The hamlet of Lungerville is in Jordan Township, Lycoming County, eleven miles northwest of Benton, PA, on Route 239 as it curls around north of Route 118.

We'll get a couple of facts and some old, boring stuff out of the way first. Jordan Township came about in 1854 and was named after Judge Alexander Jordan. The township has 9,920 acres. It is located in the extreme eastern part of Lycoming county and bounded by the counties of Columbia and Sullivan with Franklin Township on the west.

William Lore is recorded as the first permanent settler of the area dating back to 1812. The growth of the county was slow, and by 1890 only had a population of 891. During the early days of its history, the township had one grist mill and three steam saw mills owned by Bodine & Warn, John Stackhouse, and Clark Johnson. There were four water-power mills, run by familiar names like Robbins, Minmer and Gordner. The Franklin tannery outside of Lairdsville provided employment in the bark and the hide industry. An offshoot leather store and shoe factory in Muncy provided employment and commerce to the area.

The town of Lairdsville borders the picturesque Little Muncy Creek. In its heyday, the town had two churches, three stores, one hotel, one wagon-maker shop, one steam planing mill, one grist mill, two blacksmith shops, and two physicians. The original post office was known as Chestnut Grove. The Lairdsville post office was established in 1829 with John Laird as postmaster and Hiram Funston was the next postmaster beginning in 1831. Lairdsville became Funstonville in 1852 and the Funston Hill still remains as a formable hill to climb just South of town. Funstonville was changed back to Lairdsville in 1855.

Unityville had a Temperance House and two stores. One of the stores had a familiar name in Benton: Pennington, Moore & Seeley's. The second store was owned by A. H. Seward. For many years there were "no summer residences within its borders," and the only industries were the gristmill, lumbering and farming. The post office, named Unityville, was established June 1, 1854. There were six school houses in Jordan township: Salem, Derrick, Richie, Biggert's, Lore, and Prairie. Jordan township had three churches: Evangelical, (Albright Methodist), Union, (Baptist and Lutheran) and the Gordner church (Lutheran). There are three cemeteries - Evangelical, Gordner, and Ritchard.

The story of how Lungerville got its name is interesting and not too different from the way other post offices were named in the area. We got part of this story from Barbara who interviewed her uncle Glen Lunger, 90. The way the story was told to Barbara was that a representative of "The federal government came into the store one day and asked my great grandfather if he would like to have a post office in the store. He replied with typical Yankee directness, 'guess so.' The federal government employee responded, 'you are officially a US Post Office.' Barbara's great grandfather impishly asked, 'hey, what's the name of the post office?' The federal-government employee looked at a 4-inch sign that hung down in the store that said Lunger and said, 'Lungerville, OK, that's the name of it.'"

The Lungerville Store

Mark Sanford Lunger started the general store in Lungerville around 1900. The store was just East of where Burgess Swisher opened his store and post office in 1879. Swisher's Store is still operating 126 years later.

Barbara told us that the general store was just "an ordinary two-story building" with a storage business adjacent. A grist mill stood in the field next to it where people would bring their feed and stay and watch it being ground. The grist mill was powered by a gasoline engine that someone would have to climb on and ride down until it got going. The fly wheel weighed about a ton and to get it started someone had to climb on the fly wheel and put their weight on it. The grist mill is today the shed for Norman and Sheila Lunger. Sheila is the head of Greenwood Friends School.

When Barbara's great grandfather gave up the store, her grandfather, James Sanford Lunger, ran it. He had a truck so he put flour and sugar and coffee and tobacco in the truck and went to farmhouses with his goods. Lunger was a peddler, often paid by barter. Lunger took back chickens, calves, a pig now and again, butter, etc. Each Friday, he would go to Wilkes-Barre where he would sell those things for money, the only time money was exchanged. He took that money to the open market and bought off-season fruits and brought them back to the store to barter. Vinegar was held in the cellar in barrels.

In the summer, he would go to Wilkes-Barre each Thursday, Eagles Mere on Friday. Saturday was reserved for selling. Pearl Reed Lunger, his wife, ran the store when James was away. The house burned down in 1919, and James wanted to build a new store next to the house they lived in but they had to live in the storeroom of the store.

Business was not good so his brothers got him a job with the railroad as a detective. He watched the tracks, checking to see if there were any bums riding the cars. He didn't like that job so he then went to the erecting department but didn't like that job either so he sold insurance.

The store sat empty for awhile until brother Lee took it over. His family moved into the apartments there and worked at the store.

One fall, the Swisher family from down the road called Barbara's grandfather and told him that a tornado went through and had picked up the store and turned it. The east wall was now the west wall but not a window was broken, although it did take the chicken coop and barn. Barbara's grandfather's house wasn't hurt. The store was sold sometime after that and the lumber was used to build a double house in Hughesville.

Norman Lunger, in an email to Irene McHenry written after this original article was published, recalled that he "was 3 years old that winter and my father and I came here by bus from Illinois, where we lived at the time. About all I remember is the disorienting sensation of being in a building with a sloping floor, with one side up on a foundation and the other down on the plain old ground. The store was directly across the road from our house."

When Barbara's grandfather retired, he went out to Burt Swisher's store and he took the wall out between the store and their warehouse and he doubled the size of their store. He added a place for them to back-up their truck instead of carrying everything themselves. Glenn Swisher and Glenn Lunger were friends, Barbara recalls.

Much of this story was told to Barbara by her Uncle Glenn, James Sanford Lunger's son. Barbara lives outside of Philadelphia, but was married in the Lungerville Church in 1985 by Pastor Doty. We will add details of the Lungerville Church at a future time.

The family homestead was across the street and to the left from the church. The grandfather built that house in 1908, it burned down in 1919 and the only thing that was saved was the etched front door and a library table, both of which Barbara still owns.

After the house burned down, Barbara's grandfather rebuilt it and both grandparents lived there until they passed away. They are buried in the Lungerville cemetery, along with Barbara's brother, Robert Lunger.

Barbara has the deeds to the land back to 1857. She also has a paper stating that the land that the cemetery is on was given to the church by her family for burial of--er--"dead persons."

If you enjoy reading about the history of towns in our area, you should turn to TOWN NAMES on the side panel. The Lungerville article, as well as many more, are contained there.