The Maid of Blue Rock: Clarion River-Toby Creek Corridor History
The valley of the Clarion River and its major tributary Toby Creek contains extensive history tracing back to the Native American tribes that called this region of Pennsylvania home. Field research and recent archeological studies indicate that the early inhabitants of what became Pennsylvania traveled the ridges of the Clarion River and Toby Creek crossing from the Lake Erie, Allegheny River drainage areas to trade and in some cases wage war with tribes on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The non-glaciated hillsides adjacent to the Clarion and Toby Creek have many examples of rock shelters used as stop over areas for the Native Americans as they traversed the ridges during their trading and warring with other tribes.
One of the first early stories of the Toby Valley and Native Americans is the Maid of Blue Rock.
In 1798, General Wade and family, with a friend named Slade, came to the headwaters of the Little Toby Creek, and settled temporarily in the area where the Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad would eventually be built (approximately where Toby Creek joins the Clarion River at Carman). In 1803, the party returned east but later the same year returned to the area and built a log house at the mouth of the Little Toby on the east bank. Three years later while Wade and Slade were hunting around what is now the ghost town of Blue Rock (6 miles from the Brockway trailhead http://tricountyrailstotrails.org) where the swinging bridge crosses Toby Creek and the former site of a large sawmill and other operations, they saw a Native American girl watching them. Approaching her, the General enticed her to follow him to his home, and there introduced her to Mrs. Wade. In 1809 this semi-captive Native American girl married Slade; the ceremony being performed by Chief Tamsqua. A few years later Slade moved to what is now Portland Mills, established a trading house there, and when the white settlers came into the No Man's Creek neighborhood, Wade and Tamsqua presented to them the pipe of peace.
Following the early settlers such as General Wade, Slade, and his eventual bride the Maid of Blue Rock, the influx of settlers into the Clarion River and Toby Creek valleys and their many drainages began in the era between 1807 and 1821.
