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 84
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Major Ellicott figured prominently in the long con- troversy between George Washington and Major Pierre L'Enfant, the French engineer chosen to lay out the city of Washington, with Major Ellicott as surveyor. Major L'Enfant's plan did not meet with the approval of Presi- dent Washington in all respects, and was finally with- drawn from the consideration of the House of Repre- sentatives, the sensitiveness of the French engineer and his unwillingness to have his plans changed adding consid- erably to a difficult situation. On November 20, 1791, Washington wrote one of the three commissioners ex- pressing dissatisfaction with the irascibility of Major L'Enfant and referring to Major Ellicott as a man of uncommon talent in surveying, and of a more even temper. The result was that Major L'Enfant took his plans back, and had it not been for the skill of Major Ellicott, few features of them could ever have been duplicated. The Ellicott plan was accepted with certain modifications, and this is how Washington happens to look as it does today. The Ellicott plan was held to be better suited to the lay of the land ; it "was engraved and published by order of President Washington, in October, 1792, and declared by his successors' acts to be the plan of the city which he would not depart from." This plan' was generally circulated over the United States. Major L'Enfant retired with his rejected plan to the country, near Washington, where he died.
Francis Douglas, second child of Colonel Henry Doug- las and Isadore ( Bowman) Douglas, attended the public schools of Wilkes-Barre, and graduated from De Vaux College, Suspension Bridge, New York. He taught school there for a while, and later served in the Quartermasters Department of the 14th United States Infantry in Colo- rado. He came to Wilkes-Barre April 15, 1885, and entered the First National Bank as messenger. He be- came assistant cashier in 1899 and cashier in 1901, a position he has held with ability ever since. He is the bank's oldest employee in point of service, with forty- four years to his credit. He is a Republican, a member of the Episcopal Church (St. Stephen's) ; the Westmore- land Club, the Congressional Country Club, Washing- ton, District of Columbia, and the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society. Mr. Douglas was elected a mem- ber of the Executive Council American Bankers Associa- tion in 1918, serving three years. He is a director of the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and served as director of the Federal Reserve Bank at Phila- delphia from January 1, 1919, to January 1, 1928.
Mr. Douglas married Annie M. Ellicott, of Batavia, New York, daughter of George and Maria (Sears) Ellicott, of New York, September 5, 1888. and they have one daughter, Grace Reynolds Douglas, the wife of Dr. Hugh Jefferson Davis, of Washington, District of Columbia, and they have four children, Nancy Ellicott, Grace Hunt, Laura M., and Mary Ellen Davis.
PERCIVAL M. KERR, M. D .- One of the leading men of the medical profession in Wilkes-Barre is Dr. Percival M. Kerr, eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist, whose offices are located at No. 204 South Franklin
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Street. Dr. Kerr was engaged in practice in Philadelphia for eleven years prior to the World War, but since his return from overseas service in 1919 has been located in Wilkes-Barre, where he is taking care of a large and important special practice. Dr. Kerr stands high in his profession, and has a host of friends both in Philadelphia and in Wilkes-Barre.
William Kerr, father of Dr. Kerr, was of Scotch an- cestry. He married Georgiana Wendling, and they were the parents of three children: William, who died in childhood; Maud Virginia, who married. Lafeyette Kent, of Brooklyn, New York; and Dr. Percival M. Kerr, of further mention.
Dr. Percival M. Kerr was born in Brooklyn, New York, June 21, 1885, and received his early school train- ing in the local public schools, graduating from a Brook- lyn High School, after which he became a student in the Medical School of Temple University, in Philadelphia, from which he was graduated with the class of 1906, re- ceiving at that time the degree of Doctor of Medicine. After graduation he engaged in practice in Philadelphia, continuing there until 1917, when, shortly after the en- trance of the United States into the World War, he enlisted in the United States Navy, being commissioned as a first lieutenant. He served overseas at Brest, France, as a physician, for one year, and then, in 1919, returned to this country and located in Wilkes-Barre, where he has since been successfully engaged in practice. Dr. Kerr is a member of the Luzerne County Medical Society and of the Lehigh Valley Medical Society, and has made for himself an assured place in his profession. He is not only a skilled physician and an expert in his special field, but he is also faithful and devoted to the interests of his patients to a degree which has won for him the sincere appreciation and gratitude of many. He is a Republican in his political sympathies, and is a member of the Con- cordia Club, and of the Franklin Club, and is an inter- ested member of the Young Men's Christian Association. He is a Protestant in his religious belief.
Dr. Percival M. Kerr was married, in May, 1907, to Isadora Weiser, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of four children: Robert Mackenzie, William Mezier, Milton Blumner, and André Beaumont.
JAMES F. MUNDY-Prominent for years in the political life of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and with an excellent record as an official of Wilkes-Barre, Penn- sylvania, James F. Mundy has offices in the Town Hall Building, Wilkes-Barre, where he deals in real estate, insurance, bonds and loans, under the name of James F. Mundy and Company.
Born on December 11, 1868, at Miners' Mills, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, he was the son of John and Susan (Moore) Mundy, deceased, both of Irish ancestry. In early life a miner, the elder Mundy was for many years a hotel keeper in Wilkes-Barre. His wife bore him fourteen children : Patrick, who died at the age of twenty-four years; Jane, who married Charles E. Mac- Kim, of Philadelphia ; James F., mentioned below; Cath- erine, who married John Turnbach, superintendent of the Vulcan Iron Works at West Pittston, Pennsylvania ; Thomas A., who is in partnership with his brother, James F., in Wilkes-Barre; John H., of Wilkes-Barre; Dr. Cornelius A., whose biography accompanies this; Edward, a member of the Wilkes-Barre Fire Department ; Leo C., a physician and surgeon of Wilkes-Barre; Susan T. and Sarah, of Wilkes-Barre; and Sarah, Charles and Richard, who died in childhood.
James F. Mundy was educated in the public and paro- chial schools. He is independent in politics. He is a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Saviour, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and of the Concordia Club.
For fourteen years Mr. Mundy served his city as a councilman, 1898-1912; was deputy county treasurer of Luzerne County from 1903 to 1906; was for four years chief of the transcribing department of the Luzerne County assessors' office; was for four years city treas- urer of Wilkes-Barre; and for four years was chief city assessor, and in November, 1927, was elected city com- missioner of Wilkes-Barre for a term of four years; he also has charge of the Bureau of Health. He was first elected as a member of the old Wilkes-Barre City Council when only twenty-seven years old.
Mr. Mundy married, in June, 1919, Katherine Kearney. of Parsons, Luzerne County, daughter of Patrick and Anne ( Mahon) Kearney.
CORNELIUS A. MUNDY, D. D. S .- From 1917, when he returned to his home town to begin the practice
of dentistry, Dr. Cornelius A. Mundy has been identified with the progress and social life of Wilkes-Barre, Penn- sylvania.
Born March 11, 1881, in Wilkes-Barre, he was one of the fourteen children of John and Susan ( Moore) Mundy, who are listed in the sketch of his brother, James F. Mundy (see accompanying biography). Educated at the Wilkes-Barre public schools, and at the State Normal in Bloomsburg, Cornelius A. Mundy entered the Medico- Chirurgical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1912, and also took the courses in the Philadelphia Den- tal College, where he was graduated in 1915, with the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. He began the prac- tice of his profession in York, Pennsylvania, but a year later returned to Wilkes-Barre, and his offices are now in the Town Hall Building, where he has built up an excellent clientele.
Dr. Mundy is a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church. In politics he is an independent Democrat. He belongs to the Xi Psi Fraternity, and is a member of the Luzerne County Dental Association, the Alumni Society of the Philadelphia Dental College, the I. N. Brownell Society, the Walter E. Starr Society, the Gar- ettsonian Society, and the West Side Community Club.
On June 1, 1921, Dr. Mundy married Mary Henrich, of Wilkes-Barre, daughter of Adam and Mary (Layou) Henrich, of Kingston, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate trained nurse of the Mercy Hospital, in Wilkes-Barre. Their children are John Henry and Edward A.
MARY LUELLA TRESCOTT-Among women who are excelling today in the professions and other call- ings formerly preempted by the male gender of the sex only is Mary L. "Trescott, counsellor and attorney-at-law, of Wilkes-Barre, who also enjoys the distinction of hav- ing been the first woman in the United States to be ap- pointed to the office of referee in bankruptcy. She is rated as one of the leading members of the bar of Luzerne County, who has high standing among the legal fraternity, the bench and all who have to do with the machinery of the courts with which she has to do busi- ness in the various avenues of her large practice and official duties. She is a highly educated, forceful woman, who is at the forefront of every worthy movement in which women of her city and county are prominently engaged, and in her is reposed implicit confidence by men and women alike in her field of influence, which is admittedly large and of steadily increasing proportions. As showing in some small way the standing she has attained as a lawyer, it may be said that she has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States; while her recognized skill in the applica- tion of corporation law principies and her ability in the co-management of large estates have created a demand for her professional service not only throughout Luzerne County but also in counties contiguous thereto. In char- itable works and in the educational department of the city of Wilkes-Barre she continues to be a conspicuous figure, and when occupying official positions in her con- nection with those endeavors she was noted for often taking the initiative in many progressive measures. Par- ticularly in the promotion and care of worthy charities has she given of her personal time and service in homes and at bedsides of the afflicted, and from her private purse now and again has given generously to carry for- ward some commendable enterprise in which her kindly heart has been bound up. To a majority of the women of her community she is their ideal and exemplar in their ascendancy, and by many of the men, particularly those in the profession of the law, she is recognized as their equal, and, when occasion presents, a foeman worthy of their steel. Along with her remarkable success as an attorney she has retained her womanly qualities, and her manner and conduct of life are testimonies of the fact that she has never lost sight of the place that she is designed to fill in the human economy.
In the early activities of New England, whence the American Trescotts sprang, members of that family played an important part. They fought in the Indian wars, in an expedition against Canada, and in the Revolu- tionary War. They were prominent in the affairs of Dorchester, Milton and other towns in Eastern Massa- chusetts in pioneer days. They were hardy soldiers, for- ward-looking and substantial citizens, and a number of them graced the professions. From this New England stock of Trescott came robust members of the family into Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and there planted the roots of the domestic entity to which the subject of this review may make lineal trace.
(I) William Trescott, of Dorchester, Massachusetts,
Mary Le Trescott
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was born in 1614. He married Elizabeth Dyer, daughter of George Dyer, one of the original settlers of the town of Dorchester. They were the parents of nine children, one of whom was Samuel, of whom further.
(II) Samuel Trescott was born November 4, 1646, in Dorchester, and died July 30, 1730, in Milton, Massa- chusetts. He served in King Philip's War. He married Margaret Rogers, who died March 19, 1742, at the age of eighty-nine years. He and his wife were the parents of fourteen children, one of whom was Ebenezer, of whom further.
(III) Ebenezer Trescott, the fifth child, was born in Milton, April 20, 1680, and later removed to Mansfield, Connecticut. He there married Bridget Fenton, daughter of Robert and Dorothy (Farrar) Fenton. To them were born ten children, among whom were Samuel, of whom further, and a daughter, Bridget, who married Edward Lewis.
(IV) Samuel Trescott known as "The Surveyor," was born in Mansfield, Connecticut, August 31. 1715. He married Hannah Purchas, of Springfield, Massachusetts. To them were born children as follows: 1. Samuel, born March 13, 1749; married Mary Clark; died at the old homestead at Sheffield, February 20, 1833. 2. Solon, of whom further. 3. Ebenezer, born in 1751 ; died in Hunt- ington Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania; mar- ried Patience Firman, February 1, 1830; their children were: James, Ebenezer, Patience, Seth, Enos, Lucy, Lewis and William. 4. Seth, born March 24, 1753, died March 10, 1783, in Berkshire County, unmarried. 5. Hannah, born December 8, 1754. 6. Bridget, born August 16, 1756. 7. Jonathan, born in 1759: married Susan Spaulding ; died in Berkshire County, November 4, 1834. 8. William, born in 1760; married Clarissa Adams; died September 22, 1831. 9. Thomas, born in 1762; married Sallie Pettit; died in 1840.
The seven sons of Samuel and Hannah ( Purchas) Trescott, above named, were soldiers in the Revolution- ary War and the record of their service is found in Vol. XVI, "Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolu- tionary War." Three of them, at least, Solon, Jonathan and William, received pensions from the United States Government.
In 1753, the Susquehanna Company was formed in Windham County, Connecticut, for the purpose of settling Wyoming Valley. The Proprietories claimed Wyoming Valley by purchase from the Indians in 1736. Samuel Trescott, the surveyor, had proprietary rights under these claims and was one of the original surveyors of this township. He and his sons, Solon and Samuel, also sur- veyors, went to Huntington, Luzerne County, Pennsyl- vania, about 1770, and laid out the township and built a cabin along Huntington Creek near what is now Har- veyville.
They returned to Connecticut and served in General . Washington's army during the campaigns of 1776 and 1777. They were in many engagements during those two disastrous years, as were their younger brothers, and after the term of their enlistment expired, Solon and Samuel returned to Huntington Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in June, 1778. Soon after their arrival both enrolled in the company of Captain John Franklin in charge of the Huntington Valley Company. In July, after their return to Huntington, a messenger arrived from Colonel Zebulon Butler, ordering Captain Franklin's company to hurry forward as the Tories and Indians were marching on Wyoming. Seizing their muskets, the company marched to Wyoming. Colonel Butler had especially ordered the destruction of certain whiskey, and when they reached Plymouth the two Tres- cott brothers were placed in the river and as fast as Franklin and his men rolled the barrels into the river, they, with axes, cut through the heads, and allowed the whiskey to run out of sixteen barrels. They reached Ross Hill, near Kingston, at the time the massacre at Forty Fort, two miles away, was at its height. After the battle the Trescott brothers went down the river some distance and eventually reached their home in Connecticut.
(V) Solon Trescott, son of Samuel and Hannah ( Pur- chas) Trescott, was born June 17, 1750, died in Huntington Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1826. He married, July 8, 1779, Margaret Lewis, daughter of Edward (a Revolutionary soldier) and Bridget Lewis, his first cousin, who was born September 2, 1758, accord- ing to Ashford County records, and died April 18, 1826, in Huntington. Their children, born in Canaan, Con- necticut, were: I. Hannah, born January 6, 1781. died January 6, 1854; married Samuel Chapin, son of John and Hannah Rockwood Chapin. 2. Seth, born February 23, 1783, died in 1852; married (first) Sarah Parke;
(second) Betsy Hontz. 3. Truman, born May 4, 1785; married Elizabeth Steele. 4. Luther, born April 29, 1787, died February 1, 1877; married ( first) Nellie Parke, sister of Seth's wife, daughter of Joseph and Martha ( Ainsley ) Parke; (second), November 18, 1865, Mar- tha Weir Hale Parke, widow of his brother-in-law, Jos- eph Parke. 5. Peter Sylvester, of whom further. 6. Ed- ward Lewis, commissioned colonel of the military organ- ization known as the Huntington Valley Rangers, born March II, 1794, at Goshen, New York, while the family were moving to Huntington; they started in the fall and remained at Goshen until the next year. Edward Lewis died in May, 1890, at the old homestead, aged ninety-six.
Solon Trescott and his oldest son went to Huntington, while the family were waiting at Goshen and found a chestnut tree had grown through the cabin which they had built. This magnificent "spreading chestnut tree" stood at the old Trescott homestead until 1891, when it was destroyed by a cyclone which swept through that part of the country. Returning to Goshen, the family, by great endurance and hardship, reached their cabin at Harveyville where they lived and raised their family until 1826, when they died two days apart and are buried in one grave in the old Goss Cemetery at Harveyville, just one hundred years ago. A wall encircles the two graves with a flat stone laid over the top and two head- stones upon which one can read the inscription. The walled tomb may be seen from the road going from Harveyville to Huntington Mills. A clipping from an old newspaper in the scrap book of Sibyl Trescott, a granddaughter, contains the following :
Died-At Huntington, on Thursday, the 13th of April, Mrs. Margaret Trescott, consort of Mr. Solon Trescott, of the township of Huntington, In the sixty-seventh year of her age, after a short illness of six days. And on Saturday the 15th, Mr. Solon Trescott, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, after a short illness of four days.
The deceased lived in conjugal felicity forty-seven years, and they were separated by death only two days, they were valuable citizens, friendly In their social intercourse, and kind and affectionate in their family, their relations, friends and neighbors have cause to mourn their loss.
Mr. Solon Trescott was a soldier of the Revolution, and served under General Washington in the cam- paign of 1775-76. On quitting the army he came to Wyoming, where he bore a part in the calamitles and distresses to which the English settlers were exposed.
(VI) Peter Sylvester Trescott, son of Solon and Mar- garet (Lewis) Trescot, born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, September 30, 1789, died in Huntington Township, in 1884, aged ninety-five. He married Susan Miller, of Chester County, whose parents were Welsh Quakers who had settled in Chester County, near what is now Oxford and Kenneth Square, and they settled about three miles from the old homestead in Black Brook Valley. The children born to them were: 1. Minerva, married Robert Patterson, and they lived near Harveyville, and had children, Susan, Thomas, Sylvester, Mary A., Sarah E., Richard S. 2. Harriet, died in 1852, at the age of twenty- six years, unmarried. 3. Miller Barton, of whom further.
(VII) Miller Barton Trescott, son of Peter S. and Susan ( Miller ) Trescott, was born in Huntington, July 12, 1830, died December 22, 1897. He married Permelia Stevens Rhone, born at Cambria, April 22, 1836, daugh- ter of George and Mary Bowman ( Stevens) Rhone. George Rhone was the son of Matthias and Naomi (LaPorte) Rhone, the former named a native of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, his birth occurring near Allen- town. He was a farmer by occupation, following that line of work in his native county. He died near Benton, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, in 1853, aged seventy- five years, and his remains are interred in St. Gabriel's churchyard, a short distance north of Benton.
Naomi ( LaPorte ) Rhone was a daughter of one of the families of French refugees who fled to America during the French Revolution and settled at Asylum, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. They came in 1793, almost before the echoes of our own Revolution had died away. In 1796 the town consisted of forty families, among them many who had held high positions in naval, military and state circles in France. When Napoleon came into power and repealed the laws of expatriation which had been passed against the emigrants, with the promise of the restitution of their confiscated estates on their return, the greater part of them embraced the opportunity and went back to France. Some of them removed to Phila- delphia, two or three to other parts of the country, and but three families remained in the vicinity of Asylum. Naomi LaPorte was a member of one of these families, and was born at LaPorte, in what is now Sullivan
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County. Her relative, Hon. John LaPorte, was speaker of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1832, the fifth term of his membership; from 1832 to 1836 he was a member of Congress, and Surveyor-General of Penn- sylvania from 1845 to 1851.
Mary Bowman (Stevens) Rhone was a daughter of Zebulon Hall Stevens. He was a descendant of Henry Stevens, who came to this country from England, April 4, 1669, with his father and two brothers, Nicholas and Thomas, and settled in Taunton, Massachusetts. Per- melia (Bowman) Stevens, wife of Zebulon Stevens, and mother of Mary Bowman (Stevens) Rhone, was the eldest daughter of John Bowman, who was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, April 2, 1772, and died at Town Hill, Huntington Township, Luzerne County, February 8, 1848. He married Mary Britton, who died in 1852. He was a son of Christopher Bowman, who came from Ger- many in 1754, and settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The father of Christopher Bowman lived in Germany, and was a man of considerable eminence and wealth. He had built up a village, founded a school, had many men in his employ, on occasions issued letters which served as passports from Province to Province, seemed to have exercised something of the rights and prerogatives which belonged to the old feudal nobility, and, in fact, the family coat-of-arms is said by heraldic authority to have been the grade of an earl. The name of the family in Germany was Bauman, which was changed to Bowman by the first American ancestor. Christopher and his younger. brother emigrated to America in 1754, and within a few years he returned to the fatherland on a visit, when he sold his interests. Christopher Bowman married Susan Banks, sister of Hon. Judge Banks, of Reading, a fam- ily of Scotch-English descent, and a family of consider- able distinction and prominence both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They removed to Briar Creek, Pennsyl- vania, where Christopher died in 1806, and his wife Susan died in 1816. Bishop Thomas Bowman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a grandson.
Henry Stevens married Eliza or Elizabeth Gallup, a daughter of Captain John Gallup, of Boston, Massachu- setts, and both father and son were noted as Indian fighters. He came to Pequot in 1651, where he lived until 1654, when he removed to Mystic. Captain Gallup married Hannah Lake, a relative of Governor Winthrop. Henry Stevens settled in Stonington, Connecticut, and had three sons, Thomas, Richard, and Henry. Thomas Stevens married Mary Hall, and settled in Plainfield, Connecticut, and had seven sons : Thomas, Phineas, Uriah, Caleb, Benjamin, Samuel and Zebulon. Zebulon Stevens was born June 14, 1717, and married, November 25, 1743, Miriamı Fellows. Thomas Stevens, son of Zebulon Stevens, was born May 5, 1760, at Canaan, Litchfield County, Connecticut, and emigrated to Wyoming before the close of the last century. Thomas Stevens married, December 2, 1784, Lucy Miller. He was a Revolutionary soldier with rank of captain, and received a pension at the time of his death in Huntington Township. Zebulon Hall Stevens, son of Thomas Stevens, was born January 12, 1791, and married Permelia Bowman, daughter of John Bowman, October 28, 1813.
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