Somerset County

Fair Hope is a small railroad station on the Baltimore & Ohio. The village was laid out about the close of the late war, and received its name from the fact that the citizens had then a speedy prospect of a railroad through the place. The village has not improved much during the last fifteen … Read more

Draketown is a small village in Lower Turkeyfoot township, containing two small stores, a blacksmith-shop and a small number of houses. Oliver Drake settled at this place, probably about the time of the revolutionary war. About 1787 he erected a small gristmill. A mill erected by his son Jonathan, on the same site, in 1812, … Read more

Deal is a small village in the southern part of the township. It was founded by Daniel Lepley who erected the first grist mill in Larimer Township at this place in 1850. Two years later this grist mill was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt by Edwin Deal for whom the village was named. Deal … Read more

Davidsville, a small town in the eastern part of the township, was laid out by David Stutzman in the year 1831, with Thomas Gahagan as the surveyor. As Stutzman was not considered harmonious enough, its name was taken from the first name of its founder. The first house was erected by Joseph Schell and Peter … Read more

Confluence takes its name from its location, which is at the junction of three streams— the Youghiogheny and Casselman rivers and Laurel Hill creek. It is a growing, prosperous town, and its commerce is constantly increasing in extent and importance. It is the largest shipping point on the Pittsburgh division of the Baltimore & Ohio … Read more

Central City was founded by Anthony Weichtenheiser in 1847 near the center of Shade township. For many years the family of his son, John Weichtenheiser, and the family of Obediah B. Lohr were the only two families in this vicinity. Garrish, Whitehead and Lease opened the first coal mine here in 1900. The town was … Read more

Casselman borough was laid out in 1869 by L. L. Wolfersberger and David J. Phillippi, who owned the site of the town. The town was platted on a large scale, there being 385 lots, besides twenty-eight large outlots between the railroad and the river, intended for manufacturing sites. A public sale of lots was held, … Read more

Buckstown is a quiet little hamlet of fifteen or twenty houses on the “The Pike.” It is usually associated with Shade township, but as a matter of fact the north side only of its single street is in this township, the south side being in Stony Creek township. The village, which is about six miles … Read more

Around 1784 – 1785, Ulrick Bruner employed Harmon Husband, a surveyor, to plot a town of 36 blocks which would contain 144 lots. Brunner planned on calling the village “Milford Town” but his neighbors always referred to it as Bruner’s Town, and that is what it became. The tract of land on which the larger … Read more

Boynton, in the eastern part of the township, was named for Jonathan Boynton, the founder of the town. It was built on the Douglas Boyd farm in 1880 after Dill Watson & Company located their large steam saw mill near the old sugar camp of the farm. Some lots were sold and fifteen or twenty … Read more