Barree township

The Stove In The Old Stone Church

Did you know? The Huntingdon County Historical Society has owned the old stone church at Manor Hill since 1970, and the Society calls it the oldest existing church in Huntingdon County.

It is the Shaver's Creek Presbyterian Church, on Route 305 in Barree Township, with a large two part cemetery beside it. It has been without a regular congregation for more than a century. Even in 1883 the county history noted that meetings had not been held there regularly for a few years.

Lawrence Biemiller tells us that a cast iron stove inside came from the Bedford Furnace, and that the church has three other stoves from elsewhere. Bedford Furnace, begun near Orbisonia in 1785, was the first iron smelting works west of the Susquehanna.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out. Information shared with us by readers is given as theirs, not as fact: Lawrence Biemiller.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-03 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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Photographs from Barree township

The remains of Monroe Furnace, the charcoal iron stack northwest of McAlevys Fort.Smallbones · stg02

Monroe Furnace listed on the NRHP on November 13, 1989 This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 9001818 (Wikidata). at the junction of Pennsylvania Route 26 and Legislative Route 31076,Photograph by the Wikimedia Commons contributor Smallbones, 2016-09-02. Released under CC0, a public domain dedication · Monroe Furnace ruins.jpg

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