Emlenton
Franklin
Oil City
Tionesta
Titusville
Pleasantville
Meadville
Tidioute
Endeavor
Warren
Sheffield
Bradford
Smethport
Ridgway

Styles

Adam
Greek Revival
Classical Revival
Gothic Revival
Italianate
Second Empire
Stick
Queen Anne
Shingle
Colonial Revival
Neoclassical
Tudor
English Cottage

PLEASANTVILLE

In 1821 Aaron Benedict founded the community we know today as Pleasantville; the Borough of Pleasantville was incorporated in 1850.  Benedict came from Western New York where he had been a prosperous mill owner and businessman.  Fortune turned against him, however, and at the age of forty-two he found himself in the Northern Pennsylvania wilderness starting over again.  In an 1819 agreement with the Holland Land Company, Benedict bought a parcel of four hundred acres, subject to settlement and development.  Originally, he called the place, Benedictown.  From the beginning, Benedict was interested in the clay deposits readily available at this site.  He persuaded his son-in-law, William Porter, to relocate to Benedictown.  Porter worked in the pottery business and was known as a ‘chemist”; he had working knowledge of how to apply the salts for glazing.  The pottery prospered by manufacturing wares similar in appearance and quality to Rockingham pottery and Liverpool Queensware.
 

In 1831 E.R. Beebe, Aaron Benedict’s nephew, arrived in Benedictown.  He had knowledge of the tanning business and knew how to make shoes.  This business prospered.  The Beebe family constructed a stylish Greek Revival home on North Main Street in the 1840's.  It is possible this family was related to Lucius Beebe & Sons, the prominent Boston Shoe manufacturer who built the Queen City Tannery in Titusville in 1890.
 

A tangible manifestation of Aaron Benedict’s continuing influence on the community he founded can still be seen today where North Main Street divides at  Route 27.  At this location you can still see the Greek Revival church completed in 1848 on land donated to the Allegheny Baptist Church by Aaron Benedict.  The church building was later sold to the Free Methodists.  Benedict died in 1860.  Never believing the area was particularly well suited for farming, he was convinced God intended the region for some other purpose.  Drake’s successful oil well in Titusville was seen by Benedict as confirmation of this belief.