History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 107

Author: Craft, David, 1832-1908; L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 812

USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 107

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Brook trout were plentiful in the creeks and shad in the river, and wild fowl skimmed the surface of the streams or winged their flight by the windings and turnings thereof.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

REV. BELA COGSWELL

was born on the place on which he now lives, Jan. 10, 1817. Elisha Cogswell, the grandfather of Bela, came from Con- necticut in company with two brothers, and settled in what was then the " far west," about 1785 or 1790. He was by trade a miller, and had the charge of the most important mills on the river, among which was the Ingham mill at Sugar Run. He afterwards purchased a farm on the Tus- carora creek, where he lived until his death.

Edward, the son of Elisha Cogswell, married a daughter of Bela Ford, who lived on " Ford street," in Pike town- ship, and settled on a part of his father's farm, in what has been known as East Springhill, where he died June, 1877, at the age of eighty-one years. He was a man of unques- tioned integrity and sincere piety, and held an official po- sition in the church for more than sixty years.

Bela, the son of Edward, or " Uncle Ned," as he was familiarly called by the people of his neighborhood, was a self-made man. In his boyhood the facilities for education were very inferior to what they now are. He improved those which he had to the best advantage, studying and reading as far as he could, until the people thought he was qualified to teach, when he taught several terms. Previous to 1837, before he was twenty years old, he was licensed to preach the gospel, and for more than forty years he has been engaged in the work of the ministry, and preached to the same people. He was one of the original members of the

Free-Will Baptist church on the Tuscarora, and was mainly instrumental in its organization, and in erecting the pleasant church edifice which is used by the congregation. This church has a marble pulpit of unique construction, and on the marble tablets surrounding it are the names of members, pastors, contributors, etc.,-a constant reminder to the wor- shipers of those who are affiliated with them in the ties of

Bela Cogswell

the spiritual brotherhood. Mr. Cogswell has been their first and last pastor. In addition to his duties as pastor, he has frequently had to perform the official duties of a citizen, having, besides other township offices, been justice of the peace fifteen years. He married, Oct. 19, 1837, Eunice Prentice. She died in 1870. There were born to them seven children : Abel B., who died March 7, 1839, Sophronia M., Emma R., Mary A., Stella A., Osmer E., a young man of great promise and flattering prospects for success and useful- ness, who was accidentally killed Nov. 16, 1876, leaving a young widow, and Ward B., the youngest, who is at home with his parents.

Mr. Cogswell was married a second time, May 22, 1870, to Lydia Fuller, widow of the late Stillman Fuller, who died in South Carolina, where he and his wife were employed in teaching the emancipated blacks by the United States Freedmen's Bureau. Mr. Cogswell retains his vigor unim- paired, and bids fair to live many years and to do much useful work in his profession to the community.

ULSTER.

WHAT is now known as Ulster was originally called She- shequin. It was the site of an Indian town built after the Pontiac war, at which the Moravians established a mission on the solicitation of some of the native inhabitants, who had belonged to Brainerd's congregations on the Delaware. The name Sheshequin, however, was not confined to the Indian town, but was applied to the whole district claimed by the inhabitants of the village, which included the meadows on Quecn Esther's flats and on the east side of the river. When Gen. Spalding first settled in what is now called Sheshequin, he gave that name to his settlement, and for many years the two places were each called Sheshequin ; and, to distinguish one from the other, that on the west side of the river was named Old Sheshequin, and that on the east side New Sheshequin. The new Sheshequin becom- ing much the more important place, at length threw off the qualifying term, and became simply Sheshequin, while Old Sheshequin, after much discussion, and several different names having been proposed, at length took the name of both the Connecticut and Pennsylvania township, and, by the general acquiescence of the inhabitants, has retained the name which was assigned to it. It is only one of many examples of the strange way in which old names become transferred to new places, while the older place assumes some new name without historic significance or local value.

The present township known by this name is but a very small remnant of the one first organized as Ulster. The original township was about five miles from north to south, and about eighty from the east to west; present Ulster is a trifle greater distance from north to south, and not more than three miles from east to west. It is bounded by the Susquehanna on the east, North Towanda on the south, Smithfield on the west, and Athens on the north. Along the river are the plains usually found along the river, broken by high land between Ulster and Milan, and terminated on the south by the Ulster mountain. West of the river the land rises to a considerable height, Moore's hill being among the highest points of land in the county. The hills, though high, are not steep, and are susceptible of cultivation to their very summits, and good crops are raised by the thrifty farmers whose farms cover their rugged sides.

Ulster takes its name from the Susquehanna company's town, of which it is a part. An account of this town and the papers connected with it, although covering part of Sheshequin, are best understood by being taken together, and seemed most appropriately to belong to that part of the old town which has preserved the name. Ulster was origi- nally granted by the committee of the Susquehanna com- pany to Asahel Buck and others in 1775 ;* but no survey

nor allotment being made, it was superseded by another grant, made Sept. 12, 1785, which was itself superseded by a third grant, dated July 23, 1786, and surveyed and al- lotted in the fall of the same year, and described as follows :

Beginning on the west side of the Susquehanna river, opposite the head of an island, about three-fourths of a mile below the junction of the Tioga and Susquehanna ; thence west two miles to a corner ; thence south five miles ; thence east five miles ; thence north five miles ; thence west three miles to the place of beginning.

In order to obtain more accurate knowledge of the his- tory of the township, Judge Gore and Elijah Buck, then of Buck ville, N. Y., made the following deposition :

"September 2, 1802.

"Before me, Thomas Cooper, Esq., one of the commissioners uoder the act passed April 4, 1799, entitled ' An act for offering compen- sation to the Pennsylvania claimants of lands within the seventeen townships of Luzerne county,' etc., personally appeared Ohadiah Gore, Esq., associate judge of the court of common pleas, of the said county, and Elijah Buck, Esq., of Tioga county, of the State of New York, who, upon their oaths, do swear, depose, and say that on the 28th of August, 1775, on the application of persons (proprietors in what was called the Susquehanna company), whose names are men- tioned in document A and B, hereto annexed, a grant was regularly made, according to the rules and regulations of the Susquehanna company, for a township containing twenty-five square miles, called Ulster, located on the west side of the northeast branch of the river Susquehanna. A true copy is hereto annexed, marked G.

"That the war breaking out soon after with the British and In- dians, no effectual settlement was made in the said township under the said grant of 1775, the generality of the proprietors and settlers, claimants under the said grant of 1775, being called to the common defense of Wyoming and the neighborhood, or having joined the army of the United States.

"That on the close of the war, and during the fall of 1784 and the spring of 1785, these deponents, with upwards of thirty other persons, settled and resident within the township of Ulster, as located in the said grant of 1775, and heing weary with the contest with Pennsyl- vania respecting the Susquehanna company's claim, and desirous of living in peace and conformahly with the laws of the State in which they were placed by the decision of Trenton, they, with the generality of the proprietors and settlers, were and have continued supporters of the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania.

" That the sentiments of the undersigned deponents and other set- tiers in the old town of Ulster being commonly known, they were violently opposed on many occasions and their interests thwarted hy many leading proprietors in the Susquehanna company, then and now resident in Luzerne county, and who were and have continued uni- versally hostile to the pretensions of Pennsylvania, in respect to the Susquehanna purchase, and opposers of any plan of compremise hitherto held out under the authority of the State.

"That being overpowered by the numbers of their opponents in the Susquehanna purchase, and unwilling to embark in any further contention and dispute, the undersigned, with other settlers of the old town of Ulster, acquiesced in the elaims of an interfering township laid out by and under the patronage of their opponents, of the description aforesaid, under the name of Athens, still ex- isting and settled as a half-share township and not recognized as one of the seventeen townships of the county of Luzerne under the act of April 4, 1799, and the supplements, in lieu of the old town of

# For a description see Athens.

422

G. M.andyRe

MRS. MARY J. VANDYKE.

PHOTOS. BY G. H. WOOD.

MAIL

BAGGAGE No. 20

RES. OF G. H. VANDYKE, ULSTER, BRADFORD CO., PA.

423

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Ulster, which was entirely on the west side of the river, northeast branch of Susquehanna. These deponents and other elaimants ac- quiesced in and accepted a new grant of the township of Ulster, the northern bounds of which commenced at the south part of Tioga Point, and extended on both sides the river Susquehanna. A copy of the second grant, as far as it remains perfect, is contained in document D. Document E is a list of the proprietors applying for the second grant, in conformity to the rules and regulations of the Susquehanna company. The boundaries of the town of Ulster, ac- cording to the location of the second grant, were not yet agreeable to the claimants and settlers of the town of Athens, who, having the guidance of the affairs of the Susquehanna company entirely among themselves and their adherents, insisted that the town of Ulster should be placed still lower down the river, and this was again con- sented to by the undersigned deponents and other settlers in Ulster, and a third grant was accepted in the year 1786, a copy whereof is contained in document F. Of the old town of Ulster no regular snr- vey was made, owing to the circumstance of the war immediately succeeding the original grant, nor was a survey completed under the second location, as the third was granted abont nine months only after the second. A copy of the survey under the three grants here- with presented being document G. If the old location of Ulster, under the grant of 1775, be established it will include but few com- paratively of the applicants under the law of April 4, 1799; the second will include all those who have applied under said law."

" DOCUMENT A.

" List of the proprietors of the township of Ulster, Mr. Asahel Buck, agent, Angust 28, 1775 :

Catherine Draper, ¿ share, 1 right, certified by receipt.

Elijah Phelps, } share, 2 rights.

Jonathan Buck, } share, 1 right, certificatc.

Lockwood Smith, } share, 1 right, certificate.

Thomas Millard, } share, 1 right, receipt.

Aholiab Buck, } share, 1 right, certificate.

Capt. Joseph Eaton, } share, 1 right, certificate.

Elijah Buck, ¿ share, 1 right, certificate.

Daniel Kellogg, I share, 2 rights, certificate.

Abraham Brockaw, } share, 1 right, receipt.

" DOCUMENT B.

" N. B .- On another list exhibited these names appear to have been added :

Stephen Shepard, } share, 1 right.

Joseph Spalding, } share, 1 right. William Buck, 22 shares, 5 rights. Obadiah Gore, } share, 1 right.

M. Hollenhack, } share, I right.

J. Jenkins requests the favor of being admitted. Asahel Buck, 1 share, 2 rights.

Thomas McCluer, I share, 2 rights.

" DOCUMENT E.#

" List of proprietors for Ulster, July 21, 1786 [figures in parenthe- sis denote the number of rights belonging to the person whose name they follow] :

Capt. Simon Spalding (4), Capt. Thomas Baldwin (3), Obadiah Goro (2), William Buck (2), Elijah Buck (2), Henry Baldwin (1), Joseph Kinney (1), Joseph Kinney, Jr. (1), Capt. Joseph Spalding (1), John Spalding (2), Reuben Fuller (1), Widow Hannah Gore (I), Samuel Gore (2), Abraham Brockaw (2), Avery Gore (I), Capt. Jo- scph Eaton (2), Capt. Joshua Dunlap (1), Lockwood Smith (1), Heirs of Aholiab Buck (1), John Shepard (1), Stephen Shepard (I), Col. Nathan Denison (1), Joshna Jewel (I), Hugh Forsman (1), Isaac Baldwin (I), Chester Bingham (1), Adriel Simmons (I), Nehemiah

Defries (I), Abnor Kelly (1), Benjamin Clark (I), Maj. William Judd (1), Capt. Timothy Ilosmer (I), Silas Gore's heirs (I), Asa Gore's heirs (I), Zerah Beach (1), Lebbeus Hammond (1), Benjamin Baily (1), Laurence and Sarah Myers (1).

"DOCUMENT F.

" Pursuant to a vote of the Susquehanna company, appointing a committee to grant townships to such proprictors as appear author- ized to take up the same, I have, with the leave and approbation of said committee, located and surveyed a town on the North Branch of the Susquehanna river, beginning, eto., f which survey is made at the request of Capt. Simon Spalding, Lieut. William Buck, and others, a list of whom is herewith delivered to the committee aforcsaid.

(Sigacd) "OBADIAH GORE, Agent.

" The above survey of n township called and known by the name of Ulster is accepted and approved by ns, the subscribers, to be and belong to the said Simon Spalding, etc., etc., and others, their asso- ciates, as part of their general rights in the Susquehanna company's purchase, and the same is hereby granted and confirmed to them, their heirs, and assigns, agreeable to the votes of the Susquehanna com- pany. In testimony whereof, we have signed these presents this 21st day of July, A.D. 1786.

(Signed) " ZEBULON BUTLEn,

"JOHN FRANKLIN, Committee."

This last grant was regularly surveyed and allotted, and the lots distributed among the proprietors of the township.

As Ulster was included in the purchase of 1784, we find no Pennsylvania surveys prior to that date. The title, how- ever, was vested in Charles Carroll, and in Pickering, Hodg- don & Company, whose agent, Thomas Overton, sold to the settlers after it was decided by the commissioners that Ulster could not be embraced in the confirming law. Old Ulster included a few of the settlers in the upper part of the township.

EARLY SETTLERS.

Settlers came into Ulster about the same time that Col. Spalding and others went into Sheshequin, 1783 and 1784. A number of them were from Wyoming, and came about the same time, if they did not come together. Of these may be mentioned, as one of the pioneers, Capt. Benjamin Clark, who was among the very first to build a house on the "town-plat" of Wilkes-Barre, having emigrated from Tolland Co., Conn. He was a corporal in the First Indepen- dent company of Wyoming, under Capt. Robert Darkee, and served seven years in the Revolutionary war. In the battle of Mud fort, the man in front of him had his head shot off by a cannon-ball. He was one of the detachment sent for the relief of Wyoming after the fatal battle, and was in the army of Gen. Sullivan, which devastated the Indian country in 1779. For his services he received a pension of $96 per year. Subsequently he was appointed captain of militia, and was known by the old settlers as Capt. Clark. After peace, Capt. Clark remained in Wyom- ing one year. In the spring of 1784 he moved to the place now called Frenchtown, and the year after came up to Ulster, built a log house on the bank of the river, and moved his family into it in the spring of 1785 ; a tenement building on the Ross farm now marks the site of Capt. Clark's first house. It will be remembered, an unusually severe rain fell in October, 1786, causing an unusual rise in the river, called the Pumpkin freshet. Capt. Clark's house stood on the low flat near the river. The water began

# Documents C and D have not yet been discovered. The follow- ing list of the proprietors of Old Ulster has been discovered, to wit : Elisha Satterlee, Stephen Hopkins, Uriah Stephens, Oliver Bigalow, Lockwood Smith, William Buck, Elijah Buck, John Franklin, Benja-" min Allen, Thomas McCluer, Elisha Mathewson, John Patrick, Mat- thias Hollenback, Abel Yarrington, John Jenkins, Christopher Hurl- but, William Jones, Benjamin Smith, Nathan Carey, - Hageman, John McKinstrey, Ishmael Bennett, Asahel Buck, Thomas Duane.

t The boundaries same as have been given above.

424

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

to rise rapidly, the family became alarmed and fled to the hills, and Mr. Clark commeneed moving his goods from the house ; and so rapidly did the water rise, that across a low place between his house and the hill-side, where was dry ground when he went for his last load of goods, he was compelled to swim his oxen on the return. Although soaked with water, the family had no shelter for their heads from the storm on that chill October night. The water came up to the eaves of the house, but the building resisted the force of the current, and after the flood subsided the family moved baek into it. Like other Connecticut settlers, Capt. Clark took up his farm in Ulster under the Connecticut title, but this proving worthless, he purchased the State title through Thomas Overton.

Capt. Clark was an ardent Federalist, and a member of the Methodist church. His house was a place of entertain- ment for travelers, and the home of the Methodist itinerant for many years, and in it the first preaching was held in Sheshequin. Here, in 1810, under the preaching of Rev. Loring Grant, H. B. Bascom,* late bishop of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church South, was converted and received into the church.

The winter before the great ice freshet he was at Sheshe- quin, and in company with Sergeant Thomas Baldwin went down to Wilkes-Barre in a canoe. There had been a thaw accompanied with rain, and the river was bank full, when the weather became suddenly cold. It was with great effort the two men could keep from freezing. They reached Wilkes-Barre the same day, but so intensely cold had the weather become that, high as the river was, it froze over that night.

Captain Clark was twice married. In the Westmoreland town records are the following entries : "Births of the children of Benjamin Clark and Nabbe his wife, -- John Theophilus, born July 8, 1770 ; Polly, born Feb. 24, 1772 ; Nabby, born March 3, 1774; Sally and Milly (twins), born March 5, 1777. Nabbe, wife of Benjamin Clark, de- parted this life March 12, 1777, in the twenty-fourth year of her age."

John married and settled in Burlington, near Luther's Mills ; Mary married a Blanchard, and Abigail married a Culver; both left the State.

His second marriage was to Keziah Yarrington, whose first husband, Silas Gore, was slain in the battle of Wyoming. She came from Stonington, Conn. ; she was in the Forty fort at the time of the battle. An Indian, who had been on friendly terms with Mr. Gore, hinted to them that it would be best to go down the river, but he did not heed the warning. After they learned that our men were de- feated, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Bidlack, Mrs. Durkee, and Mrs. York went to the door of the fort, and were refused a pass. They were persistent in their demand, and finally were al- lowed to go out. They found a canoe, and weut down the river and escaped.

Mrs. Gore had three daughters by her first marriage. Patty married a brother of Ebenezer Shaw; Rebecca married James Braffitt, who died; and she then married

Joseph Bloom. Both these were settlers in Burlington. Mr. Bloom and his family moved into the State of Ohio. Lucy married Avery, son of Obadiah Gore, and lived in Sheshequin. By his second marriage were Lucinda, who was married to Nathaniel Hovey ; Ursula was married to Samuel Treadway, and her family moved to Illinois; Wil- liam married Sylvia, a daughter of Ezra Mills, and had a part of his father's farm. About 1817 he went to Cairo, Ill. Julia Ann married John Overton, and he having died, she married a man by the name of Passmore, and went west.

Captain Clark died in Ulster, Aug. 9, 1834, aged eighty- seven years.

Nathaniel Hovey, who married Lucinda Clark, came to Ulster as early as 1802. He moved to Batavia, N. Y .; enlisted in the war of 1812, was sergeant of a company, and died near Saekett's Harbor in 1814. Rev. S. C. Hovey, the eldest son of Nathaniel, lived with his grandfather, Clark, until his death ; became possessor of a part of the old farm, and yet resides in Ulster. Portraits and a biography of him and his wife will be found on another page.

Adrial Simons came from Connecticut (probably Brandon) about the time, or a little before, Capt. Clark, and occupied the farm now owned by Mr. Van Dyke and Adolphus Watkins. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, was taken prisoner by the British in one of the battles fought in the vicinity of New York, and was for a long time con- fined in one of the prison-ships in Long Island sound, where he suffered untold hardships from the confinement, hunger, cold, and filth, which gave those floating dens such an unenviable notoriety. He is described as a fine old gen- tleman, hard-working, frugal, and kind to the poor. Capt. Simons raised a large family. Four of his sons, to wit, Elijah, Anson, Bingham, and George, went to the State of Ohio. Jeduthan died in Ulster.

Solomon Tracy lived in the lower part of Ulster, on the farm now owned by Mr. Mather. He was born in Liteh- field Co., Conn., Jan. 1, 1756. His wife was Mary Wells, born in Southold, on Long Island, March 5, 1765; was a sister to General Henry Wells, for whom Wellsburg, in New York, and Wells township, in Bradford County, were named. Mr. Tracy moved from Litchfield to Orange Co., N. Y., to a place called the Drowned Lands; from there he went to the Lackawaxen, where he was engaged in the Indian wars. After the Revolutionary war he went to Wyoming, and then to Ulster, arriving at the latter in 1787. Hon. Henry W. Tracy, a son of Capt. Solomon, says, "My oldest sister was born Oct. 19, 1787. When she was a child, they moved to Ulster. I have heard my mother say she carried her in lier arms through the Break- neck narrows on horseback. In 1809 my parents moved - to Angelica, N. Y. My father died at my brother's, near Canandaigua, N. Y. My mother died while with me in Standing Stone, Nov. 22, 1848, and was buried in the old Wysox burying-ground."

Eli Holcomb came from Simmsbury, Conn., and in March, 1793, settled in Ulster, on the place now occupied by Mr. Walker. The farm lay in the centre of the town, on what is now known as Cash's creek. He was a thriving, industrious citizen, and raised a large family of sons, some

* An interesting biographical sketch of Bishop Bascom may be found in Bishop Simpson's "Cyclopedia of Methodism," published by Everts & Stewart.

( PHOTOS. BY GEO. H.WOOD, TOWANDA PA )

JAMES VANDYKE .

MRS.JAMES VANDYKE.

RES. OF JAMES VANDYKE, ULSTER, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA.

425

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

of whom remained in Ulster, while others went into Le Roy, where they were the pioneer settlers. One of the daughters married Seeley Crofut, of Le Roy, and another Ebenezer Shaw, the centenarian of Sheshequin. The Holcomb saw- mill, on Cash's creek, was known for a long distance, and lumber, with which most of the houses in Ulster and ad- joining towns were built, was sawed there.

Captain Isaac Cash was a prominent citizen of Ulster and one of its early settlers. He was the oldest son of Daniel and Mary (Tracy) Cash, and was born in Orange Co., N. Y., Aug. 15, 1766. The family removed to Wy- oming about 1776, and just preceding the battle Mr. Cash went east to solicit aid to repel the expected invasion. On his return he met the flying fugitives, and among them his wife and her little children. They went back to Orange county, and after the war was over returned to Wyoming, where he died in 1789. Isaac Cash was among the early settlers in Athens, having settled on the Point, on the farm afterwards owned by Gen. Welles. He sold his improvement in 1791, and moved to Ulster while yet a single man. He settled on the farm next above Mr. Holcomb, and which Solomon Tracy owned, of whom Mr. Cash purchased it by deed dated Aug. 8, 1791, and is described as lot No. 3, of Ulster, in Old Sheshequin. His grandson, S. S. Lockwood, now lives on the farm. Here he married Sarah, youngest daughter of Judge Gore, of Sheshequin. He was an active, energetic man, dealing largely in lumber and real estate. He was appointed justice of the peace, and held the office until the time of his death, which was April 12, 1813; his wife died two weeks before him, viz., March 28. Of the eleven children left orphans by the sudden death of both their parents, Anna married first Dr. Robert Russell and second Col. Edmond Lockwood. As the biography of Col. Lockwood appears on another page, no further mention need here be made of this branch of the family.

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History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 107

Author: Craft, David, 1832-1908; L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia : L. H. Everts Number of Pages: 812

Author: Craft, David, 1832-1908; L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : L. H. Everts
Number of Pages: 812