The first European settlers of Parker Township were some pretty tough characters.

“The hardships which the pioneers were obliged to undergo were great, and only men and women possessed of heroic fortitude and determination were capable of enduring them,” publishers Waterman, Watkins & Co. wrote in an 1883 History of Butler County.

“Almost without exception, the early settlers were poor in worldly possessions, and came into the wilderness solely for the purpose of making homes for themselves and their posterity,” they wrote.

Parker Township was named for John Parker, a farmer and surveyor who came to Butler County in 1794. He and his extended family were the first European settlers in the area, living on 600 acres even before Butler County was founded in 1800.

Parker and his family floated their possessions from Washington County by canoe, according to Waterman and Watkins. By 1803, county records stated without elaboration that he had “400 acres of land, five cows, two horses and one slave.” Parker later became a judge in the region and was described as “an active and energetic business man, and influential and useful citizen.”

Another early settler of the region, John Martin, and his 10-year-old son “walked from Westmoreland County, carrying axes and guns,” according to Waterman and Watkins. “They hunted for game but unsuccessfully, and were near despair and starvation,” until another son arrived with supplies.

Settlers like Parker and Martin were not the first on the land.

Native Americans were living north of Martinsburg — a village named after Martin, now known as Bruin — in the early 19th century. The Native Americans planted crops and hunted, and were considered good neighbors.

“They were peaceable and well-disposed,” Waterman and Watkins wrote, “and the boy, Thomas Martin, often played with the young Indians.”

A later history of Butler County, published by Robert C. Brown in 1905, said the Native Americans and European settlers were in regular contact. The “young braves” hunted deer and panthers — a creature Brown called “the most terrible enemy of the new inhabitants.”

Irish were the most common early settlers, living in unassuming structures characterized as “cabins,” “huts” and “shanties.” Some notable figures included Capt. Robert Storey, who served in the War of 1812; William Fleming, who participated in the Irish revolution; and James Turner and his son, Thomas. Thomas Turner ran a distillery from 1807 to 1844.

Settlers were drawn by farmland, wildlife and hunting, and the tall tales of their adventures made their way into the folklore of the region.

Archibald Kelly was one of the colorful characters of early Parker Township. After a period away from home, the Waterman and Watkins history recounts, he returned to find his cabin occupied by another settler’s family. Displeased, he threatened to chop down a tree “and thus annihilate the cabin and the Jamisons if they did not leave.” The Jamisons took Kelly up on his suggestion, and despite the rough start, the families later “became very intimate.”

Martinsburg, the town that would become Bruin, was surveyed in 1837 near Fletcher’s mill on Bear Creek. Zeri B. Sheppard, a shoemaker, built the first cabin.

Sheppard would be joined by tradesmen, teachers, merchants and, by the end of the century, a doctor. Penn Ridick opened a “stopping place” — perhaps a roadhouse — about 1846. The post office, established in 1851, carried the more-familiar name of “Bruin,” with Perry Week as postmaster.

Resourceful 19th century residents of Parker Township and Bruin ran several mills, a textile factory producing woolen goods, a sawmill on the Stone House farm, and a “furnace” that would be “closed by the sheriff in 1862.”

Archibald Martin opened a tavern and the first regular hotel in the town in the early 1850s. A second tavern opened in 1854 — but in a twist of fate, this location was later “converted into a temperance house,” according to Brown.

The feisty Archibald Kelly was credited as the first schoolteacher in the township, teaching many who would go on to become prominent citizens. Known for “rigid discipline,” he was “severe but well-intentioned in his treatment of refractory pupils,” using an instrument known as the cat-o’nine-tails in the process.

Students paid for the privilege. Schools ran by subscription, with men working as teachers in schoolhouses in clever places. The first schoolhouse was on “the old Daniel Walker farm,” with additional locations in an untenanted cabin, on the site of “an old Methodist Church,” at Shryock’s mill and on Alsworth’s farm. By 1894 there would be 11 schools, teaching 193 boys and 185 girls, with a total revenue of $4,233.34 — $1,775.78 of which went to the state — according to Brown.

After the Civil War, Bruin was widely known for “secret societies,” according to Brown’s history. Residents could choose from chapters of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, The Odd Fellows, the Knights of Honor, the International Order of Good Templars, the Junior Order United American Mechanics, and the still-secret “R. T. of T.” and the “E. A. U.,” though this last group “rarely met.”

A Bruin temperance union was formed in 1888 by “Miss Narcissa E. White,” with nine members.

As in many parts of Butler County, 1872 brought a “tidal wave of oil operators, drillers, pumpers and torpedo men” to the region, prompting a surge in businesses and professionals to meet the demands of a growing population.

Though the oil industry boom came to an end, residents also worked for the railroad, at large estates and in harvesting timber, according to Township Supervisor Steven Prokay, whose grandparents and great-grandparents lived in the area.

“We’re small. We’re poor. There’s a lot of game lands and not much development,” he said.

Agriculture and small businesses add to the local economy.

But, he said, energy could bring change, with gas wells in several communities and a compressor plant near Eldorado.

Companies such as Lola Energy and Laurel Energy have wells in place with more coming, he said.

“The hottest thing in Parker Township are these gas wells,” he said. “People are getting royalties, and people are getting jobs.”

Prokay also predicts new investments in nearby areas will bring money and jobs in service, energy and construction.

“It will be great for our young people,” he said.

Katrina Jesick Quinn is a contributing writer for the Butler Eagle and a professor at Slippery Rock University. She is an editor of From the Arctic to the Orient: Adventure Journalism in the Gilded Age (McFarland) and The Civil War Soldier and the Press (Routledge).