History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 100

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 100
USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 100
USA > Pennsylvania > Wyoming County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 100

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).

J. D. GREEN.

John D. Green, stove manufacturer, Pittston, was born at Seranton, July 1st, 1850. Mrs. Green, formerly Miss Hattie A. Jones, is also a na- tive of Seranton.

DANIEL HARDING (DECEASED).

The Harding family, which has been identified with the affairs of the Wyoming valley from its carly settlement, is of English extraction. The name is traceable in English records as early as 1280. There are thirteen males of the family registered in New England in 1630, and it is probable that they came with the Jolin Endicott company. Thomas Harding of Connectient was the father of James Harding, who came to Exeter in 1807. James's family consisted of seven children, of whom Daniel-the subject of this sketch, was the oldest son. He was born in Connecticut, in 1802, and lience was but five years of age when his father removed to Exeter. His early years were spent on the farm with his parents, and

330 A

33º B

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

there, under the stern tutorage of necessity, he formed as a boy the habits of industry and frugality which were traceable throughout his subsequent career as at man. Socially his life was an eventful one. On December 2nd, 181, he was married to Naney, daughter of Gould Whit- lock, one of the early settlers of the township. In July, 1848, she died, and in October of the following year he was married to Nancy Lee. Her death ou the Ifthof May, isis, left Mr. Harding alone with a family of five children. Eight years later, on the 2nd of February, 1866, Abigail Sutton, daughter of George Sutton, from Connecticut, came to his home as the wife of his declining years. Ilere she survives him, deserv - edly enjoying a competence from the ample estate which Mr. farding's correct business habits had enabled him to accumulate. Mr. Harding's death occurred in April, 1880. Politically he was a lifelong Democrat, and thongh prominent as such, we find those who were politically op- posed to him to have been among his firme-t friends and most ardent admirers. He was called by the people to the important duties of trea- surer of Luzerne county at a time when the financial troubles of 1835-12 had lett the finances of the county in a critical condition. He discharged the duties iu a masterly manner and made handreds of lifelong friends. Being a large stockholder in the Pittston Ferry Bridge Company, he was called to supervise its affairs as president, which position be filled until a short time before his death. Mr. Harding was regarded as one of the most public spirited and best read men of his township. The charitable acts by which his life was characterized have embahned his name in the hearts of all the poor who knew him, and more than justify this passing tribute to a man whose life work was a worthy pattern for posterity.

HENRY HARDING.

Henry Harding, deceased, a son of John Harding, was born in 1801, and married in 18:5 to Sally, daughter of Andrew Montanye, sen. Mr. Harding died in 1868, after a useful life. His widow occupies the home- stead, a view of which is given elsewhere in this work.

GEORGE HICE.

George Hice, a son of Henry Hice, who came from New Jersey to the Wyoming valley about 1877, was born at Wyoming, in 1823. He came to his present farm in Exeter in 1850. The same year lie was married to Emily Mathers, of Wyoming. Their family consists of two sons, John F., in Kansas, and Charies F., operating the home farm.

J. T. KERN.

J. T. Kern, a gardener at the head of theWyoming valley, is the son of Henry Kern, jr., and grandson of Henry Kern, who came from New Jersey about 1812. He was born in 1820, and married in 1864 to Mary Honawell, of Dallas, Pa.

WILLIAM LAW.

William Law is one of the representative men of Scottish birth who form so prominent an element of the present population of Pittston. He was born December 8th, 1821, and after e amning to America married Catharine Bryden, of Carbondale, a sister of Andrew Bryden. Mr. Law has been for years in the employ of the Pennsylvania Coal Com- pany, and is now superintendent (associated with Andrew Bryden) of the company's work in and around Pittston.

JAMES MCMILLAN

is a native of Scotland, and was born at Wanlockhead, in the county of Dumfries. After completing the usual course of Scottish boys' edu- cation at the village school he passed through the practical course of a lead miner. In a few years he emigrated to the United States. Several members of the family had preceded him to America, and their settle- ment at Pittston determined his public career. He came to the Wyom- ing valley in the autumn of 1853, worked for a number of years as a miner in the works of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and revisited his native country in 1857, taking advantage of an older brother's residence in Edinburgh to pursue some practical studies in that city. Returning to Pennsylvania in 1858, he went after a time to the California gold fields, but soon abandoned the rough life of that newly opened country for the quieter if less lucrative engagements of the anthracite coal fields. His careful education stood him in good stead and he soon found a suitable sphere for its exercise. After having been occupied for a time on the county survey of Luzerne he entered on a situation of trust in the Pennsylvania Coal Company's service, from which, after some years, he retired to carry on business on his own account. For a number of years he has been a partner in the firm of Law & McMillan, Pittston, managing the Pleasant Valley branch of the business. Mr. McMillan has been postmaster at Marr since the establishment of an of- fice in that village, and has taken a leading part in all the ecclesiastical, educational and political affairs of the district.

JAMES O'DONNELL.

James O'Donnell, burgess of Pittston borough in 1879, was born in Ire- land, in 1823, and came to this country in 1847. He was one of the origi- nators of the Miners' Saving Bank of Pittston. He was formerly a farmer in Wayne county, Pa., but since 1860 has been in commercial business in Pittston.

REV. N. G. PARKE.

The Rev. Nathan Grler Parke comes of a good old American stock, in which Scottish and English blood, with the Presbyterianism of the one and the Puritanism of the other, are very fairly mingled. He is in a double sense " a son of the manse," his mother having been a daughter of the Rev. Nathan Grier, for many years pastor of Brandywine Manor church, Chester county, aud his father the Rev. Samuel Parke, pastor of Slateridge church, in York county, Pa. His father's parsonage was a good school for a boy, and his training developed a vigorous, self-reliant character. He graduated from Jefferson College before he had com- pleted his twentieth year ; and four years later, in the spring of 1844, he received his diploma in theology from Princeton. Immediately after graduation Mr. Parke entered on his life-work at Pittston, and under circumstances which vividly illustrate the changes wrought during the last forty years. The church at. Wilkes-Barre was then the center of Presbyterian influence in the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys. North of the Susquehanna, as far up as Carbondale, the " forest primeval " was almost unbroken. The Lackawanna poured its full flood of clear, limpid, trout-abounding waters along a channel overshadowed with mighty pines and hemlocks, and through glades of grand old becehes and maples and oaks. A few scattered homesteads with their patches of cultivated cornfield and meadow dotted the wilderness. The old forge at Babylon was a sort of exchange, where the farmers for many miles around used to congregate for the transaction of business. Ilalf a dozen families clustered on the hillside overlooking Slocum Hollow, with its sparse settlements of lumbermen. Scranton was not. Beyond the flats of Capoose, on the edge of the mountains, the village of Providence nestled amid its leafy dells. The hunter, the trapper and the woodmau had the upper reaches of the Lackawanna all to themselves. A man of far-seeing penetration and true missionary spirit chanced to be forty years ago minister of Wilkes-Barre. Dr. John Dorranee eared for the scattered families away out in the wilderness as well as for the flock safely housed in the fold. He was like-minded with the Rev. Cyrus Gildersleeve, his predecessor in the charge of Wilkes-Barre, who, as early as 1821, added to his other labors those of a teacher and evangelist in the cottages and hamlets along the Lackawanna. HIc foresaw the future of the valley, and, unable personally to supply the means of grace to the seattered settlers, he employed missionaries to labor among them under his direction. He was fortunate in the men whom he called to his aid. Most notable among those early Presbyterian evangelists was Father Hunt, a man altogether unique, who so lately as the winter of 1876, in a ripe old age, passed to his reward. One still survives, honor- ably retired from the ministry, the Rev. Charles Evans, of South Bend, Indiana. It was in succession to Mr. Evans that Mr. Parke entered on his life work in the Lackawanna valley. To a young man of high spirit and fresh from the seminary there was little inviting in the position of an evangelist among the Moosie mountains; and possibly had the offer

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GENEALOGICAL AND PERSONAL RECORD.

of a permanent appointment been presented to him the young preacher might have declined it. But Dr. Dorrance made his proposal in the first instance to a college friend of Mr. Parke, who, being at the moment not free to necept the engagement, begged the future minister of Pittston to ocenpy that ontpost until he should himself be ready to enter the field. Tinis it came to pass that young Parke came to the valley as a substitute for one for whom by the time he was ready to en- ter personally on the ministry Providence had prepared another and not less important sphere in the far northwest. John W. Sterling, whom Dr. Dorrance had designed to be his coadjutor in the gospel among the farmers and Iumbermen of Lackawanna, has spent an active life and still works with unabated vigor as a leading educationalist in the State University of Wisconsin. Nathan Grier Parke, whom Sterling sent to Lackawanna as his locum tenens, remains there, holding the fort, with all the dew of his youth upon him, for Christ and His gospel. It was in the spring of 1844 that the young preacher left his father's manse at Slate- ridge, mounted on horseback, and a ride of two hundred miles across mountain and forest brought him after some days to Wilkes-Barre. There was little of the " domine " in the young man's aspect. The toll keeper at Wilkes-Barre bridge exacted his accustomed tare as he passed the re- ceipt of custom, handsomely apologizing afterward for the levy on the ground that the rider did not look like a preacher. But the preacher learned to like the people among whom his lot had been thus cast, while the people took at the same time a strong liking for the preacher. Nor have well nigh forty years of mutual intercourse altered the estimate which so carly cach formed of the other. One hundred dollars a year guaranteed by the board of home missions was the sole ineome of Mr. Parke on his entrance to the ministry. But Elisha Atherton had.a prophet's chamber, in which for the space of three years the young min- ister was hospitably lodged, and the stont steed which had borne him from his father's manse shared with his master the best of the farmer's fodder. So, unburdened with anxiety as to what he should eat or what he should drink, or as to raiment-what he should put on, with a true apostolic spirit he set himself to teach and to preach, journeying far and near, up the valley and across the mountains, ministering at cottage firesides and roadside schoolrooms at Pittston, then a straggling village ; at Old Forge, the main commercial center of the region ; at the hamlet of Taylorville, amid the swamps of Harrison (as Scranton was then called), to the lumbermen at Hyde Park, to the villages of Providence, and over the hills in Abington and Newton. Father Hunt used to tell that two years of continuous itinerating in the same field brought him, in addition to his allowance from the mission board, a supplemental salary from his scattered tlock in the shape of a finely dressed skunk's skin and several pairs of stockings. Mr. Parke fared better indeed dur- ing these early years of itineracy, but the utmost ever raised in aid of his salary left him still passing rich on less than two hundred dollars. All the same with a light purse he bore about with him a light heart. His bread was ever given him, and the pleasure of the Lord prospered in his hand. Three years passed of carnest, continuous, painstaking work, and now it became plain that Pittston must be the center of Mr. Parke's work. A substantial brick building, now used as a public school, situate near the head of the old canal, was erected and dedicated. Into this new church the congregation already gathered passed from the old red school-house close by, where they used to meet and where, on the 5th of July, 1846, Mr. Parke was ordained. Here for eleven years the Pres- byterian congregation of Pittston continued to worship, until the present edifice received the largely increased flock which waited on his ministry. Seranton had developed its great proportions, and demanded all the care that a separate pastor could bestow, and in due season Pleasant Valley, away up in a wooded hollow among the hills, began to attract a large working population of miners; while the west side of the Susquehanna offered special inducements to the wealthy citizens of Pittston to seek a pleasant home amid its shades. In Scranton, Pleasant Valley and West Pittston thriving Presbyterian churches under their several pastors have been organized and established. But amid all changes, and in spite of these successive migrations from the original home, the church of Pittston holds its own, strong in numbers and intel- ligence and Christian activities, while Mr. Parke stands facile princeps among his brethren, a true Presbyterian bishop by the will of man and none the less by the grace of God.

In 1817 Mr. Parke was married to Miss Ann Elizabeth Gildersleeve, a granddaughter of the old minister of Wilkes-Barre, by whom he has had a family of seven children, of whom three sons and a daughter survive.

MICHAEL REAP.

Michael Reap was born in Ballycastle, county Mayo, Ireland, on the 21st of September, 1821, and died in Pittston, Luzerne county, Pu., May 11th, 1878. On landing in this country, in 1840, he had only two British pennies in his pocket, and had had but limited opportunities for educa- tion in his boyhood. He immediately sought and obtained work on the Erie Canal. Subsequently he labored ou a farm in Blakely township, and in the fall of 18@ obtained employment at a blast furnace in Seran- ton, where by his industry and application he reached the position of keeper of the furnace, at $1.50 per day, which compensation was large in comparison with the prices paid for lubor at that time. After leaving

the furnace he opened a small grocery, and in 1sat, in connection with Mr. Thomas Benedict, started in Pittston a general country store under the firm name of Reap & Benedict. In 1555 Mr. Benedict retired and Mr. Reap continued the business until 1867, when he was succeeded by his son and nephew. Hle retired from his mercantile pursuits having accumulated, by his own indomitable energy and good business quali- tieations, what was considered a song fortune. He gave generously of his time and money to aid in building up his adopted town, Pittston. lle was seven times elected burgess of the borough. He was active and instrumental in introducing gas and water into the borongh, and was president of the Pittston Gas Light Company and treasurer of the Pittston Water Company. In 1889 he was one of the organizers of the Miners' Savings Bmk of Pittston, and its vice-presi- dent until 1822, when, the president, Mr. J. B. Smith, retiring, he was elected his successor, which position he retained until failing health, a few months previous to his death, compelled him to resign. During the panic caused by the failure of Jay Cooke & Co. it was reported in the local papers that the bank had failed; bmt the report was false, and how zealously its president guarded the interest of its depositors was demonstrated on that occasion, when he nobly pledged his own estate and stood in the gap ready to secure any and all who had deposited their hard earned earnings in his care. The bank, however, passed through the ordeal unscathed and came forth with the still greater con- fidence of the public. In 1811 Mr. Reap was married to Miss Honora Connor, an Irish lady then living at Carbondale, and in 1849 to Miss Mary Bowlin, who survives him. He was always a great friend to education -- having been deprived of its advantages in his youth-and his first care for his children was to see that they were well educated; and at his death he left a legacy for the founding of a convent school in Pittston. He was a consistent and good Catholic and was always attentive to his Christian duties. His success in life was attributed to his determina- tion to rise in the world, aided by his never tiring industry; always cau- tious, never venturing beyond his depth and not given to wild specu- lation, but contining himself to a safe, legitimate business, he is with- out doubt a true type of the self-made man.

WILLIAM SCHOOLEY.

William Schooley, a resident of Exeter for sixty-two years, was born in New Jersey, in 1816, and came to Exeter with his father when only two years of age. He was married in 1844 to Sarah Breese, who was born in Kingston in 1819. Their only child is Mrs. J. H. Andrews. Although Mr. Schooley has been a farmer all his life he is not without the spirit of public enterprise; he was one of the original stockholders and officers of the Pittston Ferry Bridge Company, and is a director at the present time. He is now in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and completed his harvest of the year 1880, for the first time in his life, in the month of June, doing nearly all the labor himself. His father, Joseph Schooley, was one of the pioneer farmers of the valley. In 1825 he took from the bed of the Susquehanna half a ton of coal, drew it sixty-seven miles to Easton, and sold it to a blacksmith for $10.

HION. GEORGE B. SEAMANS, M. D.

HIon. George B. Seamans, M. D., was born November 11th, 1830, at Abing- ton, Pa., and graduated from the Pennsylvania Medical College in 1853. le practiced at Dunmore until 1870, when he removed to Pleasant Valley. He was coroner of Luzerne county three years, and in 1876 was elected senator from the twentieth district. In ISTS he was re-elected for the long term, which he is serving.

THE SLOCUM FAMILY.

On the records of the town of Warwick, R. I., is found the following entry : "These lines may certify that Jonathan Slocum and Ruth Tripp, both of the town of Portsmouth, county of Newport, Rhode Island, were lawfully married in Warwick on 23d of February, in the year 1758, by mne, Ebenezer Sloenm, justice of the peace."

On the Gth of November, 175, Jonathan Fitch conveys to Jonathan Slocum, blacksmith, of Warwick, Kent county, R. 1., lot No. 15, 2nd division, Wilkes-Barre town plot. Jonathan Sloemm moved into Wyo- ming valley in November, 1577, with seven sons and three daughters, and settled on the lot he had bought of Fitch. On the 2nd of Novem- ber, 1278, his daughter Frances was carried into captivity by Indians, and never returned. After a long search by relatives she was found living near Logansport, Ind., where her brothers and other relatives visited her in 1837. See Miner, pages 217, etc., aud Peck, pages 234. cte. She was married to an Indian and had chikIren. She died on the Missi- sinewa, ucar Peru, Wabash county, Ind., at her residence, on the 23d of March, 1817. Kekenakushawn, her danghter, wife of Captain Brou- ricette, died on the 13th of March, ISI7, aged forty-seven years.

On the 16th of December, 5678, Jonathan Slocum and his father-in-law, Isaac Tripp, were killed by Indians and tories on the town plot of Wilkes-Barre, and William Sloein, Jonathan's son, was wounded. The father was shot dead. Tripp was wounded and then speared and toma- hawked. Both were sealped.

330 D

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

Jonathan and Ruth were the heads of the Sloeun family at Wyoming. their family record is as follows:

Jonathan Sloein, born in 1735, was killed December 16th, 1728. Ruth Tripp, born March 21st, 1736, died May 6th, 1807. They were married February 23d, 1758.

Of their children Giles, born January, 1759, died November 14th, 1826. Judith, born October, 1760, died March 11th, 1814. She married Hugh Forsman, February 24th, 1782.

William, born January 6th, 1762, died October 20th, 1810. Ebenezer, born January 10th, 1766, died July 25th, 1832.

Mary, born December 22nd, 1768, died April 5th, 1848. She married Town.

Benjamin, born December 7th, 1770, died July 5th, 1832. Frances, born March, 1773, died March 3d, 1847.

Isaac, born March 4th, 1775, died in 1858 in Ohio.

Joseph, born April 3d, 1776, died September 27th, 1855; was associate judge of Luzerne county 1849-52.

Jonathan, born September 12th, 1777, died in September, 1812.

Of these William Slocum was sheriff of Luzerne county from 1796 to 1799, in the territory included in Luzerne, Wyoming, Susquehanna and part of Bradford county. On March 9th, 1793, he bought of Nathan Baldwin property in Pittston, to which he removed and there died. January 4th, 1786, he married Sarah Sawyer, who was born May 12th, 1764, and died March 16th, 1832. Their children were: Lemuel, born March 24th, 1787, who married Naney Collins December 20th, 1812, and died August 24th, 1830; Elizabeth, born October 3d, 1788, who married William Jenkins in 1809 and Zenas Barnum in ISISand died August 22nd, 1869; Frances, born August 26th, 1790, who married Eleazer Carey, Esq., August 30th, 1812, and died April 7th, 1822; Laton, born August 16th, 1792, who died Jaunary 16th, 1833; Sarah, who was born August 12th, 1794, and died March I7th, 1829; Rhoda, born July 17th, 1796, who married James Wright May 27th, 1829; Merit Sloenm, born July 12th, 1798, died July 11th, 1838, was register and reeorder from 1836 to the time of his death ; Giles, who was born May 4th, 1801, married Sarah Perkins March 9th, 1826, and Sarah Reese Feoruary 9th, 1847, and died May 7th, 1878; William, born May 4th, 1803, married Ann Stewart in September, 1828.

On the first of February, 1819, Laton Slocum married Gratey Scovell, who was born December 24th, 1796, and died September 5th, 1829. Chil- dren were born to them as follows: Frances Carey, May 23d, 1822 ; James Scovell, July 12th, 1827 ; William, January 9th. 1829. Gratey Seovell was a daughter of James Scovell (born August 23d, 1761) and Thankful Nash (born in 1764). He died at the head of the valley, January 8th, 1810. She died in Lower Exeter in 1846.

Their daughter, Frances Carey Slocum, married Richard A. Oakford, December 27th, 1843. Of their children Joseph Lloyd was born Decem- ber 7th, 1844, and died August 9th, 1846. Elizabeth Paschall, boru Decem- ber 8th, 1846, died August 25th, 1849. Anna Wickersham, born August 17th, 1849, married Justice Cox, jr., October 29th, 1873. Laton Slocum, born February 16th, 1852, married Ella S. Smith, November 15th, 1877. Mary Fuller, born January 12th, 1857, died May 7th, 1858. James William was born June 5th, 1859. Richard Adolphus, born July 20th, 1861, died September 28th, 1861.

Colonel Richard A. Oakford was acting as justice of the peace in the borough of Scranton at the breaking out of the Rebellion. He went out with the first body of three months men as colonel of the 15th regiment. On his return he raised a regiment, of which he was elected colonel, known as the 132nd Pa. volunteers. He was killed on the 17th of Sep- tember, 1862, at the battle of Antietam, while gallantly leading his men into the thickest of the action.

James Seovell Slocum was never married. He grew up on a farin at Exeter and removed to Scranton in 1854, where he took an active part in politics as a republican in the election of 1856. He was one of the proprietors of the Scranton Republican, a member of the Republican State Central Committee in 1860, and attended the Chicago Convention with that committee. He furnished two men to do his share of the fighting in the late Rebellion, and in 1862 went himself as a member of the 13th Pennsylvania militia under Colonel Johnson. He was chair- man of the Sanitary Commission at Seranton in 1863, when over $6,000 was raised for the soldiers. In 1869 he was appointed by President Grant postmaster at Seranton; re-appointed in 1874, and resigned soon after and retired to his farm in Exeter, where he now resides. Sinee his return to his old home his neighbors have elected him justice of the peace, overseer of the poor, ete.

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History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 100

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York Publication date: 1880 Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co. Number of Pages: 900

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900