History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 21

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

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cants should have rose to the emergency that forced them. The com- missioners were wary and non-committal. A day was at last appointed to meet at William Means, and hear all about the claims of the rivals, when the question would be settled. The day came, and the applicants, that is, Monroe and Wysox, with friends and backers, were on hand, loaded with Fourth-of-July arguments in favor of their respective places. They assembled at the house of William Means-eying each other suspiciously; all were finally seated and awaiting the pow-wow to commence. In the meantime the host, Means, was so attentive and polite, in fact, beaming on both sides and smiling so graciously, that both concluded that he had given up the contest, and now it was a fight to finish between the two. After solemnly waiting some time, some one inquired of Mr. Means where the commissioners were. When, in apparent great surprise at the question, amazed at their ignorance of the fact that early that morning the stakes of the chosen county- seat had been stuck and the commissioners had, being through with their job, gone home, he incidentally and calmly informed them, "with a merry twinkle in his eye," as the veracious chronicler of that day informs us, pointing just out the door-"there are the stakes." Wysox had laid off its new town and staked out the county capital. Monroe had dreamed of its great future factory chimneys, its proud steeples and its tall glittering minarets flashing back the earliest morn- ing rays of the sun, and complacently smiling down on Wysox and William Means. One of the Wysox constituents had advertised his farm for sale in a Wilkes-Barre paper. and, as an inducement to pur- chasers, it was stated, in italics, it " had a still," and then in ten-line wood type it was added, as a clincher, that it was adjoining the new town of New Baltimore, the new county-seat of the new county of Bradford. Thus, "the best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft aglee."

The new town was called Overton, in honor of Hon. Edward Over- ton, and was properly and well named. But the disgruntled Wysox and Monroeites determined upon revenge, as bloody and pitiless as that of the boy who, when he couldn't whip the other boy, "made faces at his sister ;" and so the name of Overton was assailed "by land and by sea," as the sage remarked when asked how he would attack England if another war was ever declared.

There has been quite an American fad among our local pundits, when called at the baptism to name a place, to hunt up some Indian monstrosity of a name and plaster it on the poor helpless infant. Indian classics, in their grunting purity, are always bad enough, but when chipped out into pigeon-English they are simply horrid. Think of full-grown people living in a town scuttled with such a name as " Tunkhannock," "Meschaschgunk," " Mehoopanyskunk," " Dia- hogga " (trimmed down to Tioga, one of the most beautiful names that has come from the Indian); "Gohantato" or "Onochoea-goato." These are specimens of the best of the lot-the kind to lay on the top of the box, as persuaders to timid investors in sacred Indian relics. All these places that had to be named should have carried to posterity the name of some early pioneer, instead of this gray-matter-destroying Indian gibberish that is now disfiguring our maps.

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This was finally Bradford county, created, baptized, re-named, organized as a civil body, with a capital town and a place for court house and jail, and a first election of the sovereigns to name its full complement of county officials. That youngster is now eighty-one years old; has nearly sixty thousand people, mostly robust, manly agricul- turists, with schools, churches, preachers, lawyers, doctors, newspapers and politics, and politicians galore. Behold it, and its grand story of eighty-one years! Nay, rather its onsweeping story of one hundred and fifty years-the auspicious hour when the first-known white man explored this portion of Pennsylvania, with a view of permanently occupying it. A long one hundred and fifty years ago, but a single tick of the vast clock of God, yet how it fades in the dim blue distance to our finite minds compared to that brief space of life, the short fitful fever that is man's existence here on earth. Carry the imagination back, as well as you can, and what may you see? The low, broad mountains studded thickly with great gnarled trees, and its winding valleys, where murmured the mountain brooks on their way to the rivers and the sea; the primeval forests, in their stillness by day, and their dark and desolate nights only broken by the blood- curdling cries of beasts of prey, and the hootings of the birds of evil omen, flitting from tree to tree in the deep darkness. The solitary traveler might have caught the occasional glimpse, from peak to peak, of the tallest hills, but in all else, so far as vision was con- cerned, he was as though enveloped in impenetrable fogs, able to look up through the trees to the clear skies, but about his person the most limited view. Again, the river winding away to the north and the south, with a glimpse here and there at the sparkling stream of molten silver, and in the cool mountain waters the shining fish disported them- selves, or the schools of shad traveled in countless numbers; the mild- eyed deer nibbled the branches, or bounded away on the slightest alarm, the very poetry of motion and the quick, ravishing dream of beauty and grace. The forest choristers were singing their matin songs, and building the nests for the prospective brood to wing their way with the older birds to their winter homes of the gulf shore ; nature, how still, how beautiful, how inviting, covering with its rich green mantle the fanged beasts of prey, birds of evil omen, and the silent gliding serpent, spotted with deadly beauty; birds, animals and insects gave token that here nature was kindly toward life, and to this county came the lone Indian hunter, following the streams in his light bark canoe, as untamable as the wildest beast.

At the birth of the new county of Bradford, one standing, say, on Table Rock, across the river from the borough of Towanda, could have swept his eye over all the then inhabited or hardly-at-all-settled portions of the county. In the blue distance the winding high land promontories, covered with the massive green forests, the tall trees gracefully swaying in the breeze, clothed in shiny green in spring and summer, and draped in snowy white shroud in winter ; there was not much then to long hold the interest of the spec- tator. But could he at the time have been imbued with the gift of piercing the future for the space of a brief eighty years, then,

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indeed, would he have found much to enchain the attention. At the moment, where now is Towanda, a straggling cabin or two at the mouth of the creek; a little longer, and the all- round log cabins tore, with low clap-board eaves, and its smell of pelts and green hides and raw sugar-a few sounds of the saw, ax and ham- mer are the first indications to strike his ears as the hour of travail of labor-birth. Years speed along, and behold a frame house takes its place by the side of the round pole cabin ; the old log tavern in time gives way to the more modern "hotel," and brick stores now throw open their doors, rigged out with that splendid 12 x 14 glass in their show windows. A real puffing steamboat comes slowly and dubiously up the river, and the whole population rushes down to the river's bank to wonder and marvel. The dark old forests are invaded on every hand, and the woodman's ax sounds the merry roundelav from morn till night ; surveyors are abroad, setting stakes and marking lines for farms and for streets and lots in the rising village; then the canal and its patient pulling mule arrives; a steam mill has been built, an immense tannery over there, and then a factory across the way. A church with its tall steeple, and its silvery voiced bell, calls the good people on the quiet Sabbath morn; "come let us worship God," is clanged out and echoes along the hills, and speeds merrily along the valleys. The primitive log school house is superseded by a nice two-story building, and the graded school is here. A splendid covered bridge has taken the place of the old rope and pole ferry boat. Other great factories and mills, and the tall smoke-stacks, and the puffing steam and the whirr of wheels have filled the world with active, pushing life: And as the sounds of this vision fades, there comes to his ears the pulsating of the thundering railroad train-the hoarse scream signals and the far- off rumbling, and the hum of busy life; and behold, the farms and farm mansions on every hand ; the beautiful city, the pulsing telegraph that has girdled the earth with its sensitive and sentient nerve; the telephone, the gas-lit city, and then the great white electric light flares out upon the darkness, and the transformation is complete. This is the change of a few years. Persons are still living who might have looked on from the birth of Bradford county to the present hour, and seen and felt all this splendid panorama. The wild beast and spotted snake have gone, the savage red man has departed, sung his death-song, and it may he hoped has long been in the fullest enjoyment of his " happy hunting ground."

Charles Chopin borse

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CHAPTER XI.

ROADS.

MAIL ROUTES AND POSTOFFICES-FIRST MAILS CARRIED ON FOOT AS THERE WERE NO ROADS FOR OTHER TRAVEL .- FIRST MAIL COACHES BY CONRAD TETER-NAVIGATING THE SUSQUEHANNA - PRESENT POSTOFFICES-THE OLD BERWICK TOLL ROAD-ETC.

T THE first mail route through the county was established in 1803, from Wilkes-Barre to Tioga Point (Athens), and postoffices were established at Wyalusing, Sheshequin and Tioga Point. Then every two weeks a mail was carried on foot, as there were no roads making it possible for any other conveyance to pass. These foot-mails were carried by Charles Mowery and Cyril Peck (the first husband of Urania Stalford). To make the round trip took two weeks, and for seven years these were the limited mail trains that went silently through the tangled wild-wood and climbed along the " break-neck" ledges of the mountains from Wilkes-Barre to Athens-not quite one hundred miles, when often the total mail for the whole trip would be a single letter. These foot-mails in time were succeeded by the man on horse- back who made his appearance once a week. Mrs. Perkins states that the first of this kind of mail service was performed by Bart Seeley, who rode for several years.

In 1810 it was supposed that the roads had been sufficiently cut out, and the rock ledges on the sides of the precipices sufficiently improved, for a wheeled vehicle to be used in carrying the mails. A pony mail had been used a short time, and the people were anxious to reach the swell-tide of improvement, and have a weekly mail established. Therefore the year 1810 may be marked as a red-letter year for our people. A weekly mail, carried "in a coach"-at all events it was a vehi- cle on wheels-was commenced, and the tin horn of the driver Peter Con- rad, was " music in the air " for all the people. This was the beginning of stage-coach travel along the Susquehanna, that increased with the years, brought visitors, speculators, land buyers and settlers of all kinds, like lawyers, doctors, pedagogues and the tenderer assortment of preachers ; the others had come long before, like the justices' suitors, " on foot and on horseback," and had, single-handed and without prejudice, sampled the fresh hot corn-juice from the farm stills, and fought the devil, hip and thigh, wherever they found either him or his fiddle.

John Hollenbeck was the first postmaster at Wyalusing, and served many years. He was succeeded by 'Maj. Taylor.

The first postmaster at Towanda was Mr. Thomas, the first pub- lisher in the county ; he was succeeded both in the paper and postoffice by Burr Ridgway.

The Old Berwick Turnpike was chartered in 1817 to run from Ber-

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wick to Elmira. A charter was obtained, and the road built through Bradford county in 1821-2-3; entering the county at the south line and passing through Albany township, Monroe, Burlington, Smithfield -following the streams-and passing out of the State through Ridge- bury township to Elmira. This was the first good road in the county, and was a great mail route ; was a toll road until 1847, when it became a free public road. The State had donated about 260 acres of land to the building.

In 1818 there was but one mail route through Bradford county. That year a new line was started from Towanda to Burlington, Troy, and to Sylvania, and thence back through Springfield, Smithfield to Towanda. This was a great improvement to the scattered settlers in the west part of the county.

An index of the population is given in the election of 1815, for the Cliffsburg district, held at Columbia Cross Road at the house of William Froman. The district included the whole of Columbia, Wells, South Creek, Ridgebury, Springfield and more than half of Smithfield. The vote polled was 116, which, without the saying, was a total sur- prise -a revelation that West Bradford was growing up with the country.

Early Susquehanna Navigation .- The attempts to navigate, by steamboats, the Susquehanna was a failure, and almost a continuous tragedy. Fulton invented and launched his first steamboat on the Hudson River in 1809, and the wonderful story of propelling a boat against the stream by steam spread over the civilized world, and man- kind, that had been toiling and pushing the old keel and Durham boats so painfully up all their long journeys, was now rejoiced. People went down to the banks of the clear and swift-flowing Susquehanna, and looked upon the stream with wholly new sensations; a providence of God, truly, and the old time slow and horrid work of carrying on the travel and commerce of the country would soon change-the steamboat was coming-the great factor and hand-maiden of civilization. Why not "sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea ?" The good time coming is here ; man's ingenuity has overcome the appalling difficulties, and the age of fire and steam has arrived.

First it was canoes, flatboats or rafts, then rudely constructed "arks," and finally the " Durham " boats. The latter were about sixty feet long, and shaped something like a canal boat, with a " running board " on each side the entire length, manned usually by five men- two on each side "setting poles," and one steering. The best would carry about fifteen tons. With good luck they could ascend the stream at the rate of two miles an hour.

The Provisional Assembly of Pennsylvania, of 1771, declared the Susquehanna river a public highway, and appropriated money to render it navigable. In 1824 a boat called the "Experiment " was built at Nescopec, and intended to be operated by horse-power. On her trial trip she arrived at Wilkes-Barre July 4, 1824. A great jubilee was held over the arrival. The thing, however, proved a failure.

Necessity was pushing the people along this river. The Delaware

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river was being navigated successfully with steamboats, then why not the Susquehanna? In 1825 three steamboats were built for the pur- pose of navigating this important river. The "Codorus" built at York by. Davis, Gordon & Co., sixty feet long and nine feet beam, launched, and with fifty passengers drew only eight inches water, ten horse-power engine, and was expected to make, up stream, four miles an hour. She started on her trip in the spring of 1826 from New Haven. As she puffed along, the people flocked in hundreds to the banks to see her. Arrived at Wilkes-Barre April 12, when the town had an old style jollification day of it. Capt. Elger invited the heads of the town and many prominent citizens to take an excursion to Forty Fort. After a short stay, the boat proceeded on its way, and soon arrived at Athens, making frequent stops at way places. The Athenians, indeed the people for miles, even away up into New York, now realized their fondest dreams. The boat continued on to Binghamton and turned back, and, after a trip of four months, reached its starting point. Capt. Elger was disappointed, and reported to the company that it was a failure for all practical purposes.

The next boat was the " Susquehanna," built in Baltimore, eighty- two feet long, two stern wheels, engine thirty horse-power, intended to carry one hundred passengers, loaded, drawing thirty-two inches. The State appointed three commissioners to accompany the boat on her trial trip ; several merchants and prominent business men were passen- gers, and these were continually added to at stopping points. It was hard moving against the current. The boat reached Nescopec Falls, May 3, 1826. These were considered the most difficult rapids, and so the commissioners and all but about twenty passengers left the boat and walked along the shore. As she stemmed the angry current, the thousands of people on shore cheered and cheered ; reaching the mid- dle of the most difficult part, she seemed to stop, standing a few moments, then turned her course toward shore and struck a rock, and instantly followed an awful explosion-and death and horror followed the merry cheers of the people. John Turk and Ceber Whitmash were instantly killed ; William Camp died in an hour or so; Maynard, engineer, lived a few days. The fireman, and William Fitch and Daniel Rose slowly recovered ; Col. Paxton, C. Brabst and Jeremiah Miller were severely scalded ; Woodside, Colt, Foster, Hurley, Benton, Benj. Edwards and Isaac Loay were all more or less wounded and scalded. William Camp was the father of Mrs. Joseph M. Ely, of Athens, who was on his way home with a fresh stock of goods.

The third boat was the "Pioneer," which was abandoned after an experimental trip on the western branch of the river.

In 1834, Henry F. Lamb, G. T. Hollenback and family built at Owego "The Susquehanna," a strong, well-built boat, forty-horse power. Her trial trip was down the river to Wilkes-Barre, reaching that place August 7, 1835, traveling the one hundred miles in eight hours, and returned laden with coal. On her second trip she broke her shaft at Nanticoke dam, where she sunk and was abandoned.

In 1849, the " Wyoming " was built at Tunkhannock, 128 feet long, 22 feet beam, stern wheel 16 feet, to carry 40 tons of coal. This was

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a coal boat, and made trips from Wyoming valley to Athens durign the years 1849, '50 and '51. The arrivals of this boat were known all along the river, and the people were wont to crowd the landings to see the sight, hearty cheers greeting it, as they would lower their smoke stacks, and at Athens land at the foot of Ferry street. The cargo generally was anthracite coal, and in return they carried grain and farm products.

The last steamboat for commercial purposes was built at Bain- bridge, N. Y., by a company, under the superintendence of Capt. Gil- man Converse, commander of the "Wyoming." She was named "Enterprise," 95 feet long, to carry 40 tons-completed and launched in 1851. The first season she had a profitable carrying trade, as the river was high through the season; but in the fall she grounded and was left on the dry shore to rot, and this was the end of attempts to navi- gate the Susquehanna.

Roads .- The oldest gleanings from the records show that in 1788 the first petition for roads, in Bradford county, were circulated and signed by the people. This was signed by Thomas Wigley, Nathan Kingsley and Ambrose Gaylord, all of Springfield township, and sim- ply notified the court that "divers roads are thought to be necessary to be laid out in said town of Springfield." The committee of free- holders : Justus Gaylord, Oliver Dodge, Thomas Lewis, Isaac Han- cock and Gideon Baldwin. This first movement was pressed in the following September by Isaac Hancock, Joseph Elliott, Justus Gay- lord, Oliver Dodge, Thomas Lewis, in another petition in which they said : "For the want of public highways traveling through said town- ship is attended with the utmost difficulty; for remedy whereof, your petitioners humbly beg the honorable court to appoint commissioners to lay out and alter the roads in said town." * * And appoint

supervisors." In 1790, the commissioners reported there were "three roads in the town:" 1st. From the eastern part of the town to Ben- nett's gristmill, on Wyalusing creek ; 2d. From the town plot, between Baldwin and Kingsley's lots, to Porter's mill on Wyalusing ; 3d. Start- ing on the river near Bennett's, up the main road to Bennett's mill, striking the Wvalusing at Porter's sawmill. An attempt to open a road along the river had been made before this, but was a failure.

In 1789, a petition was presented for a road from Sheshequin to Tioga Point (Athens). They stated that they had tried in vain to make a road over this line, but that the passage at Breakneck was dif- ficult and dangerous ; they had, at great expense, they say, opened a tolerable road from Wysox to Tioga Point, and asked the court to declare the same a public highway. The commissioners made this recom- mendation in 1794, and at this time a road was ordered from Ulster to Athens. In November, 1794, a road was surveyed from Wyalusing Falls to Tioga (Athens), passing Towanda, or Jacob Bowman's tavern, and crossing the Tioga river opposite Hollenback's store. About this time roads were laid out from Athens to the State line ; from Wysox creek to Athens; also up the river to Benjamin Ackley's blacksmith shop; to Jacob Camp's house ; up the creek to Isaac Bronsou's, near the forks of the creek: in 1795, one up the Towanda creek, and in 1798,

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one up the Sugar creek ; in 1799, one to start at Col. Elisha Satterlee's, at Athens, easterly over the high-lands to the forks of the Wyalusing. It is easy to say these important roads were authorized, but it was a more serious matter to open them and make them real highways. In most cases it was years before passable roads were made over those routes.

The "Old Stage Road " was a State enterprise-a system of internal improvements, that in the early times were really of importance in settling and advancing the country. In 1780, the State surveyed a road from Wilkes-Barre, following the river to Athens. The State did but little more than make the survey, yet it eventually became the stage line.

The "State Road " passed through the county from northeast to southwest. It was provided for by the Legislature in 1807; Henry Donnell and George Haines, commissioners. As provided for, it passes through Pike and Wysox townships, crossing the river at Towanda, following up Sugar creek to East Troy, and on to Covington, in Tioga county.

In 1821 Zephan Flower and W. D. Bacon were appointed to lay out a road from Athens, running westerly. They report, "beginning one mile below Athens, on the State road, crossing the northwest part of Smithfield, through Springfield and Columbia townships to Tioga county line-a distance of twenty-three miles."

In 1820 a road was laid out from Towanda to Pennsboro. Com- missioners : W. Brindle, Edward J. Elder, Eliphalet Mason and William Thomas. They commenced at a point " fourteen rods from the front of the court-house, and thence to the line between Bradford and Lycoming counties-seventeen and one-half miles."

Turnpike .- The Berwick and Elmira turnpike, passing through Monroe on toward Towanda, was projected in 1807, and the work was still carried on in 1810. This was an important improvement in the unsettled southern portion of the county.

Post-roads in Bradford county were, by act signed by John Adams, April 23, 1800, established as follows : From Wilkes-Barre to Wyalu- sing and Athens, from Athens via Newtown, Painted Post and Bath to Canandaigua. The office at Wvalusing had Peter Stevens for postmaster, and at Athens was William Prentice.

While the above were the first government post-routes, yet we learn from Miner's history : " As early as 1777 an express was estab- lished between the Wyoming settlements and Hartford. An old, smoked-dried paper, torn and much mutilated, has, by an accident, fallen into our possession, which shows that the people of Wyoming established a post to Hartford, to go once a fortnight and bring on the papers. Prince Bryant was a post-rider on this route nine months. More than fifty subscribers remain to the paper, which evidently must have been more numerous, as it is torn in the center. The sums given varied from one to two dollars each. In the list of names are Elijah Shoemaker, Elias Church, George Darrance, Nathan Kingsley, Elisha Blackman, Nathan Dennison, Seth Marvin, Obadiah Gore, James

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Stark, Anderson Doud, Jeremiah Ross and Zebulon Butler. Some of those names were prominent Bradford county men.

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History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 21

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