(For 175 years, central Pennsylvania was a major center of axe and
edge-tool manufacturing in the United States. It was largely due to one
family. William Mann Jr. first arrived
in Bellefonte, PA in 1823, and together with his brother Harvey built an axe
factory at Boiling Spring on Spring Creek’s Logan Branch. For the next 100
years, members of the Mann family would establish and operate axe factories at
four main locations in central Pennsylvania: Axemann-Bellefonte in Centre
County (Spring Creek); Reedsville-Yeagertown and Lewistown in Mifflin County
(Kishacoquillas Creek); and Mill Hall in Clinton County (Fishing Creek). They
became one of the largest Axe manufacturing companies in the U.S.)