Middle Creek a streaming resource The Middle Creek Watershed has a long history of human activity. Native Americans used the watershed before the European settlers; they traveled, hunted, and settled in the woods along the stream. Although there is no written history of their experiences, remnants of arrowheads and other tools can be found all throughout the area documenting their presence. Among the tribes that inhabited these parts was one was called Tomes (Tom Indians). Toms Creek, which Middle Creek flows into, was named after the Tomes. The earliest European settlers came to the area in the 1730s. They were mostly Scotch-Irish who came to America to escape famine in Ireland. When the Europeans settled the area, the English government was worried about French moves to claim the interior of the American continent. To counter this, the English government began an active policy of promoting settlement of the wilderness. From the middle of the 18th century until after the American Revolution the population in this area lived a frontier-like existence. Settlement began by clearing the forests for timber, cultivating the land for farms and orchards; there was even mining for copper and other minerals. Many mills, early farmstead homes, charcoal mounds, and old mines can still be found throughout the watershed. One of the major mills on Middle Creek was a wool and cloth factory. The mill sat on the creek, two miles from Emmitsburg on the main road to Gettysburg. The factory carded wool into rolls that was manufactured into cloth, cassimere, cassettes, blanketing, and flannels. The mills in the area depended on the flow of water in the Middle Creek for operations. During the French and Indian war (1754-1763), Hamiltonban Township (Adams County) was on the frontier, and there was much bloodshed in the area, both by settlers and Indians. In the late 1750s settlers formed companies for the defense of the frontier near Virginia Mills, found on Mount Hope Road along Middle Creek. There are well-documented captures of frontier settlers in Adams County by Indians during these years. One well documented abduction in the area was that of Richard Baird (Bard), son of early settler Archibald Bard, who operated a mill in Carroll's Delight near what is now Virginia Mills. The author of A History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, written in 1886, writes that in 1758 the house of Richard Baird, who resided on the southeast side of South Mountain, near the mill now known as Myers Mill, on Middle Creek about one and one half miles from Fairfield was attacked by Delaware Indians. Five days after his capture on April 13, 1758, he escaped, and two years later was able to ransom his wife from the Indians and return to his home in Hamiltonban. In the 1770 s petitions from Hamiltons Bann cited the need for an established road along the creek by which to carry their flour and other produce to market. A road from Ramseys and Gettys Merchant MiIl on Middle creek is the best and shortest way to intersect the road already laid out and cleared from McGaugheys Mill to the temporary line at the northeast corner of James Thompson's old field. Around this time, in 1792, Middle Creek also first appears on Reading Howell s map of Pennsylvania as a prominent waterway between Marsh and Tom s Creek. Middle Creek flows form the foothills of the South Mountain range south through the valleys directly though the Borough of Fairfield toward Maryland. Because of Fairfield s location on the main road from Gettysburg to Hagerstown, MD, the town continued to grow during the intervening years up through the American Civil War. In the 1830s, prominent Adams County resident and Pennsylvania State Senator, Thaddeus Stevens, proposed and initiated construction of a branch railroad line to connect iron furnaces in Adams and Franklin Counties to the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in Columbia, Maryland. Due to political and financial problems, the full extent of the railroad was never completed. Fairfield would have been designated an important stop on Thaddeus Stevens Tapeworm Railroad had it not been abandoned in 1838. In the late 1830 s, laborers walked away from partially built line, leaving embankments, cuts and fills, and bridges unfinished throughout the watershed. Nevertheless, the rail-bed did provide a path for escaped slaves using the underground railroad to freedom. Remnants of the Tapeworm Railroad can still be found located throughout the Middle Creek Watershed.
In 1889, Virginia Mills located along Middle Creek, did become a stop on the Western Extension of the Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway. The railway was routed near the mill site on the John Linn farm and an 1838 Tapeworm Railroad viaduct on the Rev. A. W. Geigley farm. Early in the day on July 3rd, 1863, the Jones' Brigade of Stewart's Cavalry Division of the Confederate Army fought a bloody battle with the 6th U.S. Cavalry on Carroll's Tract Road, just 2 miles north of Fairfield. The Union Cavalry was driven back to Emmitsburg, and Jones' Brigade remained in Fairfield, protecting the left flank of the Confederate Army during Pickett's Charge on the decisive day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Jones Brigade encamped at Fairfield that night, and the next day, one of two major columns of the Army of Northern Virginia began its retreat through Fairfield, up Iron Springs Road, and over South Mountain through Monterey Gap (now within Borough of Blue Ridge Summit). The other column, with Lee's wagons, supplies, and wounded retreated through Cashtown towards Chambersburg. In 1878, copper was discovered in the Snively Mines on the Musselman tract near Fairfield. The mine was located near off Mount Hope Road. On the tract three copper veins were discovered, one of which was ten feet thick. It has been said that the mine was reason the village of Mount Hope was given its name. However, there was not enough copper to sustain operations and the mine has been shut down for about 100 years. Around the mid to late 1880 s, P.H. Glatfelter Company, a producer of engineered papers and specialty printing papers was founded in Spring Grove, PA. A pulp mill was installed in 1895 to make pulp from pine and poplar wood by a soda process. Shortly after, Glatfelter began to lead the paper industry with the installation of the world s largest paper machine, using wood fiber instead of rags. To sustain its operations, Glatfelter began a forestry management initiative in 1934, encouraging farmers to plant more trees and prevent soil erosion. The term tree farming was fashioned in the 1940 s to introduce the public to sustainable forest terminology and many properties in the watershed began to participate in this farming. In 1947, Glatfelter launched their first tree farm, within the Middle Creek and Toms Creek watersheds, managed for the growing of sustainable forest crops in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The land became Pennsylvania s first designated Tree Farm (Tree Farm #1), and has since been a local natural and recreational resource while being actively managed for timber production. Beginning in the 1960 s Frances Morton Froelicher and her husband, Hans Froelicher, came to the watershed and began purchasing land as a retreat from Baltimore. The Froelichers stitch together various tracts of woodlots to create the original 519-acre core of Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve along Middle Creek adjoining Tree Farm #1 and Michaux State Forest. Mrs. Froelicher managed the land and worked towards establishing an environmental center until her death in 1994. In her passing, she gave Strawberry Hill to the community of Mount Hope. Since 1994, Strawberry Hill has expanded the preserve to include 609 acres. Its environmental center now welcomes over 10,000 visitors to hike its trails and participate in environmental education programs. By 2007, the Glatfelter Tree Farm grew to roughly 2,500 acres and the Glatfelter Pulp Wood Company decided to put the property up for sale. Drawing concern from local citizens, worried about the threat to the property s water resources, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, a collaborate effort between local, state, and national conservation organizations and local governments was put together to purchase the tree farm. In 2011, the community was able to complete the purchase and transfer the land to Michaux State Forest for long-term preservation. Middle Creek is known today as one the best quality streams in Adams County and its health is important for the Monocacy watershed. Portions of Middle and Toms Creek have been classified as High Quality waters by the State of Pennsylvania. Special protection was provided for the streams. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission also has designated Middle Creek as Approved Trout Waters stream. There are more than 86,000 miles of streams and rivers in Pennsylvania, more than in any state in the United States except Alaska. Only 22,563 miles, or about 27% of those streams, have been classified High Quality. Adams County has over 1,300 miles of streams and virtually every stream in county originates within and flows outward towards Maryland
in either the Monocacy or Susquehanna watershed. There are only 17 High Quality streams within the County, and Middle and Toms Creek are two of those high quality cold-water streams. During the course of history, there have been, and will be, development throughout the Middle Creek Watershed, but with a little bit of knowledge of history there are be many reasons to help protect this unique natural resource. A photograph of the Baird home and mill on Mount Hope Road, probably taken in the late 1800s when the structures were still standing. Historical roadmap of Adams and York Counties, 1792
1839 map of the never-completed Gettysburg Railroad, now called the Tapeworm Railroad Strawberry Hill property management, pre-preserve
Sign at entrance of Glatfelter Tree Farm No. 1