Over 50 years before Allegheny Township was formed, a pioneer by the name of John Lowrie settled in the region to raise his son, Walter Lowrie — a man who would go on to become Butler County’s only United States Senator.

According to “History of Butler County,” by James McKee, John was part of a mass of settlers who came in 1797 to what would become Allegheny Township. Butler County was founded just three years later.

And three years after that, according to township chairman Chuck Stowe, Walter took his first steps on a journey that would take him to the U.S. Capitol Building.

“At the age of 19, he felt called to become a minister,” Stowe said.

The young man traveled to what is now Concord Township, Stowe said, to study under the pastor of the Concord Presbyterian Church.

“In the process of his studies to become a minister, he fell in love with the pastor’s daughter,” Stowe said. “He wouldn’t allow them to get married, so they ran off and eloped. Because of that, he was banned from becoming a minister.”

Or so the legend goes.

Jennifer Ford, of the Butler County Historical Society, said Lowrie more likely left due to a “personality clash” with the Rev. John McPherrin.

In his memoirs, Lowrie writes that he left the McPherrins at age 23 to take up teaching at an English school in the village of Butler. Four months later, he was appointed clerk of the County Commissioners.

By 1808, he had taken charge of the school and married Amelia McPherrin, the reverend’s daughter.

“Referring to public life, it was no doubt the growing acquaintance of the young teacher with the farming people and their interests in the northwestern counties,” the memoir stated, “that led largely to his election in 1811 as a member of the Pennsylvania Legislation — in the House of Representatives one year and in the Senate six years.”

In 1818, while still a state Senator, he was elected full term to the U.S. Senate, serving as chairman of the Committee on Finance. After his term, he stayed on for 11 years as secretary of the Senate before settling in New York City to work with the Missionary Board of the Presbyterian Church.

While Lowrie likely never returned to the county after settling in New York City, Allegheny Township was formed from neighboring Parker and Venango townships in 1854 — just 14 years before his death.

According to McKee, the township took its name from the Allegheny River, which grazes its northeastern corner.

“The biggest trade in the township was basically farming,” Stowe said. “Then, when the oil ‘excitement’ hit, the town had several oil wells.”

Evidence of the township’s oil rush during the late 1800s are still present at Six Points, one of the areas’ early trading posts.

“We have an old boiler and steam engine that sits in front of the schoolhouse,” Stowe said. ”(They) were used to drill the oil wells.”

The machinery, he said, was donated by two local families as a monument to “those who served in the oil fields,” as the sign reads.

Behind it stands the restored Six Points Schoolhouse, built it 1876.

“My dad went there for the first eight grades, at the one-room school house,” Stowe said.

While the schoolhouse closed in the mid-1900s, Stowe said, a teacher in the township helped resurrect it as a local museum.

“Judy Karns, she was a retired schoolteacher, and she was the one that instigated that and started the committee and headed off the work,” Stowe said. “She did a lot of work.”

In recent years, Stowe said, the township experienced a second round of fossil fuel “excitement.”

“We do have Marcellus Shale gas in our town,” Stowe said. “We have, right now, three well pads.”

The pads are owned by LOLA Energy, he said, which is in the process of building a fourth and fifth well.

And, while the wells are a far cry from the township’s one-time oil fields, Stowe said the township has benefited from them.

In addition, an industrial park along Route 38 employs 500 to 600 people from throughout the county, according to Stowe.

“We actually get more people that come into the township to work than we get that come out to vote,” he said with a laugh.

As of the 2020 U.S. Census, 620 people live in the township.

“I always tell everybody that Allegheny Township is the least populated township in Butler County,” Stowe said.

But, with a rich history of hard work and perseverance, size matters little to the folks of Allegheny.

“I told people, ‘We could live back in the 1800s oil boom, we can live it all over again,” Stowe said.