Editing Moreland Township, Pennsylvania (section)

==History==
Moreland Township originally covered the entire southeast corner of Lycoming County but was divided into three townships in 1822. One part kept the name Moreland, while the other two parts were [[Penn Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania|Penn]] and [[Franklin Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania|Franklin Township]].<ref>{{cite book
 |others      = The Lycoming County Unit of the Pennsylvania Writers Project of the [[Work Projects Administration]]
 |title       = A Picture of Lycoming County
 |year        = 1939
 |url         = http://www.libraries.psu.edu/do/digitalbookshelf/2799521/
 |format      = PDF
 |access-date  = 2007-03-26
 |edition     = First
 |publisher   = The Commissioners of Lycoming County Pennsylvania
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090421035231/http://www.libraries.psu.edu/do/digitalbookshelf/2799521/
 |archive-date = 2009-04-21
}}</ref>

The [[Lairdsville Covered Bridge]] was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1980.  The [[Houseknecht Farm]] was added in 2007.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>

===The name===
There are several stories about how Moreland Township was named. One story states that an early pioneer to the [[West Branch Susquehanna River Valley]] was climbing up and down the hills and upon reaching the top of a hill exclaimed, "more land!" Another story relates to the "sloppiness" of the earliest land surveys. An [[acre]] was not necessarily measured accurately. These particular acres were larger than they were supposed to be. The early settlers liked to say that they got "more land" to the acre here than they could have elsewhere. The most likely reason relates to an [[wikt:arcane|arcane]] definition of moreland, meaning "a hilly country".<ref name="meginness">{{cite book
 | last = Meginness
 | first = John Franklin
 | title = History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania: including its aboriginal history; the colonial and revolutionary periods; early settlement and subsequent growth; organization and civil administration; the legal and medical professions; internal improvement; past and present history of Williamsport; manufacturing and lumber interests; religious, educational, and social development; geology and agriculture; military record; sketches of boroughs, townships, and villages; portraits and biographies of pioneers and representative citizens, etc. etc. 
 | year = 1892
 | url = http://www.usgennet.org/usa/pa/county/lycoming/history/Chapter-37.html
 | access-date = 2007-03-26
 | edition = 1st
 | publisher = Brown, Runk & Co.
 | location = Chicago
 | isbn = 0-7884-0428-8
 | chapter = Muncy Creek, Moreland, Franklin, and Jordan
 | chapter-url = http://www.usgennet.org/usa/pa/county/lycoming/history/Chapter-37.html
 | quote = (Note: ISBN refers to Heritage Books July 1996 reprint. URL is to a scan of the 1892 version with some [[Optical Character Recognition|OCR]] typos).
}}</ref>

===Early settlers===
A veteran of the [[American Revolutionary War]] was the first settler in Moreland Township. Colonel George Smith migrated to Moreland Township from [[Montgomery County, Pennsylvania|Montgomery County]] in 1790. He built a [[gristmill]] there in 1796. Smith and his wife were the parents of six children, three boys and three girls. The marriage of his daughter Annie to a [[Quakers|Quaker]] named William Farr caused some controversy in the early history of Moreland Township. William Farr came from a strict Quaker family who did not look kindly upon his choice of bride. The local Quaker congregation insisted that Farr confess that he had done wrong in marrying outside his [[faith]]. Farr refused to do so and insisted that his [[Baptist]] wife, Annie, was a good [[Christians|Christian]] woman. Farr was forced to choose between his Quaker faith and his Baptist wife. He chose his wife and converted to the Baptist faith. Colonel Smith's son, Jonathan, also had a marriage that proved to be interesting. He married Annie Simpson, the sister of John Simpson of [[Ohio]]. John Simpson was the grandfather of [[Ulysses S. Grant]] who became president of the United States. This family bond meant that many of the residents of Moreland Township in the mid-19th century were [[second cousin]]s to the man who served as their president.<ref name="meginness"/>