A Time Line Of History In The Central Susquehanna Valley

A Time Line Of Local History

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By Town & Subject

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Find an index by subject & town here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/p/history.html

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BY MONTH

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"On This Day In Local History"

JAN    FEB    MAR   APR    MAY    JUNE   JUL   AUG   SEP   OCT   NOV   DEC

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BY YEAR

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1737

• Conrad Weiser came to the valley.  He's frequently referred to as "the first white man to visit the West Branch Valley".  (It's possible that Etienne Brule, who came to America in 1608 with Samuel de Champlain was here first.)

1742 

• Sep 28 1742 - Moravians first visited Shamokin (Now the town of Sunbury)

1748

• December 17th 1748, Chief Shikellamy Died

1755

• Oct 16 The LeRoy Massacre occurred near Penns Creek
• Oct 16th 1755 - Marie LeRoy is captured by Indians. For the next three and a half years, she kept a journal. After her escape, it was published, and can be read here.

1773

• September 17, 1773, the land where Lewisburg is now located was conveyed by deed to Ludwig Derr.

1775

• Fort Titzel (still standing today) was built
• 1775-1784 - A Time Line Of the Susquehanna Valley In The Revolutionary War
• Sept 25 1775 - Connecticut farmers taken prisoner at Warrior Run, three confined at Fort Augusta  This ended the Connecticut Raid.

1777

• The Phrase United States Of America was first used, in York Pa
• The first national Thanksgiving was declared, in York Pa

1778

• July 3 - The Wyoming Massacre
• July 4-12  - The Great Runaway
• A fort was built at Bosley's Mill in Washingtonville
• Sept - Mrs Durham, after leaving Fort Freeland is scalped by Indians - and survives for another 50 years.

1779

• July 29th The Battle Of Fort Freeland  
•  The Residents of Fort Freeland in 1779
• Winter - Fort Rice, a Revolutionary War Fort, was constructed (and still stands!) near Turbotville Pa

1786

• October 1786 - The Pumpkin Flood

1788 

• Oct 1 1788 - The First United States Senators Were Elected.  One of the two from Pennsylvania was William Maclay of Northumberland County

1789

• Sep 19 1789 - Mifflin County erected out of part of Northumberland County

1794

• Sep 29 - The Whiskey Insurrection In Northumberland

1800 

• The Watsontown Ferry Opened

1805

• December 14 1805, a Duel occurred in Montandon Pa

1818

• February 19 - The first bridge, a covered bridge, was built at Lewisburg

1820

• November - The Poetress Of The Confederacy, sister in law of Stonewall Jackson,  was born in Milton Pa

1828 

• Construction of the West Branch Canal Began

1830 - 

• The First Fair In Northumberland County is held in Milton

1833 - 

• October 26 1833 The Lewisbug Cross Cut Canal Was Completed

1834

• October 15 1834  - the first water was let into the West Branch Canal (This conflicts with the history of Lewisburg's cross cut canal.  Perhaps the first water at Williamsport was in 34?)

1835

• The Sodom 8 sided one room school house was built.  (Or maybe it was built in 1815)
• The West Branch Canal Was Completed

1838 

• The Lewisburg Water Works Was Built

1847

• The Great Flood - Carried away the Milton Bridge.
• Michael Sechler, one of George Washington's bodyguards, was buried in Montgomery Pa

1850

• The first mention of the "Fantastics" - a group of Mummers (When Danville Had  A Mummers Parade)

1851 

• James Fuller Queen made a series of sketches of Shamokin PA

1855

• Fall 1855 - The First Bloomsburg Fair Was Held

1857 

• A Rector From Williamsport Pa Wrote We Three Kings
• Frederick Douglass Came To Williamsport For Two Days Of Lectures

1858

• Oct. 14 1858, the newly formed Union County Agricultural Society purchased land in the area known as Brook Park for the Union County Fair. For the next 78 years, the fair would be held there.

1859

• The Union County Fair was first held

1860

• In the 1860s, thousands of Lithuanians fled to the coal region of Central Pa, where they concocted a recipe for Boilo, similar to the Krupnikas drink they had at home.  Each year in coal region, Boilo is still made.
• Aug 24 A Local Chapter of the Wide Wide Awakes Were Organized in Milton Pa
• Sept 21 1860 - There was a great torch light procession of The Wide Awakes.  Hon Franklin Bound & James Pollock were speakers.
• Oct 15 1860, the New Depot of the Sunbury and Erie, now P.R.R., opened at Broadway.

1861

• July Lewisburg Station (Montandon today) was named Cameronia

1865

• Julia Collins wrote The Curse For Caste in Williamsport Pa.  It was the first novel written by an African American woman.
• March 17 - The St Patricks Day Flood

1866

• Oct 1 1866 - James Pollock resigned as director of the mint

1867

• The town of Cameronia changed it's name to Montandon

1869

• August 17 General Grant Passed through Lewisburg Junction (Montandon Pa)
• September - Christopher Sholes, born in Mooresburg, completed his typewriter design
Oct 7 1869 - "David Childs & Francis M. Irwin, two roughs from Montour County, Created a disturbance at the Turbotville Fair. In attempt to arrest them, Irwin shot Robert Montgomery"
• Dec 31 - Mark Twain Visits Williamsport on his lecture tour

1870

• Sep Mrs Savidge of Turbotville was killed when a "coil oil lantern" exploded in her home

1871 

• August Williamsport's Great Conflagration - The Fire of 1871

1872

• January 17 Mark Twain Came To Milton PA
• July 2 James Black, born and educated in Lewisburg Pa, is nominated to run for President of the United States, on the very first Prohibition Party Ticket.

1873

• June 11 - Hope Hose Fire Company in Watsontown was organized

1874 

• October 30th - The Selinsgrove Fire

1875

• July 24 - When A Hot Air Balloon Came To Dewart
Oct 1 1875 - "Clarence Billmeyer of Mexico [Milton area] nearly killed in a hunting accident when he was shot in the brain

1876 

• September - The Body Of A Hessian Soldier is found, still in uniform, in the basement of a Lycoming County Home
• Sep 18 1876 - 1300 citizens of Milton went to Philadelphia to visit the Centennial Celebration.  The town of Danville received the largest souvenir from the event, the train station.  It was torn down at the end of the fair, and rebuilt in Danville, where it still stands today.

1877

• On October 2, 1877, Rosanna Hartman, an eccentric match peddler, was found dead in Rangler's Orchard.

1878

• Oct. 19th 1878 - Eli Slifer Jr Spoke in Watsontown on the Building Of The Amazon Railroad, (Many local men went to Brazil to help build a railroad in the Amazon) Eli Slifers account in his own words can be read here.
• December 26th 1878 - Wanamaker brought electric lighting to his store [today, Macy's, with the historic organ and eagle from the worlds fair still on display] in Philadelphia.  It the first ever department store to do so

1880

• May 14th - The Great Fire That Destroyed Most Of Milton Pa

1881 

• The Steam Tannery Fire in Watsontown

1882

• The first strand of Christmas Tree Lights, in Red, White, And Blue, were strung on a tree in New York City

1883

• Edison Came to Shamokin to build his Electrical Illuminating Company
• Edison Built went from Shamokin to Sunbury, where he built his first working 3 wire light bulb
• April 1 -On April 3 1883, in one day, 110 families, and 8 businesses, moved in Watsontown Pa.  When April 1 was Moving Day - For everyone.
• July 4 -  The City Hotel In Sunbury became the first building in the world to be illuminated using incandescent electric lights.
• Edison visited Turbotville to talk about his new electric lights
• The McClure Bean Soup Suppers (A Civil War Reunion) Began
• December 6th 1883 (or sometime thereabouts) the first tower for the water works was completed in Lewisburg Pa. The bases of the original stand pipe water towers can still be seen in the park by the Lewisburg bridge. (the second tower was added in 1897)

1884

• The David Stroud Fountain In Bloomsburg Pa

1885

• Oct. 23rd 1885 A fake race horse, "Maud S.", was brought to the Washingtonville Fair

1886

• Newspaper Editor Clymer Freas declares the Punxatawney Groundhog the Official Predictor Of The Weather.
• April - A racetrack is constructed at the Milton Fairgrounds
• December 13 1886, The Wilkes Barre & Western Railroad opened for business with two round trips each day from Watsontown to Jerseytown 

1889 

• June 1 - The 1889 Flood
• December 27th 1889, a hurricane destroyed a portion of the new iron bridge across Maynard street in Williamsport. "One of the spans of the massive iron structure had been erected and men were working on the second one when the storm occurred. They hurriedly rushed for he shore and succeeded in reaching it just before the most terrific part of the hurricane occurred. The entire structure was torn from the piers and the iron twisted in every imaginable shape, and the mass landed in the river."

1890

• Frank Delong, born in Washingtonville, Patented a new design for a hook - with a hump. (It made him a millionaire)

1891 

• January 16 - John Runk Visits Milton (When Runk Saved Our Local History)

1893

• May 1st The Chicago Worlds Fair Opened, With John Datesman's Photo Displayed
• On Tuesday April 25, 1893, the Liberty Bell made it's way through the Central Susquehanna Valley, on it's way to the Chicago expedition.

1895

• July 1 Houdini Came To Williamsport With The Welsh Brothers Circus

1897

• The Brutal, Unsolved, Murder of Amos Ritter

1898

• The Starr Family first opened Starr Island Park, now known as Indian Park in Montoursville
• Feb 9 - The first trial run of the LM&W Trolley ran from  Milton to the east end of the river bridge at Lewisburg on February 9 1898.
• Remembering the Susquehanna Valley Men Who Died In The Spanish American War of 1898

1900
September 3 - George Sanderson erected monument (one of the former capital columns) in memory of Wii-Daagh.

1901 

• July 15 - O.H. Reighard Memorial Fountain Unveiled at Brandon Park, Williamsport
• Sept. 16 - President McKinley's Funeral Train Passes Through The Susquehanna Valley

1902

• March 3, Susquehanna River Flooded. The most destructive flood since 1865
• October 2 1902 - Alem Bly single handedly fights off a gang of bandits, in Montoursville
On October 4 1902, there was a "frightful collision" in Milton. A Passenger train ran into a freight train.

1903

• September 26 - Watsontown's W.C.T.U. fountain is dedicated

1904

• March 9 The North Branch Ice Flood

1907 

• July 16 Jumbo, the 1100lb Elk From Billmeyers Preserve in Washingtonville, visited Philadelphia for a week.
• Walter Blair, of Lewisburg, Played For The Yankees (or the team that would become the Yankees)
• The Watsontown Record & Star released a special edition 25th Anniversary Of The Town newspaper.

1908 

• August The Peoples Playground, Rolling Green Park,  Opened
• Jimmy Stewart was born in Indiana Pa
• December 27th 1908 - The Lewisburg Opera House Was Destroyed by Fire

1909

•  February  the Milton Fair Association made the decision to go into liquidation and forever close the Milton Fair. 
• March 26 - Galbraith Moved his  entire news store building from Front Street To Broadway in Milton
October 5 1909 - The 1909 Fire In Dewart

1910

• The  Covered Bridge  Between Milton and Lewisburg Was Torn Down
• April 1910 - "Milton's New Corner" -   Construction began on the three story Milton Realty Building
• May - Lionel Legare's Sprial tower was at Riverside Park in Milton Pa
• May 28 - Riverside Park, The Amusement Park Between Milton & Watsontown, Opened.
• October 1910 - The Danville News reported on the hundreds of squirrels at Billmeyers Elk Park in Washingtonville

1911

• July 24 - Emory Malick, flew the first plane to ever fly over Northumberland and Snyder Counties.  
• Concrete City, in Naticoke Pa, was built
• Dec 15  - Local Inventor Samuel B. McHenry charged with stalking America's Belle

1912

• April 14 - Wealthy Widow Of Bucknell's Namesake Sailed On the Titanic, And Lived To Tell The Story
• Mr Sanders converted his hardware store into a movie theater, in Watsontown
• October 1912 - In October of 1912, John Jay McDevitt, Millionaire For A Day, had a statue made of himself. He then proceeded to very dramatically, with much fanfare, present his statue to cities, including Milton PA. 
• On December 20th 1912, the Lewisburg Journal published the article "From Slavery To Freedom, the Interesting Narrative of the Life Of Charles Bell" Charles Bell , a former slave, had made the trip south to visit his mother after the civil war ended.  On his return trip, heading to Williamsport to work in the lumber industry, he was carrying an ax as he passed through Lewisburg.  Mr. Loomis, the president of Bucknell University, spotted him, and hired him to cut down a tree.  Then he hired him on as the janitor, with Bell being employed by Bucknell for nearly 40 years.  Before his death, he recounted his escape from slavery, and it was published in the Lewisburg Journal.

1913 

• Summer - The Brick Road Between Watsontown and McEwensville is Completed
• Custers New Flour Mill - Later the Rhoads Mill - was built in Milton

1915

• September 24 1915 Geisinger opened in Danville, and the town prepared for an incredible 3 day celebration - which was cancelled due to a Typhoid outbreak 
• Oct 22 Women’s Suffrage Bell arrived in Philadelphia, having finished its tour of Pennsylvania. 

1917 

• Sept 19 1917 - the first drafted men, 50 in total,  left Milton for the National Army.

1918

• November 24 - The Dewart Train Wreck

1919 

• May 21 - Tornado Rips Through Dewart, Destroys School
• My 24 - Sunbury Welcome Home Supplement

1922

• Thomas Edison visited Danville PA
• Edison Returned to Sunbury and Posed With the Sunbury Science Club
• March - The Watsontown Door & Sash Company Burnt Down Again.  (It burnt to the ground 5 times before going out of business)
• Oct 5 1922 - Seven “Noted Speedkings”, Famous Auto Racers, were slated to race on the track in Milton - R. Burr Lampkin, french peugot; Ray Claypool, speedway haynes; Floyd William, Monroe Special ; E. King, Brisco 90; Cleo Sarles, Mooney Special; F.R. McDonald, Special Essex 

1923

• The Grampian Hills Cross in williamsport
• June 4 The Northumberland Covered Bridge Burned
• The Lewisburg Water Towers Were Torn Down
• The Cinder Buggy, a historical fiction novel by Garet Garrett , set in Danville pa, was published.
• Artist J. Wesley Little died, in Picture Rocks 

1924 

• November 24 The Dewart Train Wreck Of 1918

1925

• September - George Shimer Jr Burns down the Milton Fairgrounds, ending the fair.
• October 8th 1925 - The New York Yankees Played the Detroit Tigers, in Bloomsburg (And Also in Mt Carmel, on the 7th)
• October 9 Houdini Came To Williamsport To Expose Fake Mediums

1928

• Jan - Will Rodgers Landed in a field in Beaver Springs Pa, and wrote about it in the Saturday Evening Post
• February 3 - Milton Silk Mill Worker Seeks $10,000 Husband
• September A Delaware Indian Chief dedicated the memorial to John Brady, near Montandon Pa
• Industries Of Danville, Christmas 1928

1929

• May - Amelia Earhart made a surprise landing in Hughesville Pa
• June 19 - Montgomery Island Park Opened in Milton
• September - Amelia Earhart made a surprise landing, with her mother, in Sunbury Pa

1930

• Sometime in the 1930s, Jim Thorpe Visited Hughesville Pa

1934

• Winter Wonderland was written by a Honesdale man

1936

• John Wilson, of Watsontown, filed a patent for his Wilson Walkie Toys
• March 16 - The 1936 Flood

1937

• July 22 - The Lewisburg Auction (Farmers Market) Began

1938

• September 4 The Whistlers Mother Statue is Installed In Ashland Pa
• December 13 1938, John Wilson of Watsontown was granted a patent for his Wilson Walkie toys.
• December 13 - The Montgomery Police Chief Was Killed By A Madman

1940 

• May 1939 - The King & Queen Of England passed through the valley, with their pilot train breaking down near Montgomery Pa
• September 24 - Murder In Milton - The Chalfont House

1942

• The Federal Government seized the town of Alvira, and nearby lands, to build a munitions facility.  (The Bunkers are still there and can be explored today)
• The Government Took Over Danville Steel For The War Effort 
• December 7th, 1942, in the early morning hours, a man from Williamsport, stationed in Hawaii, spotted a large group of planes on the radar, headed their way. He raised the alarm, but his superior, believing the planes were their own b17s returning from the mainland, told Lockard not to worry about it. 55 minutes later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began. Pearl Harbor Joe.

1945

• June 15 - Milton's Deadliest Train Wreck

1946

• Aug 7 - Formal Groundbreaking For The Sunbury Floodwall

1947

• April - H. Beam Piper first published his short science fiction story Time & Time Again, which took place in Williamsport Pa
• Jimmy Stewart, still suffering from PTSD from his time in the War, Starred in It's a Wonderful Life.
• Milton's First Drive In - The Red Arrow, Now The Arrowhead - Opened.
• Oct 19 1947- There were “Hot Rod Auto Races” at the Montandon Speedway
• December 5th 1947- The First Berwick Boulevard Christmas Display

1949

• Sept. 29th - The Danville Morning News ran 6 pages on the 50th Anniversary of Newman's Men Store.

1951

• Montgomery's Swimming Pool Closed

1952  

• The Silvermoon Drive In Theater Opened, and illegally showed movies on Sunday nights for several years.

• June  - Farmers Organize Benefit for new Hospital In Lewisburg

• October - Harry Miele, Harry Nixon & Benjamin Pulizzi had 12 acres of land cleared along route 15 for the Pike Drive In Movie Theater.

1954

• January 7th - An Airforce Plane Crashed Into A  Home In Muncy

1955

• Fall - The Hilgert House (Beside Spangler Motors) was sold to the Milton Municipal Authority, for the new sewer plant to be built across the road.

1956

• January 24 The 8th Street School in Watsontown Had A Fire

1957

• June 21 - The Flying Farmers Land In Milton
• July 5  - The Fire In Turbotville

1959

• Dec 1 - Allegheny Airlines Flight 371 Crashed into the side of Bald Eagle Mountain

1961

• The Montgomery/Muncy Old Shoe football trophy tradition began

1962

• May 26, or 27 - A Fire In The Landfill Started the Underground Mine Fire in Centralia (which still burns today)

1965

• The Lewisburg Auction Fire
• July 23  - Crash of a Convair CV-440 Metropolitan in Williamsport
• December 9th 1965, an unidentified object, "a large fireball", was spotted in the sky. Sightings were made in Canada, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The object dropped slowly into a wooded ravine near Kecksburg in Westmoreland County Pa. Military personal quickly arrived on the scene, and a military flat bed vehicle was seen to be leaving the area with a "large bell shaped object" on it's trailer.

1972

• January 1972 - The Campus Lanes Fire In Lewisburg
• June 22 - The 1972 Flood
• June 22- George Hufnagle died while attempting to rescue others in the 1972 flood.  Hufnagle Park is named for him.

1974 

• August 10 - When 4 Inmates Crashed Through The Prison Gates & Held My Great Grandmother Hostage
• December 18  - The Guyer House is moved from the "dumb-built circle" in Shamokin Dam

1977

• September - Milton's First Tomato Harvest Festival
October 1977 - The Fireman's Statue was dedicated in Sunbury Pa
• November - The Montandon Hotel (Built in 1859) Burned

1978 

• Dec. 5th The Hadany Arch is completed, at the Lycoming Mall

1985

• June 15 - The Texas Rocket comes to Elysburg Pa & is rebuilt and renamed the Phoenix
• May 31 - When A Deadly Tornado Ripped Through Our Valley

1986

• July  - A Replica Of the Statue Of Liberty appears at the Dauphin Narrows near Harrisburg
• July 16 - A Plane Crashed on the mountain near Lock Haven, and it's still on the mountain

1996

• The Street Lamp Memorials were placed in Dewart Pa
• When 21 Montoursville Citizens Perished In An Airplane Crash

2004

• September 19 - The Milton Flood

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https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/p/history.html