USA > Pennsylvania > Lycoming County > Genealogical and personal history of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Volume I > Part 12
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Nathaniel Burrows Bubb spent his boyhood days in Montoursville, where he attended the public schools and later took a commercial course at Binghamton, New York. At the early age of eighteen Mr. Bubb was
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engaged in the wholesale grocery business at Williamsport. The firm name was at first Corcoran, Weaver & Co., later Corcoran, Bubb & Co., and then George Bubb & Sons. In 1897 Mr. Bubb disposed of his in- terest and became identified with the chemical business. He is treasurer and manager of the following firms: Mckean Chemical Company, Otto Chemical Company and Wilcox Manufacturing Company. He is also largely interested in the manufacturing of Gas Carbon Black. The fac- tories are in West Virginia, as follows: Castle Brook Carbon Black Company and Columbian Carbon Black Company. He is treasurer and manager of all these concerns. He is also president of the Burns Fire Brick Company, of Williamsport; vice-president of the Lycoming Na- tional Bank; vice-president of the Williamsport Clutch and Pulley Com- pany ; treasurer of the Williamsport Hospital ; manager of the Williams- port Wooden Pipe Company and president of the Manufacturers Char- coal Company, which handles about 1,500,000 bushels of charcoal an- nually. It is one of the largest concerns in this country.
In 1876 Mr. Bubb married, in Allegheny City, Rebecca, daughter of B. Frank Agnew. They have been blessed with a family of five boys : I, Harry Agnew ; 2, George Lashells; 3, Nathaniel Burrows, Jr. ; 4, James Lewars ; 5, Albert Hermance. Mr. Bubb is a staunch Republican and has many friends of both parties. He stands high in Masonic circles, having attained the thirty-second degree. He has been secretary of the Ross Club since its formation, a member of Haleeka Country Club, Buf- falo Club, of Buffalo, New York; Susquehanna Club, of Newberry, Pennsylvania ; Tivvy Club, of Newberry, Pennsylvania, and Williamsport Golf Club. He is a trustee of the First Presbyterian Church of Wil- liamsport and an active and prominent member of Williamsport's Board of Trade.
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HARRY C. BUBB.
Harry C. Bubb, son of George and Sarah (Burrows) Bubb, was born at Montoursville, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1856, and comes of the line of ancestry described in the sketch of George Bubb. Harry C. re- ceived his education at Montoursville in the High School and at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, of the class of 1876. He entered the firm of George Bubb & Sons, wholesale grocers, April 1, 1880, the firm then consisting of George Bubb, N. B. Bubb and H. C. Bubb, who succeeded the firm of Corcoran, Bubb & Company, organized in 1869. January I, 1886, George Bubb sold his interest to N. B. and H. C., the name of the firm remaining the same. January 1, 1900, the subject of this notice, Harry C., became sole owner by purchasing the interest held by N. B. Bubb, but the same name is carried as before.
Mr. Bubb is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and politically is a supporter of the Republican party. He is a member of the Ross Club of Williamsport, secretary and treasurer of the Haleeka Country Club and president of the Williamsport Country Club. He is one of the directors of the following companies: Lycoming County National Bank, Mckean Chemical Company, Wilcox Manufacturing Company and Otto Chemical Company.
Mr. Bubb was married January 31, 1884, to Sarah J. Hays, of Erie, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of John W. Hays and wife. By this union the following named children were born: I, John H., born July 14, 1885 ; 2, H. Burrows, born July 16, 1889; and 3, Hugh J., born September 3, 1893. Mrs. Sarah J. Bubb died September 6, 1893. For his second wife Mr. Bubb married, December 10, 1895, Anna M. Hays, daughter of Alfred A. Hays and wife, of Ashton, Missouri.
Harry Co. Buba
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I, John Burrows, of Lycoming county, and State of Pennsylvania, being solicited by my children and grandchildren, and other relatives, to give them a history of my life, I have undertaken to give them a brief sketch of some of the events of it, and of my parentage.
I was born near Rathway, a town in East Jersey, the 15th of May, 1760. My Grandfather, John Burrows, with other brethren, emigrated from England to get clear of religious persecution, and landed in Massa- chusetts in 1645, and settled near Rathway (where I was born and where my father was born), where he died, being near a hundred years old.
My father, John Burrows, married Lois, the daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel Hubble, a Presbyterian clergyman (who preached to the same congregation, in Rathway, upwards of forty years) by whom he had five sons.
My mother dying when I was an infant, he left me with his only sister (intermarried with Richard Hall) and removed to Pennsylvania and settled on the bank of the Delaware, opposite Trenton, where he married a widow Morgan, an excellent woman and an affectionate step- mother.
The first mail route in America was established at this time. My father's proposals (as he informed me), went to England, and he was allotted the carrying of the mail between New York and Philadelphia, three times a week, on horseback, going through in one day and night, and returning the next, laying by the Sabbath. He always kept light boys for riders, and each of his sons had to take their turn, until they . became too heavy. When I was thirteen years old my father sent for me home, and I had to take my turn at riding; and I never carried a mail, during the three years that I rode, but I could have carried on my little finger.
My kind step-mother having deceased, my father married a third
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wife, very uniike his last. She had six children and he had six. Upon which occasion, his children, not feeling comfortable at home, and the news of the British landing on Long Island, we all five marched in the militia ; and when our term expired we joined the flying-camp; was on Long Island at the retreat off it. Two of my brothers were taken at Fort Washington, and the rest of us returned with the remnant of the retreating army to Pennsylvania, and the British close on our heels all the way, until we crossed the Delaware. General Washington lay about two weeks at my father's, opposite Trenton : then removed to Newtown, the county seat of Bucks, from which place he marched with his little army on Christmas morning, 1776, and crossed the Delaware that night, nine miles above Trenton. I crossed with him, and assisted in taking the Hessians next morning. The particulars of the arrangement and plan of the different divisions of the army intending to cross the river, but was prevented by the ice; the places, number of divisions, etc., has been erroneously given in history. The prisoners were conveyed across the river and we remained in Jersey until that day week, the 2d of January (the cannonade at Trenton), and marched that night, at twelve o'clock, up the Sandpink Creek, and arrived at Stony-Brook, about one mile from Princeton, at sunrise. In ascending the hill to the town, to the right of the main road, there was an extensive thick thorn hedge. When we got pretty near to it, the whole British force that lay at Princeton had concealed themselves in ambush behind the hedge, and rose and fired. The Philadelphia militia were in front, and gave way; but were rallied again by Generals Cadwallader and Mifflin.
After the enemy were driven from the hedge-there being but one gate in the hedge to pass through to pursue them-General Mercer in advance, with a small party, was first through the gate. The enemy ob- serving it, rushed back to the charge, and bayonetted the General and
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twelve others before they could be relieved. Part of the army moved swiftly to the right, round the hedge, got ahead of part of the enemy and captured five hundred of them. While we were collecting our dead and wounded, the advance of the main British army that we had left in the night at Trenton, fired on some men that were sent to cut the bridge down that was over Stony-Brook. We now moved on with our prison- ers. The British forded Stony-Brook and pursued us. We were again fired on, cutting the bridge down at Kingston, three miles from Princeton. After pursuing our course some six or seven miles on the road to Bruns- wick, we turned off the main road to elude the pursuit of the enemy, and halted at Pluckemin for refreshment, where we interred the dead with the honors of war and had the wounds of the wounded dressed.
From this place I returned home, and after staying a short time to rest I returned back and joined the army at Morristown, as an express rider, at forty dollars per month. Our army lay this summer, 1777, in Jersey. Had several skirmishes with the enemy. At one of them Gen- eral Sterling's division, composing Maxwell's and Conoway's brigades, were severely handled at the Short Hills, a few miles from Brunswick.
When the British appeared in the Chesapeake we crossed the Dela- ware to Pennsylvania. The British landed at the head of Elk River and marched for Philadelphia. We met them at Brandywine Creek, at a place called Chad's-Ford; and a battle ensued between the hostile armies, the result of which is well known, though some trifling errors are committed, and incidents omitted in history, that might be interesting to many at this day, and which I find to be the case in every battle I was in during the war.
After the battle our army retreated, and was pursued by the British through different parts of Chester county, but had no fighting, except at the Paoli, with General Wayne's brigade; after which the British steered
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their course for Philadelphia and stationed part of their army at German- town, and General Washington encamped at a place called the Trap, about twenty-five miles from Philadelphia.
General Washington soon perceived the evil of suffering the enemy to keep possession of the country as well as the city, and the advantage they had in their depredations upon the inhabitants, and supplying them- selves with every necessity that they wanted. He was determined to deprive them of that advantage; and accordingly moved from the Trap with his whole force and attacked them at Germantown and drove them more than a mile, when two circumstances occurred to impede our on- ward course. The enemy filled a strong stone house with soldiers, with two field pieces, which we ineffectually tried to get possession of; and the other was General Stevens of Virginia, laying back on the left wing of the army. Cornwallis arriving in the meantime, with their whole force from the city, we were compelled to retreat; and the enemy pursued us for several miles. It had, however, the desired effect, it confined them to the city.
We lay then about two weeks at White Marsh, fifteen miles from Philadelphia, then crossed the Schuylkill, and lay a few days on the hill near the Gulph Mills, and then went into winter quarters at the Valley Forge.
About two weeks before we left the Valley Forge I was at home at my father's on furlough, and while I was there the British sent a gunboat and five or six hundred men up the Delaware, evidently for the special purpose of burning the valuable buildings belong to Colonel Joseph Kirk- bride, an active and zealous Whig. The gunboat ran aground on a bar in the river. I fell in with a company of the artillery that belonged in Trenton, and we went as near to the gunboat as we could get, on the Jersey shore and fired into her the whole time she lay aground; and she
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fired her thirty-two pounder at us until the tide raised and floated her off, when she steered her course down the river.
The land troops, after they had burned up the entire buildings of Colonel Kirkbride, consisting of a fine dwelling house, a barn, glass house and outbuildings of every description, marched by land for Bristol, where they embarked again for Philadelphia. We crossed the river to pursue them. I stopped, with two others of the company, to view the ruins of Kirkbride's buildings, and my stopping there enabled me to prevent the destruction of other buildings, equally as valuable as Kirkbride's, be- longing to Thomas Roche, a violent Tory. Kirkbride and he lived about a quarter a mile apart, on the bank of the river opposite Bordentown. They were both rich and had large possessions. While viewing the ruins we observed a British soldier lying drunk with wine from Kirkbride's cellar, and while securing him, I saw a skiff coming across the river, and a man rowing it, without a hat, appeared in great haste. I ob- served to the two men who stopped with me that I thought he was bent on mischief-that his object was to burn Roche's buildings by way of retaliation. As soon as the boat struck the shore he jumped over with a bundle of oakum under his arm, and made towards Roche's. I said to the men with me that we must not suffer it to be done. They replied, "Let him burn up the d-d Tory!" I, however, prevailed upon them to go with me to Roche's, and we prevented him from executing his pur- pose. Roche and the family were very much alarmed and one of the daughters fainted. He rolled out a quarter of a cask of wine to us. The fellow swore he would go back and get a force strong enough. He did go back to Bordentown and came over again with two more beside him- self. We still prevented and deterred them from committing the act; stayed there all night and until a guard of men was procured to protect him, and his property was saved. This act of mine, in riper years, has
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given me satisfaction. Roche told me after the war that he would re- ward me, but never did; but I have always considered myself sufficiently rewarded in the act itself. I have been thus particular in this matter because history makes no mention of the affair.
I returned back to the Valley Forge and when it was known that the British were about to leave Philadelphia and go by land through Jersey to New York, we left the Valley Forge, crossed the Delaware and came up with the enemy at Monmouth, where, during the action, my horse fell dead under me, and General Washington presented me with another very good one; and when I informed him that I wished to leave the army, he gave me a certificate of my good behavior while with him, which, like a foolish boy, I did not take care to preserve. During fourteen months that I was with him in this capacity I was a member of his house- hold (except when I was conveying his dispatches), and witnessed traits of the great, the good, the prudent and the virtuous man, that would be vanity in me to attempt, with my feeble pen, to describe, and do justice to his character.
From Monmouth I returned home; and things not looking much more comfortable there than when I first left it, and having now arrived at an age to reflect and think of my future prospects, how I was to get a living, etc., I concluded I would learn some trade, and accordingly went into Trenton and bound myself to John Yard, to learn the blacksmith trade. Having lost nothing of my military spirit and zeal for the cause of my country, I joined a volunteer company of artillery that I had been with, firing at the British gunboat, and was out with the company every summer during the four years that I resided in Trenton, and one winter campaign. During one of these summers I was at the battle of Spring- field, in Jersey ; this was the seventh battle I was in during the war, besides several skirmishies, one of which I have just related; and I have not seen
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the particulars of this battle given in history; I will here give some of them.
Kniphausen, a Hessian general, landed at Elizabethtown Point with five thousand British and Hessians, and proceeded to burn a place called Connecticut Farms, after which they made an attempt on Springfield. On the news of their landing we marched with our artillery all night, and arrived just in time to take part in the battle as the enemy approached the town ; it was defended by the four regiments of Jersey regular troops, and the Jersey militia almost en masse. There was a deep morass on the south of the town, extending east and west a considerable distance past it, and but one bridge to get into the town the way the enemy came. Our company, and another of artillery, was placed pretty near the bridge, behind a small eminence, and the shot of the enemy as they came near, all went over us. The road they came was straight and open for three- fourths of a mile, and we had fair play at them the whole way, till they came to the bridge; they were twice on the bridge but were beaten back ; and considering, as we had to judge of their conduct, that they would buy their victory too dear from the advantage we had of them, they gathered up their dead and wounded and retreated back to the point where they first landed. They were annoyed somewhat by the infantry in their retreat, but we remained in our stronghold.
They lay there some days, I forget exactly how long, but were de- termined not to abandon their diabolical purpose of burning this town. They returned by another road, and our forces were very much weak- ened by some of the militia having gone home, and the regular troops hav- ing joined General Washington near the Hudson, where he lay watching the movements of the British army. As they approached the town we were drawn off, being, on account of our weakness, unable to defend it, and thinking that if we gave them no resistance the town would fare the
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better. But, alas, to trust to British generosity was vain indeed, when they so often manifested their cruelty and implacable hatred to a kindred people in this war. When they entered the town they burnt every house in it, except two Tory houses; a fine meeting house, preached in by a Presbyterian minister by the name of Caldwell, who resided in the town, and who left his wife in his house, thinking she would be a protection to it. But they shot her through a window, with a child in her arms, burned the house, and caught him and killed him. Why this apathy to defend this town, I was then and am still at a loss to know, when it was so nobly defended at first. These two places, the Connecticut Farms and Springfield, were congregations of zealous whigs, and their loyalty to their country had entailed on them this sad calamity.
After I had resided four years in Trenton I returned to Pennsylvania. My father had removed to the ferry, and left my brother (who had mar- ried) on the farm that he had left; there was a distillery on the farm and my brother invited me to join him on it.
My two brothers that were taken at Fort Washington-one of them died while a prisoner in New York, the other was exchanged, went to the South, and fell with DeCalb; and the other one sailed with Com- modore Nicholas Biddle in the ship Randolph, which was blown up while fighting the British at sea, and every soul perished.
My brother and I lived on this place one year,. when my father sold the ferry and the adjoining farm and the farm we lived on, to Robert Morris, for which he never received a cent, except fifty pounds for the boats and two years' interest. After he made this sale he received an appointment in the Comptroller's office, at the adoption of the United States Constitution, which he held until he died in Washington City, up- wards of ninety years old; and though he was not able to perform the duties of the office for two years before he died, yet they continued to pay
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him his salary until his death. I remember to have heard one of the United States officers say, that they were bound, in honor, to support him as long as he lived-and they did so.
My brother and I rented a large farm and merchant mill thereon, belonging to his father-in-law, Samuel Torbert, and I shortly afterwards married my brother's wife's sister, Jane Torbert, by whom I have had seven children, and have had as their offspring, forty-three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
My wife's mother had died some time before I married her, and left eight children; her father had married a second wife, by whom he had at this time three children; she was a widow, and brought three with her; the old man had taken to drink, became dissipated, neglected his business, got in debt, and finally all his property was sold from him. My brother and I purchased one hundred and twenty acres of the princi- pal part of the farm, and farmed it together one year. The place being too small for us both, we concluded to separate. I left him on the farm and went near to Philadelphia and rented a finely improved farm, or at least it had fine buildings on it, at a rent of nearly two hundred pounds a year, including taxes, etc. I took with me a fine team of five horses, and eleven milch cows. I was much mistaken in my opinion of this farm, but I had rented it in the winter, when the snow was on the ground; in the spring when the snow went off, I found the ground worn out and very poor; I had taken it for seven years, and concluded myself bound by my bargain to do what I could with it and make the best of a bad bargain. I set to work and hauled on to it fifteen hundred bushels of lime, ten miles, and three hundred five-horse loads of dung from the city, seven miles. This extra expense I was not prepared to meet; it sank me considerably in debt, besides my rent laying behind.
Everything at this juncture seemed to operate against me: the
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market for produce within three years had sunk Ico per cent; every field on the farm produced no other pasture than garlic, and of course the butter was affected with it; and I have sold my butter in hot .weather, after standing in the market till the middle of the day, for four pence per pound, and glad to get it. At the end of three years I found that I had sunk six or seven hundred pounds. I now saw clearly that it would be out of my power to liquidate my debt on the farm, and accord- ingly surrendered it to my landlord, George Fox, of Philadelphia. I had got considerably in debt to him, besides the rent, by his assisting me to improve the land. Mr. Fox's brother, Samuel M. Fox, came on the farm, and they agreed to take my stock of creatures and farming utensils, which extinguished only a part of my debt. Samuel gave me two hun- dred dollars to stay with him one year, to put him in the way of farming. I had purchased my brother's share in the farm in Bucks that belonged between us. My wife's aunt had a lien on it of three hundred pounds, for which I had given her a judgment bond. She had got alarmed for the security of her money and entered up her judgment, and had my place condemned before I was aware of it, until Dr. Tate, a cousin of my wife, sent his negro eighteen miles to tell me of it. Having a de- mand against her, I got the judgment opened; and when my year with Mr. Fox was ended I went back to Bucks county and sold my place to my brother for six pounds per acre.
I remained two years in Bucks, without any prospect of improving my pecuniary circumstances, and a debt of a thousand dollars to pay and nothing to pay it with, or the means of extinguishing any part of it. I concluded to go to work at my trade, this being the only means left me for the support of my growing and helpless family; and, being in- vited by my brother-in-law, Hugh McNair, to go to Northampton county, I moved there and followed my trade for two years; but, finding the
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blacksmith trade a very poor trade there, I sold my tools and started with my wife and five children (one of them at her breast) for Muncy, where I had some relations living, and arrived there on the 17th of April, 1794, without eight dollars in money, house or land. I was obliged to go into a small cabin about sixteen feet square, with a family of six children, and besides, six of my own family, including a bound boy.
I remained in this cabin until the 15th of November, when I re- moved, on eighteen inches depth of snow, to a place belonging to my relative, John Hall. I was told before I left Northampton that distilling was a good business in a new country. I had learned distilling at my father's, and brought two small stills with me. The snow that I moved on to Mr. Hall's farm soon went off and the weather became fine. I set to work and dug a place in the bank alongside of a well, put up a small log still-house and covered it with split stuff and dirt. The weather con- tinuing fine until New Year's day, on that day I started my stills, and the next day winter set in fairly. I found distilling a good business. I purchased rye for five shillings a bushel, and sold my whiskey for a dollar a gallon, and by the first of April had realized fifty pounds in cash. I was on this farm two years. Before I left Northampton I made a conditional contract with a William Telfair, of South Carolina. for fifty acres of land on the river, the north side of Muncy hill; it was in possession of Samuel Wallis, and pending an ejectment in the Su- preme Court. I gained the land, took possession of it and erected a large still-house thereon; I sold my stills, went to Philadelphia and pur- chased a pair of large stills for one hundred pounds, borrowed fifty pounds from my brother to pay for them, brought them home and set them up in the house that I had erected for them. It was late in the autumn before I got them ready to start, and the winter set in with in- tense freezing without the ground filling with water (the only instance
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