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Maysville, a small
village near the center of West Salem township, is located a few miles
west of Greenville, in the northwest corner of Mercer
County.
Maysville
was a trading spot in the early 1800s, but it hasn't always been called
Maysville. Big Run, a stream that runs through the town was
once
known as Mays Creek. The part of town on the west side of the
creek was called Maysville; the part on the east side was called Maysdale.
The town was called Meadows for a time in the
early 1900s, but the name reverted back to Maysville.
West Salem
township's first gristmill was built in 1829 in Maysville by John Gravat. It used
water from Big Run. The West Salem Baptist Church erected a
building in 1840. Thomas
McMahan built a sawmill in 1846 and then built a
steam-operated gristmill in 1848. He ran the mill
for 20 years. It later burned down. In 1877, Nimrod Burwell owned the land
where the mill once stood. In 1873,
John Russell built a cheese factory in Maysville, it
burned down twice and was later replaced by one built by J. W. Woods.
The post office
was established in Maysville in 1852; it was discontinued in
1872. An old map showed that six roads met at Maysville and
the town had become a community center with a store, hotel and
blacksmith shop, in addition to the cheese factory and the various
mills on Big Run. It was also a stagecoach stop between
Warren, OH, and Franklin, PA. The town had succession of
early blacksmiths, including one identified only in records
as Bittenbanner, a man
who had the dubious distinction of having a wooden leg he carved from a
log.
West
Salem Grange No. 1607, a large white wooden building on South Maysville
Road was erected about 80 years ago and is still in use. A
one-room brick school house was built in the in 1884 to serve the town
was
closed
in 1950 when the schools were consolidated as part of the Greenville Area
School District.
The building still remains on South Maysville Road,
but has been converted into a residence. Maysville
was laid out in an area of about one square mile. Its population
reached about 100 in the 1930s, but its probably less than half of that
today. It is the location of the West Salem Township Municipal
Building and the West Salem Township Volunteer Fire Department.
Cheese-factory.
- - The main employment of the inhabitants of the township is farming,
and some attention has been paid, of late, to the dairy business.
In 1875, a cheese-factory was built by Morford
& Clarke, at Maysville, and has received the general
patronage of the surrounding country. One had been erected in the
same place, two years before, but was burned in 1874. There are
reasons for believing that the present institution will prove
successful, for, although the cheese manufacture in Western Pennsylvania
is still in its infancy, the resources are far greater than in many
regions where it has brought wealth to its inhabitants.
History of Mercer County, 1877, p. 85.
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