USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > Annual of the Bradford County Historical Society, 1906 > Part 22
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Throughout all of this pageantry of music, parade, marching, fine uniforms and gay equippage, the parade
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Old Time Training Days.
ground is fringed with spectators, men and women, girls and boys all out in their best dresses, the boys with white shirt and collars, and girls with clean aprons seeming to enjoy the sights of training day. As we mount our horse and ride away from the camp color back to our headquarters, I heard a boy say to his fellow, "who is that man on that fine black horse and nice dress ?" His friend said, "that's the brigade," another said, "that is the Inspector, and who is that other convey with him ?" "Don't you know, that is the General."
On every General training day if there were 500 or 1,000 soldiers present there would be full as many spec- tators of all manner of people under heaven. The coun- try lad with a wide mouth filled with ginger bread, tak- ing in the training and the ginger bread at the same time. There were boys selling ginger bread, root beer, chestnuts, apples, wintergreen berries. Men and boys were playing ball, wrestling, running foot races, fakirs, peddlers, fighters, boys with tin horns, boys 12 or 15 years of age were parading as fantastic companies. Their uniform consisted of a council cap made of strips of cloth of various colors. They played training. The ped- dlers made a noise and racket enough for an army going into battle. The old tin peddler would rattle his goods and pick up a bright pail, a smaller pail, big tin basin, little tin basin, a pie tin, a skimmer, a two-year-old baby cup and a two-year-old long tailed dipper thrown in, all for one dollar, customers walk up and take the same out- fit for a dollar as fast as he could deliver them.
Another peddler calls out : " Look here, gentlemen, here is a genuine diamond breast-pin for ladies ; it was made fifty feet under water by the light of a diamond by
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Old Time Training Days.
old Joe Morman. If you, young man, will give me one dollar and a half for it and give it to that girl that you are afraid to speak to, you can stay with her before you get within ten rods of the house." Another peddler says : "Hello ! over there you are making too much
noise. Listen to me. This is my razor in good order. Magnum bonum just as I bought her. As the sheep shells oats with the rattle of his horn, it will shave you before the water gets warm. Let me see what it says (reads) 'smooth and easy it will shave, it's just the razor you ought to have.' If any man will give me one dollar for this razor, and put it in his pocket and go home and go to bed, he will wake up in the morning with a clean shirt and clean shave, and have fourteen shillings in his pocket." "Cash," another peddler roars out with a voice like a lion, saying, "I will preach you a sermon of man's progress through the world, and his egress from the world. His progress through the world is all trouble and care. He goes when he dies nobody knows where. I could tell you no more if I should preach a whole year."
History Wilmot Township.
Paper by J. W. Ingham, Esq., Meeting December '8, 1902.
T HE territory, which now constitutes the town- ship of Wilmot, was comprised in the town- ship of Wyalusing, which was formed March 29, 1790, and so remained a part of Wyalu- sing until November, 1814, when it was detached from Wyalusing and included in a new township called Asy- lum, which was the name the French exiles had given to their settlement at Frenchtown. Asylum township, as originally constituted, comprised all the territory now in- cluded in the four townships of Asylum, Albany, Terry and Wilmot.
In February 1824 Albany township was formed from a part of Asylum township.
In 1842 a new township was formed from the north- western part of Asylum, and parts of Monroe and Wysox, and called Durell, after one of its early settlers.
In May 1849 another new township was formed from the southern part of Asylum lying on the hills adjoining Albany township, and coming within three miles of the river, and named Wilmot in honor of David Wilmot, the author of the celebrated " Proviso." The new township
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History Wilmot Township.
was not very satisfactory to its own inhabitants or those of Asylum, from which it had been taken and conse- quently in 1858, the lines of Wilmot were changed so as to include all that part of Asylum in the southeastern part of the county cast of a line starting from the river about a quarter of a mile below the bridge at Wyalusing and running a southwesterly direction to the Albany township line.
The township of Terry was formed from the remainder of the township of Asylum, adjoining Durell, and also that part of Wilmot in the vicinity of New Era, and, finally confirmed May, 1859. At this same court, the name of Durell was changed to Asylum, and thus the. name Asylum was returned to the territory where it rightfully belonged.
I am aware that it is not very interesting information, but as a matter of history is important. Wilmot town- ship comprises a considerable portion of the original township of Springfield, one of the seventeen townships which by the compromise act of the Pennsylvania legis- lature the Connecticut title to lands therein were held to be valid.
The limits of the lecture will only permit the mention of a few of the earliest settlers in Wilmot, and narra- tives of some of the incidents or occurrences which took place in the olden times.
The first white settler within the boundaries of Wilmot township was Edward Hicks, who made a possession at the mouth of the Sugar Run in 1775, and lived there about a year. The Connecticut title to the land on which he lived was held by Amaziah Close. Hicks did not claim any title, he was a squatter, and a Tory, and in
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1777 was arrested with other Tories, by a militia, from Wyoming, and taken down to that place, and held for some time. When released, he probably went up the river with other Tories to Tioga Point (now Athens). In 1776 Prince Bryant from Providence, R. I., owned the Hicks place and occupied it until 1777, when he sold to Benjamin Eaton, who lived on it until 1778. Calvin Eaton (probably a brother of Benjamin) lived near him. Like other settlers above Wyoming they went down there to escape the Indian invasion in 1778 which was so bloody, and terribly calamitous to the residents in that unfortunate valley, and the people who had fled thither for refuge.
In 1787 Benjamin Eaton sold his land to Isaac Benja- min, who in 1789 conveyed it to Jonas Ingham by whom it was transferred to his son, Joseph, who moved on it from Bucks connty, Pa., in 1795-his family consisting at that time of his wife, Pamelia (Ellicott) Ingham, and his son, Thomas, about one year old.
Joseph Ingham, was a mill wright by trade, and built a sawmill for himself in 1801, and a grist mill a few years later. He worked at his trade in building the Homet mills at Frenchtown, and at mills on the Wyalu- sing. He had a carpenter shop and in winters made chests, bedsteads, fanningsmills and coffins. At one time he kept a small store. His principle business after he quit millwrighting was farming.
Joseph Ingham was twice married, his second wife be- ing Laura (Whitcomb) Vose, of Mehoopany, By his first wife he had six sons as follows : Thomas Joseph, Josiah C., Alpheus, Benjamin P. and John E.
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By his second wife he had two sons, Samuel D. and Edwin. He died June 11, 1829.
Thomas Brown made a clearing about a half a mile above the mouth of the Sugar Run in 1780, and lived there until Joseph Ingham bought his improvement, and Brown moved across the river to Browntown, where some of his descend- ants still reside. Philip Painter was no doubt the first white settler in that part of Wilmot now called " Quicks Bend." He was living on the land (afterwards owned by James Quick) previous to the Revolutionary War. He was a squatter, and believed to have been a Tory, and left the place to join other Tories up the river when it became unsafe for Tories to reside among pat- riots.
It has been said that Leonard Lott lived on the Joseph Gamble place, at the lower end of Quick's Bend during the summer of 1777. The probability is he was only prospecting, and hunting, and lived in the cabin alone during the summer. There being no record that he ever moved his family to the place, or made any improve- ment.
Thomas Keeney, a native of Litchfield, Conn., first settled at Wapwalopec, and came to the township of Wilmot homeseeking, in 1784, and lived alone the first season in a brush cabin in the ravine near where Stephen Dowd now resides. In 1785 Mr. Keeney brought his family from Wapwalopec, and not long afterwards was ar- rested as one of the abductors of Timothy Pickering, and taken to Wilkes-Barre and kept in confinement all sum- mer.
During his absence, a party of men tried to take his canoe and attempted to push it into the river, but Mrs.
History Wilmot Township.
Keeney hung to the chain with such determination, even after being dragged into the water that they gave it up and left the brave woman in possession. The women in those days were braver, and stronger. than some men are now. One night she heard a noise at the door of the pen where the hogs slept, and knowing by the sound that a bear and the hogs were having a fight, she rushed out with a pitchfork to the battle-ground, and by the use of this effective weapon the bear was driven off with severe wounds in his body, and the hog saved.
In the Spring of 1788 the brothers, Richard and Joshua Keeney (distant relatives of Thomas), came from Con- necticut to Wilmot ; Richard married Mercy, a daughter of Thomas Keeney, in September, 1788. She, like her mother, was a woman of great resolution. On one occa- sion a party of men had driven a panther up a tree at Rocky Forest, and Mercy, although but 16 years of age, volunteered to stand under the tree and keep the panther up, while the men ran home to get their rifles with which the animal was killed. Richard and Thomas Keeney built the frame house afterwards occupied for many years by Joseph Gamble, and which is still standing in good preservation and occupied by Stephen Dodd. In this house, the wife of Mark Keeney died July 17, 1804, and Mark died the following October. They were the aged parents of Joshua Keeney. Thomas Keeney sold the farm to John Gamble, Sr., (Joseph Gamble's father ) in 1812 and moved to Chemung, N. Y. The sons of John Gam- ble, Sr., were: James, William, John, Joseph and George. Jeremiah, a son of Mark Keeney, was the first resident on the John Morrow place, now owned by W. G. Morrow.
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History Wilmot Township.
James Anderson, a native of Monaghan county, Ire- land, settled in Wilmot in 1802, living first on Sugar Hill, and afterwards on the Wilson place in Quick's Bend. In IS18, Anderson sold his place to Captain Wil- son and moved with his family to Ohio, leaving one daughter married to Abiel, son of Richard Keeney.
" Jimmie Anderson," as he was called, was a powerful man physically, and although a religious man, and a member of the Presbyterian church, did not hesitate to settle personal controversies with his fists. He was never beaten in a battle and only in one encounter, which was with "Jim Quick," (another champion of the ring,) was the contest a "draw." On this occasion their friends separated them, after both had become exhausted and covered with blood, no superiority having been mani- fested by cither combatant. Usually in those days two bullies were allowed to fight it out "to the finish," and fences, stones and all obstructions moved out of the way, but in this battle the parties were so evenly matched, it was apparent that one or both would die on the field, or be injured for life, and accordingly they were separated. In those early times, personal strength and courage were considered of the utmost importance, and such was pub- lic opinion, that constables and justices of the peace (had they so desired) would not have been allowed to stop the fight, and these peace officers often stood and looked on with as much interest as any of their neighbors. In 1829 Anderson was killed by the fall of a limb from a tree. His daughter, Ellen, returned to Pennsylvania and married William Lake, and lived near Laceyville. James Quick, father of Anderson's antagonist, came from near Milford, in the Minisink country, about 1791, and
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History Wilmot Township.
settled in the Bend, afterwards named in his honor. He was of the Holland Dutch extraction, and died in 1846 at an advanced age. Christopher Schoonover, also of Dutch extraction, came from the same neighborhood where James Quick had lived, and settled in the Bend about 1792. He built a log house below the Wilson place and covered it with bark. He sold his possession to Cornelius Quick and moved up the river to Litchfield.
In March, 1799, Timothy Beeman moved his family from Litenfield county, Conn., to Wilmot and settled on what is now the Holland place on Sugar Hill. It was then an unbroken wilderness, except that a man named Vanderpool had built a log house on the John Brown place, cut a few trees and moved away. Beeman moved with two teams-a yoke of oxen and a sled, a span of horses and a sleigh. Timothy Beeman died in August, 1830. His son, Seymour, who never married, lived on his father's place for many years, and sold to James Hol- land and moved to North Mehoopany where he died. He was an honest, good hearted man, celebrated for mak- ing sensatianal speeches. He hated snow, and on one occasion after there had been a fall of four feet, he said : "I wish it was gunpowder-I'd get rid of it mighty quick-I'd touch it off and jump down in the well." Another time he said : "I want to live a thousand years after everybody else is dead except Humphrey Brown." "What do you want to keep him for ?" was asked. "To make whiskey for me," was the reply. Humphrey Brown had a distillery at Browntown.
During a wet summer Seymour Beeman had dried some clover hay three times,and had it wet by showers each time before it could be drawn to the barn. He had
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History Wilmot Township.
dried it the fourth time, but before the team could be got out he saw a shower coming, and knowing it was sure to be wet again struck a match and burned it to ashes, and then coolly remarked to his assistant : "I guess I got the start of the Devil this time. The Devil has always been against me and sometimes the Lord helps him !"
His brother, Judson, had a fine three-years-old colt that had sought shelter under a tree in a pasture during a thunder shower, and was killed by lightning. Judson bore his loss with Christian fortitude ; but soon after as another storm was coming on, and a terrific roll of thun- der made the house shake, and resounded from mountain to mountain, he said, with a little tone of bitterness : " Boo, boo, ow, ow, you want another colt, don't you?"
Silas F. Andrews was the first settler on the Sugar Run above the Ingham farm. He was from Connecticut and came about 1792. His father was one of the original proprietors of certified Springfield township. He built a small grist-mill, with one run of stones, and a saw-mill with an up-and-down saw. Both, though small concerns, were very serviceable to the early settlers. He sold to William Brindle and moved away about 1800. Ephraim Marsh, who came about 1799, built a house about half way between the river and Andrews mills. Ephraim Marsh had two little girls, who were sent by their mother on an errand to Joseph Preston's, who lived on the oppo- site side of the creek, which was crossed by a "foot stick" -a long log, flattened and laid on long abutments from shore to shore. The mother did not know that the creek had raised during the night, or she would not have sent them. When the children found the creek high and running so swiftly under the foot stick, they took hold of
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History Wilmot Township.
each other's hands to steady themselves as they walked over, one keeping a little behind the other. Before reaching the middle of the creek, their heads swam and both fell into the raging water. One was swept down by the swift current, and went over the mill dam situated about ten rods below ; the other child fortunately caught hold of the limb of a tree that hung out over the stream just touching the water, and as this swung around to the shore she crawled out and hurried home to tell the sad news to her mother. Marsh was away, and Mrs. Marsh ran down to Joseph Ingham's to obtain assistance. Thomas Ingham mounted a horse, and, riding into the creek below the dam and keeping down in it about forty rods, saw a little hand sticking up in a pile of driftwood that had lodged against a tree. Reaching down from his horse, he caught hold of the little hand and pulled the drowned girl up into his lap and took her home as soon as possible. Efforts were made to resuscitate the child, but all in vain.
Eliphalet Marsh, a brother of Ephraim, lived at the time on the place now owned by Fred Horton. The Marshes were good marksmen and great hunters. Deer and other game were plentiful in the woods ; panthers, wolves, bears and wild cats more plentiful than desira- ble.
Mrs. Ellen Lake, a daughter of James Anderson, stated that her mother killed a deer near the house with a rifle, and that wolves could be heard at all hours of the night and were frequently seen in the daytime; that sheep were herded in pens near the house built wolf proof, and that it was a common occurrence for bears to carry off pigs from the doorstep in broad daylight. Joseph Ing-
History Wilmot Township.
ham raised two dogs at Sugar Run to protect his sheep and poultry from wild beasts. When small pups, one of them displayed great intelligence, barking at strangers who came to the honse and giving much promise of mak- ing a useful watch dog. The other seemed stupid and lazy, sleeping most of the time, and not much was ex- pected of him. By the time they were full grown, their characters had undergone a wonderful change. The bright, vigilant pup became a lazy, cowardly cur. The stolid, sleepy pup became an uncommonly intelligent, watchful, courageous dog. He was known to seize a large bull by the nose going on the run, and throw him on the ground flat by jerking his head side-wise. The other dog could not be induced to take a pig by the ear. The dogs were brothers, of the same age, size and color, but here the resemblance ceased. One was a valuable dog, and the other good for nothing. The other seemed to be always awake and alert, the other nearly always asleep, or out of sight.
"One night," said Thomas Ingham, "I was awakened by the howling of the cowardly dog, and when I got up in the morning he led me on the orchard hill above the house. The good dog was missing. A tracking snow had fallen the evening before, and I found the tracks of a wild beast and dog's tracks. The wild beast had come from the wood and started for the sheep barn, but had been intercepted by the dog and turned on his back tracks.
When a little past the house on top of the hill the courageous dog had attacked him. If he had expected any assistance from his cowardly brother he did not get it. There was evidences of a desperate battle between the
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History Wilmot Township.
dog and the wild beast. The snow for rods around was trampled, packed, and bloody where the combatants had fought standing on their hind legs, and fought lying on the ground rolling and tumbling. The wild beast was a panther, larger and with sharper teeth and claws than the dog, who died on the battlefield, in the unequal com- bat, and had been pretty nearly eaten up; the remaind- er having been dragged a dozen rods and buried under the roots of a tree that had been blown down by the wind. Having gorged himself the panther with com- mendable forethought had secreted the fragments with the evident intention of returning when hungry and de- vouring the remainder.
Mr. Ingham, with the Marshes, started in pursuit of the marauder and following his tracks about a mile they came upon him. He had made a nest of leaves and laid down to rest, and recuperate, after his severe conflict to obtain his breakfast. Started up by the dogs he sprang into a tree where he was soon dispatched by the rifles of his pursuers. When the panther fell to the ground life- less, the cowardly dog sprang upon the dead body, and bit, and shook it as long as he was allowed to do so. Was he enacting the part of John Falstaff who laid down on the battlefield and pretended to be dead until the fight was over and nobody in sight, then got up and cut off the head of a dead enemy and carried it into camp of his friends boasting of his wonderful achievement.
The panther measured more than seven feet in length. John M. Quick who lived on the Morrow place previous to its occupancy by John Morrow said : " One summer I had nine shoats that ran in the woods in the daytime and before fall they had all been killed by the bears except
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History Wilmot Township.
one long-legged barrow who only owed his life to his fleetfootedness as he could out run the bears. He slept at the barn which was quite a distance from the house and one night I heard him coming and at every leap grunt- ing out 'ugh, ugh, ugh,' which was his call for help. I knew what was up, jumped out of bed, grabbed my ax, and without waiting to put on my pants or boots ran out, leaving the door open behind me. The hog was so close- ly pursued that he dashed right by me into the house as a city of refuge, and the bear came within half a rod of me before halting and turning aside. I could not get that hog out of doors again that night and had to leave him in until morning."
Mr. Quick said that deer at that time could be seen as many as eighteen in a drove, and that he had seen them standing in the river fighting flies like cattle, that they were destructive to wheat-fields before harvest, traveling through them and biting off the heads.
John Morrow, father of Judge P. D. Morrow, deceased, came from Ireland to Wilmot in 1811. He married Sally, daughter of Major John Horton, Sr., of Terrytown, and bought the farm on which John Quick had previously lived. Soon after taking possession, Mr. Morrow started across the swamp as the nearest route to a neighbor's of whom he wanted to borrow some bags. In the midst of the swamp he discovered in a nest beside a log some very young bear cubs. Out of curiosity, and without thinking of what might be the consequences he picked up one of the little fellows which immediately squealed like a pig when being butchered. This piercing cry of distress was heard by the mother who was not far off, and she came on the full run in furious mood, and mouth wide open to
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History Wilmot Township.
defend her young, and avenge their wrongs. Mr. Morrow having no weapon for attack or defense, hurriedly climbed into a small tree out of reach of the infuriated beast. The tree was too small for her to follow, (for bears can only climb large trees) but she manifested her rage by gnaw- ing the bark off the tree up which she had driven her enemy, and then took her cubs and went away. Of course he was in no hurry to come down until bruin was out of sight.
Ebenezer Horton, son of Major John Horton, Sr., bought the Eliphalet Marsh place where his grandson, Fred Hor- ton, now resides. He was a very hard working man, a member of the Old School Baptist church of Terrytown, and died May 1, 1826. His wife, Mary, usually called " Polly," was a daughter of Captain Jonathan Terry of Terrytown. She was an excellent business woman and after her husband's death kept her large family together, supported them comfortably and educated them. She died March 30, 1873, at the age of nearly 86 years. The first school in Wilmot was taught by Simeon Rockwell about 1799, the next by Nathan Beeman about the year 1800. The old schoolhouse, built of hewn logs, and hav- ing an immense fire place, stood where Peter Dietrik's house now stands, There was a burying ground near it where William Stranger, a young man who was killed by a falling tree, and four children of John M. Quick, were buried. The four children all died of scarlet fever, with- in one week from the time the first one was attacked.
When a small boy I attended school in that old school house for several terms and for few days when the teacher was a tramp named MeMaster. He was apparently 60 years of age, very lame and walked with a crutch and
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History Wilmot Township.
cane. It will astonish people at the present time to hear that the committee hired that stranger on his own rec- ommendation without a certificate, or examination of any kind and placed him in the school. They must have been actuated by motives of benevolence, for his language betrayed bis ignorance of all the rules of grammar ; but grammar is a study which was not considered of much account in those days. He whipped a boy the first day of school for leaving his seat without permission. "I kont forgive ye," he said, "order is heaven's first law, there must be order school, and I am here to keep it. If I was to forgive ye this time, ye would break the rule again-take off your coat !" He taught less than a week. In attempting to cane a big boy, he was worsted in the battle and put out of the house, and his crutch, hat and overcoat thrown out after him. He did not at- tempt to come back, nor ask anybody for his pay, but departed for regions unknown.
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