A casual observer might believe that Lancaster Township hasn’t changed much since its earliest European settlers arrive in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Early historians noted that Lancaster Township was not as quickly settled as other parts of Butler County due to the unusually rugged landscape and rocky soil, and many settlers came and went.

Those who stayed were tough. Settlers used oxen and packhorses to complete the farm work, gradually transforming rocky, forested hillsides into productive lots and later, farmland. Records show some early settlers were former Revolutionary War or War of 1812 soldiers. Most were Scotch-Irish, German-American and German, with those of German descent the most likely to put down roots.

Among the first settlers to stay were the Beighley brothers of Westmoreland County — Henry, arriving in 1796, and John, George and Peter. Other early arrivals were the Morrison, Boyer, Martin, Neely, Scott, Myers, Baumgartner and Stewart families.

Hunting skills honed on the battlefield would come in handy in the heavily forested terrain of Lancaster Township, where early homesteads and croplands were plagued by wildlife like wildcats, turkeys and more than a few bears.

Samuel Stewart, “a fine old gentleman, and a strict Presbyterian,” according to the 1883 History of Butler County by Waterman, Watkins & Co., was astutely aware of the wild nature of his new Lancaster Township home.

Stewart, a tough, “well-known hunter,” was once treed by a howling pack of more than 200 wolves, who kept him aloft for more than 24 hours, according to Waterman. He survived but he was later attacked by a bear and “would have been killed” had not his “resolute wife come to his aid” and killed the predator — evidence that women on the frontier lands of Lancaster Township were also pretty tough.

Early settlers dealt with another, less dangerous but familiar wildlife issue: deer.

“The deer were very troublesome, and frequently invaded the wheat fields,” where they damaged the crops, Waterman recounted. But settlers were adaptable. George Beighley, for one, was known to “get young deer, tame them and keep them for pets.”

Despite the demands of clearing soil and fighting wildlife, early settlers somehow found time for lots of children. Henry Beighley, for example, had nine children. John Morrison, who arrived in 1800, had 10. Tree-sitting Samuel Stewart and his inspiring wife had 12.

As the population grew, so did civic life, with the expansion of schools and churches.

To hone the intellect of a burgeoning new generation, the first school was established in the 1810s and found a permanent home in a log cabin near the site of the Old Stone Church, in 1818. It was here that instructors like “Nicholas Muhlieson, John Constantine, John McHenry, and other German-American teachers, wielded the birch successfully” — surely to the dismay of the schoolchildren.

Souls of the residents were tended in a number of active churches. Founded in 1796, the first Lutheran congregation first met in a barn, then in the log schoolhouse, and then in the 1829 Stone Church that still stands on Stone Church Road. Other churches included a Methodist Episcopal Church, St. Peter’s German Reformed Church, and others.

A preacher, Thomas B. Baldwin, hired a local teacher to lay out the village of Middle Lancaster in 1835. Certainly one of the earliest African American property owners in the county, Baldwin was well-known and ambitious, according to Waterman, and “frequently preached, drawing good audiences.”

Baldwin’s sister and at least one other African American family also lived in the town. Sometime before 1847, however, Baldwin sold his property and left the area.

Also in the 1840s, Jacob Christophel opened the first tavern and subsequently a grocery store. The first post office opened in 1847, with postmaster William Beighley Sr.

But churches and schools didn't mean the population saw themselves as fancy townsfolk.

Instead, they dressed in simple clothes made of linen, cotton and flannels, and an occasional straw hat for the men. Boys and men went barefoot in the summer and wore simple clogs or moccasins in the winter.

“People were not too proud to go to church without fine clothes,” Waterman’s sources recalled in 1883. For the residents of Lancaster Township, “hard work, simple fare and little money — these rules were universal.”

Lancaster Township was finally incorporated in 1854, comprising 37 square miles of land on either side of the “Pittsburgh & Mercer Road.” Now known as Route 19, it had been the first road in the township to be passable by wagons.

By the 1880s, Waterman asserts, Lancaster Township was characterized by large farms and the same, tough spirited people, a “wide-awake, industrious class,” who maintained “a hearty rivalry in the work of improvements.” Middle Lancaster had about 20 houses, one doctor, two merchants, a hotel — still standing at the corner of Kings Alley and Route 19 — two wagon-makers, two blacksmiths, two shoemakers and — importantly in an era when life was hard and even children often died — one undertaker.

Unlike other parts of Butler County, where the sudden rise and fall of the oil industry took its toll, agriculture continued to characterize Lancaster Township through the 19th and 20th centuries. Some natural gas wells were developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, according to township manager Mary E. Hess.

The area’s picturesque rolling hills and ravines now attract new “settlers” — this time homeowners fleeing more congested districts to the south.

And what they find isn’t much different from years gone by.

“Life here is quiet. It’s peaceful, quaint, neighborly,” said Debbie Scott, a lifetime resident of Middle Lancaster, whose family has lived in the village for generations. “And we like it that way.”

It’s also historic.

Individuals can still take their apples to Sally’s Cider Press, at 497 Perry Highway, where families have made cider for generations, or stop at one of the region’s historic churchyard cemeteries, where names like Beighley and Myers — and inscriptions in German — can easily be found.

Also along Route 19, travelers can see the structures that once housed Middle Lancaster’s hotel and general store, where Scott remembers buying Popsicles on visits with her grandfather.

Across Kings Alley stands a barn, once owned by John and Eleanor Kristophel, Scott’s grandparents, where she would drive cows in the early mornings and again at night. To the south of the barn were two historic houses, one of which was removed, that were also family homes.

Efforts are underway to preserve the historic character of the district.

The township launched in 2024 a beautification committee that will focus on beautifying and preserving the historic Route 19 corridor.

“The residents value the rural character and the beauty of the township,” Hess said, “and this project will help us preserve that for the future.”

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).