Oneida

Did you know? Before there was any hotel, people came to the Warm Springs, about five miles from Huntingdon on Standing Stone Creek, to take the waters.

The Rev. Philip Fithian rode out to the springs in August 1775. He found twenty two people there "professedly indisposed," living in low cabins built with slabs and boughs and cooking their dinners all at one great common fire, with not a single house or any cleared land between the springs and town. The men played quoits and hunted deer, turkeys and pheasants. On smooth blue stones brought up from a brook and used as seats, visitors had inscribed the names of great numbers who had been there before.

The county history of 1883 says landlords kept a public house at the springs from about 1800, and that Gen. A. P. Wilson later built a hotel of good capacity there. For several years the place had its own post office, called Wilsonia. By 1883 the house was closed and the place practically abandoned. The state's geological report of 1885 noted that the spring water was "not by any means warm." The hotel was advertised for sheriff's sale in 1887, and in October 1895 a forest fire threatened what the Centre Reporter called "the once famous summer hotel at Warm Springs."

Myer Souders tells us his fourth great grandfather, Elisha Green, is one of the first settlers of Oneida Township named in John W. Jordan's 1913 history of the Juniata Valley.

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From the county histories, on Oneida 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.

A dullness in the iron trade soon caused all these inter- ests to be abandoned, not again to be resumed, and " Beginning at the corner uf West and Oneida townships, on the line nothing but the ruins of the furnace-stack remains to indicate the place these industries once occupied. A little more than a mile above the Oneida township line a power was improved by Thomas Green which was made to operate a grist-mill, which later became the property of Andrew Couch. The original mill was destroyed by fire, and another one was erected on its site. This became widely and favorably known as the Couch mill, and was carried on by that family a number of years. Thence the mill became the property of Henry Cornpropst, and with this transfer came a change of name. The locality is yet known as Cornpropst's Mill, although the property at present belongs to Joseph Henderson. At the mill a store and shops are maintained. The first to engage in trade was George Couch, and among the successive tradesmen have been John §. Miller, Barton Greene, H. Crownover, and the present firm of Blair & Cox. Abouta dozen years ago a post-office with the name of Cornpropst's Mill was here established, which is yet continued, and in had James Blair for postmaster. Several mails per week are supplied from Huntingdon. This is the only office and place of business in the township, there being no hamlet or village within its bounds.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,068,763 of the scanned text

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From the county histories, on Oneida 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 present house of worship was first occupied in 1870, and was erected to take the place of a former house which had become unfitted for public 320 PENNSYLVANIA. worship. The same year the church erected a meeting-house in Oneida township, which is now the property of Centre Union Church. The whole number baptized in Standing Stone Creek Church was one hundred and twenty-eight. It was while being pastor of this church that the Rev. J. D. Thomas died very suddenly, Nov. 4, 1878. Mr. Thomas was a resident of the township, and died highly esteemed by every one. It was through his efforts that the church built two houses of worship in 1870, an undertaking of no inconsiderable importance for a country congregation. The Wesley Methodist Episcopal Chapel is another house of worship in Miller township. It was built on a lot donated for this purpose by William Eckley, and was dedicated Dec. 17, 1880, by thé Rev. E. J. Gray, of Dickinson Seminary, assisted by Dr. Mitchell. neat frame building, and cost about one thousand dollars. The committee under whose direction it was built was composed of Robert A. Ramsey, Christian Peightal, Andrew Chaney, Thomas Crownover, and the Rev. W. A. Clippinger, at that time preacher in charge of the circuit. Wesley Chapel took the place of an old meeting-house which was built about 1846, on the land of Joseph Miller. present house was built.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,071,326 of the scanned text

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Pennsylvania Route 26, which carries the name Standing Stone Avenue here, running north-east through Oneida township between Frazier Crest and Ridge. Photographed in August 2024.

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Did you know? Canal boats were built on Standing Stone Creek, at Foster's mill in Oneida Township.

The county history of 1883 says, on the authority of Robert McDivitt, that the first boat that plied the waters of the canal was launched there one Sabbath morning in the summer of 1831. As the Lady of the Lake left her dock in the tail race of the mill and passed down the Standing Stone, the crowd gave hearty cheers. Afterward all the boats for D. Leach's packet line were built there. Even before that, Charles Greene built arks in the township and floated them down the creek to the river.

Myer Souders, who tells us Charles Greene was his great grandfather, says the McDivitt family built canal boats too, near where the Lions barn stands on Cold Springs Road. This is his photo of McDivett's bridge, looking toward the Lions barn.

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Did you know? When an old sugar tree near Huntingdon was cut down in 1875, tomahawk marks were found in it.

It stood near an early cabin on a farm about five miles from Huntingdon, thought to be the first improvement between there and McAlevy's Fort. A careful count of its growth showed it had stood through more than two centuries. The tomahawk marks dated back about one hundred and seventy years, made when the tree was about three feet around. When it was cut it measured eleven feet eight inches.

The 1876 county history says the tree yielded from one thousand to twelve hundred pounds of sugar, having been regularly tapped every year by white men for about ninety years.

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