The following is an attempt to interpret the Southampton Township portion of the 1818 Melish-Whiteside map of Somerset County. This attempt undoubtedly contains errors and misunderstandings, and is presented only to stimulate thought on the subject. When words like "corresponds" or "correlates" are used in the process of describing roads, the words are not meant to imply that the 1818 road is the exact same road and road bed that exists today (2009). Also, please understand that the 1818 Melish-Whiteside map is really a just a sketch. It does not appear to be based on a survey. Instead, the roads appear to be sketched by someone with general knowledge of the main connecting roads in the area, with no attempt to show the actual twists and turns in the road beds that are dictated by the rough terrain.
Lannie Dietle
October 2009
Updated November 2010
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1. This is the Maryland State Line; i.e. the Mason-Dixon line.
2. This is the Bedford County Line, which is at the ridgeline of the Little Alleghany Mountain.
3. This is Uhl's Grist Mill, which is a stone building that is still standing along the main road through Wellersburg.
4. This is Hay's Mill, the site which has now been identified as being behind Mutt's brick store.
5. From the known mill locations, we know that this road section, before the sharp bend, correlates to the present road through Wellersburg, which is now known alternately as Route 160, the "Cumberland Highway" and the "Plank Road".
6. This has to be either the farm home of Michael Korn or his son Daniel, because no other Korn individual owned property in Southampton township at the time, according to tax records and other information in the 1949 book "The Genealogy of Michael Korns, Sr. of Somerset County Pennsylvania". Because of my belief pertaining to the road section marked "19", I believe that this Korns farm most closely corresponds to what became Daniel Korn's farm, but I also know that Daniel Korn's farm may have originally been part of the 320 acre tract that Michael Korns bought from Samuel Riddle; click here to see a map that shows that 320 acre tract.
7. Regardless of which Korn's home is identified at 6, either home identifies this road as the road that is now known as Long Lane. The Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township shows this road going to the Bedford County line, but not crossing it.
8. The "Candles" home is obviously that of the family we now know as Kennell or Kendall. I suspect that this is the home that is shown as the A. Getz place on the Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township. In other words, I think this is the farm where the Getz Cemetery is located. That Cemetery is where many Kennell family members are buried. The oldest dated burial there (1846) is a Kennell, and is where Henry Kennell (1768-1846) is said to be buried.
9. I don't know it personally by name, but this is the stream that Mike McKenzie has described as the north Branch of Jennings Run.
10. The approximate current day path of Route 160 and the Plank Road that is shown on the Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township, follows the green line that I have sketched.
11. I believe that this kink in the 1818 road corresponds to the first major bend in present-day (2009) route 160 north of the brick building that was formerly Mutt's store. (Hay's Mill was located near the present day brick building that was Mutt's store.)
12. Because of my belief pertaining to the road section marked "19", I believe that the road section marked "12" is a type of antecedent to the Plank Road; today's Route 160 (which isn't to say it and today's road are everywhere on exactly the same ground).
13. This is the Jacob Reiber farm, which is the location of the River Cemetery, also known as the Reiber-Lepley (or is it the Lepley-Reiber) cemetery. That cemetery is located on the road that is presently known as the Shirley Hollow Road. The River farm is correctly shown as straddling the top of Savage Mountain.
14. As described on this web page, Mike McKenzie believes that he has found the location of Cook's Mill, along the road that is presently known as Shirley Hollow Road, near where Shirley's Hollow Road crosses Laurel run (just past the River Cemetery). In 2009, Uncle Melvin told me that Shirley Hollow Road used to be called Shivner Road, and that Lou Shivner lived back there. He said that after that, some people called it Tunnel Road.
15. The known locations of Cook's Mill and the Reiber farm means that the section of road between them correlates to the road that is presently known as Shirley Hollow road. This does not necessarily mean that the remainder of the road, labeled "29" correlates to the present day Shirley Hollow road.
16. This stream is clearly labeled as being Laurel Run, by which name it is still known today.
17. This is shown as the beginning of Savage Run, which begins a short distance behind the remains of Fink's Church.
18. Because we know where Savage Run begins, we know this nearby road segment correlates to either the road that is now known as the Glencoe Road, or the Rinker Road (now in 2009 known as Cabin Hill Road). Since the is shown as being located on the east side of the north branch of Jennings Run (rather than above the westward bend in Jennings Run), at this particular location the road may correlate better with the Rinker Road--but the real truth is this map is so out of scale that the location of the road relative to Jennings Run may be incorrectly drawn. I don't know how early the Rinker road was put in, or whether or not Rinker Road was actually present in 1818. Click here to see an 1835 road that appears to be the Rinker Road, or at least a road in the same vicinty and heading. The Rinker road does not, for some reason, show up on the Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township or the 1872 Somerset County map, so it must have been a fairly uninportant road by the 1870's.
19. I strongly believe that the road section labeled "19" is an old route of the Felty Hill Road.
20. Topo maps suggest that there are few logical places to have a road that crosses Laurel Run in this vicinity, so the 1818 road at this location is the antecedent to what we now know as the Glencoe Road, right where it joins McKenzie Road. Click here for analysis of this area using an old aerial photo and topograpical map.
21. Near the start of Savage Run, this road could correlate either to Rinker Road or the Glencoe Road.
22. If I am not mistaken somehow, where Lydick's Mill is shown on the 1818 map seems to correlate better with the Fulling Mill on the 1876 Beers Map, rather than Kennell's Mill.
23. I assume this is Gladden's run, based on a comparison with the Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township.
24. The Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township also shows this section of road, but doesn't show it crossing the ridge and going to the region that is now Ellerslie. On the 1876 map, there is an "F. Kasselroot" living along the road. Today that road is known as Hasselrath Lane, and Mike McKenzie's father told him that it goes down from Long Lane to Stringtown, which is along the main road above Ellerslie. The fact that this road and others are sketched as generally straight lines on the 1818 map tells us that they are evidently drawn from an understanding of the connecting routes in the area, but are not actually drawn from a detailed survey.
25. The location of these falls is seemingly crucial in determining the general location of where the road to the Jacob River/Reiber farm crossed the north branch of Jennings Run (if it did cross it as shown on this 1818 map). I hope we can find these falls and locate them on a modern day satellite photo for reference.
26. This section of road probably correlates to the present day Grandview Drive (Long Lane turns into Grandview Drive when it reaches the 1829 Daniel Korn farm location). The road is named after the Troutman "Grandview" farm. In reference to that farm, the 1949 book "The Genealogy of Michael Korns, Sr. of Somerset County Pennsylvania" states: On the farm owned by William Troutman, Jr., four hundred or five hundred yards from the house, there are a number of Indian graves. The surrounding land, a space of ten acres, was an old clearing, as far back as the memory of the oldest resident extends, and is supposed to mark the site of an Indian village or camping-ground. If there was indeed an Indian settlement there, there would have been at least one Indian trail. Depending on the date of the settlement, it may lend credence to Grandview Drive being the modern version of the so-called Hay's Mill Path.
27. Click here to see why I believe that "Harding's" on the map is the place that Isaac Hardin bought in 1813, and click here to see a 1939 USDA aerial photo that seems to prove that the road past "Harding's" is an old, abandoned route of the Felty Hill Road.
28. Present day Route 160 passes above the bend in the north branch Jennings Run, and the the route documented on the 1939 USDA aerial photos did so also.
29. This road passes below the westward bend in the north branch of Jennings Run, but above the falls. I think that the East-West scale of the road is distorted, because it doesn't seem to show enough distance between the Reiber/River farm and the north Branch of Jennings Run. This may be one of the roads that can clearly be seen crossing the north Branch of Jennings Run on a 1939 USDA aerial photograph. It could also just be poor cartography, or merely a different interpretation of where the north branch of Jennings Run ends. For example, the Beers 1876 map of Southampton Township correctly shows the Plank Road passing above the westward bend north branch of Jennings Run, while an 1872 county map correctly shows the same thing, but also shows the road crossing a more northern branch of the stream that doesn't really amount to very much, and isn't even illustrated as being a stream on most maps.
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