KENNERDELL

HISTORY OF KENNERDELL
by Charles G. Bowman of Oil City
Published by The News-Herald
April 1954

Kennerdell is a beautiful Venango County village, situated on the east bank of the Allegheny River about 75 miles north of Pittsburgh. It is approximately 18 miles via the highway from Franklin, the county seat, wand the same distance from my home in Oil City.

This very small settlement, consisting only of a score of dwellings, a general store, a post office and a church, has, through the years, enjoyed a degree of importance far out of proportion to the size of the place. It was founded in the days of the pioneers when almost all travel followed the streams. Settlements and resting places were then far apart on the Allegheny and to those of us who know the place, with its great stretch of easy landing beach, and the wide, easy sloping shelf on which the village stands, it is easy to imagine early Kennerdell as one of the most popular stopping places on the river.

Steamboats early began to ply the Allegheny, but even before their time there was a boating industry on the river. Iron ore had been discovered on its banks, and the early iron furnaces were built along its tributaries where there was abundant wood for fuel and water power to supply the air blast. The manufactured pig iron was gloated down the river to Pittsburgh in boats. This industry must have added tremendous importance to Kennerdell. One of these furnaces was located nearby on Scrubgrass Creek. The digging of the ore, the operation of the furnace, and the procurement of charcoal for fuel must have provided employment for a lot of people and added tremendously to the traffic on the river.

Then came the greatest thing that has ever happened to this section of the country. About 50 miles north of Kennerdell, on the banks of Oil Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny, the first oil well was drilled in the year 1859. A new industry was thus begun; an industry that has been the basis of world progress during the past hundred years. Not only did this increase river traffic; the river was now filled with barges taking oil to the Pittsburgh market but the oil field itself spread southward along both sides of the river until it reached and passed the village.

Kennerdell now became a distributing center for several square miles of rich oil producing and farming territory on each side of the river as it possessed the only highway with a river crossing within a radius of 15 miles.

In the year 1867 a railroad was begun at Pittsburgh which followed the course of the Allegheny northward, and which was eventually extended through to the city of Buffalo.

Kennerdell was given a passenger depot and a freight warehouse which further added to its importance as a distributing center. The railroad agent also acted as agent for the Telegraph Company. With the coming of the railroad, the river traffic rapidly declined until nothing remained of it except rafts of lumber from the forests along its banks, but the railroad traffic boomed. Five passenger trains each way, between Buffalo and Pittsburgh, roared through the village every day and nearly all of them stopped there.

By the turn of the century, the traffic had become so heavy that it was necessary to double track the road throughout its entire length; also a tunnel was dug beneath the hill which bypassed the village with all through traffic. Kennerdell was now at the height of its prosperity and importance; its stores were doing a tremendous business; a hotel flourished; a sand bank was shipping trainloads of sand to the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co.

With the coming of the automobile the picture began to change. Slowly and imperceptibly, at first, but accelerating fast as the years went on, the family automobile provided transportation for the neighborhood population and the trucks kept eating into the freight haul. Paved highways came into the picture to the still further detriment of the railroads, and then the retrenchment began. The extra track was torn up; the depot and freight warehouse torn down; all traffic was eventually routed through the tunnel and the railroad through the village became only a memory. Today nothing remains to show that there ever was a railroad through the village, and Kennerdell has lost its preeminence as a distributing center. But something else has arisen to keep the place in a limelight. It is rapidly becoming a summer resort.

The Allegheny River, from its source at the north to its junction with the Ohio at Pittsburgh, flows through a region of scenic beauty. Through most of its course its banks are high, wooded hills and the distraction of being one of the most beautiful spots along the entire valley. In summer the banks are hills of green velvet; in late autumn they are a blaze of color. The river here makes a great bend; the flow is slow and gentle and reinforced here by the waters of Scrubgrass Creek, the stream resembles a placid lake.

There is excellent boating and both streams are well stocked with fish. Summer cottages are springing up fast and on weekends and holidays an army of fishermen throng the banks. All summer long the beautiful winding road that descends the east bank, crosses the bridge and ascends the valley of Scrubgrass Creek, is filled with the cars of pleasure seekers. The Lookout, on the highest hill, gives a sweeping view of several miles of the beautiful river valley and is worth going many miles to see. The �Old Swimmin� Hole� in the creek draws hundreds of people throughout the summer.

This, then, is the Kennerdell which has come to your notice through your post office work. But this place was not always called Kennerdell, nor was it the locations of the original Kennerdell family settlement. This village which I have described was formerly called Scrubgrass. I was born in 1880, and I can distinctly remember when the name was changed although I cannot give the exact date. I was there many times in early youth when it was still called Scrubgrass.

Now regarding the original village which was about four miles up Scrubgrass Creek from the river. The information that follows, I have gleaned from our county history, my family history and my own memory. Please bear in mind that from now on I am writing about the ORIGINAL Kennerdell family settlement.

Richard Kennerdell, a native of Lancashire, England, was born March 19, 1817. He came to America when nine years old, passing his boyhood in Philadelphia. He removed to Pittsburgh in 1837 and in 1853 he purchased a woolen mill site on Scrubgrass Creek where there was already a pioneer village of considerable proportions. Just what the village was called before the coming of the Kennerdells I do not know, but I presume the name Kennerdell was given when the first post office was established. This village consisted of a score of home, a general store, a grist mill, a saw mill and nearby, an iron furnace. There was also a woolen mill which was an extensive plant engaged in the manufacture of cloths, flannels, blankets, shawls, etc. In connection was a fulling mill and dye house.

The woolen mill, grist mill and sawmill were owned by a Mr. Phipps. All of these were destroyed in one great fire, a financial disaster from which Mr. Phipps could not recover. Mr. Kennerdell bought the site, erected a new mill and operated it until his death.

My grandfather, Joseph Alexander Bowman, was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. He was also a chaplain in the Union Army during the War Between the States. Shortly after the war ended, he sought a preaching appointment where his six sons would have many other advantages. Accordingly, Grandfather settled there where he preached for many years while some of his sons worked in the woolen mill, learning trades which were of little use to them in after life as the woolen industry shifted to modern machinery and moved to new locations.

It was a thriving village and business was so good at one time that a railroad was built from Scrubgrass, crossing the river and following Scrubgrass Creek, as the highway now does to Old Kennerdell.

But the old order changeth; pioneer conditions must give way to modern progress; the little stone furnace stack in the woods could not compete with the giants of Pittsburgh; neither could the village woolen mill compete with the modern ones of New England. This did not all happen at once, but gradually the village disintegrated. My father was still there in the year 1880, operating the general store, and there in the living quarters over the store, I was born. I am told the family left there and moved to Rockland when I was less than one year old.

In my early youth I had many occasions to travel that beautiful winding road along Scrubgrass Creek. We could then trace in spots, the location of the old railroad. The buildings were all gone, but my father has pointed out the locations of the mill and the store and he has told me many stories of happenings in the old place. He had an intimate acquaintance with the Kennerdell family, Doctor Nicholson who officiated at my birth, was married to one of the Kennerdell daughters. It is fortunate indeed that the name was transferred to the more permanent village nearby. After leaving Kennerdell, Dr. Nicholson practiced medicine in Franklin for many years.

Transcribed by Penny Haylett Minnick
minnick862@verizon.net

Disclaimer:there may be errors due to transcription of information from both early and late (current contributors) work.