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    New Brighton Revisited
    New Brighton Revisited
    New Brighton Revisited
    Ebook185 pages1 hour

    New Brighton Revisited

    By Karen Helbling

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    New Brighton is nestled along the east bank of the Beaver River. The Constable brothers laid out the town s first lots in 1815. The surveyors then named the town New Brighton after their hometown on the southern coast of England. New Brighton Revisited is another entertaining look at the town s rich historical past. Citizens who were prominent in promoting the growth and prosperity of the town included Sen. Samuel White, Joseph T. Pugh, Francis Reader, and Daniel Corbus. Businesses such as Pioneer Twine Mills, Wisener and Bingham Carriage Factory, E.R. Boots Dry Goods, J.J. Snellenburg Clothiers, Bestwick Hardware, Martsolf Brothers Furniture Company, Pryde-Wynne Company, Locke s Service Stations, Morell s Pizza Shop, and Pullion s Paints and Supplies all helped to shape New Brighton s development into what it has become today. New Brighton Revisited takes a nostalgic journey into the town s sports history, dating back to 1896. The community has seen a revitalization in the past year, with new businesses moving into the historic downtown area.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 20, 2014
    ISBN9781439647899
    New Brighton Revisited
    Author

    Karen Helbling

    Karen Helbling is a past president of the New Brighton Historical Society as well as the former editor of Milestones, the journal of Beaver County history. She currently serves as the Daugherty Township historian. Photographs for this book came from the author as well as from private collections.

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      Book preview

      New Brighton Revisited - Karen Helbling

      collection.

      INTRODUCTION

      The first reference to the land that would become New Brighton is recorded in the journals of the Moravian missionaries led by David Zeisberger.

      The group camped on the banks of the Beaver River in 1770 on their way to establish a mission to the Indians at Friedenstadt, now Moravia in Lawrence County.

      New Brighton was built upon what was designated as tracts 91 to 95 in Daniel Leet’s district of Depreciation Lands. These lands, purchased from the Indians, were set apart by an act of the State of Pennsylvania on December 18, 1780. The tracts were payment to the Revolutionary War soldiers for a settlement of the depreciation in pay in Continental currency, as compared with silver and gold for which certificates were granted.

      When Aaron Burr’s expedition came down the Ohio River in 1806 to what is now Bridgewater, two English brothers named Constable, who were surveyors by trade, traveled with the expedition. They did not work for Burr but came to see the country and sketch its interesting points. The brothers were asked to lay out the town’s first plan of lots in 1815. They agreed to accept the job only if they were permitted to name the town in return. They were granted the honor, and after surveying the ground, the brothers named the town Brighton after their hometown on the southern coast of England. Over the years, the town became known as New Brighton, and it was incorporated by an Act of Assembly that passed in June 1838.

      The building of factories and businesses began as early as 1836. Notable among the early manufacturers were the Pioneer Twine Mills, Star Mill, Logan and Strobridge Iron Works, and the Wisener and Bingham Carriage Factory. The factories offered jobs at higher than normal wages, which enabled the immigrants to send for their families and settle in the town.

      With prosperity came the need for bridges. The first bridge to connect New Brighton and Beaver Falls was completed on October 30, 1815. Joseph Townsend was the toll collector when the bridge opened for travel a month later. On March 3, 1818, fast-moving water carried away two spans and one pier of the bridge, but it was not replaced until 1835, when a covered toll bridge was built in its place. Nathaniel Coburn was the longtime toll collector. A toll bridge to connect Fallston and New Brighton was erected in 1837 but was destroyed during a major flood. The current truss bridge was built in 1884.

      New Brighton’s early Quaker families were staunch abolitionists and supporters of the Underground Railroad. Robert Townsend built the J.J. Spratt Funeral Home on Third Avenue, which was used as a safe house for runaway slaves seeking asylum. The William Townsend house on Penn Avenue had a secret room hidden on the third floor. The Townsend homestead at Eighth Avenue and Thirteenth Street had a hidden trapdoor leading to the cellar. The Underground Railroad provided safe passage from New Brighton to New Castle, Darlington, and Salem, Ohio.

      The Abolitionist Society was formed in New Brighton in the 1830s. Well-known opponents of slavery, including Anna Dickinson, William Lloyd Garrison, Grace Greenwood, and Lydia Child, were frequent speakers at the Opera House and in Quaker homes throughout the town to rally support for the freedom of slaves.

      New Brighton’s medical history can be traced back to April 1864, when Dr. Elijah Kendrick opened the New Brighton Female Retreat, an asylum for insane females. The stately four-story brick building sat on the knoll on Lock Street. When the asylum closed, Dr. Solomon Frease purchased the building, where he and his wife, Elizabeth, established and operated the New Brighton Hygienic Water Cure.

      The Beaver Valley General Hospital on Oak Hill was granted a charter on December 15, 1894. It accepted its first patient on January 1, 1895. At that time, it was one of the most up-to-date facilities in the county.

      On December 23, 1905, hospital administrators met to discuss a petition to install a new elevator. During the meeting, a nurse ran into the room, exclaiming that the lift had stalled with an orderly and a mother in labor inside. Unable to escape, the orderly delivered the baby girl in the elevator. When the elevator doors were finally opened and the administrators saw the tiny newborn, they immediately ordered for the installation of a new elevator.

      Over the years, New Brighton had its share of epidemics, including cholera, smallpox, whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid, and flu outbreaks. In the late 1890s, the Board of Health ordered sick houses to be built in every ward in an attempt to keep the diseases from spreading.

      In 1907, the hospital was quarantined to keep scarlet fever from spreading throughout the town. Over 40 residents died from the fever in a one-week period. In the same year, over 25 people died from diphtheria. In September 1908, the hospital treated a record 200 patients with measles.

      New Brighton’s sports history dates back to 1896, when the town established the first football team in the county. Before the athletic field was built on Oak Hill, football games were held at Junction Park on lower Third Avenue. Run Bottom field off Thirteenth Street hosted baseball games, while basketball games were played in Kenwood Hall.

      The New Brighton Sports Hall of Fame began to recognize outstanding male and female high school athletes in 1970. A plaque honoring them hangs in the entrance to the high school gym. Alumni who went on to etch their names in professional sport’s history were baseball greats John Tito Francona, his son Terry Francona, and football great Ron Po James, known as one of New Brighton’s most talented football players in the history of the school.

      New Brighton is dotted with neighborhoods that several generations have called home. One of the oldest existing neighborhoods in town is Hunky Alley, a four-block area that was settled by Hungarian and Italian immigrants who worked for the railroad. The families worked and lived together, shared good times and bad, and became a close-knit

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