Juniata

In September 1873 a Philadelphia stereo card publisher, James Cremer, put Terrace Mountain near Huntingdon on a nine by eighteen centimeter mount and numbered it 234. The Library of Congress record dates the card to that month, names Cremer (1821 to 1893) as both photographer and publisher, and indexes it under the subject headings mountain railroads and railroad tracks, which is as much as the record says about what is in the frame. Beyond the "near Huntingdon" of the title, its place field goes no finer than Huntingdon County, and it does not say which railroad the view shows. The card came to the library in the Marian S. Carson Collection, and the library lists no known restrictions on publication.

The mountain itself is well described in the books that cover the county. White's 1885 geological report says Terrace Mountain and Sideling Hill are the only mountains of their kind in Huntingdon County, a crest of gray Pocono sandstone above a terrace made by the hard red sandstone beds of the Catskill formation, and that this terrace is what gives the mountain its name. White wrote that the two ridges unite in a high point at the Juniata below Huntingdon and that Terrace Mountain then runs southwestward and southward past the west side of Broad Top into Bedford County. He reported that no exact measurement of its height had been made.

White also explained the crooked river at its foot. The Raystown Branch, he wrote, flows along the base of Terrace Mountain through a belt of soft Catskill rock, crossing from side to side and rebounding between ridges of Chemung sandstone on the left and the solid Pocono sandstone of Terrace Mountain on the right, so that 21 miles of air-line distance from the Bedford County line to the Juniata become nearly 50 miles of stream bed. He added that Trough Creek leaves the trough between Sideling Hill and Terrace Mountain through a gap in Terrace Mountain to reach the Raystown Branch. The 1883 county history says Trough Creek rises in Terrace Mountain, and that Forshey's Gap in the mountain took its name from the family of Solomon Forshey of Penn Township.

Cremer's label, pasted on the back of the card, advertised his shop at 18 South Eighth Street.

From James Cremer's Stereoscopic Emporium, 18 South Eighth St., Philad'a. Photo-miniatures in every style. Family groups taken for the stereoscope.Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, Terrace Mountain near Huntingdon, written data pages, Library of Congress item 2017660277, photographer's label pasted on verso · character 609 of the scanned text

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Two miles southeast of Huntingdon, Township Road 428 crosses the Raystown Branch on a one-lane suspension bridge half a mile from the branch's junction with the Juniata River. It is Huntingdon County Bridge No. 20, known as Corbin Bridge, and the nomination says it is the only road suspension bridge in the county.

The nomination says a Penelec hydroelectric dam on the Raystown Branch gave way in the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936 and swept away the bridge that stood here, an early bridge of unknown design. The Huntingdon County Historical Society's 1937 sesquicentennial souvenir book printed a picture of the Raystown Dam after the flood and called the flood of March 17, 1936, probably the most destructive the Juniata Valley had ever experienced. The replacement was constructed in 1937. County bridge records state that it was fabricated by Reading Steel Products, Inc. Why a suspension design was chosen is not known.

The bridge hangs from two-and-three-eighths-inch prestressed wire rope cables made by Roebling & Son of Trenton, New Jersey, carried on 39-foot steel towers and anchored in concrete deadmen. A double intersecting Warren truss stiffens the span, and the wood deck, 12.5 feet wide, is paved with macadam. High cut-stone and concrete abutments with wings appear to predate the bridge.

It was designed to carry a ten-ton limit. In 1972, the nomination says, a macadam surface added to the deck increased the weight of the bridge itself, and the limit was reduced to seven tons. An inspection report cited in the nomination says an excessive load in 1980 buckled the east truss and the limit was set at three tons until the truss was repaired in 1981. The damage was so slight or so well repaired that it cannot be distinguished. The bridge serves one farm, a small number of year-round residences and a cluster of vacation cottages along the Juniata.

The form, prepared in September 1989 by a preservation specialist at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission with material taken from Nancy Shedd's 1988 Historic American Engineering Record report, nominated the bridge for its engineering under the Industrial Resources of Huntingdon County listing. It says the bridge is the only suspension road bridge in the PennDOT district covering Huntingdon, Blair, Cambria, Somerset, Bedford and Fulton counties, and that PennDOT employees familiar with the region's bridges thought it might be unique over a far wider area.

The bridge design is highly unusual for the area: it is the only suspension road bridge in the PennDOT district which includes Huntingdon, Blair, Cambria, Somerset, Bedford and Fulton Counties.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Corbin Bridge (reference 90000402), 90000402, p. 5 · character 5,499 of the scanned text

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Did you know? In 1888 a Huntingdon whiskey dealer was refused a renewal of his license, and in 1891 he got it back because the authorities found they could not keep liquor out of the county anyway.

Richard Langdon built a brick distillery in Juniata Township, near Huntingdon, and Martin Grube ran it. His son, Martin Grube Jr., carried on the business from January 2, 1884, until May 1, 1888, when he was refused a renewal of his license. A county biography published in 1897 says that three years later, finding it impossible to prevent the importation of liquors into the county, the authorities granted Mr. Grube a license again on April 1, 1891.

A fire insurance map shared by Myer Souders shows Martin Grube Jr.'s registered distillery on Raystown Road.

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From the county histories, on Juniata 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.

The statement that Jane, for that was her name, twisted the^ow's tail is perhaps merely a twist of the imagination. The heroine after becoming Mrs. Dowling, removed to the Raystown branch. One of her sons, William Dowling, is still living at an advanced age among the ridges of Juniata township. On the opposite side of Shaver's creek from the site of Anderson's fort, now stands the borough of Petersburg. The plan of the town was acknowledged by Dr. Peter Shoenberger, on the 21st day of May, 1795, and was recorded on the 2Sth day of the same month. He had probably laid it out but short time before those dates. It was incorporated as a borough, April 7th, 1830. Located upon the Pennsylvania canal, recently abandoned, however, through that portion of the county, and railroad, and being the nearest shipping point to the rich farming region of Porter, West, Barree, and Jackson townships, its prosperity always has been assured, and we can foresee no circumstance that can possibly prevent its steady improvement and growth in the future. The last five or six years have seen the erection of several large and substantial business houses and dwellings, and there has been an increase of population to correspond with its progress in other respects.Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 571,223 of the scanned text

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From the county histories, on Juniata 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.

After Joseph Pridmore had built his grist-mill, which stood near the site of the furnace, the main stream was known as Pridmore's Mill Creek, and when Caleb Armitage became proprietor the name was changed to Armitage's Mill Creek. John Haun, of Juniata township, mentioned above, in a conversation with the writer Aug. 7, 1871, detailed his early experiences in Brady. From his statement the following facts are noted: The Haun! family, consisting of the father John, Juliana, his wife, Jacob, a son born Oct. 22, 1789, and John (the narrator), second son, born Aug. 3, 1791, moved in a wagon from Codorus township, York Co., in 1793, and settled on the Mill Creek farm owned by John Wartz. The dwelling-house was within Pridmore's fort; the stumps of the stockades were yet visible, and some of the block-houses remained; one of them was used to shelter the "shaving-horse." This fort included the ground on which Norris' hotel now stands. Wartz lived in the house that stood below the lower 1 The Juniata family spell the name Haun, while those in Brad y write it Hawn. 222 PENNSYLVANIA. end of the village. -He knew Joseph Eaton, the surveyor, who was a tall man; his wife's name was Bathsheba, and his step-mother (wife of David Eaton) was called " Betty," whence the name of " Betty Eaton's Spring," applied to the stream that issues from Rocky Ridge near where the family lived. He was under the impression her maiden name was Razor. David Eaton was the first man buried at Mill Creek.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,442,440 of the scanned text

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From the county histories, on Juniata 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.

Corbin is a leader in matters that affect public advancement, and in many ways has identified himself with popular progress in Juniata township. For many years he has been a school director, and in educational concerns takes a warm and active interest. In church affairs he is strong and earnest in his labors. He has been a member of the Baptist Church since 1845, and is now a deacon in the Juniata Baptist Church, of which he was one of the founders, and whose house of worship he erected and liberally supported with a handsome contribution. He is the superintendent of the Sabbath-school, a member of the home temperance organization, and a friend, in short, of all measures looking to the promotion of moral good. On the same stream, in the upper part of the township, and partly in Penn, William Enyeart began his improvements about 1770. During the Revolution he sought protection in the fort at Standing Stone, and when no Indians were supposed to be about tilled his farm in company with a neighbor by the name of Reed, who improved an adjoining tract of land, one standing guard while the other worked.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,961,450 of the scanned text

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The eastern end of the Corbin Bridge, which carries Township Road 428 over the Raystown Branch of the Juniata south-west of Huntingdon. A suspension bridge, built in 1937 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photographed in May 1989 by Jet Lowe, the same engineering-record photographer whose plates of the Harbison-Walker works are elsewhere on this site.

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Did you know? The Haun brothers of Juniata Township worked so hard and saved so much that their wealth drew robbers to the house, and one brother died of his injuries.

Their father was born in Germany in 1768. He lived for a time in York County, came to live near Mill Creek, in what is now Brady Township, before 1795, and died there in 1805. Afterward the family, all but a son named Michael, moved to Woodcock Valley and about 1829 to Juniata Township. Of the brothers Jacob, John, George, David, Daniel, Peter and Isaac, only Jacob ever married.

The county history says the Hauns were very industrious and amassed considerable wealth, which led to a robbery of the mansion and attempts on the lives of some of the family. John died from the injuries he received.

Michael stayed at Mill Creek. One of his sons, also named Michael, was a boatman who died of cholera on one of his trips down the river.

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