page_title: Plunketts Creek Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
section_title: Logging and tanning era
hierarchical_section_title: Plunketts Creek Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania / History / Logging and tanning era
caption_attribution_description: Section of the 1916 Pennsylvania State Highway Map of Lycoming County, showing Plunketts Creek, the villages of Barbours and Proctor, and the four bridges over the creek.
context_page_description: Plunketts Creek Township is a township in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. It includes the villages of Barbours and Proctor. The population was 771 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Williamsport, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area.
context_section_description: Logging was the principal industry in Plunketts Creek Township during the mid-to-late 19th century. Thousands of acres of old-growth forest were harvested and floated down Loyalsock Creek and its tributaries to one of the many sawmills that had sprung up throughout Lycoming County. There were several sawmills in Barbours, a village along Loyalsock Creek, in Plunketts Creek Township.
  In 1832, John Barbour built a sawmill on Loyalsock Creek near the mouth of Plunketts Creek, and the village of Barbours Mills (today Barbours) later developed at the site. In the 19th century, Barbours had several blacksmiths, a temperance hotel, post office, many sawmills, a school, store and wagon maker. In 1840, a road was built north from Barbours along Plunketts Creek, crossing it several times. This is the earliest possible date for construction of the bridge, but the surviving county road docket on the construction does not mention either bridges or fords for crossing the creek.
  The bridge is at the mouth of Coal Mine Hollow, and the road it was on was used by the lumber and coal industries, which were active in Plunketts Creek Township during the 19th century and early 20th century. Creeks in the township supplied water power to 14 mills in 1861, and in 1876 there were 19 sawmills, a shingle mill, a woolen factory, and a tannery there. These industries supported the inhabitants of two villages in Plunketts Creek Township by the latter half of the 19th century.
  In 1868 the village of Proctorville was built as a company town for Thomas E. Proctor's tannery. Proctor, as it is now known, is 1.66 miles (2.67 km) north of Barbours along Plunketts Creek. The bark from Eastern hemlock trees was used in the tanning process, and the village originally sat in the midst of vast forests of hemlock. The tannery employed "several hundred" at wages between 50 cents and US$1.75 a day. These employees lived in one hundred twenty company houses, which each rented for $2 a month. In 1892, Proctor had a barber shop, two blacksmiths, cigar stand, I.O.O.F hall, leather shop, news stand, a post office (established in 1885), a two-room school, two stores, and a wagon shop.
  Hemlock bark, used in the tanning process, was hauled to the tannery from up to 8 miles (13 km) away in both summer and winter, using wagons and sleds. The hides which were tanned to make leather came from the United States, and as far away as Mexico, Argentina, and China.  Finished sole leather was hauled by horse-drawn wagon south about 8 miles (13 km) to Little Bear Creek, where it was exchanged for "green" hides and other supplies brought north from Montoursville. The lumber boom on Plunketts Creek ended when the virgin timber ran out. By 1898, the old growth hemlock was exhausted and the Proctor tannery, then owned by the Elk Tanning Company, was closed and dismantled.
caption: A 1916 map showing Plunketts Creek and the four bridges over it between the villages of Barbours and Proctor
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