Oneida: mills, forges and the iron trade

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

Quoted from the county histories

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