No matter what the season of the year, there is usually someone thinking or dreaming of what is on the opposite shore of Lake Erie. A recent article published in The Harbor View newsletter, which is published quarterly by the Society and distributed to members, highlighted two spectacular lake crossings. Here are a few more for your reading pleasure.
Due North, Harborcreek Historical Society Newsletter, March/April 2007 Because It’s There, Harborcreek Historical Society Newsletter, May/June 2008 The Ice Walkers, Harborcreek Historical Society Newsletter, May/June 2008
The North East News-Journal printed “Rare Lake Erie freeze shines new light on local men’s adventures” on March 28, 2014. Harborcreek resident and high school teacher Marty Dale has first-hand knowledge of the 1978 crossing of frozen Lake Erie by three North East men. Marty and Archie Wright “manned their CB radios for the night, transmitting every hour to the men.” Who were “the men?” They were Chris Sprague, John Hallenburg, Jr. and Bill Power, who successfully hiked across the frozen lake from Long Point to Freeport Beach March 4, 1978. The trek lasted for 18.5 hours.
On Saturday, May 31, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm the Harborcreek Historical Society hosted a dedication for the Gauge War historical Marker. The presentation took place at the Harborcreek Municipal Building (5601 Buffalo Road) in the upper meeting room. We were joined by guest speaker Paul Foust. Mr. Foust wrote his graduate thesis on the “war” and discussed the December 1853 confrontation that took place in Harborcreek between railroad laborers and residents.
The new historical marker is installed in Harborcreek Township’s Roadside Park. The project is supported in part by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority.
Happy 20th Anniversary! Harborcreek Historical Society is turning 20 this year. During the last two decades many changes have taken place – and more changes are to come.
If you have visited Knowledge Park recently, you might have noticed a great deal of activity. Penn State Behrend is growing and needs more space to house their programs and offices. In the Fall of 2013, the Society was notified that our office space was needed. Penn State Behrend has graciously found another space for us, but it is extremely small. Therefore, until a larger space is acquired, we will not be able to have office hours or programs at our Knowledge Park office.
Harborcreek Historical Society’s Board of Directors is committed to the vision and mission that was developed 20 years ago and the Society will continue to be a presence in the community. Harborcreek Township Supervisors have found space for the display cases and will allow us to use the Township Building for meetings and programs. HHS Directors are in the process of creating a Speakers Bureau of various topics that can go to your meetings and events. Also, we will continue with The Harbor View, our website and Facebook presence.
While we are in the process of moving into a smaller space, we remain focused on the security and safety of the HHS acquisitions – the documents, photos and memories that have been given to us.
If you have any comments or questions please email us at harborcreekhistory@gmail.com or call (814) 899-4447.
On January 28 Harborcreek Historical Society hosted its annual membership meeting. Director John Skuce led a discussion about growing up in Harborcreek in the 1940s which sparked interesting conversations about school, hunting, farming, and neighbors. The Society’s Board of Directors and executive officers were voted on as well at the annual meeting. We thank John for his engaging presentation and welcome Jane Ingold to the board!
Meet Our New Director Jane Ingold
Jane Ingold is an Assistant Librarian for the Lilley Library at Penn State Behrend. One of her “other duties as assigned” is to oversee the Behrend Archives. She was raised in Cranesville and received her BA in English from Gannon and a Masters of Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin. While there she worked as a page at the Barker Texas History Center, where she learned to love archives. She has written several articles about Behrend family, Behrend College, and Hammermill Paper Company history including a two-part series for this newsletter and she enjoys giving tours to local groups. Last year she co-chaired the Local Arrangements Committee for the Spring meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference which brought over 230 archivists to Erie from as far away as North Carolina. She has been a member of Harborcreek Historical Society since 2007.
Photograph Caption: Richard Cowell and Sherman Clark at the Society’s annual meeting.
The Out of the Box teaching Trunk is completed. The trunk uses the journals and letters from the Dodge family to teach students how to analyze primary documents. Extended lessons have students explore their family history. The trunk is appropriate for students 5th grade and older. Teachers, youth leaders and interested organizations can call or email HHS for more information on how to “check out” the materials.
Over the last 18 months, six local historical societies worked in partnership with Erie Yesterday and Edinboro University’s School of Education and History, Anthropology & World Languages Department to create traveling trunks, or museum kits, that take archival materials and artifacts outside of the museum and into the community. The Out of the Box project officially launched February 20 at Edinboro University’s Frank G. Pogue Student Center during a three-hour local history ‘open house’ for regional education professionals.
Photograph: Dodge Journal Entry, Friday 18” October Fair and pleasant. wind in the west Pat. Hugh. Mike. James. the two thrashers and I thrashed oats we had a brakedown which hindered us some I let the men husk corn while they were fixing the machine In the afternoon Pat drove the mare to the buggy, to Erie to get some medicine for himself Ellises Mike worked in his place while he was gone Mike Martin while cutting bands with a knife, cut his leg very bad. he fainted once, I think he will not be able to do anything for some time. We had 165 bush oats thrashed today. I with the other boys went to the literary this evening. I made a speech and then occupied the chair as president Johny went to Erie on the wayfreight, after his cloths and came back on the 6 P.M. train
Not a single cannon was fired, nor a life lost in the conflict known as the Gauge War. It was a conflict of commercial advantage which involved the rights of local government and pitted the citizens of Erie County against Buffalo, Cleveland and New York during the era of railroad development and growth in Pennsylvania.
Earliest railroad activity along the Lake Erie shoreline began in the 1840s, with local investors forming the Erie & North East Railroad. Finished in 1852, this 19-mile section of 6 foot gauge track ran from the City of Erie near 14th Street east to the NY/PA border where it connected with the 90-mile 4’8.5” gauge track of the Buffalo & State Line (New York Central). To the west of the E&NE was the Franklin Canal Company Railroad. Owners of the Franklin Canal Company took several liberties with their contract with the state of Pennsylvania and built a 30-mile 4’10” gauge track connecting the E&NE with the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad which began at the OH/PA line. Due to the difference in track gauge, passengers and freight traveling along Lake Erie were forced to change cars twice within the county, once at the NY/PA line and once in the City of Erie.
For the City of Erie, this disruption in rail travel was part of a plan. In an effort to spark industrial and economic growth at the point of the harbor, Erie planned to cut off Buffalo which connected to New York City via the Erie Canal, and connect the Erie harbor to the Atlantic seacoast through Philadelphia via the Sudbury & Erie Railroad. Key to the success of this plan was the incompatibility of the E&NE with the Ohio and New York rail systems which necessitated stoppage within the City of Erie.
By April 1853, railroad interests in Ohio and New York realized the value of uninterrupted rail travel along Lake Erie and felt pressure from stakeholders to improve efficiency of operations and dividends. They began to buy up stock in the E&NE with the intent to standardize the track gauge in Erie County and enable continuous travel from Buffalo to Cleveland. Coincidentally, at the same time the PA General Assembly repealed the 1850 Gauge Law which forbade use of the Ohio 4’10” gauge east of Erie. To the satisfaction of the Ohio and New York railroads, standardization of gauge along the lake shore was now possible.
Erie & North East stakeholders underestimated residents’ willingness to wage war against the railroad to protect their commercial interests and the rights of local government. The City of Erie passed an ordinance in July declaring the 4’10” gauge a public nuisance east of State Street, and the railroad’s request to allow gauge change was rejected in November. When the railroad began making necessary changes to the E&NE tracks December 7, 1853, the City of Erie and Harborcreek Township responded immediately. Erie Mayor Alfred King deputized 150 “special police” who quickly set to work removing the rails and bridges. In Harborcreek, the township commissioners used the change to justify destroying the railroad where it interfered with Buffalo Road, the primary public highway through northeast Erie County. In the three places where the rails crossed Buffalo Road and hindered wagon travel, Harborcreek Township commissioners ordered the rails removed and the railbed plowed under. Destruction to the rails in Erie and Harborcreek created a 7-mile break in travel and during the next two months passengers and freight were transferred between Harborcreek and Erie by stages, wagons and sleighs.
To Erie’s opponents, the City’s resistance was an act of foolishness which disrupted travel, commerce and mail. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune and onetime Erie resident, called for a boycott of all Erie hospitalities by travelers who were forced to cross the 7-mile “isthmus of Erie.” He and others argued that the city’s sole ambition was to protect its trade of peanuts, popcorn, candies and pies which were sold to travelers. (For this reason, the Gauge War was also referred to as the Peanut War.) Luckily for Erie, President Franklin Pierce resisted pressure from the New York and Ohio railroad interests to suppress Erie’s resistance with federal troops.
December 17th the E&NE procured an injunction from the federal district court in Pittsburgh, but the threat of imprisonment did not deter those committed to nuisance abatement and repeat removal of tracks and bridges continued with the support of local government as well as PA Governor William Bigler. In his annual message to the assembly in 1854, Governor Bigler explained,
It so happens that PA holds the key to this important link of connexion between the East and West, and I most unhesitatingly say, that where no principle of amity or commerce is to be violated, it is the right and the duty of the State to turn her natural advantages to the promotion of the views and welfare of her own people. (Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series, Papers of the Governors, Volume VII, 1845-1858, pg. 651.)
A confrontation between Harborcreek residents and railroad officials and laborers on December 27th stands out among the rest. While Harborcreek Township officials supervised the destruction of the E&NE tracks for the fifth time in three weeks, a train full of railroad officials, tracklayers and laborers arrived from Buffalo. During the confrontation that followed, Harborcreek farmer William Davison was felled with a pick, George Nelson received a gunshot wound to his head when one of the men from New York drew his pistol, and, if it weren’t for the misfiring of the pistol, William Cooper may have been the first casualty of the “war.” In retaliation, Harborcreek men stormed the train, and the Buffalo men fled the impending riot on the train with which they arrived.
After January 1854, a series of court decisions and legislative acts tipped the balance of power in the railroads’ favor, and by late 1856 a track of continuous gauge connected Cleveland to Buffalo; the passage of trains through the “isthmus of Erie” was uninterrupted.
The change in gauge did not stunt growth of the City of Erie as residents had feared; during the late 19th and 20th centuries, Erie became a commercial and industrial center on the Great Lakes, even though it would never reach the size of Buffalo or Cleveland. The Gauge War remained a topic of serious debate for many years after, and today is an oft-cited example of confrontation between the railroads and the local communities that they served.
Our 20th anniversary celebrations begin with the December 7th open house at the Harborcreek Historical Society office.
Come renew friendships with many of the Society’s early supporters who were involved in “laying the foundation” that has guided the Society through the past twenty years. Greet our present members who serve as Directors and active volunteers in the Society today. Reminisce about the activities which drew you into volunteering with HHS. If you can’t attend in person, send a greeting and we will post it for attendees to read. We hope to reconnect with as many members and former members as possible.
Every day we drive by township landmarks and historic buildings. Do you know…
The cobblestone fireplace located just east of the Harborcreek Township Municipal Building entrance (along Buffalo Road) was part of Russell’s Log Cabin Restaurant which had a dance floor, store and gas station.
The lone brick building located on old Station Road was built by Thomas Bonnell in the early 1800s, making it one of the oldest brick houses in the township. It was an early stagecoach stop along Colt Station Road and may have been an Underground Railroad station.
Hoag Cemetery on Depot Road is one of the oldest cemeteries in the township. It contains the graves of four Revolutionary War soldiers and members of the Cass, Pierce, Prindle, Backus, Orton, Roberts and Hoag families. The first person born in the township, Sarah Prindle Orton, is buried there.
These three Harborcreek Township sites and 54 more (plus photographs) are featured in the revised Harborcreek Township Driving Tour produced by the Harborcreek Historical Society. The booklet will be available after June 14 at the historical society office at 5451 Merwin Lane, Knowledge Park. Cost is $2.00 per booklet.
Harborcreek businesses have been supporting the Society since our inception in 1994, and we started newsletter sponsors in 2002. In the past year, we’ve set a new Society record with seven new newsletter sponsors. Many businesses, like Simply Beautiful Interiors, Andre’s Bakery and Twice as Nice, have supported the Society. Four of our sponsors have been with us for 10 years! This list includes Cass & Cass Builders, Eastway Lanes, Evelyn’s Hallmark and My Daddy’s Barber Shop. Thank you to all of our sponsors! Be sure to visit them and mention our appreciation for their support for Harborcreek history.
Did you know the sponsors are listed on our website? Their website links are available on our LINKS page. Click on the LINKS ribbon which appears in the top right corner of the Society’s website. You’ll find some great information and maybe some surprises. (Check Heise’s website for their current specials.)
Troop 151 from Our Lady of Mercy Church has faithfully come forward over the past years to help our Society clean and groom the cemetery grounds. On May 20th a hard-working troop of scouts spread huge piles of bark/mulch along pathways, cleaned up blown-down tree branches and removed leaves from within the burial ground fencing. We are appreciative to the scouts, their leaders and family members who brought equipment such as 4-wheelers, carts, wheel barrows and rakes. Our thanks go to Harborcreek Township for the donation of mulch and bark chips.
These community helpers aid Harborcreek Historical Society in maintaining this historic cemetery on Station Road. Have you visited Gospel Hill Burial Ground lately, either in person or at www.bliley.net/family/Gospel_Hill/Cemetery?
