PAGenWeb > Clearfield > Townships > Wallaceton Borough History

TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY OF CLEARFIELD COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS by Roland D. Swoope, Jr.  Chicago, Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911

CHAPTER XIV.

HISTORY OF WALLACETON BOROUGH.

The Borough of Wallaceton is situated in the northeast corner of Boggs township and contains about four hundred and twenty-six square acres of land. It was incorporated as a borough in 1873. The town is located on an elevated plateau about fifteen hundred feet above the sea level. The land on either side is rolling, giving the town good drainage.

It is on the line of the Tyrone & Clearfield Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and also on the line of the Beech Creek division of the New York Central Railroad.

The town has three churches and the principal industry is the large brick manufacturing plant of the Wallaceton Fire Brick Company now owned by the Harbison-Walker Refractories Company.

The town was named in honor of the late Senator Wm. A. Wallace of Clearfield, Pa., and has a population of about five hundred.

Although the people of Wallaceton, as a general rule, are law abiding citizens, the little borough has the unfortunate distinction of having been the scene of three homicides, which gave the town a rather unenviable notoriety. The first of these was the killing of Maria Waple, November 3, 1876. Martin V. Turner, who was accused of this murder, was arrested and after a hotly contested trial, was convicted in the courts of murder in the first degree, but a new trial was granted by the Supreme Court and the place of trial was changed to Lock Haven, in Clinton county. On the second trial, Turner was acquitted. The second was the death of Ida Douglas, July 1, 1882. For this crime the perpetrator was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. The third tragedy was the murder of Ella Davis, who was shot by James McClain on August 6, 1886, the murderer immediately killed himself in the presence of the victim of his crime.



  
Wallaceton Sanborn Map, 1917



  
Wallaceton Citizens Band circa 1930-1935



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