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Pennsylvania Counties

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Pennsylvania Counties

There are sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854.

Bradford County, Pennsylvania

Bradford County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Towanda
Year Organized: 1810
Square Miles: 1,151

Court House:

301 Main Street
County Courthouse
Towanda, PA 18848-1851

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Originally named Oneida County for the lake of the same name. On March 24, 1812 it was formally renamed for William Bradford (September 14, 1755 – August 23, 1795), a lawyer and judge from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the second United States Attorney General in 1794-1795.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on February 21, 1810, from parts of Luzerne and Lycoming Counties and named Oneida County for the lake of the same name. On March 24, 1812 it was formally renamed for William Bradford, second Attorney General of the United States. Towanda, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough on March 5, 1828 and named for Towanda Creek.

After the Revolution, veterans of the Sullivan expedition against the Indians and Dutch immigrants from New York settled the area. French refugees flourished at Azilium from 1793 to 1804. The county was part of the area plagued by disputes over land claims based on settlement by people from Connecticut. Englishman Robert Barclay began coal mining in 1812, which buttressed the economy and spawned a canal and a railroad. As Barclay's mines were closing, a lumber boom began, and it flourished until about 1930. Dairy farming is presently the backbone of the economy; the county has many small farms. These cover 46 percent of the land. Athens, Towanda, and Canton were Underground Railroad stations, and David Wilmot struggled against slavery in Congress with his many Wilmot Provisos. The myth of the French Queen Marie Antoinette's plan to flee to French Azilium has provided local color. Also, the history of the misdeeds of members of a family named Pool once gave rise to a theory that they had a genetic criminal makeup. This was musician Stephen Foster's home.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,161 square miles (3,007 km²), of which, 1,151 square miles (2,980 km²) of it is land and 10 square miles (27 km²) of it (0.89%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Chemung County, New York (north)
Tioga County, New York (north)
Susquehanna County (east)
Wyoming County (southeast)
Sullivan County (south)
Lycoming County (southwest)
Tioga County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Alba	borough	Incorporated Area
- Armenia	township
- Asylum	township
- Athens	borough	Incorporated Area
- Burlington	borough	Incorporated Area
- Canton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Herrick	township
- Le Raysville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Litchfield	township
- New Albany	borough	Incorporated Area
- North Towanda	township
- Orwell	township
- Overton	township
- Ridgebury	township
- Rome	borough	Incorporated Area
- Sayre	borough	Incorporated Area
- Sheshequin	township
- South Creek	township
- South Waverly	borough	Incorporated Area
- Standing Stone	township
- Sylvania	borough	Incorporated Area
- Terry	township
- Towanda (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- Troy	borough	Incorporated Area
- Ulster	township
- Ward	township
- Wells	township
- West Burlington	township
- Wilmot	township
- Windham	township
- Wyalusing	borough	Incorporated Area
- Wysox	township

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."