Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

USGenWeb® Project

(Family History and Genealogy)

PAGenWeb > Allegheny > Townships

 

History of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, Part II  by Thomas Cushing Chicago, Ill.:  A. Warner & Co., 1889, pp. 64-66. 

Chapter VI

Scott Township

Scott Township was named for General Winfield Scott.

 

At the October sessions, 1860, a petition for the division of Upper St. Clair was filed, and a commission appointed for its consideration. The measure was carried, by a majority of forty-two, at an election held April 23, 1861. June 29, 1861, the division was confirmed by decree of court, when the new township received the name of Scott. It extends from Chartiers creek on the west to Baldwin township on the east, with an area of about ten square miles. The population was 1,807 in 1870, and 1,523 in 1880.

The earliest permanent settlers were Alexander Long. Andrew McFarlane, John Henry and William Lea. Long was from York county. McFarlane emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1758. In 1774 he was a justice of the peace, probably the first in Scott township. Lea was a soldier, and rose to the rank of major. He had sous, William, Robert and Samuel. The sons of William were William Robert, Samuel, Lafayette and James W.; of Robert, David N. and Thomas; of Samuel, John, William and Samuel. Hezekiah, William, Thomas and Samuel Nixon were the sons of Jane (Lea) Nixon, Isaac Williams and sons John, Isaac and Robert; John, William and Turner; Peter Ross and son Casey, John Ross and son Philip, William Glenn and sons James and William were also early residents.

The township, in common with all this section of country, is rich in mineral resources. The first coal-mine on the Chartiers Valley railroad, south of Mansfield, is No. 2 of the Mansfield Coal and Coke company, opened in 1883. Five hundred men are employed, and 175 cars are required in the shipment of the product, which amounts to 600 tons daily, and 120,000 tons in the course of a year. Glendale colliery, 300 feet east of Glendale station, is operated by Gregg Brothers. The Nixon mines, 300 feet east of Leasdale station, were opened by the Chartiers Valley Coal company in 1878, and are now owned by W. A. Black; 75 men are employed. The daily output is 300 tons, for the shipment of which the proprietor uses 53 cars. The Diamond mines, 500 feet east of Leasdale station, and Leasdale mines, 600 feet east of Woodville station, are among the oldest on this line of railway. Summer Hill mines, at Woodville, were opened by Romer & Jones in 1875. Negley & Black succeeded to their ownership in 1878, and Jessup & Co. in the same year, when (1879) the present proprietor, Frank Armstrong, assumed control. Six hundred tons are produced daily, employing 175 men, and requiring 96 cars. The old Bower Hill mines, 1,200 feet east of Bower Hill station, were reopened by the Imperial Coal company in 1887 after a long period of suspension. Bower Hill No. 2, 1,500 feet east of the station of that name, has been operated since 1875 by A. J. Schulte. One hundred and twenty-five men are employed.

The stations on the Chartiers Valley railroad in this county are Gleenis, Leasdale and Woodville. Glendale is an important suburb of Mansfield borough. Leasdale derives its name from the Lea family, which was early represented in the vicinity. The Leasdale Glass company, T. F. Hart, president; M. H. Hart, secretary; R. Brankston, manager, are the proprietors of the glassworks at this place, established in 1870 by Lindsay Brothers, and owned successively by the Lindsay Glass company, Robert Liddell and the Gallatin Glass company. The plant consists of a frame building 200 feet long and 60 feet wide, one ten-pot furnace, and a corresponding number of lehrs and ovens; 50 men are employed, and 45 boys. Flint bottles constitute the exclusive product, which is valued at $55,000 annually.

Long’s, Arlington and Mount Lebanon were stations on the Pittsburgh & Southern railroad, in the eastern part of the township, before that road was abandoned. Mount Lebanon postoffice was established in 1855. It is the only post-village in the township. A small portion of Castle Shannon extends over the line of Baldwin and Scott.

St. Clair United Presbyterian Church received its first pastor in the person of Rev. Joseph Kerr, who was installed at the house of Nathaniel Plummer in October, 1803. The first sermon had been preached in November of the previous year, by Rev. John Riddell. Mr. Kerr’s pastorate also included Mifflin Church. Since his resignation, in 1825, the succession of pastors has been as follows: John Dickey, 1830-39; Alexander H. Wright, 1842-46; Joseph Clokey, 1848-55; J. C. Boyd, 1858 to the present.

The Woodville Protestant Episcopal church was built in 1846, and replaced a log building of great age, one of the first places of worship in the Chartiers valley. The latter was erected at the time when a Book of Common Prayer was of little use unless supplemented with a trusty gun. It is said that on one occasion when the worshipers had reached that part of the service known as the litany, and were giving one emphatic "Good Lord, deliver us," an attack was made by the Indians, and within a few seconds every porthole had its glistening rifle. No record of the pastors here has been preserved. After a long period of discontinuance, the church was reopened for services October 24, 1886. Among those buried in the adjoining cemetery are Jane Williams, who died August 4, 1795, thirty-three years of age; Daniel S. Williams, May 4, 1825; Mary Richardson, January 1, 1806, aged seventy-seven; James Richardson, September 2, 1805, aged eighty-four; Daniel South, June 25, 1811; William Beaumont, September 19, 1813; Capt. David Steel, February 4, 1819; and an earlier generation of the Lea family, whose graves are unmarked.

The following is quoted from the Pittsburgh Dispatch:
"It is a mooted question as to which is the oldest church and burial-place in the region of which Pittsburgh is the center. There is, however, little doubt that this distinction belongs to the Episcopal church and graveyard near Woodville, eight miles from the city. Maj. Lea, who accompanied the Forbes expedition to Fort Duquesne, settled at Leasdale prior to 1760. Being a Church-of-England adherent, a church of that order was soon organized, and Episcopal services were maintained, with more or less regularity, by the Leas and Nevilles at Woodville a number of years before Dr. McMillan began his work at Cannonsburg, and a quarter of a century before there was a church organization at Pittsburgh. The present stone church is the third edifice on the site, the first having been a log building, which probably no one now can remember.
In that log church was christened a daughter of Maj. Lea in 1774. On one of the headstones in the old burial-place is this inscription: “Jane Lea Nixon, born 1774, died 1859, the first white child born in the Chartiers valley.'"

Return To Cities-Boroughs-Townships