Susquehanna County
Montrose, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed on February 21, 1810 out of Luzerne County. Named for Susquehanna River. Home of Galusha A. Grow, sponsor of 1862 Homestead Act. Montrose, county seat incorporated 1824, was an early Abolitionist center and stop on the Underground Railroad.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Split from Luzerne County in 1810 and named for its great river, Susquehanna County became an early hotbed of antislavery activity, with Montrose serving as an Underground Railroad stop. It was also home to Galusha A. Grow, the congressman who championed the 1862 Homestead Act. That law opened millions of acres of western land to ordinary settlers.
Why it matters
From this rural county came both a refuge for freedom-seekers and the sponsor of the Homestead Act, linking one place to two of the era's defining struggles over slavery and land.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Susquehanna County lies in the far northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, a region of rolling hills and river country named for the great Susquehanna. Formed in 1810 out of Luzerne County, it came into being as the young United States was still knitting together its northern frontier.
The decades that followed were among the most turbulent in American history. The questions of slavery and freedom, and of who could claim land in the expanding nation, would come to dominate public life — and this quiet rural county found itself connected to both.
By mid-century, as the nation slid toward civil war, the county had become a place where the great moral and political struggles of the age touched down in a small-town, agricultural setting.
People & events
Two threads run through the county's history, and both point outward to the nation's largest conflicts. Montrose, the county seat incorporated in 1824, became an early center of abolitionist sentiment and a stop on the Underground Railroad — a link in the secret network that helped people escape slavery toward freedom.
The county was also home to Galusha A. Grow, a congressman who became the sponsor of the Homestead Act of 1862. That landmark law offered ordinary settlers the chance to claim western land, tying this rural corner of Pennsylvania to the opening of vast stretches of the American West.
Together, these strands make the county a meeting point of conscience and opportunity: a community that harbored freedom-seekers and produced a lawmaker who reshaped how Americans could acquire land.
Its place in the American story
Few small counties can claim a connection to two of the era's defining national struggles. The Underground Railroad activity here was part of a moral movement that helped push the nation toward the end of slavery, carried out by ordinary people willing to take real risks.
The Homestead Act, championed by the county's own Galusha A. Grow, was one of the most consequential land laws in American history. By opening the public domain to settlers, it helped populate the West and embodied the free-labor vision of land worked by independent families.
That these two legacies — resistance to slavery and the democratization of land — trace back to the same rural county is a striking reminder that the great national questions of the 19th century were fought and shaped in countless local places, not only in Washington.
If you visit
Susquehanna County today is peaceful farm-and-forest country, and Montrose makes an inviting stop with the settled, historic feel of an old county seat. As you walk its streets, it's worth remembering that this calm town was once a place of quiet courage in the struggle against slavery.
Let the marker prompt you to think about the layers beneath the landscape — the routes and safe havens of the Underground Railroad, and the local roots of a law that sent settlers streaming west. History here is understated, hiding in an ordinary rural setting.
For a road trip, the county pairs well with the broader Susquehanna region: river views, small towns, and a sense of the deep and serious American history that ran through even the country's quietest corners. Come curious, and let this place connect you to the wider story.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Galusha A. Grow
Related events
- · Homestead Act
- · Underground Railroad
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Galusha Grow
Harford Township, PA · est. 1947
Galusha A. Grow rose from this rural corner of northeastern Pennsylvania to become one of the most consequential legislators of the mid-19th century. As a champion of "free soil," he spent years pushing the idea that a settler willing to work unclaimed federal land should be able to own it, a fight that finally succeeded with the Homestead Act of 1862. He presided over the U.S. House as Speaker during the opening years of the Civil War before returning to Congress decades later.
The Dennis Farm
Brooklyn Township, PA · est. 2015
In 1793, Prince Perkins, a free African American veteran of the Revolutionary War, came from Connecticut to settle this land in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania, and his descendants have held it for more than two centuries. His granddaughter Angeline Perkins Dennis and her husband Henry expanded the farm, sustaining a rare, lasting Black landholding in an integrated rural community. The property offers a window into free African American settlement and the strong antislavery currents that ran through this corner of Pennsylvania.
Galusha Grow
Harford Township, PA · est. 1947
This marker honors Galusha A. Grow near his final resting place in Harford, the community where he was schooled at Franklin Academy before entering public life. Known as the "Father of the Homestead Act," Grow spent his career advancing the principle that western public lands should be opened to free settlement, a cause realized in 1862. He served as Speaker of the House in the first years of the Civil War and returned to Congress near the turn of the century.
Jonathan Jasper Wright (1840-1885)
Springville Township, PA · est. 2001
Born in 1840 to parents who had escaped slavery, Jonathan Jasper Wright grew up in Springville and went on to become the first Black lawyer admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania. He stood with Frederick Douglass in the fight for the vote and legal equality, and in 1870, during Reconstruction, he was elevated to the South Carolina Supreme Court—the first African American to sit on a state's highest court. His rise from a runaway slaves' son to the bench marked a breathtaking, if fragile, moment of possibility.