The Warriors' Marks

Did you know? Nobody is certain how Warriors Mark got its name, and the county history says so in plain words.

The 1883 county history opens the question with this: "The origin of the name of the township is not clearly settled." Then it gives two different accounts, neither of them firsthand.

Michael Maguire came to the county with his parents in 1773. In a statement he made in 1845, he said there were marks on trees near where Warrior's Mark Town now stands, made by Indian warriors.

The second account is stranger. Henry Krider, who owned and lived on the farm northwest of the village, walked the historian out into the woods south of the turnpike and showed him the remains of four forked oak trees standing at the corners of a square. In the fork of each one sat a stone, almost completely swallowed by layers of new wood grown over it. Krider called those the Warrior's Marks, and said he had heard a tradition that the spot was a favored camping place.

The township itself is on firmer ground. The court created it at the January 1798 term, after people in Franklin township petitioned that their township "in its present situation is burdensome and inconvenient by reason of its extent and number of inhabitants." The same court appointed John Addleman constable and Nicholas Hewitt overseer of the poor.

Four oak trees with stones grown into the forks.

From the record

Passages about this subject, quoted from county histories now in the public domain. Each one names the book and the position in the text so it can be checked. Spelling is as printed.

The reduction of these ores is carried on outside the limits of the township. There are other minerals, which have not yet been successfully developed. The origin of the name of the township is not clearly settled. Michael Maguire, who came with his parents to the county in 1773, in a statement made in 1845, said that there were marks on trees near where Warrior's Mark Town now stands, made by Indian warriors. More than twenty years ago, Henry Krider, who then owned and lived on the farm northwest of the village, showed the writer in the woods south of the turnpike the remains of four forked oak-trees, standing on the angles of a quadrangular figure; in the fork of each was a stone almost wholly covered by layers of new wood. These he called the * Warrior's Marks," and said that he had heard a tradition that this spot was a favored camping-place of the Indians. On the maps the "Indian path leading from Frankstown to the Bald Eagle's Nest" is delineated. The stream now known as Logan's Run is designated "Crucket Creek." Their modern name is doubtless derived from the proximity of the mouth of the stream to Logan's Narrows, the water-gap in the Bald Eagle Ridge below Tyrone. In 1767 warrants were laid upon half a dozen or more tracts for Samuel Wallace and others. The Ottleberger and Henderson farms were improved in 1777 by Nathan and Thomas Rickets. Edward Rickets lived in the same neighborhood.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,492,990 of the scanned text

There are considerable deposits of iron ore, some of which have been developed, the ores being shipped to Johnstown and Danville. Warriors Mark, the most northwestern township of the county, was erected from Franklin in January, 1798. Originally it included a portion of Snyder and Tyrone townships, now in Blair county, and a part of the present county of Center. It is bounded on the northwest and southwest by Blair county ; on the northeast by Center county ; and on the southeast by Franklin township. It derived its name from a settlement in the central part, established at an earlier date. There is a tradition, not very well defined, that the Indians had marks of some kind upon the trees near the settlement, indicating a meeting place or place of holding councils. Michael Maguire, who settled there in 1773, said some years later that the marks were stones placed in the forks of four oak trees and that these stones were almost covered by the growth of the trees. John Baynton, Samuel Wharton and probably some others, who came in 1766, were probably the first settlers. Nathan and Thomas Ricketts came in 1777, and when th*" township was organized in 1798 there were over one hundred land owners.John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 206,290 of the scanned text

In 1880 the population of the township, including seventyCivil Organization. , Warriors Mark: became a civil division of the county of Huntingdon in conformity with a decree of the January, 1798, term of WARRIOR'S MARK TOWNSHIP. 391 the Court of Quarter Sessions, in answer to a petition "of a number of the inhabitants of Franklin township, read last November and laid under advisement, which was again read, setting forth that the said township in its present situation is burdensome and inconvenient by reason of its extent and number of inhabitants, and praying the same may be ordered by a line beginning at the mouth of Dickson's Run, on the Little Juniata, and from thence by the centre of the barrens on the west side of Huntingdon Furnace; thence to Halt Moon Run, on the west side, to the line of Mifflin County. "Whereupon it is considered by the court and ordered that the line before mentioned be confirmed, and that part lying northwest of the said line be created into a separate township, to be known by the name of Warrior's Mark township." Thesamecourtappointed John Addleman constable, and Nicholas Hewitt overseer of the poor.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,513,514 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-08-01 · County history, independently fact checked

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