Township · Huntingdon County
4 stories on file, each with its sources. 39.2 square miles of land in the ridge and valley country of central Pennsylvania.
Union township, situated immediately south of the centre of the county, is bounded on the northwest by Juniata and Penn townships, from which it is separated by Terrace mountain; on the northeast by the Juniata river, separating it from Henderson and Brady ; on the southeast by Jack's mountain, on the opposite side of which is Shirley township ; and on the south by Cass. Between Terrace and Jack's mountains are Sideling hill and Clear ridge, dividing the township into three valleys, Trough Creek, Smith's and Hare's. Streams flow through the last two valleys in a northeastwardly direction, falling into the Juniata below Mapleton. Trough creek rises on Terrace mountain, flowing towards the southwest, and after passing through Cass township into Tod, turns towards the northwest and empties into the Raystown branch in Penn township. Its waters, with those of the latter stream and the Juniata, after making a circuit, with their various windings of more than a hundred miles, pass along the end of Terrace mountain, within a few miles of their source. At the time of its formation, Union township included nearly the entire valley of Trough creek. Hare's valley takes its name from Jacob Hare, a tory who resided and owned a large tract of land in the valley during the Revolutionary war. Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 547,296 of the scanned text
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.
4 stories
Smith Valley Road running east through Birdvale, a village in Union township that the photographer notes is also called Birdville. The shot was taken in August 2024 between Boutwell Lane and Birdvale Road.
From the county histories, on Union township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1913, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
Walter Hudson built a log mill on Trough creek some time between and 1800. the first in the township. Paradise furnace and Eagle foundry were both located in this township, but they ceased operations long since. Union township was taken from Hopewell in June, 1791. Before the erection of Cass and Tod townships it included nearly all of the Trough creek valley, extending from the Juniata river on the north to the Broad Top mountain on the south, and from Jack's mountain on the east to Terrace mountain on the west. Settlements were made some years before the township was organized. The borough of Mapleton is located in this township and there are a few small villages within its limits.John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 204,559 of the scanned text
Sources
From the county histories, on Union township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1883, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
In February, 1855, he married Anna P., daughter of Levi Smith, of Union township, Huntingdon Co., and after his marriage made his home in Union township, and followed his trade a little more than a year, building meanwhile several dwelling-houses and Stony Point Methodist Protestant Church. In the fall of he located at Mapleton, and opened a cabinet-shop. At that time Mapleton contained just four families. Robert McCarl's is the only one of the four now in Mapleton. Mr. Swope carried on the business of carpentering and cabinet-making at Mapleton till 1871, and put up about all the houses erected in the village during that time. In he bought out the small store of David L. Smith in Mapleton, materially increased the business, and in sold it to Samuel Hatfield, so that he might devote closer attention to the business of lumbering. In April, 1879, Hatfield retiring from the store, Swope resumed trade, pushed it more briskly than ever, and Aug. 10, 1882, sold to Phillips & Son, the firm now in possession. In the spring of he embarked in stone-quarrying, and to that and lumbering now gives his attention. He has in his employ from thirty to fifty men on an average. He has had six children, of whom four are living.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,421,332 of the scanned text
Sources
From the county histories, on Union township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1876, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
A year or two before her birth, her father, Richard Chilcott, moved to and settled upon the farm now owned by James C. Wright, in Union township, then and for some years afterwards farther north than any other improvement in the valley. Among the earliest settlers were the Lilleys, Lucketts, Fitzsimmons, Corbins, Drennans, Brownings, Caldwells, Deans, Bomgartners, Curfmans, McClains, Chilcotts, Greenlands, Stevers and Robinsons. When these pioneers were endeavoring to make the country habitable, they sometimes exchanged farms or improvements, and in such cases it was customary for the parties to the transanction to exchange also all movable property, each leaving his household goods, cattle and agricultural implements upon the place from which he removed, and retaining none of his former possessions but his wife and children. This was done to avoid the expense and trouble of conveying them to the new home, through a region without roads, and without the vehicles which would have been necessary for their transportation.Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 609,463 of the scanned text
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Where it sits
