This comprises Montour’s island in the Ohio river, which, after being successively included in Moon, Fayette, Robinson and Ohio, was erected separately April 8, 1856. The proceedings in this case were begun December 3, 1853. The island is about flve miles in length, and averages three-eighths of a mile in breadth, with a total area of about fifteen hundred acres. It is an alluvial deposit, and correspondingly fertile. The surface is level, and the island is not known to have been submerged in the highest freshets. Every part of it is under careful tillage, and in no other portion of the county is the labor of the farmer and the gardener so well repaid as here.

The ownership of the island has at various times been vested in persons of distinguished character in the county. By proclamation of the king at the close of the seven years’ war, a field-officer of his army named Douglass became entitled to five thousand acres of land, and located a part of it upon Long island, as it was then called. He subsequently transferred his title to Charles Simms, who sold certain portions of the island to John Harvie and Gen. Neville, for whom Col. William Crawford made the surveys in 1776. The supreme executive council of Pennsylvania conferred the island upon Gen. William Irvine in consideration of his services in the Revolution, and a legal struggle for its possession was then begun. It was urged on behalf of Gen. Irvine’s claim that the grant to Douglass was in violation of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and therefore his title was null and void; but the United States court confirmed Simms in his title, and also Neville and Harvie, who were interested in the ownership by deeds from him. Henry Montour, from whom the island derives its name, was an Indian interpreter of French and Indian descent, and the trusted friend of American interests throughout the protracted Indian troubles of the frontier. Of Gen. John Neville, for whom the township is named, Neville B. Craig thus speaks:

John Neville was a man of great wealth for those days. He was the descendant of a lad who at an early day, was kidnaped in England and brought to Virginia, and subsequently accumulated a good property there. John Neville was a man of good English education, of plain, blunt manners, a pleasant companion, and the writer well recollects how eagerly he listened to his well-told anecdotes, and how, by his manner, he could give interest to trifling incidents. He was born on the headwaters of the Accoquan creek., Virginia, on the direct road from Washington’s paternal estate to Winchester and Cumberland, and the residence of his father is laid down on Sparks’ map of "The Operations in Virginia" in 1754. From this circumstance, probably, it was that he became an early acquaintance of Washington, both of whom were of about the same age, and thus, with the ardor of a young man, he engaged in Braddock’s expedition. Prior to 1774 he had' made large entries and purchases of land on Chartiers creek, then supposed to be in Virginia, and was about to remove here when the revolutionary troubles began. He was elected in that year a delegate from Augusta county, i.e., Pittsburgh, to the provincial convention of Virginia, which appointed George Washington, Peyton Randolph and others to the first Continental Congress, but was prevented by sickness from attending.

In 1774, by direction of the provincial convention of Virginia, he marched from Winchester with his company of one hundred men and took possession of Fort Pitt on behalf of the colony, and retained the command of that post until the appointment of Gen. McIntosh by Congress. He was in active military service throughout the revolutionary war, and served with conspicuous ability in the southern campaigns. At the close of the war he returned to his estates in Allegheny county, and in 1791 received the appointment of inspector of internal revenue for the district. He remained firm in his determination to perform the duties of his office, at the expense of his property and the imminent peril of his life. His popularity returned when the "whisky rebellion" had subsided, and the course he had pursued gained for him the respect of all. He filled many other positions of public trust, and was at one time a member of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania. Gen. Presley Neville, his son, inherited the abilities of his father. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, a fine classical scholar, and entered the army at the age of twenty years as ensign in his father’s company. He rose to the rank of major, and was aid-de-camp to Lafayette for three years.

The most distinguished resident of the island, and the only member of the family of Gen. John Neville who ever lived there, was his son-in-law, Maj. Isaac Craig. Born in County Down, Ireland, in 1741, he settled at Philadelphia in 1765,and began his career ten years later as a lieutenant of marines on the Andrew Doria, under Capt. Nicholas Biddle. He was subsequently transferred to the army, and participated in many important battles. In 1780 he was ordered to Fort Pitt for service, and was identified with all the important military movements in this section until the cessation of hostilities. Gen. Knox appointed him deputy quartermaster at Pittsburgh, and he was employed in various capacities, under the government until the close of the war of 1812. He became involved financially about this time, through large liabilities assumed for others, and retired from active employments to the quiet seclusion of Montour’s island, where he died in May, 1826.

About 1795 Archibald Hamilton settled. He and his sons David, William and Hugh were lifelong residents, and the family is still numerously represented there, James, Rufus, Isaac, George and William Cole were early residents on the eastern portion of the island.

The Long Island Presbyterian Church was organized by Rev. Samuel C. Jennings, D.D., the pastor of Sharon Church, in Moon township. Mr. Andrews, his predecessor, held the first religious services on the island in 1828. The church was built in 1843. Revs. M. L. Wortman, G. M. Spargrove, James Kirk and others have been pastors. There is also a Methodist society, and a church was built about the same time as the Presbyterian.

The township is conveniently accessible by the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroads on either side of the river. Farming and market-gardening will doubtless continue to be the principal occupations, and from the nearness to the great centers of population in this part of the country, these pursuits will be increasingly profitable from year to year. The population of the island in 1860 was 236; in 1870, 289, and in 1880, 306.