The Seneca people used the Harrisville area for growing corn due to its fertile soil and flat growing area.
Col. Robert Reed built a tavern and a distillery just south of present-day Harrisville in 1797. This was the first tavern between Pittsburgh and Franklin, Pennsylvania.
Harrisville was founded in 1826 by Ephraim Harris. Harrisville was incorporated in 1846 by joining Harrisville and Reedsville. Harrisville had its first school in 1830, and in 1856 a high school was built.
county when eleven years of age, and settled in Brady township, where his father still resides. He received a public school education in the schools of this county and Pittsburg, and at the age of eighteen he entere 1 the employ of the Pittsburg. Shenango and Lake Erie Railroad Company, at Harrisville, as station boy, and also commenced studying telegraph}-. At the end of five months he was promoted to the position of station agent and operator at Harrisville, and two years later was transferred to Mercer, where he had charge of the station tor six years, when he resigned. In 1888 he came to Fairview and engaged in
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History of Butler County Pennsylvania1927 · page 539Read the page →
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Harrisville Station at the intersection of the Bessemer Railroad and the old Franklin and Mercer pike, is the successor of the old station that existed for twenty-five years at Harrisville mines.
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History of Butler County Pennsylvania1927 · page 563Read the page →
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Harrisville, in Mercer Township, was surveyed for Ephraim Harris in 1825, and he was the first postmaster of the village. The town was incorporated as a borough in 1846. Various industries have sprung up and flourished in this borough.
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History of Butler County, Pennsylvania.1895 · page 640Read the page →
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In Time. L834, Rev. Loyal Voting was sent to preach to that portion of the congregation adhering to the Presbytery. In 1837 the location of the church was fixed at Harrisville, and a new church building, now the Armory hall, erected. An old. hewn log church, said to have been erected by the Seceder congregation, stood in the present cemetery as late as 1847, when David Reed purchased the building and moved it to his farm.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
Harrisville, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (6), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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