History Of The Mahoning Valley

"I noticed particularly, one family of about 12 in number. The man
carried an axe and a gun on his shoulders.  The wife, the rim of a spinning
wheel in one hand, and a loaf of bread in the other.  Several little boys and
girls, each with a bundle, according to their size, two poor horses, each
heavily loaded with some poor necessities.  On the top of the baggage of one,
was an infant rocked to sleep in a kind of wicker cage, latched securely to the horse. A cow formed one of the company and she was destined to bear her
proportion of service - a bed cord was wound around her horns and a bag of meal
on her back. They were not only patient, but cheerful and pleased with
themselves with the expectation of seeing happy days beyond the mountains."
- Diary of Presbyterian Rev. David McClure, 18th century

Mahoning Valley: Where Native Heritage and Early Settlements Collided 

The area called “Mahoning” was the very first location of an early European settlement  “above the Blue Mountain” in today’s Carbon County, PA in 1739.  However, the Native American Indians roamed these hunting grounds long before European settlers arrived.  The Lenape name “Mahoning” means “a stream flowing near a lick.”  Thousands and thousands of artifacts have been found in the Mahoning Valley, attesting to the lucrative hunting and trading that was dominating the 17th and 18th centuries.

When Europeans arrived, the Lenni-Lenape “Wolf Tribe” shared the land and its resources with the early pioneers, shaping the region’s history through both cooperation and conflict.  The Mahoning Valley was first considered part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania up until 1752, from where many of the Quakers migrated.  It then became part of Northampton County.  It was not incorporated into Carbon County until 1843. 

With the establishment of the Moravian Mission of Gnadenhutten along the eastern portion of Mahoning Creek, (today’s) Lehighton, the local tribes joined the Christian Moravians and played a crucial role in helping settlers survive, using their genius hunting skills, in the rugged backcountry of the Mahoning Valley.  They shared their knowledge of the land and their traditions, while also learning new methods of cooking and farming from their Moravian teachers.  The area’s tribal history and their contributions and sacrifices are honored as an integral part of our shared history.

After William Penn’s sons initiated the Walking Purchase, the conflicts started and culminated in the French & Indian War.  The Mahoning Valley had not been part of the Walking Purchase.  Some of the natives left the Moravian mission and started to back the French, against the British Crown who controlled Pennsylvania. The French-backed Indians began plundering the remote frontier farms of the Mahoning Valley and conducting murderous scalping and abductions in the backcountry, where things tended to be “hidden from the city.”  We will likely never know all of the names of those massacred around the Mahoning Valley during those times, except for the Moravians who were buried in the Gnadenhutten Cemetery after the massacre near Lehighton.

The continual attacks caused many of the settlers to abandon their homes and head south, back over the Blue Mountain.  However, quite a few of the Quaker families were tough enough to brave it out in Mahoning.  Most of these Quakers were merchants/traders with the natives.  The Mahoning Valley had long been on the trade route to the north.  The Quakers, were historically known to have had friendly relations with the natives through trade and whose families were friends of Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn.  The natives loved William.  Much of the land in what is now Mahoning Township was first cleared by these early English-speaking Quaker settlers from Bucks County, with names such as Rhoads, Walton, Logan, Gilbert, Thomas, Custard, Griffith, Bigger, Longstreth, Dodson and others.  The very first tavern/store in the Mahoning Valley was built by Quaker, Thomas Walton, son of Boaz Walton, in the late 1770s.  It likely did not last very long, because he died by a fallen tree in 1825.

After the Revolutionary War, many of the early Quaker landowners, who were forced to choose sides and fight (against their religion), lost their land due to siding with Great Britain, which was where they came from.  Later, some of these lands were purchased by Revolutionary War soldiers and military leaders who came to know the area while conducting scouting missions.  Most of these were Pennsylvania Dutch/Germans, including names such as Nothstein, Mertz, Arner, Kemmerer, Horn, Rabenold, Fritz, Steigerwalt, Houser, Peters, and many more.  Col. William Fenstermacher, Esquire, for example, a Revolutionary War veteran, agreed to receive part of his land as payment for his service, as was the practice during the Revolution.  William’s son, Jacob Fenstermacher, built the early Fenstermacher Tavern in 1819 along the Gnadenhutten Trail (Route 902) in New Mahoning. – Written by Cindy Gasper

Many legends have been handed down concerning the tavern and its occupants.  The Indians often stopped at the big spring near Fenstermacher’s as they traveled from the Schuylkill regions toward the Lehigh River (Gnadenhutten Trail). – The Carbon County Panorama 1957 by Ralph Kreamer