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 92
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As early as 1756, Pennsylvania imposed an excise duty upon all distilled spirits, but it proved such an unpopular measure that it was shortly thereafter repealed. In 1791, however, after the power to impose duties, taxes, imposts and excises had been delegated by the states to the Federal government, Con- gress established an excise duty of 4 pence per gallon, on all distilled spirits. No trouble appears to have followed this procedure in Luzerne County. But in western sections of the State, where whiskey was manufactured on a large scale, for export down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the people of Washington, Fayette and Alleghany Counties in particular, viewed the law as one of oppression. They stigmatized it as unjust, and as odious as those laws which led to the Revo- lution, and considered themselves justified in forcibly opposing its enforcement.
Equally obnoxious to the manufacturers of this article was the ruling that Courts of the State did not have concurrent jurisdiction in cases involved under the National law. The nearest Federal Court was at Philadelphia, and to that point all who were charged with offenses, or were concerned in any way with the measure, were forced to travel.
Overt acts of lawlessness kept pace with hostility of feeling, and the "Whis- key Insurrection" became a menace to the Federal government. Revenue offi- cers were seized by small parties, often painted and disguised as Indians. Others were tarred and feathered. Community meetings were held at which inflamma- tory speeches were made and denunciatory resolutions adopted. The barns, homes and distilleries of those who favored peace with the government were frequently destroyed by fire. Even Pittsburg itself was threatened.
The government attempted at first to meet the situation half way. The tax was reduced by a new act of Congress, in 1792. But this did not satisfy the distillers, nor the country-sides which supplied them with grain. The country continued in a state of insurrection. Finally, in 1794, after all mild and dis- suasive measures had failed, President Washington resolved to raise and equip an army for the purpose of quelling the insurrection. The Wyoming Valley, as has been the case in each war of the Republic, responded promptly to the call. Captain Samuel Bowman was commissioned to raise a Company of volunteers in the county, and he spent a major portion of the summer of 1794 at this task. Late in August the Company was mustered*, on the River Common, at Wilkes-
*Copy of the muster roll of Captain Bowman's Company: Captain, Samuel Bowman; Lieutenant, Ebenezer Parrish; Ensign, Arnold Colt; Sergeant, Daniel Spencer; 2d Sergeant, John Freeman; 3d Sergeant, John Alden; Corporal. Archibald White; 2d Corporal, Oliver Parrish; 3d Corporal, Robert Lewis; 4th Corporal, Thompson Holliday; Fifer, Peter Warrington; Drummer, John Wright. Privates: Samuel Young, Solomon Daniels, John Cochran, Elihu Parrish, James Sitey, Thomas P. Miller, Peter Grubb, Arthur McGill, James Johnston, Joseph Headsdale, Daniel Alden, Simon Stevens, Warham Strong, David Landon, Gideon Underwood, Jeremiah Decker, James Robb, Sale Roberts, Partial Roberts, Rufus Drake, Benjamin Owens, John Earl, Charles Bowes, Curtis Gruhh, Thomas Jeayne, Joseph Grimes, Jesse Tompkins, William Harris, Jesse Coleman, John Talliday, Cofrin Boidwell.
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Barré, and on September 1, 1794, marched to Carlisle, via Sunbury, where it was attached to a battalion of light infantry commanded by Major George Fisher.
Some 15,000 troops, composed of the regular army and volunteers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey, were reviewed, at Carlisle, September 15, 1794, by General Washington, and proceeded to the headwaters of the Ohio by way of Berlin and the gap of the Youghiogheny, into Mckeesport. At Bedford, Captain Bowman's command joined the main body. Governor Henry Lee, of Virginia, was named commander in chief of the expedition, with Governor Howell, of New Jersey and Governor Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, each named a general officer and placed in command of the quota from his state. This formidable force found but little to occupy its attention. Cavalry detach- ments were sent into districts where the greatest disaffection had existed, the more active leaders of the insurrection were arrested and sent to a prison camp at Cannonsburg, but no blood was shed and no active opposition to the move- ment of troops in any part of the district resulted.
With their leaders in prison, the balance of the population came quickly to a conclusion that the new Federal government intended to enforce, at any cost, the laws of its making. Many of these leaders were subsequently indicted, but further steps against them were held in abeyance, in consideration of future good behavior. Thus it came about that a display of firmness, by President Washington, at the psychological time, backed by an adequate force to put its mandates into execution, settled for all time any doubt in the mind of the country at large of the ability of a Federal government to maintain itself. Captain Bowinan's command reached Wilkes-Barré shortly before Christmas of the same year and was mustered out of service immediately thereafter.
The renaissance in Wyoming affairs might be said to date from the erection of a Court House, on the Public Square, at Wilkes-Barré. In the days when Luzerne was Westmoreland County of Connecticut, the settlers had been punc- tilious in their regard for law and order and in maintaining competent courts of law and equity. It has been seen in a previous Chapter that the coming of Chief Justice Thomas Mckean to Wilkes-Barré, in 1787, for the first Court held under the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania, found no public building in the community in which such an important session as the trial of Col. John Franklin could be held. Instead, the Court procedings were held in the home of Col. Zebulon Butler. Inspired by the sentiment that law and order were again to come into their own in a vexed district, the settlers began the erection of a somewhat suitable building, as has been described in Chapter XXXIII. Even so small a public undertaking, however, dragged discouragingly, but eventually, in 1796, it was completed, and the community felt itself on the high road to a greater stability.
In October, 1790, came on the first general elections for Governor, in Pennsyl- vania, under the new Constitution. General Arthur St. Clair was the candidate of the Republican party, General James Mifflin, that of the Constitutionalists. Each had been president of the Supreme Council of the Commonwealth in earlier days. Although supported by Robert Morris, Frederick A. Muhlenberg and . other influential men of the eastern district of the State, General St. Clair was not generally known to the younger generation of voters. Moreover, his defeat in Ohio, at the hands of the Northwest Confederacy of Indians, in November, 1791- an unfortunate event which had left its mark in subsequent Indian atrocities-
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had tinged his military record with more or less odium. The election was warmly contested at Wyoming, as elsewhere, General Mifflin receiving a substantial majority of votes in Luzerne County, as well as through the State at large.
As if to quicken the lagging religious interest of the community, there appeared, on March 18, 1790, Jemima Wilkinson*, a remarkable character of her time, who preached to the settlers during a stay of a week in the community. Known as the "Universal Friend", she had already established a colony imbued with her doctrines, in New York, having in 1787 passed through Wilkes-Barré with some twenty-five adherents, on her way from Philadelphia to certain lands leased by her from the Six Nations. Just what impression the "Universal Friend" made at Wyoming, or whether any proselytes joined her colony here, is not left us to know from any record of the time. Col. Pickering, with his usual facility for recording events, has left the following description of the woman as she appeared at Wyoming:
"Jemima was a fine looking woman, of a good height; and 'tho not corpulent was inclined to embonpoint. Her hair was jet black, short and curled on her shoulders. She had fine eyes, good teeth and complexion. Her dress consisted of a silk purple robe, open in front. Her under- dress was of the finest white cambric or muslin. Round her throat she wore a large cravat, bordered with fine lace. She was very ignorant but possessed an uncommon memory. Although she could neither read nor write, it was said she knew the Bible by heart, from its having been read to her."
In the fall of 1890, the County Court divided the whole of Luzerne into eleven townships.t These retained old names familiar to Connecticut days, but six of the original townships were dropped by Court order, and their boundaries absorbed in the remainder. The eleven thus designated were: Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hanover, Newport, Exeter, Plymouth, Kingston, Salem, Tioga, Wya- lusing and Tunkhannock. The last three included nearly all the territory now included in the Counties of Lackawanna, Bradford, Susquehanna and Wyoming.
At the March session, in 1791, owing to complaint as to great distances which had to be traversed in order to reach a Justice, the Court set off Willing- boro township from the boundaries of Tioga. In 1782, upon petition of their inhabitants, Nescopeck and Providence Townships were added by contracting the area of Newport and Pittston Townships respectively, and in 1793, Hunting- ton Township was likewise erected from the boundaries of Salem.
A matter of general interest to Wyoming appears to have been the visit of a number of Sachems of the Six Nations, on their way to the Philadelphia
*** JEMIMA WILKINSON was extensively known as a religious imposter She was born in Rhode Island in 1753 and was educated a Quaker. About 1773, upon recovering from a fit of sickness, during which she had fallen into a syncope so that she was apparently dead, she announced that she had been raised from the dead and had received a divine commission as a religious teacber. Having made a few proselytes, she removed with them into western New York and settled about 18 miles from Geneva, calling her village "The New Jerusalem " In consequence of the ignorance of her followers, she was able to live in elegant style, having a half dozen beautiful damsels in attendance. She in- culcated poverty, but was careful to be a large land owner. She died in 1819. Joseph Brant once very adroitly dis- comforted her. As she professed to be Christ in the second coming, Brant tested her by speaking in several Indian languages, none of which she understood. He then disclosed her imposture. declaring that Jesus Christ must, of cour. e. understand all languages."
See, Stone's "Life and Times of Red Jacket," page 213.
tUnder the constitution of 1790, the governor appointed the Justices of the Peace to serve during good behavior. in districts to be made up of one or more townships. The following were so appointed:
1791-Lawrence Myers, Kingston township; Arnold Colt and William Ross, Solomon Avery and John Phillips, Wilkes-Barre district; Guy Maxwell, Tioga district; Peter Grubb and Nathan Beach. Kingston district; Christopher Hurlhut, Wilkes-Barre district; Joseph Kinney and Isaac Hancock, Tioga district; Minna Duhois, Willingboro district ; John Paul Schott, Wilkes-Barre town and township. 1793-Moses Coolbaugh. Tioga township 1796-Asahel Gregory, Willingboro township. 1797-Resolved Sessions, Tioga township. 1798-Noah Wadhams, Jr . King ton district; Oliver Trowbridge, Willingboro township; John T. Miller, Kingston district; James Campbell and Joseph Wright. Wilkes-Barre township. 1799-Charles E. Gaylord. Huntington township; Constant Searle. Providence township; Matthew Covell, Wilkes-Barre township; Henry V. Champion. Wyalusing township: Elisha Hardinz. Tunkhannock township; David Paine, Tioga township. 1800-George Espy, Hanover. Wilkes-Barré, etc., townships; Jacob Bittenbender, Nescopeck. Wilkes-Barre, etc., townships; Benjamin Newberry. Northmoreland, Tioga, etc .. townships; Thomas Duane. Wilkes-Barre township: Asa Eddy, Willingboro township (revoked March 28, 1805): Jonathan Stevens, Braintrim township; Guy Wells, Wyalusing township; Benjamin Carpenter. Kingston township; William Means, Tioga township; Zebulon Marcy. Tunkhannock; John Marcy and Thomas Tiffany, Willingboro township. 1801-David Barnum, Willingboro township. 1803-John Marsy, Nicholson, township. 1804-Bartlett Hines, Rush township.
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Council, in March of 1792 .* This Council was called to counteract the British influences which were still being exerted among the various tribes and had been responsible for recent uprisings against the American frontiers in the Northwest Territory. It was the hope of President Washington and his advisors, especially Colonel Pickering, the American Commissioner, that in reaching Philadelphia at that time, when the Congress was in session, they might be impressed with the physical and moral strength of the country, and might see with their own eyes how futile must be every future warlike effort to contest this strength.
Every effort was made to secure the attendance of Captain Joseph Brant, the acknowledged head of the remnant of the Six Nations, who had not moved west of the Ohio or into Canada. But the written invitations of Colonel Pickering, Secretary of War Knox, and of the President himself, the haughty Brant declined. He had been made much of by the British as an individual, and perhaps his recent trip to London, where he had been re- ceived by royalty and became an object of almost national curiosity, influenced his declination .. Years afterward, we are told in Stone's "Life of Brant" that the real underlying reason for refusing to visit the then Capital of the United States, was because he would have to as- sociate with a lot of Indians of inferior rank, and this he considered beneath his dignity. In the fall of 1791, he did visit Philadelphia, after a series of unhappy adventures in descending the Hudson river to New York, where his life was sev- eral times in jeopardy at the hands of friends and relatives of those who had suffered at the Cherry Valley Massacre.
Upon that occasion he refused to confer with no less a personage than the President himself.
RED JACKET
But the eloquent Red Jacket, who succeeded Brant as the acknowledged head of the Confederacy, after the latter's death, attended and became chief spokesman for the Indians at the Council.
So did Farmer's Brother, Big Peter and other notables of the Senecas, Oneidas and Onandaguas. They, with lesser sachems and their retinues, left their canoes at Wilkes-Barré and proceeded overland to Philadelphia.
During their short stay at Wyoming they seem to have been most cordially. treated by the settlers, who came from far distant country districts to gaze upon some of the warriors who had opposed them on the battle field, thirteen years before.
At the end of the session which dragged along much to the embarrassment of Philadelphia, until the end of May, all returned via the Wyoming Valley
*For an interesting account of the proceedings of this conference, see "Life of Pickering," Vol. III, pages 39-49. Colonel Pickering at that time was attending to his new duties as Postmaster General in Philadelphia but his wife and family were still at Wyoming. To these he wrote in his usual painstaking manner of the event.
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excepting Big Peter, who died at the capital from excessive hospitality of the whites, and was buried with full military honors, in the Friends cemetery.
In the first volume of records of the Court of Luzerne County, kept until 1790, in the legible handwriting of Colonel Pickering, there are recorded many signs of an awakening of the community.
Petitions were filed at every session for the building of new roads. The appointment of road viewers and supervisors engaged much of the Court's at- tention. A grand jury, at the March term of 1790, declared the Court House chimney a nuisance and ordered it torn down and rebuilt.
At the September term of the saine year, four new members of the bar were admitted to practice, thus indicating that legal matters of the county were, becoming of sufficient importance to engage more than the three practitioners who then lived at Wilkes-Barré; Ebenezer Bowman, Rosewell Wells and Putnam Catlin. The newly admitted members were Thomas Duncan, Jonathan Walker, AMERICAN STAGE-COACH OF 1795 From Weld's "Trav els." David W. Ketcham and George Echert. Breaches of the peace were numerous enough, to judge from the records, but the general run of the criminal side of the Court's business was limited.
At the spring term of 1791, Zebulon Marcy was indicted for challenging A. Atherton to a duel, but before trial, Mr. Marcy seems to have surreptitiously left the county and his bondsmen suffered accordingly.
An interesting but belated report of financial conditions of Luzerne, was filed with the Court at the same session. Abel Yarington, County Treasurer, stated that he had collected the sum of 370£ 14s. and 1012p. from taxes, in the year 1788, the sum of 553£ 16s. and 2p. in 1789, and the further sum of 506£ 4s. and 9p. in 1790, making a total of 1430£ 15s. and 972p. for the three years; something less than $5,000 in Continental currency of the time. Mr. Yarrington, however, asked to be credited with expenditures of only 1214£ and a few shillings on behalf of the county, leaving a balance on hand of 215£.
The same Court Term appears to have been an unusual period of accounting. Auditors named by the judges stated "That the Trustees for building a Court House and gaol have made a mistake in charging the county twice in an amount of 1£ 3s. and 4p. for the same thing. That their accounts are otherwise regular, excepting a mistake of two or three pence in the additions of par- ticulars."
At the sitting of the Grand Jury in 1792, (Nathan Landon ; foreman) it was recommended that the jail have a vault, a fence and a well.
In a previous Chapter was mentioned the fact that the first floor of the Court House was used, when the building was completed, as a jail and a residence for Stephen Tuttle, the first jailor. The unsuitableness of the place, as well as a growing need for safe confinement of prisoners, lead Colonel John Franklin,
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High Sheriff of the county when this term was held, to add his protest to that of the Grand Jury in the following language:
"John Franklin, Esq., High Sheriff, represents to the Court that he has examined the prison of this County and is of opinion it is insufficient, therefore he cannot consent to trust prison- ers therein at his risque."
Pearce in his "Annals of Luzerne County," narrates a story which hinged about the rude hewn log structure of the time. "During the sitting of the Supreme Court, on one occasion," so runs the story, "an unusual noise disturbed his Honor, Judge Mckean who, in a stern voice, commanded 'silence.' The noise, however, continued, when the Court sent for Jailor Tuttle who, evidently much incensed, informed his honor that the d-d hogs had got at his corn in the garret by coming up the outside steps that morning. Mr. Tuttle was ordered to eject the in- truders forthwith. There proved to be but one hog, which rushed forth with a tremendous grunt, capsizing Tuttle, as well as the gravity of the court."
Whether the well was dug or the fence built, does not appear. But the Grand Jury for the November session of 1793, reported as follows:
"Having viewed the county jail and the jailyard the grand jury do find that the apartments . in which prisoners are confined are by no means suitable for the reception of human beings at this inclement season-it is recommended that a close stove, together with a sheet iron pipe be im- mediately erected in one of the rooms.
"PETER GRUBB, Foreman."
The Court House, in spite of its flaws in construction, was used by the Rev. Jacob Johnson* for conducting divine services. As has been noted, Mr. Johnson had been ministering to the spiritual wants of the settlers, irrespective of creed, since 1773. Through his efforts a church edifice had been begun in Wilkes-Barré prior to 1778, but it, together with practically all other buildings, had been burned by the savages after the Battle of Wyoming. From the return of the settlers to the valley, until 1791, no suitable building was available for church purposes, but meetings were, nevertheless, regularly conducted in private homes, school buildings and frequently in seasonable weather, out of doors.
At this time there appears to have been but one building in the county classed as a church. The Paxtang Boys, who had settled Hanover township, were largely of the Presbyterian faith. A year or two previous to the erection of the Court House, they had combined their efforts in the building of a small frame structure on Hanover Green, whose pulpit was, from time to time, supplied by frontier missionaries.
The Rev. Elias Von Bunschoten, a German Reformed Congregational minister from Minisink, visited Hanover upon many occasions, and in 1791, after an extended stay, organized the first Congregational society in that com- munity.
He was followed, in 1792, by Rev. Andrew Gray, a Scotch Irish preacher of notable eloquence who, early in his pastorate, married Mary, the daughter of Captain Lazarus Stewart with whom he shortly afterward removed to Pough- keepsie, New York. At this period also, Rev. Noah Wadhamst, who had been an early arrival at Wyoming and had settled at Plymouth, was preaching al- ternately at Plymouth and Kingston.
It was due to the exertions of Rev. Mr. Johnson that "Old Ship Zion," Wilkes-Barré's first and perhaps most famous church edifice, was later to raise its
*For a sketch of the life of Rev. Jacob Johnson, see Vol. 11, page 744.
*See sketch of Rev. Noah Wadhams, Vol. II, page 738.
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lofty steeple and proclaim the church hour by its sonorous bell. Back in Mr. John- son's mind dwelt the memory of an incident during the trial of Colonel Franklin for treason, at the first session, of the Luzerne Court, which made him feel that a court room was not a fit place for his preaching. Mr. Johnson was a Franklin partisan and waxed eloquent in his partisanship. Upon this particular occasion he had denounced Pennsylvania, its Supreme Court and its brand of justice, from the pulpit, in no uncertain terms.
By order of Chief Justice Mckean, he was ordered to be brought before the Court for his utterances and required to give bond for his future "good be- havior."
This slight put upon him in no wise lessened the will with which he began his labors for a church edifice in 1791. Through his exertions, his congregation in that year appointed Zebulon Butler, Nathan Waller, John Paul Schott, Timothy Pickering and Daniel Gore, to select a site for the building and solicit subscriptions for the structure. A year later another committee was appointed, at a town meeting, to lend encouragement to the matter, and it was decided to secure funds by the sale of the public ferry which plied a somewhat lucrative trade at Northampton street. Mr. Johnson was not to live to see his labors rewarded.
He died on March 15, 1797, four years before the erection of the edifice actually began, and was buried in a grave prepared by his own hands back of his home on Westfield's Hill, "facing the east", as he requested, "so that he could see the glorious pageant of the Messiah in His second descent."*
The outdoor life of the early settlers kept the general health of the com- munity at a high average. Fever and ague was the almost universal complaint, as it is along most bottom lands thrown open to cultivation.
An epidemic of small pox, brought from Philadelphia, had swept Wyoming in 1777. Pearce mentions the presence of typhus fever, in 1778, and Miner records an unusually hot summer of 1780, followed by an epidemic fever, widespread in extent and distressing in severity. The spring before the massacre was memorable by reason of what was called "putrid fever", several prominent settlers falling victim to its ravages, among them, the wife of Dr. William Hooker Smith and his daughter, the wife of Dr. Lemuel Gustin.
The first physician of Wyoming was Dr. Joseph Sprague, who came witlı his family from Poughkeepsie, in 1771. His arrival appears to have been induced rather by a desire for obtaining lands than for the purpose of practicing his profession. He was voted a settling right in the township of Wilkes-Barré a year after his arrival, and later became a proprietor of the township of Lackawanna. No name among all the early arrivals is entered more frequently upon records of the time, in real estate exchanges, than is that of Dr. Sprague. He, however, found time to relieve physical distress in the neighborhood. Until the coming of Dr. William Hooker Smith, a year later, he was the only practitioner in a territory 150 miles in extent, from Cochecton on the Delaware to Sunbury. The Sprague family furnished the earliest divorce case in the annals of Luzerne County. In 1788, his wife, Eunice Sprague, filed a libel in divorce against the doctor, alleging "cruel and barbarous treatment." The circumstances are not of record, but appear to have been sufficient to secure a decree in her favor. Mrs. Sprague lived at the southwest corner of North Main and Union street
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