Several citizens have grounds formally laid out, and planted under professional advice; of these, designed by Bryant Fleming, of Townsend & Fleming, Buffalo, is Chester Place, left to the borough by bequest, for a public library; the garden has an Italian roofed pergola ending with a marble bust and seats, on top of the terrace which divides the upper and lower gardens; a sundial, fastened to an old Spanish Renaissance capital, which came from the collection of garden marbles made by the late Stanford White, is on a rectangular plot of green, and forms the center of one garden room, surrounded by a brick walk, in turn framed by a broad border of shrubbery; into the brick pavement are set little marble panels, carved with designs of roses, birds, etc., other insets contain quotations appropriate to gardens; set into the wall outside at right and left of entrance, are tiles with trees in bas-relief, inside, correspondingly placed, are reliefs showing old Italian garden decorations, Socrates and Hercules.
Just outside of Wellsboro is an old covered wooden bridge, in Pine Creek Gorge, through which the Tyadaghton (River of Pines) runs, mountains rise perpendicularly on either side for 1000 feet; the gorge is sixteen miles long, filled with trout stream tributaries, where also bear, deer, and other game abound.
In Mansfield is a state normal school, on beautifully terraced hill, five buildings, brick with marble or brownstone and terra-cotta trimmings, built 1889-1909, later buildings, modified classic; contains many fine carbon prints of famous paintings and buildings, also plaster replicas of noted pieces of sculpture. Carnegie Free Library, classic architecture, built, 1912, light-pressed brick; architects for school and library, Pierce & Bickford, Elmira, New York.
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McKEAN COUNTY
FORMED March 26, 1804; named for Thomas McKean, second Governor of Pennsylvania; mean altitude 1700 feet. Mount Jewett is one of the high points in the state; half a mile from Mount Jewett is the great Kinzua Viaduct on the Erie Railroad, said to be the highest bridge in the state across a ravine. The electric line to Olean, New York, eighteen miles, through Red Rock, reveals great scenic grandeur. Chief industry, producing and refining petroleum.
Smethport, county seat; was incorporated in 1807; population, 1568. In the courthouse grounds is a granite monument to the Civil War soldiers of this county; it was shown in the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, a gift from Hon. Henry Hamlin; consecrated 1892; is pure fourteenth century English Gothic; architect, Halsey Wood. Altar and reredos of Caen stone, surmounted by a very beautiful, delicately carved canopy; memorial font, Caen stone; all memorials were designed by the architect; organ from Johnson & Sons, Westfield, Massachusetts. In the public school grounds is a tablet marking the route of General Brodhead’s expedition. On the highway, near Lafayette, is a tablet marking place where General Brodhead passed across the county from Allegheny River, when he came from Pittsburgh against the Indians; placed by Smethport Daughters of the American Revolution.
Bradford, chief city; population, 15,525; is said to contain the only plant in America for the manufacture
McKean County
