Mount Union borough, Henderson township

Atkinson's Mills, Wayne Township (Mifflin County)

Atkinson's Mills, on today's maps Atkinson Mills, lies across the county line in Wayne Township, Mifflin County, but it has ties to this county. Ellis's 1886 history says William Scott took up one hundred acres on the site of the mills on February 22, 1776, and that his sons were Matthew, Hugh, William and Hamilton. On September 15, 1812, Lukens Atkinson, of Thompsontown, bought a tract from Susanna, Matthew and Hamilton Scott, and in 1817 he bought one hundred and eight adjoining acres. On this and land on Beaver Run he built a frame gristmill, known as Atkinson's Mill. A later page of the same history says the mill was built in 1820 and has been known by its present name from that time, and another says Lukens Atkinson lived and died at the place.

Ellis says a store was put up there in 1852 and opened by A. J. North. Among those who came after him were Colonel J. K. Rhodes, later of Lewistown, and R. L. Gambel, who sold to John Glasgow. Writing in 1886, Ellis says only that a post office was established many years before, with Jacob Norton as postmaster. Lewis Jones, A. Lewis and R. L. Gambel held the job before 1867, when John Glasgow was appointed, and he was still serving when the book appeared. Atkinson's Mills is also on Ellis's list of the township's schools.

The Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of 1897 adds more, and it brings in this county. Its sketch of John Glasgow, by then of McVeytown, says he was born near Lick Ridge in Henderson Township, Huntingdon County. At his majority, in 1848, he took on the management of the old Atkinson mills, where he milled and made lumber for about seventeen years. The two books differ on the store: Ellis has Gambel selling to Glasgow, while the 1897 sketch says Glasgow opened a store near Atkinson's Mills in 1865 and ran it for eighteen years. The same book says Jacob Norton kept a blacksmith shop at Atkinson's Mills until 1834, when he moved to Newton Hamilton, and that he served as postmaster of Atkinson's Mills. It also says Ferd Kiefhaber, born at the place in 1862 to a blacksmith who worked there for more than forty years, was its general merchant and postmaster, appointed on March 1, 1895.

Mount Union has its own ties to the village. Welch's 1909 history of the town says the Bice family moved to Mount Union when William Bice was quite small, and that Atkinson's Mills soon after became their home, where he grew to manhood. Welch says Bice served with the 149th Bucktails, came to Mount Union to stay in the fall of 1866 and entered the livery business in 1867. Welch also says John Lukens, born near Atkinson's Mills on August 2, 1819, came to Mount Union in the fall of 1869 and built the store corner there in 1871. He had one child, George W. Lukens of Mount Union.

Checked against the record. We read these facts on the printed pages of Ellis's 1886 history, the 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia and Welch's 1909 history of Mount Union, and a current map places the hamlet in Wayne Township, Mifflin County. The 1897 sketch of John Glasgow does not mention the post office, so we take him to be the John Glasgow in Ellis because the name, the place and the years fit. Still open: the Mifflin County deeds, which we have not looked at; the year the post office was established; and who ran the mill between 1820 and 1848.

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