Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 90

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

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was laid in November, 1859. The cost of the building has been estimated at about twenty-five thousand dollars ; but this is thought too low. The church records were burned with the col- lege. Fathers O'Reilly and Fitzsimmons were influential in cstablishing the college; but the cathedral was built by the efforts of the former, Father Fitzsimmons being then in Wilkes- Barre."

The cathedral was rebuilt in subsequent years, on account of having defective walls, and its present capacity is not as large as originally built. Nevertheless, the edifice is attractive, and the care with which it is kept reflects credit upon those connected with the parish. This includes, also, the Church of St. Augustine, in Silver Lake-a fine frame edifice-which was first occupied for public worship on Christmas day, 1871. The first chapel was built about 1830, at the head of Ranney Creek, on the Fitzgerald land, and was the first Catholic house of wor- ship in the county. It was destroyed by fire April 3, 1870, when the present St. Augustine Church took its place. The Rev. Father Mc- Nally is the priest at present in charge of the parish, which is in a flourishing condition.

CHAPTER XXX.

FOREST LAKE TOWNSHIP.

THE township of Forest Lake was formed under a decree of the court in May, 1836, out of parts of Middletown, Silver Lake and Bridge- water. Previous to this division the west line of the latter township was at the lake in the centre of the new township, and from which it derived its name. Silver Lake extended as far south as the present southeast corner of that township, and Middletown joined on Bridge- water. The township, as erected in 1836, upon the report of viewers, appointed by the court the previous year, was about five miles from north to south, and four miles from east to west. The west line of Forest Lake has since been twice set over on the territory of Middletown, so that it is now more than five and a half miles from west to east, and the southwest corner

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

borders on Rush. East of this, and forming the re- mainder of the southern boundary, is Jessup township. The surface of Forest Lake is broken by a series of high hills, trending through it from northeast to southwest, some of them having their summits cov - ered with sterile soil. On others the tops are level, and, affording fine farming lands, have been well im- proved. The timber growth was heavy, and some of the small valleys are still in a primitive condition, containing dense forests of hemlock and the common deciduous trees. There were many maple trees in the larger valleys, and several fine "sugar bushes " have been preserved. The drainage of the township is af- forded mainly by the Middle Branch of the Wyalus- ing Creek, and the outlet of Forest Lake. The former rises in the north western part, in the neighbor- hood of Friendsville, and, taking the waters of affluent brooks from the east, rising north of the centre, and from the west, near the Middletown line, becomes a stream of considerable volume before it passes out of the township, near the southwest corner. Numerous smaller brooks swell its power, which was well utilized before the country was so well cleared up. Forest Lake is a pretty sheet of water, lying low among the surrounding hills, and its outlet flows south through Jessup into the East Branch of the Wyalusing. Its volume is not strong, but it has good mill-sites. In the northern part of the township are the head-waters of Choconut and Silver Creek, both being very small streams in Forest Lake. Numerous springs abound, which, with the hilly nature of the country, adapt it well for the principal pursuit of the inhabitants- dairying.

Most of the highways of the township run parallel with the hills, or on the ridges, the Owego turnpike being the notable exception. Its course through Forest Lake is almost diagonally from northwest to southeast, and consequently over-topping some of the highest hills, passing up and down the numerous ridges with painful monotony, but accommodating some of the early settlers who made their first im- provements on the hill-tops, over which the pike was completed in December, 1821. As soon as the valleys were cleared up, new roads afforded easier communi- cation, and this old highway is now almost unused in certain parts. It has received much adverse criticism, and has been the butt of many good-natured jokes. Said a foreigner, who located in the township : " If I believed in the transmigration of souls, I should hope the soul of the surveyor of the Owego turnpike might be given to an old horse and doomed to go before the stages between Montrose and Owego."

THE PIONEER SETTLERS .- The first permanent set- tlers of what is now Forest Lake appear to have been Jabcz A. and Jesse Birchard. In 1799 they came to the Middle Branch of the Wyalusing, to what is now Birchardville, and improved lands under the Connec- ticut title, being the only inhabitants within the bounds of "Ruby " that year, and knowing nothing

of the claims of Pennsylvania on this section. One of their nearest neighbors was Charles Miner, who was at that time living in the township of " Usher" (uow Jessup) ; and in a letter to the pioneer festival, held at Montrose, June, 1858, he says : " I used to run over by the lot lines, to the settlement of my good friends, the Birchards, and spend a day of pleasure with them. It was at the deer-lick, at their door, that I shot my first buck." The Birchards were the descendants of one of the old families of Hartford, Conn., whose English ancestor had settled at Martha's Vineyard, in Puritan times. Other members of this family settled in New York, and spelled their name Burchard.

1 " In March, 1800, Jabez A. brought his wife, the first woman in the place ; and until May or June fol- lowing she did not see a woman, when two girls- Betsey Brownson and Betsey Hale-walked through the woods, from the forks of the Wyalusing, to make her a visit, and stayed two nights ; the distance, going and returning, being about fifteen miles. Mr. and Mrs. B. had six children : Mary M., wife of Lewis Chamberlin, formerly of Silver Lake; and Fanny H., wife of Amos Bixby, are dead ; Charles D., Backus and George, now live in Iowa, Jabez A., Jr., also resided there from 1836 until his death, October 20, 1871, aged sixty-seven. He was a member of the first Legislature of Iowa, and held many offices in Scott County. In 1846 the father also removed to Iowa, where he died, December 18, 1848, aged seventy-three, and the farm he owned in Forest Lake became kuown as the Edward Slauson place."

Jesse Birchard brought his family in the spring of 1801, and located on the farm where now lives his grandson, L. T. Birchard, whose father, John S., had been the occupant of the place until 1870. On the occasion of his moving here he suffered a serious loss. They had but partly unloaded their goods, when, upon leaving them to go to Jabez's to dinner, sparks from a fire which Mr. Birchard had kindled fell upon them, and communicated to the house, which, together with their goods, was totally consumed. An earthen platter, an heirloom in the family from the time it was brought from England in the "Mayflower," was broken to pieces in saving their effects. This relic and a china bowl, more than a hundred years old, are still pre- served by Mrs. L. T. Birchard. In 1818 Jesse Birch- ard built the house which is still standing on the homestead, where he died, May 20, 1840, in his 'seventicth year. His wife, Harriet, born November 15, 1773, died May 13, 1859. She was a granddaugh- ter of Winslow Tracy, whose wife was a relative of William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth Colony, and one of the original Pilgrim fathers. She was a true pioneer woman, and was well adapted to bear the burdens incident to the opening of a new home in a wilderness. It is said of her that on one

1 Blackman.

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occasion, hearing a pig squeal in its pen, she discov- ered a bear about to carry it away, when she did not hesitate to give chase to bruin, who beat a precipitate retreat before the determined woman.

The family of Jesse Birchard was composed of three sons-Asahel, W., Jesse T. and John S. The former lived at Birchardville, and all his family has deceased. Jesse T. lived on a farm a mile below Birchardville, but died at Montrose. He was the father of Charles H. Birchard, of Philadelphia, and of Caroline B., who became the wife of Homer Frazier, of the Mont- rose Republican. John S. Birchard married Mary Griswold, of Choconut, and lived on the homestead. He was the father of Levi T. Birchard, of Birchard- ville, and of two daughters, Mrs. Bowen and Mrs. Stevens, of Bradford County. The wife of L. T. Birchard was Jerusha E. Tracy, a lineal descendant of the Winslow Tracy family above noted. In the fall of 1801 Israel Birchard, a cousin of the forego- ing, came with his wife and six children and settled about a mile above Birchardville, on the farm where William Gordon lived at a later day. He moved to Jessup, where he died December 11, 1818, and was the father of the numerous Birchards of that township. In the fall of 1801 also canie Jehiel Warner aud wife, Eli Warner and Joseph Butterfield (the latter young men), from Granby, Mass., and settled on the Middle Branch, above Eli Birchard. The former had been here the year before and built a log house, covered with bark, on the farm now occupied by his grandson, Asa Warner. Not many years after he built the large farm-house still standing. Besides having a farm, he also had a saw-mill and burned charcoal. He died 1847. His wife, Phinis Moody, survived him till November 2, 1867, when she died aged ninety-one years. Their children were Elisha H., Azor M., Rachel, Seth and Eli. The latter was married to Sally A. Cole and lived in the township until his death, in 1879. His children-Phinis N. and Jerub A .- removed to Iowa. Azor M., the second son, married Bertha Baldwin, and lived on the home- stead until his death, in 1868. His widow survives him, aged seventy-three years. Their children were Ruth E., Stanley B., Suel, Asa, Miriam, Eva and Justus F. The third son of Jehiel Warner, Seth, married Minerva K. Taylor, and they were the parents of Adelbert, Byron S., Lura and Orpha M., all living on the Middle Branch, above the original homestead. Rachel, the daughter, was the wife of John S. Town. Eli Warner located on the outlet of Forest Lake, but,' in 1802 sold the log house he had built to Samuel Newcomb, who made it double and occupied it uutil 1819, when he sold to William Turner, an English- man, and removed to Fire Hill, iu Jessup, where he lived about twenty-five years, then removed to New York. It was for him that Forest Lake was known many years as Newcomb's Pond. His wife was the daughter of Jonathan West.

Jonathan West and family came from Connecticut 30%

in 1800. Chester Wright is now on his farm, where the Milford and Owego turnpike crosses Pond Creek, or the outlet of Forest Lake. Here Mr. Wright brought up a large family ; all now scattered. Two houses built by him are still standing uear " the cor- ners." He was an upright man and efficient in the promotion of good. He died May, 1832, aged seventy- one years. One of his sons, Joshua, lived on the farm at the head of the lake, and built the house which is still standing.

In 1801 Benjamin Babcock settled on what was later known as the Brock farm. He was a Revo- lutionary soldier and lived to be eighty-two years old, dying in 1832 from the effects of an injury on his head, received while attending his cattle.

Luther Kellum came from Stonington, Conn., in 1803, and settled two miles south of Forest Lake, where he lived until his death, June 5, 1846, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was born iu 1760, and, when but sixteen years of age, entered the Rev- olutionary army, serving at different times about three years, and was at the battle of White Plains, N. Y. His reputation was unblemished and he was highly respected for his integrity. He raised a large family, and after his death one of the sons occupied the homestead, which is still sometimes called the Kellum place, but is now the property of J. Green. On this farm the veteran soldier was buried, having been a pensioner some years.

In the eastern part of the township Ezekiel and Elisha Griffis (brothers) located in 1810, coming from the " flats," in Jessup township, where they had lived since 1799. The former built a house on the present Abner Griffis place, where he lived until 1820, when he moved to Bradford County, and his place passed into the hands of Adam Waldie, who lived there about two years. Elisha Griffis lived first on the road op- posite from his brother, but, in 1832, moved iuto the house vacated by Adam Waldie. In 1837 he built the Abner Griffis house and lived there many years. Before his death he again lived in his old home, where he departed this life May 17, 1870, aged eighty-one years. His wife, who had been a daughter of John Blaisdell, died in 1861. They reared a family of eight children, viz., Abner, Calvin B., Milton, Austin B., Elisha, John and Jefferson, and a daughter, Mrs. E. B. Cobb, of Rush township. It is said of Elisha Griffis that while clearing his farm, in Forest Lake, he had no team for seven years, and that as late as 1810 he was often in the woods a whole week without sceing a human being, and it is somewhat significant of the progress which has been made here, when it is recalled that where the wilderness so slowly disap- peared is now a dairy farm which has supported one hundred cows, owned by Abner Griffis.

On the Middle Branch Loami Mott settled in 1810. He came from Stockbridge, Mass., and bought the place which Joseph Butterfield had been improving since 1801, and who now moved to Bridgewater town-

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

ship. Mott was a son-in-law of Samuel Clark, who came with him and moved into the house which But- terfield had built, and where he died in 1822, at the age of seventy-six years. He also served in the Rev- olution, having been an armorer. The farm that Loami Mott cleared became the property of Isaac and Simon E. Fessenden. He died in 1857, aged eighty- two years, and was buried in the graveyard of the Baptist Church at Birchardville, of which he had long been a deacon. He was the father of Mrs. H. F. Handrick, of Forest Lake, and of sons named Wil- lard, Merritt and Elijah.

Orange Mott, a brother of Loami, settled at the lower end of Stone Street, and became one of the oldest men in the county. He died Jan. 23, 1871, aged ninety-eight years, three months and six days. For more than fifty years he was one of the leading members of thlic Baptist Church. His sons were Orange, Rev. Wm. H., Linus, Chester and Amasa, most of whom removed from the township.

In April, 1810, Leman Turrell, with his wife, Lucy, and four children, came from Litchfield County, Conn., to a home which he had made on the head wa- ters of the Middle Branch the previous year. He was born July 6, 1776, and had first visited Pennsylvania in 1793, in the company of his mother, who came to see her sister, living at the mouth of the Wyalusing. His mother rode on horseback, but he walked the en- tire distance, about two hundred and fifty miles. He came again in the spring of 1794, to assist his uncle, Job Turrell, in surveying lands under the Connecticut title, but returned in the fall and did not again come to this county until the summer of 1809, when he purchased the woodland, on which he made the above improvements. His log house was at that time three miles from any other, and he had to make his own roads to reach it. He was a hard-working, persever- ing man, whose industry was rewardcd, in the later years of his life, by the ownership of a fine farmn and comfortable residence. His occupation as a farmer was varied by work as a surveyor of lands and roads, and he and his two elder sons, Stanley and Jocl, built more than a mile of the Owego turnpike themselves. Being well educated, he instructed his children at home, at a time when there were no schools in this country, so that "they obtaincd a better education than many persons do with all their present advan- tages." Leman Turrell had seven children,-Bri- tannia, Stanley, Joel, Leman Miner, Abel, Lucy Ann and James. Most of these located on adjoining farms and became known as leading citizens. Joel died in 1872, and Stanley in 1879. Leman Turrell died Dec. 28, 1848, aged nearly seventy-three years, but his wife survived him until December, 1864, dying in her eighty-ninth year.

EDWARD G. BALL was born May 17, 1831, in For- est Lake township, where he now resides. His grand- parents, Perry (1780-1856) and Olive (Churchill) Ball (1780-1847), came to Forest Lake from Stockbridge,

Mass., and settled on about two hundred acres of land one mile northeast of Birchardville about 1811. He cleared up a farm, and took a prominent part in the early development of the place. He and his family were among the founders of the Baptist Church at Birch- ardville. Their children were Lucy R. (1801-48), wife of Horace Birchard, whose farm adjoined the homestead on the east; Emeline (1804-48), wife of Orange Mott, whose farm lies adjoining the homestead on the west; George W. (1809-59), married Marietta Stone, who still resides on the homestead with her son, Edward G. Ball. The other children of Geo. W. Ball were Marshall L., a merchant at Forcst Lake; Levi W., who lives in Oregon ; Merwin S., who died young; Nancy E., wife of W. H. Lcach, of Owego; and Maria J., wife of W. J. Mawhiney, of Owego. Ed- ward G. Ball succeeded to the homestead in 1858. The fine farm residence was erected by his father. He has improved the farm and erected commodious barns. About ciglit years ago he began to improve his dairy by the introduction of Jersey stock. The products of his dairy find a ready market in Wilkes- Barre and Scranton. He served five years as county commissioner from 1873, and is now serving his ninth year as commissioners' clerk. In 1851 he married Ruth A., daughter of Lyman and Isabella (Sanderson) Baldwin. Their only son, Charles P., married a daughter of Elder W. C. Tilden, and resides on the homestead.

James Ball, of another family, settled on Stone Street. He was the father of Hiram L. Ball, of For- est Lake, and E. J. Ball, of Brooklyn.

Seth Taylor, a native of Litchfield County, Conn. located first, in 1810, on the farm next below Garrad Stone. He settled afterwards on the road leading from the Middle Branch to the Choconut, where he remained until 1861, when, in company with his son Edwin, he removed to California, and while there made his home with his son, Job T. Taylor, Esq., one of the earliest settlers of Plumas County. There he died June 26, 1869, aged nearly eighty-eight years. He was a justice of the peace for Forest Lake at the time of its erection. In 1810 Darius Bixby and Philo Morehouse, from Vermont, settled one mile east of what is now Friendsville. The former afterwards moved to the shore of the pond, in Middletown, which bears his name. Philo Bostwick came in about the same time, and, for nearly a quarter of a cen- tury, was a leading man in the community. The elections were held at his house, at the foot of the hill on Stone Street. He was a justice of the peace for Middletown; his death occurring in 1824, two years before the erection of Forest Lake, and long before Stone Street became a part of it. He was kill- ed, while chopping, by the fall of a tree; his age was fifty-one years.

Stone Street is the name of the highway from Birchardville to Friendsville, running parallel with a brook emptying into the Middle Branch, below the

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first-named village. It was so called because the prin- cipal land-owners along the street were members of the Stone family, whose descendants at one time con- stituted a considerable portion of the population of the township.

Garrad Stone, one of the three brothers who set- tled on this street, came with his wife from Litch- field County, Conn., in 1810, and located on a farm of three hundred acres, where later lived his brother Judson. He was twice married, his first wife dying November 6, 1848. He, himself, departed this life September 21, 1855, aged sixty-seven years. In August, 1813, his brother Judson, who had just at- tained his age, bought two hundred and eighty acres of land adjoining, and commenced clearing up. Re- turning to Connecticut, he was married, in January, 1815, to Polly Turrell, and soon after he set out with his young bride for Susquehanna County, making the journey with an ox-team, the usual mode in those days of emigrating westward. They were sixteen days upon the road. He lived upon the place first selected as his home until the death of his wife, July 17, 1855, when he purchased his brother's farm adjoining, where he lived until his death. His wife had a cheerful temperament. A log cabin in the wilder- ness, with only a chest for a table, could not check her vivacity. Privations gave but a keener zest to pleasures.

In addition to being a very successful farmer, he carried on the tannery business from 1840 to 1845 and afterwards merchandised at Friendsville, in which enterprises he was also successful. He built the large house on Stone Street, which is the resi- dence of George B. Johnson, and made other im- provements which are remembered to his credit. He died June 22, 1871, aged seventy-eight years and ten months, his second wife, the former widow of his brother Garrad, surviving him, as also did six daughters, all children of his first wife.

In 1829 the widow of Walker Stone, with her five children, came and located on the farm below where Garrad Stone lived, which is now the home of S. Bradshaw, who married into the Stone family. Jud- son Stone, living north of Forest Lake, is a son of Mrs. Walker Stone, and is one of the few male mem- bers of the family of elderly age left in the township, His home is the Otis Smith place, of whom he was a son-in-law. Smith had first settled in ' Choconut, where he married adaughter of Bela Moore. He was a pioneer teacher and also transacted considerable public business.

JAMES E. STONE .- The Stone brothers, Garrad, Judson, the widow of Walker Stone, and Clearfield Stone were among the earliest settlers in the western part of Forest Lake township, and located there on " Stone " Street, named for them, on lands bought by their father, Canfield Stone, who lived and died in Litchfield County, Conn. A further account of the first three will be found in the early history of the

township, beginning as carly as 1810, when Garrad came to the place. Canfield Stone was a wealthy man and a large land-owner in Litchfield County. Canfield Stone, Jr., the youngest of the brothers, who settled in Forest Lake, came to his property on Stone Street in 1821, then consisting of one hundred and fifty acres, a woodland tract, where he spent the re- mainder of his life, clearing off the forest and pre- paring its fields for crops. His wife was Almira, a daughter of Dimon and Mary (Olmstead) Bostwick, of Wyalusing, where she was raised, but her parents were natives of Connecticut. Canfield and Almira Stone had three children-James E., (1819-60) ; Eliza, born in 1822, wife of Robert Cooley, a mechanic of Binghamton ; and Arabella, born in 1824, widow of the late Calvin Leet, resides in Iowa. Calvin Lect, was a son of Dr. Calvin Leet, who practiced medicine at Friendsville.

James E. Stone, being the only son, succeeded his father on the homestead farm, and added to the real estate sixty-four acres. He made nearly all the pres- ent improvements of buildings, and erected the farm residence now to be seen in 1857. He was a man of untiring industry, a thorough-going business man and an intelligent farmer. He did not seek political preferment, or covet official place, but contented him- self with agricultural pursuits, and the enjoyment of his family and friends. Nonc knew him but to testify to his moral worth, his high regard for the just rights of others, and for his integrity and honesty of pur- pose in life's work. He married, in 1843, Amorillis Beebe, of Choconut, this county, who was born May 18, 1822. She was a teacher in her early days, is a woman of genial and social ways, and known among her many friends for her courtesy and hospitality, always making the circle in which she moves cheerful and pleasant. She survives in 1886.

Their children are Adaline, wife of Henry Spafford, on the Stone homestead ; Dimon, a farmer at Illia, in Garfield County, Washington Territory ; Elmira, wife of Chauncey Peckins (nephew of Isaac Peckins, who settled in Bridgewater in 1802), of Muncy, Lycom- ing County ; Canfield, a hotel proprictor at Rush ; Horatio B., a farmer in Rush; Joseph, a farmer in Forest Lake ; and Charlotte A. Stone, a teacher, who, after attending a preparatory course at Factoryville, entered the Mansfield State Normal School, from which she was graduated in the class of '84.

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Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 90

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