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Lawrence County, PA
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Created March 20, 1849, from parts of Beaver and Mercer
Counties and named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s
first flagship, the U.S. Brig Lawrence, which had been
named for Captain James Lawrence, a naval hero. New
Castle, the county seat, was laid out in 1802,
incorporated as a borough on March 25, 1825, and
chartered as a city on February 25, 1869. It is not
certain whether it was named for Newcastle, England, or
New Castle, Delaware.
 This
area was formally acquired from Native Americans by the
1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the “Last Purchase,” and
migrants from Allegheny County began to settle in 1793.
Newcastle quickly grew to be an industrial center
because the county had limestone quarries, iron ore, and
coal. Its stone blast furnaces for making iron, started
in 1838, were located in both Beaver and Mercer
Counties, and the county was created to eliminate that
confusing situation. Canals arrived in the 1830s and the
Pennsylvania Railroad in 1850. Connection with
Youngstown, Ohio was very important. The 1890s were the
“Golden Age of Industry,” as Lawrence became the world’s
leader in tin plating. Lawrence also produced hardware,
paper, pottery, cement, and linseed oil. There was some
oil production. The industrial complex brought vast
numbers of southern and eastern Europeans, beginning in
1875. The population peaked at 113,000 in 1960, but
deindustrialization became pronounced in the 1970s.
As in Berks County, there was always farming outside the
factory areas. Today, 42 percent of the county is
farmland. It ranks about midway in value of farm
products among the sixty-seven counties. |
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