Wayne Township
Armstrong County Pennsylvania
History

Wayne Township was formed from Plumcreek Township in 1821, and was named after the Revolutionary War hero "Mad" Anthony Wayne.

The inhabitants of Wayne Township were entirely engaged in agriculture up to 1820 when the first sawmill was erected by Peter Thomas. Others were built at later dates by Jacob Beck, Abel Findley adn Alva Payne. These mills were situated on Glade Run, Camp Run and Pine Creek.

The first gristmill was built in 1822 by Joseph Marshall, Sr., on Glade Run, near its mouth, and was afterward owned successively by James Kirkpatrick, John Hendreson, Archibald Glenn, John Segar and Andre J. Lowman. The next gristmill was put up on Pine Creek by George Beck Sr., in 1830, who afterward added a carding machine. The third one was put up by Enoch Hastings, in 1835, on Glade Run and was subsequently owned by Daniel Schreckengost, John Segar, Alexander Getty and Alex Haines. The fourth, on a branch of Pine Creek was owned by Andrew Lowman and later owned by Jacob Segar. Alva Paine and Thomas Travis built a saw and gristmill on the south bank of the Mahoning in 1827, and it afterwards passed into the hands of Ellenberger and Coleman.

The first fulling-mill was built by David Lewis in 1828 in the northeastern part of the township on the Mahoning creek.

Olney furnace was built by John McCrea and James Galbraith in 1846, and went into blast the next year. It was situated on the southerly side of the Mahoning creek, a little over two miles in an air line from the mouth of Glade run and was a hot and cold blast charcoal furnace,which for a few years made about 23 tons of pig metal a week; and then after the enlargement of its bosh to 9 feet across by 32 feet high, 568 tons in 23 weeks, from the ferriferous and hard limestone ore, taken from the beds in the coal measures three miles around it. The number of employees varied from about sixty to eighty. Galbraith retired from it in 1850, and McCrea continued to operate it until 1855. The iron was transported via the Mahoning creek and Allegheny river to Pittsburgh.

An iron foundry was established by John Henderson and Archibald Glenn, probably in 1847, which was attached to the new gristmill on the site of the old one, called the lower Glade mills. It appears to have been operated by the latter until 1851, when it was transferred to John Segar.

The Glade Run postoffice was established Dec, 17, 1828, at Joseph Marshall's on the then new post route from Kitttanning to the mouth of Anderson's creek. Reuben Lewis was its first postmaster.

The Echo postoffice ws established in 1857 the name being given it fromthe remarkable echo from the hills at this point. The first postmaster was Joseph Knox and the first storekeeper Moses McElwain.

Milton and Independence are two little settlements in the extreme notheastern part of the township, in one of the severe bends of the Mahoning.

The postoffice of Belknap was established Sept, 21, 1855, and its first postmaster was Charles W. Ellenberger. The name of this village was adopted in honor of the postmaster general that year, and was suggested by John McCrea.

The postoffice of Dayton was established in 1855 with James McQuown as postmaster. The town or village of Dayton was laid out in 1850 on a part of the Pickering & Co. tract, then owned by Robert Marshall, and on a part of the Alexander McClelland tract, then owned by John Lias.

The origin of the name of this municipality is this: On a certain evening, probably in 1849, when there were only about three buildings on the territory which it now covers, there was a small assemblage of persons then residing here and in this vicinity, at the store of Guyer & Laughlin. One topic of conversation on that occasion was the name which should be given to this point, then a mere hamlet, which, it was expected, would in time become a town. The main object was to select a name which had not been given to any other place, or at least to any postoffice, in this state. Some one present, it is not remebered who, suggested by reason of some mental association of his with Dayton, Ohio, which was named after Jonathan Dayton, on of the agents who affected a purchase for John Cleve Symmes of 248,000 acres from the United States, on a part of the citizens of New Jersey, and was speaker of the house of representatives in the Congress of the United States from Dec. 7, 1795, until March 3, 1799. The borough was incorporated in 1873.

In 1882, James R. Orr, the first printer in the township, interested Rev. T.M. Elder and other citizens in the establishment of a newspaper, and together they started the Dayton News, under the firm name of Elder, Orr & Co. In Dec, 1883, D.A. Lowe, now a leading photographer of Erie, together with W.C. Marshall the pesent propietor, bought up the stock and conducted the paper until 1885, when Marshall sold out and went to the West.

Among the earlier landowners and settlers were: Thomas W. Hiltzheimer, General Daniel Brodhead, John Rutherford, Jacob Peelor, Joseph Marshall, James Kirkpatrick, John Calhoun, James McGahey, Abel Dindley, James Russell, Thomas Duke, William Kinnan, Ephraim Blaine, James Hamilton, William Borland, John Borland, William Kirkpatrick, William Cochran, James Marshall, Noah A. Calhoun, General James Potter, John Hays, Sr., David Ralston, Thomas White, James McKennan, Robert Borland, James McQuoun, Watson S. Marshall, Alexander McClelland, Benjamin Irwin, Robert Martin, Hung Martin, Enoch Hastings, Rueben Hastings, Robert Beatty, Thomas Taylor, Jacob Pontius, John Hyskell, Joseph Glenn, John Henderson, Samuel Coleman, Thomas Wilson, Robert Black, Samuel Black, Archibald Glenn, Lumes Wilson, Samuel Irwin, Joseph McSparrin, Andrew D. Guthrie, Samuel Wallis, George Harrison, Thomas W. Francis, Edward Tilghman, Thomas Ross, Peter Thomas, George Scott, William Wirt Gitt, Henry Pratt, John Butler, Theodore Wilson, George Ellenberger, William Pontius, Samuel Black, John Gould, John Bargerstock, John Steele, John Hettrick, Adam Baughman, Jacob Kammerdiener, Peter Kammerdiener, Thoms Smullen, John Alcorn, Alexander White, James White, John Powers, Joseph Powers, Mrs. Elizabeth McClemmens, Leopold Drohn, Joseph Clever, Eli Schrecengost, Joseph Schrecengost, John Reesman, Dr. William Smith, William C. Bryan, Mark Campbell, Michael Clever, George Harrison, Joseph Thomas, Robert Brown, Jacob Beer, Samuel McGaughey, Jacob Rupp, Isaac Meason, Robert R. Cross, Hugh Gallagher, William McElhenny, Frederick Soxman, Adam Rupp, Paul Burti, Benjamin B. Cooper, Jacob Smith, John McIntire, George Kline, Joseph Buffington, James A. Knox, George Dill, Moses Dill, and John Brodhead.

Few of these whose names are mentioned were actual settlers. Most of the earlier settlers occupied and improved portion of these tracks for years before they knew or could reach those who could grant valid tiles; so there was a good deal of squatting and occasional shifting of locations.

The earliest settler in the eastern part of Wayne Township, on Glade Run, was William Marshall, who came from Indiana County. He settled and made and improvement, erecting a log cabin and barn on the Pickering & Co. tract, of which he occupied about eighty acres, known in that region as "old Glade Run farm".

The only other white settler then within what is now the territory of this township was James Shields, who occupied a part of the above mentioned vacant tract, the farm since owned by C. Soxman and James Gallagher, Jr., about four miles west of south from Marshall's. The next nearest neighbors were the Kirkpatrick's, nearly south, on the Cowanshannock, another family about four miles to the east, and others not less than ten miles to the north. The nearest gristmill was Peter Thomas', about fifteen miles distant on Plum creek.

Another settler on Glade Run was Joseph Marshall, the eldest son of William Marshall Sr., he being twenty-two years old when they settled there a century ago. Their new home in the wilderness was then in Toby Township. Joseph Marshall, in later years, when the Marshalls in this part of the county became quite numerous, was distinguished from others bearing the same name by the appellation of "big Joe Marshall". He died in his eightieth year in 1859.

The eastern portion of this township received nearly all the settlers in the first decade of this century. Thomas Wilson was assessed with 300 acres of land in 1806, being then in Kittanning township, The records show that the other settlers in this section were Hugh Martin, Alexander and Thomas McGaughey, James Kirkpatrick, Sr., and John Calhoun, in 1807. Christopher Rupp in 1805 was the first settler in the vicinity of Echo. Twenty years after he was the owner of 800 acres of that land.

Several of these earlier owners were of more than passing reputation and importance in the history of our country. One of them, Ephraim Blaine, was a resident of Carlisle, PA., in the earlier years of the Revolutionary War. In the spring of 1777 the appointment of sub-lieutenant of Cumberland county was tendered to him, which he declined. He was afterward appointed deputy commissary general for the middle department. In Feb. or March, 1780, he was appointed commissary general, which position he probably filled until the close of the war. His name appears in the list of names of men redising at Fort Pitt, July 22, 1760. He was the great-grandfather of James G. Blaine, the distinguished United States senator from Maine, who was a native of Pennsylvania.

John Hays, Sr., was a son of John and Mary Hays, both of whom participated in the battle of Monmouth, N.J., in the Revolutionary War. He was a sergeant in a company of artillery, who is said to have directed a cannon at least a part of the time. When he was carried from the field, his wife was approaching with a pitcher of water for him and others, took his place by that cannon, loaded and fired at least once, insisted on remaining, and left with much reluctance. General Washington either saw or heard of the service which she thus rendered, and commissioned her as sergeant by brevet. She was in the army seven years and nine month, serving with her husband. After the war she and her husband removed to Carlisle, PA., where he subsequently died, and she married Sergeant McAuley. She died in January, 1832, in her ninetieth year, and was buried beside her first husband with military honors by several companies that followed her remains to the grave----"Molly Pitcher's" grave.

Source: The History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania

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