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Susquehanna County, PA
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Created on February 21, 1810, from part of Luzerne
County and named for the Susquehanna River. It remained
attached to Luzerne County until 1812. Montrose, the
county seat was laid out in 1812 and incorporated as a
borough on March 19, 1824. Its name is a combination of
“mont,” the French word for “mountain” and Rose, for Dr.
L R. Rose, a prominent citizen.
 In
1787 entrepreneur John Nicholson sent some settlers to
the site of Brooklyn, although a Hessian deserter may
have been the very first in the area. Pennsylvania
purchased the land from Indians at Fort Stanwix in 1784,
and Connecticut formally yielded its claim in 1786
(although individual Connecticut settlers eventually
re-purchased their land from Pennsylvania). Maple sugar
was the first major product; lumbering followed.
Woodworking factories developed, producing furniture,
artistic scrolls and designs, and toys. A fire in
Montrose in 1886 destroyed a large toy factory. Tanning
was important while the stands of hemlock survived.
Valuable anthracite was discovered at Forest City in
1871. Good railroad connections with Lake Erie and New
York did much for the economy. Once Susquehanna had a
superior dairy production that was marketed to urban
areas by railroads. Flagstone is profitable to mine.
Bendix Corporation came to Montrose in 1951, and its
flight systems division now employs one thousand in
South Montrose. Farms cover 36 percent of the county
land, and Susquehanna has the twelfth largest number of
cows among the sixty-seven counties and the twelfth
highest figure for cash receipts from dairy products. It
is also a major producer of hay. |
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