The Centre Hall community

Potter Township and Centre County

Historical villages, neighborly people and quality living.

Centre Hall Boy Scout Troop 20 has long been committed to honoring the history and traditions of the Penns Valley region. The Troop has been responsible for daily trash pick up at the world-famous Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair. In October, 2000 and 2001, the boys of the troop helped raise funds to build a new historical museum and library for Aaronsburg by portraying legendary characters in skits at the Haunted Cave program at Woodward Caves. Several times each year, the Troop cleans up the trash along State Rt. 144 near Potter's Mills.

Potter Township, the oldest township in the County, was first settled in 1767 and incorporated by Northumberland County in 1774. It was named for General James Potter of Revolutionary War fame, who first viewed the verdant lands of Penns Valley in 1765 from the crest of Nittany Mountain between present-day Pleasant Gap and Centre Hall. In the early 1770s he returned to the site of his explorations, began to acquire land, and built a home. He erected a stockade around his house and a nearby spring at Old Fort, making it the anchor of a chain of three forts at the foot of Nittany Mountain for defense against Indians. In the 1780s he built a log house, tavern, grist mill, and saw mill at what became known as Potter's Mills, at the northern end of the gap through the Seven Mountains along the early road that connected Bellefonte and Lewistown.

In the spring of 1778 Washington wrote about General Potter from Valley Forge: " If the state of General Potter's affairs will admit of his returning to the army, I shall be exceedingly glad to see him, as his activity and vigilance have been much wanted during the winter." Potter was selected to be a member of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania in 1780. In 1782 was a candidate for the presidency of the Pennsylvania council against John Dickinson, receiving thirty-two votes to Dickinson's forty-one. He became a member of the council of censors in 1784, and in 1785 one of the commissioners of rivers and streams.

Learn more about today's dedicated township government leaders at www.pottertownship.org/ . Learn more about the excellent Penns Valley School District at www.pennsvalley.org/ and our community library at www.centrehall.com/library/ .

Centre Hall Borough, at the intersection of two early roads, has served for more than 150 years as the market center for the farming communities that are located in richly agricultural Brush and Penns Valleys. The Grange, an organization promoting farming and farm life, formed a local chapter in 1873 under the leadership of Centre Hall area farmer Leonard Rhone. A year later the first Grange Fair was held. It started as a basket picnic in Leech Woods west of town, and has evolved into the annually held Grange Fair and Encampment, the oldest of its kind in the country. The Centre Hall Hotel was built in 1847. The Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad, later acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad system, brought its passenger service into Centre Hall in 1884. Learn more about Centre Hall at www.centrehall.com.