T
I Love this P l a ce
he story of the village of Prosperity, just a few miles north of the Greene County line on State Route 18, begins and ends with the Lindley family. You have to slow down on the south side of town and pull over to see the big stone marker that shows where Fort Lindley once held the high ground and gave first settlers a place of refuge when indigenous raiding parties attacked during the 1770s and 80s. But slowing down for a visit is the only way to hear the story of those days and meet descendants like John Lindley, who is happy to strike a pose for posterity beside the monument his family erected in 1928. “My five times great grandfather left a trust fund and the family maintains it,” he tells me, pointing to the flat knoll above the road where a seven acre compound once encircled a 12 foot high walled fort built by Demas Lindley in 1773. It could house families for months during the summer raiding season while the men went out in armed groups to tend to their crops. Nothing is left of the fort now except for those who sheltered there and stayed to make Prosperity their home. John still owns more than 400 acres in and around town and is an eighth generation farmer, ready to meet the changing needs of a health conscious America with Red Devon cattle, an English breed famous for being able to fatten on grass rather than grain. Heritage Trail Farm grass fed beef is marketed locally and you can read all about it online at lindleybeef.org. From the hill above the Upper Ten Mile Presbyterian Church next door to the monument there is a broad expanse of rolling hills still cleared for farming that are the backyard for many of the old homes in the village that grew up along the road to Catfish Camp, later named Washington. The land would bring prosperity to hard working settlers and their children who would raise cash crops of sheep and cattle on the frontier they were bold enough to claim before the nation was born. Fort Lindley was one of the outposts between Fort Pitt going south through the wilderness to the fort at Ryerson Station in what would become Greene County. Settlers were the militia as broken treaties drove the indigenous tribes further westward into the Ohio territories as the Revolutionary War was being fought and for the decade that followed. Warriors would cross the Ohio River to attack settlers in their hunting grounds that were being lost and it was guerilla warfare for survival for nearly 20 years. When the frontier was finally won at the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795, the frontier became farm country and little crossroad stores became villages. Prosperity was laid out by Robert Wallace in 1848 on “the pike” that would become Rt. 18. A number of roads from the east and west intersected nearby, making it a community hub. According to local lore, Pennsylvania already had a Wallaceville, so Prosperity it was. Crumrine reports that the first house built was still standing in 1883 - John M. Day’s store. Families could also shop 4
PROSPERITY, PA
by Colleen Nelson
The wonderful view from the cemetery at Upper Ten Mile Presbyterian Church gives you an idea of why the town was named Prosperity.
at Mary Brownlee’s store, Nathan Daley’s shoe shop, A. L. Hayen’s blacksmith shop and David Dille’s drug store. There were two doctors living there and Matthias Minton was the justice of the peace. When the Odd Fellows built Morris Lodge 936 in 1876 members celebrated the values of friendship, love and truth in farm family living before it closed its doors sometime in the 1890s.
Morris Twp. Supervisor Rob Sanders stands in the doorway of the Dunn Station Freight House, moved to Prosperity.
This was the Morris Township High School from 1914-1944. Afterwards it became the grade school until it closed in 1978. GreeneScene Magazine •
APRIL 2019
