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 39
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There was so much in the thought of those responsible for the Home as to obligations due the families of absent soliders that its work in the first years of existence was confined almost exclusively to caring for those made orphans by the war. In fact, the institution was most frequently referred to in its early life as the "Soldiers Orphanage." It was this phase of its ministrations that actuated the new building, dedicated in 1866, which is still the main structure of the institution. It was not long, however, before Pennsylvania itself adopted measures looking to homes of its own which would provide for these orphans and four such institutions were projected in as many sections of the state. Fore- seeing that eventually revenues from the state for the care of those then in charge
Alexander Farnham ,Calvin Wadhams, R. C. Shoemaker, A. H. Winton, H. W. Palmer, H. B. Payne, Jerome G. Miller, C. D. Foster. D. C. Harrington, George Loveland and a number of gentlemen not members of the profession.
On April 15, 1867, a meeting of the members of the bar was held endorsing Mr. McClintock for the position in landatory terms.
To these earnest solicitations of his friends Mr. McClintock replied as follows:
Wilkes-Barre, April 24, 1867.
Gentlemen: Your communication of the 15th inst., informing me of the proceedings of a meeting of the bar of Luzerne County held on the 8th inst., was duly received. I have given careful consideration to the reasons so kindly urged to induce me to permit the use of my name for the position of additional law judge for our several courts, under the act recently passed. I did not suppose that anything could be urged to induce me to hesitate in answering such a suggestion, but your strong appeal, and the appeal made to me from my fellow citizens, without distinction of party, have forced upon me the consideration of whether my duty should over-rule my inclination, and have, I confess greatly embarrassed me. I would like to oblige my friends, and am deeply sensible of the compliment they have paid me; but if. before receiving such expressions of confidence in my fitness for the position, I distrusted my ability to discharge the duties thereof with acceptance, I certainly am now convinced that I could not fulfill the expectations which it is evident my brethren of the bar and my fellow citizens entertain of my qualifications for the office. The standard which, in your kind appreciation of my qualifications, you esteem me fitted to fill is so high that I cannot under take even to try to come up to it. I am averse to public life-the result, probably, of too exclusive attention to the calls of my profession. I greatly prefer the bar to the bench, and cannot bring myself to the point of consenting to the use of my name for the position of judge. Another consideration has its influence in bringing me to this conclusion. I have been counsel for many years for interests that embrace a large portion of the business and property of our county. My relations to those interests have been so confidential and intimate that I could not, on the bench, feel free to sit in cases where those interests were involved, even though they might arise after my relations as counsel to such interests had ceased, and I could not, therefore, dispose of very much of what must, in the next few years, make up the greater part of the business of our courts.
With every disposition to oblige my friends, and with deep sense of their kindness in the expression of their par- tiality to me for the position of additional law judge, I must decline, decidedly and absolutely, the use of my name for the office. I cannot consent to accept the position. Very truly, your friend,
ANDREW T. MCCLINTOCK.
This refusal was a sore disappointment to the legal fraternity and to all people who recognized Mr. McClintock's ability, for they knew that one of the brightest legal minds in the Commonwealth had, unfortunately for the bench, determined to stay in the ranks of private practitioners.
When Governor Hartranft appointed, in 1877, the committee to revise the constitution of the State, he included in the committee the most eminent legal minds in the State, justices of the Supreme Court, judges well known in the lower courts and Senators. Mr. McClintock was named as a Member of the committee and participated actively in the important councils that followed.
In 1870 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Princeton College.
Mr. McClintock's practice embraced multitudinous interests of grave moment and he conducted, while in active practice, the most responsible cases on the trial lists of our courts. He was counsel for the Delaware and Lackawanna & Western, the Pennsylvania, the Delaware & Hudson and other railroad and coal companies.
At the time of his death he was president of the board of directors of the Wilkes-Barre City Hospital and of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, a director of the Home for Friendless Children, of the Wyoming National Bank, president of the Luzerne County Bible Society, president of the Hollenback Cemetery Association and president of the Wilkes-Barre Law and Library Association. He was a member and elder of the First Presbyterian Church and has been chosen a number of times as delegate to the General Assembly of that denomination.
Mr. Mcclintock was married May 11, 1841, to Augu ta, daughter of Jacob Cist, of Wilkes-Barre. Five children were the issue of this marriage, three of whom, with the widow survived him.
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of the local Home would no longer be forthcoming and that it would then be dependent upon its own resources for support, its trustees in 1867 took steps to endow the Home in order that its future might be assured. Under an impetus of gifts of $5,000 each from William C. Gildersleeve and Judge William S. Ross, an endowment fund of approximately $20,000 was shortly created. Invested in securities created in a period of inflation immediately following the war, the value of this fund was greatly impaired by losses but was to be restored in large measure by a further gift from Mr. Gildersleeve of $5,000, mentioned as a bequest in his will.
In the early seventies, the withdrawal of the orphans of veterans began. when the Soldiers Orphans Institution of the state opened its doors at Harford, Susquehanna County. From that time forth, the Home has adhered to the original mission of its founding and its splendid work in connection with the care and schooling of local orphans in general has attracted wide attention at home and abroad.
Generous gifts in more recent years to particular needs of the institution include a bequest in the will of Isaac S. Osterhout of a fund, the income from which is to provide a Fourth of July entertainment for the children; the gift of a fund by Mrs. William H. Conyngham endowing an annual Christmas treat for inmates, and the erection of a modern annex to the original building, the gift of Mrs. Allan H. Dickson. To the income from these and other gifts and be- quests which have been forthcoming from time to time and the proceeds of an annual "Donation Day" in October, the Home has conducted its work and lived within its income under the prudent management of its boards.
Upon the material prosperity of the community, the war had but slight effect. In spite of furnishing more than its full quota of troops to state and nation, its population kept up the full normal of increase.
Coal was a commodity which, as in case of the World War, found itself in steady demand. The full effect of inflation of the currency system of the country, resulting in varying degrees of premium on gold at the expense of other commodities, was not felt until after years. Hence, it is not surprising that new banks were to come forward with assets not alone intended to facilitate local business but for the purpose of assisting the nation in immense financial under- takings of the time. The first of these, and the only addition to the organized banking system of the community since the foundation of the Wyoming Bank, was the First National, which secured the thirteenth charter from the government under the then new and untried national banking act. It was organized April 24, 1863, and chartered July 21st following. Its capital at the beginning was $51,500. James McLean was elected its first president, Thomas Wilson being named the first cashier. The bank was opened for business August 3, 1863, since which time it had been known and esteemed as one of the solid financial institutions of North- eastern Pennsylvania. The existence of the Second National, of which a sketch has been given in a previous Chapter, began only a few months later, it being chartered September 19, 1863.
These banks were to care for the financial needs of the community as well as take their part in such national financing as could reasonably be expected of them for a period of nearly fifteen years thereafter before additional banks were established.
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While in no wise attributable to any phase of war, it so happened that two of the greatest floods the community has known were to wreck their vengence during the war period. One, by far the less destructive coincided almost exactly with the outbreak of the conflict. The other, known as the "Great Flood" or, upon occasion, as the "St. Patrick's Flood" followed as the hostile armies were separating.
The first great overflowing of the Susquehanna of which there is any local record occurred in 1784. The water was so high as to injure ammunition in Fort Wyoming on the public common. A horse was also drowned in the settle- ment at the same time. The next was the great "pumpkin" flood of 1786. Both of these have received previous mention. There were other floods of greater or lesser magnitude in 1807, 1809, 1831, 1833, 1841, 1842, 1843 and 1846. The last occurred in the Spring, the water standing three and a half feet deep on the river bank in Wilkes-Barré There was another in July, 1850, which extended to all portions of the country round about, preventing mails from reaching Wilkes-Barré for several days. In the following September the water was so high as to cover the flats between Wilkes-Barré and Kingston, and there was no communication between the two places except by means of boats.
The flood of 1861 appears to have escaped lengthy mention in local pub- lications, due largely to the fact that prospects of civil conflict proved a topic of major consideration. No definite marks of the stage of water reached by the river on February 12th and 13th, 1861, when at its crest, seem to have been recorded. But that it was "higher than at any time in fifty years" sums up the unanimous verdict of editors who mentioned it. Like others before and since, the freshet of this Spring was made doubly destructive by ice gorges. The river had been frozen without intermission from late December until a warm rain started the ice. Above Wilkes-Barre a huge ice dam formed and the water, retarded in its natural course, cut a new channel for itself through the Kingston flats, marked by the fast disappearing "pond holes" of the present. A pier of the old covered bridge again suffered in this flood, making passage for teams and travellers unsafe, it being late in March before the bridge was open even to pedestrians. The unsurfaced road from the western end of the bridge to Kingston was entirely washed away and practically all of the flats were so covered with huge ice cakes, trees and other debris left by the ebbing tide that it was weeks before a new road could be opened. On the Wilkes-Barré side, the gas plant was badly damaged and the community went without its customary gas lights for two dreary nights. Cellars of River Street were filled to the brim for the first time within the memory of the generation of that day.
But the damage done in 1861 was comparable in small degree with what was to follow in the Spring of 1865. An Indian tradition that a "Susquehanna Flood comes only once in every fourteen years" was rudely shattered by the unexpected deluge of the latter year. An unusually severe winter, lasting well into March, set the stage for the highest flood ever recorded in the Susquehanna basin. Warm rains of the 12th started the ice, which jammed against piers of the Market Street bridge
March 15th brought a torrential rainfall with un- usually high temperature On St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, the rapidly rising stream left its banks and began its work of destruction. In the meantime, the river had practically cleared itself of ice but the water kept rising until about 3 P. M. of Saturday, March 18th, when the entire Wyoming Valley,
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from mountain to mountain, was an inland sea with only a few well favored points of the lowland protruding. The Luzerne Union of March 22nd records the following impressions of its editor:
"The Susquehanna river has, during the past three months, presented unusual phenomena in this vicinity. From about the 20th of December, during a period of about eighty-five days, the river has been ice-bound The long continued cold weather caused ice of unusual thickness and solidity, and a great ice field continued to remain some time after the usual period of breaking up. About ten days ago, a slight thaw and rain began to disturb the surface, in due time, the whole body was afloat and moving. The movement was of short duration, as the pressure and glut were too excessive for the narrow limits of the old channel, and a damn of immense strength was formed by the sharp elbows and island just below, and by the four piers of the Wilkes-Barre bridge, extending several miles above the bridge. That dam jeopardized the bridge, the town, the gas works, the canal and the Kingston flats. The water and ice accumulating from above, bore down against the mass like an aval- anche, but the resistance was too great, and the large fragments of ice were pulverized and crushed somewhat, as infantry dashing against impregnable breastworks This avalanche and this resistance were again and again repeated, un- til the threatening mass rose to the floor of the bridge. Of course, there was little room for water, and there was none-the ice being piled and pressed to the bottom. Such a scene is said to have occurred about the year 1786, but nothing like it since then. A good oppor- tunity was now presented for an Arctic exploration, with dogs and sledges, to discover 'a southwest passage,' and it was shrewdly sug- gested to the bridge Company to send for Gen. Butler to blow up the dam; but this was declined, from apprehensions that he would probably seize the toll house and all the Banks, as well as all the rafts passing down the river.
"In the meantime, the river was forced to make a new channel and the high embankment near Forty Fort, thrown up some years ago to prevent the overflow of the 'flats, gave way, thereby forming a deep and rapid current down through the low grounds, about eighty rods north of the bridge. It was in this channel that Mr. Rice's KINGSTON FLATS AFTER THE "GREAT FLOOD," 1865 dam was lost. Its depth and width, and the damages caused thereby to the Wilkes-Barre and Kingston road, and the flats above and below, cannot be estimated until after the water has subsided. It is probable that a section across said channel will have to be bridged.
"Things remained in this condition several days. A warm rain and thaw continued to swell the volume of water and greatly reduce the body of ice, until Wednesday, the 15th inst., when things took several whimsical, capricious turns, and at night subsided as before. Everybody went to bed promising himself a great entertainment next morning at seeing the great ice dam move off, to be followed by the Tunkhannock bridge and other things. But lo! in the morning the ice was all gone, as if Gen. Butler had stolen it away in the night, and the Tunkhannock bridge was still standing on its piers. It was a great disappointment. But it was very agreeable to see the familiar and friendly face of our old river once more swelling and rolling and boiling under the morning sun, with all his wonted freshness and buoyancy, again awarding some pleasant suggest- ions of bathing and angling, of eel-wares and of wild ducks and cranes flying up the river, and raftmen floating down. What a glorious time for shad to come up to see us, if it were not for those miserable dams!
"Thus much as to the ice freshet! The river continued to surge and overflow, and swell, until 312 o'clock P. M., on Saturday, 18th, March. At this time the town of Wilkes-Barre was everywhere inundated .- From dark of the day previous everybody had been removing things from their cellars and first floors, and stock from their stables, and hundreds were crying from their
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upper windows for help. The droves of cattle and crowds of people moving to higher ground; the boats passing along through the principal thoroughfares; the water rushing through the bridge, and a thousand other circumstances, seen on every hand, presented a scene such as Wilkes-Barre has never witnessed since the first stone was laid. The water was two feet higher than has ever been known Logs, trees, timber, lumber, some loose some in rafts of two to twenty thousand feet, fences, fragments of buildings, canal boats, skiffs, haystacks, whole barns, sheds, and even large, well-finished dwelling-houses, with chimneys all in order, came rushing down the roaring torrent at the rate of 8 miles an hour. For three days the dark, muddy waters overflowed the banks, which were covered with wrecks of every description. At Skinner's Eddy, in Wyoming County, 19 buildings, mostly dwellings, were swept away. Two large stacks of lumber, contain- ing 40 and 50 thousand fect, were carried off, and a thousand bushels of corn were set afloat."
Once again the Wilkes-Barré bridge was to suffer. This time an entire span, the second from the eastern shore, was moved some six feet on its piers but fortunately did not topple into the river. Wesley Johnson, in an account penned years afterward, states that he was present when the span was damaged, a huge tree, acting as a battering ram, being the chief cause of trouble. In order that permanent and indisputable evidence of the height of the "Great Flood" might survive, the following minute was entered on the court docket of Luzerne County of August 29, 1865 :
"Wilkesbarre, 26th August, 1865.
HON. JOHN N. CONYNGHAM, President Judge of Luzerne County.
"From levels taken from explorations for rail route from the Lehigh Valley to this Valley
by C. F. Mercur, Esq., I find the elevations above tide water of the door-sills of the Court House . . 543.102 feet
"Low water in the Susquehanna River 512.9
"High water in the Susquehanna 18th March, 1865 .537.6
"Door-sill of the Court-house (on Public Square) above the high water of 18th March, 1865. 5.5
"Rise of water in the flood of 17th and 18th March 1865, at Wilkesbarre .. . 24.7
"And the general opinion is that the flood of 1865 was four feet higher than the pumpkin flood of October, A. D. 1786.
"Respectfully submitted, "MARTIN CORYELL."
The "Great Flood" of 1865 has been a fertile source of narrative and rem- iniscence. Judge Garrick M. Harding* and others equally prominent in the community contributed accounts of their experiences through columns of the local press. Judge Harding recalls, in the Record of the Times, that the Wyoming Valley Hotel was then in process of building and that on the way down River Street in a boat to assist in removing the Fuller family from the present home
*HON. GARRICK MALLERY HARDING was born in Luz- erne County, July 12, 1827. died Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania May 19, 1904. He was a son of Isaac and Nancy (Harding) Harding (of John, Thomas, Captain Stephen, Stephen of R. I., 1669) Judge Harding, graduated A. B., Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. 1848; studied law under Henry M. Fuller. Esq .. admitted to practice Luzerne County, 1856; elected District Attorney, 1858. filling that office until the end of his term, 1865, when he entered into law partnership with Hon. Henry W. Palmer. He was appointed, 1870, by Governor Geary, President Judge of the Eleventh Judicial District to succeed Hon. John Nesbitt Conyngham. LL. D., deceased. In the Fall of that year he was elected for the full term He served until 1879, when he resigned and re- turned to the practice of his profession. His interest in historical studies was keen, discriminating and accurate. He was the author of two volumes, the papers privately printed, "The Sullivan Road", 1899, and "Wyoming and Its Incidents", 1901.
Judge Harding married, October 12, 1852, Maria Mills Sios-on. daughter of John W. and Hannah (Mill-) Slosson of Kent. Connectient. She died January 24, 1867. He left three children. Mrs. William W. Curtin, Major John S. Harding and Harry M. Harding, Esq.
HON. GARRICK M. HARDING
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of Judge Henry A. Fuller, he, Charles Parrish, Gov. Henry M. Hoyt and others rowed their boats into the uncompleted front entrance of the hotel and found the water covering the rafters of the first floor.
He likewise fixes the height of water on another landmark still standing by describing how his boat crew visited the home of Judge Conyngham, finding lodgement for the boat on the upper stone step approaching that residence. A mark on the curb still indicates that the water of that year reached Fazer's alley on West Market Street, its crest just touching the foundations of the present Times-Leader Building.
It might be mentioned in passing that only once has the flood of 1865 been challenged as the master freshet of the Susquehanna. In 1902, C. E. Butler, Esq. in examining some old documents, came upon a letter written by James Sinton to Steuben Butler, then at Doylestown, sometime after the freshet of April, 1807. Mr. Sinton, as previously described, kept the Sinton store at the corner of West Market and Franklin Streets, on the present site of the Wyoming National Bank. Being a man of unquestioned veracity, Mr. Sinton's written statement that the water in 1807 reached "the horse block before the store door on Franklin Street and had it not been checked by a cold day and night, I have no doubt would have been in our store and in all probability the town would all have been under water. However, thank God, Kingston and Wilkesbarré were not swept off."
It remained for engineer William H. Sturdevant to reconcile the claim thus presented with facts of the case. He showed from surveys and the data of street records that Market Street at Franklin had been filled in almost two feet before the present grade was established, thus permitting a flood some eighteen inches less in height than it attained in 1865 to have reached the "horse block" described. Moreover on well authenticated marks on the home of Nathaniel Rutter and other buildings of River Street, a difference of almost exactly eighteen inches was to be found in the water line of the two freshets. A fact frequently overlooked in attempting to compare river measurements is that the height of earlier floods was measured by an old standard, exactly 3.4 feet lower than that now reported by the present government guage taken by soundings.
While concerned only indirectly with Wyoming affairs, the record flood of the Lehigh River, coming as it did between the two great war time floods of the Susquehanna, seems to deserve mention. To provide navigation for the anthra- cite trade it was developing from many thousand acres of coal lands it owned in the Mauch Chunk field, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company completed in 1829 what was then considered the most extensive slack water harnessing of any river of the country. To assist in the early financing of the enterprise, the company secured legislative permission in 1798, to conduct a lottery author- izing the sale of four thousand lottery tickets at five dollars each and another four thousand tickets selling at six dollars each. From the Wilkes-Barre Gazette of August 26, 1800, we find that agents of the company were then disposing of these tickets in Wilkes-Barré. Arguing in favor of local patronage of the enter- prise, that journal reminds its readers that "it is certain that if the navigation of that river is opened, the trade from the greater part of the Lake Country will be drawn through Wilkes-Barre to the city of Philadelphia, the distance of land
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carriage from the Susquehanna to the navigable waters of the Lehigh will not exceed twelve to fifteen miles."
In 1817. the Pennsylvania legislature voted a substantial appropriation to the undertaking and sales of stock in the company were conducted in a branch office maintained at Wilkes-Barré for a number of years. A map of the projected work, dated 1829, now in possession of the writer and used by the company to promote its sales of stock, indicates an intention to extend its slackwater project to Stoddardsville by the location of additional dams. Although not part of the immediate enterprise, the map shows the survey of a canal from White Haven to connect with the Susquehanna at Nescopeck and thus provide an all-water juncture between the rivers. As has been previously mentioned, the slackwater enterprise never actually extended beyond White Haven, connections at that point being later made by rail and the Ashley planes with Wilkes-Barré. All this splendid development, requiring years to construct and millions to finance, was swept away in a few hours on the 4th of June, 1862. On the 3rd of that month, cloudbursts and an unusual rainfall deluged the whole of the upper Lehigh water shed and the river rose with unprecedented rapidity. At noon of the 4th all the lowlands of the river had been inundated, the water standing to a depth of fifteen feet on the principal street of Mauch Chunk.
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