It was raining when James McCurdy arrived in the future Summit Township in 1796.

The 19-year-old and his companion, Thomas Smith, were planning to settle in Mercer County.

When the clouds passed and the moon came out, though, they got a good look at the area. The land was rocky, wooded and covered with dense brush—it would be tough to farm. Further complicating matters, they were miles from the mills and comforts of small towns that lay along larger rivers and established trading routes.

But something in the air told them to stay. McCurdy selected a piece of property along Bonnie Brook and built his first cabin with “an axe, an auger and a froe,” and some help from his friends.

Many years later, he died at the age of 94, still living along the creek, a father to nine and a grandfather and great-grandfather to many, and one of the first to call Summit Township home.

By the 1810s, McCurdy and his industrious township neighbors had made remarkable progress. With textile mills, sawmills, grist mills and, of course, a distillery, they had built the foundation of a self-sufficient community—clothing, housing and feeding themselves through their own effort and ingenuity.

The area was sparsely settled until “Bavarians, Alsatians, Brandenburgers, Saxons and people of other nationalities began to flock hither in 1830,” according to R. C. Brown’s 1895 History of Butler County.

The new arrivals—bearing names such as Henry, Neyman, Martin, Gilliland, Scott, Mitchell and others—were surely welcomed to the area as they were “men and women … admirably endowed by nature to advance the material and moral growth of the district,” according to Brown.

With more settlers came more farmland, but clearing the land remained a daunting task. Still, “no German knows the meaning of the word failure,” Brown explained, and through “patience, industry, and wise economy,” they persevered and prospered.

Before hotels were built, the religious McCurdy and businessman Abraham Brinker, a public official who served as an unelected judge, hosted travelers in their homes, situated on either side of the creek. These unique accommodations led early settlers to quip that the village of “Bonnybrook had the law on one side and the Gospel on the other,” according to Waterman’s 1883 history of the township.

History is never too far away in Summit Township, according to longtime resident, Cynthia Kramer, co-owner of Kramer Automotive Specialties.

“The original building on my farm was built in 1848,” she said. “In fact, the house on the property has square nails and square timbers. You can see the ax marks on them, with wood, dirt and straw chinking.”

Even more intriguing, the farmhouse had a secret room in the basement, accessible by way of a staircase hidden under some floorboards.

“The room could have been used as part of the Underground Railroad, but that’s just hearsay,” she said. “But it’s possible. Many Germans were strongly opposed to slavery.”

Kramer, who moved to the township in 1983, calls herself a “newcomer,” as many families have lived in the township for generations. She said she picked up stories from other residents, especially longtime postmistress Adrith Rhodaberger.

“The early settlers were resourceful,” she said. “For example, they piled thorn bushes to keep livestock contained, and kept farm animals down in the basement of the house for heat during the cold winter months. And they planted stinging nettles for vitamin C in the winter.”

Children of Summit Township studied their reading, writing and ‘rithmetic in a log schoolhouse as early as 1813, more than 20 years before state-mandated common schools were established in the area.

The first church in the township, St. Mary, served the largely Roman Catholic settlers, with a modest chapel erected in 1841.

As the parish grew, so did the church. By 1895, it was considered one of the most beautiful churches in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Its stained-glass windows, towering spire, ornate altars, statuary and artwork reminded the visitor of “chapels of mediaeval days,” Brown wrote.

To house its growing number of clergy, St. Mary Monastery was built in the 1870s.

Priests served parishes throughout the county, and in 1877, they welcomed the first class of students to St. Fidelis College.

For more than 100 years, young men learned classical languages, history, math, sciences and other skills from highly educated faculty. A group of four students, arriving from Bavaria in 1880, were the first graduates to be ordained priests.

The school received national attention in 1938 when a fire destroyed much of a main building that housed dormitories, library, classrooms, priest residences, an infirmary and the seminary barber shop, according to news reports.

Fortunately, “a priest led 65 of his students to safety … as fire raged through the main hall,” a 1938 newspaper article revealed. Several Divine Providence nuns had bravely rescued several artifacts from the church. Though no one was injured, the fire caused $300,000 in damages ($6.7 million in 2025).

Education, religion and hard work continued to define life in Summit Township in the 20th century. While some residents worked in Butler, many pursued farming, masonry, trades and other small businesses closer to home.

Lifelong resident Larry Osche said it was a great place to grow up.

“Some of the high schoolers would hang out at Smith’s Service Station, at Herman crossroads at Bonniebrook, where they could get soda and snacks,” he said.

Osche, who serves as a township supervisor and township roadmaster, has lived his entire life in the township, with the exception of a five-year stint in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s.

“The community was close,” he said, noting that many properties have been handed down from one generation to the next.

That commitment to place is a common trait of Summit Township residents, according to Cynthia Kramer.

“People here don’t move, and many are still descended from the original settlers,” she said. “There are a lot of really smart, hard-working people here, running independent businesses and working in the trades, just like their ancestors.”

Though the population of Summit Township has been decreasing in the 21st century, its low taxes and short commute to Pittsburgh are a draw to new residents, Osche said.

And once they arrive, they might just stay.

Katrina Jesick Quinn is a faculty member at Slippery Rock University. She is an editor of “From the Arctic to the Orient: Adventure Journalism in the Gilded Age” (McFarland) and “The Civil War Soldier and the Press” (Routledge).