Fort Stanwix Treaty Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Washington County: From Ice Age to Space Age

Posted by Harriet Branton on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Southwestern Pennsylvania was for centuries a happy hunting ground for Indians who were living there as long as two thousand years ago. In fact, as the result of archaeological discoveries made at the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter near Avella between 1973 and 1975, University of Pittsburgh anthropologists have proven conclusively that Ice Age people roamed the forests of Washington County even...
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Somerset County: Paths through the Roof Garden

Posted by William Gross on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Referring to the high elevation and the scenic quality of the region, Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh called Somerset County “the Roof Garden of Pennsylvania” at an annual Farmers’ Day picnic in 1916. Since then. the description has become a familiar and respected title; the words “Roof Garden” have been incorporated in the names of various businesses, and the complete...
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Clinton County: Still Part of Penn’s Woods

Posted by Rebecca Gross on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off Clinton County, one of the sixth-class counties of Pennsylvania, occupies 900 square miles of river valley and mountain land near the geographical center of the state. Nearly two-thirds of the area remains forested, al though most of the trees are second growth after a near denuding of the land by a booming lumber industry in the second half of the last century. It was in the woodlands of...
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McKean County: Where the Gold is Green

Posted by Terry Hess on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off The great gold and silver rushes of the late nineteenth century to places such as the Black Hills, Colorado, Arizona, California and Alaska have long been hailed in story and song for their excitement, riches and heartbreak. But, the rush for “green gold” to McKean County during the same century was equally or more exciting. First, there were the forests – immense forests of...
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The Call of the Clarion

Posted by Samuel Farmerie on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off To the eighteenth century French explorers, the river the Indians called Tobeco was Riviere au Fiel – the “River of Hate.” Pioneers know it as Toby or Stump Creek. In 1817 it was christened Clarion by road surveyors Daniel Stanard and David Lawson as they camped along its shores because the river’s clear, shrill sound reminded them of the medieval trumpet. The name of the...
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Bradford County: Sanctuary in the Meadows

Posted by Charles Lucy on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off It seemed as implausible as it was urgent: that French aristocrats, the select inner circle closest to King Louis XVI, and perhaps even Marie Antionette herself, would flee the continent and take refuge in the immense and isolated wilderness of what is now Bradford County. Implausible or not, a band of brave French exiles – the crown’s endangered courtiers and officeholders,...
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A Historical Sketch of Indiana County

Posted by Clarence Stephenson on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off Indiana County was named for the native Indians. During historic times the two principal tribes were the Delawares and Shawnees. Being reluctant to give up their lands, the Indians struggled desperately to keep out the tide of European settlers. Perhaps the first white settler to enter Indiana County was James LeTort, an Indian trader, about 1726-27. A place called “Letart’s...
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Historical Sketch of Luzerne County

Posted by Ralph Hazeltine on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a stopgap devised to give England a chance to gather her forces and to adopt a policy for further expansion of the American colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. The Treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768 resulted in a pre-revolutionary division of Indian land to establish a boundary between the Indian hunting grounds and the white settlements. The treaty was the last...
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Lawrence County

Posted by Samuel Farmerie on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off Bart Richards, the unofficial historian of Lawrence County, indicates that little of historical significance has occurred in the county. He points out that it has had no wars, Indian uprisings, or great discoveries to its credit. Very few of its citizens have qualified for the pages of Who’s Who. Therefore, this history is the story of average, ordinary people striving to make a better...
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Pike County: A Peak of Natural Perfection

Posted by George Fluhr on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off “I went through a constant succession of scenery that would have been famous had it existed anywhere in Europe.” – Washington Irving Shaped roughly like a diamond, Pike County is situated in Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier, bordering the Delaware River on the cast across from the states of New York and New Jersey. The northwestern side of the diamond lies in Lake...
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