USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > Annual of the Bradford County Historical Society, 1906 > Part 16
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Col. John Franklin
forgot their lameness, and sore feet, landed their canoes, seized their rifles, and climbed the steep mountain side with the agility of young bucks. It was one of the most glorious victories during the war. Hartley's loss was 4 killed and 10 wounded.
Col. John Franklin.
A distinguished resident of Bradford county in the olden time, was Col. John Franklin, one of the ablest, bravest, and most active leaders of the Connecticut party in Wyoming. I am aware that an excellent biography of him was given yesterday at another place, by one of his descendants, but I think he is worthy of a more ex- tended eulogy. For advocating the formation of a new state in northern Pennsylvania as the easiest solution of the conflict for jurisdiction so bitterly waged between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, he had been arrested for treason by the authorities of Pennsylvania and impris- oned in Philadelphia for more than a year. He was re- leased on bail, and never brought to trial because he was guilty of no offense. In 1788 he removed to Athens, Bradford county, then in Luzerne. He had parted in sadness and anger from the other prominent leaders of the Connecticut party-the Butlers, Dorrances, Denni- sons, and Hollenbacks, his former friends and associates, who had accepted the compromise act of the Pennsyl- vania legislature, believing it the best offer for the settle- ment of the land controversy that could ever be obtained.
Col. Franklin had lost all faith in the authorities of Pennsylvania, refused their terms of settlement, and came to Bradford county. So great was his popularity that in 1792-four years after his release from prison-he was elected sheriff of Luzerne county, and after his term had
40
Col John Franklin
expired, was in 1795 elected to represent Luzerne county in the legislature of Pennsylvania, and was re-elected and served for six successive terms. On all questions affecting land titles, and intrusion laws he was an earn- est and able defender of the rights of the actual settlers as against the "land jobbers," as he called the owners of vast tracts of unimproved land. These lands they had purchased from the state under ficticious warrantee names, thereby evading the law which allowed only 400 acres to any one purchaser. These non-resident land owners who had bought their lands for a few pennies per acre, formed an association representing 1,300,000 acres, and raised a fund of $3,200 to employ counsel and put the intrusion law in force.
Col. Franklin's presence in the legislature was hateful to the influential land holders, and they attempted to have him expelled, but failed. Then in order to get rid of him effectually (as they thought) an act was passed in 1804 annexing that part of Luzerne county in which he resided to Lycoming county. "Now," they said to each other as they shook hands and winked, "that old agita- tor of treason will be apt to stay at home." How great was their astonishment and dismay when at the next session of the legislature in 1805, the unwelcome mem- ber from the north woods marched into the state-house again, and presented his credentials as a legally elected member from the county of Lycoming, and smiled trium- phantly in their faces. It was a scene worthy the pencil of a great painter. It was the crowning act of his life, and a fitting end to his honorable public career. The infirmities of old age were creeping upon him premature- ly. For thirty years past he had endured almost con-
41
Yankee and Pennamite Troubles
stantly intense excitements, turmoils, and sometimes bloody conflicts with arms. He was weary, and desired the rest and repose of private life. After serving this term he never again sought an election to public office. He died at Athens on the east side of the river, in 1831, and is buried on a little bluff in plain view from Tioga Point, not far from where he had resided.
Yankee and Pennamite Troubles.
In the year 1801 the Pennsylvania legislature domi- nated by the influential land owners, passed a supple- ment to the intrusion law making the penalty severer for selling or settling on lands under the Connecticut title outside the 17 townships, and requiring that every person coming into the unsettled region must file a dec- laration with the proper officer stating of what country he was last a resident, and by what title he held his land. It was the meanest law ever enacted in any coun- try, not excepting Russia, or Turkey. The settlers called it "The fire and brimstone law." By it the office of spy, inquisitor, informer, and prosecutor was created. The spy was empowered to visit every house, examine the owner's papers, and if his deed was from Connecticut, it must be given up or have his name reported to the At- torney General to be prosecuted in Philadelphia, and in case the settler had no title at all, he also was to be re- ported. Under this infamous act Abraham Horn was appointed with a salary of $1,200 to put the act in force in Bradford county. Not many men would have accep- ted this odious office, but he took it with alacrity. Learn- ing that he would be in danger of personal violence from the "Wild Yankee League" if he advanced any farther, he stopped with the French at Asylum. The Rev.
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Yankee and Pennamite Troubles
Thomas Smiley, a Baptist minister residing on the To- wanda creek near Franklindale, believing that it was the wisest plan for the settlers to make the best terms they could with the Pennsylvania land claimants, wrote to Horn that about forty settlers on the Towanda creek were willing to surrender their Connecticut titles and make contracts with him as the General Agent of the Pennsylvania land owners for the purchase of their homes. He soon after visited Horn at Asylum and was by him appointed his sub-agent, and furnished with the necessary papers for the settlers to sign. He had ob- tained the signatures of about forty settlers, as he had stated, and was on his way to Asylum to complete the agreement. He stopped over night at Jacob Grantier's who lived near the Elias Hale residence, where eight disguised men with faces blackened broke into his bed- room, covered him with their pistols, and made him burn his papers. They then took him down near the creek, put tar and feathers on his head and beard, then the leader gave him a kick, and told him to leave the country and never return. It was a pitiless outrage on a good man who believed he was engaged in a benevo- lent work for the benefit of the settlers to whom he preached.
This brutal act did the Connecticut cause great harm instead of good. Eight men were arrested charged with perpetrating the outrage, and it is said that the foreman of the grand jury was the leader of the mob, and the one who carried the tar bucket. The bill was ignored.
Mr. Smiley removed to Lycoming county where he preached to a Baptist congregation in the White Deer valley for 25 years. In 1819-18 years after the out-
43
The Wilmot Proviso
rage, the Pennsylvania legislature voted him $250 as a compensation for his injuries. The compensation had been a long time coming but came at last.
The Wilmot Proviso.
Somebody wrote : "There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." Little did David Wilmot think when he offered his famous "proviso" in congress (Aug. 1845) that it would place his name in American history never to be erased, and change his membership from a pro-slavery to an anti-slavery, or Free Soil Party. His proviso was in exactly the same words used by Thomas Jefferson in an ordinance intend- ed for the government of United States territories, and later by Nathan Dane in a bill for the government of the Northwestern territory which passed congress and eventually made Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan free states. The Wilmot proviso passed the house of representatives by a vote of 85 yeas to 80 nays. All the Whigs but two voted for it, and all the Democrats from the free states except three (of whom Stephen A. Dou- glas was one) voted for it. It would probably have passed the senate also had not the hour of final adjourn- ment been so near at hand. The slave power had been taken by surprise like a lion sleeping in his lair, but lost no time in proving its supremacy as the ruling force in the nation. The old threat of disunion had its usual effect on the timid politicians of the north, and at the next session of congress, in less than a year, the proviso could not have been passed by either house, any easier than a bill to create a kingdom, and elect a king,
Mr. Wilmot was zealous in the endeavor to prevent
44
The Wilmot Proviso
the extension of slavery into new territories, but had been opposed to its abolishment even in the District of Columbia, the national capital, where congress had the constitutional power to destroy it. He was willing to tolerate the institution where it already existed, but op- posed to its pollution of the new possessions to be ac- quired from Mexico. His very first vote in congress had been for the renewal of the Atherton gag by which all petitions on the subject of slavery were laid on the table without being read or debated, which was the same as consigning them to the spittoons.
Previous to his election to congress, he had refused his consent to let the Abolitionists hold a meeting in the court house. Dr. Geo. F. Horton, Francis Viall, Giles M. DeWolf, Abner Hinman, Justus Lewis, John Keeler, Elisha Lewis, Isaac Camp, Thomas Ingham, John K. Gamble, Daniel Coolbaugh, Jeremiah Kilmer and other reputable citizens and taxpayers in the county had as- sembled at Towanda to hold a meeting which had been advertised to be held in the court house, and the speak- ers from Montrose were on hand. They found the court house locked and the sheriff refused them the key. The commissioners when appealed to, denied their request for the use of the court room, and Wilmot when asked to use his influence with the commissioners refused to do so. No building could be obtained in Towanda, and they were obliged to go over to Wysox and hold their meeting in a barn.
In justice to Mr. Wilmot it should be said, at that time he was like St. Paul persecuting the Christians. He doubtless thought he was doing right, but afterwards when slave drivers cracked their whips over his head,
45
War Days
the scales fell from his eyes, and he said to my brother confidentially : "Dr. Horton, and the early Abolitionists were emphatically right about the barbarism of slavery, and we did not know it." He was nominated, and re- elected in 1846, and again in 1848, serving three terms, and could have been easily elected in 1850 instead of Galusha A. Grow, and held the office as long as Grow, had he not become alarmed at the pro-slavery influences which had been brought against him in his own party, and in his own county where he was hounded day and night. He was too easily scared. He did not know his strength with the "rank and file." His withdrawal as a candidate was a surprise and grief to his friends. Bar- tholomew Laporte (who like himself had always been a Democrat) and who like himself afterwards helped to create the Republican party, speaking ot the sorrow caused by his withdrawal, said : "Every one I have met feels as if he had lost his first born."
War Days.
I attended a "peace meeting" in Towanda Jan. 1861, which had been called by lawyer John C. Adams, Chris- topher L. Ward and others to create a public sentiment in favor of compromising with the South. 3 South Coro- lina had seceded in December previous, and other states were on the point of joining her in rebellion. The pro- moters of the meeting had coaxed Allen Mckean to pre- side, but I don't think he was in sympathy with them.
The court house was tolerably well filled, and Mr. Adams after reading a string of resolutions made an elo- quent speech (as he was capable of doing on any subject) advocating the adoption of such compromise measures as the South would accept, and (as he said) thus preserve
45
War Days
the Union established by our fathers under which our country had so abundantly prospered. He said we could not conquer the South, and the only question was whether we would make peace before a bloody war, or after its conclusion, and the establishment of two hostile nations within our boundaries, to be continually at war.
Guy Watkins, (probably the youngest man present), answered him, and did it well. He said the United States was not a loosely bound confederacy that could be dissolved by any of its members at will, but a consoli- dated nation, intended by it founders to exist for all time, able to maintain itself, and in duty bound to put down rebellions against its authority. That South Caro- lina should be whipped back into the Union. Mr. Ward spoke in the same line as Mr. Adams, and in closing said, as he shook his fingers at Guy Watkins: This whole thing will be settled in thirty days in spite of you little lawyers !
I had not intended to say anything, but Judge Mor- row, who sat beside me, said : "Go in," and I went in, but had not talked long when Mr. Adams interrupted me with a question, which I answered and went on. In a short time he interrupted me again, and I said : "You advertised this meeting in the papers, and sent out word all over the county inviting people to come here and discuss a subject of momentous importance, and now that we have come you want to gag us because we do not think as you do." "Oh no, no, no !" he exclaimed. I had talked a little longer when Daniel Harkins, who, I think, lived near Towanda and was engaged in the nurs- ery business, jumped up and said : "The gentleman is not in order. He is not speaking on the resolutions -- is
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Wur Days
talking against time, and evidently means to talk the meeting out," and moved the previous question. Col. Gordon F. Mason and Ex-Lieutenant Governor Davies both took up the cudgels in my behalf, declaring that I was in order, but Harkins and his crew kept yelling : " The question! the question," and the president put the resolutions to vote and declared they had carried.
The last time I ever saw Guy Watkins was in a " war meeting" held in the church at Terrytown, where he was the principal speaker. He said : "I never had the conscience to ask any man to go to the war until I was prepared to go myself. Boys, I am going, and I want you all to go with me ! A man has to die but once, and I had as lief die on the battlefield fighting for my coun- try, as to die at home in bed." At the battle of Chan- cellorsville he was shot through the right lung-gener- ally a fatal wound. He recovered, rejoined his regiment and was killed in battle in Grant's lines before Peters- burg, and is buried in Riverside cemetery at Towanda.
General Madill, like General Jackson, could take re- sponsibilities when occasion required. Thomas Quick, a soldier in the 141st regiment, told me that General Ma- dill saved his life. They had been ordered to march, and the surgeon, who was an opium eater and kept him- self half stupified on the drug, had mounted his horse and rode off, and was out of sight and hearing when Thomas broke out with measles. There was a cold rain falling. Thomas could not be left behind, and was not able to march. General Madill hunted up an ambu- lance, and told the driver to take him in. The driver said : " You know, colonel, that I have no right to take anybody in without an order from the surgeon of the
48
J. Washington Ingham
regiment." General Madill explained the case. The driver, a pig-headed man, again repeated "You know the rules, and that I have no right to take that man in." The general did not waste any more words, but pushed the man roughly aside and jerked open the door of the ambulance. Mr. Craft helped Thomas in and shut the door. " Now drive on," said the general, and if you put that man out, I'll send you to hell across lots." He did not put him out.
When Job Kirby commenced shoemaking in Towanda his shop was very small. He was a tremendous worker. But few men could work as fast as he did and do their work as well. One day he commenced making boots, and as soon as pair was finished would throw them be- hind bis bench. After awhile the pile would crowd against his back and he would move the bench, in an hour or two more would have to move it again, and again. Just before night, he would have to move it clear out of doors, where he would make three or four pairs of brogans and throw in the door.
When Justus A. Record first moved to New Era he went down to Terrytown where he was a total stranger. He was very youthful looking at that time, and as you will observe is yet. Uncle George Terry the patriarch of the place, put his hand on Mr. Record's head and asked: "Whose boy be you?"
J. Washington Ingham,
author of the foregoing address, was born Oct. 21, 1823, at Sugar Run, Bradford county, Pa., on the farm where he now lives. It is the farm on which his grandfather, Joseph Ingham, settled in 1795, when the country was a dense wilderness of woods, and where his father, Thomas Ingham, lived, labored and died. The family is of
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J. Washington Ingham
English Quaker stock, the first parent having settled in New Jer- sey about 1732. Mr. Ingham received a good common school educa- tion and attended one term at the Athens academy. He taught two terms of school when a young man, practiced land surveying, "tended store," worked in the lumber woods, drew logs, tended saw-mill, rafted and ran lumber down the Susquehanna river to
Maryland. Early in life he devoted himself to farming, it being an occupation more congenial to his taste, and giving him more en- joyment than any other business in which he ever engaged. Upon the death of his father, in 1855, he assumed the duties of his father's estate, which included a grist-mill, saw-mill, farm and timber lot.
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J. Washington Ingham
Eventually he became the owner of the farm, and labored diligently and successfully to make it richer and more productive than ever before. He was the first Worthy Master of Wyalusing Grange, and represented it several times in the State Grange. His articles in newspapers have attracted much attention. He has written upon agriculture, history and other topics of public interest. He has been a contributor to the New York Tribune, the Tribune Farmer, the Ohio Farmer, the Country Gentleman, and other farm papers and magazines. He has also written an exhaustive history of the Indian tribes of Eastern Pennsylvania. Despite his years, Mr. Ing- ham is one of the ablest men in the county, his brilliant intellect showing no decline, while his pen is as vigorous as ever. He is "the grand-young-old man."
VIRTUE
DEPENDE
PAN
L NL
Colonel John Franklin.
A Portrait of Whom Was Unveiled With Fitting Ceremonies at the Rooms of the Bradford County Historical Society, June 24, 1909.
T HIS remarkable man was of English descent and a son of John and Keziah (Pierce) Franklin. He was the third in a family of eight children, and was born at Canaan, Conn., September 23, 1749. John Franklin, the elder, was a man of considerable wealth and influence in the town where he lived, a man of integrity, piety and vir- tue; a strict disciplinarian, yet commanding the love and veneration of his family. The mother is said to have been a woman of uncommon intelligence, quick of wit and of unusual vivacity and power of conversation. Of Colonel Franklin's early life but little is known. He enjoyed only the educational advantages afforded by the public schools of his day. The following anecdote is preserved of his boyhood days, as related by Mr. Miner: "Having, as was the custom, accompanied the family on Sabbath to their place of worship, the meeting house being only enclosed but neither ceiled nor plastered, the beams and rafters were all exposed to view. John saw that his austere father sat through the sermon with great
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52
Colonel John Franklin
uneasiness, but could not divine the cause. On return- ing home, the father said 'John, it is my duty to give you a severe thrashing, so now prepare yourself for you shall have it presently.' 'But you won't whip me, father, without telling me what for?' 'No, certainly; your con- duct at meeting is the cause. Instead of attending to the sermon you were all the time gaping about, as if you were counting all the boards and beams in the meeting house.' 'Well, father, can you repeat the sermon?' ยท 'Sermon, no; I had as much as I could do to watch you.' 'If I tell you all the minister said you will not whip me?' 'No, John, no; but you can't do that.' Young Franklin immediately began with the text, and taking up the dis- course went through every head of it with surprising ac- curacy. 'Upon my word,' said the delighted father, 'I should not have thought it.' 'And now,' said John, 'I can tell you exactly how many beams and rafters there are in the meeting house.' This is the more wonderful, when we remember that the sermons of that day were from one hour to an hour and a half long. His ever- springing affection for his parent is beautifully evinced in his journal. Almost every other page has the entry, 'wrote a letter to father.' "
Colonel Franklin married February 2, 1774, Lydia Doolittle, of Canaan, Conn., and in the following spring moved to Wyoming and settled in Plymouth. Here the family remained until the summer of 1776, during which time two sons, Billa and Amos, were born. Col- onel Franklin's father had become a proprietor in the Susquehanna purchase, and located his right in the town- ship of Huntington. Thither, John, leaving his family in Plymouth, went solitary and alone in the spring of
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Colonel John Franklin
1775, and made his "pitch" on the banks of Huntington Creek in Luzerne county. Having circumscribed the limits of his claim by notching and blazing the bark of the trees and overturning some of the soil with the poll of his axe, made thus his warrant of entry according to the custom of the times and entered upon the formal pos- session of his rights. "No white man had preceded him in this vicinity; he was the first, and the unmolested choice of the virgin soil was before him and here he made his selection and dedicated his future home. His faithful dog, the only witness to this act of possession, and his rifle leaning against a tree hard by-the only battery of his defence." During this year he erected his log house, cleared and sowed some three or four acres to grain, and in the summer of 1776 moved his family into the wilderness. His nearest neighbor was at the Susque- hanna river, a distance of some seven or eight miles. For the next two years he was busily engaged on his farm, attending the town meetings where he was quick to de- bate and able to defend his opinions, and was soon looked upon as one of the foremost men of the valley. When the 24th regiment of Connecticut Militia was organized, he was made captain of the Salem and Huntington com- pany. At the battle of Wyoming, Franklin and his company were directed to report at Forty Fort immed- iately, but his company was so scattered that he was unable to bring them on in time to participate in the battle. Of himself, he says, as soon as he had taken care of his family (he had now three children, the third a daughter, Kezia,) he set out with what few of his com- pany could be gathered for Wyoming, and reached the fort too late to participate in the engagement. He was
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Colonel John Franklin
present, however, to lend his advice in regard to the sur- .render and his aid to the fugitives. Having done all in his power to help the sufferers, he returned to his family, and, taking his wife and three little children, started for a place of safety. Going down the river, he stopped for a short time at Paxtang, then went to Windsor in Berks county. Here the family were attacked with the small- pox, and Mrs. Franklin died November 17, 1778. As soon as the children recovered, about the 1st of Decem- ber, he set out for Canaan in order to leave his helpless children in the care of his relatives. Hitching a yoke of oxen to a cart, he put into it his three little children (the oldest four years, the youngest eight months old,) tied a cow by the horns to follow and drove on, having a cup into which he milked from time to time as occas- ion required and fed the babe. Thus he traveled the rough way 200 miles, through forests, fording streams and frequently sleeping under the canopy of the heavens, though in the month of December, arriving at his des- tination in safety, having exhibited all the patience and tenderness of a mother as well as the care and providence of a father.
After devastating the country, burning houses, destroy- ing crops and driving off what live stock they could find, the Tories and Indians abandoned the valley. Soon after a few of the old settlers began to venture back to secure some portion of their crops if any had been left by the enemy. They built some log houses for shelter and defence, in which they spent the winter. Franklin returned to Wyoming early the next spring. Here his ability as a leader was readily acknowledged, and from this time he began to be the foremost man at Wyoming.
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