian and other materials by the Shasta Indians of California: "The Shasta Indian seated himself on the floor, and placing the stone anvil, which was of compact talcose slate, upon his thigh, with one blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts; then giving another blow to the fractured side, he split off a slab a fourth of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he commenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually acquired shape. After finishing the base of the arrow-head, the whole being only a little over a inch in length, he began striking gentler blows, every one of which, I expected, would break into pieces. Yet such was his adroit application, his skill and dexterity, that in little over an hour he produced a perfect obsidian arrow-head. I then requested him to carve me one from the remains of a broken bottle, which, after two failures, he succeeded in doing. He gave me, as a reason for his ill success, he did not understand the grain of the glass. No sculptor ever handled a chisel with greater precision, or more carefully measured the weight and effect of every blow, than this ingenious Indian; for even among them arrow making is a distinct trade or profession, which many attempt, but in which few attain excellence."

Jones says: "It is fair to presume that the method adopted by the modern Indians in the manufacture of their common flint arrow and spear heads was but the perpetuation of a mode which existed among the red man prior to historic times."

Taking into account that vein of quartzite, the quantity excavated from it and the quantity of the chippings of that material in its vicinity, it seems quite probable that the Indians in the olden time had one of their open-air workshops "for the manufacture of flint implements" where the peculiar knowledge of cleavage, skill and experience necessary to make them were brought into practical use right here on this Anderson-Mohney tract.

Adjoining the Robert Anderson tract on the northwest was a small, triangular vacant parcel on what was formerly a tannery which was first assessed to Daniel Hough, in 1842, to Abraham Shirey in 1847, and to George Gruber in 1859.

Adjoining that tract on the southwest was the tract covered by the warrant to Joshua Anderson, to whom the patent was granted February 24, 1801. A portion of it subsequently became disputed territory. There was a conflict between the Anderson and Holland company titles and between the original surveys and that made by Robert Richards, making the quantity of land in dispute 218 acres and 57 perches and allowance of six per cent for roads. Joshua Anderson, a descendant of the patentee of this tract, brought his action of ejectment to No. 91 March term, 1849, in the court of common pleas of this county, against the then occupants, Widow Harmon, John and Jacob Harmon, Matthew Houpt and James Shannon for 330 acres. This case was tried December 20, 1850, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff for one-fifth of the land in dispute, on which judgment was entered. Anderson conveyed fifty-four acres and 148 perches to Philip Houpt, August 25, 1854, for $219.

In the deep western bend of the Mahoning creek in the southwestern part of this township was the major part of the Samuel Wallis' tract, No. 4128, eleven hundred acres included in the Orr purchase, the southern part being in Wayne and the northwestern part in Mahoning township. Orr conveyed 296 acres 125 perches of this tract to William Neal, July 10, 1840, for $222.56; 161 acres 25 perches to John Smith, May 25, 1841, for $162; 125 acres 46 perches to George Smith, Jr., the same day, for $126; 172 acres 20 perches (in Wayne) to John Hettrick or $430; 20 acres 140 perches (in Mahoning) to George Smith, Sr., September 18, 1846, for $20; 97 acres and 66 perches to Daniel Smith, October 10, 1872, for $625. The sawmill, first assessed to McCrea & Galbraith, in 1849, was situated on the part of this tract purchased by them.

In the southeastern part of this township was a part of the Mason & Cross tract 548 acres and 15 perches, No. 694. It was assessed as unseated to these warrantees in 1805, then in Toby township, at $548.07. It continued to be thus assessed to them on the list of Red Bank township until 1822, when it was valued at 50 cents an acre. About one-fifth of the western part of it was in this and Wayne townships. The rest was in Indiana county.

Source: Page(s) 186-200, History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania by Robert Walker Smith, Esq. Chicago: Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1883.
Transcribed November 1998 by Debra Shelkey for the Armstrong County Smith Project.
Contributed by Debra Shelkey for use by the Armstrong County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/armstrong/)

Armstrong County Genealogy Project Notice:
These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format, for any presentation, without prior written permission.

Return to the Historical Index

Return to the Smith Project