The History of Reynoldsville

     This section, about the beginning of the 19th century was variously  known as The Backlands, The Wilderness, The Indian Country, The Pine  Country, The Pennsylvania Backwoods, The Pennsylvania Northwest, and The  Fort Stanwix Indian Purchase. 

     If an early pioneer had climbed to one of the highest elevations  in this locality he could have looked for 20 or 30 miles in any  direction and have seen hills and valleys completely covered with  primeval forests of pine and hemlock. There would not have been a spot  free of trees to break the sea of dark bluish green which gradually  faded into a purplish haze as It neared the horizon. 

      In the autumn the gorgeous hues of those boundless forests which  greeted the eye of the first settlers were a night of transcendent  beauty. Many small areas of bright variegated maples were made vastly  more brilliant by contrast with the immense background of dark green  pine and hemlock which was far more beautiful than a single unbroken  color. 

     Huge tree trunks lay decaying every rod or so on the forest floor  where they had fallen during a storm after they had lived their natural  life. The wilderness In these unexplored wilds before the advent of  civilization was very dense, hemlock and pine trees with immense trunks  towered to a great height. The dark deep woods were moist and ferns grew  in abundance. 

      Nature was exhibited at that time in her wildest grandeur. Such  sublimity can never be seen again. How beautiful must have been the  verdant old forest in its solitude to the Indian hunter as he stood amid  the moaning pines and the sparkling, dew covered foliage all the gray  dawn! The thrush, the oriole, the wren, and the chickadee sang from twig  and branch and squirrels barked as they sprang from tree to tree.  Looking across the valley over the morning fog the hunter could see the  brow of the eastern hill and behold the golden sun breaking through the  boughs of the massive pine trees and view the rose tinted sky just over  the horizon. 

      When this was a wilderness, and for many years after, the present  business section of Reynoldsville was a swamp. It extended from about  100 feet east of what is now the corner of Fourth and Main Streets to  about where Coal Alley now crosses Main between Fifth and Sixth Streets.  The marsh also covered the land from a short distance below what is now  Jackson to Hill Street. Swamp Alley crosses what is now Main between  Fourth and Fifth Streets and today has no evidence of ever having been a  swampy section. Willow Alley which runs east and west between Main and  Grant Streets, crosses what at one time was the deepest part of the bog  and received its name from the willows which grew there when it was laid  out. While the turnpike was being constructed though it in 1820 and  afterwards, the workmen had much difficulty in building the road. The  gnats were so extremely annoying that fires had to be kept burning all  night at the camps to enable the men to sleep.  It was necessary to corduroy the pike in the marsh by placing loge side  by side across the road through the mire. In time these loge became  buried in the mud and then a second and third layer were put down. In  later years when ditches were dug through Main Street many, of these  logs were found. No large trees grew in the swamp. It was covered over  by a dense growth of alders, willows, and swamp grass, and was the home  of owls, water snakes, frogs, lizards, muskrats and turtles.