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The Oswayo Valley had one of the best and most extensive
white pine forests in all Pennsylvania. The Indians had long known the
region as the place of pines. The name Oswayo is the English derivative
of the Seneca word “0-sa-ayeh,” meaning pine forest. This forest
reached from the Allegheny below Portville to the headwaters of Oswayo
Creek, overflowing into the upper valleys of the Allegheny and the
Genesee.
The trees stood so close together that no underbrush
could live, except an occasional clump of laurel, as they towered up to
almost unbelievable heights of 100 to 150 feet. They were often four;
five or even six feet in diameter at the base and the lowest branches
were from 50 to 75 feet above the ground.
The first sawmill in this vast forest was that of Francis
King at Ceres in 1798. It was not long until other
crude mills were busily at work. Often the saw was the only metal in
the mill and this merely a long band of steel with teeth cut into one
edge. It worked up and down as a hand saw is used. If a log was
especially large, 20 or 30 minutes were required to saw off one board.
Some logs were rafted to Pittsburgh and others were
banked and rolled into the water during the spring floods to be floated
down to Weston Brothers’ mill at
Portville. By the time of the War of the Rebellion [Civil War] the best
of the pine forests in the Oswayo Valley was gone. In 1879, there were
not over 1,000 acres of virgin white pine left in the Oswayo Valley.
1889 saw the last run of pine logs down the stream to the big mills.
Early in 1829, two settlers moved into the Oswayo
Valley. William Shattuck located
outside the village, while Thomas Peabody
constructed a cabin on the south side of the stream in what was later
to become the village. John Wells
came in the latter part of 1829 or early in 1830 and started a potash
factory or ashery about a half mile above the village. He would haul
his finished products to Rochester and exchange it for groceries, which
he would sell to his neighbors.
Also in 1830, Noah Crittenden came
from Springwater Township, NY, and settled within the future borough
limits. He built the first sawmill in the village to manufacture pine
lumber in 1845. He did not use the stream to transport his lumber;
instead he hauled it 75 miles to Dansville, NY., and sold it for $7.00
a thousand. The round trip took four days.
Emphasizing the conditions under which the pioneers
lived and their dependence upon others for dire necessities occurred
early in the history of the village. Soon after building his cabin, Peabody
was forced to go six miles to Allen’s
house in Clara Township for fire to light his hearthstone. On returning
he gave the cinders to his children to build the fire and went to look
for his cows. Later securing the cows, he found the fire had gone out
and he made the second trip to Allen’s. This time he set fire to pieces
of dry wood along his trail.
By the year 1834, Sheldon Bradley
was maintaining a hotel for travelers. The township assessors’ list for
the same year gave the names of 13 resident taxpayers and the census of
1840 showed a population of 101. In 1840, a log schoolhouse was built
and seven years later the school had been removed and William
McDougall had built a store there.
The nucleus of the town had been well established in the
days before the Civil War. Early settlers earned their living
harvesting the white pine. Since it was of high quality, Pittsburgh and
cities along the Ohio specified “Oswayo White Pine.” Several saw mills
in the village cut the trees into boards and timbers to be splashed out
on the high waters.
The village was first called Brindleville.
Thomas Gale, one of the
early settlers, is said to have had a span of brindle oxen, which was
sufficiently unique to warrant the naming of the town in their honor.
The name was probably fixed as Oswayo upon the establishment of the
first Post Office some time prior to 1850.
The village of pre-tannery days comprised C.
A. Pinneo’s steam saw mill, G.
W. Tyler’s saw and shingle mills, W.
Deiter’s shingle mill, the Oswayo Hotel, general
stores of S. Beebe, W. Wells
and W. McDougall and the grocery store of J.
Haskins. There were offices for three doctors and four
attorneys: W. B. Graves, W. Colegrove,
H. Snath and W. M. Wilber. Smith
& Jones operated a wagon and blacksmith shop; there
were two boot and shoe shops, a cooper shop, an undertaker and two
resident ministers.
Construction of the tannery began early in 1877 upon ten
acres of land obtained from Thomas Crittenden. Sorenberger
& Gray completed the tannery and started its
operation but sold it to the P. H. Costello Company
in 1879. The Costello Company built homes for the employees, which were
later owned by the workers. Lapham & Company purchased the
Costello holdings when Costello moved to North Wharton. The last owner
was the Penn Tanning Company, which purchased the property in 1893. The
tannery was destroyed by fire on June 20, 1903.
When the village was organized into a borough in March
1901, there were probably about 1,000 people living in the new
municipality. The tannery was running to capacity and employed about
100 men. In 1899, the Pennsylvania Stave Company had built a plant
below the tannery for the manufacture of barrel staves. A heading mill,
employing between 70-75 men, began in 1901. More men were working in
the woods getting out logs and bark for the industries.
The streets were, of course, unpaved and during periods
of wet weather were nothing but knee-deep mud. However there were good
board walks on each side and also two or three cross walks made of
planks across Main Street allowing citizens to get from one side to the
other without getting completely mired.
To the village of Oswayo belongs the credit for having
the first graded school in the county. This was opened in 1866 and
continued until 1876 when the building burned. Afterward the good
citizens decided they preferred to have two one-teacher schools of all
grades rather than require the children to walk the extra distance to a
graded school. However a school was built in 1893 on the north end of
School Street with four classrooms and a spacious hall. Local people
were justly proud of this school and its teachers.
This interest in schools was a factor in the
organization of the borough. As long as the village was part of the
township, no more than two or three board members lived within the
village with the remainder scattered all over the township. Under the
borough all six members of the Board were residents of Oswayo where
they had a common interest in the school.
They maintained a three-year high school until the mid
1920’s. After a fire the building was renovated and became a two-room
school, which operated until 1947. A one-teacher school was kept until
1955 when all grades were bused to Shinglehouse as part of the Oswayo
Valley School System.
The Seventh Day Baptists were the first to hold regular
services in the area. Before 1834, a Mr. Avery
preached the Baptist doctrine to the first settlers. The Baptists
organized a building committee and had the frame of a church completed
in 1877 when, for lack of funds, the building was abandoned. In 1859,
the Methodist Church was built on Main Street and for over 40 years was
the only church building in Oswayo. The United Brethren finally became
strong enough to build a church on School Street in 1903 but the
Catholic Church never materialized.
Tragedy struck the village on November 18, 1900, when
fire destroyed the McGonigal House along with the
hotel barns and Opera House. Four persons perished in the flames, which
were credited to an over-pressure of gas.
The early 1900’s were twenty years away from such
entertainment as radio and forty years from television. After supper
there was little to do but sit at home and read or listen to talking
machines. The Oswayo Cornet Band met every Tuesday night for rehearsals
and on Friday evenings gave a concert in the Payne
& Estes Hall over the store for which they
charged an admission of ten cents (or whatever you were able to pay)
until they earned enough for uniforms.
On other evenings the young folks paired off and
strolled the sidewalks or sat in porch swings until the girl’s mother
called her in. Since workdays were ten hours for six days in the week,
sparking time was short as workers began their daily strife at seven
the next morning.
Among the old time residents of Oswayo were: Mr.
[A. B.] Payne (postmaster) and A. B. Estes,
who ran the largest general store; W. W. Crittenden,
local businessman who represented Potter County in the General
Assembly; Walter Wells Sr., leading merchant and
postmaster; John Lee, landlord of the Lee Hotel; Harry
Lord, lawyer, merchant and justice of the peace; Samuel
Beebe, pension attorney; Ansel Smith, lay
preacher; Ernest Rice musician; Ernest
Mills, druggist; and Arthur Wells, one of
the later merchants, became the community’s unofficial banker and
storekeeper.
Fred Blackman
began printing a weekly newspaper in 1900, which he named “The Oswayo
Valley Record.” The paper folded in March 1902 and the equipment was
removed to Port Allegany to be used by the Argus.
The New York & Pennsylvania Railroad extended
its lines to Oswayo in 1894 where it served the tannery, stave mill,
the local businesses and farmers. It gave the residents a connection
with the outside world as they ran four passenger trains each day. As
business declined and the automobile began to usurp passenger traffic,
business for the railroad fell off and the line was abandoned in June
of 1936.
Oswayo probably reached its peak in population of 1000
or more during the later years of the 1890’s. Since it was then part of
the township, the number of residents can only be estimated. It was not
counted as a borough until 1910 and the census then showed only 382
residents. By this time the population had begun to decline rapidly as
the total population for the borough and township was 700 less than the
township population in 1900. The tannery had been destroyed by fire in
1903 and the stave plant, last industry, closed in 1916. By 1920 the
census showed only 209 residents.
The town, which had once boasted of 20 business places
on Main Street, was reduced to a village smaller than the one that
existed previous to the Civil War. Some residents commute by automobile
to work in other towns while others are still engaged in agriculture or
logging. A State Fish Cultural Station, located above the village, now
gives employment to a number of area residents.
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