19. watts township. F 2 . 377 



19. Watts township. 



This township occupies the point of land between the 

 rivers Juniata and Susquehanna, from Half Falls mount- 

 ain to Duncan's and Haldeman's islands. 



Its northern line is mountainous but southward it slopes 

 gently towards the point where it is but little raised above 

 the level of the river. The township is rather thinly set- 

 tled, especially in the north where the land is rough and 

 poor. The Pennsylvania canal runs along the river side for 

 about seven miles and crosses into Haldemait s island at 

 the southern point, the old channel between them being 

 filled for that purpose at the west end. A third island 

 formerly existed but since the construction of the canal the 

 intervening channel has silted up so that it is now six feet 

 above the usual level of the river. Consequently this 

 [Hulincf s island) is permanently united physically to 

 Perry county though by the original deeds and still legally 

 it is a part of Dauphin.* 



One of the most interesting features in the geology of 

 Watts township is the abundant evidence it yields of the 

 former flow of the rivers at a higher level. Haldemarf s 

 island is nothing but a former Hood plain of the Susque- 



*The tradition in the neighborhood is, that the earliest settler in the dis- 

 trict, Abraham Huling, a man of unusual foresight, at least in his own opin- 

 ion, bought 200 acres of land at the mouth of the Juniata commanding both 

 rivers with a view to profit from the great city that was likely to grow up at 

 the confluence. He did the same at the junction of the Allegheny and Mo- 

 nongahela. After awhile as the cities did not appear, he came to the conclu- 

 sion that the latter was too far west and sold it, retaining the former. Alas for 

 human prescience ! The one is now Pittsburgh, the other is still the Junction 

 farm and since the introduction of the railway has lost what little importance 

 it previously had from lying on the highroad west from Harrisburg to Fort 

 Duquesne, (Pittsburgh.) 



