New Berlin, Union County Pennsylvania

 

The Borough of New Berlin is located in central Pennsylvania on the southern edge of Union County along the north side of Penns Creek.  Penns Creek is the dividing lines between Union and Snyder Counties. In 1782, the area along Penns Creek that is today New Berlin was known as Longstown.

 Union County was erected from Northumberland County March 22, 1813, with nearby Mifflinburg being made the  first county seat.  New Berlin became the second seat of the Union County Government. The first Courthouse built specifically for that purpose was completed in 1815. [the county seat was moved to Lewisburg in 1855]

The New Berlin Heritage Association on Facebook

Ripped From The Headlines:
Homer Remmer Of New Berlin, Murdered In Milton

 

Skating On Penns Creek, With The Covered Bridge In The Background

The New Berlin Covered Bridge

Union Seminary

Ice Harvest on Penns Creek, With The New Berlin Grist Mill in the background

Memorial Day Parade in New Berlin, 1909

EVENTS

New Berlin Gristmill

The three story masonry gristmill in New Berlin was built between 1816 and 1823 by George Orwig and George Eisenhuth. It was later purchased by Solomon Kelckner, whose son Joseph follwed him in the business. In 1918 the mill was converted to the Hartman Power Plant.  It was torn down by 1935.  The Legion is located in this area today.

Blacksmith & Buggy Shop

In June of 1843, Josiah Schweinhart announced the opening of his new business.  Schweinhart and John S. Heimbach made buggies, sulkies and barouches, with an attached blacksmith shop. They were located one door east of Baum's Hotel. Schweinhart later patented for a new single-tree and locking apparatus.

New Berlin Railroad Station

New Berlin Creamery

Frank L. Maurer, owner of the creamery,  sold butter, eggs and poultry from a locaiton on Walnut & Market Streets.Charles Oldt collected the milk from local farmers.  Maurer also operated a general store at front and Vine Streets. In 1917, the Creamery was purchased by Harry McClow, who ran it until 1924.

New Berlin Churches

Union Hotel, New Berlin

June 17 1920 - Tornado in New Berlin flattened the barn of Christopher Seebold [Crystal Springs Farm]

Auction at New Berlin Heritage Days

New Berlin Band

New Berlin Fire Company

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MAPS
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New Berlin on the 1856 Map Of Union County

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New Berlin Newspapers:

1816 “The Union” (New Berlin)
1834-1835 “Union Annalist” (New Berlin) 

1834-1855 “Union Times” (New Berlin)

1835-1837 “Anti-Masonic Star” (New Berlin) 

1841 “The Union Star” (New Berlin)

1847 “Good Samaritan” (New Berlin)

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In 1792 George Long, a German from Lancaster County, finally accomplished what colonists had tried to achieve for four decades: a permanent settlement on Penns Creek (the apostrophe was removed by act of legislature in 1802). Longa Stettle (in English, Long's Town) evoked medieval small towns familiar to his German clientele. The town plat laid out by Frederick Evans exhibited intelligence and foresight. A commons on the north side of Penns Creek (now a park) provided pastureland for livestock and insured public access to the river trade on the Susquehanna, while the valley on the south side was available for cultivation. The town's first center consisted of a widening of the two blocks of Old Market Street (now Front Street) between Plum and Union streets. When New Berlin was made the county seat in 1813, the town added a civic center to its commercial one. The courthouse, county offices, and jail were situated one block up the hill on a new Market Street (PA 304), the broad road built across the county by Philadelphian Reuben Haines in 1766. German congregations constructed the red brick Reformed (1825), Lutheran (1868), and Evangelical (1873) churches on the new Market Street between Union and Plum streets. At the east end of the new market square, two blocks were set back for vendors who flocked to the county seat. A mill built in 1816 was refitted to produce electricity in 1918, but there never was any heavy industry in New Berlin. When the county seat relocated to Lewisburg in 1855, the economy suffered a setback but endured and changed very little over the next century. - https://sah-archipedia.org/essays/PA-02-0004-0002-0002

Union Hotel, New Berlin

Philip Franck (Frank) was active as a clockmaker ca. 1830 

in New Berlin, Union County, Pennsylvania

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New Berlin Area Settlers

by James R. Ritter

When the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, there was no celebration in New Berlin. There was no shooting of fireworks, no parade down Market Street. There was, in fact, no New Berlin, not even a Union County.

The entire New Berlin and Union County area was at that time a part of Northumberland County, which had been created four years earlier from parts of Berks, Bedford, Lancaster, Cumberland, and Northampton Counties. Northumberland County, formed on March 21, 1772, stretched from Pike County at the head of the Lehigh River on the east to Lake Erie on the west, and from the New York border on the north, south to the mouth of Mahantango Creek.

In 1776 the frontier began on the western side of the Susquehanna River. The people who crossed the river during this period were true pioneers. They were moving into an unknown area where land had to be cleared, crops planted, and log houses built. With all this work the future was still cloudy since Indian trouble could break out at any time.

The �Great Treaty� which William Penn had signed with the Indians in 1682 made Pennsylvania the most Peaceful of all the colonies. Voltraire noted that this �Great Treaty� was �the only treaty not sworn to and never broken� However, Voltraire would live to know of the first Indian uprising in the State of Pennsylvania, which occurred in the New Berlin area.

This uprising, which has become known as the Penn�s Creek massacre, occurred on October 16, 1755. The body of John Jacob LeRoy, (alias Jacob King) was found by his cabin two miles southwest of New Berlin with two tomahawks embedded in his forehead. His two children, Jacob and Mary LeRoy were taken captive. They also captured Barbara and Rachel Leininger who lived one half mile from the LeRoys, shot a neighbor named Bastian, and scalped him. At the same time, Peter Lick and his two sons, John and William, were captured by the Indians about one mile west of New Berlin on Switzer Run. Two miles east of New Berlin, at Murray Kline�s home, was Brylinger�s improvement, named for Jacob Breylinger. His wife Hannah and two children were captured by the Indiana, and one child died before they were released.

The Penn�s Creek Massacre accomplished what the Indians had intended. It forced all settlers on the west side of the Susquehanna to flee their homes. They would not attempt to cross the river in any number for fourteen years.

There were a few isolated settlers scattered throughout the area in 1768. On Sunday, January 10, 1768, Frederick Stump, without provocation, killed six Indians at the mouth of Middle Creek, three miles south of Selinagrove. He made a hole in the ice and threw their bodies into the creek. Fearing that word of his deeds would get to other Indians, he proceeded along Middle Creek to the present site of Middleburg where two Indian cabins were located. He found four Indians, including a woman, two girls, and a child, and killed them all. He then burned their cabins with the bodies inside. Stump was captured and jailed for these deeds before he escaped and fled the area.

In 1768 there was only one family in the vicinity of New Berlin. William Gill lived in what is now Snyder County at the mouth of Tuscarara Creek, one mile west of New Berlin. He had enlisted in Forbes Regiment of Bucks County and was later wounded in the leg at either Grants defeat (September 14, 1758) or the attack on Boquets Camp at Loyualhanna. wounded with the bullet in his leg, he started to walk home and had to eat wild grass along the way. When he reached the location where Tuscarara Creek enters Penns Creek, he stopped and settled: later he married a German woman. Eight years later, in 1776, he joined and served in Captain Clarke�s Company. In 1794, a man named William Gill was listed on living in Beaver Township, Thirty-six years later, during the war of 1812, one of his sons was drafted, but for some reason could not serve, the father, now an old man, went to Sunbury with his son and asked to be substituted for him. His patriotism was well known and officials rewarded him by discharging his son. His grandson, Jacob Gill, did serve in Captain Middlesworth�s Company in 1814. Six years later, in 1820, William Gill died.

On April 3, 1769, the land office was opened for real estate on the west side of the Susquehanna River. Application number 880 went to George Albrecht and his wife Christina of Heidleberg Township, Lancaster County, for 300 acres of land situated on Penns Creek in Buffalo Township, Northumberland County. On December 19, 1771, William McClay surveyed a tract of land known as �Alba Jula�, containing 226 acres and 25 perches. This land, which was to become New Berlin, was granted by a Proprietary Patent on July 8, 1774, and recorded at Philadelphia in Book AA, Vol 14, page 551, on July 22, l774.George Albrecht (Albright), owned this land until 1788 but there is no record of his ever moving into the area.

In 1769, John Beatty was listed as living on the spring north of New Berlin. The Beatty family was associated with the New Berlin area for almost the next hundred years. This John Beatty may have been the son of Alexander Beatty, Sr. and the brother of Hugh, Alexander Jr. and James. In 1775, Alexander Beatty is shown as a new inhabitant of Buffalo Township with 30 acres, 2 horses, and 2 cows. His son Hugh, was listed as living at the Thomas Sutherland residence. In 1776, John Beatty was a member of Captain John Clarke�s Company in the American Revolution. During the Indian troubles, many settlers fled to Beatty�s place on the Penns Creek, 1 mile east of New Berlin, where Donald Spangler now lives. At that time it was a one and one half story sandstone house with a spring on the outside that flowed through the basement before entering a stream there were hole in the walls thorough which guns could be shot at the Indians.

Alexander Beatty, Sr. was running the first tannery in the valley of the present site of New Berlin when he died in 1787. His children were Jane, Agnes, Hugh, John, Hannah, Sarah, James and Alexander, Jr. In 1794, Hugh Beatty was listed with the first inhabitants of New Berlin. By 1799 James Beatty had died, since his wife Ann is listed as a widow of that time. James and Ann Beatty had the following children; Anne, who married James Cook; Mary (Polly) Beatty; Hannah, married to Joseph A. Taylor; and Nancy (Agnes), married to Matthew Bonner. Ann and Nancy Bonner were their daughters, Ann Bonner married Dr. Flinn and in 1868 they were living on the north side of the road at the intersection of Front and Market Streets on the east side of town. Ann Beatty, widow of James, died in 1846 at the age of 79, and is buried in the New Berlin graveyard. John Beatty, the first settler at the spring north of New Berlin, died in 1809 at Lewisburg where he had lived since 1800. The first school in the New Berlin area was built about 1800 on Beatty�s land on the northeast corner of Front and Cherry Street. By 1816, Hugh Beatty had moved to Hartley Township, and Alexander, Jr. with wife Anne, had moved to Ontario County, New York. On March 4, 1829, Jane Beatty, the daughter of Alexander, Sr. died at the age of 62.

Another early settler in the New Berlin area was George Overmier who settled on the east side of Swetzer Run about 1771. This �Mr. George Obermayer� arrived at Philadelphia on the ship �Brothers�, which had sailed from Rotterdam under the leadership of Captain William Muir. he signed the Declaration of Fidelity and Abjutation at the Philadelphia Court House on Monday, September 16, 1751. These oaths were required of all Germans that they should be loyal to the English King and English rules. Mr. Overmeir had left his home at Nentzlinger, Anspach, Bavaria, Germany, with some education. He was able to sign his name, while one third of his fellow passengers could not do this simple task. In 1760 he married Barbara Fought, the daughter of Jonas Fought.

Jonas Fought died on August 7, 1790, in Buffalo Township, and his living children were Barbara, Eva, Anna, Elizabeth, and Michael. Michael Fought was a Revolutionary soldier who died in February 1832 in Union Township. Michael�s wife was Elizabeth, and their children were John, Michael, Johas, George, Jacob, Henry, Samuel, Barbara (Mrs. Solomon Kline)Elizabeth (Mrs. John Huber), Rebecca (Mrs. Peter Mathias) Catherine (Mrs. Simon Walter), Susan (Mrs. Andrew George), and Hannah (Mrs. Philip Walter, the mother of Daniel and Henry).

The 1770 assessment for Paxton Township(now Dauphin County), listed George Overmier. In 1771, Mr. Overmier moved to his father-in-law�s land on the north side of Penns Creek and the east bank of Switzer Run. Here a sturdy two story home was built measuring 30 feet by 30 feet. Many logs a foot thick and some two feet wide were used for construction. A porch was on the east side facing the road. A cellar was under half of the house. There was a small arch in the center of the basement wall to allow water from a spring (Silver Spring) to flow diagonally across the cellar floor and discharge into Swetzer Run. This provided fresh water in case the Indians surrounded the house. When the Indian raids began, many people fled to Overmier�s Fort, as this house was affectionately known. In 1772, George Overmier was a Grand Juror from Buffalo Township. By 1775 he was cultivating 40 acres and had 2 horses, 2 cows, and 2 sheep. On August 31, 1776, field officers in Buffalo and Penns Townships were chosen and on October 8, 1776 were commissioned as the Fourth Battalion of Northumberland. Captain George Overmier� s Sixth Company consisted of two Lieutenants, one Ensign, four Sergeants, four Corporals, one Drummer, one Filer, and forty Privates as of September 26, 1776. George Overmier, Jr. was also listed as a private in the First Company under Captain, John Clarke. On February 13, 1777, George Overmier was selected to represent Buffalo Township on the Northumberland County Safety Committee which was to divide Buffalo Township, but due to the Indian trouble no action was taken on the proposal. In 1780, both George Overmiers Senior and Junior were listed as residents of Buffalo Township.

When four men were killed in an Indian attack on French Jacob�s Mill at Forest Hill on May 16, 1780, the dead were carried to Overmier�s and buried in the old graveyard on the bluff opposite Tuscarara Creek. In 1781 Captain George Overmier was the leader of the first Battalion. Northumberland County Militia. On May 6, 1782, two men were killed by Indians about two miles south of Miflinburg in the neighborhood of the road leading to Middleburg. They also were buried in the graveyard near Overmier� s home. In 1783 George Overmier was Overseer of the poor for

Buffalo Township. On August 21, 1793, George Ovennier, a trustee for the Lutheran Church and John Frey, trustee for the Reformed Church, purchased from George Long, the lot on which the Reformed Church now stands, for five shillings. On July 2, 1795, George Overmier bought from George Long Lot 16 where Shower�s store is now located. In 1796 George Overmier Sr. and George Jr. and Peter, were inhabitants of East Buffalo, while son John was a resident of New Berlin.

In 1805 Captain George Overmier, soldier and Indian fighter died. His children were George Jr., Peter, John, Philip, David, Jacob, Catharine, Elizabeth, who married Mathias Benner on June 5, 1825, Margaret (dead), Eve, Esther, Magdalena, and Barbara. The rifle and shot pouch he carried in the Revolutionary War and while fighting the Indians, he left to his son Jacob. Tradition has George Overmier�s grave on his farm in a now unmarked location. According to Lynn�s Annals, the graveyard on the bluff overlooking Penns Creek was not used after 1791, when it was the property of Thomas Barber. By 1814, Philip and David Overmier had moved to Center Township, Snyder County. Later David would teach in a German-English school in a log schoolhouse, in Spring Township.

In 1772 there was another settler named Martin Tresler in Buffalo Township applying for a Tavern License. Also, a place called �Treslers� was located in Snyder County at the mouth of Tuscarara Creek one mile west of New Berlin. in 1773 Martin Tresler was a supervisor for Buffalo Township. This same year Martin and his brother Michael were found guilty of assault and battery. On August 27, 1775, Nehemiah Bresse surveyed a small island nearby opposite Martin�s house, and another island one half mile below his house. In 1775 Martin Tresler, Jr. and Michael Tresler are shown as inhabitants of Snyder County. Martin, Sr. in 1776 was selected from Buffalo Township to serve on the Committee of Safety, and in 1777 and 1778 he was selected as a Constable of Buffalo. In 1778 George Martin and Jacob Tresler were inhabitants of Snyder County. In 1780 both Martin, Sr. and Martin, Jr., were inhabitants of Buffalo Township. Martin, Jr. found a rifle which was thought to belong to the Indian who had been killed at the spring north of New Berlin in 1780 by Elizabeth Klinesmith. William Tresler was an inhabitant of Buffalo in 1781, and John and Jacob Tresler were privates in Lieutenant Peter Grove�s Detachment. In 1782, Martin Tresler, Sr. died. In I 782Martin Tresler, Jr. signed a petition against a dam across Penns Creek at Selinagrove. In 1793 Michael Tresler built a sawmill. Martin Tresler became a resident of New Berlin in 1796 and listed his occupation as a carpenter. By 1867 all Treslers had moved from the New Berlin area, although relatives remained in portions of Union and Snyder Counties.

In 1776 the following inhabitants were located between Dry Valley and White Springs along the New Berlin Mountain (Shomokin Mountain).

Alexander Beatly -------------------------------- East of New Berlin

Hugh Beatty ------------------------------------- East of New Berlin

Henry Bickel ------------------------------------ North of Dry Valley

James Boveard ---------------------------------- Dry Valley area

Martin Drelsbach ------------------------------- Drelsbach Church

David Emerick ---------------------------------- Dry Valley area

Jonas Fought ------------------------------------ Dry Valley area

Samuel Hunter ---------------------------------- Two miles east of New Berlin

Philip Hoy --------------------------------------- At LeRoy�s

Baltzer Klinesmith ----------------------------- Other side of the mountain

George Overmier ------------------------------- Switzer Run

Thomas Sutherland ---------------------------- Dry Valley Area

Adam Smith ------------------------------------ White Springs

Christina Shively ------------------------------ White Springs

John Shively ----------------------------------- White Springs

Samuel Young --------------------------------- Dry Valley area

Within two years the Indians would attack again; Henry Bickel, David Emerick, John Shively, and a child of Jonas Fought, Baltzer Klinesmith, would all be killed. In 1778 the �Great Runaway� would occur, when most of the settlers would have to flee their homes in the New Berlin area for the second time in twenty-three years. This time the Indians did not achieve their purpose. The well built houses, such as those of Overmier and Beatty, became forts. The men fought bravely and by late 1782 the settlers were coming back again, this time to stay.