History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 2

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1340

USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections > Part 2

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The North branch of the Susquehanna river enters the county mid- way on its northern boundary, and the Tioga (called Chemung in New

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

York, and Tioga sometimes in Pennsylvania), flowing from the north- west, draining central and southern New York, unites with it below Athens, five miles from the State line. Just here occurs what perhaps can be said of no other county in the Union. The Chemung river, quite an important stream of considerable length, is reported by State Geolc- gist Macfarlane to have its source and its mouth in Bradford county. If you will examine McKee's school map of the county, you will find in Armenia township, which lies on the west and southerly line of the county, a small lake, the Tamarack, from which flows a little stream toward the southwest, going into Tioga county. This little lake, and the small branches that soon unite with it in its southwestern flow, are marked in McKee's school map as the "headwaters of the Chemung." Following this stream, however, to its northern flow in Tioga county, its name on the map is Tioga river, and not the Chemung, which really has its rise in New York. Evidently Mr. McKee's mistake arose in the fact that the Tioga river, after starting south in Armenia township, turns northerly and empties into the Chemung river. This fact, con- nected with State Geologist MacFarlane's statement that the Che- mung river is called the Tioga from the State line to where it joins the Susquehanna river, causes this error. The remarkable circuit the water makes, however, is that it starts in the southwesterly part of Bradford county, runs southwest, turns north and goes into New York as the Tioga river, bends around and returns to the county and passes into the Susquehanna river at Athens. There is no good reason for calling the Chemung river the Tioga after it enters Pennsylvania. It is all confusing and its abandonment would surely be advisable. The flow of the water, starting in Armenia township in what is known as the Tamarack lake, forms a course like the letter C.

The Susquehanna river flows due south to near the center of the county, and then winds to the southeast, with a continuous system of nine horseshoe bends, until it enters Wyoming county. During its straight course it flows in a tolerably wide valley of erosion in the Chemung rocks, and its windings are through the red Catskill rocks, and cuts cañons through the synclinal Towanda mountains, and the valleys are narrower and deeper through the anticlinal Chemung for- mations to the south.

One-half of the county is a high, rolling country, into which enter two ranges of flat-topped coal measures, synclinal mountains, connected with the great mountain plain of Lycoming county to the southwest and south.

Blossburg mountain crosses the west line, and occupies Armenia township. This was once high mountains, but now Mount Pisgah is the chief high point left of this range. These mountains, it is sup- posed, once extended to or across the Susquehanna at Ulster and Sheshequin, and they must have penetrated New York from the north- east corner of Bradford county.

The salient feature of the county is the Towanda mountain. It comes up out of Lycoming county, and is very broad and flat, and is

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

split lengthwise by the deep canon of Schrader's creek, and is cut across transversely by the gorge of South Branch creek. It was cut through in the early geological ages by the Susquehanna river. At Standing Stone, Wyalusing, Tuscarora, Herrick and Pike townships, its ancient marks are distinctly traceable. The right-hand branches of Wyalusing creek drain this highland southward, while the left-hand branches of Wysox creek and the headwaters of Wappasening and Apolacon creeks drain it northward and westward.

In the western part of the county, Seeley's, South and Bentley's creeks flow north into the Chemung river, while farther south Sugar and Towanda creeks follow a nearly due east course into the Susque- hanna, which they reach in less than three miles of each other; while . still farther south the South branch and Sugar run flow nearly north. The south line of the county is the water-shed between the North and West branch valleys of the Susquehanna, the source of the Lycoming being at the southwest angle of the county, and of the Loyalsock in the townships of Overton and Albany.

Towanda and Blossburg mountains are of about equal elevations, at the summit of the Barclay mines, in Barclay township, being 2,038 feet; the head of the incline plane, 1,753 feet; its foot, 1,268; at Green wood, where Schrader creek falls into the Towanda, 820 feet; at Monroeton junction with the railroad south to the coal mines in Sulli- van, at Bernice, 759 feet; the height of the mountain above Towanda, 1,200 feet, and the depth of the gorge which splits the mountain is therefore 1,200 feet.

Mr. C. F. Heverly, in his "Two Towandas," gives the following table of local elevations about Towanda : 1

'Table Rock above tide. 1.317 feet.

Summit of Towanda hills 1,450

Plateau between Towanda and Sugar creek, average 1,200

Corner Bridge and Main streets 735

West end public bridge 739.9 “

The Lycoming creek and Towanda head together in the southwest angle of the county, 1,200 feet above tide, and flow in opposite direc- tions, toward Towanda and Williamsport, respectively.

Coal .-- Abner Carr discovered bituminous coal in Bradford county in 1812, by a mere accident, while hunting on the Towanda mountain ; the bed of coal outcropped in the stream, where was commenced the first mine. This was on land which belonged to Robert Barclay, of London, and by inheritance afterward to his son, Charles Barclay. The tract contained 6,000 acres. This land was bought in 1853 by Edward Overton, of Towanda, John Ely and Edward M. Davis, of Philadelphia, who formed the Barclay Railroad & Coal Company and the Schrader Land Company. The railroad was completed from, the canal to the mines in 1856-it being sixteen miles in length, with an incline plane half a mile long and 475 feet high. James Macfarlane was general superintendent, having sole charge of affairs for the next eight years. He encountered great difficulties in establishing the coal

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

business in connection with the meager facilities offered by the canal. In 1868 Mr. Macfarlane organized the Towanda Coal Company and leased the Barclay inines. The Fall creek mines were opened in 1865 ; the Schrader mines in 1874. The total output in 1856 was, in net tons, 2,295, and the total in 1890 was over 3,500,000. The county lies north of the anthracite coal belt.

Iron, Oil, Gas, Etc .- For many years the county has been startled by reports of rich finds in the way of iron, coal or natural gas. But iron has been the mainstay of the most of those sensations. Digging for iron and boring deep through the hard rocks for oil or gas have been expensive experiments to some of our people. It is estimated that at one time or another enough money has been wasted to have given the entire people of the county a fair education in the geology of this locality. The public schools are remiss in their plain duty when they fail to teach in all their schools the fundamental lessons of geology and botany. A few facts are here given on the subject of iron in the county that may be of practical use in the future, if heeded.

As already stated, the whole county is in the Devonian region- the valley formation being the Chemung, that of the hills the Catskill. Entering the county from the southwest are two mountains, the To- wanda and the Blossburg. The Towanda mountain, entering LeRoy township from Sullivan county, extends across Barclay, Overton and Monroe townships, and ends in Rob. Wood mountain in Asylum. It is represented by hills and highlands on across the county into Susque- hanna county. From Tioga county the Blossburg mountain enters Armenia township, extending throughout the township. It is repre- sented by hills and a plateau extending nearly to Ulster, and can be traced across the county. As has been mentioned, the valley forma- tion is Chemung, immediately above which is the Catskill, divided into lower and upper, the latter forming the crests of the highest hills. On the Towanda and the Blossburg mountains the Catskill is covered by the Mauch Chunk red shale, seral conglomerate (millstone grit) and the coal measures. The Chemung formation covers the whole northern and eastern part of the county.

Iron ore can usually be found among the coal measures, and Bar- clay coal basin furnishes several varieties of ore of various valnes. These ores occur sometimes as argillaceous carbonate of iron, and can be taken from their beds in large slabs like flagstones. More often balls of ore are found among the layers of shale and sandstone. Next in importance is the kidney ore, much like the balls just mentioned.

Probably a score of ore-bearing strata could be found in the Bar- clay field, and if the iron-bearing shales, slates, etc., were included this number would be more than doubled. For example, near Fall creek a stratum ten feet thick has five layers of ore, the thickest being 18 inches, and a section taken at the head of Wagner's run shows in. eight feet of depth four layers of iron ore, four of iron-bearing shale and two non-bearing shale.

Specimens of ore taken from the various localities accessible yield

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

from 32 to 50 per cent. of metallic iron, the average being 40.5 per cent. At only two or three localities would the working of these ores be found profitable at present, though they may be valuable in the future. The ore is of excellent quality, but is found in too small quan- tities to work with advantage.

In Bradford county, none of the formations below the coal meas- ures have shown any iron ore except the Chemung. This formation has furnished the iron ore for the many " valuable " discoveries which have been made throughout the county. Running through the Che- mung rocks of Bradford and Tioga counties are several beds of iron ore, the most important of which have been called the Upper or Mans- field bed, the Middle or Fish bed, and the Third or Lower bed.

The Upper bed lies very near the top of the Chemung rock, often being found in those " transition beds" for which Bradford county is noted. These beds shrewd geologists have been unable to assign to Catskill or Chemung, just as an artist might be unable to assign to either color any point in the blending of red and yellow. Thus the upper bed is sometimes said to lie in both the Catskill and Chemung, but none of it has ever been found in well-determined Catskill, while it it is often found in true Chemung.

Iron ore which probably belongs to the upper bed is found at sev- eral localities on Towanda creek two or three miles above Canton, yielding from 14 to 32 per cent. of iron. Southeast of Canton is a two-foot vein yielding about 28 per cent. of iron. In the main road, about a mile and a half west of Le Roy, is exposed a bed three or four feet thick holding 29 per cent. of metal. The same bed is exposed at LeRoy in Gulf brook, being four feet thick.

The second or Fish bed lies from 200 to 400 feet below the Mans- field bed. It is found half a mile southwest of Columbia Cross Roads, at a place near the one just mentioned, but one-quarter mile west of the N. C. R. R., and at Austinville. The Columbia vein is four feet thick, and has 32 per cent. of iron. At Austinville the bed is seven feet thick, only four feet being good ore, and bears 33 per cent. of iron. It has been mined quite extensively, most of the ore going to Elmira. The most interesting feature of this bed is the large number of fish remains, one of the characteristics of the middle bed. These fossils occur as fragments, mostly bones. They retain the nat- ural color and seem to indicate fish of unusual size. Of the large number of fossils taken from this mine the most and best have gone to the New York State Museum, but lately the Pennsylvania Geolog- ical Survey has obtained several specimens at least two of which, being submitted to an eminent paleontologist (Dr. Newbury, of Ohio), were pronounced new species.

The second bed shows some good surface indications in Columbia township, on the road from Snedeker's to Springfield, and about two miles west of Smithfield. At the place first mentioned an excavation would probably reveal a bed of ore similar to that at Austinville, though perhaps without fossils.

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

The third bed lies from 100 to 200 feet below the second, and has not been found exposed in Bradford county, but is sometimes found in drilling wells, often passed through undetected. It has to us no finan- cial importance whatever. No exposures of ore of any importance have been reported either near or east of the Susquehanna river. The most valuable ores are and will be found near the Bradford-Tioga line.

The reader is left to form his own conclusions as to the value of a " find " of iron ore in this county. A fair idea of the immense deposits near Pittsburgh, in the Lake Superior mines, at Iron Mountain, Mo., and in the mountains of east Tennessee, will cause the apparent value of Bradford county ore to lose its existence. Bradford county ore may be valuable in the future, but it is not now. Mention might be made of such absurdities as the " Hathaway ore" sensation ; the mining at Snedekerville of brown sandstone for iron; the " Arienio shaft," where $20,000 were thrown away in a search for anthracite coal in Chemung strata; the silver mine in white sandstone of Ridgbury township, the Bristol silver mine in Catskill argillaceous sandstone of Monroe town- ship, etc. As already remarked, such knowledge as might be obtained from a first book in geology would check the wild search for coal thousands of feet below its natural position, and for gold and silver thousands of feet above their geological horizon. Many a farmer has lost a valuable farm in the search for buried wealth which did not exist, and many a farm would have been saved by a slight knowledge of general and local geology.

CHAPTER II.

INDIANS.

THEY ARE FADING AWAY - PETRIFIED INTELLECTUALLY - COUREURS DES BOIS - THE VILLAGES AND SHACKS IN BRADFORD COUNTY - THE DOORS OF THE SIX NATIONS- MORAVIAN MISSIONARIES- TRAILS - POLYGAMY - CANNIBALS - CANOES - WARDS OF THE NATION - TREATMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT, ETC.

C YOLUMBUS, not realizing that he had discovered the New World, called the people that he found here "Indians," thus transplant- ing the name of a people of ancient origin in the East. The original inhabitants, therefore, to be strictly identified, must be called the American Indians. The picture of Columbus and his men meeting the natives on their ships first touching our south Atlantic coast is purely fanciful. These people, not as painted, were dirty, even filthy, and very ignorant savages. They had no idea of geography further than

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

their eyes could see; the universe simply reached beyond the next range of mountains. Their god was a great and very savage hunter, who was half-horse and half-alligator, as the ancient " Arkansaw Trav- eler" was wont to describe a backwoods tough. Primitive savages, moderately well developed as cannibals, with no arts or ideas above treacherous cunning and delight in torturing and killing. They were polygamists, and their drudge slaves were their wives, mothers and sisters. They were not much above the brutes on whose borders they lived and struggled for their wretched existence. Much of what we now read of the history of these savages is, like the picture mentioned above, fanciful. To civilize him and save him to the world and fit him for the Christian heaven was a deep sentiment of the religious world. The idea of the more practical Coureurs des bois, or the grim frontiers- men was to kill him first and then civilize him. Both were impracti- cable dreamers, so far as the Indian was concerned. The Indian was incapable of any advancement in civilization ; his intellect was petrified ; he deserved better than being starved and ruthlessly butchered ; neither policy was right. He was entitled simply to be let alone- made to behave and battle his own way in the new order in which he so suddenly found himself. If he survived and advanced, keeping step with the world about him, bravo! If he fell by the wayside, bury and forget him. His right to liberty and justice was as good as any body's, but the sickly sentimentality that holds he had an indefeasible title to the soil on which he existed, and could, therefore, keep back the increasing white civilization, has no part nor place in justice or good sense. "He was here first," well, so were the bumblebees and the wolves and the " foxes had dens." Anglo-Saxon civilization has rights bevond and above all savagery, not only here, but every where upon earth. Before its march all else must give way -if necessary, perish. Civilizing the Indian, preserving him and his tribes and multiplying his posterity was not one of the wants of the world. Millions of imperfectly civilized and ignorant Indians would have now become a sore problem had we them in our country. He despised the manners and habits of civilization; he loved his liberty as the bird or the beasts love it, and was no more capable of the higher order of improvement than they. Therefore it was best that he should slowly fade away as he has; his existence was not a matter of importance to the world. For the life the world gave him he has given nothing in return. No thought, no idea, no act marked his long existence here that deserves even a slight remembrance. He did nothing and was nothing, and his passage from earth as a people was of no more importance than the swarms of "greenhead " flies that once rose up like pestilential clouds upon the western prairies to confront the pioneers.

The general description of the Indians that were here when the first white man's eyes fell upon this beautiful land may be described as composed of the Five Nations. The particular one of the Five Nations that claimed possession of the Susquehanna was the Iroquois, whose headquarters were in New York. They had conquered the

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

Susquehanna from the Andestes, who inhabited the valley. This change it is supposed occurred about 1620. They are spoken of in early histories as the Canestoges and as the Susquehannocks. When the white man first came all this country belonged equally to the Five Nations. The Iroquois were a powerful and warlike people. They made many villages all the way from Tioga to Virginia. In this county at Wyalusing, Sheshequin, Wysox, Mehoopany and at Queen Esther's Town they had made considerable villages. It is said that all these places were Indian villages of the Susquehannocks before they were driven out or exterminated by the Mohawks. In those Indian wars and invasions were constructed the fortifications at one time visible at Spanish hill and at the mouth of Sugar creek. The Susque- hannocks were driven from their possessions along the river above Wyoming about 1650. The Iroquois held this territory about one hundred years. They are said to be the only Indian people who at that time had anything approaching the forms of civil government, but this gradually died out, and they became little else than aimless roving bands. The Tuscaroras had been driven by the whites from the South and came North, and were the addition that made the Six Nations of what had been the Five Nations. They came in 1712, a century before Bradford county was formed. In this curious confed- eracy the Iroquois became the dominating race. Athens or Tioga was made the door of entrance into the territory of the Six Nations. At this place a Sachem was stationed, and only by his permission was any stranger, red or white, allowed to pass,-a primitive custom-house or Castle Garden, as it were.

Wyalusing was one of the oldest and most important of the Indian villages in what is now Bradford county. It had been built by the tribe that was driven off by the Iroquois. The place originally was called Go-hon-to-to. After the tribe had been exterminated it became again the silent desert, and so remained one hundred years. In 1752 a somewhat noted Indian character called Poponhauk, a Monsey chief, from the Minisink country, came with a number of families and settled on the old village site. He rebuilt the village. In 1760 it was described by the Missionary explorers as having about twenty huts, but much better buildings than was usually found belonging to the Indians. The old Indian town was located at the mouth of Wyalusing creek, where are the farms of J. B. Stalford and G. H. Wiles. The rich land in the valley was cultivated in a rude way ; corn and grass for the cattle and ponies, and the former for the Indians, were raised by the labor of the squaws in considerable quantities. In 1763, only three years later, the huts in the place numbered forty, nearly all built of split plank, set on end in the ground, the upper end pinned to a plate, on which were rafters, and covered with bark. This year, 1763, was the commence- ment of the Pontiac war. The Indians of Wyalusing, not taking part therein, retired to Bethlehem, and from there went to Philadelphia.

There is a noted old Indian burying-ground near Sugar run ferry, where have been found many Indian relics of various kinds.

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

The Shawnees had lived at the mouth of Towanda creek. They planted corn on the valley lands. They lived on the opposite side of the creek from Towanda.

The Moravian missionary, Zeisberger, September 30, 1767, stopped at this deserted Shawnee post. In his diary he called it Wisach (from which came our Wysox). He says he went into camp in a deserted Delaware Indian wigwam.

The Nanticoke Indians came up the Susquehanna from the eastern shore of Maryland in 1748. A part of the tribe stopped on the Towanda flats.

An Indian town, Osoulni, was supposed to be a very ancient town, situated just a little above the mouth of Sugar creek-the John Biles farm. On the farm lately owned by Judge Elwell, nearly opposite Bald Eagle island, was a strong settlement.

As for permanent settlements, the Indians were nearly migratory in their habits. They moved with the game and with the seasons- the chief interruptions to their going and coming were the tribal wars, when the enemy hovered on their borders; then, like the wild animals, they gathered closely together for safety. The earliest missionary visitors describe finding places in the deep woods where there were signs of the Indians having stopped there, but were now silent and deserted. They had written their story on the trees-a picture-lan- guage that was understood by the Indians. They would peal the bark off a tree, and on this paint the story of what tribe they were, their expeditions of war, the number of the warriors, scalps and captives, etc .- the same rather gruesome story that occupies so much space in the white man's adventures and explorations.

A few families of the Monseys were located on the north side of Cash creek, near its mouth, at the close of the Pontiac war, near where is now the village of Ulster.

Queen Esther's town was a settlement made about 1770 on the west side of the river opposite Tioga Point. This woman, or rather female monster, became notorious from her savage cruelties to the captive whites, especially at the massacre of Wyoming.

One of the most important Indian settlements in the county, if not in the State, was made at Tioga-the junction of the Chemung and the Susquehanna. This was the "door" for a long time to the territory of the Iroquois. All the Indian trails in this part centered here, as all goers and comers must pass through this door, and unless his papers were properly " vised " he would be treated as an enemy or spy. This "door " was the entresol to a very long " house " indeed. The doorkeeper was a Cayuga Sachem. Here the war parties rendezvoused, and here prisoners were brought and disposed of. The place was reported abandoned in 1758, during the French-Indian war, but was rebuilt in 1760. The place was finally destroyed by Sullivan's army in 1759.

The story of Queen Esther, the pitiless enemy of the whites, is a chapter in the history of Pennsylvania. The writer of these lines, a

HISTORY OF BRADFORD COUNTY.

few years ago, in tracing ont the early history of Adams county, Pa., became convinced that this woman was an Indian by adoption and not by blood ; that she was a native of that county, and the child of a family that had all been massacred except this girl who was seven or eight years old at the time the family was destroyed. She was carried to western Pennsylvania, adopted by an Indian family, and when fif- teen years old married a full-blood. She was eventually taken to the Seneca tribe in New York, and was married to a noted chief of that tribe. Her stay in Bradford county was short and uneventful. Her village was destroyed by the Colonial army, and the Queen and her ab- horred presence were known here no more. She was one of the earth's many unfortunates-her life among the savages had lapsed back into a more cruel savagery than was those among whom she lived ; vile in every respect, a female imp of Satan. A slight study of her character brings up the question : is all this boasted civilization, charity, love and . refinement but a thin veneer that a circumstantial pin may readily scratch through to the solid, cruel, inherent brute ? Possibly it was because she was a queen that she was so utterly wicked and abandoned. There seems to be something in the "divine " titles and office of royalty that is low and debasing. That is perhaps one reason why men are so am- bitious to become lords and kings, eager to sweep their soul to the devil for the miserable baubles. The only edifying page in the whole history of crowned heads was where the hunch-back, Richard III., cried " A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse !" The language is highly sig- nificant. He was tired of the king business, it was too tame, and there was not play enough for his genius as a rascal in it all, and he wanted to be a jockey and with the jockeys stand. Fortunately for the fall races, his high ambition was nipped in the bud, and King Richard never was promoted to "Jockey Dick." Possibly if Shakespeare had person- ally known Queen Esther he would have married her off to Richard III., and improved the world's entire tribe of kinglets. The pride of America is that we have no kings nor queens. In lieu we have, how- ever, the roaring demagogue-the meek and lowly "servant " and especial " friend " of everybody -- the Honorable Fetich, of Shakerag.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 2

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.) Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1340