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McHenry Township is a township in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 145 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Williamsport, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. ==History== McHenry Township was tentatively formed from parts of Cummings, Brown and Cogan House Townships on November 15, 1856. It was originally known as Kingston Township. Soon afterwards the name was changed to McHenry in honor of a Jersey Shore surveyor, Alexander H. McHenry. The formal establishment of the township remained in limbo for nearly five years. Some of the residents in the area were opposed to the formation of a new township. In fact it took sixteen years for what is now McHenry Township to finally be formed. The initial proposal was placed before the court in 1845 and again in 1855, this was followed by the 1856 case and was finally settled on August 21, 1861 when it was formed from Cummings and Brown Township. The first warrant for land in what is now McHenry Township was issued to John Nixon on May 17, 1785. John English and his wife, Fanny Boatman, settled on the largest island in the area as early as 1784. They left hurriedly after a warning from a friendly Indian, Shawnee John, returning about a year later. Claudius Boatman and his son-in-law, Comfort Wanzer, married to Mary "Polly" Boatman, settled in the area in 1785. Boatman, a Frenchman by birth, formerly lived in the Buffalo Valley area of Union county, Pennsylvania, first near Winfield, then in Mahoning township, before moving further up the West Branch Susquehanna River to Pine Creek. Boatman, at that time married to his second wife, Esther, had a rather large (family ). A daughter, Rebecca, married and lived a long life despite being partially scalped when she was 15 in 1782; her mother, Boatman's first wife was killed in the same incident.〔 Esther Boatman served as a nurse and rural physician for the pioneers along Pine Creek. The descendants of Claudius Boatman remain in fairly large numbers in western Lycoming County. The first white settlers in the vicinity of what became Jersey Mills arrived in the late 18th and very early 19th centuries. For the next 100 years, lumbering and farming were the main drivers of the local economy. The first lumber mill in the area began operations in 1809. Farm crops included cereal grasses and potatoes. The village of Jersey Mills was officially established in 1855, when its post office opened. Flagstone quarries in the area provided income in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as lumbering income steeply declined. The village had a one-room school through 1946 and a general store and boarding house through 1965. A smaller general store, the last commercial business in Jersey Mills, operated from 1980 though 2007.〔 Lumbering was the primary industry in McHenry Township during the mid-to-late 19th century. Thousands of acres of old-growth forest were cleared to meet the demands for lumber during the lumber era that swept throughout Pennsylvania. Williamsport which is just south and east of McHenry Township, was known at the "Lumber Capital of the World." Logs were floated down Pine Creek and into the West Branch Susquehanna River to various sawmills along both streams and in Williamsport. McHenry Township is a very rural and remote section of Lycoming County. The hills and valleys are now covered with a thriving second growth forest. The population as of the 2000 census was just 145. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「McHenry Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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