Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Riding around with my family recently. It was one of those slow Sunday afternoons, and we had nothing better to do. So we got in the car and took a random drive. I pointed out a few historic spots to my son. And as we passed Castanea, I was thinking that I knew the stories behind most of the names.

Most people don’t think about that too much. They generally don’t have to. To get from Loganton to Renovo, you don’t really need to know where the names come from in the first place. But I’ve pretty much made my career on knowing this stuff, so I thought I’d share some with you. Hey, a column’s a column.

The obvious starting point here is Lock Haven. In 1833, when Jerry Church founded the community, he intended it to be a restful place along the canal. I don’t know how restful it’s gotten, but it did exist along the canal, largely dependent on the canal locks. This was somewhat impressive as the canals were only about half-finished at the time.

Lock Haven, at the start, was spelled “Lockhaven,” but around 1845 it was separated into two words. It is not true, by the way, that Lock Haven’s name was once “Old Town.” People think that, but Old Town was just a nickname for a collection of cabins in the area. It was never incorporated and never appeared on any maps. Lock Haven has officially always been Lock Haven.

Right down the road is Mill Hall. Founded in 1806 by Nathan Harvey, it was originally a good place for mills to be built, as the name suggests. There were mills on each side of the main road at that time, leading to the impression that the place was a literal hallway of mills. Hence, the name.

Down the road, there’s Beech Creek. This one’s pretty obvious when you think about it—There was a creek, and there were beech trees there. Now that I write all this down, I realize just how many of these communities were named because people simply observed what was already there. (“I see beeches, and a creek…..Hey! I have an idea!”)

Castanea was another one, though they got a bit more inventive there. Initially, it was settled by Italian immigrants, and they observed the chestnut trees. The word for chestnut in Italian is “Castangna,” which became Castanea. (For the record, it’s Cas-tan-EE-uh, not Cas-TEEN-uh, dammit.)

Dunnstown was named after William Dunn, who owned the land. McElhattan was named for William McElhattan, one of the early settlers there. And Avis was named for Avis Cochran—The only community in Clinton County named after a woman. Avis Cochran was the daughter of Henry Cochran, who was a big part of creating the village.

To the north, there’s Renovo. This one is interesting—Renovo doesn’t have a town founder, exactly. It was founded in 1866, not by an individual, but by the railroad company as a place for employees and industry. The name is Latin for “renewal” or “rebirth,” and originally it was spelled “Renova,” but pretty much standardized to “Renovo.”

Down in Sugar Valley (named for the sugar maples that grew there) we have Loganton, which was named for Chief Logan, the Native American chief. Originally it was Logansville, but that one also got changed.
And Mackeyville used to be Hamburg, but was changed and named after Lock Haven’s first mayor, Levi Mackey.

As far as I know, he had very little to do with that specific community, but they respected him enough that they named the place after him anyway.

So that’s a quick overview about the names in Clinton County. I suppose I look pretty well-informed, just as long as nobody asks me about Glen Union. As always, there’s a lot I don’t understand about Glen Union.