Crawford County, Pennsylvania
History
1876 ATLAS 1
"HISTORY OF THE VILLAGES AND TOWNSHIPS OF CRAWFORD COUNTY."
CONNEAUT TOWNSHIP.
Conneaut Township was formed in 1811 [sic], and lies upon the west border of the County. The surface is mainly level, the soil is a gravelly loam. In area it has twenty-three thousand eight hundred and ninety-six acres, and is well supplied with water by Paden Creek on the west, and Mill on the east. The eastern portion of the township is traversed by the Erie and Pittsburgh Railway. The population in 1870 was seventeen hundred and twenty-nine. Penn Line near the Ohio line, Steamburg, on Paden Creek, and Summit Station, are points in the township deserving notice. The former two are small villages, and Summit derives its name from being near the highest point of road. Co[n]temporary with settlement in other townships, Conneaut was occupied by white men about the beginning of the present century. John Parr and family, from New Jersey, located north of George McMullen's property, and Nathaniel Luce and Alexander Johnson north of Stephen Fisher's, near Turkey Tract, so called from the divergence of roads at that point like the bird's foot. William Shotwell was of the first settlers, but did not make a permanent stay. Among those who became inhabitants of Conneaut in about 1798 were the Rankins, William and Thomas, Obed Garwood, Isaac Paden, Samuel Patterson, the Martins, James and Robert, and William Latta. William Rankin settled at Penn Line, cleared a large farm, and thereon passed his life. His brother Thomas cleared land a mile and a half southeast of the present village, erected a saw-mill, and finally moved west. Garwood settled in the south of the township, and in time had cleared a large farm, upon which he passed his days, and where his descendants are living. Patterson was from New Jersey, and settled on the site of Steamburg, where he made a farm and lived till he paid the debt of nature. Samuel Potter settled during 1799 in northern Conneaut. He brought with him from his old home in New Jersey an ox team, took up land and built a cabin. At the expiration of a year, he returned to New Jersey and lived a year, and once more came back to Conneaut, where he resided till his death, at the full age of ninety-three years. Henry Frey and Samuel Brooks were settlers of 1800. A Mr. Gilliland was of the early settlers in the southeast, and William Hill moved in during 1807. Many settlers in the township abandoned their improvements in consequence of a misunderstanding with the Holland Company, and the dreariness of desolation crept over those lonely clearings, where the settler's children sought the cows with superstitious dread. The lands of the township were surveyed in 1795 by James Rowell into four-hundred-acre tracts. The road from Harmonsburg to Penn Line was the first laid out through the township. As late as 1830 the country was wild, and while there were many choppings there were few cabins. Trees had been girdled, and the decaying branches were wrenched off by the winds and lay scattered over the ground. The first saw- and grist-mills were probably those erected by Isaac Paden, in the southwest part of the township. William Latta put up the first framed barn built in the township. The first church society was of the Methodist. It was organized with eight members about 1818, and located in the southern portion of Conneaut. Samuel Garwood is regarded as the first school-teacher, having taught his pioneer school term in a log house near the cabin of Mr. Paden, in western Conneaut. To derive advantages from their school, children were obliged to travel several miles through the woods, and come under a discipline which is unknown to the youthful bands attendant upon the numerous schools of to-day.
