This breakout of a 1828 map labeled the "center part of Butler" includes the two parcels bought by David Dougal. No. 1 was the first sold in the new county seat and No. 24 was a series of rentals known as "Dougal's Row."

Butler County has evolved and most definitely grown since its creation March 12, 1800.

At that time, the county was carved out of a portion of Allegheny County and graced with four townships: Buffalo, Connoquenessing, Middlesex and Slippery Rock.

Many colorful characters and stories are included in the history of the county that Harrisburg officials named for Gen. Richard Butler, an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

It's unlikely that residents driving the streets and scurrying down the sidewalks of Butler today consider the deep and rich history of the city, but many remnants of the town's early generations remain for those who just take a look around.

For example, the 76 acres from Wayne Street to North Street, and east and west from Washington to McKean streets, were set aside from the 300 acres that would, by a March 8, 1803, act of the state legislature, become the seat of the new county of Butler.

Main Street originally was called High Street, and the current New Castle Street was then known as Mifflin Street. Mifflin was named for Gov. Thomas Mifflin who, on Dec. 21, 1790, became the last president of Pennsylvania and the first governor of the Pennsylvania commonwealth.

It is assumed the street was named after Mifflin because the Revolutionary War major general who presided over the committee that wrote Pennsylvania's constitution had just died in 1799.Mifflin Street ran for just a few blocks west of Main Street, where it became New Castle Street.Margaret Hewitt, special collections librarian at Butler Area Public Library, said documents show that, in 1929, Mifflin Street was changed to New Castle Street.She assumes the reason was to give the entire length of the street one name.Hewitt said Wayne Street most likely was named for Gen. Anthony Wayne, who led the U.S. Army to defeat the Confederation of Indian Tribes in a 1794 battle that would clear the way for settlement in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.Butler historians assume Washington and Jefferson streets were named after Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, respectively.North Street was so named because it lay on the north end of the 76 acres where the first lots would be sold to create the borough.The land that became those lots was purchased by the forward-thinking Cunningham brothers, John, Samuel and James — for whom the downtown street was named — when the three brothers learned the state was about to issue a mandate ordering acreage in the center of several newly created counties in Western Pennsylvania be used as county seats.

One of the first Butler County commissioners' organizations was in agreement that the land near the Connoquenessing Creek owned by the Cunninghams would make a suitable area for the county seat, according to an unnamed commissioner's diary entry on June 7, 1802:“The situation is beautiful, being on an eminence, which descend in all directions; the land scarce of timber, but sufficiently dry, and large bodies of meadow ground near the seat. This site will have the advantages of the creek, with sundry good springs of water and coal banks near, limestone and freestone quarries partly adjoining the site. The ridges all pointing into the little valley, will be convenient for roads from every direction,” wrote the commissioner, according to the book, “History of Butler County, Pennsylvania — 1883.”The book notes that three trustees — John McBride, William Elliot and John David — were appointed by the legislature and governor to buy the land from the Cunningham brothers and another landowner, Robert Graham, that would become the seat of Butler County.The trustees were entreated to sell dozens of parcels in the 76-acre area, which were laid out in long rectangles stretching from the front of a block to the rear.

The first to buy land in the new county seat was a colorful character named David Dougal, who paid $100 for Lot No. 1 on the northeast corner of Main and Diamond streets.The remainder of the lots were sold for $10 to $90, making Dougal's property the most expensive in the tract. He also bought a lot across the street on the northwest corner, beside the courthouse.Dougal, who died at age 103 and had served on the town council many times, was a surveyor.He had performed almost all of the original surveying work in the new village and county, but Dougal was not the type to pursue creature comforts and retire to his parlor for tea with fellow upper echelon residents.Dougal was described in the “History of Butler County, Pennsylvania” as a “universally known character” and “always a very useful man to his fellow-citizens, although very peculiar in his habits.”It was thought that Dougal's fraternization and fascination with Native Americans in Pennsylvania and Kentucky as a young man caused him to eschew creature comforts and fine clothing in favor of the unfettered life of roaming the woods as a surveyor.Instead of living in the manner afforded him by his profession, Dougal, according to the history book, lived in a hut-like log cabin “surrounded by rubbish of all kinds, with a few broken chairs, and a bed that defied all civilization; and in the midst of an odor that had not its like outside of the rude tent of the untutored savage.”Those who chose the finer things, Dougal was known to say, were “beset with sin and stinking with pride.”Dougal owned a series of small rental homes in what was known as “Dougal's Row,” and he never felt the need to upgrade them because he considered the huts sufficient lodging, according to recollections contained in the book.“In his last years, he was noted for his encyclopedical knowledge of local historical matters, and conversations with him upon these topics were eagerly sought by the older citizens, to whom they were peculiarly interesting,” reads Dougal's small biography in the book. “He possessed a ready wit, and was very apt in repartee, as many can remember — some, perhaps, to their sorrow.”When Dougal died on Nov. 8, 1881 on the Protzman farm in Summit Township, where he had lived for several years because of his blindness, he was the last Butler pioneer.Dougal was reported to be buried in the German Lutheran Church graveyard, now the Gruenwald Cemetery in Summit Township, according to “Butler's Past Comes Alive” by Ralph Goldinger.