History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 10

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532

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On the outer wall of the loom-house are now stretched the coon and possum skins, and the roof is used to dry apples and peaches in the fall of the year, and in this lumber house, tied in sacks and hanging from the cross beams were the garden seeds, the bunches of sage, boneset, onion tops and the dried pumpkin ou poles, on which were placed the rings as thickly as possible. The barrel of kraut with its heavy weights on it in one corner of the kitchen, and by the side of the fireplace the huge dye pot and on this a wooden cover, and this was often worn smooth, being a handy seat by the fire. Even stories were told, that seated on this there had been much " sparking" done before the older girls were all married off. When a young man visited a girl, or for that matter a widower or bachelor paid any marked atten- tion, it was universally called " sparkin'."

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

This hewed-log house was neatly weatherboarded, painted and had a neat brick chimney, and you could not very readily tell it from a frame house. Here children were born, grew to maturity, married and commenced life nearly in their one-room log cabin, which more rapidly gave way to the nice frame or even the great brick mansion, with the ornaments and luxuries of modern life. Where now may be seen buildings of granite, marble and iron that gleam in the morning sun in blinding splendor that have cost hundreds of thousands, nay, even millions of dollars, once probably stood the round-log cabin that had been built from the standing trees about the spot by the husband, aided only by the young wife, with no other tools than the axe and the auger. These honest, patient, simpled-minded folk never bothered their heads to anticipate the regal edifices of which their humble cabin was the beginning. Their earnest and widest aspiration was merely, " be it ever so hum- ble there is no place like home." Around these wide but humble hearths they saw their children grow up to strong men and women, honest, unsophisticated, rough and blunt in manner, but ignorant of the knowledge of the vices that so often lurk beneath the polish and splendors of older societies and superfluous wealth. Their wants few and simple, within the easy reach of every one, their ambition brought them no heart-burnings, no twinges of conscience, and none of that pitiable despair, where what we may call that higher sphere in the circles so often brings-where there are no medicines to minister to a mind diseased.

A striking illustration of the prevalent credulity of the times is found in an obit- uary published in 1814, that is ornamented with an inverted rule at each end of the article. It is an account of the death of a Maj. Richard Elliott, of Ohio. Evi- dently it was not that they knew the man or had a personal interest in him, but it was the manner of the man's death that made it of such vital importance. The name of the person who gave the account is given as a voucher of its truth and cred- ibility. The substance is that ou a certain Sabbath evening the man was passing along the highway, when he saw two lights in the shape of half-moons coming toward him; when the lights met him they seemed to close him in a circle about the breast, when a voice pronounced these words: " Are you prepared to die?"' With- out hesitation, the man answered: " If it is God's will, I think I am." The lights then passed on, but turned and followed him until he came opposite the graveyard, where they made a stand; he could see them, by looking back, for half a mile. When the man arrived at home he told his wife and assured her that he had but a short time to live; he related the same to several people and announced to all that he was about to die. The lights were met on Friday evening, about 9 o'clock; on Tuesday following, the man was raving insane and in twenty-four hours died. The lugubrious story concludes with the words: "This is a simple statement of the circumstances of his sickness and death."

The story is circumstantially told, and is quite ghostly. The men of that day, in their leather jerkins, and the dames at the looms and the spinning-wheels must have read and heard it with complete awe, and the children no doubt were freshly alarmed at the dark, and would shut their eyes in the fear of seeing the dreaded moon shaped lights. The poor man was simply mad-insane beyond question from the first, and then, as now, there were no certain medicaments for the mind diseased. The moon-shaped lights were but witches in another forin-men were moving slowly away from the suttee of the east, or when old Clootie would daily come up through the hot crater's mouth to waylay the innocent people on the road, as he had been often caught in the act of finding a person alone, near a graveyard, and seized him, and, despite his struggles and cries, had carried him off, and with his precious bur- den had plunged into the vomiting volcano, on his return visit to his realms with his trophy. Men's beliefs were emerging slowly from these frightful conjurings- the travail of the dreary ages. The story of man's frightful superstitions-shadows to us, but horribly real to them-is one of the most painful chapters in human his-

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

tory; it had filled the world to the mountain's peaks with the deepest gloom, and in trembling and despair they literally called upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and hide them forever from the face of an angry God. However, they were slowly approaching this age in the idea that the Supreme was not always so unreasonably angry with His children, and that He is all love and justice. "I thy God am a jealous God " is now more generally read "And He so loved the world, etc." The pendulum swings; it can never be at rest-the ebb and flow of the mind, as it rises, slowly and spirally; toward God's throne. The opposing theories: inap -. peasable wrath, implacable hate or mad, convulsive, unreasoning love-the ortho- dox, with clubs and knocks, the altruist sweating blood over the innocent failings of ignorance, and offering up the great vicarious sacrifice, are but the ceaseless moan of the great ocean of men's troubled souls moving through the unending eter- nities. Possibly, here, as everywhere, when the historian comes, great enough, wise enough and fearless enough to point out the truth that ever lies in the mean of all extremes, then may mankind begin to feel and know that our civilization is safe, founded upon the rock against which the winds and the storms may beat in vain, and foolish good men will cease to heart bleed and wail in sadness over the cruel contentions of men-over these beastly struggles to trample on each other. "All's well!"

At the beginning of this century one of the sore needs of the people was wool with which to make clothing. The scarcity of this article was the mother of the idea of dressing deer-skins and making clothing. They were soon able to dress these skins, and they were soft and pliable, and the art of giving them a slight buff color was learned, and when made into trousers they resembled modern nankeen, and to this was soon added a bright color for the fringe around the deer-skin hunting shirts-these were soon worn with as much pride as a militiaman once strutted under his waving rooster feathers. "Doeskin" pants, as these leather trousers were sometimes called, were no doubt in their time quite dudish.

The pioneers had their own amusements, and had more time to be amused than have our modern get-rich quick people. They had far greater wealth then than now in the way of dogs and many children; and if in the family was a rat-tailed spotted horse, the big boys of that fortunate household were not only rich, but happy. Fifteen children and forty-two grandchildren, to say nothing of the great- grandchildren, reveled in all the needed prospective wealth of the eldest male Monte Cristo, in the "old man's" long squirrel gun, and the bony, slim-tailed spotted horse, that in the course of nature would come to the expectant and hopeful heirs. It is a portentious fact that these peculiar guns and horses were far rarer in those good old times than are railroads and millionaire bondholders now; and the prospective heir was far more happy, as well he might be; and we know that great and splendid wealth is wholly in the variety of the dower, and not in any intrinsic values. For instance, our modern idiots dote on diamonds and similar miserable and useless trash. all not only worthless, but worse than bubbles. Com- pare these with cur dogs, sixteen children and a rat tailed spotted horse and a flint- lock, long-barreled squirrel gun, and then please exploit yourself "a ass" in the stupid faith that the new order may smile in contemptuous pity upon the great past. Poverty then and riches now, no sir! It is base, diamond-crowned delusion now, and it was the gun and pony then -real substantial wealth versus a lunatic's dream. A glint of sunlight is worth more than all the diamonds and rubies the whole world has ever contained-and a dog, flint-lock and a calico pony, granting him a fair share of poll-evil and string halt, is a solid, intrinsic reality; a real wealth to dower fifteen towsley brats, and make them lords and ladies all.

Then, too, the pioneers and their "brats" had amusements far better than any- thing we now know. Sugar making camps in the early spring, when the sweet sap from the maple flows, when the whole neighborhood would go to the woods and

Charles Punish

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

camp and make sugar and that dark and delicious syrup. Why, our effete young- sters know not enough to dream in their lifeless way of real fun-life in its highest and best form. One hundred years ago the people knew how to really live-live for all that healthy, bounding life is worth. The woods were full of game and the streams of fish, and hunting, trapping and fishing commenced as soon as children could toddle, and continued with no game laws interfering, as long as old age could again toddle. The nightly concerts of the wolves and panthers would literally knock silly our make-believe tragic operas; two gew-gawed "lumaxes " singing out their mad duel, fought with paper swords, and another fellow stabbing himself with a bar of soft soap, accompanying the act with such boss bullfrog croaking as of itself ought to kill the lunatic as well as the audience. The pioneers had great hunting frolics, log rollings, and real courting that was give-and-take like the strokes from a mule's hind quarters compared to this modern dude-lolling. Our modern men hunt snakes, but the kind that is corked up in bottles, whose bite is so intoxicating that men seek them out and actually pay so much a nip. And other things have changed as much as ancient and modern snake hunting.

One of the old time boys, so old that he remembers an incident in his life that occurred eighty years ago, relates the following: He was promised that if he would for the next month be a real good boy-that is, work to the utmost limit of endur- ance, that then he might go afoot five miles to the shop and see the man pound hot iron. His imagination was fired at the very thought-was ever a boy so rich in anticipation-a real blacksmith, and pounding hot iron and the sparks flying in every direction, and they never burned up the smithy-a sure enough king of fire-and his parents had promised him an afternoon holiday to go and see all this for him- self. Time with that boy now lingered, loitered, dawdled along the way incomparably slower than it now does with the hard-up young man who knows the "old man" has made his will, and there's millions in it for him, except theold man is awful healthy- has neither manners nor regards for his only hopeful and chip-of-the-old-block son; if the loving son only had energy enough he would poison the old duffer. But this is wandering from the boy that, if the slow-coach time ever did get around, was going to see the hot iron pounded. His mother and sisters realized that the boy must have different clothes-must be dressed well, as well as all over, to go on that great expedition; he had a pair of "doeskin" trousers and roundabout of the same, and on a pinch could wear his father's moccasins, but he had no cap; a solemn coun- cil convened, and as a result of its deliberations a cat was killed, the skin dressed with the tail left hanging down his back for a queue. The great day did arrive and the boy went, and as good luck would have it the smithy was not too drunk to work, and his visions were more than realized. The smithy, with a tooth for enjoyment, took in the situation when the gawking boy was looking on so intently as he worked the bellows and slyly spat on the anvil and jerked out the white heated metal and struck it a tremendous blow, and the loud explosion nearly frightened the lad to death, and he confesses that he was a married man and had children before he had any other thought but that the anvil, the hammer and the smithy had all exploded at the same time-a veritable cataclysm to him-and that the creature was super- natural was evidenced as he pounded away right merrily.

When that boy returned he was the hero of all the children for many miles around ; all of them went to church, or meeting rather, the following Sunday to see him. The nods, frowns and thumb-jerking of the old folks could not control them-the good divine thundered his thirty-seventhly louder, but in vain; the children, for once did not quake when he, a last resort with the good Shepherd, preached his one great sermon in which he would "lift the lids of hell and show them the fires." The children, the boys especially, had heard that before, but had never before known a boy that had been up to see hot iron pounded, and the poor preacher, parents, pickled rods, etc., were unheeded, and they gathered about the

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

hero of the day, who told them all he saw; that is all that he had words to express. Happily, children can make themselves understood to children, and there was never a boy at meeting that day but that went home with the high resolve that come what might, some day he too would go and see the blacksmith pound hot iron- utterly reckless of consequences, some day when he had a pair of "doeskin" trousers, like those his big brother always wore when he went a-courting, he would go and his mother and sisters could not scare him out of it, especialy if he could get his hair roached and look big and not afraid; hadn't he already gone clear out to the wood-pile one night, and although he heard a screech-owl, he held onto his armful of wood and landed it, with a good deal of clatter, it is true, on the floor by the chimney corner-and then foolish girls talk to him about being afraid of pounded hot iron, even if everything, and smithy too, did burst, what of it ?- go he would !

Simply as a matter of relish of life, can you imagine anything, anywhere of mod- ern days, that in the least compares with this instance in pioneer life ? All true life is in the mind's excitation, the mental exaltation in expectancy that fills the cup to the brim and it overflows. It is but one in every pioneer family of the land, where things were pure and primitive-when neither children nor grown persons died of ennui-when children had hardly anything as toys or luxuries that could be called "boughten." Why is it that the children who never had a doll, except rag ones of of their own making, remember their childhood with so infinite a zest that it is beyond all comprehension of the modern child that is loaded and even oppressed with its multitude of elaborate and expensive toys? Luxuries, expensive and valuable luxuries, costing great sums of money, and that are beautiful and fragile, are not what the child wants, unless the little one is first trained out of all natural sweet childhood. The boy that gets some person to bend a pin for him and provides his own string and fish-pole, for his first fishing in the shallow puddle, has incompar- ably more delight in fishing than is ever known to the coddled child of wealth who, when he is nearly grown, is allowed to go with a groom and fish with one of these expensive tackles that can be purchased at the sporting store. It is the boy four- teen years old who looks forward to the day that his father will buy a new cap or hat and give him the old one to dress up in and go to meeting, who will remember longest his triumphs and joys in the acquisition of new clothes, or anything and everything that comes to him in his callow days. The modern boy, and man for that matter, looks back upon the pioneer times and shudders at their primitive sim- plicity, because he is ignorant of the fact in the premises; he gratifies every appe- tite, and they in succession cloy, and he gets drunk, if he has the energy, or might commit suicide, and has but the one consolation-that he didn't live before they had railroads and uniformed servants and waiters on every hand, and he may have looked forward to the one glory of death; of being buried in a suit cut and made in Paris. Expensive and artificial life is not a boundless joy-rather it is the keen earnestness of simplicity-gratified barely, but always enjoyed intensely.

For fifty years the advance was so slow that it was hardly more than perceptible; the dark old woods melted away reluctantly, and easy or rapid transportation was unknown to them. The children of even the most favored or wealthy, while they had nearly everything they wanted, were ignorant, even of those luxuries children now demand as common necessities. Many a young man of that day was big and old enough to go "a-sparking"-that is what they called love-making in those simple, honest days-before he had become the happy possessor of a pair of boots. The young man of to-day breathes nearly a different atmosphere to that of the boys or young men of fifty years ago. One of these old-time boys, whose head is now white with many winters, recently recounted something of bis boyhood to his interested listeners. He was born in this county of parents of more than the average advantages of wealth. He remembers every process of raising the flax and

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

clipping the wool, and from that to the home-made clothes that dressed the entire family; how the ox was slaughtered in the fall and the younger cattle in the spring and summer, and the hides were carried to the tannery and returned home, and then the annual visit of the shoemaker, who shod all around the big and little in footwear that was worn with infinite pride, but each pair must last a whole year; how, when he was large enough, he hired out and rode one of the neighbor's plow horses while the man plowed his crop of corn, and for three days the boy thus endured the sharp bare back, and when the man settled up he paid him two 10-cent silver coins-a picayune a day; and how, while he pocketed his wages in silence, as he trudged his way home, he took the coins out of his pocket and threw them into the brush by the wayside and hated the man most cordially all his life for his meanness. This man could draw a vivid picture of his boy life in this then comparatively new country, especially in the long walks the children often took to the log-cabin schoolhouse, and while it was before the day of free schools, yet a large family of children then cost their parents less outlay of cash to educate than each average child now costs. While the boys of to-day will hear of the boys of fifty years ago and pity them, yet it is a fact that the young man of to-day is under very many disadvantages in the comparison of then and now. Now, unless the young man has inherited capital, he must seek employment as a rule from others, and it is very much more difficult to become an employer of others than it was at one time. Capital and society have been recast. Capital has been aggregating, and the small beginners are smothered out; the country store, with its limited stock of goods, is more nearly in direct com- petition with the great city stores than formerly, and so of every other branch of business. The avenues to success are being slowly but surely closed up-fewer employers, and the army of employes constantly growing and expanding. In such surroundings the struggle for life, with all those who must struggle at all, will grow harder and harder. To use a phrase that is not exact-national wealth will more rapidly increase in these conditions, but so will the numbers of the poor and, alas, too, the numbers of those out of employment and seeking it. While stagnation is death, yet all change is not improvement. It is easy for us to say our society is now better-the nearest perfect the world has seen; that we have those things that contribute to our happiness in the highest degree; that our schools and churches and the laws are better than ever known to the world before. There are pros and cons to all this self-laudation. We have better food, clothing, houses and drainage, and the average of life is longer than it was when our ancestors were first strug- gling here; but we have more penal institutions, asylums, feeble-minded homes, soup houses and actual starvation; crimes wholly unknown, and a class of criminals that our grandfathers never heard of, and one feature that is wholly new, and that is the bequest or gift outright by one individual of the enormous sum of $6,000,000 to the church and school, and hundreds of others giving nearly similar amounts, and yet the State has taken charge of educating our children, and from free schools and endowed universities and colleges laws are being passed to compel parents to send their children to school. And, amid it all, the demand exceeds the supply on every hand, except on the evil side. Honest simplicity is never an ungainly thing- it may call for a smile of pity, but never a tear. Phenomenal school children, cun- ning and tricky street arabs of the city may know many things that George Wash- ington never learned. The dullard boy of to-day knows more of fast living than did the brightest boy 100 years ago, but does he live longer or enjoy it more?

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

CHAPTER IV.

BATTLE OF WYOMING.

WESTMORELAND TOWN AND COUNTY, OF CONNECTICUT -THE PEOPLE QUICK TO WAR FOR INDE- PENDENCE - RECKLESS JOHN PENN -- PLUNKETT'S EXPEDITION - THE TWO COMPANIES SENT TO WASHINGTON -STEUBEN JENKINS' HISTORICAL ADDRESS - MASSACRE OF THE HARDINGS - THE FATAL JULY 3, 1778 -THEY SURRENDER AND ARE THEN PLUNDERED - CONFLICT- ING STORIES -THE BRITISH ACCOUNTS -- PENNITES CALLED TORIES AND MANY DRIVEN OUT-LIST OF THE KILLED IN THE BATTLE-THE DORRANCES - COL. FRANKLIN WITH COMPANY REACHED THE FORT JUST AFTER THE BATTLE - BUTLER ESCAPED TO THE MOUNTAINS - DENISON SURRENDERS - SOME ANCIENT STORIES OF THE BATTLE INVES- TIGATED -THE MOVEMENT -THE CENTENNIAL DAY OF THE BATTLE, ETC.

TE HE peaceful pastoral interim in the struggle with the Pennsylvanians was now, 1775, approaching a yet more bloody awakening. The cruel plowshare of war - of the long seven years' war for independence - was about to come crash- ing through the valley that was already stained with fraternal blood, as well as were the people the victims of repeated and cruel marauds and massacres by the savages. This was not only the border land, but the center of the long travails, where human suffering reached its limit. No spot on the globe is more freighted with the great events of history than this. Quoting from Miner's History :

"The battle at Lexington had taken place April 19. On the 17th of June, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, so glorious to the American arms. The effect produced at Wyoming, by those soul-stirring events, will be best expressed by the simple record of a 'town meeting legally warned:'

"At a meeting of ye proprietors and settlers of ye town of Westmoreland, legally warned and held in Westmoreland, August 1st, 1775, Mr. John Jenkins was chosen moderator for ye work of ye day. Voted that this town does now vote that they will strictly observe and follow ye rules and regulations of ye honorable continental congress, now sitting at Philadelphia.

" Resolved, By this town, that they are willing to make any accommodations with ye Pennsylvania party that shall conduce to ye best good of ye whole, not infringing on the property of any person, and come in common cause of Liberty in ye defence of America, and that we will amicably give them ye offer of joining in ye proposals as soon as may be.

" Voted, As this town has but of late been incorporated and invested with the privileges of the law, both civil and military, and now in a capacity of acting in conjunction with our neighboring towns within this and the other colonies, in opposing ye late measures adopted by parliament to enslave America. Also this town having taken into consideration the late plan adopted by parliament of enforc- ing their several oppressive and unconstitutional acts - of depriving us of our property - and of binding us in all cases without exception, whether we consent or not, is considered by us highly injurious to American or English freedom; there- fore do consent to and acquiesce in the late proceedings and advice of the conti- nental congress, and do rejoice that those measures are adopted, and so universally received throughout the continent; and, in conformity to the eleventh article of the association, we do now appoint a committee to attentively observe the conduct of all persons within this town, touching the rules and regulations prescribed by the honorable continental congress, and will unanimously join our brethren in America in the common cause of defending our liberty."

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History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 10

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.) Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1532

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532