By Colleen Nelson
I Love This Place: Mapletown, Pa
Taking Greene County back to the frontier days is an adventure in itself, as layers of time are peeled back to reveal that the “one street town” of Mapletown and surrounding areas has an impressive number of “firsts” to brag about.
That flashing light on State Route 88 six miles south of its intersection with Route 21 is a touch of modern bling, but don’t be fooled. The county’s frontier history begins right here, when Col. John Minor, (1744-1833) “the father of Greene County” arrived in 1764, three years before the Mason Dixon Line was cut to separate the colonies of Virginia from Penn’s Woods. Turn left and you’ll be in historic Greensboro on the Monongahela River. Turn right and you’ll be in equally historic Mapletown, perched half a mile above Whiteley Creek, where this story begins. Col. Minor crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains from London County, Virginia, passed through Redstone Fort (now Brownsville) then came here to make a “tomahawk improvement” on hundreds of acres of wilderness that was still considered Virginia. His claim stretched around Whiteley Creek and while he was there he made a separate claim for his brother William and another for good friend Zachery Gapen. His companion Jeremiah Glassgow explored the lands around Dunkard Creek and made a claim for himself near Mt. Morris that he had to fight an “interloper” for when he returned the next year to settle his tomahawk improvement.
According to historian LK Evans, Col. Minor built a “snug cabin” on Whiteley Creek, then, like Glassgow, went back to Virginia to fetch his bride and first son Otho, William and Zachary and their families, along with mill equipment to build the “first flouring mill west of the Monongahela River.” Indigenous fighters burned it during “Lord Dunmore’s War.” Undeterred, Minor built another of stone across from his cabin and added a sawmill, both powered by the waters of Whiteley Creek contained in a millpond and channeled to the wheel through a millrace. His sons and grandsons would continue milling for generations, first with water and later, with steam.
No part of the mill or the homestead remains, except for an old photograph from the 1880s. A later photo shows the covered bridge that spanned the creek in the early 20th century. It too is gone. Now, when you leave Mapletown and drive to the edge of the creek you can watch the coal train rumble by, taking coal from Cumberland Mine to Alicia on the Monongahela River.
But in those early days of frontier hostilities between England, France and the native people who were being displaced by these first settlers, Minor, with his “Colonel’s commission from the Governor of Virginia, was recognized by all the settlers as commander in chief of all the militia in the territory.” Evans, a native of Monongahela Township was a reporter for the Waynesburg Republican during the Civil War and wrote a series of articles for the paper in 1875 – 1877 that are considered “the most authentic and interesting account of pioneer history in Greene County.” His admiration for Col. Minor is understandable – the man was a force to be reckoned with, in charge of building forts in every settlement and leading “flying brigades” of men who would engage those who would “ambush by day and surprise by night”, pursuing them across hills and valleys, driving them back across the Ohio River to the unsettled territories. His cabin doubled as a fort and he had a conch shell, which “did signal service when alarming the neighborhood of dangers both real and imaginary.” After the Revolutionary War, his reputation as a community builder and defender continued to grow as the land in this south corner of Washington County developed its own body politic. Minor became Justice of the Peace of Cumberland Township in 1781 and became political when he and his neighbors began agitating to become their own county. He ran and was elected to the state legislature on that platform in 1791 and fought for six years to make it happen. So yes, he is the father of Greene County!
Meanwhile, on the hill above Minor’s Mill, Mapletown, like Greene County had yet to be born. In the History of Mapletown, Malinda Minor notes that George Debolt patented “White Oak Flats” in 1786, paying seven pounds, eleven shillings and six pence for the land.” When Stephen Mapel and his young family came to the area from Middlesex County NJ in 1788, he did more than give his name to the town that was beginning to spring up above Whiteley Creek. His son Robert would someday purchase land on nearby Dunkard Creek that would be known as Bob’s Town, then later Bobtown. Robert built a flourmill, carding mill and general store and, according to Malinda Minor is credited with being the first to discover oil in the county.
When Stephen Mapel’s son Benjamin sold some of the family farm to trustees for a church in 1797, the family’s surname was well affixed to the village that, in its hey day after the Civil War would have a hattery, a thriving assortment of stores, an inn and a post office, along with “a copper, stock dealers, carpenters and gunsmiths.”
The inn is still standing, its two log cabins hidden from the outside by wooden siding. Known as the James A. Minor House, it was the first private residence in Greene County to be placed on the Pennsylvania Inventory of Historic Places. Its pedigree was well researched by James and Carol Minor after they purchased it in 1971 and the land has been traced back to George DeBolt and the first part of the building to 1803. By 1812 it was a tavern and legend has it that a Confederate deserter was murdered in the inn. More certifiable, the rolling hills around the town were cleared for cattle and sheep and then like now, some farms had their lanes opening right onto the one road through town. In time, Mapel Town morphed to Mapletown and by 1924 a yellow brick high school was built on that one main street for the students in the southeastern corner of the county. Once nearly every farm had a place where the family dug coal out of the hills as another cash crop, later, when the big coal mines opened the boom times brought jobs and prosperity to local convenience stores. As the mines began closing in the latter part of the 20th century, Mapletown businesses downsized and the town eventually lost its last store in 2016 when owner Bobby Watson died. But the land here is beautiful, well suited for cattle and remains a cozy collection of families held together by school pride, a love of family history and weekly get-togethers at Mapletown United Methodist Church on Main Street just as it begins to dip down to Whiteley Creek.
When I got my invitation to explore Mapletown with Lorraine – Lori Beth – Adams, whose paternal Barb family has lived there “for the last 200 years!” I was on my way to an adventure into the past that is still visible from a four-wheeler on a muddy Sunday afternoon after church.
Lori Beth’s recollections of growing up helping out on Grandpap Ewing Minor Barb’s family farm on Mapletown Road give a glimpse of early to middle and late 20th century small town living, complete with family photos of great grandfather Charles A. Barb’s service station and Ford dealership across the road from his dairy farm where the family now runs cattle. Another photo shows the old general store that once sat at the corner of the farm lane. As a freshman at Waynesburg College in 2006, Lori Beth did an historical essay on her hometown that earned her a high grade and preserved day-to-day details of growing up here and knowing all your neighbors.
I got to talk to her grandmother Constance – Connie – Barb and enjoy the view from her front porch, overlooking the barnyard across Mapletown Road to the hills above, where Lori Beth says “people pause as they are walking or riding their bikes just to say “hi”. Grandma’s swing is a place to sit and watch the sun dance in the shadows and across the cows as they graze, where you can hear the football announcer on Friday night even if you don’t go to the game. You know when there are fireworks because the superintendent – whose dad worked in the hayfields with Grandpap as a teenager – lets you know so you can make sure your animals are okay being so close to where the fireworks are set off.”
I almost stayed late enough to see those shadows. After hill climbing with Lori Beth and her mom Minda Adams to see where Route 88 once ran across their pasture to come out beside the high school driveway, wheeling across muddy creek beds to see where clay was once dug to make Greensboro pottery then climbing to a stunning view on the top of the hill that makes Mapletown look like a town under a Christmas tree than back again for pizza with Grandma Connie and more family tales, I headed home with the setting sun, filled with the down-home energy of Mapletown just the way it is today – a living family history told with a generous smile on the banks of Whiteley Creek.
GreeneScene of the Past: Watson’s Store
When it comes to local legends, Bobby Watson of Mapletown is definitely one. He was the last owner/operator of Watson’s Store and is still remembered by those who shopped there for his ever-present baseball cap, stogie and big smile. And of course, for that nice cold bottle of Coca Cola pulled out of the water of the old school cooler that he kept filled as long as he was in business.
I found this photo of the inside of the store, complete with Bobby and his stogie, on the wall of Connie Barb’s home. That’s her sitting beside him, surrounded by walls of memorabilia and family photos that Bobby collected over his decades of being open for business.
Bobby Watson’s life followed the course Mapletown has taken over the years and the changes that came to town, as coal became king and miners’ paychecks kept little country stores like his viable.
When Bobby died in 2016, this piece of living history went with him, but his memory of a life well lived in a town that loves him remains.
At Mapletown High School he was a top athlete in the 1940s, with four letters on his sweater, according to the story Lori Beth Adams wrote about her neighbor for a local paper in 2006. Bobby spent his high school days working part time in the Watson family store “a little up the road” from the one that now sits empty at the corner of Mapletown and Maple Ridge roads. His grandmother Plezzie Tanner operated the original store and “she sold a little bit of everything.” When Plezzie decided she didn’t want to run a store, Bobby’s parents Robert and Mable took over and Lori Beth reports Bobby remembered closing the store at 5 p.m. to go to dinner and having sister Betty May coming in to keep it open until closing time. In the mid-1950s the Watsons moved their store to its final location. Bobby had already left for the Air Force and by the time he returned home his family had bought the building and inherited its history and its clientele.
There was a post office in the store when the Ceavengers operated it, although the original post office for Mapletown was in an even older store across the road at the edge of the lane that lead into to Charles and later Ewing Barb’s farm.
Bobby remembered getting his family mail there from box 13 as kid and when the post office closed decades later, the old brass mail boxes were stored away to make room for the mini-supermarket of goods the Watson family sold to their neighbors and the coal miners who passed through Mapletown on their way to work.
The store stayed in the family for the 30 years Bobby did construction work, while wife Virginia and mother Mable kept the doors open. Later, when it was just Bobby, the doors stayed open for neighbors and friends like Connie and her family and whoever might pass by.
Watson’s Store was a living museum of what made up old country stores – the old ice cream freezer, the water filled pop cooler, the signs for Salada Tea on the screen door, the newspaper clippings that celebrated high school triumphs, the “Vote Lee Watson for District Justice” sign endorsing Watson’s son Lee when he ran for office. Bobby was known to remove that cigar from his mouth for church at Mapletown United Methodist, and in later years a rocking chair placed near the door made the store his living room as well. The yellow metal sign on the old screen door that reads “Thank you – Call again.” was something his neighbors heeded and every day was the right time to visit. As the years after the coal boom brought empty shelves, there was always bread, milk, a rack of videos, the newspaper and cold Coca Cola in the cooler for sale, waiting for any neighbor who might stop in.