Laurel Hill history on display for Juneteenth
Jun. 12—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Laurel Hill was once a thriving settlement with several families living on the mountain, and now, although the region is a state park, the history and ancestry of those individuals have received renewed interest by local and state officials.
On Monday, a roundtable event on the subject was held in Central Park as the first happening in Johnstown's week-long Juneteenth celebration.
"At one time, they say, there was as many as 200 people living on that mountain," Elaine Adams said.
Adams is a member of the Johnstown Area History and Genealogy Society who talked about the family trees of those who settled the land.
She was joined on the panel by local historian Lisa Cacicia, Pennsylvania Highlands Community College dean of library services and special projects Barbara Zaborowski and Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor Erin Conlin.
It's believed that the territory may have once been owned by George Washington and deeded to soldiers around the American Revolution era, and as early as the 1790s, John Harshberger could have been the first to build a house there.
Throughout the next hundred years, other families — Smith, Brown, Dorman — made the mountain their home and developed it into a thriving community.
They were known for their agriculture, livestock, blacksmithing and more.
Cacicia, a local historian with an interest in the settlement, said she has memories of her relatives fondly discussing those who inhabited the land, even though it was a biracial community.
Zaborowski said there are not a lot of instances of biracial communities in Cambria County, which made Laurel Hill unique.
It was also distinct because paths leading to it connected to Fairfield Avenue, which at the time was named for its connection across the mountain to Fairfield Township in Westmoreland County.
The speakers said that at one time Laurel Hill served as a stagecoach stop and was a draw for those nearby.
"It looks remote now, but you've got to think about what it looked like back then," Cacicia said. "It was an enclave where they felt safe."
Although nearly all traces of the settlement have been returned to the land, with the exception of an historic cemetery and some foundations, Cacicia covered the historic significance of the area.
Zaborowski noted that the Browns and Harshbergers had connections to abolitionists in Bedford County and the region served as a possible stop on the Underground Railroad.
For Berlin resident Karen (Hunter) Serball, hearing her families history put on display was a proud moment.
Her grandmother was Carrie Elizabeth (Brown) Frederick, whose grandfather was John Brown, one of the original Black settlers.
"I was taken up on that mountain my whole life," Serball said.
She added that her side of the family was the "lighter skinned" of the residents and "a lot of our life felt like 'passing.'"
"It was a a hard life," Serball said. "I'm so proud of them that they survived that."
This year there's been a growing interest to record the history of these families and tell their stories.
A group of Indiana University of Pennsylvania professors — Conlin, Benjamin Ford and Jeanine Mazak-Kahne — are working with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources through funding from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to collect information, oral histories and more to tell the stories.
"To have the history known on the record — I'm proud," Serball said.
Her daughter, Hannah, who was there with her three children, said she recalls hearing stories about her relatives and to have not only their family's history recorded butthose of all the groups who lived on the mountain will be great.
For more information on the week's events, visit the Johnstown Branch NAACP Facebook page.
Additionally, the opening Juneteenth ceremony that was set for Monday will now take place at noon Tuesday in Central Park. It was moved due to the inclement weather.
