AREA HISTORY:  The Township of Fawn, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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THE TOWNSHIP OF FAWN – Page 757

THIS was one of the first townships in the county, and as originally laid out 
included Peach Bottom, which formed a part of it until 1815.  The name Fawn is 
significant, and interesting, yet very rarely used in geographical science to 
designate a place.  Some of the oldest citizens of this township recall the time 
when deer were plentiful within its limits.  Fawn as at present formed, is 
bounded on the east by Peach Bottom, on the South by the State of Maryland, on 
the west by Hopewell, and on the north by Lower Chanceford, with the Muddy Creek 
forming the northern boundary line.  The township is drained by this stream and 
its tributaries.  The soil, which for more than a century was considered 
unfertile and non-productive, by improved cultivation has become remarkably 
fertile and productive, yielding as much corn, wheat and other cereals to the 
acre as any other portion of York County.  The increase of the amount of wheat 
grown within the past decade is truly wonderful.  Tobacco has recently become a 
very profitable crop in this township, and the cultivation of it is likely to 
increase.  The population of Fawn in 1880 was 1,685.

There was an Indian town on the farm of John Smithson in Fawn.  The Indians were 
yet in the neighborhood when Richard Webb, grandfather of John Webb, located in 
the township.  There are Indian graves on the farm of Emanuel Bullett, one mile 
east of Fawn Grove, and on the Scott farm near New Park, an Indian hut on the 
Manstellar farm, and a number of wigwams on the farm of R. Duncan Brown, on 
which his grandfather settled in 1764.

The township was originally settled almost entirely by the Scotch-Irish, and 
some of the land was taken up under Maryland titles before a definite provincial 
line was run.  Some Quakers settled in the vicinity of Fawn Grove.