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THIS township occupies a position in the extreme southwest corner of the county, having as its south boundary Cambria county, and as its west boundary Indiana county. The township is bounded on the north by Bell, and on the east by Chest township, from the latter of which it was taken in the year 1835. Chest, the mother township, was taken from the still older ones, Beccaria and Pike, nine years earlier, in the year 1826.
The proceedings, under which the township was erected, were instituted in the year 1834, by the presentation of a petition to the Court of Quarter Sessions, asking for a division of Pike and Chest, and the formation of a new township therefrom. This plan seems to have met with disfavor from some of the residents of the townships affected, who presented a further petition, asking that a township be formed on the west side of Chest, and along its north boundary. This, in turn, was followed by a third application, requesting a further division, which last petition, inasmuch as it refers to the subject-matter of this chapter, will be appropriately mentioned at this time:
'To the Honorable, Thomas Burnside, Esquire, President, and his associates, now composing the Court of Quarter Sessions of the peace, and Court of Common Pleas at Clearfield town, in and for the county of Clearfield: A petition of divers inhabitants of Chest township, in said county of Clearfield, humbly represents that they understand that there has been a division of said Chest township at the last court, and if it should be confirmed as the lines appear to be laid out, it will be very inconvenient for a great number of the inhabitants.
'We therefore pray your honorable court to divide the township so as to give each new township an equal share of the population; to begin at the Cherry Tree and extend north along the county line six miles and make a corner, and strike a line due east across the township; then continue north along the county line the same distance, and there make a corner; and start a line due east across the township that would leave the upper or south end for \"\"Cherry township,\"\" the middle for Chest, and the lower for Bell township. Then each township would have an equal share of the population, and an equal share of the unseated lands. We, your petitioners, pray your honorable court to appoint three disinterested persons to view and lay out the townships agreeable to the wishes of the people, and they will forever pray, etc. Signed, Abraham Schamp, John Teeples, Robert Pennington, James Gallaher, Joseph R. Bouslaugh, Daniel Branchler, George W. King, John King, William Dunlap, John McCullough, O. W. Coffey, David Fulton, jr., and Hugh Gallaher.'
This request, like the others bearing on the division, was referred to the viewers, Alexander B. Reed, James Allport and David Ferguson, who, by their report, dated February 4, 1834, made the division of the territory, but not strictly according to the prayer of the petitioners. Burnside was laid out, having a length north and south of eight miles and one hundred and fifty perches, and of a width, east and west, of six miles. The report of the commissioners was confirmed by the court on the 4th day of May, 1835, and the township was named 'Burnside,' in honor of Hon. Thomas Burnside, then president judge of the Fourth Judicial District.
Had the request of the petitioners been carried out in full, this township would have been called 'Cherry,' so intended on account of its situation in the vicinity of the 'Cherry Tree,' the head-waters of canoe navigation on the West Branch, as mentioned in the land treaties between the proprietaries of the province and the Indian occupants, a hundred years ago. The viewers evidently thought another name to be preferable, and suggested that of 'Burnside,' which suggestion was made in writing and attached to their report. Modesty, undoubtedly, forbade his honor, Judge Burnside, from so naming the township, and that office was performed by Moses Boggs, one of the associate judges then sitting. |