My hometown of Hollsopple, Pennsylvania is known by so many different names that it can be confusing. It is rendered by most as HOLLSOPPLE, while others have it as HOLSOPPLE (as in the sign above). The town is also known as Benson and has been known as Bethel and Bethel station. I’ll try to relate a little bit of the history of Hollsopple, including where all of the different monikers came from.
Nearly one thousand years before the arrival of white settlers in the area around Hollsopple, a tribe of Monongahela Indians had a village on what I knew as Mr. Alwine’s farm. There was a very extensive archeological dig going on there during the 1960’s, and I had several high school classmates who took an interest in helping. The Johnstown and Somerset County Archeological Society did most of the excavation, under the auspices of the Carnegie Institute.
The first white settlers arrived in the area around 1780. These early settlers cleared the land and mostly earned their livings through farming and lumbering. These families were served by circuit riding preachers until 1874. At that time, the BETHEL United Brethren Church was built. This church eventually became Hollsopple Evangelical United Brethren Church, and is now Bethel United Methodist. The original church was washed away in a flood in the spring of 1887. It remained intact and floated all the way to Faustwell before breaking up.
The town came into being when the Johnstown and Somerset Railroad (Baltimore & Ohio) built a line between Somerset and Johnstown. The planned route for the line was originally going to take it through Davidsville, but the plans were amended to have the line follow the Stonycreek. When the rail line was completed, the town was laid out on what was the farm of Henry Blough. A railroad station was built, and the railroad called it BETHEL STATION, after the nearest landmark, the Bethel United Brethren Church.
A post office was established in the town in 1881, and named for Charles Hollsopple. However, when the railroad replaced its sign on the old Bethel Station, they dropped one “L” in the name. Since then, buildings, maps and road signs might have either Hollsopple or Holsopple on them.
To make things yet more confusing, there is the name of the borough. Hollsopple became the first borough to be incorporated in Somerset County. Prior to becoming an independent borough, Hollsopple was part of PAINT TOWNSHIP. The borough was named BENSON in honor of Samuel Benson, the man who built the first courthouse in Somerset County.
As a young boy, I grew up in a Hollsopple, which is quite different from the one that exists today. Before I was old enough to enter first grade, the B & O railroad was alive with huffing, puffing steam engines. Passengers rode the rails from Hollsopple to Johnstown to go to work, or do their shopping. We had a movie theater on main street that had both movies and live acts. We had Hackey's store, Luigi Propoggio's store, Bruno’s, Bailey’s, Frank Galembeski’s. We had a drug store, a Dairy Dell, and daily bus runs. But I was born in that post war period, when the automobile was changing America. Hollsopple, like the rest of small town America would be changed forever as the small towns lost their role as the economic centers of the rural areas..
I can remember my Father taking me by the hand, and carrying my 2 year-old brother Frank to the bank of the Stonycreek to watch a train pass by back in 1956. I didn’t understand at the time why it was so important, but Dad kept telling me to remember that I had seen this particular train. This was to be the last passenger train that would ever come through Hollsopple. I knew it was important to Dad…..he seemed so sad….almost like someone had died. I did not understand why it was so important to remember but I did my best to concentrate on the scene in front of me. Because of that concentration, I have that image forever burned into my memory. It’s a faint memory…..probably distorted by my five year old mind…..but I remember those passengers cars rounding the curve on the north side of the trestle, and heading down the straightaway toward Maple Ridge, and Johnstown. In my memory, that train is moving so slowly…..almost like a funeral procession. We stood there for a short time after the train had passed from sight, then turned and walked back to the house. I knew that my Dad felt he had shared something very special with me. I understand now just what it was. He was sharing with me our family's connection to what came before now. A connection to a town as it was, and as it will never be again…..except in our memories.
