History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 65

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 65
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 65
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 65

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).

In 1876 Mr. Wright was nominated for Congress in the Luzerne dis- triet, while absent from home and without his solicitation or even knowledge. He was returned as a member of the XLVth Congress. He was re-elected in 1878 to the XLVIth Congress ; his terin will expire on the 4th of March, 1881, and will close his political life, after a service of thirteen years in the State and National Legislatures. In his refusal of further political honors he is persistent, and will listen to no induce- ments which will break his resolve. Mr. Wright was during his long period of time in Congress what may be called a working man, in committee and in the House ever on time, and ready to share in the public labors. During the last four years of his public service in Con- gress, his untiring aim and object have been to aid, by legislation, the working men of the country ; to accomplish which he introduced a supplement to the homestead law (in the passage of which he took an important part in 1862), by which a small loan by the government should be made to poor and deserving men, repayable in ten years, at a small rate of interest, secured on the premises by mortgage, to euable men of small means to enter and settle upou the public land, which to them is otherwise unavailable. In the accomplishment of this great and philan- thropie measure he failed ; but this abated none of his zeal or indomit- able perseverance. His bill was defeated in the XLVth Congress, but he renewed it in the XLVIth and it was defeated in committee of the whole House by three majority ouly. The committee reported it to the House with a negative recommendation. It is still therefore peuding. Mr. Wright was more snecessful in his support of the eight-hour law. This bill was passed at the last session of Congress by more than a two- third vote. It provides that all inen employed in the government shops shall not be required to labor more than eight hours for the day's work. Ilis speeches on the homestead bill and the eight-hour bill should be carefully read by every laboring man in the land. They show a progress much in advance of the age-noble efforts in a great cause. The support of these two great measures has been the daily work of Mr. Wright for the last four years, and the advancement of the social condition of the laboring classes lias occupied his attention for the last twenty years. His " Practical Treatise on Labor " was published some ten years since. It is an index to the man's heart. It shows clearly that his great object of life is not personal, but that he is in sympathy with his less fortunate fellow creatures. These ideas he has made a manly effort to impress on the law-making power of the country. Will he live to see their aceom- plishment ?

But it is not in a legislative capacity only that we are to deal with the subject of this notice. Mr. Wright has shown by bis acts in the whole course of his life that charity and benevolence were the ruling features of his heart. The distribution of his holiday loaves to the city poor-a practice he lias continued for years and which he informns us it is his purpose to continue while he lives; his acts of generosity to the poor the year round; his aid to people in debt and contributions to pub- lie charities and various subscriptions for public purposes, all indicate the existence in him of that priceless feature of exalted manhood and the true ornament of human life.

Colonel Wright is now in his seventy-third year; unbent with the weight of more than " three score and ten," and in the enjoyment of good health. With his retirement from political life lic also retires from business pursuits. He is now engaged in the erection of a place of re- treat at Harvey's lake, some twelve miles north of Wilkes-Barre, where he designs to spend most of his time for the remainder of his days. IIe

and the Hon. Charles T. Barnum, who resides on the western shore, pureliased the lake of the State some years ago and have stocked it with fine fish. It is some ten miles in circumference and a delightful moun- tain home a thousand feet above the sea. It is to be hoped that Mr. Wright in his new home and with leisure on hand will continue to chronicle and put in print for the public those unwritten matters con- nected with Wyoming's history which would afford so much pleasure to the residents of the valley. Ilis knowledge of men and public affairs, gathered up during a long and eventful public life, might, too, be a source of employment to him and pleasure to others. An experience of about three quarters of a century, by an observing man, must necessar- ily have accumulated a pretty good stock of local general history. But our limits prevent us from a more extended notice of this surviving veteran of past days.

The steel engraving which accompanies our short biographical sketch is an excellent likeness and will be familiar to most of the residents of the valley. There are few of them who have not seen Colonel Wright. His name is a household word with the poor and the lowly. His voice, too, upon the hustings, and in the halls of justice, still echoes upon their cars.

MAJOR GENERAL E. W. STURDEVANT.

Samuel Sturdevant, father of General E. W. Sturdevant, was born at Danbury, Conn., September 16th, 1773, and died March 4th, 1817. His wife, Elizabeth Skinner, was born at Hebron, Conn., July 16th, 1773, and died August 2 ith, 1833. His father, Rev. Samuel Sturdevant, took an active part in the struggle for American independence, entering the army as an orderly sergeant and being promoted to a captaincy, serving uuinterruptedly from the battle of Lexington to the surrender at Yorktown, when he soon emigrated to Braintrim, where, at the place known as Black Walnut Bottom, he bought a large farm and resided there until his death, in 1823. Ebenezer Skinner, General Sturdevant's grandfather on his mother's side, had located in 1776 at the mouth of Tuscarora creek, only two iniles distant, on lands adjoining the after purchase of the Rev. Mr. Sturdevant. At the advance of the Indians down the valley in 1778 he, with his family, went by canoe down the river to Forty Fort, that being then and for many years afterward the only means of travel up and down the Susquchanua. One of his sons, John N. Skinner, was in the battle of Wyoming and the old man was one of those in charge of the fort as protestors of the women and children. General Sturdevant's mother, then but seven years old, was with her mother in the fort and after the missaere went ou foot, with the women aud children spared by the Indians, through the wilderness called the "Shades of Death," to the Delaware river and thence to Connecticut.

General Ebenezer Warren Sturdevant was born June 11th, 1806, in Braintrim, Luzerne (now Wyoming) county, Pa., on the property there originally owned by his maternal grandfather, then by his father, and which he now owns. He remained at home until the age of fifteen, liv- ing the uneventful but careless life of a boy on a country farm. At that age he entered the old Wilkes-Barre Academy, then under charge of Doctor Ortou as principle, and remained under his tuition a year, mak- ing such advancement educationally that he was fitted to continne his studies at ffamilton Academy, at Hamilton, Madison county, N. Y. Re- maining at that institution two years, he entered the sophomore elass at ffamilton College, under the presidency of Doetor Davis. A year later a large number of the class, including General Sturdevant, left Hamilton to enter at various other colleges, General Sturdevant en- tering the junior class at Union College, under the presidency of Doctor Nott. Here he took all the degrees conferred at the institution, was the junior and senior orator, and gradnated in June, 1830, receiving all the honors in a class of 106, the largest that had at that time gradu- ated from any Americau educational institution.

In the July following his graduation General Sturdevant entered the law office of Hon. Garrick Mallery, at Wilkes-Barre, and remained two years as a co-student with the late Hon. G. W. Woodward, justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. IIe was duly admitted to the bar, and when he came into practice was appointed prosecuting attorney of Lu- zerne county by Governor Wolf, and one of the aides of the governor, with the rank of colonel. He was a delegate to the constitutional con- vention of 1838-39, and in 1842 was elected brigadier general of the brigade comprising the northeasteru counties of Pennsylvania, and subsequent- ly promoted to the office of major general of the division to which his brigade was attached. He held the two offices consecutively during a period of seventeen years, and is known as the oldest major general in the State.

General Sturdevant was in the active practice of his profession, suc- cessfully, up to 1857. In 1840 he removed to his present residence, then just completed, on Fir wood farm, which he had purchased four years before, froin the residence since owned by Ilon. L. D. Sboemaker, which General Sturdevant had erected in 1834 and sold in 1838. During the years of his active business and professional life Geueral Sturdevant- accumulated a large amount of real estate, enhanced in value by deposits of coal, from the royalties upon which he is in receipt of a handsome income. Since his retirement from an active practice he has been chiefly engaged in the management of his real estate interests, but for-

GENERAL E W STURDEVANT.

Lucy Do. Hurdevant,

HAR REL ERARDEVANT

236 K

GENEALOGICAL RECORD, WILKES-BARRE.

merly he was identified with many of the most important enterprises of the State and section, acting as director of one of the branches of the Reading Railroad, for which he procured a charter, and taking an active part in securing legislation authorizing the construction of the North Branch Canal. He has been for thirty years a manager of the Wilkes- Barre Bridge Company, and was a director of the old Wyoming Bank. and for years he was president of the Wilkes-Barre borough council. At present he is a director of the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre, and has long been a member of the city council and chairman of the committee on law and ordinanees.

During a long terut of years General Sturdevant has been in some manner connected with most of the important business enterprises looking to the development and improvement of the various interests of the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys. Ifis connection with the now gigantie iron interest of the Lackawanna in the days of its infancy is peenliarly interesting. In 1839 he was requested by the president of the Bank of North America. Philadelphia, as the agent and attorney of the bank, to visit a body of the land owned by the bank in the old township of Providence, Luzerne county, with a view to looking after irou ore reported to have been discovered on one of the bank tracts by a well known hunter of that vicinity. On a pleasant morning he set out in his buggy, carrying with him a saddle, a pair of saddle bags and a hatchet in preparation for a journey through the woods if it should be necessa- ry. Passing through the locality of Scranton, then called Slocum Hol- low, where were then the old red Slocum house, the old forge on Roaring brook, and in the vicinity the residence of Elisha Hitchcock, he found about two miles beyond the man he sought, to whom he agreed to. pay $50 in consideration of his showing him the ore, provided that a test should prove it to be valuable. After unharnessing his horse, which he aceoutered in saddle and saddle-bags, the general mounted and followed the old hunter (who carried his rifle with an eye to the possibility that they might arouse a deer from his mid-day nap) about five miles, over a foot path pretty well obstructed by fallen trees, to Stafford Meadow brook, near which, in a small ravine, on a traet in the warrantee name of Daniel Van Campen, and owned by the Bank of North America, they found outeroppings of iron ore on both sides of the gully. Taking as much of the ore as the general could carry in his saddle-bags, the two returned to the hunter's house, and hastily harnessing the borse the general drove back to Wilkes-Barre by moonlight. The next day the ore was securely boxed and sent to the president of the bank by stage. Soon General Sturdevant received a letter from the president enelosing a statement of the very favorable analysis of the ore by Professor Booth. The general paid the promised $50 to his friend the hunter, and tbe Serantons a little later bought the Daniel Van Campen traet, with other lands adjoining, and took initial steps leading to the wonderful development of the interests of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Com- pany, and through them of the thriving, energetic and rapidly growing city of Seranton.

General Sturdevant, who has been a life-long Democrat, was for a long time quite prominent in public affairs; but during the last few years he has not been active politically. Though often tendered the candidacy for high politieal honors, he lias never willingly consented to the use of his name except as a nominee for delegate to the State eon- vention to amend the constitution of Pennsylvania, of which he was elected a member. He was the youngest delegate in that body.

For many years General Sturdevant has been a member of the Prot- estant Episcopal church. For more than thirty years he was a vestry- man of St. Stephen's church, Wilkes-Barre. He was a liberal contribu- tor towards the establishment of St. Clement's parish, in which Firwood is located, and the erection of its house of worship, and since the organ- ization of the parish he has been senior warden of this church.

General Sturdevant was married May 1st, 1832, to Martha Dwight. Denison, of Wilkes-Barre, daughter of Austin Denison, of New Haven, and Martha Dwight, and a niece of President Dwight, of Yale College. On her mother's side she was of the seventh generation of descendants of Colonel Timothy Dwight, grandson of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass., the contmon ancestor it is believed of all who legitimately bear his family name on this continent. She was a lady of very superior ed- ucation and fine accomplishments, as honest a Christian woman as ever lived, proud of the old Dwight name and cherisbing through life every incident of the history of the family, with which she was thoroughly ae- quainted. She died October 20th, 1842. Only one child, Mary Elizabeth Sturdevant, who was born April 10th, 1833, and died June 18th, 1835, was born of this marriage. May 12th, 1847, General Sturdevant married Lney, daughter of Judge Chartes Huston, a judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, who bore him four children-Charles Inston, Mary Elizabeth, Edward Warren and Lucy Huston-and died May 3d, 1879, at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. J. N. Stone, jr., in Philadelphia, sur- ronnded by her husband and children, in the fullest confidence of faith and holy hope, in the sixtieth year of her age. For more than thirty years Mrs. Sturdevant had lived in Wilkes-Barre amid an increasing cirele of appreciative and loving friends. A devoted wife and mother. a faithful and exemplary church member, a constant worshiper in her parish church, a most efficient teacher in the Sunday-school, and a true friend to all, to whom her friendship was helpful and full of comfort, her loss to the whole community, and especially to the parish of St.

Clement's church, was so great as to seem irreparable. She was born in Bellefonte, Center county, Pa., and was trained under the pastoral care of Rev. George W. Natt. She left, besides her husband and her two sons and two daughters, a countless number of mourning friends, to whomu the bereavement of her loss was greater than can be told.

General Sturdevant, still in aetive business life und identified with the leading interests of Wilkes-Barre and vicinity, an efficient and prominent member of the city council, sound in health and thoroughly alive to the important events of the time, is passing the latter years of his life at Firwood farm, the care of which is his daily occupatiou and pleasure.

THE WADHAMS FAMILY.

The family of Wadham had its origin in Devonshire, England, and derived its name from the place of its residence, Wadham, in the parish of Knowston, near the incorporate town of Molton. Lyson, iu his Magna Britannica, says: " The manor of Wadham, at the time of the Domesday survey, in 1086, belonged to an old Saxon by the name of Ulf, who held it in demesne since the time of Edward the Confessor, A. D. 1042. It is not improbable that he, Ulf, might be the aneestor of Wad- ham of whom this was the original residence." William de Wadham was frecholder of this land in the time of King Edward I., A. D. 1272, aud both East and West Wadham descended in this name and posterity until the death of Nicholas Wadham, founder of Wadham College, Ox- ford, when it passed to his sisters' families, and is still iu possession of their descendants. Merrifield, in Somersetshire, came into possession of Sir John Wadham, knight, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Stephen Popham, and was inherited by their son, Sir John Wad- ham, whose descendants were called " Wadham of Merrifield." The principal places of residence of this family in England were in the counties of Devon, Somerset aud Dorset; and from Somersetsbire came Jolin Wadham to America and settled in Wethersfield, Conn., where he was a farmer, as may be seeu from deeds of purebase of lands and other records of the town as early as 1639. He died fin Wethersfield in 1676. His widow, Susannah, married as second wife a Bushnell, of Saybrook (probably William, sen.), and died iu 1683.

John Wadham (or Wadhams as the name is now spelled), born July 8th, 1655, only child of John and Susannah Wadham, also lived in Weth- ersfield. ITis children by his first wife, Hannah, were Hannah, Susannah, John, Sarah, Daniel, Caleb and Noah. The last mentioned, Noah Wad- ham, born August 10th, 1695, son of John and Haunah Wadhams, married Anne Hurlbut, and removed from Wethersfield to Middletown about 1736; thenee, about 1773, to Goshen, Conn., where he died in 1783, aged eighty-eight years.

The children of Noab aud Anne Wadhams were Noah (died carly), Haunah, Elizabeth, Noah, Solomon (died carly), Jonathan, Jobn, Deliverance, Mary, Anne, Solomon, Nicholas and Seth. John Marsh Wadhams, grandson of the above named John. residing upon the paternal lands in Goshen, is a man of position in the society and town, of large business abilities and financial success ; at present a member of the House of Representatives, which position he has filled on two former occasions ; also the position of Senator of Conueetieut. His son, John H. Wadhams, has also been a member of the Legislature of his State.

Albert Wadhams, a descendant of Solomon, is an attorney-at-law, and of prominence in his town, having been a contributor of many valuable artieles for the press.

Rt. Rev. Edward Prindle Wadhams, a descendant of Jonathan, is now bishop in the Roman Catholic church at Ogdensburg, N. Y.

Noah Wadhams, son of Noah and Anne Wadhams, was born May 17th, 1726, and educated at Prineeton College, where he graduated. His diploma, dated September 25th, 1754, is uow in the custody of his great grandson. It bears the name of Aaron Burr, father of the celebrated man of Revolutionary fame, as president of the college. "The doc- ument is the surviving witness of three generations past and gone, a testament also of the times of George III. and when the present State of New Jersey was one of the colonies of bis realm." Mr. Wadhams was ordained minister of the New Preston society of the Congregational church in the town of Milford, Conn., at its organization, in 1757, and continued his pastoral relations to that society for eleven years.

At a meeting of the Susquebanna Company in Connectieut in 1768 "the standing committee was dirceted to proeure a pastor to accompany the second colony, ealled the ' first forty,' for carrying on religions wor- ship and services according to the best of his ability in a wilderness coun- try." Rev. Noah Wadhams was chosen for the purpose, and he accepted. He had married Elizabeth Ingersol, of New Haven, November 8th, 1758, and they had n family of small children. " Leaving his family at their home in Litehtield he embarked with his tloek in 1769, amid the perils which lay before them on the distant shores of the Susquehanna, in u wilder- ness made more forbidding because of the savage people who were in possession of the valley. fle continued his pastoral relations, inter- rupted by un occasional visit to his family in Litchfield, until the year succeeding the Wyoming massaere, when ho removed them to Ply- mouth." Soon after this his theological views underwent n clinuge, and " he became a Methodist, nnd faithfully pursned his religious Anties ns a

236 L

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

local preacher of that denomination, holding meetings in Plymouth and other parts of the valley more or less frequently during the remainder of his life." He married as his second wife Diana Ross, danghter of Jer- emiah Ross and sister of General William S. Ross, of Wilkes-Barre, by whom he had no children. and who died in October, 1804. He died May 22nd, 1806. "He was a man of very considerable talents, having received a liberal education, as already stated, and as a mark of merit he had also conferred upon him by Yale College, in 1764, the degree of Master of Arts." Four sons, Ingersol, Caivin, Noah and Moses, and one daughter, Anne, were the children of Rev. Noah Wadhams by his first wife. " They were too young to have taken any part in the early and angry strifes of the valley. Their names were, however, all upon the assessment list of the township returned in 1796."

Ingersol was edneated in Litchfield, Conn. lle married a Miss Brins- made, of New Milford, Conn. He died in 1845, aged eighty-four years, leaving two daughters-a Mrs. Myers, whose descendants are in the western States, and Mrs. Amy Stone, now living in New Milford, Conu.

Moses Wadhams died of yellow fever in 1804. aged thirty years. His business abilities are evidenced in the desirable financial condition in which he left a widow and two children at the time of his death. He was a leading member of the Methodist Episcopal church, occupying the position of steward and class leader. His children were Phebe, who died in 1867, aged sixty-six years, and bydia, now living, the widow of Samuel French.

The widow of Moses Wadhams, born Ellen Hendricks, married Joseph Wright, of Plymouth. She died in 1871, aged ninety-six years.

Anne Wadhams, born in 1763, married a Mr. Hatch, of Connecticut. Her descendants are living in Farmington and New Milford, Conn.

Calvin and Noah were for many years prominent business men of Plymouth. The latter, the younger of the two, was one of the early justices of the peace of the county. He was a graduate of the famous law school of early days at Litchfield. Conn., under the management of Judge Reeve. He was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county not far from 1800; but the legal profession did not seem to have afforded him any attractions, and he settled down in Plymouth, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was an industrious, upright man, a model magistrate, and for many years did he enjoy the confidence of his neigh- bors. He died in 1846, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. In his poli- tics, which were of the Jefferson school, he was as positive as his brother Calvin was in his, which were Washingtonian-" one a radical Demo- erat, the other a radical Federalist."

The " success of Calvin Wadhams was remarkable. As to his habits of frugality and industry he was a genuine type of the men of the valley in his time. Labor, temperance and economy, in his judgment, proved the true standard of manhood, and made up the rule of his long and prosperous life. fle was a religious man, strongly devoted to the church of his faith, and while his home was markedly open to the brethren of the Methodist church, his hospitality was broad and all embracing." February 10th, 1791, he married Esther Waller, of Connecticut, who was born June 10th, 1768, and died February 19th, 1818. April 28th, 1820, he married widow Lney Lucas, born Lney Starr August 13th, 1762, who died September 21st, 1840.

Wheu Calvin Wadhams died, April 22nd, 1845, aged 80 years, only one of his children survived him-the late Samuel Wadhams, Esq., who was born in Plymouth, August 21st, 1806. He inherited largely the energy of character and views of his father. He was a man of good business qualities, ealın, even tempered, and of friendly disposition ; a remarka- bly methodical man in his business affairs, exhibiting great skill, judg- ment and industry in their management. He understood their every detail and knew how to control and direct them to good purpose." By caution, prudence and forethought he came to his conclusions with moderation and they were generally correct.

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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 65

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