Spruce Creek: getting there: roads, rails and the river

From the county histories, on Spruce Creek 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 latter division is a spur usually known as the Short mountain, about two miles in length, extending from one river to the other. The Pennsylvania railroad passes through a tunnel in the northern end of it, half a mile below the village of Spruce Creek. The greater part of the township consists of an elevated plateau, to which has been given the name of Canoe valley, from the mountain enclosing it on the west. It has a fertile limestone soil, which yields generously to the hand of cultivation. One locality in this township, Water Street, is mentioned by John Harris in his "account of the road to Logstown," in 1754. The old Indian war-patb passed through it, and Conrad Weiser was there in 1748. It derived its name from the fact that a stream of water literally flowed through the street. During the Revolutionary war, General Roberdeau had a landing there, from whence lead ore, mined in Sinking valley, was shipped east to be melted, and where stores were received for the miners and troops at Fort Roberdeau. The most prosperous days of Water Street were while the Pennsylvania canal was in successful tide of operation. But since it has been closed and abandoned, the place has lost all importance, trade and travel having been diverted to points on the line of public improvements, a few miles northward. The business once attracted to Water Street by the canal is now drawn to Spruce Creek by the Pennsylvania railroad.Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 550,752 of the scanned text

Quoted from the county histories

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