USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Families of the Wyoming Valley: biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, vol. I > Part 6
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"At a meeting of ye proprietors and settlers of ye town of Westmoreland, legally warned and held in Westmoreland, August Ist, 1775, Mr. John Jenkins was chosen moderator for ye work of ye day.
"Voted, that this town does now vote that they will strictly observe and follow ye rules and regulations of ye Honorable Continental Congress, now sitting at Philadelphia.
"Resolved by this town, that they are willing to make any accommodations with ye Pennsylvania party that shall conduce to ye best good of ye whole, not infringing on the property of any person, and come in common cause of liberty in ye defense
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of America, and that we will amicably give them ye offer of join- ing in ye proposals as soon as may be.
"Voted, this meeting is adjourned until Tuesday, ye 8th day of this instant, August, at one of the clock in ye afternoon, at this place.
"This meeting is opened and held by an adjournment August, the 8th, 1775.
"Voted, as this town has but of late been incorporated and invested with the privileges of the law, both civil and military, and now in a capacity of acting in conjunction with our neigh- boring towns within this and the other colonies, in opposing ye late measures adopted by Parliament to enslave America; also, this town having taken into consideration the late plan adopted . . by Parliament of enforcing their several oppressive and unconsti- tutional acts, of depriving us of our property, and of binding us in all cases without exception, whether we consent or not, is con- sidered by us highly injurious to American or English freedom; therefore do consent to and acquiesce in the late proceedings and advice of the Continental Congress, and do rejoice that those measures are adopted, and so universally received throughout the continent; and in conformity to the eleventh article of the association, we do now appoint a committee to attentively observe the conduct of all persons within this town touching the rules and regulations prescribed by the Honorable Continental Congress, and will unanimously join our brethren in America in the com- mon cause of defending our liberty.
"Voted, that Mr. John Jenkins, Joseph Sluman, Esq., Nathan Denison, Esq., Mr. Obadiah Gore, Jr., and Lieut. William Buck, be chosen a committee of correspondence for the town of West- moreland."
On July 3d, 1778, he and his family, except his eldest son, John, were prisoners in Jenkins' Fort, with Stephen Harding's family and others-some sick and some wounded. He died at the "drowned lands," in the Minisink region, in the fall of 1784.
His son, the grandfather of Steuben, was Col. John Jenkins, Jr., and was born November 27, 1751, in New London, Conn. He was also a surveyor and conveyancer, lawyer, school teacher, constable, and agent of the Susquehanna company at Wyoming. He came to the valley with his father in 1769, and at once took an active part in the Pennamite and Revolutionary wars. He was taken prisoner by the Indians in the latter part of November,
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1777, carried to Niagara, and in the spring to Montreal and Albany, whence they proposed taking him to Kanadaseago to a grand council for disposition. On the way he escaped, and after great fatigue and suffering from hunger reached home. He sub- sequently joined Capt. Spalding's company as a Lieutenant; went with Col. Hartley to Tioga Point in the latter part of September, 1778, through an almost impenetrable wilderness, with streams swollen by the equinoctial rains then prevailing, and was an active participant in the battle at Indian Hill, below Wyalusing. The next year, in April, he waited on Gen. Washington, and with him planned the Sullivan campaign. He served in that campaign as chief guide of the army, and received the thanks of General Sullivan in general orders for his gallant conduct and important services in the battle of Newtown, August 29th, 1779. On the 25th of February, 1781, he set out with his company to join Gen. Washington at headquarters on the Hudson, and arrived on the IIth of March; was engaged in the battle of King's Bridge, July 3d, 1781, and when the army marched for Yorktown accom- panied them; was at the surrender of Cornwallis, October 17th, 1781, serving under Baron Steuben. Returning with the army to the Hudson the same fall, and the war being really at an end, and becoming tired and disgusted with the inactivity and weari- ness of camp life, he, on the Ist of March, 1782, resigned his commission, and returned home to the defense of his family and friends from the barbarity of the savages, who still infested that locality, and the antagonism of the active and embittered Pen- namites. He was an active, leading man in all the struggles of the settlers against the Pennamites, firm and unyielding in his adherence to their rights, never compromising, never surrender- ing, and when the rights of the settlers were in good part gained, he refused to accept, because it was not all he claimed and be- lieved their due. He married Bethia Harris, of Salem, Conn., in Jenkins' Fort, on June 23d, 1778, ten days before the memorable massacre, and just twenty days after he had returned from his captivity among the Indians. He held many local and county" offices after the war, among the latter those of Commissioner and member of the General Assembly, besides carrying on exten- sive farming operations and iron smelting, and acting for some
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time as Surveyor General and General Agent of the Connecticut Susquehanna Company, He was also made a Major, and afterwards promoted to be Lieutenant Colonel of the Militia. He was elected to the office of High Sheriff as a Democrat in 1796, but the next highest on the return was a Federal, and he got the commission from a Federal Governor-aided somewhat by the Pennamite influence. His home was in Exeter township, on the site of the old battle ground, where he died, March 19th, 1827, aged 75. He had five sons and three daughters.
One of the sons, James, was born January 29th, 1796, at Wyoming. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Samuel Breese, a soldier of the Revolutionary war. He commenced business at Wyoming, as a merchant, in May, 1826, continuing many years, and became very successful. He died August 8th, 1873, aged 77 years and 7 months. These were Steuben's father and mother. The latter carried in her veins the blood of many distinguished New England and other families. On her side, Mr. Jenkins traces his ancestry from John Haynes, who was the first Governor of Connecticut, in 1639, through Hon. Samuel Wyllys, of Hartford, Conn., before whose door stood the famous Charter Oak, and who married Ruth, daughter of Governor Haynes; through Rev. Abraham Pierson, founder and first Presi- dent of Yale College, and his son, Rev. John Pierson, one of the first Board of Trustees of Princeton College, and Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, of Hartford, Conn. His mother was a cousin of Hon. Sidney Breese, Chief Justice of Illinois, and a United States Senator from that State, and also of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the inventor of the first practical working telegraph. Through his grandmother, Bethia Harris, he is a direct lineal descendant of James Harris, of New London, Conn., who came to this country and settled in Boston, somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century, and a recent published record of whose descendants gives the names of 1,973 persons, a number of them well known citizens of New England and elsewhere. The name Harris occurs upon the paternal side also, as do those of Gardner, Otis, Rogers, Stanton, Thomas, Denison, Jacobs, and Rowland.
He (Steuben) was born September 28th, 1819, at his grand- father's homestead, and the most of his life has been spent in the
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vicinity hallowed and made historically classic by the above, his ancestors. The site, as already stated, is that of the Wyoming battle ground. He was educated in the common schools and at Oxford Academy, N. Y., where he attended six months, and about the same length of time the Academy at Bethany, Wayne county, Pa. He began the study of the law with the late Hon. Hendrick B. Wright, on the 23d of June, 1845. Being possessed of unremitting industry, a portion of the time during which his studies were continued was spent in teaching school in Pittston and in his father's store at Wyoming. On the 3d of August, 1847, on the motion of his preceptor, and the certificate of Henry M. Fuller, Charles Denison, and H. W. Nicholson, Examining Committee, he was admitted to practice in the several Courts of Luzerne county. He was with Colonel Wright as student, and subsequently as partner, just eight years, when, his health being impaired by too strict application to business, he was offered and accepted charge of the Foreign Mail Bureau. in the General Post Office, at Washington, where the labor was much less onerous. This position he retained two years, when he returned to Wyoming, and, in conjunction with his brother, James, established the banking house of Jenkins & Brother; but soon recognizing that a financial crisis (which, it will be remem- bered, came in 1857) was impending, was prudently impelled to the closing up of the business, and in 1858 he resumed the prac- tice of the law. During this time he was twice, namely, in 1856 and 1857, chosen a member of the State Legislature, wherein he served on several important committees, and took decided posi- tions with reference to all the leading measures. In 1863 he was chosen clerk and counsel to the County Commissioners, which positions he retained continuously until 1870. Besides being a safe and ready legal adviser for the Commissioners, his records made while in this position are models of beauty, for Mr. Jenkins is an elegant penman. Few, if any, masters of the chirographic art excel him. Since 1870 his time has been divided between farming and historical and antiquarian pursuits, though he still finds opportunity to practice law. As a local historian and gath- erer of Indian relics, fossils, minerals, shells, and other matters having especial reference to the early and sanguinary history of
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the valley, it is not too much to say that Mr. Jenkins leads most living workers. He has one of the best and largest collections in the country-a fact familiar to competitors, far and wide. They are the rich fruits of many years of arduous as well as intel- ligent labor and research. As a historian, it may be remarked that he prepared and delivered the historical address at the Wyoming Monument at the commemorative exercises on the Centennial Anniversary, July 3d, 1878, and the historical address at the 100th Anniversary of the. Battle of Newtown (Sullivan's victory over the British, Indians, and Tories), August 29th, 1879; and besides contributing liberally to the press and a number of publications for years past, he has accumulated an immense amount of material for a History of Wyoming, which he is now preparing for publication. In this connection, it should be noted that in tracing the genealogies of all the early settlers of Wyoming of any note, he has, by dint of years of the most laborious effort, succeeded in resurrecting many highly important facts that have escaped predecessors in the same line of inquiry. His library contains 2,500 volumes and 2,000 pamphlets, mostly of an histo- rical character, and many of them rare publications. He is a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and other kindred societies.
In addition to all the other positions we have enumerated as having been held by him, Mr. Jenkins has been 22 years Secretary of the Wyoming Bible Society, 16 years a Director and Secretary of the Forty Fort Cemetery Association, 16 years Secretary of the Wyoming Monument Association, 18 years Trustce of the Luzerne Presbyterian Institute, 12 years Trustee of the Wyoming Presbyterian Church, 7 years School Director of Wyoming and Secretary of the Board, 7 years Director of the First National Bank of Pittston, 3 years a Prison Commissioner for Luzerne county, 7 years Secretary of the Board of Prison Commissioners, 7 years a Justice of the Peace for Kingston township, and 20 years in the Agricultural Society of Luzerne county. He is also Treasurer of the Trustees of Kingston township.
Mr. Jenkins married, on the 24th of February, 1846, Catharine M. Breese, who was born July 27th, 1822. By her he has had four children, one son and three daughters, now living at Wyo-
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ming. Elizabeth, his second daughter, is married to William S. Jacobs, of Wyoming.
This is the record of a certainly busy life-a life busy, too, in works of good. But those which by most men would be looked upon as onerous tasks, Mr. Jenkins seems to regard as pleasant recreations. Others' work is his play. That, at least, would appear to be a fair interpretation to put upon the vast amount of work he has undertaken without murmur, and successfully accomplished. It is not many such men any community can boast; for, in addition to all this, Mr. Jenkins is a pleasant man- nered and spoken gentleman, who is never so absorbed by his labors but that he has time for a friendly hand-shake and kindly word or two with the unusually large number who are pleased to call him friend, or for an occasional hour with some musical instrument, on a number of which he is, with his other accom- plishments, a skillful performer.
DAVID SNYDER KOON.
Among the veterans of the Luzerne bar is David Snyder Koon, of Pittston, who was a practicing attorney and prominent man when many of our present leading lawyers were still in swaddling clothes. Mr. Koon is of Knickerbocker Dutch origin, the name having been originally Kuhn. His father, Henry, settled in New York City, and was a soldier of the war of 1812. He went to his grave with the mark of an enemy's bullet on him, which he received at the battle of Plattsburg, where he was badly wounded. David was born in Dutchess county, N. Y., on September 9th, 1818. His education was secured by a two years' attendance at the common schools of Greenfield and Carbondale, now Lacka- wanna county, in a printing office, and in teaching school, upon which avocation he entered when yet a very young man. He read law in the office of the late Judge D. N. Lathrope, of Car- bondale, and was admitted to the bar on January 5th, 1848, the
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Examining Committee at the time being composed of Harrison Wright, Charles Denison, and J. J. Slocum, all now deceased. Mr. Koon has been in the continuous practice of his profession ever since, either' in Carbondale, Providence, Pittston township, or Pittston borough, excepting during eight months, when he held the position of Cargo Inspector on the State Canal, at the Beach Haven office, to which he was appointed by the Canal Commissioners in 1853. It was an office of great importance in those days, and during the short term for which Mr. Koon held it over $200,000 of the State's moneys passed through his hands. At the expiration of the eight months he was appointed Collector for four years, at Pittston, but as the State works were sold as soon as the new division of the North Branch Canal became navigable, which was shortly thereafter, he was not called upon for the performance of any active duties in the position. Mr. Koon served two terms in the State Legislature, sessions of 1866-1867. At the first election he received a majority of 600 votes, and at the second had 3,600 over his highest opponent. . He has held numerous other local positions, and as nearly as he can calculate has had, from the fact that he has occupied several positions at the same time, about one hundred and forty-five years ' of office. He was four years Postmaster at Providence under the Polk Administration, two years United States Deputy Revenue Assessor under President Johnson, and has repeatedly run the gamut of the township and. borough offices in Carbondale and Pittston. He was Judge, Inspector, and Clerk of Elections sev- enteen years, Justice of the Peace ten years, Director and Secre- tary of the Poor Board over thirteen years, Township Attorney for Pittston fifteen years, School Director twice, State and County Tax Collector three times, etc., etc. These are not extraordinarily high offices, to be sure, but it speaks volumes for a man's repu- tation with those who should know him best, his immediate neighbors, that he should have been called upon to fill so many of them so frequently. Mr. Koon married, in January, 1849, Eliza A., only daughter of Amasa Hollister, of Covington town- ship, one of the numerous Hollisters from Connecticut, who settled in Wayne and Luzerne counties, and has two children ..
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FRANKLIN JARED LEAVENWORTH.
FRANKLIN JARED LEAVENWORTH.
Perhaps the majority of his fellow-citizens are not aware that Franklin Jared Leavenworth is a regularly graduated attorney and member of the bar of Luzerne county, but such is neverthe- less the fact. Mr. Leavenworth was born in Delaware City, Delaware, on January 24th, 1827, and is consequently at this writing in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His father was Jared Leavenworth, a native of New Haven, Conn., and of English extraction. Mr. Leavenworth, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the Towanda Academy, and came to Wilkes-Barre in 1843. Shortly afterwards he entered the office of the late Luther Kidder, Esq., as a student at law, and was admitted to the bar January 10th, 1848. He began to practice immediately after his admission, and in a short time succeeded in establishing a first-rate legal business, but at the expiration of three years opportunities were offered him in other walks of life which prom- ised much more liberal pecuniary rewards, and he bade farewell to his clients and entered upon those pursuits, succeeding so well that he never afterwards resumed practice. He is now engaged in the coal, real estate, and mercantile business, with offices under the First National Bank. In fact, Mr. Leavenworth may be said to be one of Wilkes-Barre's solid men, foremost in more than one of its leading enterprises, and the possessor of a handsome property, wherein, in the enjoyment of the companionship of an interesting family, it will be his happy privilege to tranquilly spend the evening of a useful life.
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GEORGE LOVELAND.
GEORGE LOVELAND.
George Loveland, who is among the senior members of our bar, was born in Kingston, November 5th, 1823, when our sister borough, instead of being the handsome town it now is, con- sisted of but a few straggling wooden houses. His father, Elijah Loveland, came here in 1812, from Norwich, Vermont. His mother is of the ninth generation of the descendants of Thomas Buckingham, one of the Puritan fathers, who emigrated from England to Boston, Mass., among the first of his class, in June, 1637, and who is the ancestor of the vast family of American Buckinghams, so many of whom have gone high up the ladder of distinction in the professions and in politics in various sections of the Union. George's preparatory education was received at home and in the Dana Academy, after which he was sent to Lafayette College, in which latter institution he was distinguished by an earnest disposition to learn and an enviable capacity for acquiring knowledge. After leaving Lafayette, he taught school for a period of about three years, when, tiring of that avocation, he entered upon the study of the law in the office of Gen. E. W. Sturdevant. He was admitted to practice August 19th, 1848, upon the recommendation of H. W. Nicholson, H. M. Fuller, and Charles Denison, Examining Committee, and has following his profession ever since. Mr. Loveland was married at Lyme, Conn., on September 29th, 1869, to Miss Julia Lord Noyes, a grand-niece of George Griffin, Esq., once a prominent lawyer , here, and afterwards a leading member of the New York bar, now deceased. His only sister is the wife of Governor Henry M. Hoyt. Mr. and Mrs. Loveland have two children living, Charles Noyes 'and Josephine Noyes. Mr. Loveland is a gentleman of excellent attainments, but being of an exceptionally retiring dis -. position, and having small need of the pecuniary rewards of an active practice, has never figured very conspicuously in legal conflicts, albeit he has achieved considerable in the way of office work, in which branch of legal labor he certainly excels. He is
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a useful citizen and a devout Christian, having been made an Elder of the Presbyterian Church while living in Kingston, an office he continues most acceptably to fill in this city, of which he is now a resident. Mr. Loveland is of the sixth generation of the descendants of Thomas Loveland, who settled at Wethers- field (now Glastenbury), Conn., in 1674, on the last piece of land (No. 44) of the first survey in Connecticut of lands purchased from the Indians.
ASA RANDOLPH BRUNDAGE.
One of the best known of Luzerne's citizens, as well as one of the leading practitioners at its bar, is Asa Randolph Brundage, of Wilkes-Barre. Like most of our older attorneys, Mr. Brundage is descended from an early settler. Israel Brundage, the first of the name of whom there is any record in this country, was born in England, and emigrated to America in 1713. From his loins have come a very numerous and, in every branch of it, a highly respectable family, not a few of whom have achieved eminent distinction in various walks of life. Four Brundages, Asa's grandfather and three granduncles, fought in the Revolutionary war on the side of independence, serving gallantly all the way through that memorable struggle. His father, Moses S. Brun- dage, who was born near Bloomfield, N. J., bore arms in the second and final conflict with the mother country, in 1812, doing duty as a commissioned officer with the American forces on Staten Island. Some years after the close of the war, namely, in 1820, he came to Luzerne, and located in the village of Conyngham, . where, as farmer, miller, and merchant, he soon became the fore- most citizen of the place. Every rural community has among its citizens some one man to whom the rest look up as a sort of leader and general adviser. To that station the elder Brundage was, by common consent, allotted by the people, and he held it, undisputed, for many years. He was a devout and prom- inent Methodist. At his home always tarried the ministers of that faith when they came to Conyngham to preach its doctrines,
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and that home was long known, for miles in all directions, as "The Methodist Tavern." Asa's mother was Jane, daughter of Richard Brodhead, Sr., and sister of Richard Brodhead, Jr., one time United States Senator from Pennsylvania, and known throughout the nation as one of the ablest members of that body. The Brodheads were originally of Yorkshire, England. The founders of the American branch of the family came over the sea as early as 1632, and representatives thereof were public men in the Empire State more than a century since. Grandfather Brod- head settled in Pennsylvania, on the Delaware, in Monroe county, near Stroudsburg, and gave his name to the well known Brod- head's creek, in that vicinity. Daniel Brodhead was one of the earlier Surveyors General of the Commonwealth, and another member of the family lies buried in the Moravian Cemetery, at Bethlehem, between two Indians. J. Romaine Brodhead, the historian, of the State of New York, and James O. Brodhead, of Missouri, are also members of the family.
Asa was born at Conyngham, March 22d, 1828, and left the paternal roof when but fourteen years of age, to accompany to Mississippi the Rev. T. C. Thornton, who had been one of the Faculty at Dickinson College, and had become President of Centennary College, at Brandon, in the State named. He entered Centennary, which, even at that early day, accommodated, at times, as many as five hundred students, and served a five years' course, when he graduated, being chosen as the valedicto- rian of a class of two hundred. His education thus brilliantly completed, he came to Wilkes-Barre, and at once entered the law office of the late Col. Hendrick B. Wright, under whose tuti- lage he prosecuted his studies with the utmost industry, and with signal success. He was admitted to the bar, after passing a critical examination at the hands of Harrison Wright, O. Collins, and H. W. Nicholson, Esqs., on April 2, 1849.
In 1853 he married Frances B. Bulkeley, daughter of the late Jonathan Bulkeley, who was of the seventh generation of descend- ants of "Peter Bulkeley, the Puritan," who came to this country from Woodhill, England, in 1630, and settled, with a few com- panions, in Massachusetts, in a place first named by them Con- cord, where he died, in 1659. A paragraph in Neal's " History
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of the Puritans," relative to Peter Bulkeley, reads thus: "He was. a thundering preacher, and a judicious divine, as appears by his treatise 'Of the Covenant,' which passed through several editions." This book was dedicated "To the Church and Congregation at Concord," and to his nephew, "The Rt. Honorable Oliver St. John, Lord Ambassador of England to the High and Mighty Lords, the States General of the United Provinces of the Nether- lands; also Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas." Jonathan Bulkeley, the father of Mrs. Brundage, was a midshipman in the United States navy about the commencement of the century, and assisted in the capture of Francois Dominique Toussaint, the Haytian general, in the island of San Domingo. He was elected Sheriff of Luzerne county in 1825. Two children have been the fruit of this marriage, the eldest of whom, Richard B. Brundage, is at present a student at law in his father's office. The other child is a daughter.
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