Pennsylvania and Penn State's Agricultural Heritage:
A Chronology

1800-1849

Hildebrandt Library Home

1800-1809

1800

February 19: Centre County is created from parts of Mifflin, Northumberland, Huntingdon, and Lycoming Counties.

1809

The Pennsylvania Society for Improving the Breed of Cattle is organized.

1810-1819

1820-1829

1827

The Pennsylvania Horticulture Society is founded.

1828

Evan Pugh is born near Oxford, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Pugh later becomes the first President of the Farmers' High School.

1830-1839

1830s-1840s

The Bald Eagle Extension of the Pennsylvania Canal is built by the Commonwealth. "The Bald Eagle branch connected Bellefonte and Milesburg with Harrisburg and Baltimore" (Centre County Sequi-centennial Committee, 1950).

1831

Cyrus McCormick (1809-1884) conducts a successful public demonstration of the world's first mechanical reaper.

March 21: "Gen. Mitchell, supervisor on the Juniata Canal" announces "that his division, from Clark's Ferry to Lewistown, will be navigable by the 4th of April" (Berks and Schuylkill Journal, March 26, 1831).

1839

An agricultural division is created within the U.S. Patent Office.

April 9: Dr. Joseph Trimble Rothrock (1839-1922) is born. Rothrock later becomes a medical doctor and is known as the "Father of Pennsylvania Forestry" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).

1840-1849

1840

Pennsylvania's population is 1,724,033.

Pennsylvania is the second-largest wheat producer in the United States.