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In the days before Interstate 79's completion, there was only a
couple main ways to get to get to Amity. Of course, most everyone
knew several other "back roads" that led to the same
destination. But, the main roads were still the most direct
routes.
Route 19-south happens to be the direct way to get to Amity,
Pa. But, to get to it, residents from the west side of Washington
had to make their way through the uptown area. Even in the 1960s,
many car owners hated going on Main Street between Chestnut St and Beau
St. because of the traffic on the narrow road and traffic lights. It was
simply easier to go on Jefferson Avenue, turning left and coming onto
East Maiden, past the old yellow brick school on the left. Did you
know East Maiden didn't really begin until after the turn, and actually
up closer to the old Post Office? - now the City Building.
Daddy would pass by his workplace, where mail carriers continually
drove in on the right side of the building, and exited from the left,
both driveways marked as "one-way." Then we'd wait at
the red light to cross South Main Street. On the north corner,
left side coming down Main St, had been a gas station or a car repair
garage in the 1960s. By 1981-82 when I was going to nursing school
and volunteering at the David Bradford House as a narrator for visitors,
that corner was a pizza shop inside the same cement block-concrete
building. They had the first Pac-Man video game, and a space game
(can't remember the name); I'd play both games as a way to unwind after
classes, before picking up my daughter at the YWCA's child
Daycare. David Jones was the curator/director then at the Bradford
House, a bright man who helped me study for nursing exams on slow
visiting days at "the House." I'd often mentally
chuckle, realizing Mr. Jones was sitting there dressed in 1700s
period-clothing while quizzing me on cell structure and mitrochondria or
heart E.K.G. readings/interpretation! (But I diverge from our
topic!)
As a kid, we'd next pass the LeMoyne House on the left, looking very
stately even then, with its brick front. But I always thought it
looked strange, having no real "porch" on the front, the lack
of which was very common to structures in the town of Washington in the
1700 and 1800s (as still seen today).
The next corner at College Street had a filling station then.
College Street had more huge trees on the right than it does today,
although Washington and Jefferson College had not yet spread out so far
down. We'd look for trains to pass on the overhead bridge (marked
today as Csx Transportation, a container-shipping company, but no idea
of the name in the 1960s. Brady's Tunnel, shown in old postcards,
is over near today's Park View Drive and Park Terrace, on this railroad
line). We often got to watch the train as we passed through the
next intersection (I think Stewart Avenue?). It was at that
intersection in the early 1980s that I'd cross Maiden Street coming down
the back streets from East Prospect Avenue, pushing a stroller and
dragging a cart, going to the laundromat at the little plaza below the
rail tracks on the next incline. Across the street in the 1980s
was one of the first convenience stores of today, with a rather large
parking lot in front (a Sheets or something similar); I think in the
1960s, it was just one of the row of houses on that side).
Back in the 1960s, the next highlight was another school building on
the left. At the end of a school day, children poured out the
doors, heading in all directions or to cars where their parents waited
with engines idling. In winters, it wasn't uncommon to see fathers
with the hood up, trying to re-start engines that had stalled. I
liked this car trip much more in summer time, with little traffic from
this point on. We'd pass huge Victorian-looking old houses with
grand trees shading the sidewalks on both sides. We'd pass by
LeMoyne Avenue: Dr. and Mrs. Lyon, civic leaders who had a clothing
"outreach" in their basement for the needy, lived up on
LeMoyne where there was an old bridge trellis above their house).
A highlight was nearing the entrance to the Washington Park. We
only went there occasionally, but on these car trips we sometimes made a
side trip through the park, up pas the large dance pavilion, past the
log cabin, and up to the Stone Pavilion, down the other side past the
baseball field. Back on Maiden Street, I'd recognize another
favorite place: a store that was a candy distributor (Sam Cohen &
Sons, listed on mapquest as a wholesaler of Candy & Confectionery, Food Products, Cigar Cigarette & Tobacco and Paper Products).
Inside were rows of shelves holding boxes of different candy bars;
little stores would open these boxes and put them on the front counter
next to the cashier. But, my dad saved Mallo Cup™ and
Smoothie™ Peanut Butter Cup "coins" from the cardboard where
the 2 candy cups rested inside the candy packaging, and once you saved
so many "coins" (500?) they could be redeemed for a whole box
of either kind. We'd save for the Mallo Cups for daddy, and the
Smoothie kind for us kids. That distributor always had an
overwhelming smell of sweet chocolate candies as soon as you opened the
front door! Mmmmm... delicious! But the candy sweetness was
mixed with the putrid and assaulting smells of loose tobacco. Here
daddy could buy tobacco pouches and cigarette papers; he had a small
hand held rolling machine at home, or by hand he would lay a thick line
of tobacco along the paper and, ever-so-carefully, he'd hold both sides
as he rolled the paper closed. Then, with a lick along the edge,
he'd "seal" the new "cigarette" and twist both
ends. (Rolling one's own cigarettes was nothing new, used for
decades before the marijuana use of the 1960s and 1970s in
Washington.) We only stopped at the confectionary if we were
heading back home immediately, else our luscious treats would have
melted in our old 1948 2-door Chevy (no air conditioning back then).
But, on our long trips to Amity, our time was short and we rarely
stopped then for candy, or to stop at the Foodland store nearby.
And our next "adventure" was before us: climbing a hill
that, to our old car was like climbing a mountain. Drivers would
start their preparations even before the distributor's store, trying to
gather speed before the foot of the hill began. The first section,
the car would almost zoom along (well, it was "fast" compared
to the 5 or 10 mph mostly driven on city streets). But within 100
feet or so, you could feel the engine start to drag under the weight,
trying to pull itself up the incline. Daddy would down-shift to
ease the strain and not lose speed, and we'd all hope there wasn't a
slow-moving pick-up truck in front of us to make dad swear more.
Reaching the top of the hill seemed to take "ages," although
driving it myself as a young adult in an "automatic" car it
didn't seem bad at all. Yet, having those early memories of
watching my dad work the clutch on the car's manual transmission to down-shift in a splendidly timed
expertise, I still felt that's what I needed to do to make it up this
huge hill! (Ever find yourself pushing the gas so hard you thought
your foot would hit the road beneath the car? That's what Washington
County "hills" are like.)
On the left at the lower section of the hill, a road went to the
small houses nestled back there, and half-way up on the right another
road took families to their homes. Then as we crested the hill, a
stone building sat on the left. I think as a kid it was known as a
"beer garden" but by the 1980s it was a bar-restaurant.
On the side street next to the bar-restaurant, I took my very first red
compact Chevy to a garage for the yearly PA State inspection sticker,
and for repairs.
As a kid, I heard my parents call this area of town
"Pancake." A lover of the food by the same name, it
puzzled me as to why this place had such as name: I saw no place where
that breakfast was made, unless they made it at the bar, I
thought! Pancake extended up the next hill, after going through
the traffic light at the corner of Route 40 (Maiden Street) and Route 19
South (up ahead is the bridge over Interstate 79). Continuing East
goes into Laboratory. But the intersection is where we'd turn on
our trip.
My brother-in-law is a decade older but he too is unsure whether
there was always a traffic light at this intersection. We think
there was, but only one single mechanism on a side pole on the right,
rather than hanging from the center of the intersection. Even back
then, drivers had trouble stopping on the downhill side on Rt 40
traveling west coming into town. Today that side has warnings even
before getting to the traffic light.
Waynesburg Road is one of the oldest roads in this section. It
goes under I-79's overpass near Burt Lane. Before Burt, I-79 is
off to the left, but after the overpass I-79 runs close off to the right
side of Waynesburg Road which is Route 19 south. Passing Lone Pine
Road which goes southeast over to Route 40 East, meeting Rt. 519
intersection of Rt. 40, Amity Ridge Road continues
southwest.
Crumrine's 1882 History states that settlers to
Amity area were "English and Scotch
emigrants who came over to New England removed thence to New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and some to Virginia" and came to Amwell Twp as
early as 1768. Among them were the Bane brothers (5), and families
of Enoch, Peck, Denman, Cook, Lindley, Tucker, Axtell, Vankirk, Curry
and many others. In those early days, Amwell Twp was nothing more than
forest wilderness, where settlers still relied on the blockade fort to
protect them from Indian attacks. Yet, the settlers persevered. One of the first stores in Amity was advertised
in 1810 by Thomas Brice who advertised that he was selling linen,
lining, hemp, and bags, beeswax, feathers, whiskey, and
rags. The first Amity celebrtion of the 4th of July was held
at the house of Leslie Carsons in 1811.
The
North Ten Mile Baptist Church which the Bane family helped
establish (their web site has music and a beautiful photo
of the present church), established in 1773, is the oldest congregations
in this area. Part of this
church's history can be read online. They also have many old
and newer
photos on their site. Solomon Spalding's
"Temperance Inn" and Residence (1814-16) at Amity, PA is
said to have brought the beginnings of Mormonism to Washington County, coming
here in 1814 and dying in Amity, PA in 1816 [a period which saw many
deaths in the county and nationwide after volcanic eruptions overseas
caused "The Summer that Never Was"].
To Amity was where my Denman ancestors moved after
leaving New Jersey (county unknown), but I didn't know this until the
1980s while learning our family history from my grandmother, Ruth
Elizabeth Lane McGary. But I focused on Lane research, so I
didn't learn much more until the 1990s. A county history pointed
out a tie to the Peck family of New Jersey. It wasn't until I sent for
Joshua Alpheus Denman's Civil War Pension record (three inches thick and
full of depositions) that I learned he had deserted our 4th
great-grandmother, Maria Anthony Denman (later m. Jacob Miller) with
their 5 Denman children, and that Joshua had taken an alias of Andrew J.
Donley. He had run off with Maria's younger sister, Eliza, and after
supposedly marrying in Pittsburgh PA (no record), they went to near
Akron, Summit Co., Ohio and there raised a 2nd family. Although I
have not found more on the Anthonys or Denmans in New Jersey, I have
made these key discoveries. I only wish I had known the Denmans
lived in Amity PA before I left Washington PA for Ohio, and that someone
had known where Joshua Denman's house was located there. But this
must wait until I can do the research or the next generation picks up
where I left off.
Crumrine wrote: "The present town of Amity contains twenty-seven
dwellings, Presbyterian and Methodist Protestant Churches, school-house,
two stores, drug-store, cabinet-shop, two shoe-shops, two
blacksmith-shops, wagon-shop, barber-shop, tailor-shop, harness- and
saddle-shop, post-office, two milliners and dressmakers, and three
physicians" (the first doctor in Amity was Rev. Cephas Dodd who
died in 1858).
Even by the 1960s, Amity is an unremarkable area of
family owned farmlands and company-owned coal mines. Amity was never able to
capitalize on tourist / traveler's dollars from being so close to
Interstate 79, although further down was the old Hazel's Truck Stop just
before you get to Ruff Creek. Amity is within stone's throw of both Greene County and Washington
County, and from its rural setting families have been reared with small
town values. Local teenagers call this area "dead" but
descendants of this area inherit their ancestors'
strong work ethic and dedication to both the land and to life
Source for historical parts: Crumrine;
rest from personal knowledge
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