History of Forest County, Chapter 9

Forest County
Chapter X 

BARNETT AND GREEN TOWNSHIPS

 

 

BARNETT TOWNSHIP – GENERAL DESCRIPTION – POPULATION – OFFICERS ELECTED IN
FEBRUARY, 1890- OWNERS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY IN 1852, AND VALUE OF UNSEATED
LANDS – THE PIONEERS – VILLAGES

GREEN TOWNSHIP – TOPOGRAPHY – COAL BEDS – POPULATION – ELECTIONS IN
FEBRUARY, 1890 – VILLAGES.

BARNETT TOWNSHIP juts out to the border of Jefferson county between Elk and
Clarion. Millstone creek flows through the northwest corner, and, apart from
this, the eastern half of the township boasts of only a few rivulets. The
western half is a region of small rivers. Maple creek heads up south of
Marienville, but assumes some pretensions in the northwest corner of this
township, whence it flows south to Clarington, where it enters the Clarion
river, receiving Huling’s run and a few rivulets in its course. Paralleling it
on the west are Coleman and Troutman runs, each the drainer of beautiful
valleys. At Redclyffe the elevation is 1,615 feet-high enough to warrant the
existence of coal; but up to 1884 little or nothing was done toward developing
its deposits. Sandstone is found here, as in other sections. In 1889 the oil
fever reached this township, when experienced oil men were sincere in their
opinions that petroleum existed in commercial quantities.

The population in 1880, including 88 inhabitants in Cooksburg, was 615. In
1888 there were 105 Republicans, 79 Democrats, and 1 Prohibitionist recorded
as voting, or a total of 185, representing a population of 925.

The township officers chosen for 1890, are as follows: Constable and
collector, J. B. Campbell; treasurer, Jacob Mays; clerk, J. E. Cosgrove; road
commissioner, E. A. Kuhn; judge of election, Wm. Crossman; overseer of the
poor, A. Cook; auditor, James Gray; school directors, Clarence Pratt and R. W.
Brenneman.

The owners of personal property in Barnett township, in 1852, were John
Agnew, J. M. Adams, William and W. A. Arthurs, Alphonzo Vaubiot, W. Armstrong,
W. Andrews, Isaac Attlebarge; T. Anderson (carpenter), Anderson (mason),
George Agnew, Thady Armstrong, William Allen, Jacob Braden, Arch. Black, Oran
Butterfield, D. Burk, James Brandon, John Brandon, Jesse Burchfield, Horace
Byham, Robert Black, James Black, John Blacklock, Daniel Black, Daniel Berlin,
Daniel, John, Jr., William, Andrew, Jeremiah, George, David and John Cook,
Simon and William Chapman, W. R. and James Coon, Samuel Consanus, Adam Cupler,
A. Coventry, E. Cline, C. Smith, Patrick Kearney, Wm. and Ed. Collins, Alex.
Craig, R. Custard, James U., Jeptha Henry and W. R. Daniels, Elijah Davis, W.
M. Davis, John Dodge, J. Donaldson, Joseph Dunlap, Hiram Drake, John C. Davis,
R. H. and William Downey, Y. Eshelman, John Fitzgerald, E. Forsyth, Jesse
Ferry, Sam Fulton, James Forest, John Grant, Milton Gibbs, John Gordon, W. L.
Gould, John Houston, W. P. Hutcheson, Nelson Haight, Robert Huling, William
Hayden, Lewis Herring and son, Joseph Herring, John Hasley, Peter Hasley, Sol.
Hallman, Peter Ricks, William Hottell, Squire Horton, Stephen Hill, A.
Jeffries, James Irwin, John Irwin, Chas. C. and Henry Johnson, Christian
Kuntz, John and Peter Knight, Phil. Keller (blacksmith), Thomas Kerr, William
Kerr, John Kellogue, F. Kennedy, Sam. Long, James Law, A. Lucas, Noble Lucas,
D. Motherell, Dave Munn, John Andrew, William and Thomas B. Maze, Henry Moody,
Jr., John Moore, John McNaughton, Tom McKay (tailor), Sam. Mitchell, Moses
McCallum, Alex. Murray, David Munn, Jr., Joseph Martin, John McNeil, R. Moodie,
Pascal Moodie, John McMichael (millwright), W. P. Miller, John McKenney, H.
Mimm, William Martin. A. McCutcheon, Sylvester Nolton, John Nolton, George
Nealy, J. C. Nolton, Asa Nichols, James Phipps, George Painter, G. W. Pratt,
Sedate Porter, A. J. Platt, Dave Powell, Dan. Poff, J. R. Reynolds, James
Rogers, Joseph and William Reynolds, Grove Reed, Rets & Co., Rust &
Co., Amos Richards. the Ralstons (3), Ellis Russell, William Roberts, Eli and
Amos Smith (carpenters), Shippen, Morrison & Co., John Snyder, W. J.
Spence, D. Stowe & Co., John Spafford, Jonah Slocum, R. Smith, George
Swarm, W. Stewart, William Shields, A: Strominger, James Truby, William Titus,
Dan. Titus, David K. Torney (one watch), Oramill Thing, W. H. Thompson, Elihu
Wing, Homer Wing, Charles Wing, Joseph Wallace, Dan. Wolford, Robert Wallace,
Dan. Whitman, Jo. Wagoner, James Wallace, Lenni Weaver (cabinet maker), Sam.
N. Warren, James Wing, Benj. Wing, Palmer Worden, John Wright and Charles
Yeomans. In March, 1852, William Titus was appointed collector. The value of
unseated lands was $72,516, and of seated lands $40,304.

The pioneers, many of whom are named above, came into this wilderness to
hew out homes for their families, and win from the forest that independence
which an older civilization denied. Many of them succeeded in this peculiarly
American design, and around Cooksburg and Clarington names connected closely
with the first development of this section are found today.

Clarington, twelve miles from the railroad at Brookville, is the market
town of Barnett township. J. B. Pearsall & Co. and the Shields brothers
were general merchants in 1884, and Peter Heasley was grocer.  William
Armstrong settled at this place in 1828, and established his mills here.

Daniel Harrington, in his reminiscences, published in 1879, says: “He
was one of the earliest settlers on the Clarion, and the oldest lumberman on
that stream. Thirty-five or forty years ago almost every man you would meet
hunting for work was inquiring the road or distance to Armstrong’s mills. He
was the true founder of the little hamlet of Clarington, then constituting a
part of Jefferson (now Forest) county, and containing, perhaps, 200
inhabitants. There is a very substantial bridge over the river, built at the
expense of the tax-payers of Jefferson and Forest counties. Clarington
contains two hotels we used to call them taverns and one store of general
merchandise. The hills of the old logging ground have been burned over; and
are thickly covered with briers, full of blackberries at the proper season.
Mr. Armstrong in his lumbering operations gave employment to a large number of
men, and generally had the goodwill of all. He had his ups and downs, like all
lumbermen. He met with heavy losses by high water. Not only was his lumber
carried away, but his mill was wrecked by a flood. He was a man, however, whom
no misfortunes could discourage. He possessed a persevering disposition that
never thought of failure. He was quite small in stature, with eyes as black as
coal, and as sharp as the eyes of an eagle. I met him once in Cincinnati, and
rode in the stage with him from Kittanning to Clarion. His countenance was one
never to be forgotten. I remember one circumstance that illustrates the man.
At the time he came up in the stage with me he had found a man in Cincinnati
whose fare he was paying, and whom he had brought along with him to work at
his mills. He had discovered the poor fellow drunk, destitute, almost naked,
and he thought that, if he could get him home with him, away from whisky and
the evil influences of the city, he would make a new creature of him. The man
had been a sailor, and was easily led into bad habits. How Mr. Armstrong
succeeded in his efforts to reform him I never heard, but I have, no doubt of
his ultimate success. When the man was in the wilderness, where he could not
get strong drink, reformation would be a necessity and a natural consequence.
This was only one of Mr. Armstrong’s good deeds. He had all the inconveniences
of a new country to contend with. He was in the woods, far from civilization,
and surrounded by the denizens of the forest. His whole dependence was lumber,
and that, in his time, sold at very low prices, from the fact that the market
was almost always over-stocked. Every tributary of the Allegheny river turned
out its quota of the general supply, and if the product was sold at all it had
to be sold at a low figure. I have more than once run boards to Cincinnati and
sold them at $4 a thousand feet, less than the cost of manufacture; but the
boards were there, and I had to do something with them. Mr. Armstrong was, at
least, sixty miles from any point of supplies. Brookville, perhaps, or
Kittanning, was the nearest place where he could obtain provisions. When we
take into consideration the cost and labor of transporting supplies for
perhaps twenty-five people over new roads, in a rough country, it was no
ordinary undertaking. Was it any wonder that at last he succumbed to the
inevitable? Such trials would have broken down a cast-iron man, possessing
nerves of steel. Mrs. Armstrong, now an old and feeble woman, is still living
with some of her children in Jefferson county.”

Camp No. 504, P. O. S. of A., at Clarington, was instituted in February,
1890, by J. R. Chadwick, D. P., and W. R. Adams, assistant. There were
thirty-five charter members.

Cooksburg is another old settlement often mentioned in the pioneer chapter.
In the “thirties” it became a household word among the pioneers of
Central Forest, who generally halted there before proceeding farther into the
deep, pine woods to locate their homes, and subsequently visited the little
village for trading purposes.

One of the saddest events connected with the township was the burning of
John Black’s house, July 12, 1868, when his daughter, aged six years, was
offered up to the fire-god.

Early in 1885, Werk, Putney & Marshall purchased 2,300 acres near
Redclyffe, from W. H. Boles, for $35,000, and soon after erected their mills.

GREEN TOWNSHIP.

Green township is particularly noted for its geometrical lines. How any set
of men conceived such boundaries, or surveyors cut such lines, is almost as
mysterious as the time in which the topographical lines of this section were
platted by nature. Tionesta creek cuts across the north west angle, and near
the grand bend receives Coon and little Coon creeks, both native streams. Bear
creek and Nebraska creek flow from the southwest into the main river, and
Butler creek from the northwest. A few smaller streams also head here.

In the fall of 1877 Heath opened a coal bed, twenty feet below his house,
at an elevation of 1,720 feet. Seven years prior to this Guiton opened an
18-inch vein at Oak Woods summit, on the lumber company’s upper tract; while
beyond this, on the Bond lot, another bed was worked.

The population in 1880 was 543. In November, 1888, there were 84
Republican, 81 Democratic and 17 Prohibitionist votes recorded, or a total of
182, representing 910 inhabitants. The officers chosen in February, 1890, are;
Judge, J. McCullough; inspectors, C. F. Klinestiver, Irvin Allison; treasurer,
Peter Youngk; road commissioner, A. B. Walters; constable and collector, H.
Winegard; auditor, Lyman Cook; overseer of poor, E. E. Vockroth; clerk, F. E.
Allison; school directors, George Blurock, Henry Siverling.

Dutch hill is the ridge or divide between the waters of Tionesta creek and
the Allegheny river, about eight miles in length and three in width, extending
from Tionesta township through Green into Kingsley township. It is settled
exclusively by Germans. It was a dry, barren ridge, and at an early day it was
burned over every spring. The original timber was all destroyed by fires; the
soil was very thin, and much of it very stony. There are some very good farms
on the ridge there. They have quarried out the stones, and laid them up in
fences. There are places where there has been work enough done on one field to
clear up a large farm in any other locality. There are about forty resident
families, and forty well-cultivated farms. Three blacksmith shops represent
the manufacturing industries, two little church buildings the religious and
two school buildings the educational interests.

Nebraska village is another old settlement in this township.  In 1868
George B. Walters refitted the old Nebraska flouring mill.  In June,
1886, McCain, Darrach and Dickey purchased a three-fourths interest in the T.
D. Collins lands at Nebraska, where 50,000,000 feet of pine and other timber
were reported standing.

The saw-mills of Dingman & Dale were moved from Clarion county to
Nebraska in July, 1889, where the firm own 350 acres of white oak. Near Oil
City they have two mills and two 500-acre tracts, thus giving employment to
from sixty to seventy men.  John Reck, born in Ohio in 1816, settled on
the Tionesta in 1848, and built a mill on Little Coon creek. He died in
1887.  T. J. Payne’s saw-mill, on a branch of Coon creek, two miles above
Cobb’s mill, was burned in August, 1871, together with 1,200,000 feet of
lumber.  The new Methodist Episcopal Church-house, at this point, was
erected in 1890 by Contractor J. G. Carson.

Bowmanville was established in the summer of 1889, two miles south of
Vowinckel depot, on Coon creek. The large lumbering interests of W. W. and J.
C. Bowman suggested a town at this point, as well as the productive farms
around it.  The Free Methodist Church of Newmansville was dedicated
September 29, 1883. The house cost $676, and the lot was donated by O. W.
Proper.

Source: Page(s) 901-904, History of Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest,
Pennsylvania. 
Chicago, J.H. Beers & Co., 1890.
Transcribed November 2005 by Nathan Zipfel for the Forest County Genealogy
Project
Published 2005 by the Forest County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project”

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