Few would disagree that one of the distinctive qualities of Connoquenessing Borough is its melodious name. But the modest town had been born in the 19th century as an ordinary Petersburg and was later known as Petersville.

Both names commemorated Peter McKinney, a pioneer who settled in the area in 1792. A child during the Revolutionary War, he served as a fifer in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment.

Both Peter and his wife, Mary, were “well-fitted by nature for pioneer life,” according to the 1883 History of Butler County by Waterman & Co. As evidence, the book’s sources claimed that Mary’s frequent trips to Pittsburgh for “groceries” were often completed “on foot, following the faintly marked Indian trails through miles of uninhabited forests.”

Whether that claim is true or not, one thing is clear: The resilience of early settlers and those who followed set Connoquenessing Borough on a long, straight path, building a community that — even today — new “settlers” still want to call home.

Petersburg was settled by people of German and especially Scottish descent—families like “five or six sets” of Grahams, the McDonalds, McLeods and others—so many Scots, Waterman notes, that the area was known in the early 19th century as “Scotland.”

Agnes Smith Ekin arrived on horseback in 1796 to join her husband, John, in the future area of Petersburg, according to Waterman’s history. Her remarkable horse was credited with carrying not only Mrs. Ekin but also the family’s furniture, bedding and three children.

Remarkable herself, Agnes Ekin upon arrival “took the ax and cut a path to the spring” while her husband was out one day visiting a neighbor, according to Waterman’s sources. Like other pioneer families, the Ekins brought many children into the world—14 to be exact, eight of whom survived to adulthood.

The borough was built by ambitious early citizens such as Alexander Douthett, the first merchant; Thomas Chritchlow, the first postmaster; Caroline Rasely, the first female postmaster; A. D. Vanderling, whose foundry produced implements for the local farms; Dr. J. L. Christie, the first resident doctor and pharmacist; and James H. Steen, who ran the town’s first creamery, located on Rose Farm near the Methodist Church.

It was in 1871 that Postmaster Jacob Fry changed the name of the office to eliminate confusion with nearby towns.

The Native American name of the local creek, “Connoquenessing,” as all residents know, means “a long way straight”—though the precise spelling of the musical sobriquet would be debated until at least 1962, when a new post office was opened with only one “n” in its first syllable.

Like other villages in Butler County, the area was flooded with prospectors when oil was discovered in the 1880s. Small homes were quickly built as the population grew by “leaps and bounds.”

So did business. Residents bought food and household goods from merchants like Purviance’s, Nicklas’s and Barnhardt’s. Wagons could be fixed at George W. Miller’s wagon shop at the corner of Main and Constitution Avenue. Horseshoes were repaired by blacksmiths Sylvanus Henshaw and Milton McKinney.

The town had its questionable characters as well. In 1888, the Connoquenessing Vigilance Association was certified by the state to help law enforcement apprehend and punish horse thieves. Membership dues compensated owners in the event the thief was not caught. The group was also a social one, with regular meetings and an annual picnic.

A second oil discovery after the turn of the century drew prospectors and “once more the community was a bustling little metropolis of oil men and their families.” Nearly 100 derricks were located in the borough, quite often in people’s yards. “Many of the old timers,” one resident asserted, “will recall this as a fond memory.”

As the 20th century unfolded, Connoquenessing Borough continued on its long, straight path of progress.

With connections to Pittsburgh, the electric Harmony Line brought regional transportation to the borough in 1908, relieving residents of the 2.5-mile walk to Reibold Station on the B&O Railroad.

The Connoquenessing Telephone Company provided service to the area beginning in 1912. Its telephone office was located in the rear room of Dr. Christie’s drug store.

Residents formed the Connoquenessing Volunteer Fire Company and Relief Association in 1935 to “[make] our community a more safe place to live and promote a greater civic pride.”

Longtime borough resident Katie Douthett remembers Connoquenessing Borough of the 20th century as a place where children could ride their bikes and neighbors helped neighbors.

Douthett grew up nearby and remembers the borough in the Depression years.

“At that time, Florence Dunbach was the telephone operator,” she said, “and the switchboard was right in her house on Main Street.” Residents shared “party lines” and had to listen for a particular number or pattern of rings to know if a call was for them.

Douthett said St. Paul’s United Church of Christ once had a rail for horses, outdoor toilets and an iron fence around its graveyard.

“My grandfather wanted the fence installed because he didn’t want cows to walk over his grave,” she said. The fence was donated to the war effort during World War I.

Douthett moved as a newlywed to the borough in 1949. She and her husband, Benjamin, raised six children. Their home, which bordered the abandoned Harmony rail line, was moved to its present location when Route 68 was constructed in 1954.

Douthett said that events like an annual carnival off of Drushel Drive and anniversary dinners at the fire hall fostered a sense of community among residents.

Among the borough’s signature events, she said, was making apple butter over three Saturdays in the fall. Each of the borough’s three churches chose a weekend to host it.

“The men would arrive at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to build the fires,” she recalls. Using 50-gallon copper kettles, volunteers took turns stirring water, cinnamon, white sugar, brown sugar and apples from Treesdale Farm orchards, across from the grade school. Families brought food so they could stay all day, she said.

Today, the borough retains its friendly and rural character, according to borough secretary Dayna Walko.

“It’s a lovely community,” she said. Largely undeveloped, the borough was home to a modest 668 residents and 276 households as of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The borough office sits on park grounds south of Route 68, where residents can enjoy fishing, baseball fields, three pavilions, a hiking trail and new playground equipment, installed in 2025 thanks to a state grant, borough funds and a gift from the late Joyce Hays.

Upgrades to the park are only one of the changes taking place in the borough.

A housing development at Leslie Farms on Lloydmont Road will bring hundreds of new homes to the borough, Walko said.

If this and other proposed developments come to fruition, Connoquenessing Borough could find itself turning in a new direction in the years ahead.

Katrina Jesick Quinn is a faculty member 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).