USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume III > Part 11
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(2) Roswell Franklin was married December 5, 1794, to Pamela Goodrich (born February 11, 1775), and they settled at Aurora, New York, where both of them died in March, 1843. For six years prior to his death he had been a Deacon in the Presbyterian Church at Aurora, and in honor of him and his father, memorial windows were placed in the new church erected in 1861. The children of Roswell and Pamela (Goodrich) Franklin were as follows: (a) Elizabeth, born August 28, 1795; married May 6, 1813, to - ; died September 8, 1863, at Five Corners, N. Y. (b) Naomi, born February 12, 1797; died March 17, 1823. (c) Almira, born February 21, 1799; married September 7, 1819. to - Hovey; died in Iowa October 5, 1889. (d) Caroline M., born December 28, 1800; married June 23, 1822,
(e) Ann Eliza, born September 21, 1803; married October 2, 1827 to White; died July 5, 1893. (f) John H. born June 29, 1805; twice marr ed and died at Canandaigua, New York, May 1, 1873. (g) to Pamela, born October 22, 1808; died November 9, 1810. (h) William S., born October 22, 1811; married twice, and died at Syracuse, New York, March 6, 1882. He was a minister of the gospel. (i) Samuel Newell, born May 28, 1817; married January 14, 1816, to - ; died September 5, 1896. (j) Pamela G. horn January 4, 1821; married September 8, 1847! to Brady; died in Ohio August 9, 1904.
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permit, the Wilkes-Barré party proceeded homeward with the three Franklin children as expeditiously as possible. On Tuesday, April 16th, they arrived at Fort Wyoming, where the children were restored to the arms of their father. He took them to the family of a neighbor, Jonathan Forsythe, where they remained until their own home could be rebuilt.
At Wilkes-Barré, April 8, 1782-the day following that upon which the Franklins had been carried off and the rescuing party had set out in pursuit of them-a town-meeting was held, at which arrangements were made "for the distribution of the public powder to the settlements." It was also "voted, that those men now in service on a scout with Sergeant Thomas Baldwin shall be entitled to receive from the Treasurer of this town [of Westmoreland] the sum of five shillings per day for each day in service; and that Sergeant Baldwin shall be entitled to six shillings per day for said term." Also, the Town Treasurer was directed to have ground "so much of the public wheat [received in payment of taxes] as to make 200 pounds of biscuit, and keep it made and so deposited that the scouts may be instantly supplied from time to time as occasion requires."
At Chenussio*, New York, April 20, 1782, Ebenezer Allent wrote to Col. John Butler, commander of the "Rangers", at Fort Niagara: "To-morrow a party of Senecas sets off, intending to strike at Wyoming. If anything particular happens, I will write you." The next day he wrote again from the same place, as follows:±
"This day a Tuscarora runner arrived here, who says the party to which he belonged had been at Wioming, where they took five prisoners. The Rebels pursued them to Wylosyn {Wya- lusing], and wounded one of the chiefs through the body, so that they were obliged to run and lose the prisoners, except one of which [Mrs. Franklin] they killed and scalped. They were informed by the prisoners that 600 men were killed at Wioming."
At the regular semi-annual session of the General Assembly of Connecticut, held at Hartford in May, 1782, Westmoreland was represented by Obadiah Gore and Jonathan Fitch.
About this time many of the inhabitants of Westmoreland, who had fled from their homes after the battle of Wyoming, were returning to the Valley with their families; while those men of family who were already on the ground without their families, began to bring the latter back from their temporary homes in New York, Connecticut and elsewhere.
A little light is thrown on some of the conditions existing here at that time by a depositions which was made June 24, 1782, by John Seely, Esq., of North- ampton County, Pennsylvania, who had been making inquiries "as to the strength, intentions, &c., of the settlers at Wyoming." He deposed: "There are about 300 men fit to bear arnis-one-fourth, or not exceeding one-third, of them being from the State of Connecticut. They expect a large body from Connecticut this Fall and next Spring. * * * If they should fail in their Charter claims, they are determined to push for its being a new State."
The following is an extract from a letter written at Wilkes-Barré, June 10 1782, to the Hon. Roger Sherman (see page 839, Vol. II) by his second son,
*Now Geneseo, in Livingston County. Sir William Johnson always wrote the name of this place "Chenussio". its Indian name; but in Iroquois dialects "J" and "Ch" are interchangeable, as are also "G" and "K", "D" and "T", &c.
+EBENEZER ALLEN was a Tory who fied from Pennsylvania and joined the Seneca Indians. He had several successive Indian wives (by one of whom he had two daughters), and after the war married a white woman. He was a monster of iniquity, according to Mary Jemison, "the White Woman", whose "Life" contains a chapter devoted to him. He once drowned a Dutch trader, and committed many other enormities.
He built the first mill at the Genesee Falls (now Rochester), New York, under the authority of Phelps and Gorham. He was living in New York in 1791, but ultimately fled the country and died at Grand River.
#See Canadian Archives, Series B, Vol. CI1: 26.
§See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, 1X: 622.
Wearthis: spot Oct 14. 1778WWW lameson who wo woundod in the Bo ti
of Wyoming, was Mortalhamundoil
calped by aband o Six Xá tion Indian Lying In im ris
He was going from
WilkesBarre orator
Nanticoke Hisremains Were buried in Hanove
Cemetery.
MONUMENT TO WILLIAM JAMESON, Killed October 14. 1778. This formerly stood near the Hanover Cemetery, but is now in possession of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society.
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William Sherman, who had come to Wyoming from New Haven, Connecticut, with the intention of teaching school. (He remained here until, at least, April, 1783, but whether or not he was employed then or at any other time in teaching school, cannot now be learned. William Sherman, born in 1751, was graduated at Yale College in 1770. He was a paymaster, with the rank of Lieutenant, in the Continental army from January, 1777, to January, 1781. He died at New Haven in June, 1789) :
"Honored Sir :- I arrived herc the 5th inst. after a very fatiguing journey, especially the last day. 1 rode from Colonel Stroud's Fort Penn, being forty-seven miles-thirty-eight miles being an intire wilderness-without any company. Two days before I arrived at Fort Penn Indians had killed one boy and one horse, and speared two others, which I saw nine miles this side of Fort Penn. Three days ago I was informed by some gentlemen that came through the woods that they had burnt a house and killed a horse, but no other damage done.
"The committee sits this day to determine what wages they will give and what kind of pay. My proposals are, half money and the other half in produce. If we don't agree I shall go to the place about eight miles above, where I have got a call on my proposals. The situation of this town is by far the most pleasant. The whole country between the two mountains is as level * * * as any part of our [New Haven] Green, for several miles in length and four or five in breadth.
In a deposition* made by Silas Taylor before John Van Campen, Esq., of Northampton County, August 22, 1782, the deponent declared :
"That he was at Wyoming [Wilkes-Barre] on or about July 20, 1782. Col. Zebulon Butler arrived at that place the day preceding. After the arrival of Butler he sent to all the Proprietors of the Connecticut clain then at that place, to meet the next day to consult on business of impor- tance. The next morning after the meeting this deponent asked sundry of these Proprietors what the business was, and learned that Colonel Butler had given them instructions to go down the river to Wapwallopen, build a strong block-house, and take possession of that country. The trial between Pennsylvania and Connecticut will be kept off this seven years." * * *
On Monday, July 8, 1782, John Jamesont and his youngest brother, Ben- jamin (who was not quite fourteen years of age), brothers of William Jameson, mentioned on page 1100, Vol. II, accompanied by Asa Chapman, a neighbor, were traveling horseback from Hanover to Wilkes-Barré. As they came near
*See ibid.
+JOHN JAMESON was born in Voluntown, Windham County, Connecticut, June 17. 1749, the eldest child of Robert and Agnes ( Dixon) Jameson. The father of Robert and the grandfather of John Jameson was John Jameson, Sr., a native of Scotland, where he was born about 1680. At about the age of five years he accompanied the other members of his father's family to the North of Ireland. About the year 1685, shortly after the accession of King James II, when the persecution of the Covenanters was vigorously renewed, many Scots emigrated to the province of Ulster, in the North of Ireland. The family of John Jameson, Sr., settled at Omagh, in the county of Tyrone, Ulster, and there, in 1705, John Jameson, Sr., was married to Rosanna Irwin, or Irvine, a native of Omagh.
John Jameson, Sr., learned the trade of a linen-weaver, and in connection with one or more of his brothers carried on in a small way the manufacture of linen at Omagh until the year 1718. Under the date of March 26, 1718, a large number of persons residing in the North of Ireland signed and sent across the Atlantic to Samuel Shute, the royal Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a memorial, which, in part, read as follows:
"We, Inhabitants of the North of Ireland, Doe, in our own names and in the names of many others our neighbours -Gentlemen, Ministers, Farmers and Tradesmen-commissionate and appoint our trusty and well-beloved Frieod the Reverend Mr. William Boyd of Macasky to His Excellency the Rt. Hon. Col. Samuel Suitte, Governour of New England, and to assure His Excellency of our siocere and hearty Inclination to Transport ourselves to that very ex- cellent and renowned Plantation npon our obtaining from his Excellency suitable incouragement. And further, to act and Do in our names as his Prudence shall direct." * *
Among the 320 signatures appended to this document were those of John Jameson, Sr., and his brother Williamt. To the aforementioned memorial, delivered into his hands by the Rev. William Boyd, Governor Shute returned a favorable answer, and accordingly, early in June, 1718, a company of 120 families, with the Rev. Mr. MacGregor at their head, sailed from the North of Ireland in five vessels, and landed safely at Boston, Massachusetts, August 4, 1718. William and John Jameson, with their wives and children, were of this company of immigrants, concerning whom it is stated (in Bryant's "History of the United States", ITI: 138): "These people, who undertook to better their condition in America, were descendants, [many of them], of the colonists who had been transferred by James I to the North of Ireland, where their condition, from penal laws against Protestants, and from local taxation, had become intolerable."
John Jameson remained at Boston for a time, but in 1719 removed with his family to Milton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, distant ten or twelve miles from Boston. In October, 1725, Robert Lord of Fairfield sold to John Jameson 142 acres of land in the new town of Voluntown, Windham County, Connecticut. This land lay in that part of Voluntown which is now Sterling, and was on the Plainfield and Providence highway, near where it crosses Mossup River. Thither John Jameson removed. He was admitted an iphabitant of the town December 23, 1728, and was chosen grand-juryman December 14, 1730.
John Jameson died at his home in Voluntown in April, 1734, his wife, Rosanna, having died there a short time previously. Their children were as follows: (i) William, born in Omagh, Ireland, about 1706; died at Voluntowa about 1727. (ii) Mary, born in Omagh about 1708; was living in Voluntown, unmarried, in 1735. (iii) Sarah, boro in Omagh about 1710; married at Voluntown May 27, 1735, to Joseph Parke of Plainfield, Connecticut. (iv) Joon, horu in Omagh about 1712; married at Voluntown Angust 16, 1739, to Latham Clark. (v) Robert, born at Omagh December 24, 1714; died May 1, 1786. (See hereinafter.) (vi) Elizabeth, married at Voluntown February 11, 1742, to Thomas Clark of Voluntown. (vii) Hannah, married at Stonington, Connecticut, May 19, 1747, to Elisha Chese- borongh. (viii) Esther, bort at Voluntown May 29, 1726; married at Stonington October 25, 1748, to Joseph (born January 22, 1718), sixth child of Thomas and Mary (Brown) York of Stonington, and great-grandson of James York, Sr., an early settler in Stonington.
(v) Robert Jameson came to New England with the other members of his father's family, and was living in Volun town when his father died there in the Spring of 1734. In 1744 and again in 1745 he was chosen Lister of the town"
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in 1745, Surveyor of Highways, and in 1745, '46 and '47, Fenceviewer. He was duly sworn and admitted a freeman April 7, 1746. In December, 1749, he was chosen Constahle of Voluntown, and re-chosen in December, 1750. In July, 1753, he became an original member of The Susquehanna Company, subscribing and paying for one "right."
Robert Jameson attended as a duly qualified Representative from Voluntown the following sessions of the Genera 1 Assembly of Connecticut: May and September, 1756; May, 1759; May and October, 1763; January, March and Octo- ber, 1764. As a Representative he was present in the Council Chamber at Hartford, May 28-30, 1763, when the Gover- nor, Council and Assembly of Connecticut held a conference with certain chiefs of the Six Nations of Indians, as narrated on page 415, Vol I. From 1754 to 1763, inclusive, Robert Jameson was annually chosen by his fellow-freemen of Volun town to the offices of Fence-viewer, Constable and Collector of Colony Rates. In May, 1764, he was appointed agent of the town, to appear at ye General Assembly to answer ye memorial of Moses Fish and others, and show why the same should not be granted. In December, 1764, he was chosen Selectman and Fence-viewer for the ensuing year, and in December, 1767, was chosen Fence-viewer and Surveyor of Highways.
In November, 1776, Robert Jameson removed with his wife, six of his sons and five of his daughters to Wyoming Valley, where his eldest son, John, had already settled. In compliance with a law which was rigorously enforced during the Revolutionary War, it was necessary for a person removing from one State to another to be provided with a pass- port, issued by a duly authorized public official. The following is a copy of the document furnished Mr. Jameson: "Windham, Nov. 4, 1776.
"The bearer hereof, Mr. ROBERT JAMESON, has been for many years an inhabitant in the town of Voluntown in the county of Windham and State of Connecticut, aod is now on his journey with his wife and family and family fur- niture to remove to the town of Hanover on the Susquehanna River, and is a friend to the United States of America and has a right to remove himself and family as above." [Signed] SAMUEL GRAY,"
"Justice of the Peace, and one of the Committee of said Windham."
Stewart Pearce, referring in his "Jameson Memoir" to the removal of Robert Jameson and his family to Wyoming, says. "They brought with them a few articles of household furniture, and an agricultural implement or two, which they conveyed ou a large cart drawn by three yoke of oxen. The sous walked alongside, driving the oxen and helping the cart over newly-and hadly-opened roads. The daughters, clothed in homespun, also traveled afoot, and drove fourty head of sheep. The journey was performed in about three tedious weeks. John Jameson met his father and mother and the other members of the family at the mouth of Lackawaxen Creek, on the Delaware, and conducted them to their homely dwelling in Hanover Township, below the present town of Wilkes-Barré."
In the Spring of 1773 the township of Salem was laid out and alloted, as described on page 771, Vol. II. By virtue of his ownership of a "right" in The Susquehanna Company's Purchase, Robert Jameson was declared a proprietor in Salem Township; and, in the distribution of lots which soon took place, "Lot No. 30 in the First Division" fell to his share This was a fine tract of fifty acres, lying partly on the river flats and partly on the upland to the north, some six miles below the present borough of Shickshinny, and one and one-half miles east of what is now Beach Haven. In subsequent divisions of Salem lands Robert Jameson was allotted one tract of 100 acres and another tract of 150 acres. He never personally occupied any of these lands, however, but lived until his death on the property of his son John, previously mentioned, where, withio a year after his arrival from Connecticut, he had erected a substantial log house and other improvements for the use of himself, wife and unmarried children.
Owing to his age in 1778 (he was in his sixty-fourth year) Robert Jameson was excused from serving in the West- moreland militia; and so at the time of the battle and massacre of Wyoming, be was one of the men who garrisoned Shawnee Fort, in Plymouth, to which the women and children of his family had repaired for safety. Four of his sons were in the battle, and one of them-Robert, Jr .- was slaio. The three who escaped joined their parents and the other members of the family at the Fort in Plymouth, and the next day they fled down the Susquehanna to Fort Augusta. at Sunbury. The oldest and the youngest members of the family floated down the river in a couple of small boats, taking with them such of their belongings as they were able to carry; while the others made the journey of some sixty miles on foot. They undertook to drive some of their cattle before them, but, owing to the haste in which they had to make the journey, the almost impassable roads or paths, and the thick undergrowth along the roads, nearly all the cattle were lost One yoke of oxen strayed into Northampton County, and was subsequently recovered.
The Jameson refugees, after spending a few days at Fort Augusta, went to Hanover Township. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where they had friends and relatives. Two of the sous returned to Wyoming within a short time, and two more within the next year and a-half, but the other members of the family remained in Lancaster County until the early Autumn of 1781, when they also returned. Their houses and other buildings together with the contents thereof, had heen burned by the enemy in 1778, but in 1780 and '81 John Jameson, with the assistance of his brothers, had erected a log house on the site of their ruined homes, and this the family occupied upon their arrival.
During the Second Pennamite-Yankee War Robert Jameson and his family suffered much in common with the other Connecticut settlers. On account of his age and ill health, Mr. Jameson did not take an active part in resisting the oppressions and outrages perpetrated hy the representatives of the Pennsylvania Government and the Pennamnite land-claimers in Wyoming. Nevertheless he and his family were among those who were dispossessed of their homes under color of law and driven summarily into the wilderness in May, 1784-as more fully related in a subsequent chapter.
Robert Jamesou died at his home in Hanover Township May 1, 1786, and was buried in the grave-yard of the old Presbyterian meeting-house it Hanover. Letters of Administration upon his estate were granted to his two surviving sons Joseph and Alexander-January 4, 1788, by the Orphan's Court of Luzerne County.
Robert Jameson was married November 24, 1748, by the minister of the Congregational Church in North Stoning- ton, New London County, Connecticut, to Agnes (born in 1723), daughter of Capt. Robert Dixon mentioned in note ' on page 251, Vol. I. After the death of her husband Mrs. Jameson resided in Hanover until 1793, when she and four of her surviving children removed to Salem Township, Luzerne County, and occupied the property there which Robert Jameson had owned for thirteen years prior to his death. Their dwelling-house stood on the right bank of the Susquehanna, on the elevated ground west of the river flats, four miles south of the present borough of Shickshinny. It was in the settlement, or hamlet, which subsequently was named Beach Grove. There Mrs. Agnes (Dixon) Jameson lived until her death, which occurred September 24, 1804, in the eighty-second year of her age.
The children of Robert and Agnes (Dixon) Jameson, all horn at Voluntown, Connecticut, were as follows: (i) John, horn June 17, 1749; murdered July 8, 1782. (See below) (ii) Mary, born March 12, 1751 ; died at Salem, Sept- ember 19, 1834, unmarried. (iii) Anne, born April 26, 1752; married about 1775 to George Gordon, born May 10. 1755; she died January 25, 1808. (iv) William, born December 19, 1753; murdered October 16, 1778, as narrated on page 1100, Vol. II (v) Robert, born June 10, 1755; killed at the battle of Wyoming, July 3, 1778. (vi) Elizabeth, born August 5, 1757; died at Salem, April 23, 1818, unmarried. (vii) Rosanna, bort December 24, 1758; became the wife of Elisha Harvey (see foctoote, p. 1261), died January 17, 1840. (vii) Samuel, born March 13, 1760; took part in the battle of Wyoming; was accidently drowned in the Susquehanna River bear his home in 1787. (ix) Hannah, born December 29, 1761; married in Penosylvania to William Reed, and died about eight weeks later at Hanover. (x) Joseph, horn May 23, 1763; died April 7 1854. (See below.) (xi) Alexander, born September, 10, 1764; died February 17, 1789. (See below.) (xii) Agnes, horn April 25, 1766; married about 1790, as his first wife, to John Alden, mentioned in the note on page 500, Vol I; died about 1791. (xiii) Benjamin, horn August 15. 1768; died at Hanover in 1789. unmarried
xi) Alexander Jameson accompanied the other members of his father's family to Wyoming in 1776, being then in the thirteenth year of his life. At the time of the battle of Wyoming he was in the fort at Plymouth. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War the proprietors of the township of Plymouth foreseeing danger, and being desirous that their rich flat lands along the river should not be neglected, made an agreement with a number of persons to give them. during the war, the use of all these lands that they could cultivate, on condition that they should maintain the lessors' possession, and keep in repair the newly-erected stockade, or fort, on Garrison Hill. (See page 886, Vol. Il.) Among those associated for this purpose were Capt. Prioce Alden, James Nisbitt, Robert Jameson and Capt Samuel Ransom. The sons of these associators tilled the soil, and performed the other duties required by the terms of the lease, and while doing so occupied the fort
Except at the general expulsion after the battle of Wyoming, and for about two years following that event, the lessees and their representatives held their ground-"attacked, defending themselves, fighting, suffering, they still maintained their position." Joseph and Alexander Jameson represented their father in this work. Shawnee Fort was partly destroyed by the savages after its evacuation and surrender by the patriots on July 4, 1778; but the following Autumn it was repaired, and was garrisoned hy a small company of men during the Winter.
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Alexander Jameson returned to Wyoming in 1780, and he and his brother Joseph (when the latter was not in service with the militia) lived in Shawnee Fort with a number of other young men and farmed a small portion of the flats. Less than 200 acres of land in the whole valley were cultivated in 1781
In the Autumn of 1787, upon the organization of the militia establishment in the new County of Luzerne. Alexander Jameson became a member of the First (Hanover and Newport) Company of the 1st Battalion, and within a short time thereafter was appointed First Sergeant of the Company. Mason F. Alden was Captain of this company, but Lient Shubal Bidlack was in command from November 17, 1787, to February 8, 1789, owing to the delay in issuing Captain Alden's Commission. Sergeant Jameson was elected Ensign of this company May 10, 1791, and having heen duly commissioned he held the office until his removal from Hanover to Salem Townshp, early in 1793. He was elected Angust 17, 1793, and commissioned in January, 1794, Lieutenant of the Second, or Salem, Company (Nathan Beach, Captain) in the Third Regiment, Luzerne County Militia, commanded by Lieut. Col. Matthias Holleoback. In 1793 and '94 he was one of the Commissioners of Luzerne County, and from 1811 to 1815, inclusive, a Justice of the Peace in Salem Township.
Alexander Jameson was married May 5, 1796, to Elizabeth born 1777, (fourth daughter and sixth child of Capt. Lazarus and Martha (Espy) Stewart, mentioned on page 644, Vol II. Mrs. Stewart died at Salem August 20, 1806. and Alexander Jameson died there February 17, 1859, in the ninety-fifth year of his age-the last male member of the Jameson family of Wyoming Valley.
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