Haydentown is an unincorporated village which is located on
Route 857 in
Fayette County, Pennsylvania in the United States.
History
John Hayden came to Fayette County, Pennsylvania in 1778, after serving for six months in the
Revolutionary War. Being a
blacksmith by trade, he soon discovered
stone coal
Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...
(hard coal) and the best of
iron ore
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...
. There were a few
Scotch
Scotch most commonly refers to:
* Scotch (adjective), a largely obsolescent adjective meaning "of or from Scotland"
**Scotch, old-fashioned name for the indigenous languages of the Scottish people:
***Scots language ("Broad Scotch")
*** Scottish G ...
settled just west of the trading post called Hardbargain. This settlement became known as Georgetown.
Sometime around this same time, several
Germans organized the settlement of
Berlin. Georgetown then became known as Haydenberg, and was patented by John Hayden in 1787. The town subsequently was renamed as Haydentown.
Roughly two years later, Hayden dug out what he believed to be
limestone from a creek bed of a tributary of the Georges River in
Georges Township. Unable to burn the limestone, he took a portion of it to the blacksmith shop, and discovered that it was high quality iron ore.
Hayden subsequently was appointed as a captain of a militia company that was raised in the three settlements of Berlin, Georgetown and Hardbargain to drive Indigenous people of the region north and west. For his actions, he was allotted 9,000 acres of land. Because all related land records were destroyed in the
War of 1812, and because the United States Congress never passed legislation giving Hayden the right to dispose of his land, only a tract that he donated for the Hayden Cemetery was subsequently honored. That cemetery is now known as the White Rock Cemetery.
Legacy
By 1910, more iron ore was produced in Haydentown than in the city of
Pittsburgh.
References
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania
Unincorporated communities in Fayette County, Pennsylvania