Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 69

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318

USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania > Part 69

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The two last-named lived so far down the creek that it is now in Rush township. Eben-

ezer Whipple lived in the centre of the Flat until 1806, when he sold to Peter Stevens, and the latter, four years later, disposed of his inter- ests to Robinson Bolles, for whom the "Flat" was named. Whipple afterwards lived on the Carrier place, where he died, in 1826, aged sev- enty-two years. He was very skillful in the use of the rifle and killed, besides other game, as many as a hundred deer in a year. He had a son named Cyrus, who moved to Iowa and who recounted his experience in Jessup as fol- lows :

"I was five years old when my father cmi- grated from Otsego County, N. Y., to the banks of the Wyalusing. Soon after there came a freshet, the creek overflowed its banks, and a portion of its current swept through onr cabin, running near our fireplace a foot deep or more. I remember my mother's washing and dipping up the water by the side of her kettle. This was our introduction to pioneer life."

The sister of Cyrus Whipple, at that time a young girl, was also skilled in the arts of the woodmen and could use a rifle with deadly effect. It is said that "she one day saw a deer in the creek as she was passing by, and called at a house for a man to shoot it. As it hap- pened, only the lady of the house was in; she took the gun and accompanied the girl within shooting distance, but then her courage failed. The girl herself now rose to the occasion. Seiz- ing the gun, she fircd, and instantly a famous buck lay splashing in the water."

Mrs. Cyrus Whipple, also, was a courageous woman. " One day, in the absence of her lius- band, she saw a ferocious wild-cat within a few rods of the house. It caught a goose and began to eat it. The thought that it might, at another time, make a meal of one of her children nerved her, though naturally a timid woman, to sally forth with a rifle to shoot it. When she came near, it placed its paws upon a log and gave a growl of defiance ; then she brought the rifle to bear upon it, and the next moment it lay lifeless." 1

Of Ebenezer Whipple's skill as a hunter, Mr. J. W. Chapman related the following :

1 Miss Blackman.

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

" Mr. Whipple happened along one day with his rifle, where my father and Mr. Jeremiah Gere were chopping trees, and stopped to talk a few minutes of his exploits in shooting partridges. 'What!' inquired one of them, 'you don't shoot them with a rifle ball, do you ?' 'Of course,' replied he. 'I always take their heads off with a ball, rather than mangle their bodies with shot,' continued he. They looked at each other with a somewhat incredulous glance, as if sus- pecting it to be rather a tough yarn, when one of them happened to espy a couple of those birds a few rods off, hopping up at each other in play or fight. 'There's a chance for you, Mr. Whipple,' said he; 'if you can shoot off a pheasant's head with a ball, let's see it.' The old man deliberately drew up his rifle, and quiet- ly said, "Wait till they get in range;' and the next moment pop went the rifle, and sure enough both their heads were taken off by the ball ! Their incred- ulity vanished, while the old hunter walked off with his game in triumph."

Charles Miner was in Jessup in 1799 and 1800, and had his home at Ebenezer Whipple's, while he worked on his clearings. He took up two lots, one on the farm where afterwards lived Buckingham Stewart, where he cleared four acres and sowed it with wheat. After this was harvested and stacked it was destroyed by bears. This locality is still sometimes called "Miner Hill." The other lot was several miles northeast from the above, and abont a mile from Whip- ple's, where later lived Lyman Picket. Here he had a bark 'cabin, and, with the assistance of a man, commenced chopping, but made slow progress. His own account of his experience, about that time, was given in a letter read at the Pioneer Festival, Montrose, June 2, 1858, in which, after mentioning that he and a Mr. Chase went to the forks of the Wyalusing from Mr. Parkes', he says,-

" Mr. Bronson piloted us to lot thirty -nine in Usher. The vocabulary of us intruding Yankees spoke of Usher, Ruby, Locke, Manor, Dandolo and Bidwell as our recognized localities. A hill, descending gently to the south for half a mile; a spring gushing from its side, running through groves of sugar maple, beech, cherry, whitewood, and here and there a monster of a hemlock, through swales now green with springing grass ; we made a bark cabin, open in front to a huge log against which our fire was kindled; a bed of hemlock-boughs ; each a blanket ; a six-quart camp- kettle to boil our chocolate; plates and dishes made from the soft whitewood or maple. Here we took up our quarters for the summer (1799). Chopped awkwardly, slept soundly, except being

awakened too early from our town habits by the stamping deer, for we had taken possession of a fa- vorite runway. This, if my memory is correct, was about two 1 miles west from where Montrose was after- wards located. That summer and the next, popula- tion poured in rapidly under the auspices of Col. Ezekiel Hyde, our Yankee leader. His headquarters were at Rindaw. From Wilson's, down the east branch of the Wyalusing to the Forks, were Maine, Lathrop, Whipple, Sweet, Griffis, Tupper, Picket (the famous 'painter' killer) and Beaumont; on the middle branch, at the large salt spring, the Birchards, I think the first and only inhabitants of Ruby ; on the north Branch, in Locke, the Canfields and Brister, the renowned wolf-slayer. The Parkes were the only settlers in Bidwell, as Wilson was in the Manor. Was it a time of suffering ? No! no! of pleasurable ex- citement [Mr. M. was then but nineteen years of age], of hope, health' and mutual kindness. Novelty gild- ed the scene. There was just enough of danger, toil and privation to give life a relish. My Sunday home was at Mr. Whipple's, whose residence was on the Wyalusing, a mile south of us. He was a capital hunter. An anecdote will give you his character. Just at dusk, he returned from the woods in high spirits. ' I have him-a large bear-we will go out in the morning and fetch him in!' Behold! as he had shot in the twilight, he had killed Nathan Tup- per's only cow. Mr. Whipple, the most fore-handed settler, had three. 'Neighbor Tupper,' said he, ' I am sorry-it was an accident. Now choose of mine which you please.' 'I won't take your best ; let me have old Brindle; she is worth more than mine,' said Mr. Tupper ; and the matter was settled by that higher law, 'Do as you would be done by.' Not an instance of dishonesty, or even of unkindness, do I remember. Grain was scarce, mills distant ; a maple stump was burned hollow for a mortar, early corn pounded ; the good Mrs. Whipple stewed pumpkins, and of the mixture made capital bread.

" The rifle of Mr. Whipple furnished abundance of venison. Deer was plenty-a few elk remained-on the river hills that encircled us there were the pilot and rattlesnake, where annual fires prevailed. In the deep shade of the dense forest they had not yet pene- trated."

In the course of the summer of 1800 Mr. Miner cut his foot and was taken to Mr. Whip- ple's, where he was cared for several wecks. " When he got well," said Cyrus Whipple, " his taste for farming subsided, and he began to think that he mistook his calling." He removed. to Wilkes-Barre, where he engaged in teaching,

1 In his " History of Wyoming," he givesit three miles west, which is nearer correct. He probably supposed Montrose located on the old road to Great Bend, which ran farther west than the present one.

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and later became editor of the Luzerne Federal- ist. In 1804 he married Letitia Wright, of Wilkes-Barre, but afterwards made several visits to his pioneer friends in Jessup, who held him in high esteem.

Cyrus Whipple wrote that on the occasion of one of these visits to his father, Mr. Miner said,-

"' I tell my wife, sometimes, I never enjoyed life so well as I did when I lived away up in the woods with Uncle Whipple ; and she'll box my ears for it.' On another occasion my father related to him a wolf-story, which Mr. Miner published fifteen or twenty years after my father's decease, adding: 'The noble old hunter now sleeps in the bosom of that soil of which he was one of the pioneers, after having filled up and rounded off an amiable, useful and blameless life.' "

In later years Mr. Miner became one of the best-known writers in the State, and his " His- tory of Wyoming " is replete with the most valuable information in regard to the Con- necticut claims, making it a standard book.

Abner Griffis settled on a farm adjoining Ebenezer Whipple. In 1801 he took posses- sion of the grist-mill which Holden Sweet had built on the Wyalusing, above the Flat, Sweet, cultivating his farm meantime. The lat- ter had endeavored for more than a year to get the mill in operation, vainly spending most of his property in the endeavor to bring the water in troughs for a quarter of a mile. In a few months Griffis succeeded in starting the mill, but for more than a year it was'without a bolt, and he had to sell a cow to procure one. Up to this time the settlers had been obliged to go to the mouth of the Wyalusing to get their grinding done, and the mill proved a great ac- commodation to the community. He remained here until 1804, when he returned to his farnı.

BYRON GRIFFIS .- The first permanent settlers within the present limits of Jessup township were Abner Griffis, Ebenezer Whipple and his stepson, Ezra Lathrop, who came, with their families, from near Unadilla, New York, down the Susquehanna River to the mouth of the Wyalusing Creek in canoes, thence on ox-sleds up that creek, and located on and near Bolles' Flats, between Fairdale and Grangerville, on the Creek road, during the early spring of 1799.

Family tradition states that Abner Griffis had been on the ground the previous summer and determined upon a location, then returned for his family and friends. He had been engaged as a "minute-man " in the Revolutionary War, and received a pension until his death, at the age of over eighty years, at Unadilla, to which place he returned after the death of his wife, at the home of their son Elisha, in Forest Lake township. He owned and operated the first grist-mill in the township for several years. The children of this couple were Solomon, died at Unadilla ; Hezekiah, deceased ; John, a farmer, died in Jackson township, whose son, Leander Griffis, ex-county commissioner, re- sides on the homestead there ; Ezekiel, a lum- berman, died in Bradford County ; Rebecca, married a Mr. Leonard, and is now dead ; Elisha, a farmer and hotel-keeper in Forest Lake township, died in 1870, aged eighty-one years ; Patty, married Pliny Birchard, a farmer of this township, and upon his decease, moved to the West and died there; and Robert, born April 9, 1791, who, in 1813, married Lydia Robinson (1795-1857), of Jessup, and had children-Amanda, married Madison Bostwick, of Montrose ; Bartlet, born 1816, now a painter at Tama City, Iowa; Harriet, 1819, married Tracy Frink, a farmer of New Milford town- ship; Mahlon, 1821, a retired farmer living at Vestal, N. Y .; Byron, born January 18, 1824; Laura D., 1827, the wife of Joseph Simpson, a surveyor, living in California; Isaac, died in infancy. Squire Griffis took Mrs. Comfort (Kellum) Sherman (the widow of Squire Jon- athan Sherman, of this township) as his second wife in 1858. The Kellum family were early settlers in Forest Lake township. Robert Griffis settled in 1814 on Porter Ridge, on the farm now owned and occupied by his youngest son, Byron, where he remained until his death, in 1884, at the ripe old age of ninety-three years. He was a man of marked ability and strength of character. In 1825 he was ap- pointed by the Governor justice of the peace, and served in such capacity fifteen years. In 1840 the first election for township officers oc- curred, and he was elected by the people and continued in such office for ten years thereafter.

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1836 he was clected one of the county com- missioners, and served in different offices until 1856, a continuons period of thirty-one years, in addition to acting as postmaster for ten years at Porter Ridge, an office now discontinued. He was an accommodating and obliging neighbor, an influential and moral eitizen, a devoted member of the Middletown Baptist Church, with which lic united in 1829, and regularly attended until age and infirmities prevented. His voice and

him until their deaths, that of Mrs. Griffis oc- curring January 31, 1872. He has been quite a factor in politics, but has not sought office, though he has acted in various township capa- cities, amongst others as school director three terms. He has been proffered nomination as justice of the peace, bnt declined. On Septem- ber 2, 1849, he married Adelia C., daughter of William and Mary (Bowman) McGill, who was born November 10, 1824. William McGill

Byvoro Griffes

example were ever given to good works, and his influence lives after him. Byron Griffis enjoyed the advantages of the district school dur- ing winters until twenty-one years of age, and then worked out a couple of years until called home and given half of his father's interest in the farm. Upon this place he has spent his life. In 1850 he bought his brother's interest, and in 1854 made the final payment to the original owners of the land. His parents remained with

was a mason-builder at Towanda, and the son of Dennis McGill, who came with his parents from Ireland when twelve years of age, and settled near Towanda, Pa. Their children were Dennis, a farmer, died in Bradford County; William, also a farmer, went to Illinois and died there of eholera ; Jacob, a shoemaker, died in Bradford County ; James, a farmer, has recently gone to Michigan ; Hiram W., a ear- penter, living in Towanda ; Marinda, married

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first Edward Patterson, and second John Gor- ham, and is a widow now living in Bradford County ; Eliza, wife of Benjamin Smith, a farmer of Bradford County; Polly, married Martin Moore, of Rome, Pa., and died nearly forty years ago; Adelia C., wife of Byron Griffis ; and Rebecca, married Mallory Wolf, a Luzerne County farmer.

The Bowmans were among the earliest set- tlers in Bradford County, Jacob Bowman, grandfather of Mrs. Griffis, having been a sol- dier in the Revolution. The children of Byron and Adelia Griffis are Laura A., died in infancy ; Leroy H., born April 17, 1853, married Eliza Ellsworth, and is a business man in Montrose ; Oscar F., born April 17, 1855, married Emma Allen, has one child, Frank Byron, and lives near the homestead; Estella Adelia, born June 20, 1857, married Elmer Tewksbury, a farmer of Auburn township; Eugene B., born November 9, 1859, married Hattie Deuel, has two children, Arthur L. and Bessie A., and is a farmer of Rush township; and Perry E., born August 1, 1866. Mr. and Mrs. Griffis are consistent members of the Middletown Baptist Church, he having joined nearly fifty years ago, and is now acting as deacon, having been elected to succeed L. Minor Turrell, Orange Mott, Jr., and Levi Tupper, all of whom died within a few months of each other.

The Griffis family is about the only one which has remained continuously in the town- ship since its first settlement. Abner Griffis died at the residence of his son Solomon, in New York. Of him Mr. Miner said : " He was the beau of the Wyalusing ; he had a fine form, a ruddy chcek, bright eye, pleasant smile, manly expression, and with the rifle no superior."

In 1799 the four Maine brothers-Samuel, Nehemiah, Ezekiel and Meacham-came and located in the valley of the Wyalusing a mile above Bolles' Flat, and along South Creek. Samnel lived on the flat at the mouth of the latter creek and made some improvements, which he sold to his brother-in-law, Samuel Lewis, in 1800, and began improving another farm, which was later known as Butterfield's. Meacham Maine was south of him, on the ridge, and both he and Samuel moved to Indi-

ana before 1813. Ezekiel Maine lived on the present Shay farm, where afterwards lived David Turrell, and Nehemiah Maine lived in what is now Dimock.

Ezekiel Maine, Jr., was born while his father lived on " Maine Hill," on the Shay farm. In the same year, 1799, at least six more tracts of land were located in Jessup, by Holden Sweet, Zebdiah Lathrop, Eben Ingram, Jeremiah Meacham, John Reynolds and Daniel Foster. The three first named remained, but Meacham and Foster returned to Long Island for their families, after having put up log cabins.

Holden Sweet located on the creek, where is now the mill, making the first improvement of that nature the same year; but in 1800 exchanged places with Abner Griffis, moving farther down the creek, near Ebenezer Whip- ple's. A little more than a mile north Zebdiah Lathrop located and died in the township. His son, Zebdiah, removed to Rush and afterwards to Iowa. Two of his daughters married Ros- well Morse and John Hancock. The road by his house was petitioned for in 1801, to begin between the houses of Ebenezer Whipple and Ezra Lathrop, on the Wyalusing, and to extend to Ellicott's road, near the thirty-fourth mile- tree.

Jeremiah Meacham selected the farm adjoin- ing Ezekiel Maine's on the cast. He then returned to Connecticut for his family, and arrived here-nine in all-on the 1st of March, 1800. They came via Great Bend to H. Tiff- any's, in " Nine Partners," and from thence to Stephen Wilson's, and found but one house between-that of Joseph Chapman, in what is now Brooklyn. Upon reaching Ezekiel Maine's and finding no path beyond, the family halted until a road was cut. There was not a nail in Mr. Meacham's house, the shingles being held on with poles.

The east line of Jessup passes through the house occupied by his son Sheldon until his recent decease, on the farm elcared by Mr. Meacham, and where he died. A part of the estate passed to the late Jeremiah Meacham, Jr., who resided on it until a few years since. In early life he united with the Baptist Church, in which he was deacon for many years. As an

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upright, honest, Christian man, his name and character are without blemish. He died in Montrose, February 24, 1871, aged seventy - eight years.

In the spring of 1807, on the 1st day of April, there was four feet of snow on the ground. Jeremiah Meacham's wife and threc daughters were then all confined to their beds with sickness. Dr. Fraser came from Great Bend to attend them. Their fire-wood being exhausted, they were obliged to burn the fence, as the woods, though only eight or ten rods off, were inaccessible by the ox-team. There were no drifts on account of the woods. For seven days it was cold, blowing weather; then the sun shone out, and in the little clearings the snow melted so rapidly that, with the large amount in the woods, it caused what is known as " the great flood."

John Reynolds and Daniel Foster came, the second time, from Long Island, in company with Bartlet Hinds, of Bridgewater, in May, 1800. They lived in the 1 cabin that Mr. Reynolds had built the previous year, and to this, in the next fall, Mr. Foster and his family camc. His son Walter was then in his eighth year.

The saw-mill spoken of was built as early as 1801, and was the first improvement of that kind in Jessup. That year a road was petitioned for by Ichabod Halsey, who had come with Foster and who located on what is now the Roy place, " to cross the Wyalusing at Foster's saw- mill." Daniel Foster dicd in 1829, and the place passed into the hands of his son Walter, who deceased in 1872, at the residence of his son, near Scranton.2

As carly as 1801 David Doud was on the

place where Charles Miner made his first clear- ing and where, later, settled Buckingham Stuart. About the same time Samuel Lewis and his family were living on the Maine placc, at the mouth of South Creek. West of him David Olmstead located as early as 1802, coming from Norwalk, Conn. He was a soldier in the Rev- olution, in the northern campaign under General Gates, and was also with Washington in his retreat from New York. He died in Jessup November 29, 1829, but some of his descendants have resided in the township to the present timc. Asa Olmstead was on the farm next east, and higher up the stream was Matthias Smith as early as 1808. When he located here he was a son-in-law of Ebenezer Whipple.

The adjoining farm was owned by Colonel William C. Turrell, his log house standing on the present Dr. N. P. Cornwell place, but lower down, on the low lands. For a long time the place was called " Turrell's Flat." He received his title from being chosen lieutenant-colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Regiment Pennsylvania Militia, in 1811. He was an active, influential man, but removed to the West about 1840. Higher up the creek was the farm of Lyman Cook, and beyond that was David Turrell, who removed to Michigan, where he died in 1849, aged sixty-six ycars. Where William Robertson now lives was the third of the Turrell brothers, bearing the Christian name of Doctor. His improvements were among the first on that hill, and this lot of land was the southern limit of the Rose tract, in this part of the county.

The first settlers on the hill but higher up, were Lemuel Walibridge, and his sou Henry, also natives of Connceticut, who located near the summit about 1812. They also bought the Doctor Turrell farm, below them, and Henry Wallbridge first improved the Jagger farm. About the same time Christian Shelp, a Mo- hawk Dutchman, came from New Milford, where he had settled after moving from New York, and bought four hundred acres of the Rose lands between the above two places. His father-in-law, Henry Pruyne, who had settled in Great Bend in 1810, came with him. The latter was a Revolutionary soldier and a pen-

1 " The cahin had no floor, except that mother had a short hoard to keep her feet warm. When Mr. Reynolds hronght his family in the spring of 1801, father moved into his own house across the creek, Mr. Reynolds being on the left hank, on a knoll still marked hy the remains of the old chimney and foundation of the lionse. He had the first full- ing-mill in Jessup. Its site is marked hy the stone chimney left stand- ing when the huilding was horned. For some years, his family occupied a part of it. My father huilt, in 1812, a framed honse, also on the right bank, hut a few rods farther west. lle paid for his land twice-first to his friend, Mr. Reynolds, who held a Connecticut title only, and after- wards to the Wallace estate, or rather to Peter Graham, to whom the obligation was transferred. After giving to the latter one hundred and thirty acres and the saw-mill, he had two hundred and fifty acres left."

2 Miss Blackman.

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sioner. He died in 1843, and his widow, Rachel, the following year, aged eighty-one years. Christian Shelp had sons named John, Nathaniel, Henry, Christian, Jr., and Stephen. Henry afterwards lived on the farm which his father had occupied many years. Charles Davis, a son-in-law of Shelp, located in the same neighborhood, and as these settlers were perma- nent, the locality took the name of "Dutch Hill," which it has retained to the present.

Another family, whose settlement was per- manent, was that of Robinson Bolles. 1 He came from Groton, New London County, Conn., in the autumn of 1810, with his wife and nine children. They were twenty days on their journey-their wagon drawn by horses-two days being required from New Milford to the former loeation of Ebenezer Whipple. This had been sold to Peter Stevens, from whom Mr. Bolles purchased. The house stood in the centre of the flat, but the latter afterwards built, on the north side of the road, the large house now owned by his grandson, Amios, a son of Simeon A. Bolles. He died in 1842, aged seventy-six years, highly respected, having reared a large family, most of whom remained in Jessup. The sons were as follows : Simeon A., who lived north of the " Flat," on the farm now owned by one of his sons, Robinson. He died in 1877, aged eiglity-five years. He was also the father of Charles B., Wilson, Amos, Anson, Henry and Hannah Bolles. Abel, the second son of Robinson Bolles, after living a while on the Peter Rone place, moved to Bradford County ; Nelson, the third son, died in 1825; Elkanah S., the fourth son, lived on the farm which is now oeeupied by his son, Edgar ; John, the fifth son, moved to Bradford County ; James, the sixth son, lived on part of the homestead and was the father of James, Isaac, Daniel and George Bolles ; Lyman, the seventh and youngest son, moved to Texas. The daughters of Robinson Bolles married,- Maria, John C. Stevens, of Bradford County ; Hannah, Daniel Piekett; Naney L., Silas Baldwin ; and Prudenee, Almon Pickett. But one of these, Mrs. Silas Baldwin, born in 1809, survived until Deeember, 1886.

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Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 69

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848- Publication date: 1887 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck Number of Pages: 1318

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318