Barree

About three quarters of a mile from Saulsburg, on a gravel road in Barree Township, stands a two story stone farmhouse that the National Register nomination dates to about 1830 and calls the Christian Oyer, Jr., House, also known as the Harmon House. It measures 32 by 42 feet, five bays, with double stone chimneys joined by a parapet at each gable end, six dormers, and stucco scored to look like cut stone. The front and rear elevations are identical, a feature the nomination says is usually found only on high style houses facing both a road and a waterway.

Who built it, who painted it, and when are unknown. The nomination, prepared in January 1995 by the owner, Dr. Jean L. Murphy, says Christian Oyer, Sr. and Christian Oyer, Jr. were listed as yeomen in an 1825 article of agreement between father and son, made in the year the elder Oyer also wrote his will and died, and that soon after the son embarked on the improvements. Africa's 1883 county history says Christian Oyer came from Chester County and that his son Christian made the substantial improvement then on the farm before removing to Ohio. The nomination traces the trouble that followed: suits in 1837 for $3,000 and $1,000, and the loss of the farm in 1844 at the suit of Dr. Benjamin McMurtrie. Jackson Harmon bought it in 1880, and his family held it until 1968, when most of the 163 acres went to the neighboring Gibboney Dairy Farm. The house and 1.8 acres were sold in 1970, then stood empty for about twenty years. Wiring, plumbing, heating, kitchen and bathroom fixtures were installed in 1990, and the six dormers were rebuilt in 1994 to dimensions left in the attic rafters.

That neglect, the nomination argues, is in a sense what preserved the house. Nothing had been repainted except the kitchen and dining room graining. The doors facing the halls are painted to resemble figured maple, their parlor sides crotch mahogany, a bedroom cupboard bird's eye maple; baseboards are marbleized, and under layers of wallpaper in the rear parlor were six rows of red and green stencils on a blue ground, floor to ceiling on all four walls. Seven fireplaces survive.

The house was nominated in 1995 under Criterion C for architecture. The original locks, stamped L. Gotta, are still on both the front and rear doors.

The fine front and back exterior polychromed doors and the doorways with their elliptical fanlights and sidelights, the prominent double chimneys on both sides of the house, the six dormers, and the scoring of the stucco to resemble dressed stone, all testify to the effort made to produce an imposing house of unusual architectural value for a remote farmhouse.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Christian Oyer Jr. House (reference 95000882), Section 8 page 1 (PDF page 9) · character 21,105 of the scanned text

Open this story on its own page →

Six miles northwest of McAlevys Fort, where Route 26 meets the side road to Mooresville, a square stone stack stands on the south side of a mountain, so overgrown that the nomination says it can be seen from the road only in winter. This is Monroe Furnace, a charcoal iron furnace nominated in 1989 as part of the Industrial Resources of Huntingdon County.

The nomination, prepared in July 1989 and drawing on a 1988 Historic American Engineering Record report by Nancy Shedd, says the furnace was established in 1846 and 1847 by General James Irvin, a prominent Centre County ironmaster associated with ten iron works in that county and two in Huntingdon County. Milton Scott Lytle's 1876 county history says Irvin built it in 1844 or 1845; the two sources do not agree. In 1850, the nomination says, Irvin employed 50 men here and produced 958 tons of pig iron valued at $21,000, but by 1851 the assessed value of the enterprise had fallen from $11,000 to $3,000. For all his experience, the nomination says, Irvin could not withstand the depression of the middle 1850s and was forced to retire from the iron business in 1857. By 1855 Monroe had been sold to George W. Johnston & Co. of Boalsburg, who set up a foundry making cast iron stoves. The operation continued under Johnston's name until 1864, when the Freedom Iron Company, owners of Greenwood Furnace, acquired it. By 1876 Lytle could write that it belonged to the Logan Iron and Steel Company and had not run for many years.

The stack is 30 by 30 feet at the base and about 20 feet high, cut native sandstone laid without mortar, with a 14 foot casting arch on the east, a 12 foot tuyere arch on the north and a small arch on the south. The lower ten feet of the northeast corner have fallen, and the nomination says the perfect alignment of the corner above the collapse shows the care taken with the original work. Along both sides of the Mooresville road lie the tumbled stone remains of 14 workers' houses. The site was nominated under Criteria A and D, for the charcoal iron industry and for what those foundations might yet tell about the size and arrangement of an iron plantation, and what the stack and slag might tell about why iron making here ended so soon. The district covers three acres, and it belongs to the state.

The walls and corners are intact except for the lower ten feet of the northeast corner. The perfect alignment of the corner above the collapsed portion witnesses the skill and care taken with the original dry wall construction.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Monroe Furnace (reference 89001818), Section 7 page 2 (PDF page 4) · character 4,474 of the scanned text

Open this story on its own page →

Did you know? The Huntingdon County Historical Society has owned the old stone church at Manor Hill since 1970, and the Society calls it the oldest existing church in Huntingdon County.

It is the Shaver's Creek Presbyterian Church, on Route 305 in Barree Township, with a large two part cemetery beside it. It has been without a regular congregation for more than a century. Even in 1883 the county history noted that meetings had not been held there regularly for a few years.

Lawrence Biemiller tells us that a cast iron stove inside came from the Bedford Furnace, and that the church has three other stoves from elsewhere. Bedford Furnace, begun near Orbisonia in 1785, was the first iron smelting works west of the Susquehanna.

Open this story on its own page →

From the county histories, on Barree 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.

The township contains several fine school buildings, aud all the old houses are being gradually displaced by a better class of buildings, which are equal to those in other parts of the county. General Industries and fastu the present township of Barree there is but little water-power, and but few manufacturing interests consequently are carried on, agriculture being the chief occupation of the people. The most important manufacturing interest ever carried on in Barree was Monroe Smelting Furnace, in the northwestern corner of the township. It was built on Shaver's Creek by Gen. James Irwin about 1845, and was successfully operated by him several years. Following him as an operator was George W. Johnston, who did considerable casting in connection, waking stoves of the Philadelphia pattern. The metal produced by the furnace was grayish, and was esteemed superior for castirig purposes. The furnace was of the quarter pattern, and had a good capacity, but was unfavorably located for an extensive business. It has not been in blast for the last twelve years, and the property connected therewith is somewhat dilapidated. It belongs to the Logan Iron and Steel Company. Not far from this locality John Rudy began distilling whiskey in May, 1878, the distillery being of small capacity and persed only about five months in a year, The Rudy family also carries on a small saw-mill, and Reuben and Martin have manufactured brick the past four years.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,404,319 of the scanned text

Open this story on its own page →

From the county histories, on Barree 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.

At the same time the elders were Hugh A. Jackson, James Smith, and David McAlevy. The latter office has also been filled by Alexander Thompson, Samuel Mitchell, Robert Huey, William D. Black, George M. McAlevy, and Robert Fleming. In the history of Barree township may be read a full account of the Shaver's Creek Church, from which it will be seen that in its relation to that part of the congregation worshiping in Jack- -the Manor Hill Circuit. son the preaching-place has become more important than the mother-church. The last few years services have been regularly maintained in Jackson, and preaching only occasionally at Manor Hill. There were about sixty members in the congregation, and a Sabbath-school is maintained in Jackson under the superintendenee of James Smith, which had a good attendance in 1881. à Among the ministers of the old Shaver's Creek Church, in the order named, from to the present time, have been the Revs.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,949,363 of the scanned text

Open this story on its own page →

What is left of Monroe Furnace, in Barree township. The furnace was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 November 1989, and the photograph was taken in September 2016 and released into the public domain outright.

Open this story on its own page →