History

The seventeenth township organized was Heath. It was taken from Barnett, in 1847, and was called for Elijah Heath, one of the first settlers of the county, and for many years a prominent citizen of Brookville. It is bounded on the north by Forest county, from which it is divided by the Clarion River, on the east by Polk township and Elk county, on the south by Eldred, Warsaw and Polk, and on the west by Barnett.

Early Settlers -- The first settlers in Heath township appear to have been Job Carr, James Aharah and John Wynkoop. Mr. K.L. Blood, of Brookville, says of the early settlement of this region: "My father took me, in the fall of 1833, to what was then Ridgway township, now Heath. Job Carr lived there, and was running a saw-mill, and was then building a dam across the Clarion River. James Watterson, of Armstrong, now Clarion county, had made a settlement at the mouth of Spring Creek, and built a saw-mill in 1833, and a man named Ransom and Ralph Hill, had built a shanty, and took up what was then supposed to be vacant land, in the Beech Bottom, now owned by Calvin Rodgers." This mill of Job Carr, which was about one mile above Millstone, was the first mill built in what is now Heath township. Mr. Carr took out and ran to market the first lumber. The first school-house was built at Lathrop's, and the first church was built on the Edeburn farm, about 1883.

Contributed for use by the Jefferson County Genealogy Project http://www.pa-roots.com/jefferson/)

Jefferson County Genealogy Project Notice:

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format, for any presentation, without prior written permission.

Return to Heath Township Home Page

Return to the Jefferson County Genealogy Project

(c) Jefferson County Genealogy Project