History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 47

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

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

"Mr. Abbott and Mr. Williams were ambushed by the savages, and both mur- dered and scalped. There is a ravine on the upper part of the plantation of Mr. Hollenback, above Mill creek, where they fell.

"All hope was now extinguished, and Mrs. Abbott (her maiden name was Alice Fuller), with a broken heart, set out with her nine children (judge ye how helpless and destitute!) to find their way to Hampton, an eastern town in Connecticut, from whence they had emigrated. Their loss was total. House burnt-barn burnt- harvests all devastated-cattle wholly lost-valuable title papers destroyed-noth- ing, nothing saved from the desolating band of savage ruin and tory vengeance. 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.' They had between 200 and 300 miles to travel, through a country where patience and charity had been already exhausted by the great number of applicants for relief. But they were sustained; and arrived at their native place, the family was separated, and found homes and employment among the neighboring farmers, where they dwelt for several years, until the boys, grown up to manhood, were able to return, claim the patrimonial lands-again to raise the cottage and the byre, and once more to gather mother and children round the domestic hearth, tasting the charms of independence and the blessings of home. "An interesting case, most certainly. Besides the deprivation of a father, the direct loss of property must have been considerable -- more than $1,000, I should suppose. I confess it appears to me very plain, that the continental congress, having drawn away the men of war raised for the defence of Wyoming, thereby brought down the enemy on a defenceless place, and were the cause of the suffer- ings and losses, and that the national government is, therefore, by every considera- tion of justice and honor, though late postponed, bound to make good to the suffer- ers the losses sustained. Did you say that Mrs. Abbott, the widow, also returned?

"Yes-and long occupied the farm where her husband fell. She was after- ward married to a man whose name was known widely as the extent of the settle- ment; a shrewd man -- a great reader-very intelligent -- distinguished far and near for the sharpness of his wit, the keenness of his sarcasm, the readiness of his repartees, and the cutting pungency of his satire; withal not unamiable -- for in the domestic circle he was kind and clever, and they lived happily together; but his peculiar talent being known, for many years every wit and witling of the country round about thought he must break a lance with him. Constantly assailed -- tempted daily 'to sharp encounter'-armed at all points like the 'fretful porcu- pine' -- cut and thrust, he became expert from practice as he was gifted for that species of warfare, by nature. All the old people, in merry mood, can tell of onslaught aud overthrow of many a hapless wight who had the temerity to provoke a shaft from the quiver of old Mr. Stephen Gardiner.

"You began by speaking of Mr. Stephen Abbott. Did he marry before he re- turned from Connecticut, or did he take a Wyoming girl to wife-a daughter, as he was the son, of one of the Revolutionary patriots ?

"You shall hear. He married a Searle. Having resettled on the patrimonial property, a fruitful soil, industry and economy brought independence in their train. Could you look upon the expelled orphan boy of 1778, pattering along his little footsteps beside his widowed mother and the other orphan children, as they were flying from the savage, and contrast his then seemingly hopeless lot with the picture now presented, you would say, 'It is well.'"'

The Finches were one of the notable pioneer families in this valley. On February 1, 1887, was held an interesting family reunion to celebrate the ninetieth birth- day of Mrs. Fanny Spencer, in the house where the dear old lady had passed sixty- nine years of her life. She was a daughter of Isaac Finch, and was born in Pittston township, February 1, 1797, and married Leonard Spencer in 1818. They had eight children, six living, and at the time of the family reunion her grand- children, thirty-six, of whom twenty-six were living; great grandchildren, fifty-four, living forty-five.

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Isaac Finch was born in Plains township, February 25, 1763; married Sarah Tomkins, October 19, 1798; died March 10, 1848, aged eighty-five. They had ten children: Capt. Isaac Finch, born November 20, 1798, died April 14, 1860; Nathan- iel, born February 3, 1792, died June 20, 1884; John G. Finch, born May 19, 1794, died January 16, 1886. There were many others of the Finch family, nearly every one living to great age.

The Wilcoxes, Isaac and Crandall, brothers, came to Wyoming soon after the year 1772. They escaped the Wyoming massacre and returned to their old home in Rhode Island. There Isaac married Nancy Newcomb, whose mother was a Gardner, when he returned to Wyoming and later to Dutchess county, N. Y., where he died in 1810. Crandall Wilcox returned to Wyoming in 1791. A sister mar- ried Daniel Rosenkrans and went to Ohio. In 1792 Amos Wilcox of Minisinke, conveyed to Isaac Wilcox, husbandman, and Crandall Wilcox, blacksmith, land in Wilkes-Barre township. Esen Wilcox occupied land in Pittston, in his father, Stephen's right. Esen was killed in the Wyoming battle. Elisha Wilcox sold to Ebenezer Marcy, August 1, 1783, his land in Pittston. In 1778 Elisha was on his way down the river to warn the inhabitants of the enemy's approach and was capt- ured, and his fate remains unknown. The name of Daniel Wilcox appears as a granter to the Indian purchase in 1754.

Wesley Johnson died at his home, in Wilkes-Barre, October 27, 1892. A word concerning his life is eminently proper here, as he was mainly instrumental in push ing to a successful completion the Wyoming Monument association, and the stone shaft reared above the heroes, as well as the great meeting dedicating the monu- ment, and his careful history of the same in commemoration of those who died that we might live, and secretary of the association.

Mr. Johnson was born at old Laurel Run, now Parsons borough, December 20, 1819, and was consequently not yet seventy three years of age. He was the son of Jehoida Pitt Johnson and a grandson of Rev. Jacob Johnson, the first settled min- ister in Wilkes-Barre, and who officiated over what is now the First Presbyterian church, from the time of his call from Connecticut, in 1772, to his death in 1797. Jacob was the son of Jacob of Wallingford, Conn. (1674-1749), the son of William of New Haven, the son of Thomas of New Haven, who emigrated from Kingston-on- Hull, England, and was drowned in 1640, in New Haven harbor. Jacob drew up the articles of capitulation between the British and Americans in the battle and massacre of Wyoming in 1778.

Wesley was one of a large family of brothers and sisters, of whom there now survive only two-William P. Johnson, of Dallas township, in this county, and Sarah, widow of Henry C. Wilson, of Ohio, now residing at Columbus. Of his brothers, Ovid F. Johnson was a distinguished lawyer and was attorney-general of Pennsylvania under Gov. Porter from 1839 to 1845. Of the other brothers, Miles died in California within a few years, Jehoida died at the old homestead about twenty years ago, and Priestley R., a twin brother of Wesley, died 1878. Of the sisters, Diantha died in 1874 and Mary G. Reel in 1881.

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

CHAPTER XIII.

SCHOOLS.

EDUCATION CONSIDERED-FIRST SCHOOLS-FREE SCHOOLS-PRESENT SCHOOLS-EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, ETC.

T "HE members of the Susquehanna company, by whom this valley was first settled, or at least which sent its strong and combative representatives here as early as 1762, appropriated 500 acres of land to each township in support of schools to be established. The company also appropriated several thousand acres of land in the eastern portion of their purchase for the benefit of the Indian school of Dr. Wheelock, in Connecticut. This was the foundation of Dartmouth college.

Prior to 1773 no organized effort on the part of the people in behalf of schools at this place was made. That year, however, the town voted a tax of three pence on the pound in support of a free school in each township. The next year a com- mittee of sixteen, headed by Capt. Lazarus Stewart, was appointed with power to erect schoolhouses and employ teachers.

The Yankee schoolmaster generally "boarded around " among the patrons of his school, attended all the quiltings and singing-schools, sometimes neglected his scholars, did not neglect the big girls, and was usually devoted to one in particular. At some of his stopping-places he fared sumptuously, at most places he had to put up with "pot luck," while at a few places his sides and jaws exhibited a decided collapse at the close of the boarding week. The early schoolmasters were a very useful but poorly remunerated class of people. We do not learn that any of them ever received land for their services, as did some of the "orthodox ministers of the gospel." After the jurisdiction of Connecticut and the Susquehanna company ceased, several of the school tracts of land were leased for a term of years. Finally, nearly if not all the tracts were sold, and the proceeds added to the township funds, under the authority of a legislative enactment of this State.

The constitution or laws of every State in the Union provide, to a greater or less extent, for educating the rising generation. Pennsylvania, though late in her movements in this direction, has, nevertheless, advanced steadily in her course, until her system of education is equaled by few, and surpassed by no other among civilized men. The incipient steps of our system were the laws of 1809 and 1824, which provided for educating poor children at the public expense. From 1824 to 1833, when the free-school system was introduced, Luzerne county expended $3,509 for this purpose. This appears like a small sum for educating the poor during a period of ten years in a county like Luzerne. No doubt, however, it was sufficient to meet the demand, as the people were not then fully aroused to the importance of the subject.

By the provisions of the common-school law of 1833, the people were to express their approval or disapproval of the measure by electing, or refusing to elect, six directors in each township. In September, 1834, a vote was taken in twenty-six townships, when twenty-three approved of, and three, Hanover, Newport and Nescopeck, disapproved of the law. In November following, the directors elected assembled, as instructed by act of assembly, at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, and resolved to levy a school tax equal to double the sum appropriated and allotted by the State to Luzerne county. The sum so allotted was $1,331.20, and consequently

Geo. M. Reichard .

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

the whole amount appropriated for public education in this county for that year was $3,993.60. This was a creditable and flattering commencement. In the following year a tax of $3,000 was levied, and, with the exception of two or three townships, the excellent system of free education was permanently established.

Hon. J. P. Wickersham, in his history of education in Pennsylvania, has this to say of Luzerne county :

"This chapter can not be closed without some notice of the introduction into a portion of the State of a system of schools that had an important bearing upon sub- sequent educational history. We have reference to the system of free public schools brought by the Connecticut settlers into the valley of Wyoming. Pennsylvania as a province, of course, had nothing to do in establishing them; in principle they were an advance upon the schools then existing in Connecticut, and in most essential respects were similar in design and management to the public schools of the pres- ent day.

"The first settlements in Wyoming valley were made under the auspices of 'the Susquehanna company,' organized in 1753, by some 600 citizens of Windham county, Conn., and approved the following year by an act of the colonial assembly. The surveyors of the company were sent out in 1755, and at that time and subsequently seventeen townships were laid out, each five miles square and containing fifty shares, each of 300 acres. They were located in blocks on the bottom-land along the rivers, and embraced territory now within the limits of Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Bradford and Susquehanna counties. The names of these townships are Hunting- ton, Salem, Plymouth, Kingston, Newport, Hanover, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Provi- dence, Exeter, Bedford, Northumberland, Putnam, Braintrim, Springfield, Claverack and Ulster.

"The first attempt to settle on the lands laid out by the company was made in 1762, and continued in 1763, but owing to the hostility of the Indians, no perma- nent settlement was effected until 1769. Constantly harassed by the savages, compelled to carry on a continuous struggle, amounting at times to open warfare, with rival claimants to the land on which they had built houses and established homes, almost annihilated by the terrible massacre of Wyoming during the Revolu- tionary war, these brave and hardy men of Connecticut still maintained their ground; and in 1783 the population of the seventeen "certified townships" is estimated to have reached 6,000. It has now swelled to 200, 000.

" The first action taken in regard to schools was as follows: 'At a meeting of the Susquehanna company, held at Hartford, Conn., December 28, 1768, it was voted to lay out five townships of land within the purchase of said company, on the Sus- quehanna, of five miles square each; that the first forty settlers of the first town . settled, and fifty settlers of each of the other towns settled, shall divide the towns among themselves; reserving and appropriating three whole shares or rights in each township for the public use of a gospel ministry and schools in each of said towns; and also reserving for the use of said company, all beds and mines of iron ore and coal that may be within said townships.'

"It was also voted to grant Dr. Eleazer Wheelock a tract of land in the easterly part of the Susquehanna purchase, ten miles long and six miles wide, for the use of the Indian school under his care; provided he shall set up and keep said school on the premises.

"This proposed Indian school was never established, although it is stated that Joseph Brant and other Indians attended Dr. Wheelock's school at Lebanon, Conn. Instead of coming to Pennsylvania, Dr. Wheelock went to New Hampshire and became the founder of Dartmouth college. The directions of the company in other respects were carried into effect in all the townships as soon after settlement as possible. The 'three shares' in each township amounted to 960 acres; in a general way the whole was set apart for school purposes, but in a number of instances land 20

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

was voted for the support of ministers of the gospel. The funds arising from the sale of these lands were not husbanded as they might have been, but in some town- ships they still exist, and are used for the benefit of the public schools. The schools as well as other local affairs were managed, as in New England, by a general town meeting. The mode of proceeding is thus described: 'A school meeting was called, by public notices posted in the district. The inhabitants of the district met, and elected, in their own way, three of their number to act as school committee, which committee hired teachers and exercised a general supervision over the schools. The teacher was paid by the patrons of the school, in proportion to the number of days they had sent children to school. A rate bill was made out by the teacher and handed to the committee, who collected the money.' The general township fund was used to build schoolhouses and to pay teachers.

"A few scraps of history have been gathered up that will serve to show the interest taken in education by these pioneer settlers in a Pennsylvania wilderness.

"At a town meeting held in Wilkes-Barre, August 23, 1773, a vote was passed 'to raise three pence on the pound, on the district list, to keep a free school in the several school districts in the said Wilkes-Barre.' 'A subsequent meeting,' says Charles Miner, in his history of Wyoming, 'especially warned, adopted measures for keeping open free schools, one in the upper district, one in the lower, and one in the town plot.'

"A town meeting in Kingston, held December 21, 1773, voted 'that Nathaniel Landon, Samuel Commins and John Perkins, are appointed committeemen to divide ye town into three districts, for keeping of schools.'

"The other townships, without question, passed similar votes, thus recognizing at that early day the fundamental principles of all true systems of public instruc- tion-the common education of all classes; schools supported by a general fund or a tax on property; local management and responsibility.

"A general county school organization seems to have been established, doubtless to give more efficiency to the local management. At a general meeting of the whole settlement, held on December 6, 1774, it was voted: 'That Elisha Richards, Capt. Samuel Ransom, Perrin Ross, Nathaniel Landon, Elisha Swift, Nathan Denison, Stephen Harding, John Jenkins, Anderson Dana, Obadiah Gore, Jr., James Stark, Roswell Franklin, Capt. Lazarus Stewart, Capt. Parks and Uriah Chapman, be chosen the school committee for the ensuing year.' These were leading men from every part of the settlement, showing how important they considered the subject of education. Well may Miner say: 'It may justly be regarded equally honorable and extraordinary that a people just commencing a settlement in a wilderness, wrestling steadily with the yet rude and unbroken soil for bread, surrounded by so many extrinsic difficulties and causes of alarm and disquiet, should be found so zealously adopting and so steadily pursuing measures to provide free schools throughout the settlement.'

"This system substantially continued in operation in the Wyoming region up to the time of the adoption of the common school system in 1834, when, with little change and no disturbance, it was merged into it; and, as the nearest approach to our modern public schools of any class or schools then known in Pennsylvania, it had considerable influence in shaping the school legislation which culminated in the act of 1834. It was Timothy Pickering, of Luzerne, as will be more fully shown hereafter, who, in the constitutional convention of 1790, secured the adoption of the article on education upon which was subsequently based the whole body of laws relating to common schools in Pennsylvania, up to the year 1874; and by so doing saved the convention from the threatened danger of committing itself to a much narrower policy."

As already mentioned, the Susquehanna company made all possible provisions for schools, in its allotment of its lands in this section. It granted large bodies of

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land, and in all cases reserved a certain portion as a permanent school fund. Gener- ally this was wasted practically and but little benefits accrued. Unfortunately the school authorities were allowed to sell the land at discretion and it often happened that some friend or sometimes a member of the committee would want the school land and it was sold at a time when the price was merely nominal. Had these lands been given in perpetuity, without the right to sell or transfer except upon short leases, in that case the school fund of Luzerne county would now have sufficient income to rebuild all the school buildings in the county and pay the entire expenses of a far more liberal system than we now have. In short, the school would have been one of our richest institutions, without the levy of a cent of taxes. This same story may also be told of nearly every county in the country. The fathers in this respect were most unwise and imprudent. In the matter of education how important it is to be started right, otherwise it is miseducation and an incurable act of injustice that ruins all in its evil course forever. Those men builded the best they knew- they followed precedent and for a song fooled away a fortune that belonged to their children's children forever. But there is another side to the subject. Possibly both the school and the church should be always very poor to be the best good. A very rich church is not after the fashion of the world's Redeemer. It is not an unmixed good to mankind.

Three thousand years ago there was a university in Athens, and the entire insti- tution was not worth in cost a dollar. The president and all the professors of that immortal school were Epicurus. The school was in the gardens and groves and sometimes on the porches of the public buildings. The pupils were grown people and the teachings were conversations. To this school and to similar ones students repaired from the then known quarters of the world. Here was poverty in one respect, but immeasurable wealth in another.

Then, 1,900 years ago the church, so far as property was concerned, was about as poor as it could be. Is it possible the great founder of the church ever dreamed that the time would come when a $6,000,000 house, wrung from the sweat and toil of the unpaid and often starving poor, would disfigure the earth in the name of His holy region? A religious or educational institution clutching at the world's wealth is an anomaly in both education and religion. There is no royal road to education- this much is certain. The children of kings and emperors demonstrate this fact completely. There is infinite sadness in this prevalent idea fastened in the minds of our children that a teacher can teach them.

Of the earliest attempts at schools in this part of the world, Mrs. M. L. T. Hartman contributed to Dr. F. C. Johnson's Historical Record a very interesting paper, which is briefly summarized. The subject of education came with the very first settlers. The people mostly were from Connecticut, itself then only a colony, and the ideas they came with were constantly engrafted upon as they would see progress in the mother colony. Therefore schools were not neglected, although books, paper and all had to be brought all the way from the old home. Hon. Charles Miner in his history relates as follows: "Throughout the year 1777 schools engaged the greatest attention. They levied an extra penny to the pound for free schools. Each township was established a legal school district with power to sell the lands sequestered by the Susquehanna company therein for the use of schools, and also to receive of the school committee appointed by their town their part of the money according to their respective rates. In the settlement of Huntington were young men and women competent for teachers on their arrival; and, therefore, here at least, their rude log cabins had hardly more than been built until they built schoolhouse cabins as com- fortable as the best of the houses, and the supposition is that desks and seats made of planed boards were in use as early as 1800. She says her first recollection of a schoolroom was in 1822 in the old schoolhouse nearly opposite the site of the Har- veyville church, and then the desks and seats seemed to be old, but were made of

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HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

planed boards and were comfortable-the house a frame, one story 20x24; the writ- ing desks built along each wall. A large wood stove occupied the center and the teacher's desk was movable. The door was near one corner and opened into the ante-room for hats and wraps. A respectful bow admitted a boy and a courtesy a girl. That summer, 1822, Caroline Turner was the teacher; Fannie Fuller had taught a year previous. Many of the children came more than a mile, some more than two miles. All were instructed in spelling, reading and writing. Grammar and history were taught to any who wished to study them, or were well advanced in the others. Noah Webster's Easy Standard of Pronunciation and the dic- tionary were our spelling books. John Roger's Primer, The English Reader, Columbia Orator, and American Preceptor were all used as reading books. Daboll's, Bennet's and Pike's were the arithmetics. Lindley Murray's grammar was gener- ally used until superseded by Kirkham's about 1835.

Thomas Patterson long held the most eminent place as an educator in Hunting- ton and Plymouth. Col. H. B. Wright, in his Sketches of Plymouth, awards great praise to Patterson. Other early teachers were Caroline, Ann and Fannie Turner, Anne and Catharine Half, George and Lydia Wadhams, Marietta and Hannah Bacon, E. Wadsworth, William Baker, Julius Pratt, Jonah and Joel Rogers, Delia Ann Preston and Romelia Chapin.

Among other early teachers in the valley from Connecticut were Amos Frank- lin, Enos and Amos Seward, Mrs. Margaret L. Trescott, Huldah Fuller, Cyrus Fel- lows and the sons and daughters of Capt. Thomas Stevens.

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History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 47

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