USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Families of the Wyoming Valley: biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, vol. II > Part 3
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William Henry, son of William Henry, and the father of Thomas Henry Atherton, was born at Nazareth, August 15, 1796, and died at his home in Wyoming May 22, 1878. He was educated at Nazareth Hall and in his early manhood he fol- lowed the occupation of his father-that of a gunsmith. During the early struggles encountered in the development of the Lack- awanna valley Mr. Henry manifested indomitable pluck, perse- verance and energy, backed by an unwavering faith in the rich mineral treasures that lined the hills and valleys, waiting for the magic touch of some strong arm to reveal them to the world. His first public appearance in the Lackawanna valley was in 1832 in connection with the "Susquehanna and Delaware Cana! and Railroad Company," the design of which was the construc- tion of a railroad from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, and of which Mr. Henry was elected treasurer. His frequent journeys through that section gave him an opportunity of ascertaining its mineral wealth, and he was the first to advocate the building of a town at what is now Scranton, even when the place presented a most uninviting aspect, and when the wolf and fox roamed unmolested through the forests where the city of Scranton now stands-and history must always regard him as the real founder of Scranton. The railroad enterprise met with no encouragement
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and was strongly opposed by the residents of the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, who claimed it was an impossible task and a project not calculated to improve their social condition. Mr. Henry, undismayed by this unfriendly feeling, called a meeting of the friends of the road together at Easton in 1836 to devise a plan of action. His mind was full of the riches of his famed locality, and in his enthusiasm he related to the gentlemen present the boundless resources of the country described, and asserted that if an iron interest was awakened and once developed in the Lackawanna valley a large town would be built as well as the road. He assured those present that if the old furnace at Slocum Hollow could be reanimated and sustained for a few years, it would call for more ample means of communication with the sea board, than that afforded by the lumbering stage coach. Notwithstanding the zeal with which he advocated this under- taking, it seemed so impractical at the time that the most experienced at the meeting (which lasted three days) shrank from it, and only one gentleman present, Edward Armstrong, fell in with Mr. Henry's views. Mr. Armstrong possessed con- siderable wealth and was a gentleman of great benevolence and courtesy, living on the Hudson. In the acquisition of land in the Lackawanna valley, or the erection of furnaces and forges upon it, he avowed himself ready to share with Mr. Henry any respon- sibility, profit or risk. During the spring and summer of 1839, Mr. Henry examined every rod of ground along the river from Pittston to Cobb's Gap to ascertain the most judicious location for the works. Under the wall of a rock cut in twain by the dash of the Nay-aug, a quarter of a mile above its mouth, favor- ing by its alitude the erection and feeding of a stack, a place was well chosen. It was but a few rods above the debris of Slocum's forge, and, like that earlier affair, enjoyed, within a stone's throw, every essential material for its construction and working. In March, 1840, Messrs. Henry and Armstrong pur- chased five hundred and three acres for eight thousand dollars, or about sixteen dollars per acre. The fairest farm in the valley, underveined with coal, had no opportunity of refusing the same surprising equivalent. Mr. Henry gave a draft at thirty days on Mr. Armstrong, in whom the title was to vest; before its ma-
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turity death came to Mr. Armstrong, almost unawares. He had imbued the enterprise, by his manly co-operation, with no vague friendship or faith, and his death at this time was regarded as especially disastrous to the interests of Slocum Hollow. His administrators, looking to nothing but a quick settlement of the estate, requested him to forfeit the contract without question or hesitancy. Thus baffled in a quarter little anticipated, Mr. Henry asked and obtained thirty days grace upon the non- accepted draft, hoping in the interim to find another shrewd capitalist able to advance the purchase money and willing to share in the affairs of the contemplated furnace. Colonel George W. Scranton and Selden T. Scranton, both of them of New Jersey, the latter being the son-in-law of Mr. Henry, interested by the earnest and enthusiastic representations of Mr. Henry regarding the vast and varied resources of the Lackawanna valley, of which no knowledge had reached them before, pro- posed to add Sanford Grant, of Belvidere, to a party and visit Slocum Hollow. The journey from Belvidere to the present site of Scranton took one day and a half hard driving, and was well calculated to test the self reliance and vigor of the inexperienced mountaineer.
The Drinker turnpike, stretching its weary length over Pocono mountain and morass, enlivened here and there by the arrowy trout brook or the start of the fawn, brought the party on August 19, 1840, to the half-opened thicket grow- ing over the tract where now Judge Archbald's residence is seen. Securing their horses under the shade of a tree, the party, amazed at the simple wildness of a country where green acres were looked for in vain, moved down the bank of Roaring Brook to a body of coal, whose black edge showed the fury of the stream when sudden rains or thaws raised its waters along the narrow channel. None of the party except Mr. Henry had ever seen a coal bed before. Assisted by a pick, used and concealed by him weeks before, pieces of coal and iron ore were exhumed for the inspection of the party about to turn the minerals, sparkling amid the shrubs and wild flowers, to some more practical account. The obvious advantages of location, uniting water power with prospective wealth, were examined for half a day without seeing or being seen by a single person. . At that time Slocum Hollow
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contained five dwelling houses, one school house, a grist mill and a ricketty saw mill. The exterior features of the Slocum property were anything but attractive, yet, after some question and hesitancy, it was purchased at the price already stipulated. Lackawanna valley achieved its thrift and fame from this com- paratively trifling purchase of but yesterday, and Scranton dates its incipient inspirations toward acquiring for itself a place and a name from August, 1840. The company consisting of George W. Scranton, Selden T. Scranton, Sanford Grant, William Henry, and Philip H. Mattes, organizing under the firm name of Scran- ton, Grant and Company, began forthwith the construction of a - furnace under the superintendency of Mr. Henry, whose family immediately removed from Stroudsburg to Hyde Park, now a portion of the city of Scranton. On September II of the same year, the first day's work was done towards the erection of a blast furnace, and the place was called Harrison, in honor of General William Henry Harrison, then the candidate of the whig party for president of the United States. This name was afterwards dropped for that of Scrantonia, which was finally changed to Scranton. The various changes which have occurred since then are matters of almost contemporary history and it is unnecessary to reproduce them here. Scranton, from the few struggling huts of Slocum Hollow, has grown to be the third city of Pennsyl- vania, with a population of sixty thousand inhabitants, and is now the county seat of Lackawanna county, erected on a site that seemed little better than a wilderness to the pioneers. Mr. Henry retired from business several years before his death and removed to Wyoming, where his last days were spent. He was twice married, his first wife being Mary B. Albright, a sister of Joseph J. Albright, of Scranton. In this marriage he violated the Moravian custom of choosing wives by lot, one of the first breaches of that custom which has now become extinct. His children by that marriage were Reuben A. Henry, general audi- tor of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company ; William Henry, lieutenant colonel of the First New Jersey Volunteers during the late civil war ; Joseph J. Henry, captain of the Ninth New Jersey Volunteers, the first commissioned officer killed in the assault upon Roanoke Island; Eugene T. Henry, for many
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years superintendent of the Oxford Iron Works, at Oxford, N. J .; Ellen Henry and Jane Henry, who married Selden T. Scran- ton and Charles Scranton, respectively. His second wife was Sarah Atherton, daughter of Elisha Atherton. The children by that marriage are Lydia Henry, wife of Rev. W. S. Stites, of the Wyoming Presbyterian church, and Thomas Atherton Henry, now, by an act of assembly passed by the legislature of Pennsyl- vania, March 15, 1871, Thomas Henry Atherton, the subject of this sketch. Elisha Atherton was a descendant of the Atherton family which originated in the town of Atherton, a short distance northwest of Manchester, England. Robert de Atherton lived there in the time of King John (1199-1216). He was the high sheriff of the county of Lancashire, and held the manor of Ather- ton of the barons of Warrington. The descendants of this Robert still reside at the place named. The first of the family to come to this country was Humphrey Atherton, who was born at Atherton, in Lancashire, in 1609, and emigrated to Boston about 1635. He died September 17, 1661. He had twelve children. Humphrey Atherton was elected one of the deputies of the council of Boston in 1643, and re-elected several times subsequently ; was a cap- tain of the militia of Dorchester, major, and finally, in 1661, a major-general, of the colonial forces. On September 17, 1661, when returning from a muster and while crossing the Boston common, his horse became unmanageable, and he was thrown off and killed. In one of Longfellow's early dramatic productions, the scene of which is laid in Boston, and his characters the colonial governors and deputies of the time, this tragic end of General Atherton is described.
James Atherton, a great-grandson of Humphrey Atherton, was one of the original settlers at Wyoming, in 1763. The Del- aware Indians, on October 14, of that year, rose upon the settle- ment at noonday, while engaged in the labors of the field, and massacred about thirty of the people in cold blood. Those who escaped ran to the adjacent plantations to apprise them of what had happened, and were the swift messengers of the painful intelligence to the houses of the settlement and the families of the slain. It was an hour of sad consternation. Having no arms even for self-defense, the people were compelled to seize upon
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such few of their effects as they could carry upon their shoulders and flee to the mountains. As they turned back during their ascent to steal an occasional glance at the beautiful valley below, they beheld the savages driving their cattle away to their own towns, and plundering their houses of the goods that had been left. At nightfall the torch was applied, and the darkness that hung over the vale was illuminated by the lurid flames of their own dwellings-the abodes of happiness and peace in the morning. Hapless, indeed, was the condition of the fugitives. Their num- ber amounted to several hundred-men, women, and children ; the infant at the breast; the happy wife a few brief hours before, now a widow, in the midst of a group of orphans. The supplies, both of provisions and clothing, which they had secured in the moment of their flight, were altogether inadequate to their wants. The chilly winds of autumn were howling with melancholy wail among the mountain pines, through which, over rivers and glens and fearful morasses, they were to thread their way sixty miles, to the nearest settlements on the Delaware, and thence back to their friends in Connecticut, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. Notwithstanding the hardships they were compelled to encounter, and the deprivations under which they labored, many of them accomplished the journey in safety, while others, lost in the mazes of the swamps, were never heard of more. Undaunted, though his companions fell all around him by the merciless tomahawk, James Atherton returned to the valley in 1769. It is not now certainly known who was the first settler at the village of Kingston, but one of the first settlers of the township in the last named year settled within the limits of the borough, namely, James Atherton, who, with his sons, James Atherton, jun., Asa- hel Atherton, and Elisha Atherton, built the first log house, nearly opposite the site of the old academy on Main street. There the father resided to the time of his death in 1790. James Atherton, jun., was the son of James Atherton, sen., and his son, Elisha Atherton, was the father of Sarah Atherton, the wife of William Henry. Of the killed at Wyoming are Lieutenant Asahel Atherton and Jabez Atherton, who were probably sons or grandsons of James Atherton, sen. Caleb Atherton heads the list in Captain Ransom's company. His time of service was
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three years, from January 1, 1777, to 1780. The first wife of Elisha Atherton, and the mother of Mrs. Henry, was Zibia Perkins. She was the daughter of the late David Perkins, of Wyoming. He was the son of John Perkins, who came to Wyoming prior to 1773, and was one of the original purchasers from the Indians of lands in Wyoming. John Perkins was killed by the Indians while in his field on the flats opposite this city. Miner, in the Hazleton Travelers, printed in 1845, speaks thus of the Perkins family : "Among the instances of Indian barbarity the murder of John Perkins has been . narrated. He was from Plainfield, Windham county, Conn. On the enlistment of the two independent companies, his eldest son, Aaron, then an active young man of about twenty, enrolled his name in the list, and marched to camp under Durkee. Hence the family were objects of especial hatred to the enemy. Aaron Perkins continued in the army to the close of the war, having given his best days to the service of his country. David Perkins, the next brother, took charge of the family, and by great prudence and industry kept them together, and not only preserved the plantation, but enlarged it.
* For a great number of years Mr. Perkins executed the duties of a magistrate to the ' general acceptance. A son of his held the commission of major in the United States army, and is still in the service. Numbers of his children are well married and settled around him, or not far distant. * * David Perkins still lives, in the enjoy- ment of fine health and an easy fortune. Aaron, the old soldier, one of the extreme remnants of Ransom's and Durkee's men, broken with age and toil, you may yet see slowly pacing his brother's porch, or on a summer day taking his walk along those beautiful plains. If not enjoying much positive pleasure, he yet seems to suffer no pain. Linger yet, aged veteran! Ye winds blow kindly on him! Beam mildly on his path, thou radiant sun, that saw his father slaughtered, and must have witnessed the gallant soldier in many a noble conflict! Plenty surrounds him. Peace to his declining years! As a most interesting memorial of the past we love to look upon you. Justice prompts me to say that the family of Perkins stands among the foremost on the file of patriotic services and deep sufferings, and is
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entitled to gratitude and respect." At the time of the massacre Mr. Perkins' home at Wyoming was burned, and his wife and son David fled to Connecticut, but returned in the fall. The second wife of Elisha Atherton was Carolina Ann Ross Maffett. widow of Samuel Maffet. Eliza Ross Atherton, wife of Charles A. Miner, of this city, is their only child. Her mother died in August, 1885. Thomas H. Atherton was prepared for college at the academy in Wilkes-Barre, taught by W. S. Parsons, and at the Luzerne Presbyterial Institute, Wyoming, Pa., and entered the College of New Jersey at Princeton; from which he graduated in the class of 1874. He was the secretary of his class and obtained the prize on political science and constitutional law. He studied law with Charles E. Rice, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county September 29, 1876. He is a director of the Vulcan Iron Works and also in the Second National Bank and People's Bank of Wilkes-Barre. He is a republican in politics, a presbyterian in religious belief, and is actively connected with Sabbath school work. He married October 7, 1880, Melanie Parke, daughter of Rev. N. G. Parke, D. D., of Pittston. S. Max Parke, of the Luzerne bar, is her brother. Mr. and Mrs. Ather- ton have two children: Louise Parke Atherton and Thomas Henry Atherton.
Mr. Atherton, as will be seen from the foregoing, comes from a good family, inheriting from both progenitors the blood of some of the best men and women who have figured in the annals of our state and country. His disposition and practices, too, have done honor to this inheritance. No young man at the bar, or in any other business in Wilkes-Barre, stands higher as a citizen. Professionally, he is all that a man thus fortified and equipped may be expected to be. He has an honest love for the profession and an honest anxiety to win in it all those material rewards which do not involve a sacrifice of reputation and self respect. He chooses to follow the law in the view that the law was made, not to shield the wicked, but to subserve good ends only, and being thus careful in the choice of his clients, as well as intelligent and pertinacious in the prosecution of their causes, he has achieved a standing of which many an older practitioner could afford to be proud. His sympathies have always been with the republican
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party, and though he has never been in any sense a politician, his name has been frequently canvassed when the question of a fit republican nominee for district attorney has come up for con- sideration. He is fairly well to do in the world and spends the most of the time spared from his business duties in his beauti- ful new home and with his interesting family and numerous family connections. He is well educated and a diligent reader, always well posted on the current news of the day as well as in general literature, and therefore a pleasing companion and friend.
HENRY COFFIN MAGEE.
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Henry Coffin Magee, of Plymouth, was born in Carroll town- ship (near New Bloomfield), Perry county, Pa., February 6, 1848. His father, Richard Lowrie Magee, was born at York Springs, York county, Pa., which his father had purchased while he was a resident of Philadelphia. Subsequently the family removed to Perry county. The mother of the subject of our sketch was Margaret Black, who was born near Carlisle, Pa., and was the daughter of William Black. H. C. Magee was educated in the common schools and afterwards attended the State Normal School, at Bloomsburg, Pa., from which he graduated in the class of 1871. He taught school from 1870 to 1876, and from 1871 to 1875 was principal of the graded public schools of Plymouth. He read law with B. McIntire, of New Bloomfield, and was admitted to the Perry county bar August 7, 1875, and to the Luzerne county bar October 21, 1875. Mr. Magee is of Scotch- Irish extraction, has always been a republican in politics, and active in his party's behalf. He has interested himself in the preliminary and primary work at Plymouth, and in reward of that adhesion and activity has been burgess of the borough named, and was a member of the lower house of the state legis- lature, session of 1885 and 1886. In the last named body he has served upon several important committees, besides identify- ing himself conspicuously with numerous measures of a local
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and semi-local application, chief of which was the bill making an appropriation for the relief of the sufferers by the Plymouth typhoid epidemic, and taking an active interest in most general legislative measures pending. Mr. Magee is a good lawyer, in- dustrious, and of good standing as a citizen in the community with which he makes his home.
CHARLES WESLEY McALARNEY.
Charles Wesley McAlarney was born December 20, 1847, at Mifflinburg, Union county, Pa. He is the son of the late John McAlarney, who was born December 8, 1805, in the parish of Streat, in the county of Longford, Ireland, and who emigrated to this country in 1819, settling in Harrisburg, Pa., where he was educated. In his early manhood he was a school teacher, and subsequently he was a manufacturer and largely engaged in the lumber business. He resided for a while in the neighbor- hood of Milton, Pa., then at Selin's Grove, Pa., and finally re- moved to Mifflinburg, where he died May 17, 1876. The wife of John McAlarney, who is still living, is Catharine Wilson, the daughter of the late Thomas Wilson, who was a native of Ha- gerstown, Md., as was also Thomas Wilson, his father. Thomas Wilson the younger removed from Hagerstown to Middletown, Pa., then to Donegal township, Lancaster county, Pa., where Mrs. McAlarney was born. He subsequently removed to Eliza- bethtown, in the same county, where he died.
C. W. McAlarney was educated in the common schools and at the Mifflinburg Academy. At the age of eighteen years he commenced to teach school in his native county, and followed that profession for six years. He then removed to Harrisburg and commenced the reading of law in the office of his brother, Joseph Curtin McAlarney, and was admitted to the bar of Dau- phin county, Pa., May 13, 1873. He practiced in the courts of that county until his removal to Luzerne county. He was ad- mitted to the Luzerne bar February 7, 1876, and has been in con-
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tinuous practice since. In addition to his brother above named, Mr. McAlarney has two other brothers, one of whom is Matthias Wilson McAlarney, also a lawyer. He has been the postmas- ter of Harrisburg for the last twelve years. He is also the man- ager and editor of the Harrisburg Telegraph. William Max- well McAlarney, the other brother, is a practicing physician at Philadelphia.
The legal profession has recruited many of its brightest lumi- naries from among those whose earlier years were spent in teach- ing school. In this calling there is much to be acquired that in after life proves valuable to a lawyer. The stock of general intel- ligence necessarily receives material additions, and it never hurts a lawyer to know something outside of the law. A knowledge of child nature is obtained that cannot, for manifest reasons, be so well garnered elsewhere, and as men and women, the poet tells us, are but children of larger growth, the knowledge is certain to be of service to the lawyer, whose success not infre- quently depends almost as much upon his understanding of hu- man nature as of what is contained in the recorded decisions and the statutes. The somewhat rigid discipline to which the teacher must subject himself as well as those he teaches, will stand him in good stead when he comes to practice or to judg- ment, as it would, in fact, in any walk of life he might subse- quently choose to follow. Whether, however, these particular speculations be strictly logical or not, or verified or antagonized in the facts, it certainly is true, as we have already said, that many of our best lawyers have graduated to the practice of the profession from the duties of the school-room. Mr. McAlarney is one of the number. He has been at this writing but twelve years in practice, but in that time has conveyed to a large circle of people the conviction that he is a safe counselor and zealous advocate, with the result of securing to himself the advantage of a large and constantly increasing clientage. He is one of the comparatively few members of the fraternity who view its obli- gations and possibilities always from the serious side. His tem- perament is of the conservative order, modified by only so much of the sanguine as is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of all work deliberately undertaken. To the client who trusts him he
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is the soul of faithfulness, a fact which accounts in great part for the lucrative practice he has been enabled to build up in Ply- mouth and vicinity, and the gratifying success that attends his efforts in the courts. There are lawyers whose natural capacities are rendered less useful by indifference in their application, and others who multiply their profitableness to those who employ their services by the telling and doing of all they know how to do or tell. To the latter category Mr. McAlarney belongs, and when we add that his knowledge of the law is the result of a similar devotion to the study of its intricacies, we have only said what is the just due of one of the most thorough and painstak- ing practitioners in Luzerne county. His politics are democratic, and he has frequently been talked of as a probable candidate some day for the position of district attorney, an office he would unquestionably grace and make serviceable to the cause of justice and the people. Mr. McAlarney is an unmarried man, resides in Plymouth, and has a very promising professional future before him.
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