150 BP
Pollen records from The Glades from 150 years ago to the present show evidence of logging and farming associated with European settlement of the region. Ragweed (Ambrosia) pollen increased and plantain pollen appeared, an indication of increased openings and soil disturbance, while beech, hickory and oak showed decreasing percentages. Grasses and sedges continued to show consistent presence.
By 1850 there were 24,416 people in Somerset County. In 1855 the county’s first iron furnace was built at Wellersburg (Cassady, 1932). An unusually late hard frost occurred on June 4th, 1859.
In 1871 the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad (now the Baltimore and Ohio) was completed through the county. Another railroad bed was built in the 1880’s by WilliamVanderbuilt, which became the foundation for the Pennsylvania Turnpike.1873 saw the first restrictions on hunting roosting passenger pigeons or discharging a firearm within a quarter-mile of a passenger pigeon colony.
early logging
With regard to timber resources, initial logging on the Appalachian Plateau had proceeded slowly, in part due to the slow pace of water-driven sawmills, and lumber was cut mostly for local use. But logging accelerated with the arrival of the steam-powered, mobile mill in the early 1800’s. By 1848 in Somerset County there were two large-scale commercial sawmills at Ashtola and Kennels Mills.
The land now in the Kimberly Run Preserve appears on an 1876 map of Somerset County as part of D. Casebeer's Tract of 1,600 acres in the Plank Road District No. 5 (Figure 4; Koontz, 1906). A steam sawmill and nearby house are located on “Kimberlins Run” just before it crosses the road that is now Rt. 219, suggesting that there may have been significant logging in the vicinity. On what is now Menser Road is a “limestone quarry” and a “maple camp,” and further up in the watershed are a couple of “coal banks” indicating surface mines.
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