|
Pine Grove Mills
Centre Daily Times March 6 2003
Historic Pine Grove Mills was important crossroads
By Rich Kerstetter, rkerstet@centredaily.com
"The story of Pine Grove Mills is beautifully plain and blessedly simple: a tale of ordinary people making and keeping a place called home."
Felicia Thibeault Mulley wrote that apt description of the little mill town at the foot of Tussey Mountain along Slab Cabin Run in the opening chapter of "Pine Grove Mills: History of a Hometown, 1801-2001."
Thomas Ferguson, who, in 1791, bought 321 acres of land for 300 pounds in gold and silver coins, is credited with founding Pine Grove Mills. In 1800, he dammed Slab Cabin Run and built the first of the mills that would eventually give the town its name. According to local tradition, a grove of pine trees separating two of the early mills along the run, provided the rest of the name.
John Patton Jr., son of Centre Furnace ironmaster Col. John Patton, laid out the town of Pattonville at the east end of Pine Grove Mills in 1815 and the entire village went by Pattonville for a time. That's how the area is designated on Pomeroy's 1874 Atlas.
The post office, founded in 1809, was continually known as the Pine Grove Mills post office, however, and the town eventually reverted to the original name.
"The little mill town became an important crossroads," Mulley wrote in the book published for Pine Grove Mills' bicentennial two years ago, "and journey's end for many who sank deep roots into the fertile valley stretching to the north."
|
|
