LITTLE BEAVER HISTORICAL

LITTLE BEAVER
HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Residents of Darlington know the area's virtues. Excellent hunting and fishing areas. fine golf course, weekly polo matches in the summer , as well as five churches, two museums and active community organizations fill our time. During football season parking is at a premium as Blackhawk High School home games are played at Northwestern Stadium. Bricks from the Darlington Brick Yard have helped to build structures across the country, including the UN Building.

The area began in 1804, when the first congressman from Beaver County , Abner Lacock, laid out a small town along Little Beaver Creek. The entire town was formed from the landholdings of three men - John Greer, William Martin, and Thomas Sprott. The borough of Darlington was incorporated in 1820, having been known as Greersburg before. the name Greersburg was often confused with the town of Greensburg, and so was changed.

The towns foremost landmark, the Greersburg Academy is Beaver County's oldest standing structure, built in 1802. It is the earliest academy west of the Alleghenies. The Rev. William H. McGuffey, author of the McGuffey Readers, one of the nation's earliest and most enduring textbooks, was a graduated of the "Old Stonepile". It is said that John Brown, the revolutionary from Harper's Ferry, attended the school.

Darlington prospered for a time as a relay and supply station for stagecoach traffic between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The town hosted a theater, which developed later into a movie house, during its heyday.

The natrual resources of clay and coal led to mining and processing industries in Darlington, beginnning in the village of Cannelton in Darlington Township serves as a reminder of the once coveted cannel coal mined there. War memorials in town honor local soldiers from all of our nation's conflicts.

Darlington now hosts an industrial park, dozens of small businesses and a close-knit community of residences.