Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the geography of Clinton County. It’s interesting to look at. The county is shaped, vaguely, like a high heel that’s been run over. There’s a sort of “community strip” across the middle, with Avis on one end and Beech Creek on the other, Lock Haven smack in the middle. Below that is mostly Sugar Valley, with its rural lifestyle, and to the north is mainly forest land, interrupted by Renovo.

As people settled throughout the area and we laid out the area, we somehow managed to make Clinton County even quirkier.

Clinton County was founded from parts of Lycoming and Centre in 1839, and even that was a little weird. Ordinarily, you’d see the split about halfway, with no county wanting to lose any more of their tax base than necessary. But Clinton County was not split evenly in half between the two contributing conties—About a fifth of it was Centre, in the south, and the rest was Lycoming. It wasn’t anything like an even split, which is odd.

Some of the townships were already there. The rest were created over the years, and that led to some strange situations, too. Many of the people who live here are so used to it that they don’t realize how weird this is, but once I point it out, you can’t unsee it.

I’ve given a few speeches in Porter Township. Porter Township has a decent history to it. It’s got Lamar, a community named after Major Marion Lamar of the Revolutionary War. Lamar Township was also named after Marion Lamar, and you’d think that Lamar would be in Lamar Township, but you’d be wrong. It’s in Porter, which doesn’t make any sense.

Lamar Township pre-dates Clinton County. It was formed in 1817, in the portion of the county that was Centre. At the time, it stretched a much longer way, and Lamar was a part of Lamar Township, which you’d pretty much expect.

In 1841, after Clinton County was created, the commissioners chose to section off part of it and create Porter Township. So far, so good. But they did the weird thing that doesn’t make sense, and took it off the western portion, which has Lamar in it. And that’s how Lamar came to be in Porter Township, instead of Lamar Township. Old-time county commissioners chose to do the thing that doesn’t make a ton of sense.

We seem to have a habit of that, in Clinton County. If I asked you what township Loganton was in, you’d guess Logan Township, right? But nope, Loganton is in Greene Township.

Pretty much the same situation. Loganton was a part of Logan Township when the township was formed in 1819. But in 1840, after Clinton County was created, the new commissioners all said,”Hey! Let’s do a whole bunch of crazy stuff that nobody understands!” and they created Greene Township. And they took the part of the township that had Loganton in it.

In case you think I’m only picking on the southern portion of the county, here, let’s take a look at Woodward. Woodward Township contains Dunnstown, named after William Dunn. Also named after William Dunn was Dunnstable Township, and if you’re guessing that Dunnstown is not in Dunnstable Township anymore, congratulations, you’re getting my point. Dunnstown was a part of Dunnstable Township until 1841, when the commissioners, who must have been drinking, created Woodward, and left Dunnstown in Woodward Township.
Those early commissioners had a habit of doing that. Presumably they had their reasons, though I’m not certain I’d understand them if they explained it. As it is, we’re just full of weirdness in Clinton County, right down to our geography.