Shirleysburg stands in the Aughwick Creek valley on ground connected with some of Huntingdon County’s earliest recorded settlement. A trading post and frontier fort came first; farms, roads and a village followed. By the nineteenth century, Shirleysburg was the commercial center of a largely agricultural countryside.
George Croghan, an influential frontier trader and diplomatic intermediary, established a trading post at Aughwick near the present borough. The location connected paths through the valley and became an early point of colonial activity west of the Susquehanna.
As violence spread during the French and Indian War, Croghan’s stockade was strengthened by Pennsylvania as one of a chain of frontier defenses. Governor Robert Hunter Morris named it Fort Shirley in January 1756, honoring William Shirley, commander in chief of British forces in North America.
The fort reportedly held a garrison of about seventy-five men. No attack on Fort Shirley is documented, but it served as an assembly and supply point for Colonel John Armstrong’s 1756 expedition against Kittanning and later military activity during Pontiac’s War.
A 424-acre tract called “Oldtown” was surveyed for Croghan after the fort era. Early accounts use Aughwick, Old Town and Fort Shirley for overlapping places, so researchers must distinguish the present borough from Little Aughwick and other nearby localities.
Historical accounts place the stockade near Fort Run, just north of the borough. The precise landscape has changed, and the surviving historical marker identifies the general site rather than a standing fort. Fort Shirley’s name lives on in both Shirley Township and Shirleysburg.
A principal valley road—the ancestor of present-day U.S. Route 522—was laid out in 1774. Settlement increased after the Revolutionary War, when families established farms throughout the Aughwick Valley and a small commercial village grew near the old fort site.
Thomas McVitty established a small tannery. Under later owners it became one of the borough’s most substantial enterprises, processing thousands of hides annually by the 1880s.
Stores, taverns and workshops served nearby farms. Blacksmiths, tailors, wheelwrights, potters and other craftspeople made the borough the valley’s principal market town.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly formally created the Borough of Shirleysburg during its 1836–37 session.
David Eby built a mill that replaced an earlier log mill and served the surrounding agricultural community.
A mid-century account placed the population at about 275 people living in approximately thirty to forty houses.
Huntingdon County constructed its almshouse just south of Shirleysburg. The institution and its associated farm became a major presence along the road below the borough.
The Aughwick Collegiate School for Boys and Shirleysburg Female Seminary briefly made the village an educational center. Both closed within about a decade, but the Benjamin B. Leas House remains associated with the seminary and Fort Shirley site.
John Lutz published the local newspaper intermittently through the Civil War era. Original issues survive in the Fort Shirley Heritage Association’s collection and offer a rare window into borough life.
The former Presbyterian church of 1830, the 1877 United Methodist church and the two-story brick school built in 1880 contribute to Shirleysburg’s distinctly nineteenth-century appearance.
The East Broad Top Railroad opened eleven miles of track from Mount Union to Orbisonia in 1873 and completed its route the following year. Shirleysburg gained a passenger and freight depot, connecting local residents and farm products with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Mount Union.
Shirleysburg’s population held near 300. Four stores, groceries, taverns, two potteries, a gristmill and a steam tannery served the town and surrounding farms.
Improved transportation gave local farmers better access to regional markets. Many shifted from grain toward dairying, producing hay and corn to support larger cattle herds.
Regular East Broad Top freight service ended in 1956. Tourist trains later ran to the Colgate Grove wye south of Shirleysburg, keeping the borough connected to one of Pennsylvania’s best-known historic railroads.
Twentieth-century automobiles drew commerce toward larger towns, while the decline of Broad Top coal ended the railroad’s freight era. Because relatively little new development followed, Shirleysburg retained much of the scale and appearance of its nineteenth-century village landscape.
Founded from the community’s 1976 bicentennial effort, the association operates a museum in a log building opened in 1981. Its holdings include local family and property research, church records, pottery, tools, Native American artifacts, Shirleysburg Herald issues and a replica of Croghan’s trading post.
The association preserves Dr. McKnight’s birth records for 1860–1875 and death records for 1865–1872. Pennsylvania State Archives guides also identify Shirley Township tax assessments beginning in 1788 and Shirleysburg borough assessments for 1855–1876.
Travel north through Allenport to Mount Union, follow the railroad story, view more regional places on the Locations homepage, or share a Shirleysburg photograph or memory through the contribution page.
Research note: Early accounts sometimes confuse Aughwick with Little Aughwick or use several names for nearby places. This page follows the location distinctions made in the 1883 county history and identifies approximate fort-site language accordingly.
