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How Brighton's Got Their Names

Milestones Vol 19 No. 1

Brighton What?

By Denver Walton

How did Brighton Township get its name and how is it related to New Brighton? Well, it all begins with Beaver Falls, more or less, in 1806, on land that had belonged to General Brodhead, a town was laid out. The surveyors were two brothers named Constable, from Brighton, England. To them went the honor of naming the town, and they named it "Brighton," for their home town. This town plot is now located in the south end of Beaver Falls.

In 1816, Ohio Township was divided and the eastern portion of it extended to the Beaver River and included the village of Brighton. So the new township was named Brighton Township.

Some years later, a town was laid out on the East side of the Beaver and it was first called East Brighton but later came to be known as New Brighton. The old town on the west bank then began to be known as "Old Brighton." This endured until 1868 when the Harmony Society, which had come to own the land on the west side, laid out a larger town and named it Beaver Falls, by which the whole area had been known before the surveyors came.