Highs and lows in Venango Township and Eau Claire
Venango Township along the northern border of Butler County once loomed much larger in the county’s history.
It was once twice as big as its present 21 square miles and its population 134 years ago was put a 1,147, more than today’s 847 inhabitants as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2022.
According to the 1909 “History of Butler County” by James McKee, the township’s fertile valleys and rich coal deposits attracted the first pioneers to settle and live in the township.
The first settlers, who arrived in 1796 in what is now Venango Township were Irish-born settlers from Westmoreland County. They township got its name from Venango County to its north and not the Venango Trail, a Native American footpath that went from the forks of the Ohio north to the Seneca village at Venango, which is now known as Franklin.
Early settlers of the township named in several county histories included Samuel Sloan, Thomas Jolly, Peter Coulter, Robert Cunningham, Hugh Murrin and Michael Kelley.
Of the original settlers, Jolly is remembered for planting an orchard in 1779 on his 700-acre tract with fruit trees he brought to his farm from Armstrong County.
Murrin built a distillery on his tract to convert his crops to whiskey which could be more easily transported to customers than bulk grain. So many Western Pennsylvania farmers followed this practice that in 1794 when they rose up en masse to protest a federal tax on spirits and the stills that produced them, it became known as the Whiskey Rebellion.
Violence against officials trying to levy and collect the tax grew so bad, President Washington called up 13,000 troops to restore federal authority. However, when the troops reached Western Pennsylvania, rebel leaders went into hiding and the rebellion collapsed. In the end while there were arrests and convictions for treason, all those convicted would eventually be pardoned by President Washington, or later by President John Adams.
By 1804, Venango was one of the original 13 townships of the recently created Butler County.
In 1853, a proposal to standardize the size of all townships in the county was met with a petition from Venango Township residents opposing such a move. The petition signers worried that such a move would disarrange existing school districts, render some schoolhouses useless and result in “increased taxes already heavier than we are able to bear.”
Despite Venango Township’s protest, the measure passed, and in 1854 Allegheny Township was split from the eastern section of the older township.
But while the township’s size may have shrunk, its population and industries continued to increase.
The oil rush started in 1859 in Titusville expanded to the township as various oil and gas wells were drilled. In addition, coal mining was pursued in the township so that by the turn of the 19th century, the Turner Coal, Coke & Mining Company was taking 300 tons of coal per day by strip mining.
Several unincorporated mining towns sprung up during this period: Ferris, Deegan and Goff. Ferris and Deegan each had post offices, but Ferris lost its in 1924. Deegan’s was closed in 1931.
One town incorporated was Eau Claire. Its origin goes back to 1848, when a surveyor laid out building plots in what was then the John Rosenberg farm. William Tebury built the first house on the site in 1849.
The town’s Methodist Church was built in 1850. By 1856, the town, then called appropriately enough Farmington, had a post office.
Soon Farmington boasted one hotel, two stores, a blacksmith’s shop, a harness maker, a wagon shop, a buggy maker, a milliner, a shoemaker, two doctors and a stock dealer, as in livestock.
In 1894, the Eau Claire Academy was built, with a Professor Robinson in charge and a Miss Chapin as teacher of music. The building on Route 38 would go on to be used as a high school and then an elementary school before it was condemned.
According to documents on file at the Butler Public Library, on Dec. 7, 1900, the residents of Farmington presented a petition to John M. Greer, justice of the court of quarter sessions in Butler “that the collection of houses collected after a regular plan in regard to the streets, roads and alleys” be incorporated as the town of Eau Claire with the provisions that freeholds in the new town not exceed 35.
The petition was granted and the 47 residents of the newly recognized town set about naming a town council, school director, constable, tax collector, election officer and borough auditors.
Eau Claire faced a setback in 1915. The Butler Record newspaper reported in its Feb. 15, 1912 edition that a devastating fire had hit Eau Claire.
“The rapid speed of the fire served to threaten the entire village,” wrote the Record reporter.
In the end three buildings were destroyed, the Blair & Anderson hardware store, the Miller drugstore and the McDonald Building, for a loss of $12,000. The post office and the building which housed the Eau Claire Telephone Co. were also damaged.
According to the Record, “The town has no fire department, but the people by means of a bucket brigade worked valiantly to prevent the spread of the fire and succeeded in confining it to the limits mentioned.”
The Butler Eagle’s July 6, 1960, edition mentioned the “Forgotten Class of 1907” of the Eau Claire Academy.
The newspaper related that the academy at that time was preparing teachers but there was no graduating class for 1907.
It seems, reported the long ago Eagle writer, the class teacher Thomas Kelly was stricken with typhoid and his replacement couldn’t impose discipline on the students so that “horseplay and skylarking became the rule during school hours not the exception.”
When many of the students realized they weren’t learning enough, while the others’ tomfoolery was going on to qualify them for teaching certificates, they quit or transferred to other teaching training academies, such as North Washington Academy or West Sunbury Academy.
The remainder didn’t receive diplomas, rendering 1907 as the only year in the school’s long history with no graduating class.
Eau Claire boasts more than a rich history, it’s a geophysical prodigy. The town boasts the highest point above sea level, 1,550 feet, in Butler County.
