The year was 1800. Between Pittsburgh and the little outpost of Franklin on the Allegheny River, a distance of some eighty miles through unbroken forest, there was exactly one place a traveler could stop for the night. It belonged to the Garvin family, and it stood in what would become Cranberry Township. ¹

A Tavern in the Wilderness

David Garvin and his family arrived in the Brush Creek settlement around 1800, joining a handful of pioneers who had begun clearing the forest four years earlier. His eldest son Alexander established the tavern — the only one, as R.C. Brown’s 1895 county history emphasizes, "between Pittsburg and Franklin." ¹ In 1811, it passed to Alexander’s grandson, also named David Garvin, who continued to run it for years afterward. ¹

The tavern was not merely a place for weary teamsters to sleep. It was a crossroads of cultures. Brown records that "the Indian raftsmen used to make it their stopping place on their way to Erie after their season’s work on the river." ¹ These were Native Americans who worked the timber trade on the Allegheny, floating great rafts of lumber downriver to Pittsburgh and then traveling overland back to Erie along the old Venango Path — the same trail George Washington had nearly died on in the winter of 1753. ²

The road itself was barely more than that ancient trail. Matthew Graham, one of the original settlers of 1796, recognized an opportunity in the traffic. Around 1813, he established the Black Bear tavern on the Pittsburgh and Mercer road. But Brown notes that Graham had been in the business in "a desultory way" before that date, and "was well known to teamsters over the old trail, for the road was then little more than the old Indian trail from Pittsburg to Erie." ¹

Duncan’s Whiskey

The first industries in Cranberry Township were not factories or shops. They were a saw mill and a whiskey still, and both belonged to Samuel Duncan.

Duncan was among the original 1796 settlers — one of seven men, along with Benjamin Johnson, Matthew and William Graham, John Henry, Alexander Ramsey, and Paul Vandivort, who came to the Brush Creek neighborhood that year. ¹ Before 1803, he had erected a saw mill on the creek, cutting the timber that the settlers needed for their cabins and barns. ¹

But it was his other enterprise that earned wider fame. Duncan "also ran a little distillery in the early days," Brown writes, "which obtained a wide reputation for the fine quality of the whisky turned out." ¹ This was not unusual for the era. In early western Pennsylvania, whiskey was more than a drink — it was currency. Farmers who could not profitably transport their grain over the mountains to eastern markets instead distilled it into whiskey, which was compact, durable, and universally accepted as payment. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 had been fought barely two years before Duncan arrived, and just fifty miles to the south, over precisely this question of frontier economics.

Duncan’s tavern also served as a landmark. Waterman’s 1883 county history notes that when the township was first being settled, "Duncan’s tavern, six miles distant, was the nearest settlement, and Robert Burns’ tavern, six miles from Duncan’s, on the old road" — meaning that these isolated outposts of hospitality were spaced a hard day’s walk apart through the forest. ³

The 1825 Fourth of July

Perhaps the most vivid portrait of early Cranberry Township life comes from the Independence Day celebration of 1825, which Brown describes in remarkable detail. ¹

The event was organized by the "Connoquenessing Republicans," a local militia company commanded by Captain Reese Evans, and held at the house of Alexander Martin. Joseph Alward was elected president of the day, P.E. Purviance served as vice-president, and John Gillespie as secretary. ¹

The militia drilled "after the fashion of Scott’s Infantry Tactics," and then, "like all good militiamen, joined the crowd in the race for the banquet tables in Martin’s house." ¹ The Declaration of Independence was read aloud, and the Connoquenessing Republicans fired several rounds in its honor.

What followed was an elaborate ritual of toasting that reveals both the settlers’ patriotism and their sense of political hierarchy. There were thirteen regular toasts, each assigned a specific number of cheers "according to the importance which the master of ceremonies attached to each toast." ¹

"The Day We Celebrate" received three cheers. "The Constitution of the United States" received four. "The Governor of Pennsylvania" merited six. But the real enthusiasm was reserved for one man: "Andrew Jackson — our next President" received ten cheers — the most of any toast. ¹ Jackson would not actually win the presidency until 1828, but on the western Pennsylvania frontier, three years before the election, the settlers had already made their choice.

"The Memory of the Revolutionary Heroes" and "General Lafayette, the early and distinguished champion of freedom" each received three cheers. After the thirteen formal toasts came twenty-one more volunteer toasts — making thirty-four in total. ¹ Given the prominence of distilling in the local economy, one can reasonably assume that each toast was accompanied by ample refreshment from local production.

The Graham Dynasty

If one family defined early Cranberry Township, it was the Grahams. Matthew and William Graham arrived in 1796, part of that original band of seven settlers. Their mother, then Mrs. Long, followed in 1797. ¹

Matthew Graham was a builder by instinct. He established the Black Bear tavern in 1813. In 1831, he erected the Brush Creek saw mill, and two years later, in 1833, he built the first grist mill on the creek — also the first in the entire township. ¹ A grist mill meant that local farmers no longer needed to haul their grain miles to have it ground into flour. It was, in its way, as transformative for the community as any piece of modern infrastructure.

The Grahams became pillars of the Plains Presbyterian Church, organized around 1806-1808 by Rev. Reid Bracken. Both Matthew and William were among the original members. ¹ When the church was reorganized in 1838 after a period of decline, the membership rolls read like a Graham family reunion: "William Graham, Sr., William Graham, Jr., Elizabeth, David, Hannah, Matthew and Mary Graham." ¹ William Graham, Sr. was chosen as one of four new elders.

By the time Brown compiled his history in the 1890s, the Graham name appeared in nearly every facet of township life — as elders, justices, grange officers, and landowners. Matthew Graham donated the land for the brick church building, erected in 1839 beside the old log church. ¹ The bricks were made on John Goehring’s nearby farm, and Thomas Evans served as contractor — a small detail that captures how completely the community relied on its own resources. ¹

The Patrons of Husbandry

By the 1890s, Cranberry Township had settled into its identity as a farming community. Brown notes that "to every organization, whether local or general, promising benefits to agriculturalists, her citizens have been always friendly." ¹ Grange Number 908 had thirty-four members. The Farmers’ Alliance had a presence. The Brush Creek Protective Association, organized in 1870 with fifty-eight members, insured local property against the fires that were a constant threat to wooden buildings and barns. ¹

The population had actually declined from its peak of 2,236 in 1850 — when the township still encompassed eighty-one square miles — to just 909 in 1890, after the 1854 subdivision reduced it to its present limits and many residents drifted toward the railroad town of Mars in neighboring Adams Township. ^{1 4}

This was the Cranberry Township that the twentieth century would inherit: a quiet agricultural community of fewer than a thousand souls, its taverns closed, its distillery long silent, the Black Bear and Garvin’s inn fading into the memory of old families. No one standing on Brush Creek in 1890 could have imagined that the Indian trail running through the township — the same path where Washington nearly drowned, where raftsmen stopped at Garvin’s, where Matthew Graham served teamsters at the Black Bear — would one day become Route 19, a six-lane commercial corridor serving 35,000 residents.

But the names endure. Graham Park. Powell Farm. The Plains church, still standing on land donated by a pioneer. Cranberry Township’s story begins with seven men in the wilderness and a tavern that was the only shelter between two cities. Everything that followed grew from that.