Raven Creek Valley

Raven Creek literally begins in Sugarloaf township in Lavenia Campbell's back yard, just behind the 1863 farmhouse built by Ezekiel Shultz in which she lives. The stream bubbles from the ground at that point in a laid-up stone spring house. The stream then meanders south through ponds and dams and underbrush until it reaches Fishing Creek near Stillwater, just past the old town of Paperdale. The stream often got "rip-roaring wild" according to neighbors along its banks and we often hear that the original name of the stream was "Raving" Creek, because of the way that it behaved during flooding.

Words and even family names in this area have tended to migrate in their spelling and in their pronunciation, and the name eventually slurred into "Ravin" Creek and finally settled out as Raven Creek. It is interesting to see how the slurring of names affects words, and we sometimes wonder what pronunciation is really correct. To avoid an argument, we'll assume that the correct pronunciation is the one used by the people who live nearby. For example, along the banks of the Thames River in England, natives call it TEMZ, but up in Connecticut the natives call their river the THAYMZ; both pronunciations are correct where used. Other examples are Peru pronounced PEH-ROO in most of the world, but in this country in a couple of places it is PEE-ROO. In Egypt, Cairo is KY-ROH, but in Illinois it is KAY-ROH. Houston is HYOO-STUN in Texas, but in New York City it is HOW-STUN. So do as you would do if you were in Rome, except remember that in Italy the lovely Italian city is pronounced ROH-MAH. And with that explanation, we'll do the same as our early inhabitants and call the creek that went "Raving" during flood periods, "raven."

Bees were swarming around the blue lilac bushes this May when we first revisited the Harry and Lavenia Campbell farm, and a friendly collie with two mismatched eyes guided us to Lavenia's spring house, where cans of milk once cooled and where once the Benton Cider Mill got the water to make their delicious cider.

 

 

 

The spring house cascades into a series of six ponds, beautifully laid up in a series of holding areas for "ravin" water during spring floods. Lavina Campbell, moving with a walker, the result of a fall in March, 2003, could only point to the start of Raven Creek, unable to traverse the difficult back steps of the house. When we revisited Lavina in September, 2003, she was walking with a limp, but without the need for a walker.

 

Lavina told us about the damage that the stream once did, but points out that with the use of diversion ditches, ponds, dams and strip farming, the stream is usually now under control. The Campbell farm was formerly owned by Ezekiel Shultz and originally was part of the Moore tract.

A church and a school named for the Moores once existed across the road from the Campbell farm on the property now owned by Barry and Cathy Beck on the St. Gabriel-Fairmount Springs road. The school closed in 1926. For a short time, Dick Campbell operated a general store in the old church, now used as a maintenance shed by the Becks. The school was torn down years ago, and only a foundation remained where the Becks built their beautiful home.

Above: the former church as it looks today.

Below: The Moore school as it once looked.

The three pictures above courtesy of Catherine Starr, Five Points

 

 

 

 

 

Before we go any further, we should mention that the road starts in Sugarloaf Township, and goes through Benton Township ending up in Fishing Creek Township. The road is divided into Upper and Lower Raven Creek Road. Upper Raven Creek Road runs from the St. Gabriel's/Five Points Road to route 239. Lower Raven Creek Road runs from route 239 to Stillwater, meeting up with route 487 at that point. The part of Lower Raven Creek road served by the Benton post office runs from route 239 to Cemetery Hill road; the Stillwater post office portion runs from Cemetery Hill road to route 487 in Stillwater, but since the Stillwater post office is closed and served by the Benton post office, it really makes little difference.

Across the street from where Lavenia lives is a wooden shed, filled in the fall with the aroma of apples and the smell of smoke from a wood stove. It is the Benton Cider Mill, owned for generations by the Campbell family and originally purchased from Harry Knouse, the former proprietor of a Texaco station in Benton. Harry Knouse and Leland Hess ran the cider press for many years at the Bloomsburg Fair. The mill operates at the Bloomsburg Fair and usually has a line of people waiting to have a refreshing drink. The mill at upper Raven Creek opens each year on the Tuesday following the Bloomsburg Fair and closes about November 22.

Benton Cider Mill Currently, the cider mill is operated by Richard Campbell and his son, Mike. Mike shoes horses the rest of the year. For a history of the Benton Cider mill, go here.

A delightful bed and breakfast is near the Campbell farm, and is owned by Lee and Mary Ann Gaul and operates as part of the Fishing Creek Angler, a fly fisherman's paradise. The wrap-around porches of their property give a great vista over the ponds on the Campbell property. The store and bed and breakfast can be found on the internet at http://www.fishingcreekangler.com .

As the stream slowly meanders south down the hollow, toward Stillwater, it picks up water from more springs and a couple of tributaries as it slowly gets larger in its flow toward Fishing Creek. The largest of the springs in Benton Township was once owned by George Poust and is just below where Dave Moss lives. George Poust's great-grandson, Fred Poust, is the man who provided the music following the prayer at the start of today's meeting. The farm and the spring on this property are now owned by Jim Campbell.

There is a large spring in a pond on the property owned by Jean Stackhouse, and another on the property once owned by Wesley Houseweart. Sheldon Fritz also has a spring on his property. Continuing down the hollow the creek is joined by the East Branch which has its beginning in a spring on the Fred DePoe farm, owned years ago by Ellas Shultz.

A popular bluegrass hangout on the first Saturday of each month is "The Shed" on upper Raven Creek Road. It is operated by Joe and Lorraine Feola.

Pictures courtesy of Joe and Loraine Feola
In bygone days, the present Feola home was the home of Elmer and Pearl Shultz, shown above. The Houseweart family didn't arrive in Raven Creek until about 1902 but there have been Housewearts in the community ever since. Doyle and Mary Houseweart lived in the Elmer and Pearl Shultz place for at least 50 years before the Feolas moved there.The house where Mariann Houseweart lives was owned previously by Giddings and Laubachs, including Isaac Kinney Krickbaum (IKK) Laubach. Letha Laubach Mendenhall grew up here. Before Fred and Genevieve Houseweart moved here fifty years ago, Tom and Carrie Kearkuff started their family here.Elmer & Cecile Houseweart lived out their lives where Lukashewskis live (now Houseweart road) in the house built by her Uncle John Laubach. They raised their children there and farmed. Jasper Shultz lived in the next house down the road and raised his family there Catherine Shultz Hess lived on the farm all of her life until her stroke in old age as did her daughter Thelma. Other Housewearts also lived along the Raven Creek valley, including George Wesley and Amelia. Their house on Belles Hill road was later owned by G. Wesley and Gertrude McMichael Houseweart for many years. They raised Coreene Houseweart Hess, Carol Houseweart Laubach, and Norma Houseweart Eveland there.

A typical Saturday jam.		The jam brings people from all over. The man on the right, for example, came from Lewistown to join in.
Elmer Hunter, Shickshinny Lake, is a popular player at the jam.		If You're Gonna Play in Pennsylvania (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)
Joe and Lorraine at "The Shed"		"The Shed"

Worth visiting as you continue toward Stillwater on the Upper Raven Creek Road, is the Raven Creek Church. You can find the history of the church listed under CHURCHES, and we won't go into it here, other than to say that at an organizational meeting July 1, 1872, in the Hamline Church building it was decided to build a place of worship for the Presbyterian congregation. The name chosen was the Raven Creek Presbyterian Church. You can get a list of early burials in the Raven Creek cemetery by visiting here. You can also see a number of pictures of the cemetery by visiting Joe Rich's excellent site http://columbiacoholding04.homestead.com/RavenCreek.html on the cemeteries of Columbia County.

The Raven Creek valley at one time had two dairy farms that "peddled" milk. At the northern end of the valley was Elmdale Farms, named for a grove of elm trees on the property. Sheldon Smith recalls that his grandfather bought the Smith farm in 1900 and they moved in about 1905. The farm shipped milk on the first run of milk from the milk plant in Benton to Wilkes-Barre. Starting about 1935, the Smiths bottled their own milk on the farm and had two trucks on the road selling milk, one truck heading toward Shickshinny, Mocanaqua, Plymouth and West Nanticoke. Another truck serviced the Orangeville and Benton areas. These milk bottles are collectors items today. The farm's Guernsey herd died out from a bangs disease infestation, and the farm then switched to Holstein cows, shipping about 90 cans of milk a day. The dairy cooled much of their milk from a spring and an ice house, and that water still flows into a pond, and then into Raven Creek. Sheldon's father, Donald Smith, also sold Eastern States feed from ten railroad cars a month, each car holding 35 tons of bagged feed. Farmers like Otto Ford and Merle Davis would flock on Saturdays to "Donald Smiths" at the railroad station in Benton and pick up their feed for the week. On Monday, they would return their burlap bags and Elmdale Dairy would send them back to General Bag & Burlap for cleaning and reuse.

The valley has not always been as peaceful as it is today. Three years after President Lincoln called for troops in the spring of 1861, the war was inconclusive and casualties continued to mount. The prospect of victory over the Confederacy waned and dissent grew against Lincoln's policies. Just off route 239 on what is now the Upper Raven Creek Road, a Civil War officer, Lieutenant James Stewart Robinson, part of a deputy Provost Marshal party seeking to arrest some Civil war deserters, was shot and killed.

	Lt. Robinson's burial stone in Bethel Hill Cemetery, Fairmount Township, is carved with the following epitaph: Was shot by a Rebel sympathizer in Benton Twp., Columbia Co. Pa., while assisting a U.S. officer in attempting to arrest deserters, July 31, 1864, and died of the wound, November 3, 1864.
Lieutenant James Stewart Robinson Picture courtesy of Sheila Brandon
	Lieutenant Robinson was shot between the "old Letteer place," now just a deserted lane, and the site that later became the Raven Creek Post Office. You can read much more of this story by going here to read an article by Prof. George Turner.
Photo courtesy of Sheila Brandon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Houseweart always told Mariann that the arrest of the locals during the Civil War (known as the Fishing Creek Confederacy) occured at the intersection of the road to the Donald Smith farm, where Houseweart road now intersects with Raven Creek Road. The wanted men supposedly hid in Hervey Rantz's barn.

The "old Letteer place" was also once known as a stopping place on the Underground Railroad, although no official record of that use of the house could be found for this story.

Pictures courtesy of Joe and Carol Doty
Joe and Addie Letteer, standing in front of the house thought to be a stopping point on the Underground Railroad. Several local people have told us of the trap door in the living room of the house.		Ken Letteer outside of the "old Letteer House," drinking from the cool waters of Raven Creek. Ken was the grandson of Joe and Addie Letteer.
We have to rely on stories passed down from generation to generation by local families. The house was torn down years ago.

Within sight of the present route 239, and still on the Upper Ravencreek Road, was the Raven Creek Post Office, the last building on the right before you reach route 239 and directly across from Belles Road. The post office was established November 11, 1872 with Peter Laubach as the first postmaster. C.M. Smith succeeded Peter Laubach in 1886, fourteen years after the post office opened. Until about 1886, the Raven Creek post office was part of a postal route that included both the town of Muncy and the town of Cambra. Later a daily mail traveled from Stillwater through Van Camp (A settlement on the Zaners to New Columbus road in the northeastern part of Fishing Creek Township. The area was originally called Howell Town) and Cambra and a tri-weekly route existed between Fairmount Springs, Taurus and Raven Creek. (Taurus was a name that Battle's 1887 History of Columbia County referred to as being "beyond the pale of civilization"). The Raven Creek post office remained in business with Minor Smith as post master until December 15, 1902.

Minor Smith operated a general store along with the post office in his home. The property is now restored and overlooks the ponds on the Harold Iddings property.

We'll now cross at "Raven Creek Corners," a very unofficial term for the route 239 intersection with the Upper and the Lower Raven Creek Roads. From here on, we'll be on Lower Raven Creek Road.

Bridge on Harold Iddings' Property. The beautiful ponds on the Iddings property can be seen from route 239.

Harold Iddings and his two sons occupy a building along route 239 at Raven Creek, and it always gets a second glance when people drive by. Although there are several beautiful ponds along Raven Creek, the three along route 239 are some of the best and cover 7 acres. The Harold Iddings Construction Company, Roger Iddings Custom Builders, and Rick Iddings Innovative Building and Design , are along route 239. Harold recently had a fumeless toilet patented and he is ready to start manufacturing.

The sprawling acreage of the Thunderbird Farms has a fascinating history. What is now the farm was originally purchased by William Smith, father of C. Minor Smith, the former post master of Raven Creek. William kept some cows, some pigs and some chickens and a sawmill "down by the creek," but the dairy can be attributed to grandson Ralph Smith. Interestingly enough, we didn't find a record of C. M. Smith, William's son, spending time on the farm, preferring instead to concentrate on general stores at Raven Creek and later on Main Street, Benton. C. M. Smith, by the way, had three sons: Ralph, Willis, and Cyrus. Cyrus died at the age of 12 while playing a game of "crack the whip" in Benton. The inspiration for the name of Thunderbird Farms, according to Horace Harrison who told the story to Ralph's granddaughter, Janet, came about when Ralph spotted a Golden Eagle on the farm. Originally, milk was sold by the dairy using "Ralph R. Smith" bottles, and later bottles with the Thunderbird Farms name appeared. Later, Charles and Marion Smith ran the farm, until Marion was in his late 30s when he left the farm. Charles and Ruth Smith's daughter and her husband, Donald Hess, operated the farm until it was sold at a recent sale.

The Guy Laubach farm is now part of the William Hess farms, and here are two views of this farm:

Photos courtesy of Dorothy Laubach Hess
Two Views of the former Guy Laubach Farm. The house lay on the West side of Lower Raven Creek Road; the barn and the silo lay on the East side of the road. The "lay of the valley" can be judged by looking across the valley in the photo on the right. The picture was taken looking west.

The William Hess Farm spreads across both sides of Lower Raven Creek road near its intersection with Cemetery Hill Road. The farm represents generations of successful farmers. The farm started "on the hill" in 1886 when William Hess purchased the first tract. Son Dayton carried on the family business, and passed it on to son Glen who purchased the property along Raven Creek Road from O. M. Keiffer. Glen passed the farm along to sons Bill and Dean in 1958 and in 1974 Bill bought the half interest in the farm from his brother. Bill and Agnes now live in the family farm and with son Stephen and daughter Pam run the farm. The William Hess Farms consist of eight different farms, encompassing 478 acres. The family currently farms approximately 600 acres including leased land.

A view of the Raven Creek valley.

This article would not be complete if we didn't include a picture of Frank and Carrie Yost, former residents of Raven Creek. We frequently think of Frank and Carrie in connection with Yost's Restaurant "At the bridge" in Benton.

Hillside Farm Nursery on Lower Raven Creek Road. The nursery specializes in bonsai. During the planting season, John Butasek has a wide selection of nursery stock.

		Planting tomatoes in the valley

A covered bridge over Raven Creek. The picture was taken about 1940. Bill Hess tells us that the bridge was over Raven Creek at the present Hollow Road, the first road to the left going south past his farm. The bridge was demolished about 1954 and buried in the field on the north side of the replacement concrete bridge. Picture courtesy of Dick McHenry

 

In 1885, there were seven school houses in Sugarloaf Township. For children living along Raven Creek, four one-room school houses provided the education until they were closed and students taken to Benton Area Schools.
* The Moore School was on the original Moore tract, located on the St. Gabriel-Fairmount Springs road, near Five Points. It closed in 1926.
* The Dodson School was near Dotyville. Coming from route 239, past Dotyville, on the left after you start down the hill on Schoolhouse Road, near a curve in the road foundations can still be seen in the woods about 30 feet off the road.
* The Davis School was on the present Shannon Mill Road, approximately where Blain Long now has his mobile home.
* The Pine Grove School was along the Lower Raven Creek Road in a grove of pine trees. The school house was built in 1875. The pine trees stood on the area of the schoolyard where the playground was.

Today there is a solitary maple tree planted on the lawn of the Pine Grove school. It was closed when the Benton jointure was formed in the late 1970s. One of the graduates of this school was Russell Shultz, a recipient in 2003 of the Hall of Fame Award at Benton Area School System, for his work with Ritz crackers and Lorna Doone cookies. Photo courtesy of Pam Tucker

* The Ash School preceded the Pine Grove school on top of the hill about a mile east of Benton.

A man by the name of Henry H. Harter, Berwick, eventually bought the ghost town of Paperdale, giving away one of the old structures to a man who was going to tear it down for the lumber and build a cottage. According to a Ted Fenstermacher article published in the Berwick Enterprise, "The fellow's enthusiasm dropped off considerably when he cut into a wall and was greeted by a nest of copperheads. They didn't need a "Don't Tread On Me" flag. He took off."

We'll tell you about Paperdale in another story, which we'll save for a later time.