This week we showcase Clinton County which is located in the
heart of the Susquehanna’s West Branch valley. Founded in 1839 this county has
898 square miles of land area. Its largest city is Lock Haven which is the home
of Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. Bucktail State Park Natural Area is a
75 mile scenic route from Emporium in Cameron County to Lock Haven. At the
Hyner View State Park located at the western edge of the county one can witness
a breathtaking view of the West Branch valley and its sparsely populated mountains
leading into the Ohio country. Clinton County is situated at the extreme
southern end of the Deep Valleys Section, a rugged and deeply dissected plateau
composed of shale and sandstone rock. Its principal creeks are Kettle, Young
Womans and, Sinnemahoning, which drain into the West Branch river at Keating,
Pennsylvania.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries,
Clinton County was denuded of its primary forests by loggers who harvested huge
stands of Eastern White Pine, Hemlock, and later a host of other tree species.
Eastern White Pine was cut commercially for ship spars and the leather
industry used various components, especially the bark, for tanning cow and buffalo
hides. Williamsport was a logging capitol and one of the more prosperous hide
tanning facilities was at Phillipsburg in western Centre County.
Clinton County has a long prehistory from Paleoindian
through Historic. Many sites were recorded after the Agnes Flood of 1972 by
William Turnbaugh who used the information for his doctoral dissertation research
(Turnbaugh 1972). Between 1972 and 1973, 203 prehistoric sites were
additionally recorded as part of the Susquehanna River Valley Archaeological
Survey (Smith 1976) and four of these were selected for additional
investigation as part of a broader archaeological study of the Clemson Island
Culture (Smith and Herbstritt n.d.). Other sites were reported through
compliance related projects mandated by state and federal agencies. The North-Central
Chapter of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc., listed a series of
sites with P.A.S.S. as well and conducts an archaeology field school under the
auspices of Lycoming College.
During the 18th century, before the general
region became known as Clinton County, the West branch was a principal corridor
for moving native and Europeans across the frontier. One of the native Indian
towns along this stretch of the river at North Bend, Pennsylvania was called
Young Womans Town. This settlement is listed on the Skull map of 1770 as Mianquaunk and according to Donehoo
(1999) the name Maunquay as listed on
the 1759 Skull map as the name of the stream means “place of meeting” where
several Indian paths converged. However Wallace (1971) does not show a junction
of Indian paths at this location. The Great Island was another place on the
West Branch where Indian paths merged. According to Wallace (1971) as many as
nine Indian paths converged at the Great Island where Indians came from
different regions to parley and trade.
The prehistoric landscape of Clinton County was used
extensively by Late Woodland groups archaeologically known as Clemson Island,
Shenks Ferry and McFate-Quiggle. None of these names actually have a native
origin, but, in fact are mere archaeological constructs. Since these Late
Woodland groups adopted no written language that could be handed down through
subsequent generations their true tribal names will never be known.
In the early 1990’s the site at
West Water Street on the outskirts of Lock Haven was investigated by University
of Delaware staff archaeologists as part of the City of Lock Haven’s flood
protection project upgrade (Custer et al. 1996). The site is perhaps best known
for its stratified Archaic period deposits (see earlier blog on this subject).
As such, suffice it to say that, our focus will be on the later Woodland
components at West Water Street site.
Postmolds, pit features and
numerous artifacts of the Late Woodland Period were recovered that represent
the material remains from the three previously named prehistoric cultures.
According to Custer et al. (1996) the principal Late Woodland component was
Clemson Island marked by two houses and a section of a stockade. Each house
measured about seven meters in size that was once home to about 20 people. A
large number of pit features were excavated, some of which contained many
varieties of broken Clemson Island and Owasco pottery. The pots were used to cooked food since many of their exteriors were covered with
accumulated soot. Based on radiocarbon analysis this occupation was about a
thousand to eleven hundred years old. Material
evidence for site use by Shenks Ferry and McFate-Quiggle groups was limited to
a small assemblage of artifacts, mostly pottery. These objects were typical of
contemporary ceramics found at other sites in the Clinton County area. A final
18th century Contact period occupation was identified by traces of
European manufactured objects of glass and metal from five pits. Some of these
were classified as glass beads, rum bottle fragments 9 one of which was made
into a scraper), iron ax, lead shot, Jew’s harp, catlinite beads and a piece of
leather. Other Contact period items included blue, white and red beads and brass
finger rings.
Clinton County is indeed an area
of the Commonweath that holds a rich archaeological heritage. We hope you have
enjoyed TWIPA’s excursion into the past and encourage further interest in the
subject by using the following bibliography.
References:
Custer, Jay F., Scott C. Watson and Daniel N. Bailey
1996 A Summary of
Phase III Data Recovery Excavations at the West Water Street Site (36CN175),
Lock Haven, Clinton County, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Archaeologist
66(1):1-53.
Donehoo, George P.
1999 A History of Indian Villages and Place
Names in Pennsylvania. Reprinted. Wenna Woods Publishing, Lewisburg
Smith, Ira F.
1977 The Susquehanna River Valley
Archaeological Survey. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 47(4):27-29.
Smith, Ira F. and
James T. Herbstritt
nd. Clemson Island Studies in
Pennsylvania. Unpublished manuscript at the Section of Archaeology, The
State Museum of Pennsylvania.
Turnbaugh, William A
1972 Man, Land and Time: The Cultural
Prehistory and Demographic Patterns of North-Central Pennsylvania.
Unigraphic, Inc. Williamsport
For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .
No comments:
Post a Comment