A short distance east of Washington Township there lies another of the wonderfully beautiful and fertile valleys that have made Lycoming County famous. It is known as Black Hole Valley and is wholly included within the limits of Clinton Township. The origin of the name is uncertain and various reasons for the appellation have been assigned. It is said that when the early pioneers penetrated the wilderness by way of the Indian trails and looked down on this valley from the summit of the surrounding hills the forest growth was so dense as to have the appearance of a great black hole. Again it is said that upon the arrival of these early pathfinders they found that a fire had burned its way through the dense forest and left in its wake a mass of dead and blackened vegetation. Others assert that it took its name from the fact that the pioneers in crossing the valley suddenly found themselves mired in a swamp of exceedinegly black and sticky muck. Hence the name. It is entirely probable that all three reasons may have influenced the naming of the valley. The black swamp actually did exist and was afterwards turned into a cranberry bog and for very many years this toothsome adjunct to the national dinner bird was successfully raised there.

Black Hole Valley is a veritable "Garden of the Lord" and is surpassed in fertility by very few sections in the state. At its lower end stands Penny Hill, a bold and striking promontory which has been long celebrated in song and story on account of the extreme beauty of its surroundings and the magnificent view of the valley and winding river that may be had from its summit. Its eastern escarpment is almost perpendicular where it overlooks the river below Montgomery at which point the rocky cliffs overhang the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On the western side the hill gradually recedes to the valley, a few yards east of the famous Road Hall Tavern. The way the the hill came by its name is unique and somewhat fanciful. It is said that one of the early settlers, Torbert by name, who lived at the foot of the prominence, had a dog named "Penny" who had a habit of going to the top of the hill and sitting there for hours at a time, probably enjoying the magnificent panorama of scenic beauty that there unfolds itself and the hill was therefore named in honor of this exceedingly esthetic canine. The hill was at one time, in all probability, a continuation of the Muncy Hills which were subsequently divided at this point by the course of the river.

In 1825 a petition was presented to the court asking for the division of Washington Township and the citizens having voted in favor of the proposition a new township was erected which was given the name of Clinton, in honor of the DeWitt Clinton, the builder of the Erie Canal, and then governor of New York. Clinton Township is the twenty-first in size in the county and contains 12,160 acres. It is bounded on the east by the river where it sweeps around the end of the mountain opposite Muncy, south by the river and Brady Township, west by Armstrong and Washington townships and north by the river below Sylvan Dell.

One of the first settlers in the valley was Cornelius Low, who rented 320 acres from the celebrated Dr. Francis Allison, who also owned a fine tract of land near Lock Haven and who was a son of Dr. Benjamin Allison, the first physician to practice medicine within the limits of what is now Lycoming County. At the time of the Indian troubles Low was advised to fly with his family by a friendly savage. He did send his family to Fort Augusta, but remained himself to "see the fun" and finally barely escaped with his life at the time of the Big Runaway. He went to New Jersey, whence he had come, and never returned. At a later period, however, some of the same family came back to Lycoming County and settled in the same neighborhood.

In 1786 Major John Ten Brook, of New Jersey, took a ten years’ lease on this same farm. He was a very considerable figure in that period, having commanded a battalion of New Jersey troops at the battle of Monmouth with rank of major and served with distinction in other engagements of the Revolutionary War. In the winter of 1787 Black Hole Valley as well as other sections of the county experienced the most severe winter it has ever known. The roads were closed so that the only way of getting about was on snowshoes. Cattle were frozen by the score, the inhabitants were on the verge of starvation, and there was great suffering everywhere. Ten Brook was an excellent shot and endeavored to keep the people supplied with venison and other wild game, but these, too, had been reduced to the verge of starvation and were of little value for food. Finally Ten Brook’s father-in-law, whose name was Emmons, succeeded in getting through from New Jersey with a wagon load of provisions and the precarious situation was relieved. Emmons brought with him a large seine and at the first haul in the river at the mouth of Black Hole Creek 2,500 shad were taken and they weighed from two to eight pounds each. At that time the river was full of shad and one of the most important fisheries was located on Lawson’s Island at the foot of the Bald Eagle Mountain. This island was washed away after the building of the canal, as the rip-rapping along the hills changed the location of the current. Emmons brought a second load of provisions from New Jersey during the severe winter referred to and while on his way home he was killed by a limb of a tree falling on him while he was asleep in his wagon along the road where he had encamped for the night. Nicolas Shaffer came to Black Hole Valley in 1784 and in 1795 he built a grist mill which was badly needed by the early settlers. Another pioneer who came to the valley in 1784 and built a grist mill was Conrad Miller, but his customers had to do their share n the grinding, each one being required to turn the mill by hand to grind his own grist. Another early settler of importance was Robert Porter, whose father, George Porter, came from County Donegal, Ireland, and settled in Jersey Shore in 1798. One of the most remarkable men who ever lived within the limits of Clinton Township was Adam Hart, father of Hon. William W. Hart. He was born at Warrior’s Run, in Northumberland County, May 6, 1788, and died May 8, 1890, at the age of 102. He came to Black Hole Valley when a young man and continued to reside there until his death. Even at his advanced age Mr. Hart retained his faculties until the last. He was perhaps the oldest man that ever lived within the present limits of the county. The principal stream in Black Hole Valley is Black Hole Creek, which rises in Loyalsock Gap and flows through Clinton Township into the river. Clinton Township is distinguished for having produced two president judges of Lycoming County, Hon. John J. Metzger and Hon. William W. Hart.

By the census of 1920 the township had a population of 1,279.