Historically written as Pine Creek as well as Pinecreek Township. Use spelling variants when searching (Pine Creek, Pinecreek, Pine Creek Township), and remember that early families here clustered around Port Barnett, Emerickville, and later Fuller Station on Sandy Lick Creek.
Tip: Add nearby communities like Port Barnett, Emerickville, or Fuller Station to broaden results and catch ghost towns and renamed places.
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When searching, try combinations like Pine Creek Township, Pinecreek Twp., and nearby villages such as Port Barnett, Emerickville, or Fuller Station.
Pinecreek (Pine Creek) Township is one of the earliest settled sections of Jefferson County. It formed the backdrop for the Barnett family’s mills and inn at Port Barnett on the Red Bank–Pine Creek corridor, the growing village of Emerickville along the “pike” east of Brookville, and later the railroad hamlet of Fuller Station on Sandy Lick Creek. From these hubs, roads, mills, schools, and churches spread outwards to serve scattered farms and lumber camps.
The surface of Pinecreek varies from creek bottoms around Port Barnett and Sandy Lick to higher bench land and wooded ridges reclaimed as fruit-rich farms. County histories emphasize how quickly the “wilderness” of the early 1800s filled with sawmills, grist-mills, and later intensive lumbering, turning Pinecreek into a key industrial corridor for Jefferson County lumber and bark shipments.
The Barnetts are typically credited as among the first permanent white settlers on Pine Creek; Joseph Barnett’s children Rebecca (b. 1802) and J. Potter (b. 1803) are recorded as some of the very earliest white births in what became Jefferson County. The first marriage associated with the township—Sarah Barnett to Elisha M. Graham in March 1807—required a trip into what is now Clarion County for a justice to perform the ceremony, underscoring how new and sparsely settled the region still was at that time.
Early spiritual life was equally improvised. One of the first ministers known to reach the area was a Rev. Greer, a former neighbor of Joseph Barnett in Lycoming County, who visited around 1800 and again a year or so later, preaching in cabins to the few families scattered along Pine Creek. From these roots, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and later other denominations spread outward from Brookville, Port Barnett, and Emerickville.
Law-and-order glimpses come from the justice docket of Thomas Lucas and other early magistrates. These records preserve small but rich cases among Pinecreek neighbors—boundary disputes such as the line between “Fudge” Van Camp and Henry Vasbinder, recognizances “to keep the peace,” and fines for Sabbath-breaking, profanity, and intoxication. Although colorful, such entries are relatively few; the township’s early settlers are generally portrayed as law-abiding and community-minded.
Jefferson County was created in 1804 from Lycoming County and remained attached to other counties for court business until it was fully organized in 1830. For Pinecreek-area families, that means earlier deeds, tax lists, and court records may live in several parent counties:
Research strategy: if a record set does not index Pinecreek or Jefferson County, search first under Lycoming, then Northumberland, and finally the appropriate colonial parent counties or state-level land records.
When you see an ancestor “move” from Pinecreek to another Jefferson County township, first rule out a boundary change before assuming a physical relocation.
Historical summary adapted from Scott (1888), McKnight (1917), and Pennsylvania state and county formation guides.
The Barnett family anchors most Pinecreek origin stories. Joseph Barnett’s homestead at Port Barnett became an early inn, mill site, and election location; his daughter Sarah’s 1807 marriage to Elisha M. Graham is recorded as the first marriage tied directly to this region. The Barnett farm, mill, and later “Port Barnett Hotel” drew in travelers, mill workers, and river men moving along Red Bank and Pine Creek.
Over the next two decades, additional families arrived and carved farms from the hillsides and benches along the streams. County histories and early assessment lists identify the following as key Pinecreek families and farming neighbors (many later spreading into Perry, Warsaw, and other townships carved from the original territory):
One of the most vivid Pinecreek stories concerns “Fudge” Van Camp, remembered as the first known Black resident in the county. Tradition says that on the site later owned by Samuel Jones and then John Clark he planted apple seeds that produced the first fruit trees in the region. A later boundary dispute between Van Camp and Henry Vasbinder preserved in the justice docket provides rare details about streams, fences, and “lanes or outlets” between early neighbors—excellent micro-evidence for mapping the earliest settlement pattern.
Cemetery names are compiled from township histories and locality notes. Use the county cemetery page for exact locations, alternate names, and transcription links.
The first local schoolhouse (log) stood above Brookville; early teachers and school development radiated into Pinecreek’s neighborhoods. Later, schools appear in the Port Barnett and Emerickville areas and near mill communities such as Fuller Station.
Denominations active in the township from the 1800s include Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and others, with congregations tied to Brookville, Port Barnett, and Emerickville. At Emerickville, for example, a Lutheran church on the Bliss farm and a Methodist church on the Moore farm served surrounding farm families, and a Church of God congregation later erected a building there.
For parish registers or anniversary booklets, contact the Jefferson County Historical Society and the relevant denominational archives; many congregations published centennial histories with member lists and photos.
Pinecreek’s post offices—especially Port Barnett, Emerickville, Iowa, Fuller, and Meredith—track how the township’s mail routes shifted as coal, timber, and river traffic rose and declined. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries many rural residents also used nearby Brookville or other borough post offices via rural routes.
These cards summarize villages, ghost towns, coal patches, and named localities connected to Pinecreek. Use them to track families who appear under changing place names across censuses, deeds, tax lists, and church records.
Ghost towns & coal patches: Iowa, Fuller, and Meredith often disappear from modern maps but still appear in historic atlases, tax lists, and newspaper items. Port Barnett has been largely absorbed into Brookville, while Emerickville continues as a named locality in the area.
Developed around the Barnett family’s mills and inn at the junction of Pine Creek and Red Bank. For years it hosted one of the only licensed taverns in the county and served as a focal point for roads, elections, and river traffic. Later owners such as Jacob Kroh and James Humphrey expanded the milling complex, added a steam mill and store, and built worker housing.
Research here through tavern and merchant licenses, mill and dam records, store ledgers, road-view proceedings, and Brookville newspaper items mentioning Port Barnett.
A village along the “pike” about six miles east of Brookville. By 1880 it contained a hotel, two stores, a blacksmith shop, churches, and about twenty dwellings. The surrounding farms of Emerick, Moore, Schuckers, Zimmerman, Cable, and others form a dense cluster of Pinecreek families.
Look for Emerickville residents under Pinecreek Township and Emerickville P.O. in censuses; check church records on the Bliss and Moore farms and local business records for Weiser, Zetler, and Raymer.
A railroad hamlet on the Low Grade Division of the Allegheny Valley Railroad at Sandy Lick Creek. The sawmill built by Abel Fuller (c. 1862) shipped large quantities of lumber and bark. The post office and station served workers and nearby farm families.
Prioritize railroad-related accident reports, lumber shipping notes, and mill ownership records; many men “of Fuller Station” may be boarders or laborers rather than landowners.
The “Iowa” mill on Sandy Lick and the Bellport mill complex formed an industrial cluster on or near the Pinecreek–Warsaw boundary. Ownership cycled through firms such as Clark & Sons, Clark & Darrah, James Neal, and Means & Nicholson, cutting millions of feet of lumber across several decades.
Treat “Iowa” and Bellport as regional names: when a record simply says “Iowa,” cross-check both Pinecreek and Warsaw township maps, tax lists, and land records.
Use historic atlases and modern GIS to locate villages (Port Barnett, Emerickville, Iowa, Fuller, Meredith) and trace boundary changes affecting Pinecreek Township.
Cross-check Pinecreek burials across USGenWeb, Find A Grave, and FamilySearch.
Deeds (Recorder), probate and guardianship (Register/Orphans’ Court), and older vital registers often mention Pinecreek landowners and residents.
Newspapers fill gaps between censuses; Civil War and later units draw men from Pinecreek's neighborhoods and villages.