Fox: Buffalo Swamp to Marcellus Shale

When the kings and queens of Europe looked at maps of North America in the 17th and 18th centuries it was labeled “unknown.” A map in the governor’s office of the Virginia colonial capital Williamsburg, which claimed part of this land, called it the “Great Buffalo Swamp.” Later it was called the “Wildcat District.” In 1890, when the federal government declared the American frontier closed, it closed here. All this information points to the quintessential fact of Northcentral Pennsylvania: it was wilderness. Today it is still one of the least settled areas in the east. The land is 90% forested. It is one of the largest congressional districts east of the Mississippi River. When night satellite photographs are taken of North America, it is a dark hole in the middle of the highly illuminated Northeast. However, it is just a five hour drive from the world financial center, New York City; a four and half hour drive from the world’s most important capital, Washington, and five hours from Canada’s largest city and financial center, Toronto. Less than a day’s drive from Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and other large important urban areas, it is still in the “middle of nowhere.” Today, especially in winter, it is easy to look out at the landscape of Fox Township and think, “they can’t get here from there.” The cocoon of geography both insulates and isolates the area. Yet this is not new. It has been a beneficial and detrimental characteristic of our area from the beginning. The Allegheny Front, that 2,000 foot highly eroded escarpment that runs diagonally southwest to northeast across Pennsylvania, has and still does hinder movement into our area of the state. If in the 21st century, tractor-trailer trucks have difficulties climbing about 13 miles of the front from Milesburg to Snowshoe on Interstate 80, imagine the problem for horse and wagon in the 18th and 19th centuries. The hills and valleys, the rivers and streams, the weather and climate all conspired to encumber the settlement of Fox and the surrounding areas. When the first settlers made their way to what would become Elk County in the second and third decades of the 19th century they had to claw through endless virgin forests. Trees one hundred to one hundred fifty feet high were common. The canopy was often so thick it blocked the daylight. The ground was covered with decaying logs and branches. Rocks, boulders, step hillsides and ravines contributed to making passage nearly impossible. The lack of light made the ground below the canopy barren of small plants suitable for the grazing and browsing mammals like elk and deer, but when enough light filtered through, travel was made even worse. The understory was filled with brush, shrubs, vines and briars, but also more food for game. The original dominant trees in the township were white pine and hemlock. Various hardwoods were also present. Nut trees like beech, oak, butternut and chestnut were especially important as food for humans and their animal stock. Chestnut, nearly wiped out by blight in the early 20th century, was perhaps the most valuable tree for early pioneers. Aside from the food value, it was the most rot resistant wood (important for fence posts and building), burned hotter and longer than other woods and its beautiful grain made it useful in the manufacture of furniture and other decorative objects. Today, thanks to decades of work by biologists and plant breeders, the American Chestnut is making a comeback. In the last few years a blight resistant variety has been introduced. Perhaps our children will be able to walk through the forest and find chestnuts to roast as did the early pioneers. The first “major highways” into current Elk County and through the forests were waterways. Up the Allegheny and Clarion (Toby) Rivers and then up the Little Toby came Elk County’s and Fox Township’s first settlers. They would also come up the West and Bennett’s branches of the Susquehanna River. General Wade, his family and a friend named Slade, came via the Little Toby. They had probably become familiar with this part of the country as part of expeditions to evict the Indians from the area in the late 1700s. They came in 1798 and settled near the headwaters of the Little Toby, perhaps near today’s Hogback Road. They stayed until 1803 and later moved to the mouth of the Little Toby and built a log house that served as both tavern and trading post. Additional pioneers would paddle, pole and pull canoes and dugouts as far as possible up streams on the other side of the continental divide. In Chauncey Brockway’s autobiography, he writes of poling and pushing a canoe up Sinnamahoning Creek in the middle of November, 1817. It cost him $14 and could carry about 1,200 pounds. He hired two men at $1 a day to help while he, his wife and eight-month-old daughter walked alongside on a bridle path. As the stream grew smaller and lower they had to leave some of their supplies forty miles from their land, and when the water froze, had to leave the rest fourteen miles away and carry what they could. Mr. Brockway went back and retrieved much of his supplies when a warm spell hit in December. It also rained and raised the water level so he could use the canoe. Brockway originally settled in today’s Horton Township but moved to Brandy Camp Creek in Fox Township a few years later. Up the West and Bennett’s Branches of the Susquehanna and then perhaps Kersey or Byrnes Run the settlers came. The stream flow would have been more consistent than today. The vast forests would have absorbed almost all of the plentiful rainwater and released it more slowly, thereby providing deeper, cooler water even during dry spells. The sparkling, crystal clear streams provided sustenance and clean drinking water. They teamed with aquatic life- trout, chubs, and other fish, amphibians, crustaceans and more. Travel overland at first followed Indian trails and slightly improved bridle paths. These trails were narrow and difficult, barely suitable for travel on foot or horseback. They were useful to hunters, trappers and traders, but not for immigrant settlers trying to bring their families and enough supplies to last until they could provide for themselves. Often men would come ahead with not much more than an ox or horse and an axe. They would clear some land, build some shelter and then return for their family. William Kersey, surveyor and land agent for the Fox and Norris Land Company, was to build a road to present Fox Township to provide a way for the purchasers of this land to arrive. Kersey’s road began on the Old State Road, later the Bellefonte-Erie turnpike, between present Curwensville and Luthersburg. This first pike was built by the state to protect “the frontier from the British and Indians” and followed the Native American Chinclecamoose trail. It was opened in 1804 after years of delay, partially caused by the difficult construction conditions. Workers on the road complained that gnats and flies were so thick they “killed the horses.” The road connected Milesburg with Waterford, near Erie, and was important during the War of 1812. Kersey’s thirty-three mile road which opened approximately 1810 -1812 was about as primitive as could be. According to A. M. Clarke, who traveled it in 1818 at age eleven, “it was little more than a path.” The road was just wide enough for a wagon and a team of oxen to pass. Tree stumps cut low remained in the middle of the road, so wagon and cart axles had to be high enough to pass over. In wet swampy areas, the road was corduroyed by cutting and laying logs horizontally across the trail. Legend has it that Kersey had a shelter he used during construction. While away, the workers broke in and helped themselves to his brandy, and then to cover their deed, burned the camp and blamed it on nearby Indians. The area is today ca