The History of Point Township

Farming: Past and Present

Were you to journey along our roads in the spring, in bygone days, you would have seen the farmer preparing his soil and planting the seeds with horse-drawn equipment. In June he made hay, pitching it on the wagon one forkful at a time. In July he harvested the wheat, making neat rows of shocks in the field. A shock consisted of eight or ten sheaves placed on top, to keep out the rain, until the grain was dry enough to store in the barn and await the threshing crew.

The threshing outfit consisted of a steam engine - a huge affair with black smoke pouring from the smoke stack and steam hissing from the pistons. The threshing machine and water tank rumbled along at three or four miles per hour.

Jacob Kline, Phillip Heckert, Frank Neidig and Charles VanKirk had the first threshing machines that went from farm to farm threshing the wheat, oats and buckwheat.

Threshing day was a big day on the farm. The owner was the engineer and fireman and one man fed the machine and one man took the grain away. The farmer's wife prepared an enormous meal for the threshers.

In September you would have seen fields of corn, the stalks cut and placed in shocks looking like Indian teepees. After the potatoes were dug and wheat was planted, the farmer and his family could be seen husking the corn in the field.

In days past, the largest farms were owned by James Packer (near Wickes Lumber and Modular Housing Systems), Charles Steele (Grange Hall to Mohawk Door Company), and Harry Barnhart the Legion Property to the Grange Hall. The large Barnhart barn that collapsed in 1971 was moved from there from the Kapp farm when the railroad yards were built in 1910.

Many small family farms had six to ten cows, a hundred chickens, a few sheep and ten to twenty pigs that provided a comfortable living for the family. The farmer and his wife tended market in Sunbury, or on Front Street in Northumberland or peddled their produce door to door in town. Farmers who did this in the first forty years of this century were: Charles Lesher, William H. Geise, John and Cyrus Young, Gene Grady, J.W. Furman, William H. Mertz, Sr. and Peter Clemens.

Other farmers who had milk routes or barns in were: H.F. Geise, Asher Hoffman, Joseph Diehl, H.B. Hopewell, Morris Grady, John Hilbish, Sis Elliot, John Mertz and Harry Barnhart.

Many families in town walked up over Strawbridge Road to get their milk from W.H. Geise, Newton Sulouff and George Epler, Jr. farms during the 1930's and 1940's.

From the 1930's to the middle of this century, everything was changing fast. More roads were being paved, more electric lines were being built, and at the end of this period local telephone lines were all taken over by the Bell System.

Before 1960, many farms had all kinds of animals grazing on the sloping pastures. Now the farmers have specialized in one or two areas, either dairy, poultry, hogs and/or beef accompanying crops to feed the animals. The largest farm, Leon B. Epler Farms, Inc., is farming 1000 acres - 500 acres of corn, 100 acres of potatoes and other crops. One hundred fifty dairy cows, 200 other cattle and 20,000 laying chickens complete the operation, employing fifteen full time farmers. The other Point Township farms include four dairy farms, three poultry farms, two general farms, one beef and poultry farm, one hog farm and one pony farm. Many farms raise vegetables for wholesale, retail, and Furmans's Canning Company.

So now in the year 1972 let us take another drive through Point Township on mostly paved roads and review some of the changes. We don't see any cows grazing in the fields and no chickens on the highways. Instead of a farmer following his team and plow, he is now up front on a tractor seat which is pulling many plows. Where we saw several men and sometimes a woman making hay, we now see a tractor pulling a baler which is tossing bales into a trailing wagon. Instead of a binder and shocks of grain, we see a combine; instead of corn shocks, we see a corn picker-sheller, and electric milking equipment used rather than hand milking of cows. All of these are great labor and time savers so more acreage can be farmed and more animals cared for.

Many of the former farms are now housing developments or industrial areas. The first plan for home building on farms was in 1946 when Leon B. Epler developed Villa Vista. William H. Geise also sold lots along Strawbridge Road on the farm that became Fred Troxell's Hill Top View development in 1958.

In 1957, Broscious Lumber Company began Sunny Hill and Oak Park developments. Homes have now been erected along most of the township roads.

Point Township has changed from strictly rural to suburban in the last fifteen years. It has the largest rate of growth of any governing body in this country, chiefly due to being centrally located to industry and because of many choice scenic building lots. [Back to Top]

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