Glen Hazel –– Middle Fork
Immigrants, leaving Europe on September 8, 1849, arrived to the area. They were assisted to an American port-of-entry by the Belgian government. Arriving in New York December 19th, Victor Van Ham, a local entrepreneur arranged to have the immigrants settle in the Glen Hazel area, attempted to establish a colony of immigrant glass workers that eventually settled in the area now known as Glen Hazel. This settlement was first given the name of “New Flanders”. December 23, 1849 the workers departed for St. Marys. They were welcomed with a feast in St. Marys on News Years Eve 1849. January 4, 1850 the immigrants traveled to News Flanders by foot 8 miles from St. Marys only to find one large house, that being owned by Mr. Van Ham.
Soon realizing the failure of the settlement and harsh
living conditions the workers later found work elsewhere at the lumber mills in Elk
and Jefferson County.
It wasn’t until 1888 that Ben F. Hazleton began
construction of a lumber mill at the confluence of Crooked Creek and the East
Branch near the St. Marys / Olean Turnpike. It was at this location that Thomas
Kane, a few years earlier, had erected a small sawmill.
Hazleton soon renamed the town “Glen Hazel”. Soon workers began to settle in the village. By 1891, Hazleton hired a surveyor by the name of J. L. Brown to layout the village building lots and streets. People started coming to the area building stores and homes for their families. In July of 1891, the Post Office was moved from Ketner to Glen Hazel. The St. Marys / Olean Turnpike was designated as the main thoroughfare thru the town. By 1892, Glen Hazel was on of the largest settlements in northeast Elk County. There were several stores, offices, freight stations, restaurants, and jewelry stores.
Prior to World War II, the area even had a privately owned
airstrip located just north of Middle Fork.
The village boasted of a well-tuned brass band and had
it’s own baseball team, each competing with other nearby towns.
A typical
family in Glen Hazel
The Clawson & Sons General Store in Glen Hazel
Above is a view of Hazleton’s Dam across the East Branch at Glen Hazel. Since water was required to operate his steam-powered mill, he rebuilt a crude log dam across the East Branch at the same location of the former Kane sawmill dam.
A View of
Hazleton’s log pond in Glen Hazel
The first two-room schoolhouse was erected in
1892 near today’s East Branch Bridge. It
was soon outgrown and a new two-story, four room schoolhouse was built.
About 200 students attend school here up to the eighth grade.
This building was later destroyed by fire in February of 1913.
The Jones Township School Board erected another school at the former
location of the Bridge School. This
would be a single-story four-room school building.
Just a few years later, in January 1916, fire also consumed the Wilcox
School building, in Wilcox. The Township school
districts then re-build a larger school in Wilcox.
The kids from Glen Hazel were then transported to the new Wilcox school
to attend class. The Bridge School
in Glen Hazel was later sold to a group from St. Marys who established the
Riverside Lodge. Now, it is used as
a private residence.
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| Another picture of the Reid Hotel (House) this situated on the south corner of the current Bendigo & Glen Hazel Roads. | Chas Woodly Barber Shop & Restaurant on the right and the Straessley Harness & Livery Barn on the left. These buildings were located between the current Bendigo Road and Jefferson Ave. | Jacob Silfies House in Glen Hazel. Was located directly across from the current Bendigo Road intersection. |
Two oxen pull a wagon up to the Post Office in Glen Hazel (Date
Not Known) |
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Shown in this picture is Glen Hazel Postmaster Mr. Andy Anderson. In this May 23, 1913 photo, he is arranging to start a store at this location. |
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| An aerial view of Glen Hazel looking south towards St. Marys | In the photo above, Weavers Inn (now the Dam Inn) is shown on the right. A jack dam on the Clarion river is situated in the foreground. Photo was taken form Ketner Road and is dated September 1979. |
Even today, the area is experiencing gas exploration of the Trenton / Black River and the Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves. Several gas well have been recently drilled near Glen Hazel as much as 2-miles deep to reach these gas reserves.
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Above left is the second pump house and oil tanks (center photo), they were torn down in 1978. They were located on the left side of Kilgus Road, just below the dam. The main pump house is shown on the right. Many of these old wells have just recently been plugged. However, even today the smell of natural gas escaping from these old wells can be detected.
Soon the area would see development of other
timbering operations, including several wood chemical factories.
These chemical factories would convert logs into charcoal, methanol (wood
alcohol), and acetate of lime or acetic acid. They utilized the smaller
diameter hardwood that lumber mills had no use for.
The basic process was to heat, in the absence
of oxygen, the wood to a very high temperature that would drive off its
chemicals, via smoke, and turn the remaining wood to charcoal. The smoke
would be cooled in a vessel called a “retort” or still.
The chemicals were treated so as to produce methanol and acetate of lime.
The charcoal was cooled, and most of it subsequently sold to iron producers.
Charcoal was important because it contained no sulphur, as did coal.
Sulphur is detrimental to nickel and chromium so that high grade steels and
stainless steel had to be smelted by charcoal. Click
here to learn more about the wood chemical process.
The Clawson Chemical Company built a sawmill as well as a chemical plant near Middle Fork and had their offices in Glen Hazel. The plant was located just north of Glen Hazel at the mouth of Middle Fork. This was the only facility to utilize the new “jumbo retorts” patented by the Quinn’s. Quinn introduced his jumbo retorts into the Lackawanna Chemical Company plant at Straight, a few miles north of Glen Hazel.
View of the Clawson Chemical Company at Middle Fork
Clawson's log yard at Middle Fork
Above, the Clawson Chemical Company at Middle Fork.