Township · Huntingdon County
5 stories on file, each with its sources. 58.4 square miles of land in the ridge and valley country of central Pennsylvania.
Shirley is one of the largest, and with its two boroughs, Mount Union and Shirleysburg, is the most populous township in the county. It extends from the Juniata river on the north to Cromwell township on the south, and from Shade mouutain on the southeast to Jack's mountain on the northwest. There are running through it, parallel with its two last mentioned boundaries, Black Log mountain, Owen's ridge, Chestnut ridge and Stony ridge, dividing it into a number of valleys, each of which is watered by a stream flowing towards the Juniata. The principal of these are Black Log creek, the Aughwick and Hill valley run. The township, as well as the town of Shirleysburg, derives its name from Fort Shirley, which was located within the limits of the latter. A few of the remote descendants of the early settlers of Shirley township may be found in the Davis, Morgan, Clugage and Sharrer families. The Galbraiths, who were pioneers of Germany valley, the Warners, of Shirleysburg, and the Matthews, who lived south of the town, have not left their names to perpetuate their memory. The Matthews burying ground, on land of Mr. A. L. Rieketts, containing a score or more of the old settlers' graves, cannot now be recognized, having long since been farmed and plowed over. The first grist mill of any note in the township was the old log mill on Fort run, above the one now owned by Mr. Heffner. Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 525,403 of the scanned text
Shirley township, one of the original six, is located in the southeastern part and is one of the largest in the county, extending from the Juniata river to the Cromwell township line, and from Shade mountain on the southeast to Jack's mountain on the northwest. Between those two ranges are the Black Log mountain. Blue, Sandy, Owens', Chestnut and Stony ridges, so that the general surface is alternatively hill and valley. Iron ore is mined in the hills and farming is carried on in the valleys. Among the early settlers were the Galbraiths, who located in the Germany valley ; the Warners, who settled where the borough of Shirleysburg now stands ; the Matthews family, who settled farther south, and the Davis, Morgan, Cluggage, and Sharrer families. Two powder mills were operated a century or more ago by the Sharrers , one near Shirleysburg and the other on Sugar run. Samuel Drake, an Englishman, said to be a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, established a ferry across the Juniata a short distance above Mount Union, on the pathway from eastern points to the Ohio river, and Drake's Ferry was an important land-mark for many years. The East Broad Top railroad connects with the Pennsylvania railroad at Mount Union and runs south through Shirleysburg, giving the township and outlying regionJohn W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 199,570
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.
5 stories
Jack's Narrows in the 1940s, the same rocks, the same river, the same dramatic landscape that drew people to the valley in the first place. While the brick industry rose and fell, the Narrows stayed steady.
Photo from page_history (Facebook archive, 2016-03-14)
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Jack's Narrows in 1879, an engraving capturing the dramatic rocks and the river before factories and railroads filled the valley. This is the natural geography that made Mount Union a desirable place to build industry.
Photo from page_history (Facebook archive, 2016-05-10)
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February 1744. Three Delaware Indians killed an Indian trader named Jack Armstrong and his two companions, James Smith and Woodworth Arnold, at the Narrows above Mount Union. That killing, and the man who died there, gave the place its name. Jack's Narrows, the narrow gorge where the Juniata River breaks through, is known to every traveler who has wended his way through. Jack's Spring, celebrated for its cool silvery water, carries the name forward. Every time you drive through the gap that shaped this town's story, you pass the place that remembers a violent frontier day in 1744.
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Read the full story, with 3 passages quoted from the county histories →
W. W. Fuller was born at Ickesburg in Perry County on November 6, 1837. He entered the Pennsylvania Railroad's service on March 5, 1865, and by December 1, 1866, was Freight and Passenger Agent at Thompsontown. On April 1, 1876, he accepted the Mount Union agency and held it for thirty years until his pension on December 1, 1906.
Besides his railroad interests, Fuller found time to seek the Muse. He was called the poet of the Juniata Valley and wrote verses including The Eighth Wonder of the World, The Horseshoe Bend, Jack's Narrows, The Youths of Fair Saville, and The Vale of the Juniata. He found much pleasure in singing of the natural phenomena and splendors of the Juniata Valley.
He was a member of the Presbyterian church and a teacher in the Sunday School. He aimed to be an upright citizen in the community.
On the west side of U.S. Route 522, three tenths of a mile south of the Shirleysburg borough line, which puts it in Shirley township rather than the borough. The Historic American Buildings Survey recorded the farmstead in nine photographs and eighteen pages of documentation.
Where it sits