Editing Parryville, Pennsylvania (section)

==History==
Located roughly six miles south of [[Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania]], the history of the borough of Parryville can be traced back to the late eighteenth century, when Peter Frantz arrived on this land in 1780, and became the first man to settle there. Leonard Beltz and Frederick Scheckler then arrived in 1781, and built a stone gristmill adjacent to the [[Pohopoco Creek]]. Beltz, a native of [[Franklin County, Pennsylvania|Franklin County]], had married Elizabeth Boyer, a daughter of Frederick and Susan Boyer. They raised twelve children on the property. Mrs. Beltz lived to be 105 years old.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884">{{cite book|author1=Alfred Mathews|author2=Austin N. Hungerford|title=History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pSBEAQAAMAAJ|year=1884|publisher=Everts & Richards}}</ref>

In 1815, Beltz and Scheckler sold the mill and its related property to Jacob and Peter Stein, who improved the property by building a new hotel there.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884"/>

In 1836, the Pine Forest Lumber Company, which owned extensive tracts of rich timber land in the northern part of the county and in the southern portion of [[Luzerne County, Pennsylvania|Luzerne County]], established its headquarters in this growing community, and built new sawmills, a lathe machining facility and paling mills adjacent to the creek. Its president was Daniel Parry, for whom the town was named, first as Parrysville and then Parryville.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884"/>

In 1836, the [[Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company]] installed a line, which enabled travelers to cross the river from this place, making Parryville a terminus and shipping point. Among the companies doing business there during this time was the [[Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company]], which took advantage of the creek's access to the [[Lehigh River]] to move its coal-laden canal boats to other parts of the region. These operations were interrupted in early 1841 when a [[freshet]] on January 7 and 8 swept away the railroad track between Parryville and [[Penn Haven Junction]], as well as boat wharves and related shipping structures. That railroad segment was never rebuilt.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884"/>

New life was injected into the village when, sometime around 1855, Dennis Bauman, his brother Henry, and others, established an [[anthracite]] [[blast furnace]] there. This furnace was powered by water furnished by the Pohopoco Creek for two years, at which point company executives sold their plant to the Carbon Iron Company, which introduced steam as the company's new power source.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884"/>

Parryville became an independent school district in 1867 and was subsequently incorporated as a borough early in 1875, with Dennis Bauman serving as its first chief burgess. By 1880, the town had 657 inhabitants.<ref name="MathewsHungerford1884"/>