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Stillwater   Latitude/Longitude: 41.1489 N / 76.3661 W Fishing Creek, near Forks Forks Hotel In 1785 Stillwater's first settler, Daniel McHenry, built a log home and moved in with his wife Mary and, eventually, their 12 children. McHenry cleared some land along a creek of still water, a body of water now known as Fishing Creek. McHenry's father-in-law had lived in Stillwater, N.Y., and so the borough that grew up around this farm was named both for the creek and for that other town. By 1794 a Philadelphia man named Henry Heiss came to Stillwater and started a school in a private home. The first public school came to Stillwater years later in 1842. In 1827 Daniel McHenry's son Moses built the first bridge across Fishing Creek. A flood in 1848 washed away this bridge. James McHenry built a covered bridge at the same spot for $1,124. In 1959 a new bridge by-passed the old covered bridge, saving the bridge from too much traffic. This covered bridge is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The first real industries came in the 1830's, starting with a lumber mill in 1832. A large grist mill opened in 1865, followed by a planning mill in 1877. A distillery operated from 1886 to 1898. Other industries in Stillwater included a paper mill and an ash products plant which made bats, rackets, and tool handles from local ash trees. The Bloomsburg and Sullivan Railroad came through Stillwater in 1887 on its way from Bloomsburg to Jamison City. One of the most well-known local industries in Stillwater was a bee keeping operation. John V. McHenry built a store with a home above it in 1875. The store was subsequently run by A.B. McHenry for some fifty years. His son, John F. McHenry, closed the store and began keeping bees on the property. At its height, the operation produced eighty tons of buckwheat honey per year, filling contracts to provide honey for grocery stores throughout the region. The 1,100 colonies of bees pollinated local buckwheat crops which then fed the national market for buckwheat pancakes. There were several dams on Fishing Creek at various times. One diverted water to ponds at McHenry's Grove, largely used for recreation. Another dam was built by the Stillwater Paper Mill. Population figures for the town of Stillwater are impossible to discuss because the town was not incorporated until 1899. Until the 1910 census, Stillwater was included in the census numbers from Fishing Creek Township. However, the population of the township began to decline after 1890. At its height, the township had 1,147 residents in 1890. Stillwater's population fell to 178 in 1910. The reason for the decline was the decrease in available timber after 1890. People working in any of the lumber-related industries moved away to find new work, leaving a smaller, predominately farming population. At one time there were numerous shops churches, and stores. Stillwater boasted a three-year high school in 1900, and unusual thing in a small town. By 1915 Stillwater had two churches, one elementary school, and a planning mill left. The population rose again slowly through the twentieth century, to 200 in 1940 and 208 in 1970. One of the most unusual stories about Stillwater involves a mural at St. James United Church of Christ. This simple church near Zaner's Bridge Road and Paperdale Road once had an unusual mural in its vestibule. The mural was painted in 1905 by a Scottish traveling artist known as "Gypsy Smith." It was an illuminated text of Psalm 100. Local legend has it the Gypsy Smith arrived one day with a young assistant and offered to paint a mural in the church in return for a meal. He was said to have finished the work in an afternoon. In 1935, the mural was covered up by wallpaper, but was painstakingly uncovered again in 1950 during redecorating. However, in the winter of 1997 the mural was covered again by mistake, this time for good. A plasterer covered the mural with chicken wire and then plaster, much to the surprise of the congregation. While the mural is lost forever, a local artist and member of the congregation, Dorothy Wilson, has made a reproduction of the mural painted on a canvas. She used a photograph on a Christmas postcard and the memories and impressions of people who saw the mural weekly as it stood guard above a Sunday School door. by Allison