AREA HISTORY:  Topography, Washington Township, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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TOPOGRAPHY – Page 672

This township is a bent rectangular figure.  Its length extending northwest and 
southeast, with Warrington to the east, the Conewago Creek, bordering on Dover 
and Paradise to the south, Adams County to the west and Franklin to the north.  
It is drained by the Bermudian and Conewago Creeks and their tributaries.  That 
section of it northeast of the Bermudian was settled by the Quakers, and the 
portion southeast of the same stream by the German Baptists as early as 1735.  
Washington Township has a variety of soil.  A vein of black dolerite crosses it, 
and also a small vein of copper ore.  Iron ore has been taken out at two or three 
places in large quantities.  Most of the land is now fertile and productive, 
yielding abundant crops.  Improved modes of cultivation and increased 
fertilization, have changed the agricultural condition of this township very 
materially within the past few years.  There are a number of grist-mills along 
the streams.  In 1884, there were in the township 432 taxable inhabitants, entire 
population, 1,457, valuation of real estate, $710,159.

The Barrens is an area covering about 3,000 acres of pure red shale soil, lying 
mostly in the northern part of Washington, near the village of Franklintown.  The 
name originated with the early settlers, owing to a lack of the fertility of the 
soil.  Much of it was found by the first white settlers to be a barren waste, 
destitute of trees, and only here and there covered with scrub oak, and a sort of 
prairie grass.  This land, by improved methods of cultivation and proper 
fertilization, is now productive.  Tracts which fifty years ago were nearly 
valueless, can now be made to grow twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre.