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The People of the Paint Creek Valley

A book of Stories of the people and places that created Paint Township and the surrounding vicinity is available by contacting local Historian & Genealogist Patricia M. Durst Shaffer phone 814-467-8386.

Paint Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania

Paint Township, established as a separate Township from Shade in 1836, was first recorded on the Somerset County Tax list in 1837. At the time of its formation, the Township was bordered on the east by Bedford County and on the north by Cambria County. The Parent Township of Shade makes up the southern end, with Conemaugh Township being the western neighbor across the Stony Creek.

The Township is named from the land around the Paint Creek, then known as the Paint Creek Valley, and the waters of the creek that run through the northern end of the Township where great artists from all over the United States came to paint pictures of the beautiful region.

The land nestled in the rolling green hills of the county became one of the best agricultural districts where grist mills and saw mills were built by the early settlers along the Shade, Stony and Paint Creeks until thirty two such mills were in operation along the waters, more than any stream in Somerset County.

By 1876 the Township was made up of nine separate school districts known as Flat Rock, Foust, Weaver, Hoffman, Berkey, Morningland, Border, Ashtola and Ripple.

The original boundary line was changed in 1886 when Ogle Township was created from the eastern end of Paint Township.

By the turn of the century, three Boroughs had been formed within the Township boundaries: Benson, Paint and Windber.

The Village of Bethel, laid out in 1880 by Emanuel Eash, signed a petition filed in Somerset in Vol. 81 page 338 when the inhabitants wished the said town to be incorporated as the Borough of Benson on October 24, 1893.

The residents of the Village of Scalp Level, so named by Jacob Eash the founder in 1833, signed a petition that the land beginning at the confluence of the Little Paint Creek along the Somerset-Cambria County line be deemed as an incorporated borough. The Court, having heard the petition, set the first election for Paint Borough on July 14, 1900.

The Town of Windber, laid out in Paint Township in 1897 by the Wilmore Coal Co., was incorporated into Windber Borough on July 3, 1900.

Today the Township boundary remains the same as in 1900 with small villages and hamlets - Ashtola, Hillsboro, Foustwell, Rummel, Seanor, Berkey, Hagevo, Hollsopple and Petoria, to name a few - making up the rural area.

Year Achievement
1836 Established
1990 Sewer Development Started
2004 New Municipal Building, 1741 Basin Drive
2008 PaintTownship.com Web-site Started
2009 Over Five Million Invested in Sewer Upgrades, Millage Rate Remains at Eight (8)
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