West Newton

West Newton. A river crossing in an industrial valley. There has been a river crossing here since the days of the Native Americans. The original trail, called the Glades Path, was widened about 1772. becoming the Glades Road or the Great Road, connecting Bedford to Washington, Pennsylvania, Westward immigrants built flatboats here to go down river., The original settlement was named Simralls Ferry and later Robb's Ferry after Isaac Robb, who laid the town out in 1794 after Federal troops burned his fences when they quelled the Whiskey Insurrection. The town was first called Robbszown, and later was renamed West Newton., The river opened to two-way steamboat navigation in 1850, and ten years later the railroad came to town Good transportation and coal from local mines turned West Newton into an ideal manufacturing center., West Newton's first and biggest industry was the Markle paper mill, opened 1859 to supply western Pennsylvania with quality paper. Wood pulp came from a mill in Markleton Somerset County After both mills closed in 1893 because of water pollution, the West Newton mill was bought by the US Radiator Company, which made heating radiators here until 1955