Petersburg

The founding record

Six miles west of Huntingdon, on the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad, stands the borough of Petersburg, one of the oldest towns in the county. It was laid out on May 21, 1795, by Peter Shoenberger on the tract of land owned by him on the east side of Shaver's creek, opposite the site of old Fort Anderson. Mr. Shoenbergcr, for whom the borough was named, was the first merchant and also kept the first tavern. A postoffice called Shaver's Creek was established there at an early date, with Valentine Wingart as postmaster. Dr. Peter Sevine was the first physician. While the Pennsylvania canal was in operation Petersburg was quite a commercial center and shipping point. Flour and saw mills were established at an early day and the Juniata forge, operated by Hunter & Swoope, was located at the mouth of Shaver's creek. It was one of the pioneer concerns in the manufacture of the famous Juniata charcoal iron. On April 7, 1830, Petersburg was incorporated fay act of the legislature and George Rung was the first chief burgess. Lodges of various benevolent societies are located here ; Juniata Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, was organized in 1874; there are churches of different faiths, the Shaver's Creek Bank, several good stores and in 1910 the population was reported as being 705. John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 231,574 of the scanned text

Petersburg Station is one of the most important of its class on the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1880 its entire business amounted to $26,101.81, of which $5,505.88 was for passenger traffic. In the month of October, 1880, the ticket sales amounted to $719.38. John T, Dopp has been the agent of the company at this place, and prior to that time John R. Hunter filled that position. The buildings erected at Petersburg within the last decade are of a substantial character, and the borough contained in 1881 half a dozen stores, two hotels, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran Churches, a fine school building, and about four hundred inhabitants, In accordance with the custom of ambitious villages in this State, Petersburg was early invested with corporate privileges. It became a borough by an act of the General Assembly, passed April 7, 1880, The bounds of the borough were made to include the original plan of the village, and George Rung's tan-yard and house outside the bounds of the village proper. The first election was ordered to be held at the house of Joseph Jones, on the second Tuesday of May, 1830, and George Rung and James Dearmont were appointed to superintend it.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,035,924

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.