This is the third article in the series in which we are taking a journey through time on the historic waters of the Conestoga River. The first article outlined some general information about the Conestoga River Watershed. In the second article, I covered the conditions of the Conestoga prior to European settlement. We looked at how the Conestoga watershed looked very different than it does today. And we looked briefly at some of the early inhabitants of the area and how the river provided their sustenance.
In this installment, we will cover the colonial settlement era. We will look at how those settlers utilized the resources of the river for their sustenance and how farming and industry developed along the waterway, providing great prosperity to its new inhabitants while simultaneously bringing about the demise of the first inhabitants.
William Penn
The Pennsylvania colony was founded in 1681 when King Charles II granted William Penn over 45,000 square miles of territory west of New Jersey and North of Maryland. Penn made an agreement with the Lenape (Delaware) for rights to settle the land. The Lenape retained the rights to traverse the land for purposes of hunting and gathering. Note the wampum belt with the native and Quaker hand in hand.
The Pennsylvania colony was founded in 1681 when King Charles II granted William Penn over 45,000 square miles of territory west of New Jersey and North of Maryland. Penn made an agreement with the Lenape (Delaware) for rights to settle the land. The Lenape retained the rights to traverse the land for purposes of hunting and gathering. Note the wampum belt with the native and Quaker hand in hand.
Fur Trade
During the seventeenth century continuing into the eighteenth, the fur trade was big business among the Swedish, Dutch, French, and English traders. Many people wanted to get in on the action. There was intense competition between the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, each wanting to keep their ports busy.
The fur traders were an adventurous lot, rugged outdoorsmen who spent half their time bartering with the Natives in the wilderness and the other half bartering with the European settlers who wanted their goods. In many cases, the first white people with whom the natives came into close contact were the fur traders. The natives’ impression of white people was often formed by these encounters, for better or worse. During their work, the traders often learned the native languages and, in some cases, married native women. This made the traders valuable as interpreters when the colonial governments needed to hold conferences with the native tribes.
Two of these early traders who set up shop along the Conestoga were the Quaker Brothers, Edmund and John Cartlidge. Their trading post was at the mouth of the Conestoga, near the Susquehanna. The brothers got into some trouble in 1722 when they murdered a Seneca Indian. They were arrested and jailed in Philadelphia until they were eventually released at the urging of the Iroquois leadership.
Some other prominent fur traders in the area were Martin Chartier, who had a trading post at the mouth of the Pequea Creek and Ann Letort with her son James. Anne’s name is preserved in the village of Letort in Manor Township. Another famous French trader was Peter Bezaillion. Peter and his brother Richard operated a trading post near the mouth of the Conoy creek in 1721. He built a wagon road from this trading post on the Susquehanna to his headquarters in Compass. This road, called “Peter’s Road”, formed the northern boundaries of Manheim and Upper Leacock Townships. The road forded the Conestoga at the point where those two townships meet, just below the conjunction with the Cocalico Creek.
The Indians supplied the traders with animal pelts of various kinds, deer pelts for leather, and the furred animals like mink, otter, and the highly coveted beaver. In exchange for these items, the traders provided articles like glass beads, small brass bells on chains, copper kettles, finger rings, clay tobacco pipes, tobacco boxes, vermillion, iron hatchets and hoes, knives, fishhooks, pewter spoons, thimbles, mirrors, sheet copper for making arrow tips. Some of the more expensive items were flintlock rifles, bullet molds and lead, clothing known as “match coats”, the heavy cloth called “duffel”, and, of course, Jamaican rum.
These goods were carried over paths formed from a combination of water and overland trails. One such trail was the “Conestoga Path” that ran from the Susquehanna, up the Conestoga to the east branch. Then a short portage brought them to the French Creek which in turn led to the Schuylkill River and down to Philadelphia on the Delaware.
Massacre of the Conestogas
During the French and Indian war, many atrocities were committed by both sides of the conflict. Fear and distrust of Native Americans, regardless of tribe, spread among the European settlers. The French and Indian war ended in 1758 but an uprising by chief Pontiac in 1763 caused animosities to rise against the now greatly diminished Conestoga tribe. On December 13, 1763, a company of men from Paxtang, Hanover, and Donegal headed to Conestoga Indian Town to destroy the place and its people. Early the next morning they attacked the town, killed, and scalped four men and two women and burned the town. A boy escaped and alerted the manager of the tragedy. The Lancaster authorities gathered up the remaining Conestogos (fourteen in number) and housed them in the city workhouse for their protection. But then on December 27, about fifty or sixty men armed with rifles and tomahawks appeared suddenly in the town about 2:00 in the afternoon while the town leaders were attending a Christmas service, broke into the workhouse and killed the fourteen Conestogos in the courtyard behind the workhouse.
The Conestogos are no more, but their memory remains in the river that bears their name.
You can read the full story in Jack Brubaker’s excellent book, “Massacre of the Conestogas”.
Transportation
The German farmers built heavy wagons designed for hauling freight. The wagons were made of wood, but they were not flat. Instead, the bodies curved up on each end to keep the freight from shifting as the wagon traveled. The wagons could carry about six tons of goods and were covered with white canvas covers to protect the contents from the elements. Each wagon was pulled by four to six strong horses and could travel about twelve to fourteen miles per day. These wagons were called Conestoga wagons and were the primary freight haulers in the late eighteenth into the early nineteenth centuries. By 1750, there were as many as 10,000 of these freight carriers, principally used to carry farm produce into Philadelphia.
First-class teams would customarily carry bells on the horses: five small bells on the lead horses, four larger bells on the middle horses and three even larger bells on the pole horses. The three sizes of bells not only warned travelers on the road ahead that a large wagon was approaching but also made music as the horses moved. In some parts of the country, there was a custom that if a wagon got stuck or could not negotiate a hill and another teamster had to help pull them out, the assisting teamster would take the bells of the troubled team. When a team arrived at its destination without its bells, it meant they had trouble on the road. This gave rise to the saying “I’ll be there with bells on.”
The brake handle on the Conestoga was on the left side of the wagon, requiring the teamster to walk on that side or sometimes ride the rear horse on the left side. When two wagons met going in opposite directions, they would pass on the right so that the drivers would have the best visibility. This is likely what gave rise to the American practice of driving on the right side of the road.
Bridges were rare in the colonial period. Most rivers were crossed either by fording the stream or, if the river was too deep for fording, by ferry. For the smaller streams and wetlands, it was common to lay a row of logs in the stream parallel to the water flow. The horses and wagons would cross over the logs to avoid getting mired in the mud. The bumpy ride over the logs gave rise to the term “corduroy roads.” As time progressed and the population increased, more bridges were built to facilitate transportation of people and goods. Many times, bridges were built at the site of mills or taverns.
The first bridge across the Conestoga was a stone bridge built in 1768 on the Paxton Highway, later called the Downingtown and Harrisburg Turnpike, now route 322. About 30 years later, George Hinkle built a mill there and the place became known as Hinkletown.
The first stone arch bridge across the Conestoga, and possibly in the state, was built in 1789 by Christian Binkley and his wife, Elizabeth. The bridge was supported by ten stone arches. Hinkley built the bridge to provide access to his mill (built in 1772). The mill and bridge were located just upstream from the place where the New Holland Pike crosses the river today. The area surrounding the mill and bridge became known collectively as Binkley’s Bridge.
The stone bridge was destroyed by a flood. It was replaced by a covered bridge at first and later an iron bridge. Later the road was realigned to its current location after the iron bridge was damaged by a truck.
Abraham Witmer was an agent for the London Land Company. He owned 150 acres of land about a mile east of the Conestoga where the Horseshoe Road intersects with the Philadelphia Road. Witmer’s tavern still stands at that location. Following the Revolutionary War, Witmer moved to the west bank of the Conestoga, where he built a hotel on the site of an existing inn at the place where the Philadelphia Road crossed the river. The first inn was built around 1742. Witmer’s hotel, completed in 1789, survives today as the Conestoga Inn and Restaurant.
In the fall of 1787, the state legislature passed an act for construction of a bridge across the Conestoga Creek and authorized Abraham Witmer to build the bridge and assess tolls. Witmer’s first bridge was a wooden covered one.
Then, in 1798, Witmer began the construction of a new, stone arch bridge. This bridge was 540 feet long and 19 feet wide and was constructed with nine arches. It opened for traffic in November 1800.
Abraham Witmer died in 1818, and his brother David assumed ownership of the bridge. The county commissioners, with help from some private individuals, raised a sum of money to purchase the bridge. In 1827, the county paid $26,000 for the bridge, and it was declared free of tolls forever.
Witmer’s bridge was replaced by the current one in 1933.
Covered Bridges
Of course, a tour of the Conestoga must include some of its covered bridges. This is Hunsicker’s Mill bridge. The first bridge here was built in 1848. It was destroyed by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and was rebuilt in 1975. It measures 180 feet.
This is the bridge at Poole Forge. This was built in 1859 and is 99 feet long.
Here is the bridge at Pinetown which was built in 1867, 133 feet long. This washed off its base during Hurricane Agnes and again during Hurricane Lee and has since been rebuilt and placed on higher abutments.
Colonial Industry along the Conestoga
In 1718, a man named John Jenkins received a grant of four hundred acres of land along the East Branch of the Conestoga in what is now Caernarvon Township. Jenkins lived in a cave for a while and eventually built a small stone house.
In 1742, he sold his property to a Philadelphia merchant named William Branson. Branson built some iron forges on the property and a mansion that he named Windsor after the Windsor castle in England. Two years later, he deeded his estate to his four daughters.
In 1758, David Jenkins, the son of John, became clerk at the Windsor forges. After Branson’s daughter’s death, David Jenkins was able to purchase the shares from the Bransons’ grandchildren and by the time of the American Revolution, had ownership of his father’s original four hundred acres plus hundreds more. David Jenkins’ great-granddaughter Blanche Nevin lived in the mansion in 1899. She was a noted poet and sculptor. She sculpted the lion that sits in Lancaster’s Reservoir Park.
A short distance down the river from Windsor is Poole Forge. Poole Forge was built by James Old in 1779. James Old operated the Reading Furnace which produced large quantities of cannon and shot for Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War. After the war, Old moved to Caernarvon Township, where he owned a gristmill on the Conestoga. It was on this property that he built his new forge and mansion.
Irishman Edward Hand came to Lancaster in 1775 to practice medicine. Before he could get settled, the Revolutionery war broke out and Hand joined the Continental army as lieutenant colonel of the First Battalion of Pennsylvania Rifleman. He led troops in several campaigns and ended up as adjutant general to George Washington in 1781. After the war ended, he returned to Lancaster, where he bought a tract of land near the Conestoga River on which to build a farm. Hand called his plantation Rock Ford because it was near a rocky ford across the river.
During the summer of 1779, Robert Fulton experimented with paddle-wheel propulsion on the Conestoga. The first paddlewheels were hand-operated and powered a small fishing skiff. Fulton did not invent the steamboat as some assume, but he was the first to make a steam-powered boat that was commercially successful.
Lancaster County was known for its rifle makers. Henry Leman opened his gun shop in Lancaster in 1834.
Leman’s forge and boring mill were located along the Conestoga near the town of Catfish, now named Oregon, about a hundred yards upstream of the confluence of the Lititz Run. That area is called “Pointville” or “Pinetown”. While the barrels were bored at the mill, the locks and stocks were assembled in Lancaster.
Henry Leman’s rifles were flintlocks in the Pennsylvania style with 42-inch barrels. The rifles were sold on the frontier for the Indian trade. In addition to fulfilling several government contracts, Leman also made a wide variety of rifles for the civilian market.
In 1850, he abandoned the mill on the Conestoga and built a new factory in Lancaster at the corner of Walnut Street and Cherry Alley.
Mills
Lancaster County’s mills were an extremely important part of the commerce of the county in the early days. An 1840 census showed 383 mills in the county, which amounts to 1 mill for every two and a half square miles. They were hubs of the local economy. Thirty-five of those were powered by the Conestoga River.
Brownstown/Wolf’s Mill
The first mill on this site was a log mill built around 1730. That mill was replaced by a stone mill in 1750. The current mill was built by Jacob and Lavina Wolf in 1856. The mill operated as a grist mill until 1903 when it was converted to generate electricity for Brownstown, Talmage, and Farmersville until 1923. It also operated as a weaving mill for a while. Today it serves as a private residence.
Ranck’s Mill
This mill was located about a half mile upstream from Witmer’s bridge. It was built by Sabastian Graff in 1753. It remained in the Graff family for several generations. Samuel Ranck purchased the property in 1864 after which it was called “Ranck’s Mill”. This was a large mill that boasted 4 turbines. It closed in 1912.
Nolt’s Point Mill
At the point where the Lititz Run flows into the Conestoga River was the location of Nolt’s Point Mill. The place was called Nolt’s after the name of the owner and “Point” for the point formed by the Lititz Run and the Conestoga River.
John Davis built a fulling mill here as early as 1738. Christian and Elizabeth Kauffman built the first grist mill here in 1807. The Kauffmans sold it to John Michael in 1812. He was followed by Jacob Zercher in 1823, Benjamin Landis in 1838, and John Hess in 1851. In 1857, John Miller and Jonas B. Nolt became joint owners. Jonas Nolt eventually became the sole owner and operated the mill as Nolt’s Point Mill. The covered bridge over the Conestoga was constructed in 1867. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1900. The only thing left today is the covered bridge and the stone arch bridge that carried the road to the mill.
Zook’s Mill
Built in 1857 by John Bushong, Elmer Zook was the owner in 1972 when it sustained some damage from Hurricane Agnes. Zook retired in 1973. Roy Wagner and his son Gerald produced flour for the pretzel industry until 1998 operating it as “Zook’s Flour Mill”. The mill generated electricity for a few years and now produces wood pellets from sawdust.
Other mills that are still standing along the Conestoga include:
- Eberly’s Cider Mill/Bitzer’s (West Earl Twp)
- Greenbank/Nolt’s Mill (Earl Twp)
- Spring/Grube’s Mill (Caernarvon Twp)
- Spring Grove/Oberholtzer’s Mill (East Earl Twp)
- Umble’s/Eden Roller Mill (East Lampeter Twp)
Conestoga Navigation Company
By the beginning of the 19th century, Baltimore had become a ready market for agricultural goods and could be reached by natural and modified waterways, thereby reducing the traffic from Lancaster to Philadelphia. In 1817, the State of New York began a major project to connect its eastern ports with Lake Erie in the west. That caused a stir in Pennsylvania, which then began a major push to build canals across the state, fueled by fears that New York would threaten commerce in Philadelphia. On March 27, 1824, Governor Andrew Shulze appointed the first three Pennsylvania canal commissioners and charged them with the task of finding a viable canal route connecting Lancaster and Chester Counties to Pittsburgh. The “canal fever” ran high among Pennsylvania business leaders during this time.
Lancaster’s leaders were in search of ways to improve the local economy. As a result, on May 15, 1824, at a public meeting in Lancaster, a committee was formed to petition the state legislature to grant rights to incorporate a company to make the waters of the Conestoga navigable. The petition was granted on March 3, 1825. This act provided for the “erection of the Conestogo Navigation Company and the construction of its plant.” Adam Reigart and others should have the power to make a navigation canal or slack-water navigation and towpath on and along the Conestoga River and to set up locks and dams fit for navigation. Landowners should be compensated for any damages caused by erecting the dams or by the swelling water. The company would be able to sell or rent surplus water for works.
In a slack-water system, dams were constructed at intervals across the width of the river. This resulted in the water piling up behind the dams to form “ponds.” The dams were spaced such that the water behind one dam would back up all the way to the next dam upstream. This usually amounted to several miles of navigable water wide enough for animal-powered packet boats to be pulled along the side while steam-powered craft could navigate the center of the channel. Locks were constructed as an integral part of each dam.
The Conestoga Navigation Company initially built nine locks and dams between Lancaster City and Safe Harbor. The company opened for business in the spring of 1829. Goods shipped on the canal could reach Baltimore weeks ahead of the overland route and with less damages in transit. Business improved each year until an ice flood in the winter of 1832 damaged many of the dams. The business did not recover from the blow. Edward Coleman bought the company at sheriff’s sale in 1833. Coleman rebuilt the locks and reduced the number of dams from nine to seven. After the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal opened in 1840, Coleman used a crib dam across the Susquehanna to produce enough draught such that canal boats could be towed from the mouth of the Conestoga to an entry port on the canal. The Conestoga Navigation operated until about 1856, when the railroads became the preferred method for transporting freight.
Most of the locks have not survived the ravages of time. There are only two of them that can still be seen.
Lock #2 is on private property at the end of Second Lock Road. This was the site of the Second Lock covered bridge that was destroyed by vandals in 1968.
Lock #8 (later 6) can still be seen in the Safe Harbor Park just above the River Road bridge. Here you can see the distance from the lock to the river today. The river was much wider back then due to the pond created by this dam and the dam at lock #9 downstream.
Summary
As we can see, Pennsylvania’s waterways served a prominent role in the development of the country. Such use of the waterways came with a cost, however. In the next article in this series, we will look at the Victorian Era, and how the rivers became centers of recreational activities.
If you want to read the full story of the Conestoga including full color photos you may want to purchase my book. You will find information here: Conestoga River: A History