Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1, Part 24

Author:
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 2390

USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1 > Part 24
USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1 > Part 24
USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1 > Part 24
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1 > Part 24

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Samuel Lee (2), our subject's father, was born November 27, 1816, at Lincoln Horn, Cornwall, . England, and as his parents were in limited cir- cumstances, he was taken from school at the age of eight years, that he might earn his own living and assist in the support of the younger children. In 1842 he came to America, accompanied by James Giles and George Fitze, who settled in Wayne coun- ty, Penn. After a voyage of six weeks he landed at Quebec, Canada, from that point making his way, by the lakes, the Hudson river and the Delaware & Hudson canal, to Wayne county, arriving at Honesdale on Saturday, June II, 1842. After a short stay in the home of his uncle and aunt, Sam- tel and Jane ( Troubody) Brooking, he succeeded in finding employment among the farmers of Mount Pleasant and Clinton townships, and for several years he worked in the fields during the summer, and in the winter went from barn to barn threshing grain with an old-fashioned flail, receiving one- tenth of the product as compensation. His indus- try and economy enabled him to lay aside money for the purchase of a home, and in 1847 he bought 100 acres of heavily timbered land in Clinton town- ship, which he cleared and brought under cultiva- tion. Upon this homestead he.resided for forty- three years, his death occurring there January II, 1890. On December 3, 1850, he was naturalized, and for some time affiliated with the Democratic party, but the anti-slavery movement claimed his warm sympathy, and in 1856 he joined the Repub- lican organization, which he continued to support as long as he lived. He neither sought nor avoided

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

public life, and at times held township offices. The impression that he made upon the community where. he resided for so many years is well expressed in the following extract from an article in the Hones- dale Citizen of January 23, 1890:

"Mr. Lee was possessed of a pleasant, genial disposition. Said a neighber, 'He was always the same good-natured, kind and agreeable man.' He was ever ready to assist his neighbors and friends, not only by kind and encouraging words, but with his hands or means ever rendered practical aid, un- heralded, to his unfortunate friends. No task was too great, no burden too heavy, if they would bring a blessing to those he loved or with whom he asso- ciated. He desired never to be a burden to those about him, preferring rather to carry the burdens of others, while his own sorrows were buried or con- cealed in his own bosom. He never complained, and it was with difficulty that his most intimate friends were able to gather from him an account of his troubles or sorrows. His life was fully given to others, sacrificed for others' good. An iron con- stitution, never impaired by dissipation of any kind, yielded only to the effects of a life of hard, unremit- ting toil, until he did not possess enough vitality to rally from the depressing effects of pneumonia. Upon a Saturday evening he quietly, as he had lived, with but a tremor of the muscles about his closed eyes, fell asleep in Jesus, only to awake in His like- ness. It was chiefly to the members of his own household, and especially to his children, that the best qualities of Mr. Lee shone with undimmed resplendence. His greatest desire was that his children should love, serve and adore the God of Israel, and next in importance was the desire that they should receive the best possible education that his means could afford. He deeply and tenderly loved his children, until the cords of love encircling them became stronger than fetters of brass. He knew how deeply he loved them, and how strougly they reciprocated that affection. During a previ- outs severe illness in the year 1887, he said of one of his daughters, 'She would pluck out her eyes and give them to me if she knew that I wanted them.' He was pre-eminently a conscientious Christian man. He united with the Clinton Centre Baptist Church upon profession of faith, and was baptized January 28, 1844. He at once took an active in- terest in the Church of his choice, contributed lib- erally to its support, became an habitual attendant upon its divine services, an active participant in its devotional gatherings, mingled his voice in hymns of praise, leading in prayer with earnest, heartfelt supplication at a throne of grace, encouraged his fellow members to renewed activity and ever warned the impenitent. He endeavored to do his whole duty, not only to his fellow men, but to his God. He was a firm believer in the Bible, permit- ting no doubt to swerve him from the path therein found laid down for his footsteps. Trusting im- plicitly in promises contained in God's word, in the atonement made for sin and the consciousness that 7

his peace was made with the Heavenly Father, he entered the valley of death, fully confident that there remained nothing beyond but joy and happiness for him. With him, truly, 'To live is Christ and to die is gain.'

None knew him but to love, None named him but to praise."

Samuel Lee (2) was married March 2, 1848, to Anna M. Allen, a native of England, who came to this country at the age of seven years, her par- ents, Joseph and Elizabeth ( Bishop) Allen, leaving Tewksbury, England, July 4, 1834. Her father, who was at one time a missionary to Ireland, fol- lowed the millwright's trade after his arrival in America, acquiring a competence thereby. His death occurred in 1864, in Lenox township, Sus- quehanna county, Penn. His wife died May 5, 1884, at the residence of Samuel Lee. Of their nine children, Joseph, Elizabeth S., Anna M., Sarah H., George K. and John G. were born in England, and Mary A., Hepzaba and Christiana F. in America.

Samuel Lee (2) was the only one of his family name to come to America. Several sons of a sister in later years sought their fortunes in the western world, each, however, meeting death either in the copper mines of Michigan, or the silver mines of Colorado. Two brothers and a sister of his mother were more venturesome, and the latter, Jane Troubody, wife of Samuel Brooking, now deceased, came with her husband some ten years prior to her nephew, our subject's father, settling on the farm in Mount Pleasant township, Wayne county, now oc- cupied by John Brooking, their son. Here they reared seven children: (1) Samuel died from measles, contracted while at boarding school, just before he attained his majority. (2) Mary Ann, their pride and the favored pupil of the late John F. Stoddard, at the University of Northern Pennsyl- vania, Bethany, taught in the common schools of Wayne county for several years, passing her last years at the residence of her father and brother John, where she died April 12, 1886. (3) Jane, named after the mother, being more delicately con- stituted, passed her short life for the most part under the parental roof, where she died January 17, 1887. (4) Maria married Frank Barns, a farmer near the parental home, and though early bereft of her husband succeeded in educating their children well, some of them having since taught in the common schools. (5) Ellen married Angus Gunn, a farmer near her home, but she, too, lost her husband early, and after remaining a widow a reasonable time re- married and still resides upon the same farm. (6) Josiah resides upon a farm on the west side of Ararat mountain, in Preston township, Wayne county. (7) John, the youngest son, married, but still remained at the homestead to care for his par- ents in their declining years and minister to the wants of his maiden sisters.

The two uncles of our subject's father, John and Josiah Troubody, after coming to this country,

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

in 1829, sought their fortunes at various places, drifting as far west as Missouri. At the breaking out of the "gold fever," in 1849, John, the elder, in company with others, started on the then little known overland route to the gold fields. Losing their reckoning, they wandered about in the moun- tains until their provisions were exhausted, and, driven by gaunt hunger, they sacrificed their poor mule that his flesh might sustain life in theirs. They recovered their trail, and reached the gold dig- gings safely. John was very successful in his min- ing operations, and when the value of his gold nug- gets amounted to $10,000, he wended his way to what is now the flourishing city of San Francisco. Here he invested heavily in real estate, and to-day his purchase is covered with well-paved streets, costy brick buildings, with steel frames, iron and glass fronts, block after block of which are the property of John Troubody. Says William Taylor, in "California Life Illustrated," page 23: "As I was taking leave of them, my first Methodist ac- quaintances, I was met at the door by a plain-look- ing man, five feet eight, and was introduced to him as Brother John Troubody. 'He is a Methodist,' said Sister Finly with a smile ; and such I found him to be, a true body in every respect, true as a per- sonal friend, and true to the interests of the Church." He helped to build the first Methodist Church built in California. Mr. Troubody has made several trips to his native land and other Euro- pean countries, visiting the Paris Exposition of 1867, and now, at upward of ninety years of age, he is enjoying a calm and serene old age, surrounded by all the luxuries that wealth can purchase or re- fined taste suggest. His brother, Josiah Troubody, followed him to California, and was fairly success- ful in his accumulations, but did not rival his brother.

Our subject, who was born January 1, 1849, in Clinton township, Wayne county, is the eldest in a family of nine children. (2) Mary Elizabeth Lee, born April 27, 1850, married John Payne, April 27, 1877, and now resides with her husband and three children in Preston township, Wayne county. (3) Samuel Allen Lee, born May 23, 1855, was married June II, 1878, to Emma Bran -. ning, daughter of William Branning, of Damascus township. Soon after his marriage, and after spending six months in the drug store of Dr. George B. Curtis, of Hawley, he went west, and opened a drug store in Wakelee, Mich. Subsequently he went down into Indiana, but soon returned, and is now settled in Climax, Mich., where he has a fine drug store, doing a thriving business. He has two children, both sons. (4) Freelove. Artemetia Lee was born July 5, 1858, and after the death of her father went West to visit her brother John. She taught there, as she had before going West, but soon married William Brown, and is now settled in Duffield, Mich. One daughter and one son have blessed this union. (5) John Lincoln Lee was born January 4, 1860, and after attaining his ma-

jority taught for a few years. He then went West to his brother Allen, and after teaching a short time obtained a position where he could learn tele- graphy. He now has charge of the station on the Grand Trunk railroad at Duffield, runs a village store, is postmaster of the place, and is engaged in speculating in real estate. He married Lucy Ar- thur, daughter of Joseph Arthur, of Dyberry town- ship, Wayne county. They have one daughter. (6) Jennie S. Lee was born March 17, 1863. She never was robust, and a long illness with diphtheria, followed by a slow convalescence, found her, in the spring of 1879, weak, discouraged and ready to die. In March her father brought her to the residence of the eldest son, intending that she should have the best medical attention Honesdale afforded, and hop- ing that the change of scenery and associations would restore her to health again. Genial com- pany, pleasant amusements, good care and one visit of the doctor were sufficient to kindle within her new and renewed hope and a determination to re- cover, and in June following she returned home much improved in health. In the fall of 1879 she returned to her brother and entered the graded school, graduating therefrom in 1883. She then took a year's course at Mansfield Normal School, graduating in 1884. During the next three years she taught in Mauch Chunk, Penn., and she is now commencing her tenth year as teacher in the primary grade of the graded schools in Hones- dale. (7) Eugene K. Lee was born February II, 1866, and lived at home much of the time until after the death of his father, teaching in the winter sea- sons. After purchasing his father's farm he mar- ried Minnie La Tourette, daughter of Jackson La Tourette, of Lebanon township, Wayne county. One son and two daughters make his home happy. (8) Harriet W. Lee was born January 24, 1869. She taught at various places in Wayne and Sus- quehanna counties, and then took a two-years' course at Mansfield Normal School, graduating therefrom in 1892. She taught three years in the graded schools at Honesdale, and is now entering on her third year at East Newark, N. J., as principal of the primary department. (9) Lucy Isabell Lee was born June 13, 1873. Eight of the nine children of Samuel and Anna M. Lee have been teachers, and all have succeeded, while some have held im- portant positions in the educational field.

Our subject's early experiences were such as were common to poor boys on newly-opened farms in the early fifties. As soon as possible he was compelled to work, and there was always plenty of farm work for him to do. When about seven years of age he went upon a visit to an uncle, and there received his first instruction in the art of driving oxen. On returning home he narrated his experi- ence to his father and mother, and on the following morning the oxen were hitched to a homemade har- row and the ox-gad handed him with this remark from his father: "See if you can drive the old oxen at home as well as you drove Uncle Joe's stags."

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

In those days public schools were open three months in the hottest part of the summer and three in the coldest part of winter. The schools in either di- rection were two miles from his home, the path in one direction running across lots, and in the other upon an unused road. What time he could be spared during the summer months after he was five years of age he was at school, but because of the distance, the storms and the days when he, being the eldest son, was imperatively needed at home being so many and frequent, school attendance was very irregular. In the winter the long distance and inclement weather (the first path through the deep snow be- ing frequently broken for a mile by his feet), made this season too unfavorable for steady advancement. At the age of ten a severe inflammation of the lungs followed by a long convalescence, detained him at home and largely in the house for nearly a year.

Our subject's services were frequently sought by those less fortunate in not having boys in their families, and before he was twelve years of age he had earned and saved enough money to purchase a Webster's unabridged dictionary, the first book he ever owned. The winter that he was thirteen years years of age the father, tempted by high wages,. need of cash, and a desire to better his condition in life, sought and obtained employment in the govern- ment service at Washington, leaving at home the mother and four children. There were four cows in the barn, a yoke of oxen, some young cattle and a number of sheep, while there was hard wood stand- ing in the woods to be cut, brought to the house and cut into stove wood. School was two miles away, but while keeping up his studies our young farmer lad gave due attention to the work at home, so that upon his father's return in March he found all his stock in good condition, his wife and family well. After he reached the age of eleven years his summer schooling ceased, and after sixteen the winter attendance as well. At the close of the winter term of 1865-66, upon the 9th of March he passed an examination before E. O. Ward, the county su- perintendent of schools, and received his first teach- er's certificate. Desiring, however, to increase his mental training before attempting to instruct others, he attended for three months in the fall of 1866 the Wayne County Normal School, at Waymart, a school founded by J. E. Hawker, who succeeded E. O. Ward as county superintendent of schools. On November 26, before he was seventeen years of age, he commenced his first term as a public-school teacher at Cold Spring, Lebanon township, where he taught four months, He then returned to the farm to work during the following season, but attended the Normal School for six weeks in the fall, and again taught at Cold Spring during the next winter. The summer of 1868 found him again with his father and at work on the farm until after the harvesting was done. In those days it was cus- tomary for the farmers to have their grain threshed by itinerant threshers, using horse-power to drive their machines, and a neighbor who was given to this

employment and desired assistance induced Samuel Lee to permit his eldest son "to run with the ma- chine." This took up the entire fall season.

On November 28, 1868, Mr. Lee commenced teaching in the public school at Starrucca, Penn. In those days it was customary for a teacher to have one house that he termed his home, and to board round during the week with the patrons of the school. Our young man's home this winter was the cosy, pleasant old home of Major Strong, who occupied it with his housekeeper. Upon the Mon- day morning before the school opened the house- keeper, Jennie Storer, a bright, intelligent lady of English descent, said to the teacher, "To-night you are to go with me to Lodge and join the Good Tem- plars." Like other school teachers who boarded round, he quickly saw that when he was with the Romans he should "do as the Romans," and yield- ing to Miss Storer's request attended the lodge, was initiated, and signed a pledge to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, a pledge that remains unbroken though thirty years have passed. This was a "tannery school," with one teacher, and eighty or more pupils of all ages from six to twenty-one, and in all stages of advancement from A B C to higher arithmetic, grammar and his- tory. But the farmer boy had succeeded in his farm work, in threshing grain with a machine, and in former efforts at teaching, and there was no failure here. Frequently the days were not long enough to enable him to accomplish all that he desired. Many days after the younger ones had gone the older ones remained, reciting their lessons or receiv- ing instruction until "night let her sable curtain down and pinned it with a star."

At the close of the term the teacher went at once to the Delaware river and engaged in rafting lumber, preparatory to going down the river. It is the hardest of all hard work to carry a twenty- foot scantling (sometimes covered with ice) from the pile to the raft, especially to one just out of a four months' term of school, but the task was ac- complished, and on the first Sunday of April he started down the river as a fore hand upon a sawed raft of 160,000 feet. His was the usual experience of a "green" hand in that position. There is noth- ing like rafting and running down the river to give one an appetite, the keen spring air, the hard work, the new scenery, all combining to increase the gnawings of hunger. Upon the center of the raft was always a huge pan of baked beans and pork, with which the raftsmen could at their moments of leisure gorge themselves; but it was at night, after the raft was securely tied up, and a hospitable farm house found, that the special exhibition of appeas- ing hunger was at its best. Eggs, eggs, every- where. It was Easter all the way down the Dela- ware river. It would make any self-respecting hen blush with shame, and the proud chanticleer of the flock droop his august tail, to see a raftsman swallow eggs. More than enough to set a good- sized Plymouth Rock would find lodgement

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COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

under one vest, and the most curious part of it all was that it could be done without any ill conse- quences. Then the work of "running the river" is in itself exciting, as no occupation on earth demands more undivided mental application. One must con- centrate his entire attention upon the exact point over which he wishes to pass his raft. A single instant's digression in thought when near a bridge pier or a sunken rock, and the raft strikes the one or climbs upon the other, only to go down the stream a tum- bled mass of lumber or logs. Saturday night found the raftsman at his father's home ready to commence farming, and he remained until the 6th of Septem- ber, when he started for the Delaware Literary Institute, at Franklin, N. Y. The Erie railroad had just placed the thirty-hour train from New York to Chicago upon their road, surpassing in speed ail other lines leading from the one city to the other. A hot axle delayed it, enabling the train following to overtake it at Mast Hope, and our young man rode to Binghamton upon it, giving him a surpris- ing sensation. He entered the Delaware Literary Institute the following day, and remained at school until early in November. While there he passed the Regents' examination, the bugbear of York State academies, and having attended the Delaware county teachers' county institute, he passed an ex- amination there and received a third-grade certifi- cate. On November 15, 1869, he commenced teaching at Meredith Square, Delaware Co., N. Y., where he continued for eighteen weeks, receiving in the meantime a second-grade certificate. He returned to Delaware Literary Institute in time for the opening of the spring term, and remained at school until the close of the term in July, when he went home to work as he had done in former years. At the opening of the fall term at the Delaware Literary Institute he again presented himself as a pupil, although he was without a dollar to defray expenses, board and tuition. Through the kindness of Prof. George W. Briggs, the principal of the school, he was given employment that would pay for board and instruction. He swept the various recitation rooms and halls, looked after the stove wood delivered to the academy, sold the wood to the students, split and piled it when necessary, car- ried it into the recitation rooms, built each morning the wood fires, and made necessary repairs upon whatever was needed about the school buildings, from the fitting of a key that locked the preceptress in her room to the repairing of the cover to the cis- tern and pump. While the manual labor was ex- acting, some time was found for study, and at the following commencement he was outranked by but one student, Welling E. Thomas, of Bradford county, Penn., who for years thereafter was the valedictorian at Lafayette College, and at present is the honored, respected and beloved pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Marion, Ohio.

Another vacation was passed at home, and upon September II, 1871, Mr. Lee commenced teaching as principal of the Waymart school, the

successor of the Wayne County Normal School, and the predecessor of the present Waymart Norm- al School. Just prior to the commencement of the school, at an examination given him by Dr. D. G. Al- len, then county superintendent, he received a profes- sional certificate. This school then, as now, re- ceived a large number of students from the outly- ing districts, necessitating advanced teaching in branches that were not usually taught in the public schools. The terms at that time were four months of public school, followed by three months of select school, at which nearly all the pupils of the public school attended. In this position our subject served during three years, and the high quality of his work was evidenced by the increased attendance each year, and by the work subsequently done by those that received their mental training largely during those three years. In 1873 he passed the necessary examination and received a permanent teacher's certificate, the highest certificate then issued in the State. He began the study of law while still at Waymart, under the tuition of Hon. S. E. Dimmick at the time the attorney general of the State, and later he continued during the long vacations under the direction of Wallers & Bentley, at their office in the borough of Honesdale, resulting in his admis- sion to the Bar on December 10, 1874. Upon the first Monday of January following he entered the office of the county treasurer as the deputy of Paul Swingle, and this position he held for three years. He instituted reforms in the management of the county finances which have since been followed, re- sulting in the savings of hundreds of dollars to the tax-payers. During these three years arose the famous anti-court-house movement, under which suits were brought by the people against the county commisioners and treasurer, but they resulted only in the defeat of the instigators, and the sustaining of the officers. On July 1, 1878, Mr. Lee opened the office now occupied by him, and he has ever since continued in the practice of his profession. Says the Franklin Register under date of September 18, 1891, in speaking of William H. Lee: "He is among the best-read of those who have come to the Bar in the past twenty years, and is one of the most energetic and tireless workers in his profession. He is an earnest and influential speaker, a close reasoner, and his presentations of law and fact are clear, thorough and effective. Since his admis- sion he has been counsel for the Honesdale borough council upwards of eleven years, and he has been constantly and continuously employed by those that are engaged in loaning money, a branch of the busi- ness to which he has given special attention. In

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Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania, including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, Pt. 1, Part 24

Author: Publication date: 1900 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 2390

Author:
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 2390