How to track a lost place
- Search above with variant spellings (Beechtree vs. Beech Tree).
- Open Caldwell's 1878 atlas for township context.
- Check cemetery indexes & church lists within the township.
Researcher’s Locality Guide
Your quick primer to Jefferson County places, timelines, and where records likely live.
What’s inside
- County formation (1804) & judicial attachments (Westmoreland → Indiana)
- Township/borough overview
- Ghost towns & renamed places
- Repository cheat-sheet & finding aids
Fast place search
Use the search at the top of this page. It recognizes variants via our
places.js dataset (hamlets, post offices, and nicknames).
If search isn’t available, browse the township and borough lists above.
Sources: History of Jefferson County, Pennsylvania (Scott 1888); Jefferson County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (McKnight 1917); Caldwell’s Atlas (1878); Pennsylvania postal directories & GNIS.
Townships
Click a township to view churches, cemeteries, maps, and record tips. (Links point to your township pages/anchors.)
Barnett
Clarion corridor - rafting & early mills
Beaver
Northeast farms & early schools
Bell
South-central 1850s formation
Clover
Summerville area - rifle company lore
Eldred
Sigel & Howe - lumbering era
Gaskill
Mount Pleasant - early industries
Heath
Northwest - first county murder (hist.)
Henderson
Big Run & coal patch history
Knox
Knox Dale - gas & coal
McCalmont
Eleanora mines & coke works
Oliver
Sprankle Mills & early churches
Perry
Mahoning valley settlements
Pinecreek
Port Barnett & early rafting
Polk
Dixon lineage & reunions
Porter
South - pioneer settlers
Ringgold
Worthville - militia history
Rose
County Home - Belleview
Snyder
Brockway corridor - coal & rail
Union
Corsica - Rossevile Grays
Warsaw
Richardsville - Jericho
Washington
Beechwoods & Hazen
Winslow
Reynoldsville & Sykesville
Young
Punxsutawney & Walston
Township Snapshot
Compare Jefferson County townships at a glance: earliest known post offices, peak postal years in our dataset, number of localities indexed, and primary 19th-century industries. Click a column heading to sort.
| Township | Earliest PO | Peak Postal Years | # of Localities | Primary Industry (19th c.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshot data will appear once the locality dataset is loaded. | ||||
Boroughs
Historic Hamlets
Coal patches, vanished mills, or renamed communities that appear in older records.
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0 places
Ghost Towns
Boundary Notes
Jefferson County was created 26 March 1804 from Lycoming County. For court business it was attached to Westmoreland (1804-1806) and then Indiana County (1806-1830) until fully organized. When a record is missing, check those attachments and adjacent counties.
- Maps & Atlases - township outlines and Caldwell 1878
- Repositories where the records live