The following commentary was prepared by this site's Webmistress.

Early Settlement

The early history of Clarion County was lost because its settlers were too busy making their homes to record much.  There was very little conflict with local Indians.  Land companies arrived in the area about 1792 to locate warrants.  All warrants were dated 1792-1794 and laid out in 1,000-acre tracts.  Actual settlers were only allowed 400-acre tracts.  There was no settlement until 1801.  About 150 came that year.  They went back for the Winter and returned with their families the following Spring.  Settlers near Callensburg had to buy lands they thought were vacant.

The first production of resources was pine tar, which was taken down river to present-day Pittsburgh on canoes to exchange for staples.  Many early residents paid for their lands this way.  They built farms, then churches, then schools.

Davis, in his History (below), writes about the first settlers on page 78:   "Tradition is that it was under patronage of Surveyor General Daniel Broadhead.  The land was supposed to be vacant, and each settler was to take up 400 acres, of which Broadhead was to have half.  It is very strange that a man of his official position should introduce a colony on land belonging to another, for it was afterward discovered that they had settled on Brigham territory, and they were obliged to purchase their right to the soil."

Migration

Travel to Clarion County was through large forests, following poorly marked paths and fording streams.  Travellers packed very few suplies.  They searched out homesites in the wilderness.  There was little time to stock food or clothes.  They camped under trees and made bread of flour and water on fires.  Many starved.

A. J. Davis' History of Clarion County (1887), page 78, describes the path many took to reach Clarion County:

"...in 1800, from New Derry, Westmoreland County, ascended the valley of Town Run and then struck north through unbroken woodland.  They had come via the path from Black Lick, which intersects the Venango Trail (this was the usual route taken by the earliest Westmoreland and Indian immigrants).  This they followed as far as it ran along Town Run.  Having penetrated the wilderness to a point a mile east of Strattanville, they halted, made a clearing and built a cabin on the present farm of Samuel Johnson.