Earliest important road is the Jersey Shore Turnpike, running from Jersey Shore at the mouth of Pine Creek, Lycoming County, through most wonderful scenery to Coudersport and on to Buffalo; an effort is being made to have this historic highway improved, as it is the most direct way from the West Branch Valley to Buffalo. On this road is the site of Oleona. Ole Bull, the famous violinist, attempted the settlement of a colony of Norwegians; in 1852, he purchased 11,144 acres on Kettle Creek, in the then almost unbroken forests; and laid out four villages, New Norway, New Bergen, Oleona, and Walhalla; this proved a sad failure, and the land is now included in the State Forest Reserve. Ole Bull’s Castle, with a great stone wall, still partly standing, was built about a mile below Oleona, on the crest of a bluff. Travel is generally good in summer, during the winter the heavy snowdrifts are often too deep for passage, temperature often falling to 40° below zero.
Coudersport, county seat, settled in 1807; population 2836; courthouse, substantial, colonial building in the square, on the main street; in the grounds is the Soldiers’ Monument, a granite shaft, pedestal has names of Potter County men who fell in war for the Union. The famous Bucktail Regiment was recruited largely from Potter County, noted marksmen, many had been famous hunters, and because of their wonderful skill with the rifle were made sharpshooters in the Civil War. Christ Protestant Episcopal Church, incorporated, 1833, present stone building, Gothic, built in 1885, on ground given by Miss Katharine Dent. The beautiful little church, “All Saints,” at Brookland, near the old Dent Homestead, memorial to Henry Hatch Dent, by his children, maintained by endowment, is native stone, with stained glass windows, marble memorial altar, and other artistic furnishings, open by appointments of the Bishop, it stands, as old “St. Martins-in-the-Field,” a solitary witness for Christianity and the Church.
First Presbyterian, oldest church organization in
ON THE SINNEMAHONING CREEK
Coudersport, established 1832, first building made in 1849, on ground given by John Keating, Esq., present building, Fourth and Main Streets, dedicated in 1903, Italian Renaissance; other denominations have good church buildings. The Pennsylvania Historical Commission has made an appropriation for the placing of a monument to David Ziesberger at Coudersport; they will also place tablets at site of Ole Bull’s Castle and near the Austin disaster; the Austin flood, in 1911, when the town was almost blotted out, and many lives were lost and property destroyed, was perhaps the worst calamity which has ever visited the county. Three miles east of Coudersport is “The Sweden Valley Ice Mine,” in a shaft about six feet square and twelve feet deep; during the hot summer weather ice is formed here in large quantities; the Smithsonian Institution has published a number of articles concerning these ice caves.
Jefferson County