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 IV > Part 13
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Here, in later years, after he had established branch stores in other parts of the country, Mr. Hollenback maintained his principal establishment. He had partners in his various enterprises, several of whom in after years became prom- inent in the business world.
In a "True List of the Polls and Estate of the Town of Westmoreland" for the year 1780, "Matthew Hollenback" is rated at £21, and John Hegerman, his business partner, at the same amount. In the rate list for 1781 Messrs. Hollen- back and Hegerman, are assessed as follows: Two polls £18 or £36; four cows $3 or ť12; one swine, El: two and a half acre lot, £1, 5s; as Traders, £50. Total. £100, 5%. In the "Bill of Losses" mentioned on page 95 the loss of "Matthew Holonback" is stated at £671,3s .- the largest amount, with one exception, set forth in the "Bill "
On February 1, 1787, the first election of civil officers in the new county of Luzerne took place, and Matthias Hollenback was elected one of two Justices of the Peace for the First District and on May 11th, following, he was commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council, a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County. When a new Constitution was adopted by Pennsylvania, in 1790, Judge Ilollenback was, with Col. Nathan Denison, commis- sioned an Associate Judge of the Courts of Luzerne County, and this office he held until his death-a period of over thirty-eight years.
In January, 1789, Colonel Pickering, the Clerk of the variou : Court : of Luzerne County, wrote to President Mitilin of the Supreme Executive Council: "Mr. Hollenback, the Justice residing here in the town, is obliged frequently by his business to be absent several weeks together, and : ometimes three or four months, and at such times the inability to attend of a single Justice suspends the business of the Orphan's Court, and on any special sessions of the peace."
In the Augumn of 1787, when the militia establishment of the county of Luzerne was organized, Mr. Hollenback was commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Colonel of the "First Battalion of Luzerne County Militia." In 1792 he was re-elected to this office, and in 1793, when there was a reorganization of the militia, he was elected and commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 3d Regiment, Luzerne Brigade of Militia.
From May, 1819, to May, 1820, he was Burgess of the borough of Wilkes-Barre.
Colonel Hollenback was the First Treasurer of Luzerne County, and from 1807 to 1829 was one of the Trustees of the Wilkes-Barre Academy. "He always took great interest in religious affairs and the welfare of the Church. He gave largely towards building the first church built in Wilke-Barre and was generally punctual in his attendance upon the services. * * * He was in many respects an extraordinary man, endowed with great capacity and courage, and with an indomitable will which overcame all obstacles. In all his business relations he was a pattern of punctuality, scrup- ulously faithful to public trusts and private confidence.
His powers of endurance were very remarkable; he took all his journeys on horseback, and his business interests called him from Niagara to Philadelphia. Between Wyoming and the New York State line he owned numerous tracts of wild land which he often visited unattended, travelim, for days and even weeks through the wilds of Northern Penn- sylvania, and being as much at home in the wildness as in his counting-room.
"Judge Hollenback exerted much influence upon the progress and elevation of the country. He provided employ- ment for many poor laborers, he furnished supplies to multitudes of new settlers, he took an active part in the early public improvements, he kept in circulation a large capital, and he was a living, almost ever-present example of industry and economy. Not Wyoming alone, but the whole country between Wilkes-Barre and Elmira, owes much of its early development and present prosperity to the business arrangements and the indomitable perseverance of Matthias Hollenback."
At the time of his death, which occurred at Wilkes-Barre, February 18, 1829, the day following his seventy-second birthday-Judge Hollenback was probably the wealthiest man in Northeastern Pennsylvania. As early as 1802. he owned more than one-tenth of the land comprised within bounds of the town-plot of Wilkes-Barré.
The only son of Judge Hollenback and brother of Mrs. Sarah (Hollenback) Cist was George Matson Hollenback. who, inheriting a large fortune from his father, succeeded him in many of his business pursuits, and for nearly half a century was connected with all the public affairs of Wyoming Valley.
Mrs. Sarah (Burritt) Hollenback, widow of Judge Hollentack, died in Wilkes-Barre, July 24. 1833, in the eighty- third year of her age. She was born November 19. 1750, in Connecticut, the second child of Capt. Peleg Burritt. Jr., and his second wife Deborah Beardslee. Peleg Burritt, Jr., was I orn in 1721, in Stratford, Conn .. son of Peleg and grand- son of Ensign Stephen Burritt, who, according to Hinman, was a famous Indian fighter, and Commissary General to the army in King Philip's War. Stephen's father, William, the first of the name in this country, was an original settler in Stratford, Connecticut, prior to 1650.
According to Plumb's "History of Hanover" Capt. Peleg Burritt, Jr , removed, al out 1773 er '4, with his family, from Connecticut to Hanover, in Wyoming Valley, where Sarah Burritt was married (1:t) to Cyprian Hibbard, third son of Ebenezer and Hannah (Downer) Hibbard of Windham County, Connecticut.
Cyprian Hibbard's name first appears in the annals of Wyoming in a "List of settlers on the Susquehanna." prepared in May, 1772. He signed at Wilkes-Barre, October 3, 1772, the memorial mentioned on page 284. He took part in the battle of Wyoming, July 3, 1778, and was slain by the savages on the bank of the river while trying to make his escape. He was survived by his wife and one daughter, and some years subsequently the former was married to Matthias Hollenback. as previously noted.
CHAPTER XLII.
TRANSPORTATION AS THE GREAT AMERICAN PROBLEM-THE PACK HORSE AND "CONESTOGA" WAGON-THE ROLLICKING STAGE COACH DAYS OF WILKES-BARRE-THE FATE OF STODDARDSVILLE-CANAL CHAL- LENGES HIGHWAY-WILKES-BARRE HAS PACKET BOATS DAILY TO PHILADELPHIA-THE REDOUBT BASIN-MILL CREEK AQUEDUCT - WYOMING'S FIRST RAILWAY-NAVIGA- TION OF THE SUSQUEHANNA BY STEAMBOAT- ITS TRAGEDY AND ITS FAILURE.
We hear no more of the clinking hoof, And the stage coach rattling by ; For the steam king rules the traveling world, And the old pike's left to die. The grass creeps o'er the flinty path. And the stealthy daisies steal
Where once the stage horse, day by day, Lifted his iron heel.
No more the weary stages dreads The toil of coming morn;
No more the bustling landlord runs
At the sound of the echoing horn. For the dust lies still upon the road, And the bright eyed children play, Where once the clattering hoof and wheel, Rattled along the way.
No more do we hear the cracking whip,
Or the strong wheel's rumbling sound;
And ho! the water drives us on, And an iron horse is found.
The coach stands rusting in the yard,
And the horse has sought the plow,
We have spanned the world with an iron rail And the steam-king rules us now.
The old turnpike is a pike no more,
Wide open stands the gate;
We have made us a road for our horses to stride,
And we ride at a flying rate; We have filled the valley and leveled the hills,
And tunneled the mountain's side,
And round the rough crag's dizzy verge Fearlessly now we ride.
On! on with a haughty front! A puff, a shriek and a bound- While the tardy echoes wake too late
To babble back the sound. And the old pike road is left alone, And the stages seek the plow; We have circled the world with an iron rail, And the steam-king rules us now .- Anonymous (1859)
Every problem in the building of the American Republic has been, in the last analysis, a problem in transportation. Even the casual reader of history will find, in studying the period embraced, roughly speaking, in the first half of the
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1869
nineteenth century, that the perpetual rivalries between packhorseman and wag- oner, riverman and canal boatinan, steamboat owner and railway capitalist, led to a more rapid advancement of transportation ideas in the United States than can be found elsewhere in Christendom.
On September 1, 1784, General Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his journey to the West. He was then at the height of his fame and in the prime of life. Going over the same route that, as a young militia Colonel, he had tra- versed in the Braddock campaign and then plunging deeper into the wilderness beyond the Ohio, it is small wonder that a man of his foresight and business acumen returned with a correct vision of what would be necessary to transform the country into a homogenous, happy and rich nation. "Open all the communi- cation which nature has afforded" he wrote Henry Lee, "between the Atlantic States and the Western territory and encourage the use of them to the utmost and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a link in the chain of Federal Union."
Taking Detroit as a key position, Washington deftly traced in his Journal the main lines of internal trade. He foresaw New York improving her natural lines of communication by way of the Mohawk and Lake Erie. He pointed out to Pennsylvania the importance of linking the Schuylkill and Susquehanna and of opening two avenues westward to Pittsburg and Lake "Erie. In a general way he forecast not alone canal systems which were to follow, but great railway arteries of the Pennsylvania, Erie and other systems as we know them today.
Indeed the vision of a great man was needed in this respect. The struggle of England and France for supremacy in and possession of the New World was not alone one of territorial aggrandisement. An extension of trade was uppermost in the mind of each. Even after France lost the keystone of her arch of military posts along the Ohio, in the surrender of Fort Pitt, she continued to monopolize the extensive trade of the Ohio country through direct commercial routes to Montreal and Quebec.
Pennsylvania early recognized the importance of this trade. One of the main reasons for organizing the Society for Promoting the Inland Navigation of the United States, at Philadelphia, in 1791, was to excite public interest in an undertaking to couple that city up with this desirable western commerce. Baltimore likewise took steps to reach the western river systems by improving the Potomac and extending a road over passes of the Alleghenys. New York was not behind in realizing that her future depended largely upon the creation of channels of commerce which would threaten the trade of New France. Indeed, the rivalry of different eastern cities, no less than the rivalry of methods of trans- portation, accounted in large measure for the mushroom growth of highways, canals and eventually railroads, all of which were over-built in the days of their more pronounced development.
The year 1800 saw the packhorse as almost the exclusive means of trans- portation between the East and the Ohio country. Fertile stock breeding grounds, lying between the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers and peopled largely by thrifty "Pennsylvania Dutch," multiplied the packhorse.
Here, in the first granary of civilized America, Germans, Scotch Irish and English, bred horses worthy of the name. These animals, crossed with the Indian pony from New Spain produced the wiry, wise and sturdy creature which could transport a load of some two hundred pounds of merchandise across the rough and
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narrow Allegheny trails. This animal and the heavier but intelligent Conestoga horse from the same pastures, revolutionized early inland commerce. It might be stated in passing, that practically all routes westward adopted by various modes of transportation of the whites were those which had been opened by huge herds of deer and buffalo as the Indian followed them in intermittent pursuit. They sought the best fords of rivers which afterwards became the foundation sites of our bridges. Instinct directed them to mountain passes along streams to various water sheds. The Indian path followed these rude tracks of the hunted beasts. And the white man followed the Indian trail almost as instinctively. The Phila- delphia and Lancaster turnpike, as has been recorded in a previous Chapter, was the first "artificial" highway of America. At its western terminus stood waiting the packhorse convoy, ready to transport merchandise to the West and return with grain, whiskey and furs. Indicative of the extent of this trade thus conveyed from the East to Pittsburg and trans-shipped southward by river, are figures of the port of Louisville which, by reason of control of the Missis- sippi being in alien hands, was a port of entry as were New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk. These figures totaled the sum of 28,581 pounds in Pennsylvania currency as the value of cargoes passing the falls of the Ohio in January, Feb -. ruary and March of the year 1800, while for the final quarter of the same year, dry goods to the value of $32,000 appeared among the items of these cargoes.
It was the ever increasing tide of this same river commerce which induced the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which transaction, although much criticised in portions of the east, was forever to set free the commerce of a mighty river. Its tonnage, indeed, shortly before the Civil War, came to exceed even that of Great Britain itself.
CONESTOGA WAGON.
However valuable the packhorse was in the early processes of commercial development, he was soon to give place to the "Conestoga wagon" whose services became historically important.
Originating in the Lancaster region, and taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from the district itself, this vehicle differed from anything known in England or elsewhere in America, because of the curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped bottom, higher by some twelve inches at
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each end than in the middle, made the wagon a safer conveyance across mountains and over rough roads than the older straight bed conveyance.
The Conestoga was covered with canvas, but the lines of the bed were also carried out in the framework above and gave to the whole an effect of a ship, swaying to and fro along the billowy roads. The wheels of the wagon were heavily built and wore tires four and six inches in thickness. The harness of the horses attached, usually six in number, was proportionately heavy, the back bands being fifteen inches in width, the hip bands ten, while traces consisted of ponderous iron chains.
The color of the original Conestoga never varied. The under frame was always blue and the upper parts were red. Wilkes-Barre was early to contribute its share to the turnpike and the consequent Conestoga.
The six horse teams of Stover, Bywater and Pettebone, in their trips to Philadelphia, brought most of the goods for Wilkes-Barre merchants over the Easton & Wilkes-Barré turnpike for about $1.25 per hundred pounds.
"The old Conestoga wagon," says Wright, in his History of Plymouth, (1873) "drawn by four horses, was the vehicle of transportation on the turnpike. It has disappeared; but it was a goodly sight to see one of those huge wagons drawn along by four strong, sleek, and well-fed horses, with bearskin housings and 'Winkers tipped with red.' It was very common to have a fifth horse on the lead. I have seen trains of these wagons, miles in length, on the great road leading to Pittsburg, as late as 1830. It was the only way of transportation over the Allegheny chain westward. A wagon would carry three, four, and some- times five tons. The bodies were long, projecting over front and rear, ribbed with oak, covered with canvas, and generally painted blue. There were several persons, residents of the valley, who made it their only occupation to carry goods for the early merchants here. Joshua Pettebone, one of this number, is still living in Kingston at an advanced age."
Indeed, to the financial success of the Eastern and Wilkes-Barré turnpike, whose construction has been previously noted, may be attributed a measure of the mania of turnpike building which seemed in years subsequent to its com- pletion to seize upon the whole country. From New England to the Carolinas, newly chartered companies built every variety of toll road which fancy or ex- perience dictated-earth, corduroy, plank and stone.
Nor was the National Treasury itself free from the onslaughts of the road builder. An act foreshadowing the Cumberland, or "National" road, was passed by Congress, in 1802, and called for "making public roads leading from the navig- able waters emptying in the Atlantic to the State of Ohio, and beyond same." Cum- berland, Maryland, a point reachable from both Balti- more and Philadelphia, was chosen as the eastern ter- minus. Commissioners were named in 1806, on the part of the government, to locate the national artery. In 1811, a contract was let for the first ten miles of the road, reaching out from Cumberland.
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In succeeding years other contracts followed. Slowly but surely a mag- nificent highway, sixty-four feet in width, crept westward through the Potomac gateway, over mountain passes to the Youghiogheny, the first "western water" and thence through Uniontown to Brownsville, where it crossed the muddy Monongahela and then, by alnost a straight line, through Washington County to Wheeling, West Virginia, with a spur to Pittsburg.
Eventually this splendid road wound on through the Ohio country to St. Louis. Today it has come back to us in the form of the Lincoln Highway, much favored by automobilists and bearing much commerce propelled by the gaso- line engine.
The eastern division of the road was first used in 1817, and a year later mail coaches of the United States were running on a regular schedule between Washington and Wheeling.
In Luzerne County, as elsewhere, the road building urge proved irresistible. Between the years 1810 and 1830, the following local enterprises, mentioned by Pearce in his Annals (1860) were either completed or in process of construction :
"The old Nescopeck and Lehigh road was transformed into a turnpike, under the name of the Susquehanna and Lehigh Turnpike. The Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike, extending from Berwick in Columbia County, opposite Nescopeck, through Fairmount and Huntington Townships in Luzerne and thence to Towanda, was constructed at an enormous expense to the state and to individual stockholders. The stock finally became valueless, and the road was aban- doned. Through the influence and energy of H. W. Drinker and Thomas Meredith, Esqs., what is known as Drinker's Turnpike was constructed, connecting the northern portion of this county with the Easton and Wilkesbarre Turnpike at Taylorsville.
"The Wilkesbarre and Bridgewater Turnpike, extending northward, via Tunkhannock and Montrose was also constructed, and in common with the other roads, except the Easton and Wilkes- barre and the Susquehanna and Lehigh, was abandoned by its company many years ago."
It might be added that the Bridgewater and Wilkes-Barré Turnpike Com- pany, through its Treasurer, George Denison, called for the payment of arrearages on stock subscriptions in an advertisement published March 15, 1815. The high- way itself was completed in the fall of the following year.
A movement towards building a turnpike from Wilkes-Barré to Mauch Chunk was instituted in 1822. It was not until 1827, however, that a commission was appointed by the Governor to undertake the task. Isaac Hartzell, William S. Ross and Ziba Bennett were named on this commission from Luzerne County. The survey led through Soloman's Gap and extended through Mauch Chunk to Northampton in Lehigh County. A year later the road was opened for toll collections.
Another enterprise, early in conception but late in completion, was the Berwick and Elmira turnpike. The construction company was chartered in 1807, and had completed a considerable stretch of the road from Berwick north- ward, in 1810. The northern section into Elmira was not finished, however, until 1825, when a stage line, scheduling three trips per week, was maintained between the two points.
In referring to what was generally called the "State Road," the last link in which construction was completed in 1838, the Wyoming Republican, of Feb- ruary 1, 1837, has this to say of the highway itself and the route it opened:
"A few years ago the Legislature passed a law authorizing the construction of a State Road from the Borough of Wilkesbarre to the Berwick and Mauch Chunk turnpike, and thence on through Tamaqua and Port Carbon to Pottsville. The distance from Wilkes-Barre to Hazleton, the place where the state road reaches the Berwick and Mauch Chunk turnpike is twenty-four miles, thence to Beaver Meadows 4 miles, Beaver Meadows to Mauch Chunk 12 miles, and from Mauch Chunk to Philadelphia 80 miles, making the distance from Wilkesbarre to Philadelphia by this route 120 miles, the same distance as the route by Easton. From Hazleton to Philadelphia, the road is a good one, and near one-half of the State Road from Wilkesbarre to Hazleton is well
1873
worked, so that with but little additional expense, that route to Philadelphia may be rendered the easiest, safest and most pleasant highway to our great market. The State Road from Wilkes- barre to Hazleton and Beaver Meadows is already much travelled and is destined to be more so. To this valley its completion is of much importance. We all feel the benefit of a good road to Car- bondale, now our best market for agricultural produce. It may not, however, long continue so. The country about is rapidly improving and may soon fill the market to the exclusion of more distant competitors. On the contrary, Hazleton and Beaver Meadows are villages within twenty- four and twenty-eight miles of us, rapidly rising into the importance of Carbondale, and being situated in the midst of a comparatively barren country, must ever remain a good market for the produce of this valley. Match Chunk, Tamaqua and its neighboring villages are within forty miles of us, and by the State Road may easily be rendered accessible to our farmers."
In spite of a patent fact that road building for the remuneration of stock- holders had long passed its promising stages, local interests still continued to promote highways of this character even as late as Civil War times .*
One of those later constructed was by the Wilkes-Barré and Providence Plank Road Company, chartered in 1851, which, a year later, finished what was then a modern plank road from Wilkes-Barré to Pittston, at a cost of $43,500. Before this section of the highway had been finished, however, the stock dropped
in price from its par of twenty-five dollars to four dollars per share, and the venture ended without reaching its proposed terminus at Providence.
The Scranton and Carbondale Plank Road was constructed in the years 1853-1854. It like- wise endured financial difficulties and in 1860, abandoned the section from Scranton to the Blakely Township line.
RRE
WILKES-B
ROAD
LUZERNE Another highway, once of promising import- co ance was that constructed about the same time, from Providence to Waverly, N. Y. This was THE later converted, at considerable expense, from a plank road to a turnpike and is still is use, with the toll features long since elimi- nated. The Bear Creek and Lehigh Turnpike, constructed from Port Jenkins, the head of Lehigh navigation, to connect with the Easton and Wilkes-Barré at Bear Creek, was another venture which, while failing to inake an expected return to its stockholders, became a lumber road of considerable importance. The Gouldsborough Plank Road was still another joint stock enterprise in what was then Luzerne County. It connected the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western
*As a matter of fact the Commonwealth began unloading all its interests in the stocks of turnpike corporations as early as 1843. These included numerous holdings in local highway companies as evidenced by the following text of a hand bill circulated in Wilkes-Barré in the Spring of 1844:
"SALE OF STOCKS "OWNED BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
"In pursuance of the provisions of the 4th, 5th and 6th sections of the Act of Assembly, passed the 8th of April, 1843, entitled "An Act to provide for the payment of the Domestic Creditors of this Commonwealth, sale of State Stocks, and for other purposes," there will be exposed to sale, at Wilkesbarre, on the 29th day of JUNE next, at 10 o'clock, A. M.
No. of Shares
Companies
Par Value 50
" 430
Wilkesbarre Bridge Company
" 250
Easton & Wilkesbarre Turnpike Co.
50
"1500
Susquehanna and Lehigh
do
100
" 240
Milford and Owego
do
25
" 300
Cayuga and Susquehanna
do
20
" 516
Bridgewater & Wilkesbarre
do
50
.. 160
Bethany & Dingman's Choice do
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