McKean County
Smethport, McKean County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed March 26, 1804 out of Lycoming County. Named for Gov. Thomas McKean. Smethport, the county seat, was incorporated 1853; here the "Bucktails," famed Civil War regiment, assembled in 1861. Oil, gas, and lumber spurred the county's early economic growth.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Formed in 1804 from Lycoming County and named for Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean, this northern county long drew its living from oil, gas, and timber. In 1861 the county seat of Smethport became a mustering ground when the celebrated "Bucktails" gathered here, a hard-fighting Civil War regiment known for the deer tails pinned to their caps. The name marked a rugged frontier people answering the Union's call.
Why it matters
McKean County joins the story of Pennsylvania's resource frontier to the wartime sacrifice of one of the Union's most storied volunteer regiments.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
McKean County was formed in 1804, cut from Lycoming County in the far northern reaches of Pennsylvania, hard against the New York line. This was rugged, forested, thinly settled country in the early years of the republic — a land of steep hills, cold streams, and timber that seemed to run on forever. Settlement came slowly, and for a long time the county's story was mostly one of forest and frontier hardship.
The county took its name from Thomas McKean, a towering figure of the Revolutionary generation who served as governor of Pennsylvania. To name a new frontier county for such a man was to bind this remote corner to the founding ideals of the state and nation.
Smethport, chosen as the county seat, was incorporated in 1853, a sign that the scattered settlements were maturing into organized civic life just as the storm of national crisis began to gather.
People & events
The honored name on this marker belongs to Thomas McKean, a Pennsylvania governor whose public career reached back to the Revolution itself. His name lent the young county a link to the men who had founded the country.
But the marker's most stirring moment comes in 1861, when the Civil War erupted and Smethport became a gathering place for one of Pennsylvania's most storied volunteer units. Known as the "Bucktails," these were backwoodsmen and marksmen from the northern counties, and they earned their nickname from the deer tails they pinned to their caps — a badge of their frontier skill and identity. To wear the bucktail was to declare yourself a hunter and a crack shot before you ever fired a round in battle.
Alongside the county's soldiers ran its economy, drawn from what lay in the ground and on it: oil, gas, and lumber. These resources spurred McKean County's early growth and gave its rugged people a livelihood between the forests and the hills.
Its place in the American story
McKean County knits two great American threads together. One is the resource frontier — the timber, and later the oil and gas, that fueled the nation's industrial rise. Northern Pennsylvania became famous as one of the cradles of the American petroleum age, and counties like this one lived that boom firsthand.
The other thread is wartime sacrifice. The Bucktails became a celebrated part of the Union war effort, remembered for hard fighting and for the distinctive emblem that made them instantly recognizable. When a small, remote county sends its woodsmen to war and they become one of the army's proudest regiments, the local and the national become inseparable.
That is the quiet power of this marker: it shows how a frontier of stumps and drilling rigs also produced citizens who answered the Union's call and made a name that outlived them.
If you visit
Smethport rewards travelers who like their history off the beaten path. This is small-town northern Pennsylvania, wrapped in forested hills, and the setting itself tells you much about the hard, self-reliant people the marker commemorates.
As you walk the county seat, think about 1861 and the men who mustered here — imagine the deer tails on their caps and the frontier confidence that came with them. The landscape that made them expert hunters is still all around you.
McKean County fits naturally into a road trip through Pennsylvania's northern tier and its oil-and-timber heritage. Give yourself time for the back roads and the woods; the region's story of resources and resilience is best understood by seeing just how rugged and remote this corner of the state remains.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Thomas McKean
Related events
- · Formation of the Bucktails regiment
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Bucktails
Smethport, PA · est. 1949
When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Col. Thomas L. Kane rallied about 100 volunteers who gathered at Smethport on the 24th before marching off to Harrisburg. These backwoods marksmen pinned tails of buck deer to their caps as a badge of identity, giving rise to the celebrated nickname "the Bucktails." They formed the core of the famed 42nd Pennsylvania Regiment, which earned a reputation as some of the Union's finest sharpshooters.
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