Lou’s View – Dec. 31, 2013
Clinton County’s Biggest Moments
by Lou Bernard
It’s 2014, and those with better math skills than I have say that it’s Clinton County’s 175th anniversary. There are plenty of events planned, including the ones here at the Ross Library. I’m already putting together a series of guest speakers, one each month—Keep your eyes open for the details! And I’m enough of an attention sponge that I thought I’d try to get a column out of it, too.
Throughout our history, we’ve had some fascinating times. I gave it some thought on company time, and I put together a list of some of the most interesting moments in Clinton County’s long history. Now, I’ll admit that it’s hard to narrow down almost two centuries worth of events into a short column, but that’s never stopped me from trying before.
1839: Clinton County founded. Jerry Church founded Lock Haven in 1833, and at the time, it was in Lycoming County. He immediately began working on taking part of Lycoming, part of Centre, and combining them to make a new county, called “Eagle County.” The state legislature laughed him off, which is not surprising as he said his rationale was to have a courthouse next door so he could sue his neighbors. (That’s one of those lines that only sounds like a joke—He really said that.)
So after six years of campaigning, he had his friend John Moorhead pitch taking the same territory and naming it after New York Governor Dewitt Clinton. The legislature voted it through unanimously without ever realizing it was the same territory they’d been voting against for six years.
1854: Fit for a Queen. The Spanish Queen Maria Christina invested a lot of money in Clinton County, primarily the Farrandsville area. She bought industry and property, and hired two Philadelphia brothers named Fallon to manage her investments. They built a mansion for her in Farrandsville, in case she ever wanted to visit her money, and the Fallon Hotel in Lock Haven, in case she wanted to bring her whole entourage.
Neither the Queen nor her entourage ever came here, and she lost money on her investment. But both Mark Twain and P.T. Barnum have stayed at the Fallon. (And don’t try to tell me that Queen’s Run was named after the Queen—That’s a corruption of the original name. It initially was named after a man named Quinn, and then people got confused.)
1888: The Luther Shaffer hanging. I’ve had people try to tell me spooky things like,”They used to bury the bodies of the guys they hung in the basement of the old jail.” Though it makes a good story, I know they don’t know what they’re talking about when they discuss “guys they hung” in the plural like that. There’s only ever been one person hung for his crime in Clinton County: Luther Shaffer.
Shaffer killed Nora and Isaiah Colby in 1887, and it took a jury about ten minutes to find him guilty. On April 4, 1888, he was hung in the courtyard of the old jail on Church Street—The only man ever legally hung for murder in the county.
1900: Clinton County gets a capitol column. On February 2, 1897, a fire burned the Pennsylvania state capitol to the ground. Left over were six tall, stone pillars that had stood out front. Three of these disappeared, and it’s a mystery where they went—Our state government managed to lose three forty-foot pillars. (Corbett wasn’t in office yet, so we can’t blame him.) Two of them were placed in Lycoming County, and used as monuments.
And one came here. Anna Stabley of McElhattan arranged for the pillar to be used as a soldiers’ monument in Linnwood Cemetery. It was unveiled on May 12, 1900. There are sixty-five counties in Pennsylvania—And the pillar came to us.
There are definitely more wonderful moments than this, more interesting stuff that’s happened. And as they occur to me (or as I discover them) I’ll be writing about them, too. But as our anniversary year opens, I wanted to take a look at these unique moments in our history.
And I managed to get through this whole column without once declaring myself as a memorable Clinton County moment. Let’s celebrate. 2014: Lou shows a little modesty in a column, for a change.
