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Page 105
HENRY SHAFFER
CHAPTER XX
IN 1872 while John Rumbarger was surveying his lots and
beginning to advertise the town of Rumbarger, Henry Shaffer, a son
of George Shaffer II and a grandson of George Shaffer I, was living
in peace and quiet in his log residence, about the corner of
Stockdale Street and East Long Avenue.
Henry Shaffer was born in 1817 in the hewed log house erected by his
father, now known as the Rumbarger house.
There were no public schools in the community, and
whatever education Henry Shaffer secured was that of the wilderness.
He was a man of domestic habits and did not travel much, and it is
probable in 1872 he had not been farther than Clearfield, or he
might have gone down the creek on rafts in the spring of the year as
far as Red Bank, on the Allegheny River. His knowledge of the values
of land was not very great. He knew that pine timber was valuable,
but his pine timber, with the other timber on his land, had been
either cut down and burned in log heaps in clearing his land, or
floated down the creek in square timber. No doubt he smiled to
himself when he learned that John Rumbarger was asking $100.00 for a
town lot on his new plan. It is very doubtful if he ever saw Mr.
Rumbarger's advertisement. His nearest Post Office was four miles
away, and it is not likely that he was a subscriber to a Clearfield
paper, and of course did not see the advertisement of the town of
Rumbarger.
The line of the land he had acquired from his father's
estate cut through about the south wall of the Commercial Hotel. He
had acquired from John DuBois the land on the north side of his
property as far as Sandy Lick Creek, and in turn had reconveyed to
Mr. DuBois what was west of North Brady Street and a part of what
was on the bank of the creek.
Mr Shaffer had no conception for planning a town. He
had got along with a 33 foot public road, with a traveled way of
about 16 feet, and to him the land between the traveled way and the
outside of the road was waste territory upon which weeds and brush
grew.
His land from his dwelling west to the Rumbarger
line was, as heretofore described, low, wet and swampy. Even the top
of the hill, where the Presbyterian Church now stands, had springs
coming up and flowing off in different directions, and only by deep
drainage has that water been carried away. This land, in the eyes of
Mr. Shaffer, was something to be gotten rid of, and the sooner he
could sell it the better. These preliminary remarks are made for the
purpose of indicating to the present and future generations why the
central part of the city of DuBois is a jumbled mass, so far as
streets and alleys are concerned.
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