Huntingdon County Information Page

Smithfield township

Smithfield in the county paper, 1872 and 1873

From the newspaper the county was reading at the time, on Smithfield township. Smithfield is one of the newer townships, organized in March 1886 out of Porter, Walker and Juniata, so the papers of the 1870s do not name it. They do name the village of Smithfield, which sits across the Juniata from Huntingdon borough and which the township was later formed around. One of the items below calls it "near this place", and the paper was printed in Huntingdon, which is how we know it is this Smithfield and not the one in Fayette county or the street in Pittsburgh. Three items are printed below, each with the date it appeared, exactly as the page reads.

14 February 1872. "A young man named Westbrook, a resident of Smithfield, near this place, and an employee on the Penn'a. Railroad, was seriously injured , on Friday last, by three cars passing over him. The accident happened above Spruce Creek, but we have been unable to get any particu lars. The young man is in a critical condition." — 21 February 1872. "Joshua Hicks, of Smithfield, an aged gentle. man, stepped upon some ice, covered with snow, while out walking, on last Sunday after noon, fell and broke his left limb. Dr. Brum baugh was called in immediately and admin istered to the wants of the patient." — 30 April 1873. "The Board walk through Smithfield has gone into decline."Huntingdon Journal, 14 and 21 February 1872 and 30 April 1873, all p. 3 · character 0 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-09-01 · Mined from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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