Chapter 58
Section 58 of a Guidebook of Art, Architecture, and Historic Interests in Pennsylvania, edited by Margareta Archimbeau. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Tatiana Cicilla. Juniata County. Formed March 2nd, 1831.
Named from the Juniata River, it was given by the original people who lived in this region, and who were obliterated by the Iroquois. Root of word means a stone. Standing stone may be regarded as translation of Onujatahaga, or the Juniata people. A mountainous country with many fertile valleys, situated between the Tuscarora and Blue Ridge Mountains, famous for its scenery, with the Blue Juniata making a wide sweep. The Pennsylvania Canal followed its banks throughout its whole course.
First settlers were mostly Scotch-Irish. The old homestead of Francis Innis, one and a half stories, stone, east of McCoysville, is still in possession of descendants, now used as a spring house. His two children, captured by the Indians, were recovered among those delivered to Colonel Bouquet in 1764. Another old landmark, eight miles away, is the D.B. Esch House on East Waterford Road, built by Mr. Graham in 1802. It has an open stairway carved by hand.
First road laid out in 1768 was from Sherman's Valley to Kishikokellis Valley. The historic road between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, through the famous Jax Narrows, over which stagecoaches traveled, is now part of the William Penn Highway. Sites of Forts Bingham and Patterson will soon be marked by the General Thomas Mifflin Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Chief Industries, Agriculture, and Manufactories. Mifflintown, county seat, population 1,083, joined with its twin borough, Mifflin, on Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line by bridge over the Juniata, was laid out in 1791 by John Harris and named in honor of the governor of the state, General Mifflin.
Courthouse and center of town on Main Street, built 1874, brick, Georgian, with ionic porch and cupola. And the yard is a monument, surrounded by a spread eagle, to Civil War soldiers from Juniata County, erected in 1870. The churches are of good architecture, and the grade at high school is said to be the best between Harrisburg and Huntington. End of Section 58.
