Map is from the 1875 Tioga County Atlas
How Elk Run became Bungy
Legend has it that the name Bungy came about when "old" Arch Robbins"
(Then Young Arch Robbins and now long deceased) used to hang out at the
store in Elk Run with his friends. His family, not quite approving, said,
"Why do you want to hang out at that old bung hole?" and that became the
name Bungy.
My own theory, which probably is not worth two hoots, but it is an interesting
coincidence, is this. The Smiths (one of the four major and previously
unrelated Smith lines of Sullivan) and Woods, and several other name lines
came from Ridgefield Connecticut in the 1820s. During the Revolutionary
War, in the Battle of Ridgefield, barrels of flour at the mill in Ridgefield
exploded from the heat and made a terrible noise. It was thereafter called
Bungtown and that name is very similar to Bungy. |
How Chandlersburg Became Elk Run
Elk Run took its name from this little creek that runs through it. The
earliest known name of the area was Chandlersburg for the Chandler family
that settled here early, and some of whose descendants (though none of
the name Chandler) still live here.The Chandlers are all in the cemetery
behind the school, though some of their tombstones were lost when they
were used as base markers for softball games in my father's era - the 1920s-30s.
When the post office was established here, it was given the name Elk Run
and that is how the name was changed, although in the nineteenth century,
either name might be used. Early in the twentieth century, the name Bungy
was applied as the result of a joke and it has come into common use and
has gradually displaced the Elk Run name which was more common until twenty
or thirty years ago. To my horror, the Zip code directory defines the area
as Bungy rather than Elk Run.
This photo was taken by Joyce M.Tice in June 1998 from the bridge in
Elk Run looking north. I used to play in this stream when I was a child,
as did countless others, and this is where my father threw his arithmetic
book in the water when his older brother and his friend bet he didn't dare
while they were on the way home from school one day. He sure showed them
- but suffered consequences when his father found out. On the map, this
location is right where the stream crosses the road in the center of the
school district where so many buildings were once clustered.
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