- Bartonsville, Pennsylvania
Bartonsville,
Pennsylvania is a small, unincorporated village inMonroe County, Pennsylvania with azip code of 18321. Officially it lies in three townships, namely Pocono Township, Hamilton Township and Stroud Township. One of its major subdivisions, Barton Glen, straddles the border with Jackson Township as well.History
The village was founded in 1831 by Colonel Joseph Benjamin Barton when he opened up a hotel and post office along the Easton-Belmont Turnpike stagecoach route. Barton settled along this profitable transportation route after running an ice cream parlor in
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania for several years. After residing and giving his name to the village, Barton eventually pulled up stakes and travelled further north, eventually founding the borough of Waymart inWayne County, Pennsylvania . The result of his move is that the only Barton buried in Custard's Cemetery (the principal and one of only two cemeteries in or near the village) is his daughter Lydia Barton, who remained in the village after his departure, but never married. The village could easily have been called Custardsville, since the Custard family settled in the area shortly after Barton, opening a sawmill on thePocono Creek , and eventually establishing a Lutheran Church (a daughter church of the Hamilton Union Church inHamilton Square, Pennsylvania ). The Custard family also gave land for a school and a cemetery. At the turn of the 20th century, Bartonsville was the typical, small Mid-Atlantic village, including two one-room school houses (due to the multiple townships in which it is located), agrist mill , a tannery and barkshed, a grand, rambling hotel (Barton's by then called the Forest Inn), a creamery, general store, post office and cobbler. The village also boasted a dance hall, brass band and a baseball team.Today
Today the village has become one more victim of America's exurban sprawl. Now a three-lane highway (
Pennsylvania Route 611 ) crosses the valley of the Pocono Creek, and much of the historic homes and buildings of the old village are gone. Straddling Route 611 are a number of shopping areas and stripmalls, and an assortment of subdivisions, among them Barton Glen, Tara Hills, Pocono Laurel Lake, Fawn Acres, and Buck Valley. Largely a bedroom community today, retail and hospitality industries make up the lion's share of the village's economic activity. The village's ZIP code is 18321, which according to the US Census [http://www.census.gov] had a population of 1,753 in 2000.References
* Appel, John C. et al. "History of Monroe County, Pennsylvania 1725-1976." East Stroudsburg, PA: The Pocono Hospital Auxiliary, 1976.
* Jones, Robert. "Place Names of Monroe County, Pennsylvania." Apollo, PA: Closson Press, 1993.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
