Valley Girl Views: The Freeland County Proposal Of 1850 - When Milton & Watsontown almost left North'd County

Freeland County, as proposed in 1850, and mapped in 1855

If an 1850 proposal had gone differently, I'd be writing this post from my home in Freeland County Pa.

On January 17th 1850, an effort was made to form a new county out of the upper end of Northumberland parts of others, to be known as Freeland County

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Legislature, having recently created Montour County, decided not to create yet another county. "Watsonburg" and the surrounding areas, instead were to remain as part of Northumberland County.

The matter was being discussed in the papers in 1849.

In 1850, the citizens of Northumberland County lying between" the northern range of Montour ridge and the outlet of Chilisquaque creek and our county's boundary line on the Muncy Hills" were in favor of a new county, to be called "Freeland County".

February 1850

That same year, a large portion of the people of Columbia County had petitions before the state legislature asking for a new county to be formed. On May 3 1850, those petitions were granted, and Montour County was formed.

The people of Northern Northumberland County petitioned the same legislature for their new county, to be called Freeland. The petitions for Freeland County was drawn by J.F. Wolfinger Esq, or Milton. In February 1850, the bill was sent to Senator Robert M. Frick. The petition was reported to be "warmly received" and signed by numerous citizens of Milton, Lewisburg, and other parts of the proposed county.

An article in the Chronicle in April 1850 makes it clear that not everyone was in favor of the proposal.

Col Silfer, for one, was firmly opposed. "But as a citizen of Old Union, whose territory was to be unceremoniously carved up for the 'gods and little fishes' of Freeland, we must say that we are glad the Col. has the firmness and good faith to adhere to the written, published, pledge he gave on this subject las fall. All of the townships of this county, except two, are resolutely opposed to a division"

Note that the above article ran in the same newspaper that 5 years later took "considerable pains and expense to draw, lithograph, and color the accompanying diagram of the counties - Union, Snyder, and Northumberland - as they would be with the five upper districts of the latter county "re-annexed" to the first". See the Diagram below:

On October 5 1855, both the Lewisburg Chronicle and West Branch Farmer [a Milton Newspaper] published a "map of Union County as it would be with the addition of the upper end of Northumberland County", "showing every clearly to the eye that Freeland County would form a good sized and neatly shaped county, without doing any injury to the surrounding counties."

According to the 1855 article in the [Milton] West Branch Farmer, and Lewisburg Chronicle:

"A glance at the Map will show that the proposed arrangement would leave the three counties of proper shape, nearly equal in size, and homogeneous in business interest as they would be in population.

Union would then be one large valley both side of the river, bounded on three sides by mountains, and could easily spare New Berlin & Jackson if they desired, to Snyder County; and the restoration of the original county line would add a handsome township to the North."

The legislature refused to "grand the thing prayed for", and since that, "no effort has been made to have any changed to our old county lines of Northumberland and Union.", according to an 1888 historian.

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