Crawford County, Pennsylvania

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EAST FALLOWFIELD was formed in 1804. It lies upon the south border of the county, west of the center, and contains 16,616 square acres. The surface is hilly and drained by Crooked Creek, which separates this township from West Fallowfield and a few small streams tributary to it, the principal of which are Union and Henrys runs, the former in the northern and the latter in the southern part. The soil is gravelly. Upon the farms of J. H. and J. M. McEntire in this township, so we are informed, has been discovered a vein of anthracite coal live feet in thickness. It is the only bed of coal yet found in this part of the county. If we are correctly <p. 53> informed the fact disproves the opinion which is prevalent that anthracite coal does not exist west of the Alleghanies. It is doubtful however.
The manufactures of the township are of considerable and increasing importance. They consist principally of two cheese factories, one located about one and one-fourth miles from Atlantic and owned by Messrs. Findley & Breckenridge, which uses the milk of 300 cows and presses an average of eight cheeses per day, and the other, located in the north-eastern part of the township and owned by Messrs. Mellon & Co., which was started in the spring of the present year, (1873) used the milk of 200 cows, and pressed five to seven cheeses per day; McQuiston & Co’s flouring mill, located on Crooked Creek, in the south-western part, which employs two persons and contains four runs of stones with a capacity for grinding sixty bushels of grain per day; J. L. Johnson’s oil barrel factory, located at Atlantic, which gives employment to four persons and the annual product of which is valued at $6,000 to $10,000; and G. K. Miller’s steam mills, located about one-half mile east of Atlantic, which give employment to six persons, and daily produce 10,000 feet of sawed and 5,000 feet of planed lumber, besides a quantity of nail keg headings.
The Atlantic & Great Western R. R. passes in a southerly direction through near the center of the township.
The population of the township in 1870, was 1,167, all of whom were white, 1,098, native and 69, foreign.
During the year ending June 3, 1873, the township contained seven schools and employed fourteen teachers. The number of scholars was 303; the average number attending school, 248; and the amount expended for school purposes, $1,443.16.
ATLANTIC, (p. o.) (formerly known as Adamsville p. o.,) on the A. & G. W. R. R., is pleasantly situated on elevated ground overlooking a wide extent of country, and contains three stores, a barrel factory, stave mill, two shoe shops, a millinery shop and about fifteen dwellings. New buildings are being put up with considerable rapidity and the place gives promise of speedily becoming an active business center.
The earliest settlement which has come under our observation was made in 1792, by Thomas Frame and Daniel Miller, who came about the same time. They are reputed to have been at that time the only white settlers west of Meadville. Frame came from Dunnstown, on the Susquehanna, and settled upon a tract of 600 acres in the northern part of the township. Abner E. Frame, his son, relates that when his father started from Meadville on his exploring expedition, he took with him upon his back his rifle, camp kettle and two weeks provisions, all of which, with his <p. 54> camp, were consumed by fire. Thomas Smith, Thomas McMichael and Abraham Jackson came in 1798. The two former settled in the nortliern part of the township. Jackson came from Susquehanna county. He helped to repel the Indians in Western Pennsylvania and was a soldier in the war of 1812. Daniel Dipple came from Caroline township, Cumberland county, in 1800, at which time there were but few settlers in what is now comprised in the townships of East and West Fallowfield and Greenwood. His neighbors were Smith and McMichael before named. His death, which occurred Nov. 20, 1811, is said to have been the first in this township. Jacob Dipple, his son, who was but six years old when his father came, is still living on the old homestead. John McEntire, a native of Scotland, immigrated to this country in 1801, and took up a large tract of land in this township. John Andrews settled upon a tract of 400 acres in the north-western part of the township in 1803, having emigrated the same year from Ireland. The locality in which he settled and the country for many miles in all directions was a dense wilderness. Mr. Miller and Adams, also natives of Ireland, were his only neighbors.

Fallowfield M. E. Church, at Hannas Corners, was organized in 1872, with one hundred members, by Rev. J. A. Hume, the first and present pastor, and the church edifice, which will seat 300 persons, was erected the same year, at a cost of $1,800, the present value of Church property. It has 160 members.—[Information furnished by Mr. J. D. Dunbar, trustee.

¹ Hamilton Child, comp., Gazetteer and Business Directory of Crawford County, Pa., for 1874 (Syracuse, N.Y.: By the comp., 1874), pp. 118-19.