BROOKVILLE – Brookville historian and author David Taylor has completed a new book, A Gift to the Community: The Pinecrest Country Club, 1920-1970. It tells the story of the local golf course and country club first laid out by Brookville lumberman and business leader Samuel S. Henderson, who lived on the east end of Main Street in downtown Brookville. In 1920, he built a summer home near the newly paved highway from the lakes to the sea, which is now U.S. Route 322.
Henderson (1855-1931) was the son of Joseph Washington Henderson (1814-1896), a leading Brookville merchant, politician, associate judge, and patriarch of a family whose lives included much of the city’s 19th and early 20th century history. . In February 1920, he purchased a tract of land west of Brockville and the true story of the Pinecrest Country Club began. The Brookville American reported on February 26, 1920, “With improved roads advancing from Brookville, it was expected that land along the major highways would be purchased by some of our fellow countrymen and summer homes would be erected. S.S. Henderson is the first to announce his plans. He closes the deal for this.” The week he has acquired the property of 72 acres of Sharp’s farm, just west of Roseville. A summer house will be built in the grove which is back from the highway a short distance away. Mr. Henderson will lay out a golf course on the land. This will be good news for the golf lovers of the town, and it is certain that the Hendersons would not like to have visitors, as there is presently no golf course nearer than Dubois or Punxsutawney.”
Henderson christened his new summer home “Pinecrest”, attesting to its hilltop location within a pine grove. Taylor’s book describes the beginnings of the organization founded in 1926 when Henderson magnanimously offered to give his golf course to golfers from Clarion and Brockville if they would found a club And they build a club. This same club anchors the club to this day.
On April 29, 1926, the Jefferson Democrat hailed the club’s formation. As so often happened in Brockville, this important community organizing meeting was held at the YMCA. In writing the book, Taylor researched and consulted local newspapers, oral history accounts, and complete Pinecrest Country Club minutes dating from the first meeting of the Board of Governors to the present.
The book tells the decade-by-decade history of Pinecrest, describing its early growth, its first and subsequent club championships and many others, its many original and later members, and the myriad events that took place in the club, from the bridge. Dance parties, club dinners, pageants, community meetings, events honoring returning WWII veterans, and much more. The book is filled with photos and other images from Pinecrest’s history, drawn from newspaper articles and private collections.
This book is intended to be the first of two volumes covering the history of the golf course and country club. This first volume discusses golf at Brookville prior to 1920 and covers the first half century of the club’s history, from Sam Henderson’s construction in 1920 of its summer home to 1970. The second volume, still in production, will run from 1971 to the present.
This first-ever Pinecrest history joins David Taylor’s 2019 The Way We Were: Brookville, Pennsylvania Through the Camera Lens, a 280-page historical treatment of the community that includes hundreds of as-yet-unpublished photos and text.
Taylor and his family are no strangers to the Pinecrest Country Club. His father, H. Charles “Chuck” Taylor, an international track star in the 1920s, was one of the club’s original members in 1926. David Taylor began playing there in the late 1950s and played on the Brookville High School Golf Team. His sons, Chris and Sean, played golf in high school there (Chris, now serves as Vice Chair of the Pinecrest Board of Governors). Taylor’s grandson, Reese, made his high school senior team debut in the 2022 season.
The Taylor’s Pinecrest book costs $20 and order forms can be ordered from the author at tta.david@gmail.com.