Penn

The founding record

Penn township, near the southeastern corner of the county, is triangular in form and is bounded on the north by Wheatfield township ; on the east by the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers ; on the south by Rye township, and a little of the western boundary at the apex of the triangle is formed by Carroll. It was taken from Rye by order of the court in 1826. The first settlement made in this part of Perry county was that made by John Harris about 1732 and was located near the present railroad station called Aqueduct. About 1753 several persons came up the Susquehanna and settled along the Juniata river on both sides, and on Duncan's island, which now forms part of Watts township. Among those who located in Penn township were James Baskins, Cornelius Acheson, and Francis Ellis. James Baskins was the founder of the historic Baskins' ferry at the foot of Haldeman island, about which the settlement known as Baskinsville grew up in course of time. Samuel Goudy warranted 215 acres of land in August, 1766, but afterward sold it to John Clark, who established Clark's ferry and also built a tavern there. The tavern became a well-known stopping place after the Juniata Stage Company began operations in 1808. Above James Baskins' place were the Barren Hills, where William Baskins took up 300 acres in 1766. John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 522,719 of the scanned text

Penn is bounded on the north by the townships of Walker and Juniata, on the east by Union, Cass, and Tod, on the south by Lincoln, and on the west by the county of Blair, the summits of Terrace and Tussey's Mountains forming respectively the eastern and western boundary lines, In area the township is about six miles from north to south, and eight from east to west. It is watered by the Raystown Branch of the Juniata, which runs along the foot of Terrace Mountain. James Creek and its tributaries and some of the tributaries of Crooked Creek also traverse the township. The surface of the country is broken by numerous 1By J. À. Wintrode, M.D, ridges, which at some points assume the proportions of mountains, the principal ones being Redstone, Mulberry, Warrior's, Backbone, Piney, and Alagrippa, or * Allegrippus." Woodcock Valley embraces the territory lying between Warrior's Ridge and Tussey's Mountain. Although somewhat broken, it is naturally a very productive limestone soil, and most of it is in a high state of cultivation. The slate soil of "the ridges" is less productive than that of the valley, but in favorable seasons produces excellent crops. The soil of the valley of the Raystown Branch. is mainly a sandy alluvium, and is also highly productive. Penn is rich in iron ores.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,172,448

Quoted from a work published before 1929 and therefore in the public domain in the United States. Spelling and punctuation are as printed, including nineteenth century spellings of place names. Scanned text carries optical character recognition errors; the character offset is given so the passage can be found and checked in the original.