|
Richard Shaffer, Chairman
Wendy Senior, Secretary-Treasurer / Right to Know Officer
Frank Meyers, Vice Chairman
"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.
|
