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LOWER FALLS ( Fallston) was the scene of the beginning of industry in the Beaver Valley. David Townsend, who "made the first improvement of the Falls of Beaver, " bought land here in 1799 and the next year erected a sawmill. In ten years Townsend and his partners had made great strides in industrial development. Zadok Cramer in his Magazine Almanac (1810) wrote of this enterprise as follows:
A House Full of Machines - At the lower falls of Big Beaver creek, there are, an oil mill, fulling mill, a mill for boring and grinding gun barrels, a wool carding machine, a nail factory, and a mill for sawing whetstones, all under one roof At the same place are, a cotton carding, and spinning jenny, an ingenious machine for cutting and forming at one stroke, cotton card teeth, a machine for cutting large screws for tobacco presses, fulling mills, and one for making fullers shears. The greater part of the above machines are made by David Townsend, an indefatigable and ingenious mechanic, and one of the firm.
MIDDLE FALLS (Beaver Falls) was the site of the first blast furnace built in Beaver County, Although Hoopes, Townsend and Company built it in 1802, the furnace was not blown in until 1804. Two years later the firm added a forge. According to James M. Swank, the whole enterprise was abandoned about 1826. Nothing remains of the installations. The town was known as "Brighton" or "Old Brighton" until 1859, when the Harmony Society, which held mortgages on much of the land, purchased it for $34,500. In 1866 they resurveyed the town, enlarged its limits, and sponsored diverse manufacturing. Two years later it was incorporated as Beaver Falls. Twice (in the 1820's and the 1860's) this location was under consideration as a site for a United States arsenal.