USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 48
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Dr. Ebenezer Beeman lived in Wyoming county, but practiced as a physician in the townships of Wyalusing, Wilmot, Terry, and Tuscarora.
Dr. Nathan Scoville was settled for a time on the Wya- lusing, but Dr. Daniel Baker was for many years the best- known physician in the lower part of Bradford and Sus- quehanna counties. He was a native of Litchfield Co., Conn. ; came to Wyalusing, where he remained for a short time, when he moved up to the mouth of Cold creek, about 1803, where he lived for some time. He married a daughter of Isaac Hancock, Esq., but had no children. He was a kind-hearted man, skillful as a physician, but extremely fond of fishing and hunting. He returned to the east after he became an elderly man, and died there.
HOMEOPATHY.
The Hahnemannie system of medical practice, on the principle similia similibus curantur, was first introduced into Bradford County by Dr. Leonard Pratt, in 1846. He was a graduate of the old-school medical college, at Phila- delphia, and located in Towanda in the year named, and began the homoeopathic system of treatment. He remained there seven years. He is at present practicing his profes- sion in Chicago, and resides in Wheaton, Du Page Co., Ill., one of the numerous suburban villages of that metrop- olis. He has been president of the Hahnemann college of homœopathy of that city, and his son is at present a pro- fessor of anatomy in one of the two colleges of that school now in that city.
Dr. Pratt's contemporaries and successors of the same school of practice in the county have been as follows :
Dr. Belding (father-in-law of Dr. Pratt), an old-school physician in Le Raysville, about the same time as Dr. Pratt.
Dr. J. L. Corbin was at Towanda with Dr. Pratt from 1848 to 1850; then removed to Athens, where he has ever since remained, and still is in practice.
Dr. Nebediah Smith began the study and practice of homeopathy in 1848, and though not a graduate of any
school, has, by long experience, become a skillful prac- titioner.
Dr. D. S. Pratt, a graduate of the Philadelphia medical college (old school), located in Towanda in 1851-52, and practiced with his brother, Dr. Leonard Pratt, until the latter removed, when he succeeded to the entire business of the firm, and has remained to the present time. He is reputed as a skillful physician, and has an extensive and remunerative practice. Many of his students have grad- uated from the medical colleges, east and west, honorably, and are now engaged in successful practice in the county and elsewhere.
Dr. Samuel Shepard was in practice in Troy in 1847, and is there still.
Dr. Silas Shepard was also a practitioner in Troy, but is now deceased.
Dr. Theodore L. Pratt, a student of Dr. D. S. Pratt, began practice in 1854 in Towanda, then went to Canton, and is now located in Germantown, Pa.
Dr. D. T. Abel, a student of Dr. Pratt's, and a graduate of the Philadelphia college, began his practice in Athens in 1861-62. He is now in Sedalia, Mo., where he has achieved a high reputation as a skillful practitioner.
Dr. Wileox, a graduate also of the Philadelphia college, has been in practice in Le Roy for the past fifteen years.
Dr. David Codding has been in practice twenty years in Le Raysville.
Dr. Gorham, a student of Dr. Corbin, was in practice with his tutor for several years, and is now west.
Dr. Robert Murdaugh has been in practice for the past five years in Burlington.
Dr. George Ingham began practice in Monroeton in 1872-73, and is located at present in Troy.
Dr. D. Leonard Pratt, son of Dr. D. S. Pratt, is in prac- tice with his father in Towanda. He is a graduate of Jefferson medical college (old school), Pa. (class of 1875), and of the Chicago Homoeopathic college ( class 1877).
Dr. Robert Brooks, a graduate of Chicago Homoeopathic college, began his practice in Canton, 1875, and is still in practice there.
Dr. Kinney, of Rome (now deceased), was for several years a successful practitioner there. He died in 1863, of consumption. His daughter, now Mrs. Spalding, at the earnest solicitation of her friends and acquaintances of that place, prepared herself to take up her father's practice, and became a student of Dr. D. S. Pratt, and subsequently graduated at the Chicago Homoeopathic college, and is now in successful practice in the home of her childhood and maturer years.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRESS, AUTHORS, AND BOOKS.
THE PRESS.
THE weekly press has been numerously represented in Bradford County since the first venture in journalism, in 1813, there having been at least 40 journals of different names during the period from that time to the present.
# Doctor Warner married Nancy, sister of William Means, Esq He died in Wysox, April 14, 1845, aged seventy, and was buried in the Wysox cemetery.
187
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
We give a sketch of them as far as we have been able to get the data.
TOWANDA.
In 1813, Mr. Simpson, from Lycoming county, estab- lished a printing-office in Towanda, and issued a paper, which was discontinued at the end of the first year. Wmn. Brindle then published a prospectus for another paper, but did not meet with sufficient encouragement to go on with it. At that time there was a small village on the Chemung, called Newtown, and Brindle sold his printing-press to a young man of the name of Edson Harkness, to take there, they having come to the conclusion that the country around it would support a newspaper. In this, however, they were mistaken, and the experiment was a total failure. Soon after, however, several enterprising gentlemen of high standing in their several professions, among whom we could mention Christopher North, Dr. Hart and John Arnott, became residents of the place, gave it a new impulse, and it has since become the respectable city of Elmira.
The Bradford Gazette
was founded in 1814-15, by Burr Ridgeway, Gen. Samuel Mckean, Gen. Henry Welles, George Scott, and others, and was Democratic in politics, as the parties were then divided,-Democratic or Republican, and Federalist. In 1818 the name was changed to the
Bradford Settler,
and published by James P. Bull, in the interest of a com- pany representing the Mckean interest in politics, being Democratic, however, in a general way. In 1822, George Scott was the editor and owned the press, but subsequently Mr. Bull succeeded to the sole control of the paper, and became a noted journalist of the times. In 1830, Bull sold the Settler to Hamlet A. Kerr, who edited it for a short time. In 1832, Dr. Hiram Rice succeeded to the office and material, and changed the name of the paper again to the
Northern Banner,
the politics remaining unchanged, being ardently Jacksonian. In 1835, Elisha S. Goodrich became the proprietor of the Banner, and continued its publication for two years, when he disposed of his interest to other parties, who merged it with the Democrat, under the title of the Banner and Democrat.
The Washingtonian
was published in Towanda in 1815, by Lewis B. Franc, and was Federalist in politics, and opposed the dominant party violently for two years, when it ceased its issue. Its motto was, " I claim as large a charter as the winds, to blow on whom I please."
The Towanda Republican
was published in 1826-27, by Warren Jenkins, as an opposition paper to the Jacksonian Democracy. In 1828- 29, Burr Ridgeway succeeded to it, and continued it for two or three years, when it ceased to appear.
The Bradford Argus
is the oldest paper in the county, and dates its foundation in the Anti-Masonic Democrat, started at Troy in or about
1830, by O. P. Ballard. E. R. Utter bought the Democrat in 1832-33 and removed it to Towanda, and changed its name to the Bradford Argus and its politics to that of the Whig party.
Mr. Utter conducted the Argus until 1834, when he associated George Wayne Kinney and Dummer Lilley, both practical printers, in the publication of the paper, the firm being known as Utter, Kinney & Lilley. This arrange- ment was short-lived, Mr. Utter regaining sole control again. In 1836 he sold the concern to Dummer Lilley, who conducted the paper until November, 1839, when he sold it to Col. Elhanan Smith, Frank Powell, and Elijah A. Parsons, who, under the name of Smith, Powell & Par- sons, continned the publication until 1842, when Col. Smith, who had been the editor, sold his interest to his partners, and they continued the publication until June, 1852. At this date Mr. Parsons succeeded to the sole ownership of the Argus. In November of the same ycar the entire establishment was burned to the ground, it being a total loss, but was re-established by Mr. Parsons in the short space of five weeks. All this while it remained the Whig organ of the county, and until 1856, when the Whig party broke up; it then advocated the cause of the Republicans till 1862, when it bolted the regular Republican organiza- tion of the county and supported the "People's party" ticket until 1864, when it was sold by Mr. Parsons to the Democratic party. It was then edited by Jacob De Witt, and published by J. F. Means and C. S. Russell. In 1866, Mr. E. Ashman Parsons, son of the former proprietor, took charge of it and enlarged and improved it, putting in steam- power and power-presses. It is still Democratic in politics, and is the organ of the party in Bradford County. Its size is 27 by 41, thirty-two columns. An excellent jobbing department is attached, with all kinds of the latest style of type and power-presses.
The present senior co-proprietor of the Argus, Mr. Elijah A. Parsons, was born in Columbia, Bradford Co., Pa., July 12, 1820, and in 1834 entered the office of the North- ern Banner, where Mr. Parsons served two years as an apprentice to the "art preservative." In 1836, when Dummer Lilley succeeded to the Argus, Mr. Parsons accompanied him to the office of the latter, where he com- pleted his apprenticeship, and from that day to the present has been continuously connected with the paper, in the capacity of apprentice, printer, proprietor, manager, or editor,-a period of forty-two years,-and, what is still more remarkable, has never thrown off the harness of his calling a single day in the whole time by reason of illness. Another pleasing incident to Mr. Parsons is the fact that his subscription list contains many names of residents of Bradford who made the old county their home in the early history of the Argus, but are now living in the far west, south, and north of the United States, and across the sea.
The Bradford Democrat
was established as the organ of the McKean wing of the Democratic party in 1836-37, the Banner having ceased to support that wing. It was published by Cantine & Hogan for a time. Mr. Cantine was succeeded by H. A. Beebe, now of the Owego Gazette, who published it till
188
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
1841, when it was discontinued. On the sale of the Banner by Mr. Goodrich to Cantine and others, the paper was issued as the Banner and Democrat.
In June, 1840, Mr. E. S. Goodrich issued the first num- ber of the
Bradford Porter,
in the interest of Governor Porter, of Pennsylvania, and continued to do so for a time; but the governor's policy be- coming distasteful to the editor he added a prefix to the name in December, 1843, and christened it the
Bradford Reporter,
which has remained unchanged to the present time. At this last date Mr. Goodrich associated his son, E. O'Meara Goodrich, in the publication of the paper. In 1841, on the demise of the Democrat, it became again the organ of the Democratic party in the county, and so remained until the free-soil controversy arose, when it cspoused the cause of " Free soil, free speech, and free men," and battled vigor- ously against the extension of the peculiar institution, being a zealons supporter of Hon. David Wilmot, and an efficient advocate of his measures to prevent the spread of slavery. In 1845, Mr. Goodrich retired from the paper, and, for a short time, E. O. and H. P. Goodrich conducted it; but in 1846 the former became the sole proprietor, and published the paper until 1863. He then surrendered it to Stephen W. Alvord for one year, and again assumed control and continued to edit and publish it until 1869, at which date Mr. Alvord succeeded to its control and management, and has so continued to the present time. Mr. Goodrich is nominally a co-editor of the Reporter, but has done little or no service on it since 1869. In 1861, R. W. Sturrock was associated for a short time with Mr. Goodrich in the .Reporter, but enlisted among the first volunteers in To- wanda, and was killed in battle. Mr. Goodrich was ap- pointed surveyor of customs of the port of Philadelphia in 1869, which position he still holds.
The Reporter threw its influence and ability, with the known energy of its editor, into the scale with the Repub- lican party at its organization, and has steadily and without the shadow of turning adhered to it and its fortunes during the entire history of the party to the present time.
The Reporter is a sheet of 28 by 442 inches, 36 col- umns, having been enlarged twice, the last time in Decem- ber, 1864, from 24 by 36 inches and 28 columns. It is fully supplied with improved power-presses and material for a first-class news, job, and book office, and has a well-ap- pointed book-bindery in connection with the establishment. It is devoted to politics, current news, local happenings throughout the county, the cause of education, having an educational department under the charge of competent teachers, and is an aggressive advocate of all matters for the public good. Its circulation is about 3000 copies weekly. The respect the Republican national administra- tions have had from the coming into power of that party in 1861, for the Reporter, is most clearly evidenced by the positions of trust its conductors have been appointed to since that date continuously almost to the present.
Elisha Sheldon Goodrich, the founder of the Reporter,
was born in Walton, Delaware Co., N. Y., Aug. 15, 1801, and, with his father and his family, removed to Bradford County the same year, the family settling in Columbia town- ship, where the babe grew to man's estate. In 1829, he was appointed postmaster at Columbia Cross-Roads, by President Jackson. In 1831, he was appointed by Gov- ernor Wolf, of Pennsylvania, register and recorder of Brad- ford County, and removed to Towanda. He was reappointed in 1833, serving five years under both appointments. Hc was at the same time justice of the peace of the borough of Towanda. In 1835, he bought the Northern Banner of Dr. Rice, and continued its publication for two years, when he sold his interest, and engaged in mercantile pursuits.
In 1840, he started the Bradford Porter, subsequently changing its name to the Reporter, and admitting his son, E. O'Meara Goodrich, into the establishment as a partner on equal terms. In 1844, he was elected transcribing clerk of the State senate. In 1845, he was chosen chief clerk, and re-elected in 1846. He retired from the Reporter in 1845, and removed to Harrisburg. In 1852, he was appointed deputy secretary of the commonwealth by Gov- ernor Bigler, and held the position till 1855. In 1859, he purchased the Luzerne Union, and continued to edit it until his health failed, when he came back to Towanda, March, 1860, and died in June, 1862.
E. O'Meara Goodrich is a native of Columbia township, Bradford County, and was born about the year 1824, and came to Towanda with his father, Elisha S. Goodrich, in 1831. He learned the printer's art in the Northern Ban- ner office, and in 1843 became associated with his father in the publication of the Reporter, and in 1846 succeeded, by purchase, to the sole control of the establishment, the ownership of which he still retains. With the exception of one year (1864), he conducted the Reporter from 1844 to 1869 solely. In 1860, he was elected prothonotary of Bradford County, and was re-elected in 1863, holding the office two terms. In April, 1869, he was appointed surveyor of the port of Philadelphia by President Grant, which position he is still occupying. Mr. Goodrich received his schooling at the common schools and academy of Towanda, but his practical education has been wrought ont in the printing-office.
His influence with the party whose policy the Reporter has ever advocated, is shown by his appointment to the responsible and honorable position lic has held under three administrations, which the Reporter has ably aided to place in power.
Stephen W. Alvord, the present editor and publisher of the Reporter, was born in Troy, Bradford County, Pa., in 1837. At the age of fourteen years he entered the Trojan publishing-office at Troy as an apprentice to the printing art. While here, when yonng Alvord had been but six months at the case, the editor of the Trojan suddenly de- parted, and was gone for three months, no one knowing anght of his whereabouts, and the apprentice, in the mcan time, " ran" the publication-buying paper, collecting mat- ter, and issuing the journal regularly-on his own respon- sibility, to the entire satisfaction of the proprietor when he returned. In 1853, Mr. Alvord came to Towanda and en- tered the Argus office, then, as now, published by Elisha
189
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
A. Parsons, where he completed his apprenticeship, and in 1857 was local editor of the Argus, establishing the first separate local department in a newspaper in northern Penn- sylvania. In 1860 he purchased a half-interest in the Argus, but, owing to political disagreements with his asso- ciate,-Mr. Parsons,-he retired from the connection in
October, 1862. In March, 1861, he was appointed post- master of Towanda by President Lincoln, and held the position until Mr. Johnson's accession to the presidency, when he was removed, but remained in the office, as deputy under Mr. Parsons, until General Grant's inauguration, when he was reappointed, and has held the position uninter- ruptedly to the present time, receiving his reappointment from President Hayes in 1877.
Mr. Alvord has been elected school director of the borough of Towanda for several successive terms, and also one of the trustees of the Collegiate Institute of Towanda.
In 1876 he was appointed aid to General Beaver, of the State militia, with the rank of major, and as such served at Altoona during the labor troubles of 1877.
The North Branch Democrat
was published a short time in 1850 as an anti-Wilmot organ, Wien Forney, a brother of Hon. John W. Forney, of Philadelphia, being nominally the editor and publisher.
In 1845-46, Messrs. Henry Booth and C. L. Ward issued a literary periodical, for a few months only.
The Towanda Business Item
was established in 1871, the first number being issued Aug. 5, by O. D. Goodenough and E. J. Clauson, and was a live, spicy, independent local paper, though a small one. It was enlarged, with the commencement of the second volume,
to a twenty-four-column paper. Mr. Goodenough retired from the Item Jan. 1, 1873, and Mr. Clauson continued to publish it alone until his death, which occurred Dec. 19, 1874. The paper then went into the hands of Gen. H. J. Madill, of whom Judson Holcomb and T. G. Angus pur- chased the stock and material, and June 1, 1875, founded
The Bradford Republican,
merging the Item in the new publication. The same gen- tlemen continue the publication of the Republican at the present time, Mr. Holcomb being the editor-in-chief. The Republican is a thirty-six column paper, independently Re- publican in politics, devoted to politics, current news, the cause of education, literature, and miscellany. It discusses questions of public economy without regard to party affilia- tions, and is aggressive in its advocacy of measures for thie public good.
Detalcomb
Judson Holcomb, the editor-in-chief, is a native of Brad- ford County, born in Le Roy, July 25, 1819, and rcared there, and educated in the common schools of the county. On arriving at majority he engaged for some years in the mercantile business at Rome (Bradford County), but discon- tinued that line in the fall of 1855. He was elected as a Whig and Republican to the State legislature in 1854, and re-elected to the same position in the fall of 1855, serving two terms. He served as assistant clerk of the State senate in 1856, and as assistant clerk of the house in 1857. He was book-keeper in the State treasury department during the years 1859, '60, '61, '62. In January, 1864, he was appointed an assistant clerk of the house of representatives of the United States by Hon. Edward McPherson, the clerk of that body, and served in the capacity of index clerk until January, 1875, retiring when the Democratic party gained control of the lower house. Since that
190
HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
time he has been engaged in his editorial duties on the Republican.
He is of English descent, his father's (Hugh Holcomb) ancestor emigrating from Devonshire, in 1635, to Con- necticut, his father being a native of Granby, in that State, and coming from thence to Bradford County, among the pioneer settlers on Towanda creek (now Le Roy), in his boyhood.
The Towanda Journal
was established by D. M. Turner, editor and proprietor, in May, 1873, the first number appearing on the 14th day of that month. Its rapid growth in circulation exhibits the best evidence of the appreciation of the public of its worth, and satisfaction of a want sensibly felt in the section where it is published. Since the first six months its circulation has steadily increased, until it is much larger than many of its veteran contemporaries. The distinguishing features of the Journal are the particular attention it gives to the col- lection and publication of local news, its weekly summary of current county events being especially complete ; its in- dependence, aiming to be independent in all things, nentral in nothing, publishing all of the news and the truth about. it. It aims not so much to convince its readers as to en- lighten them ; to furnish the material for their independent judgment rather than to lead the way to their partisan action. It does not ignore the necessity or usefulness of partics, but it would put principles above them, and favor a party and support a candidate only as they could vindi- cate their right to be the best means to the desired ends.
The one great purpose of the Journal is to fulfill all the offices of a family newspaper, -business for the merchant, politics for the citizen, news, literature, art, instruction, and entertainment for everybody.
The Journal is a sheet 26 by 42 inches, 32 columns, and its office is well supplied for its wants.
D. M. Turner, the editor and proprietor of the Journal, is a native of Tompkins Co., N. Y., and removed from thence to Bradford County twenty years or more ago. He is yet a young man, scarcely thirty years old, but has the energy and vim necessary to the successful publisher of an interior paper. By his own unaided efforts he has made the Journal what it is, pushing its circulation from zero to a handsome list of paying subscribers in the five years of its publication, in territory well supplied by old established newspapers. He deserves success.
TROY.
The Anti-Masonic Democrat was published by O. P. Ballard, from 1830 to 1832, in the interest of the Anti- Masonic party then in existence. It was succeeded by the Troy Argus, published by E. R. Utter and Dummer Lilley, who removed it to Towanda, where it was published as the Argus, and still is issued as such.
The Analyzer
was published in 1840 for a year, by Francis Smith, as a Democratic shect.
The New Star
shone out in the firmament of journalism, under Mr. Ballard's guidance and control, in 1846, Julius Sherwood and Frank
Smith lending their aid as editors. It was neutral in poli- tics, devoted to local interests, and "went out," to shine no more, in its infancy.
The Troy Banner
was fluug to the breeze in 1847-48 by Wm. C. Webb. It continued to float for a brief period at Troy, when Mr. Webb transferred it to Wellsboro', and published it as the Tioga Banner. It is now known as the Agitator.
The Trojan
appeared to do battle for the interests of Troy in 1850, Barclay & Messenger standing sponsors for the venture. After two years Barclay left the responsibility on his part- ner, who continued his care until 1854, when the Trojan surrendered to adverse fortune, as did its ancient namesakes.
The Independent Journal
appeared in 1854, published by Dr. Johnson. Its aims were local, and after one or two years of indifferent exist- ence it died from an excess of libel suits, not, however, until it had absorbed a little sheet, edited and printed by Moses Gustin, the Temperance Banner.
The Troy Times
was founded by A. C. Lumbard, in 1856. It was inde- pendent in politics, and continued for a few years and sus- pended. In 1863, W. H. Baldwin resuscitated the Times, and published it as a Republican paper, and was succeeded in 1865 by Shepard & Landon, who in turn were succeeded, in or about 1866, by A. S. Hooker, who changed the name of the paper to the
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