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 V > Part 20
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In 1926, the supervisors of Nescopeck Township were: D. Y. Sitler, Fred E. Hess, R. Schaffer. Number of taxables : 374. Assessed valuation : $300,- 907. President of school board: Boyd J. Sitler. Four teachers, common schools.
Newport Township, which takes its name from Newport, Rhode Island, had a place among the original townships of the Connecticut county of West- moreland, the county name given to the Pennsylvania territory that Connec- ticut claimed and occupied. Westmoreland County embraced much more than the present county of Luzerne, just as Newport Township of the Con- necticut régime was much larger than the present Newport. Originally, its bounds included all that is now Newport, Slocum, Dorrance, Hollenback, Conyngham, and Nescopeck townships.
The first settlement in Newport was made by Major Prince Alden, in 1772, on the Colonel Washington Lee property. Much of its early history has already been reviewed in earlier volumes-those that Mr. Harvey himself wrote, from a lifetime of research and historical study. Two or three years after Major Alden settled in Newport, his sons, Mason F. and John, built a forge on Nanticoke Creek. Near the forge in the same year Mr. Chapman erected a log mill-"the only mill in Wyoming that escaped destruction from floods and from the torch of the savage." It was so necessary to the reestab- lished settlements after the massacre that, in 1780, it was guarded by armed men. The nearest other mill was fifty miles away-Stroud's at Stroudsburg. a week's journey away.
Newport was once a farming district of some standing, but that was long ago. For almost a century it has been a coal mining district, and in the greater importance of that pursuit, good farming land has been neglected.
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An interesting minute on the township records is that which begins its second life as it were. The minute reads :
NEWPORT TOWNSHIP-At a meeting legally warned and held at the house of Prince Alden, Saturday, June 9, 1787, made choice of Mr. Prince Alden, moderator, and Mason F. Alden, clerk.
Resolved, Whereas the survey of this town was utterly lost at the destruction of this set- tlement, it is, therefore, resolved that a committee of three persons be appointed to carefully inspect into and ascertain the proprietors and actual settlers of the Town of Newport at or before the decree of Trenton, etc.
Prince Alden, Mason F. Alden and John P. Schott were constituted a committee. They were authorized to "allot out the third division of 300 acres to each proprietor." Those settlers who were in residence and entitled to rank in this allotment as proprietors were found by the committee to be as follows : James Baker, Mason Fitch Alden, John P. Schott, Prince Alden, Sr., William H. Smith, John Hegeman, Ebenezer Williams, William Smith, Caleb Howard, Clement Daniel, Isaac Bennett, William Stewart, George Miner, Peleg Com- stock, Samuel Jackson, Benjamin Baily, Anderson Dana, John Canaday, John Jameson, Elisha Drake, John Carey, Edward Lester, Luke Swetland, William Hyde, Hambleton Grant, Turner Jameson, John Bradford, John Nobles, James Barks, Prince Alden, Jr., Andrew Alden. Seven other names of absent pro- prietors were reported .. They were classed as non-resident, e. g., as not resi- dent with the valley. Several of the names given above were of pioneers who even at that time were not in Newport, some having moved to other parts of the Wyoming Valley; but this did not constitute non-residence, for the purpose intended.
The land was surveyed by Prince Alden and John P. Schott, with Shubart Bidlock and Elisha Bennett as chain-bearers and ax-men.
Some extraordinary entries are to be found in Newport Township records of that period. There were land trials to be settled with Pennsylvania, and some of the land seems to have been unassigned. The township committee. on October 4, 17944, leased for 999 years lot 18, second tier, first district, to Elias Decker, at a yearly rental of one pepper corn, if demanded, to be paid into the town treasury. Jacob Crater secured lot 49, third division, on similar terms. In 1800, lot 25 was leased to John Alden, for 999 years, for $43, this to be paid into the treasury at any time before the expiration of the lease. This would have been absolutely a gift, but for another stipulation-that the lessee also pay $2.58 a year to the town treasurer. Henry Schoonover secured lot 1, Abram Setzer lot 13, and Andrew McClure lots 26 and 27 on similar terms.
On February 25, 1805, the undermentioned persons "signed and agreed to abide by the lines and surveys established by William Montgomery, the Pennsylvania agent," under the confirming act :
Silas Jackson, James Stewart, John Noble, Benjamin Berry, Mathew Covel, Andrew Dana, Nathan Whipple, Martin Van Dyne, Abraham Smith, Jr., John Fairchild, Abraham Smith, James Mullen, Frederick Barkman, Philip Croup, William Bellesfelt, Cornelius Bellesfelt, Isaac Bennett, Andrew Keithline, Cornelius Smith, William Nelson, Jacob Reeder, Christian Sarver, Casomin Fetterman, Daniel Adams, James Reeder, John R. Little, Jonathan Kelley. Daniel Sims, William Jackson, John Jacob, Jr., Elisha Bennett, Henry Ben- nett, Michael Hoffman, Valentine Smith, John Lutsey, James Millage, Andrew Lee, Jacob Lutsey, Conrad Line, Jr., Jacob Scheppy (Slippy) and Henry Fritze.
Chapman's mill, so valuable to the early settlers, served their need for many years. When worn out, William Jackson erected a mill on Newport Creek to replace Chapman's. Jackson's, also, was for many years the only mill in the township. Indeed, these were the only two gristmills ever erected
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in Newport Township. John Slippey built a sawmill, but in later years (about 1820) converted it into a plough foundry. Not far from Chapman's mill, Mason F. and John Alden operated a forge on Nanticoke Creek, using ore dug in Newport Township, and at one time selling their product-bar iron-at $120 per ton. The forge was later owned by Washington Lee.
Nanticoke Borough, of course, took part of its land from Newport Town- ship, and part of the township history is included in that of the borough, or, as it now is, the city of Nanticoke-elsewhere reviewed. The first store in the township was Jacob Ramback's, on the road between Wanamie and Nanti- coke. Almost without exception the communities of Newport Township owe their growth to coal. Wanamie is the mining town that was provided for the mine workers at Wanamie Colliery. It has a population of about fifteen hun- dred. Glenlyon, about four miles from Nanticoke, is a much larger mining town, having more inhabitants indeed than half of the communities that have borough status in Luzerne County. It may be said to have begun its existence in 1870, when the shafts at that point were sunk. The Central Railroad of New Jersey was quick to grasp the carrying opportunities of the district. They built a branch from Ashley to Nanticoke and Wanamie, and extended it to Alden and Glenlyon, as these places developed. Alden is east of Nanticoke about four miles. Shafts were sunk there in the 'eighties, and the mine operated by Sharp and Company. It is now the seat of the Alden Coal Company.
Notwithstanding these mining operations, however, Newport Township has slipped back more than two-fifths in population during the last twenty years.
Newport became a first-class township on December 7. 1899. In 1926, the township commissioners were: Frank Strazalka, Lewis Stankiel, John Zoba- rowski, Arthur Wright, W. N. Starr, John J. Riordan. Number of taxables : 4,721. Assessed valuation : $27.523,869.
Pittston Township was one of the five original townships formed by the Susquehanna Land Company, a Connecticut colonization group, authorized by that colony under what is supposed to be its charter rights. The story has been already told, in most interesting detail, in Mr. Harvey's volumes and, therefore, need not be restated here at any length. Briefly, the five townships, each of five miles square of land, were to be settled by two hundred persons from Connecticut, each township to divide its land among the first forty set- tlers therein.
The townships were organized in 1768, and were surveyed in that year, or earlier. In 1784, however, the surveyors' marks were washed away by flood in many places and the land had to be resurveyed.
The families resident in Pittston Township before or during the Revolution were the Blanchard, Brown, Carey, Bennett, Sibley, Marcy, Benedict, St. John, Sawyer, Cooper. Daniel St. John was the first person murdered after the surrender of Forty Fort. Benedict was the pioneer preacher in the locality. Captain Jeremiah Blanchard, Sr., was the commander of the Pittston com- pany. Zebulon Marcy "was the first white man that ever built a brush or log cabin in the township." Thus, he may be given the pioneer place in the rec- ords of settlers. Brown's blockhouse was built in 1776, and was the refuge of the women and children of the township in 1778, Captain Blanchard guarding it with thirty men, and surrendering it only upon terms that assured them safety.
The List of Taxables for the year 1796 gives us the names of very many families that have since become prominent in Luzerne County. The names, as given in Pearce's Annals, in 1866, are as follows :
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James Armstrong, Enos Brown, David Brown, Elisha Bell, Waterman Baldwin, Jeremiah Blanchard, John Benedict, Ishmael Bennett. A. Bowen, James Brown, Jr., Anthony Benschoter, R. Billings, Conrad Berger, J. Blanch- ard, Jr., Samuel Cary, John Clark, George Cooper, James Christy, Jedediah Collins, John Davidson, David Dimock, Asa Dimock, Robert Faulkner, Solo- mon Finn, Nathaniel Giddings, Isaac Gould, Ezekiel Gobal, Joshua Griffin, Daniel Gould, Jesse Gardner, Richard Halstead, Isaac Hewitt, Daniel Hewitt, John Honival, Joseph Hazard, Abraham Hess, Jonathan Hutchins, John Her- man, Lewis Jones, Joseph Knapp, Samuel Miller, William Miller, Samuel Mil- ler, Jr., Ebenezer Marcy, Jonathan Marcy, Isaac Miles, Cornelius Nephew, John Phillips, James Scott, John Scott, William H. Smith, Rodger Searle, William Searle, Miner Searle, James Stephens, Elijah Silsby, Elijah Silsby, Jr., Comfort Shaw, Jonathan Stark, James Thompson, Isaac Wilson, John Warden, Crandall Wilcox, Thomas Wright.
The first physician in Pittston Township was Dr. Nathaniel Giddings, who came from Connecticut in 1787, and practiced in Pittston until his death. sixty-four years later. He farmed also, his property being near the Ravine Shaft. There he planted one of the first orchards set out in the township. Nearby lived the Searle family, William Searle being in Pittston before the massacre. One of the first clearings in what became the lower part of Pittston Borough was of land where the railway station and the Farnham house eventually were built.
Pittston Township was dominantly Yankee in population until the influx of mining population. Supplanting the New Englanders, at least in numbers, were men of another sturdy British stock. The emigrants who came during the 'fifties of last century from the British Isles were mainly from the north- ern part-Scotland, where coal mining had been carried on for generations. After the Scotch came the Welsh, also from mining regions of Britain. Among those of Welsh origin was William R. Griffith, who seems to have a more important place in mining history than any other Pittston resident. One of the pioneer operators in the township was Colonel James W. Johnson, but his operations were before the time of the railroads. William R. Griffiths acquired his coal lands, and eventually organized the great mining corpora- tion which has ever since been so vital to the prosperity of Pittston-the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The Erie Railroad Company, through its coal company, the Hillside Coal and Iron Company, operated at Pleasant Val- ley, later known as Avoca. The Pittston Coal Company, in 1875, took over the operations of the Pittston and Elmira Company. Mining history, how- ever, is extremely reviewed elsewhere, and need not be given space here.
Transportation was mainly by water in the first half century of Pittston Township. Near the mouth of the Lackawanna River, Solomon Finn and E. L. Stevens built a sawmill in 1780. In 1772, two years after settlement began on the Pittston Borough side of the river, John Jenkins, Isaac Tripp, Jonathan Dean and others established a ferry for communication with the settlements at Wyoming and Exeter. Two wagon and foot bridges, at Pitt- ston, have since spanned the river that was crossed with the aid of this rope ferry in early days. The first bridge was built in 1850. In 1864, a covered wooden bridge was built to replace it. The ice jam of 1875 destroyed it, and in the next year an iron bridge was built by the Kent Iron Bridge Company, and conducted as a toll bridge. The spanning of the river by the Depot Bridge was begun in 1874, the structure being much damaged in 1875, but it was repaired in the same year. The latest is the new Fort Jenkins Bridge, recently constructed of concrete, a massive structure of eight or ten spans.
The most important history of Pittston Township is, of course, that also of Pittston Borough, latterly indeed a city. Its story will be found on other pages.
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In 1926, the supervisors of Pittston Township were: Leo A. Carroll, Michael Conners, and Martin Howery. Number of taxables: 3,806. Assessed valuation : $2,156,920. President of school board: Peter McDonnell. Prin- cipal : John Howley. Thirty-five teachers, all common schools.
Plains Township-The history of Plains Township does not reach back into the tragic early days of settlement, but the territory which became that of Plains, is most historic ground. Mr. Harvey, in the earlier volumes of this work, has told the story of the coming of the Connecticut settlers in 1762, and of their reception by the Delaware Indians who were in the region. Jacob's Plains takes its name from that-or at least the Anglicized name-of the Wanamie chieftain who lived on the cleared space near where the borough of Parsons later grew. The intercourse with the Indians was at first friendly, but finally, in 1763, by one of those unfortunate misunderstandings which are apt to send reckless men to their arms before they have time to hear calmer counsel, the settlers were attacked by Indians and driven out of the region, with a loss of many of their number. For more than five years thereafter the region was the hunting ground of the Indian.
In 1769, however, Amos Ogden. John Jennings, and Charles Stewart, hav- ing leased 100 acres of land from the Pennsylvania proprietaries, came into the Wyoming Valley, and settled on the cleared land that the Connecticut settlers had been driven from. The Connecticut authorities heard of the action of Pennsylvania, and in the same year sent many of their own people into the Wyoming Valley. But it was found that the Ogden party had erected a blockhouse, and were prepared to defend themselves against both white and red men. Thus, the conflicting governmental authorities pitted white against white, at a time when neither could be sure of being able to withstand attack by the original possessors of the region-the red men. The two so-called Pennamite Wars had to run their course before the right of Pennsylvania to the Wyoming region was conceded by Connecticut. All this is told at much greater length in Mr. Harvey's narrative, but is referred to here so as to give Plains Township what seems to be its rightful place in Luzerne County his- tory. As Bradsby points out. "thus, it will be seen that Plains, in point of settlement, is the senior township in the valley, and that her soil was the first to be moistened by the tears of affliction and sorrow, and drank the blood, and entombed the bodies of the first victims of savage hate in the bloody annals of the Wyoming Valley."
In 1773, the pioneers were again in possession of Plains and Mill Creek. At that time, the nearest gristmill was Stroud's, at Stroudsburg, fifty miles away, not that distance along ways such as we now have, but of almost unbroken forest. However, in 1773, it was known that Nathan Chapman's mill on Hollenback's mill-site would soon make this arduous and dangerous trip to Stroudsburg unnecessary.
In 1773, Stephen Fuller, Obadiah Gore, Jr., and Seth Marvin were given riparian rights below Chapman's mill on Mill Creek, provided they erect a sawmill before November of that year. This was done. It was "the first sawmill built on the upper waters of the Susquehanna." When it was in operation, a ferry was established at the mouth of Mill Creek to Forty Fort.
The first burying-ground in Plains Township was the Gore Cemetery, "on the flats, between the old plank road and the canal, northeast of the Henry colliery." Two other early cemeteries-one near the Methodist Church, and the other in Wilcox's field, near Plains Village-have nothing now to mark their sites. In 1815 George Gore's smithy stood on the flats, near the Gore burying-ground. Obadiah Gore was a blacksmith. It was in his smithy, in 1769 or 1770, that the stone coal of the region was first used in a forge, or, indeed, for any purpose, it seems. Out of that first attempt to use it none of
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the settlers ever supposed the industry that has dwarfed all others in this part of Pennsylvania would come, that in other townships-including Plains- has to all intents ousted all others. Mining, with the paraphernalia that goes with it-hoists, breakers, railway tracks, engine houses, machine shops, culm-piles, and so forth-has monopolized Plains and many other townships of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties. Not to their detriment, however, let it be said, for mining has brought prosperity and increased population.
Plains is the most populous township of Luzerne, and an attempt was made to absorb it in the Greater Wilkes-Barre movement, the change to take place on January 1, 1927, when the city of Wilkes-Barre increased its bound- aries. However, Wilkes-Barre only partially succeeded. The vigorous bor- ough of Parsons was separated from Plains Township fifty years ago and now comes into the enlarged county seat. The other large community in Plains Township is the village of that name. At first the village was known as Jacob's Plains, but finally became Plains. The early settlers in Plains Village were: John Cortright, Elisha Blackman, James Stark, Thomas Williams, a Mr. Richardson, and Samuel Carey. Cortright was tavern-keeper, in 1815; Blackman and Richardson were also later tavern-keepers; Stark was the first storekeepers; James Canady was the first blacksmith. James Stark, in 1808, quickly followed Judge Fell's example, and burned anthracite coal in an open grate in his store. Plains is a village of about 5,000 inhabitants. Hudson (or Mill Creek, as it was once known, Hudson being the post office name) is about half as large as Plains. Plainsville is another community of appreciable size ; Midvale and Port Bowkley are also mining villages. Plains Township has more than doubled its population in the last twenty years. It was made a first-class township on December 7, 1899.
In 1926, the township commissioners were: Rinaldo Cappalina, Joseph Sarnecki, John Pizybylawski, Anthony J. Lavelle, Michael Walsh, Allen Ran- dall, C. Dominici, Charles Keil, John F. Goobic. Number of taxables: 7,309. Assessed valuation : $11,514,668. President of school board: Thomas H. James. Principal : J. A. McCaa. One hundred and thirty teachers, including twenty-two for high school.
Plymouth Township-Plymouth was one of the five townships organized by the Susquehanna Company, at Hartford, Connecticut, on December 28, 1768, with jurisdiction over a tract five miles square. In 1790 it became one of the original eleven townships of Luzerne County, being then enlarged to embrace the area that includes the present township of Jackson and part of Hunlock. Plymouth lost land to Jackson in 1844 and to Hunlock in 1877.
Lengthy review of the early history is not called for here, inasmuch as it has such conspicuous part in the early history of the Wyoming Valley, and, therefore, has been covered by Mr. Harvey in the first two volumes. Settle- ment begain in 1769. In 1773, an enrollment of the inhabitants of the valley contained the names of the following Plymouth settlers: Noah Allen, Peter Ayres, Captain Prince Alden, John Baker, Isaac Bennett, Daniel Brown, Naniad Coleman, Aaron Dean, Stephen Fuller, Joseph Gaylord, Nathaniel Goss, Comfort Goss, Timothy Hopkins, William Leonard, Jesse Leonard, Samuel Marvin, Nicholas Manville, Joseph Morse, James Nesbitt, Abel Pierce. Timothy Pierce, Jabez Roberts, Samuel Sweet, John Shaw, David Whittlesey, and Nathaniel Watson. The list of "Taxables" of Plymouth Township in the year 1796 contains the following names :
Samuel Allen, Stephen Allen, David Allen, Elias Allen, William Ayres, Daniel Ayres, John Anderson, Moses Anderson, Isaac Bennett, Benjamin Bennett, Joshua Bennett, Benjamin Barney, Daniel Barney, Henry Barney, Walter Brown, Jesse Brown, William Baker, Philemon Bidlack, Jared Baldwin, Jude Baldwin, Amos Baldwin, Jonah Bigsley. Peter Chambers, William Craig,
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Jeremiah Coleman, Thomas Davenport, Asahel Drake, Rufus Drake, Aaron Dean, Henry Decker, Joseph Dodson, Leonard Descans, Joseph Duncan, Jehiel Fuller, Peter Grubb, Charles E. Gaylord, Adolph Heath, John Heath, Samuel Hart, Elisha Harvey, Samuel Harvey, Josiah Ives, Josiah Ives, Jr., Crocker Jones, T. and J. Lamoreux, John Leonard, Joseph Lenaberger, Sam- uel Marvin, James Marvin, Timothy Meeker, Ira Manville, Ephraim McCoy, Phineas Nash, Abram Nesbitt, Simon Parks, Samuel Pringle, Michael Pace, David Pace, Nathan Parrish, Oliver Plumley, Jonah Rogers, Elisha Rogers, Edon Ruggles, Hezekiah Roberts, David Reynolds, Joseph Reynolds, George P. Ransom, Nathan Rumsey, Michael Scott, Lewis Sweet, Elam Spencer, Willam Stewart, Jesse Smith, Ichabod Shaw, Palmer Shaw, Benjamin Stoo- key, John Taylor, John Turner, Abraham Tilbury, Mathias Van Loon, Abra- ham Van Loon, Nicholas Van Loon, Calvin Wadhams, Noah Wadhams, Moses Wadhams, Ingersol Wadhams, Amariah Watson, Darius Williams, Rufus Williams, and John Wallen.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Plymouth Township seemed to be well settled. As a matter of fact, however, it was not until 1827 that the first settlers in that part of Plymouth lying between Jackson and Hunlock town- ships took up their tracts, the first to settle being Henry Cease, George Sorber, and Jacob Sorber.
Plymouth took its full share of the dangers of settlement. In 1776, a fort was erected on Garrison Hill, and manned by Plymouth men under Captain Ransom, who in December of the same year led his company farther afield, by command of General Washington. Some were in service in the Continental Army until the end of the war; some returned home in time to add their strength to the defending force at the Battle of Wyoming, in 1778. Forty- four men of Plymouth, under Captain Asaph Whittlesey, were present on that eventful tragic day. During the night of the battle, the women and children of Plymouth and other settlements fled down the Susquehanna. Not all escaped ; and for many, many months after the Wyoming massacre, the region was in a disturbed state, the Indians continuing their depredations. During the winter of 1782-83 those Continental veterans who had remained in Wash- ington's army until the end returned. During the next summer they prepared the ground for winter wheat. Their labor was all in vain, the greatest ice flood of Susquehanna River history occurring in the following March, sweep- ing away almost all the improvements in the township and spoiling the crop. Most of the dwelling houses were swept away.
Soon afterwards the situation was made worse by the attempt of the agents of Pennsylvania to dispossess the Connecticut settlers. It was in Plymouth Township that the most serious engagement of the so-called Pennamite War took place, "Plunkett's Battle" of December 4, 1785. Plymouth men bore the brunt of the fighting, and some of them gave their lives in defense of the com- mon cause of the Connecticut settlers. They had come by their farms honestly and, as they thought, legitimately; they had fought their way through the dangers of the pioneer period, had cleared their farms, had literally hewed out of the wilderness a living for their families and they were determined not to be cheated out of their homestead rights by any Federal decree in the con- troversy between the two governments, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. This, however, was to be the last of the trials that men of Plymouth would be called upon to bear-at least from Indians and hostile whites. It seems strange now to read of Americans being pitted against Americans-of Connecticut in deadly war against Pennsylvania; America owes its immunity from the warring of one State upon another almost wholly to the centralization, or federalization, of government. There have been many instances when State jealousies might have resulted in strife between individual contiguous states, if there had not been a Federal power at hand strong enough to enforce peace.
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