Prior to 1917, Middleburg was two separate towns on opposite sides of Middle Creek. In 1800 Captain Frederick Evans, builder of Fort McHenry, laid out a town north of the creek for Johann Albrecht Schweinforth, a German landowner and tavern keeper, called Swinefordstown until 1825 when it was renamed Middleburg. South of the creek was Franklin, a hamlet with a few houses and mills belonging to Schweinforth's sons and Evans's son-in-law, Congressman George Kremer, nephew of Governor Snyder. Isolated from the commercial traffic on the Susquehanna, Middleburg developed slowly despite being designated county seat in the election of 1855. In 1871, the Sunbury-Lewiston railroad built a station at Franklin that boosted the local economy and the town changed its name to Swinesford. Barter was commonly used for daily commercial transactions instead of currency until the First National Bank was established in 1889. Most of the notable buildings date from the prosperous turn-of-the-twentieth-century era and are located on Market Street or Main Street in the former Swinesford that merged with Middleburg in 1917. Earlier significant structures include the restored eighteenth-century Motz log cabin at the Glendale Cemetery, the 1830 Federal-style Union Church Parsonage at 28 E. Market Street (the only stone building in Middleburg), and the 1834 Emmanuel's Union Church (now the Snyder County Museum and Historical Society) at 30 E. Market Street.
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