Vintage Scenes of Burrell Township

Friends and family arrive by horse and buggy at the Fiscus farmhouse
located east of Cochran Mills, along Cochran Mills Road, June 29, 1898.
Celebrating Mr. & Mr. James Fiscus' golden wedding anniversary.
The Fiscus farm was later taken over by the McDonald family.

Mrs. Kinnard and daughter Haze as they pose on boulders along Crooked Creek
with the old delapidated covered bridge at Cockran Mills in the background.
They bridge was torn down in 1910.

Brick Church's business district in the late 1800s.
In a era when funerals customarily were held in the home of the deceased Undertaker S.S. Schaeffer
made the pine boxes they were buried in. Before Rural Delivery, H.A. King's general store also served
as the Brick Church Post Office. The mail first was transported to Cochran Mills,
and from there om baskets to Brick Church.

The village of Cochran Mills about 1900
Covered Bridge
Tall Drilling Rig for Gas Well
Smaller Drilling Rig for Salt at Middle Left
The village was torn down to make way for the backwaters
when Crooked Creek Dam was built in the late 1930s.

Raising a barn on the Fiscus farm in late 1800s.

The Fiscus barn still standing in 2005 east of Cochran Hills.

This traveling steam-powered sawmill owned by Cyrus Slease was set up along Horney Camp Run
in this photo, circa 1895. Listed as being in the photo: Jacob Robb, Jerome Cook, Preston Schaeffer,
Jess Robb, P.B. Slease, M. Dunmire, Peter Dunmire and Mary Slease.

Neigbors help with the threshing using a steam-driven tractor
on the Lookabaugh farm.

Using a grain reaper in the McDonald farm.
The men followed behind to tie the shocks of wheat or oats by hand.

A later owner of the Fiscus family farm near Cochran Mills,
Orwell "Orry" McDonald hand-transports a swarm of bees
taken from a tree on his property.

In earlier times, real candles lit the tree at St. Michael's Church at Cochran Mills.

Sisters Mrs. Small and Mrs. Jame Speets churn butter.

The Brick Church Century Band, c. 1898.
Standing second from left in back row is band director J.A. Rupert.
The man in the white suite is Orwell "Orry" McDonald.

Frank Shaeffer stands in doorway of an old log house,
once the home of Mrs. Murphy along Murphy Hollow Road.
All that remains of the old cabin are remnants of the stone foundation.

A wagon load of hay. Farmers unknown

Brick Church School Studends, early 1930s.
Rear: Margaret Riggle, teacher Mrs. L. Schaeffer, Joe Bartek, Dale Swank, Don Salsgiver, Jean Riggle and Louise Peters.
Middle: Helen Cook, Sarah Swank, Mary Swank, Jamie Knell and Ellen Claypoole
Front: Junior Salsgiver, Myron Peters, Harry Waltenbaugh, Ray Swank and Glen Swank