Huntingdon County
Huntingdon, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed on September 20, 1787 out of Bedford County. Named for the Countess of Huntingdon to honor her support of the University of Pennsylvania. Huntingdon, the county seat, incorporated 1796. County noted for fertile land, iron, timber, water power, roads.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
When Pennsylvania carved Huntingdon County out of frontier Bedford County in 1787, the young commonwealth was still ratifying the new federal Constitution. The county took its name from Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, an English patron whose gifts helped the fledgling University of Pennsylvania — a nod to the transatlantic ties that still shaped early American learning. Its valleys of fertile ground, iron ore, timber, and rushing water power drew settlers who would turn the region into a working landscape of farms and forges.
Why it matters
The county's naming links a rural corner of central Pennsylvania to the founding-era growth of American higher education and the iron industry that powered the early republic.
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Related people
- · Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hastings UMWA - District 2 Labor Chautauquas
Hastings, PA · est. 2007
From 1924 to 1926, the United Mine Workers of America brought traveling "Labor Chautauquas"—programs of education and entertainment—to the bituminous coal towns of western Pennsylvania, and Hastings drew the largest crowds in 1925. Under District 2 president John Brophy, these gatherings featured nationally known speakers alongside local performers. They won national press attention and admiration from Progressive-era reformers.
David R. Porter
Huntingdon, PA · est. 1955
David R. Porter made his home in this house while building a career that carried him from the iron furnaces of central Pennsylvania to the governor's chair, which he held from 1839 to 1845. Affectionately called "our own Davy R.," he embodied the era when ironmasters were both industrialists and political leaders. His son Horace, born here in 1837, went on to distinction as a soldier and diplomat.
Martin G. Brumbaugh
Smithfield Township, PA · est. 1948
Born near this spot in 1862, Martin G. Brumbaugh rose to become one of Pennsylvania's most influential educators before entering public life. He twice served as president of Juniata College and led the state as governor from 1915 to 1919, the years America was drawn into World War I. He rests in Valley View Cemetery in the same countryside where he began.
Rural Electrification
Oneida Township, PA · est. 1992
In 1936 three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still had no electricity, leaving rural families to a life without electric light, pumps, or motors. With federal support, fourteen consumer-owned cooperatives sprang up across the state over the next five years to string wire where private utilities would not. The Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated here in 1938, brought power to seven counties from its Huntingdon headquarters.