History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 22

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

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Mrs. Franklin, anxious to know whether her husband was among the rescuing party, raised herself up on her elbow to look. Her daughter Susannah, seeing an Indian approach, urged her mother to lie down. In a moment the Indian shot, the bullet striking Mrs. Franklin between the

shoulders. She fell back, and in a moment expired. The family then supposed they would all be murdered, but Joseph Elliott, being in a position where he saw the murder of Mrs. Franklin, creeping along the trunk of a fallen tree got sufficiently near to shoot the Indian while reloading his gun. Mr. Elliott says, " While lying here" (behind the tree where he had shot the Indian), " I heard a rustling in the bushes. In a moment I drew up my gun to shoot, when I observed it was the children coming towards me. I first thought an Indian was using them as a cover for an attack upon us, but soon found they were alone. I called to them to run as hard as they could, and in a minute they were with me." The daughter Olive says, " I got up, took my brother Stephen on my back, and spoke to my sister to run along the path before me, which she readily did. We started, and seemed to be getting along well enough, when somebody shouted after us. "There,' said my sister, ' I told you the Indians would be after us and catch us again.' Once more we heard a man call out to us. I list- ened, and knew his voice. He spoke with all his might, and said, 'Run, you dear souls, run !' We flew to meet them." The Indians fled. Not another shot was fired. The white people, however, remained behind their cover until near sunset, fearing an ambush. They then ventured down to where the Indians had fought, and where were the bodies of those who had been slain, their packs, etc., which had been left behind.

When it is remembered that for more than four hours this contest was waged between seven white men and thir- teen Indians,-Swift reaching his party only at the close of the fight,-we can appreciate the truth of Mr. Miner's remark, that in no engagement during the whole Revolu- tionary war was there shown more obstinate pluck, or more determined bravery, than in this conflict over the family of Roswell Franklin, in the wilds of Bradford County. The whites had the advantage of position, being on the crest of the hill ; while the Indians were superior in numbers, in the ratio of two to one. The whites had two wounded, viz., Dudley, who received a wound in the shoulder, and Oliver Bennett, who had his arm broken. The Indians lost five or six killed, and at least two wounded.

Having buried Mrs. Franklin as decently as circum- stances would permit, they at once began to make prepara- tions for their return. In the narrative of the daughter Olive, before quoted, she says, "Our friends having found the tomahawks of the Indians along with their packs, went immediately to cutting dry poles to make a raft, on which to float down the river. They soon accomplished their object, got upon their frail bark, taking us kindly with them, and dropped silently down the stream. .. . At the dawn of day we came to Wyalusing island. It was just a week since we were taken prisoners. . . . We lay by a whole day at this place, not daring to go forward, lest we should be discovered by our enemies, who might be lurking near the shore, and could single us out and shoot us down at their leisure. We still had sixty miles to go before we could reach the habitations of our friends, and we were nearly in a state of starvation. One biscuit only remained, and our friends were really afraid that the younger children would die for want of food. . . . On Sabbath morning some one

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

of the party shot a duck, and before night a wild turkey. The same day they found an old canoe at the island, and said they would send the wounded man and the children down the river in that. They cleaned the sand and stuff out of it. and we set sail again in the evening. They spread a blanket on the bottom for the children to lie on. As the canoe leaked, we had plenty of water, and that cold enough too, to lie in. In the morning, one of the men was sent on with the wounded man in the canoe, and we were taken on board the raft, where we continued until we reached Wilkes-Barre, which was on Wednesday."

The youngest child of Mrs. Franklin was caught up by an Indian at the close of the fight, placed upon his shoul- ders, and carried into the wilderness ; it was never heard of after. Its fate always remained a mystery.

This was the last important act of the war in this valley. Scouting-parties continued to pass up and down the river until the close of the war, but I have learned of no incident connected with them worthy of record.

CHAPTER V.

RENEWAL OF SETTLEMENTS.

AT the close of the Revolutionary war, on the retire- ment of the British troops, the Indians, deserted by their allies, by whom they had been persuaded to engage in hostilities, immediately intimated their desire to be at peace with the " Thirteen Fires," as they designated the States forming the original confederacy. Left to take care of them- selves, they agreed to lay down the hatchet, and trust to the magnanimity of the victors for protection and security.

The danger from Indian invasion and disturbances being removed, many of the old settlers began to return to their former homes on the Susquehanna, and to occupy the farms from which they had been driven. A number of the soldiers who had been connected with the Sullivan expedition sought the earliest practicable opportunity to secure for themselves farms in the northern part of the county ; and the broad plains of Sheshequin, Queen Esther's flats, and Athens were speedily occupied. Several others set out with the in- tention of locating in central New York, but the unsettled condition of land titles, and the non-extinction of the Indian claims in that part of the State, induced some of them to remain in Pennsylvania.

It will be remembered that the Revolutionary war virtu- ally closed with the surrender of Cornwallis, Oct. 19, 1781, that the Trenton commissioners pronounced their decision, giving the jurisdiction to the Susquehanna purchase to Pennsylvania, December 30, 1782. Eighteen days after, viz., January 18, 1783, a petition, signed by John Paul Schotts, Nathan Denison, Hugh Forsman, Obadiah Gore, and Samuel Shephard, setting forth the history of the settlements at Wyoming, the sufferings of the people, the poverty and distress of the inhabitants who had survived the trials of the war, in which they pray that they may be quieted in their possessions, that any unlawful acts may be consigned to oblivion, "and that courts of judicature be

established according to the usages and customs of this State," was presented to the assembly.

Acting on this petition the assembly appointed a com- mission to make inquiry into the cases at Wyoming, stayed proceedings on writs of ejectment, and for the " protection of the said settlement against the savages," ordered thither two companies of rangers, under Captains Robinson and Shrawder.

The report of the commission to the assembly was so decidedly partisan against the settlers, the conduct of the soldiers was so brutal, and the acts of Esquire Patterson were so inhuman, that many of the old settlers at Wyoming, wearied with the long-continued strife, and foreseeing the bitterness of the impending conflict, determined to remove to the northern part of this county. Esquire Patterson writes that numbers of the New England people were going up the river to settle, in which he was giving them every encour- agement in his power. From all of these causes combined, in May, 1786, three years after the resettlement began, not more than two hundred families were in the county. These were scattered along the river valley from Wyalusing to the State line.

The latter part of the year 1786, and the beginning of 1787, witnessed a large influx of families into the territory of the county. The settlers, goaded to desperation by the unfeeling treatment they were receiving from the Pennsyl- vania authorities, determined upon a forcible resistance to their oppressors. Accordingly, the Susquehanna company had offered as a gratuity three hundred acres of land to any settler who would come upon their purchase and re- main thereon for three years, subject to the direction of the committee of the company. The project of forming a new State, in which General Ethan Allen was interested, brought on a considerable emigration from Vermont. A large number implicated in Shays' rebellion were offered an asylum on the purchase if they would cast in their lot with the company. This was also an era of land specula- tion, especially in the Connecticut title. Associations of New England people were formed for the purchase of town- ships surveyed by the Susquehanna company. If the reader will refer to the table of grants, in a former chapter, he will observe that from 1786 to 1796 most of these town- ships were disposed of by the company. They were pur- chased at a trifling price, but, in order to promote the actual settlement of the country, the owner was required to secure twenty actual settlers in his township within three years, or he forfeited his claim. In order to procure these, agents were sent out through all of the older settled portions of New York, New Jersey, and New England, who, by rep- resentations of the beauty and fertility of the country, the cheapness of the land, the advantages of its water-power, and the rapid prospective growth of all this region, induced a large number to emigrate to what was declared to be the Eden of America. To aid in these representations, drafts of the township were made, on which were the field-notes of the surveyor, and glowing descriptions of the timber, soil, streams, and waterfalls. A number of these drafts are now in the hands of the author. So strong did the tide of emigration become, that before the beginning of the present century settlements had been begun in most of the

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

townships of the county, and some of the older ones began to enjoy the conveniences of civilization.

It is said, " Give a Yankee a piece of flat land as large as a leather apron, and a spring of water, and he looks no farther for a place to build his house and establish his home." This remark found numerous illustrations in the early settlement of our county. The greater number of the early emigrants, regarding the ridges along the river, which were covered with pitch pine, and called " pitch pine plains" or " barrens," as good for nothing, pushed up the creeks, and wherever they found a little broader flat, pitched the log house, and began hewing out a farm. In answer to the question frequently asked of the older people, " What induced your folks to come up among these hills, when land on the river could be had from twenty to fifty cents per aere?" the almost invariable answer has been, "The early settlers thought the plains were worthless, and the creek flats were richer, and the hill lands were much stronger, because they were so heavily timbered." It is not at all certain but the judgment of the fathers, which was until recently thought to have been a great mistake, will at last turn out to be correct. For this reason, for a number of years, the settlements were confined to the immediate vicin- ity of the streams.

In the spring of 1784 oeeurred the notable " ice flood." I am unable to learn that any serious damage was done to the twenty or thirty settlers in this county, but in Wyoming its effects were terrible. As many of the families who sub- sequently became residents of this county were heavy losers, and some of them were put in imminent peril by this un- usual occurrence, a brief account of it, found among the papers of Col. Franklin, will be inserted. He says, "The breaking up of the Susquehanna river, on the 15th of March, 1784, greatly distressed the inhabitants, who had been obliged during the time of war to remove, and build their houses on the lowlands near the banks of the river. The un- common rain, and large quantities of snow on the moun- tains, together with the amazing quantity of ice in the river, occasioned by the uncommon inclemency of the winter season, swelled the streams to an unusual height,- ten, and many places twenty feet higher than ever it had been known since the settlement of the country.

" The ice, choking the current of the stream, raised the water so suddenly and so rapidly in the night season, that the retreat of the inhabitants from the lowlands was cut off before they were apprised of danger. Upwards of one hundred and fifty families were left to the mercy of the boisterous stream, their houses taken off by the rapidity of the current or wrecked in pieces by mountains of ice. Five hundred souls were in the most perilous situation, having no other hope but the interposition of heaven to stay the raging of the proud waters. A number of families were carried a mile, and others two miles, in their houses, rack- ing in pieces over their heads by the amazing force of the water and ice, some clinging to the roofs or broken pieces of their houses, rolling with the ice; some clinging to limbs of trees, others in boats or canoes, or on islands of ice, hur- ried along the impetuous current. But by the interposition of kind heaven the waters were stayed in so extraordinary a manner that but one human life was lost in the inunda-

tion. However, the greatest part of the horses, cattle, and other effects of the settlers were swept down with the tor- rent and forever lost."

The ravages of the Indians and the flood had completely impoverished the people. Nothing was left but the bare soil, and to that their title was contested. Col. Timothy Pickering had purchased a large tract of land at the Great Bend, and in the fall of this year (1784) made a journey up the river for the purpose of viewing it. He remarks, " We were under the necessity of passing through the Wy- oming settlements from Nescopeck to Tioga. The inhab- itants, from the causes before mentioned, were universally poor, and their stock of eattle small, and inadequate to the common purposes of husbandry. From Nescopeck to Tioga, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, we tasted bread but once.'

In October, 1786, two and a half years after the great ice flood, the river rose rapidly to a height greater than was ever known before in the fall, and occasioned great loss. The hay was gathered, and much of it was in stacks, the corn was in the shock, and the cattle were feeding in the meadows, when the flood swept all before it. The fruit of the summer's toil, the hope of the winter's sustenance, was borne off by the turbulent waters. In consequence, no little suffering ensued. Those who escaped, however, shared their store with true fraternal generosity with others less fortunate, and the next season these hardy pioneers com- menced their labors with renewed courage. This is known as the " pumpkin freshet," from the large quantity of that vegetable which floated down the river.

Col. Franklin, in a letter to Dr. Joseph Hamilton, under date of Nov. 7, 1786, gives such a vivid account of this flood also that I cannot forbear quoting a paragraph :

" I expeet you have heard of the late deluge. The rain on the 5th Oet'r, which fell in about 24 hours, raisod the river about six feet, and in the narrows teo feet deeper than ever known. The small streams hecame mighty rivers, the mills are mostly swept off, and one-half of all kind of food for man and beast is forever lost; even the roots in the earth,-such as potatoes, turnips, parsnips, etc., are mostly rotten in the carth. The greatest part of the raio fell in the afternoon and evening of the fifth. The Susq'h river that was fordable at 4 o'clock afternoon, was over the face of the curth from mountain to mountain at 6 o'clock on the morning of the sixth. It is surprising to see the mountains in the smallest runs of water. You may see stones from three pounds to three tons weight drove to a great distance, and hove up in heaps. A stone, judged to weigh two tons, lies mounted on two stumps near Toby's ereek, that was drove from a considerable dis- tance. A number uf cattle were drowned, our fenees all gone. One man was drowned attempting to save some effects."

In addition to the poverty of the inhabitants, they were subject to a multitude of privations, and exposed to dangers which would have appalled any but the stoutest hearts. Excepting the few partial Indian clearings, the county was covered with a dense growth of heavy timber, some of which must be chopped away to make a place for the settler to erect his log house. Then a small patch is cleared for corn and potatoes.

Let us take a glanee at one of these houses. It is about sixteen or eighteen feet square, the walls are built of round logs, with the bark left on them, and held together by notches cut in the ends, while the spaces between the logs are filled with clay mixed with grass and leaves. The walls are from six to seven feet high, and if the house be now it

IIISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

is roofed with bark, and floored with mother earth. On one side an opening has been left for a door, while two or three smaller ones let in the light. At one end rises a huge chimney, with its ample fire-place. Two or three benches, made of slabs split from a log, with legs set in holes bored from the rounded side, afford seats for the family and guests, and a higher bench answers for a table. Four or five sticks, one end of which is received in a hole bored into the logs of the house, and the other supported by a forked stick, form the bedstead, which, covered with hemlock boughs and the skins of wild beasts, with a blanket, is the place of rest ; a kettle or two, some wooden plates and bowls, a spinning- wheel and loom, constitute the furniture. Before winter sets in a door is made of slabs fastened with wooden pins, three or four panes of glass are obtained for the windows, slab floors are laid, and a ladder made by which the loft is reached, where is stored the corn, and where the younger members of the family sleep.

It is true the rain and the snow beat in, the wind whistles through the chinks and crannies; but the family think little of that; their furniture is not injured by the storm, and they are inured to the heat and the cold. Their home is simple, but it is the best they could make with an axe and an auger, which are their only tools.

The nearest mill is at Wilkes-Barre, which is from sixty to a hundred miles distant. As our pioneer settler has no wheat to grind, he makes a mortar by burning out the stump of a hard-wood tree near by, and with a stone sus- pended from an adjoining sapling for a pestle, he pounds his corn into hominy. Deer ahound in the woods, and fish in the streams. For the first year of the pioneer's life his food must be mainly fish, venison, and hominy, and this eaten frequently without salt, which is expensive and diffi- cult to obtain. Deer-skins supply the greater part of the clothing for the men, while for the rest of the family the cloth is made by the matron of the household.

These men and women who thus broke into the wilder- ness, far from the privileges and comforts of older commu- nities, are the real heroes. To go naked-handed with one's family into the unbroken forest, build a home, procure sus- tenance, hew out a farm, undergo the toil, submit to the privation, and encounter the dangers which these early settlers did, requires a pluck and courage of which we can have but the faintest conception.

Wolves, bears, panthers, and other destructive animals were numerous. Sheep and hogs must be kept in high, strong pens near the house, or they would be devoured, while not unfrequently the settler or his family made hair- breadth escapes from a like fate. There were no roads, and the settler was guided to his cabin by marked trees through the pathless forests. Not unfrequently the belated traveler lost his way, and would be compelled to remain in the wood all night, while in a few instances parties thus bewildered perished from exposure.

To give the reader a better idea of the habits and modes of life of the people here at this early day, a few quotations from the journals and observations of travelers will be in- troduced. In 1789, Jonas Ingham came to reside in the county, and says : " I traveled up the Susquehanna, follow- ing the courses of the river, and found it had been very

little traveled, hardly a plain path, and this very crooked and hard to follow,-quite impassable for more than a man and a single horse. Along the edges of precipices, next the river and other places, I had to ascend and descend from one ledge of rocks to another, some feet perpendicular, at a great height from the water, and in some places extremely dangerous. The habitations of men were very few; and the inhabitants, instead of being glad to converse with strangers or travelers, would hardly speak to them. When I would ask concerning the road they would hardly give me an answer. The chief they would say, "Take any road you please, you can't miss the way.' The weather was warm, there was plenty of feed for my horse, and I fared tolerably well."

In 1793, Rev. William Colbert, an itinerant Methodist minister, traveled in this county for a few months. From one place, where he stayed all night, he set out and rode six miles before he could find anything for his horse, and here all they had was " some smoky, dirty corn," and adds, " as for myself, I thought I would wait a little longer before I would eat in such a filthy place," and rode twenty-five miles without breakfast or dinner. At this time the roads were almost impassable, and many were his escapes from tumbling off high precipiccs, or falling through the treach- erous ice. He describes the houses as " miserable cabins, some of them without chimneys," and says, " if you speak to them about being more decent, they will plead that they are in a new country and have many difficulties to encounter."

In 1795, ahout ten or eleven years after the re-settlement of the county had been begun, the Duke de la Rochefoucault- Liancourt, a French nobleman, came up the river on a visit to Asylum, and gives us the following picture of the country. Under date of May 20, 1795, he says :

" Left Wilkes-Barre. The road was had, and we were several times obliged to travel in loot-paths which were hardly pass- able. We frequently met with spots where a path only eighteen inches in breadth was cut through the rock, or where the road was supported by trunks of trees, narrowed by falls of earth, obstrueted hy fallen trees, and led along the edges of a precipice. We often passed over deelivities rendered more dangerous by the ground being strewed with loose stones or fragments of rock. Fortunately, it so happened that we never got more than a few rods ont of our road ; but we were uhliged to inquire the way of every one we met, to avoid more considerable deviation. The dwelling-houses in this district are most of them so new that the inhabitants are often ignorant of the names of places which are scarce two miles distant, nor are they able to point ont the direction and distance, so that their information, beyond the next farm-house, is not to be depended upon. There is not an inn on the whole road [from Wilkes-Barre to Asylum] ; but some pri- vate individuals are in the habit of selling oats to travelers. They livo at certain distanees, and being known, travelers constantly put up at their houses."

These places, in the language of the people, were called taverns. In regard to the accommodation they afforded, the duke says,-

"We found in this house Indian eorn for our horses, but neither oats nor hay, and no milk for ourselves, nor even an egg. The house consists of one room on the ground-floor, and of a corn-loft over it. Beds were not to be had. Hunt took an old paillasse from his own hed and lent it 10e for the night, and on this, with my saddle- eloth, I rested comfortably.

" May 21. In the morning we halted at one Mr. Gaylord's [ Black Walnut]. All the dwelling-houses are of the same sort. We pursued our journey to Asylum, by Wyalusing. The latter is a considerable

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

village, seated on a creek from which it takes its name. The road is the same as yesterday, at times even and good, often recently cut through the wood or interrupted by new settlements, the fences of which occasion a circuit of nearly a furlong, at the end of which it is difficult to find the road again."

After remaining at Asylum a short time, the duke con- tinued his journey northward on the west side of the river, the road at that time passing over the hills by which he was shut off from the river until he reached Towanda, and from there to Ulster, where he stopped to rest at Mr. Solomon Traey's, who lived below the Narrows, of whose place he speaks as follows :

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History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 22

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