USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. from a period preceding its settlement to recent times, including the annals and geography of each townshipAlso a sketch of woman's work in the county for the United States sanitary commission, and a list of the soldiers of the national army furnished by many of the townships > Part 18
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This appears to have been only a renewed society organiza- tion, as the church was not organized until July 5th, 1868, under the present pastor, Rev. H. Boughton. It has now (1871) forty-nine members. "Church members are those only who sign the Declaration, Constitution, and Laws of the Denom- ination, and who are received according to the forms for admission of members. Baptism is conferred upon those only who desire it, but the Lord's Supper is an ordinance regularly observed in all Universalist churches as in others. A Sabbath- school of sixty scholars is connected with the church.
A subscription is raised, and a lot purchased, for a new church-edifice to be erected at Brooklyn Center; after which the old one will be taken down.
The Universalist ministers of Brooklyn from 1828 to 1867 were : Revs. George Rogers, Alfred Peck, Thomas J. Crowe, T. S. Bartholomew, James R. Mack, J. B. Gilman, A. O. War- ren, N. Doolittle, and L. F. Porter. These, with those before mentioned, include nearly or quite all the ministers of this de- nomination who have been located in the county.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW MILFORD.
THIS township was established August Sessions, 1807, by Luzerne County Court. Its boundaries were described thus :-
"Beginning at the turnpike road on the south line of Willingborough, thence west along said line .to the east line of Lawsville, thence south one mile and a half, thence west to the extent of five miles from said turnpike,' thence south to the north line of Nicholson township, thence east to Wayne County line, thence north along said county line to the southeast corner of Willingborough, thence west along the south line of Willingborough to the place of beginning."
Besides its present territory, it then included all of what is now Jackson and Thomson, and a part of Ararat. It was re- duced to its present limits by the erection of Jackson (then extending east to Wayne County), in 1815.
It is thought the name New Milford was given to the town- ship in honor of N. Milford, Connecticut. Although Willing- borough, for several years, had practically extended over the original area of New Milford, its southern line is nowhere officially described (except as that of a justice's district) lower than six miles from the State line; and thus, though the records do not state the fact, New Milford must have been taken from old Tioga township, since the strip between Nichol- son and Willingborough had not been apportioned to a new township until 1807, though a petition for New Milford had been made two years earlier.
High hills and narrow valleys, with the exception of the valley of the Salt Lick Creek, mark the township which still exhibits well cultivated, richly productive, and excellent dairy farms. Quite a large number of sheep are raised. Next to grass, rye and oats are the heaviest crops. Beech, birch, maple, pine, and hemlock constitute the principal timber of the town- ship. Some of the best land is on the ridges where the hard maple grows. There are very few oaks or elms in the town- ship, and very little chestnut timber. Corn does better than formerly.
The south line of the township passes through the middle one of the three lakes, the upper lake being wholly north of it.
: On the large county map, the west line of the township is not marked more than three and a half miles west of the turnpike.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
These lakes are the source of one of the principal branches of Martin's Creek.
Hunt Lake, about two miles east of the upper lake, is the chief source of Nine Partners' Creek, which passes through Harford.
Corse's Lake, or, as now known, Page's Pond, and the largest sheet of water in the township (covering about one hundred acres), is near the west line of Jackson. These lakes furnish fine water power for various mills and factories.
The larger part of Heart Lakel is within the west line of New Milford.
In the northeastern part of the township the outlet of East Lake forms, with that of Page's Pond, a large tributary to the Salt Lick. The sources of the latter and of Martin's Creek are within a few rods of each other, and this point is the sum- mit of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad- the two valleys furnishing a natural road-bed from Great Bend south across the county.
It is stated that Jedediah Adams came from Great Bend, in 1789, and did the first chopping in New Milford, whilst accom- panying the surveyors of a Philadelphia landholder. He and his wife occupied a cabin on the flat, near the present site of the Eagle Hotel. They returned to Great Bend in the fall of 1790.
A hunter and trapper by the name of De Vough, or De Vaux, lived about the same time, in a bark shanty, which is said to have been the first dwelling in New Milford. It stood on the site of the residence of the late Wm. C. Ward, Esq., but the old well of the hunter was across the present road, near the hotel.
In 1790, Robert Corbett, with his family, was located on the Flat vacated by the hunter, and may be considered the first settler there. He came from near Boston, through the agency of Mr. Cooper, of Cooperstown, New York.
In 1799, a road was granted from his house to Solomon Mil- lard's, in Nicholson (now Lenox). In 1801, he was taxed as "innkeeper," but must have left soon after, with his sons, Sewell and Cooper, for the mouth of Snake Creek-now Corbettsville. His son Asaph appears to have remained, as, in 1802, he was one of the assessors for Willingborough district, and, not far from this time, probably, built the first framed house in New Milford, on land now the garden of Henry Burritt. It was re- moved, years since, to the bank of the creek; and now, after
1 There is an uncertainty as to the origin and orthography of this name, the general impression being that the lake, in shape, resembles the human heart. Another authority states that it was named after Jacob Hart, who lived in the vicinity.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
seventy years, so sound are its timbers, it forms a part of the residence of Charles Ward. It had been the temporary home of several early settlers. Cooper Corbett, now of Binghamton, was born in New Milford, and is nearly or quite eighty-two years old. He is positive that his father was preceded by Mr. Adams in the occupancy of the flat.
Benjamin Hayden came in, single, March, 1794, and began a clearing, where, years afterward, he kept a tavern; the site of which is occupied by the residence of his grandson, William Hayden.
He married Ruby Corbett, a daughter of the pioneer. They had but one son, Warner, named after a son of Robert Corbett. Warner Corbett died March, 1795, at the age of seven years, and his remains are interred in the New Milford cemetery, near the Eagle Hotel. The stone that marks the spot appears to bear the oldest date of any interment there.
Benjamin H. died in 1842, aged 67. A contemporary wrote of him: "So long as probity and virtue have advocates, the memory of Mr. Hayden will be revered." His widow, Ruby, died in 1849, aged 70.
Warner Hayden married, in 1815, Sally, daughter of Andrew Tracy, Esq., who brought his family to what is now Brooklyn township, early in 1799. When they reached New Milford, Mr. Benj. Hayden, with his ox-team, helped them through Har- ford, as their horses were pretty well tired out with the rough journey from Connecticut-28 days in all. At Martin's Creek they were met by Mr. Joseph Chapman, who conducted them to their new home, carrying in his arms the infant who was destined to become the mother of the eight "Hayden brothers;" five of whom reside in New Milford, one in New York, and two are deceased.
Warner Hayden was a saddler, and an enterprising man, keeping up establishments in two or three towns at the same time, and very successful. He died in 1850, aged 52. His widow is still living in New Milford.
David Summers settled in New Milford, two months later than Mr. Hayden. He had passed through this section in the fall of 1793, and secured a cabin which had been erected by some one (possibly one Smith, or a hunter by the name of Houck), on the spot, in Summersville, now occupied by his son James (now over eighty years of age). To this place, in May, 1794, he brought his wife and five sons: Eli, Calvin, David, James, and Ira; the youngest being then an infant. The spring was so far advanced that he could not have a gar- den that season on his own place, but cultivated one on Mr. Hayden's clearing, a mile and a half away; but Mrs. S. would run up there, after her morning's work was done, for garden-
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
sauce for dinner, and still do her day's work at spinning or weaving. The woods that lay between were then frequented by deer, bears, wolves, and panthers ; but were the path the smooth- est of roads, with no peril from wild beasts, as it is now, the woman of the present day could hardly compete with the pio- neer matron in energy, and in the endurance of so many priva- tions. David S. was originally from Fairfield County, Conn. He left there, in 1787, for Durham, Greene County, N. Y., and remained at the latter place until his removal to New Milford. Here he was an innkeeper in 1801; and, many years later, the hotel of his son Calvin, on the same spot, kept up the fame of its excellent table. Mr. Summers lived here to the close of his life, April, 1816. His age was 55. Mrs. S. survived him until 1844, dying at the age of eighty-four. She had lived just fifty years on the same farm.
Of their sons, David died in 1831; Calvin in 1852, aged sixty-six; and Eli, the eldest, who had been a resident of Illi- nois some years, August, 1870, in his eighty-eighth year; Ira, the youngest, now nearly eighty, lives near the brother who occupies the homestead.
In 1797, Samuel Hayden, father of Benjamin, was a super- visor of Willingborough. He lived nearer Great Bend than his son, but possibly not within the town limits.
Three sons of Hezekiah Leach, viz., Hezekiah, Daniel, and Samuel, were in the vicinity of the Salt Lick at a very early day ; Daniel is mentioned on the records of Luzerne County, April, 1799, as a settler south of Robert Corbett on the old road to Great Bend from Mount Pleasant. This road, after passing Capt. Potter's in what is now Gibson, and soon after touching the old Brace Road (probably at Gibson Hollow), was made to run " thence to David Hamilton's, thence to Daniel Hunt's, thence to Daniel Leach's, thence nearly north to Salt Lick, thence to Robert Corbett's, thence 6 miles to the ferry at Great Bend."
It is not certain that Hezekiah Leach, Sr., came in at that time, but he spent many years in New Milford, and died there in 1823, at the age of 83 years. He was one of the patriots of the Revolutionary Army.
If Daniel Hunt was located, as we may suppose, near Hunt Lake, he must have left within a short time afterward. He married a daughter of Robert Corbett.
Hezekiah Leach, Jr. (or Capt. Leach), also married a daughter of Robert Corbett, and was a prominent member of the com- munity. A sketch of his location, etc., written from informa- tion given by his son, George Leach, is copied from the Mon- trose 'Republican ' :-
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
" Among the once notable taverns on the Great Bend and Coshecton Turnpike-a section of that great thoroughfare, the old Newburg Turnpike -was one a mile south of New Milford village, at the cross-roads and forks of a branch of Salt Lick Creek. To a person standing on the high hills south of this junction, parts of New York State are visible through the val- ley stretching directly north to Great Bend. At the foot of this hill, on a fine meadow, was the greatly frequented public house of Hezekiah Leach. Mr. Leach came to the place from Litchfield Co., Conn., about the close of the last century, on horseback, bearing, besides his gun and other 'no- tions,' a sixteen-pound trap, of which he afterwards made good use.
"He took up some three hundred acres of land, which he greatly improved. He died January 1, 1840, aged 66, and his large family are now scattered from Boston to California. The land passed to Secku Meylert, Esq .. and is now owned by Nathan Fish and Robert Gillespie, who have removed a part of the old house, and demolished the sheds, so that the place is no longer adapted to public accommodation. The present generation can little realize the number of emigrants and the amount of heavy transportation upon this road before canals and railroads came to the relief of oxen and horses, and entirely diverted travel from many of its accustomed channels. From New- burg and other eastern points, to the Lake country in New York and else- where westward, there was such a throng of travelers, that, even among that comparatively sparse population, several public houses were required where but one is now kept.
ยท " In those days timber was plentiful, and the people got rid of much of it by working what they could into their buildings, which were certainly very strong. Mr. Leach put up a very large dwelling, and, on the opposite side of the road, corresponding barns. My informant was born on the spot, in 1802, and his earliest recollections were those of travelers, from year to year, filling the house from garret to bar-room ; and of a cellar stored with liquors and eatables in their season, while the long sheds were crowded with horses and vehicles. Customers were moving at all hours, coming in until midnight, while others, long before daylight, at the summons, 'Hurrah, boys ! we must be off again,' were starting away. On a rainy day, or when work was slack, crowds of men and boys would gather to pitch quoits, or play various games of skill and strength. Balls, sleigh-rides, and parties were frequent in win- ter. Whiskey was as common-and almost as much imbibed by most per- sons-as water. It was deemed an absolute necessity, on many occasions, where it is now disused. Liquors were then much purer than they now are, yet many a strong, good-hearted, useful man, through their seductive in- fluences, came to poverty, disease, and death.
" Fish and wood-game were plentiful in early times. Mr. Leach was ac- customed to say that during his residence here, he had killed 548 deer, 61 black bears, 1 white bear, Il wolves, and 1 panther, besides wild cats and lesser game never counted. The 'white bear,' killed at Hunt Lake, was rather of a very light straw color ; the skin was sold to a Judge Woodward, somewhere near Cooperstown."
Benjamin Doolittle, from Connecticut, was a taxable of Wil- lingborough, for 600 acres, in 1799, but is not mentioned as a resident before December, 1801. He was located nearly one and a half miles west of the present Eagle Hotel. His wife was Fanny, daughter of Ichabod Ward, who came later. Their children were Nelson, Albert, George, Harry, Benjamin, and Lydia. Mr. Doolittle moved to Ohio many years ago.
John Foot, a shoemaker, was " a new-comer" on the tax-list, December, 1801. He lived next west of Mr. Doolittle. He
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
came from Vermont with his wife and three children-Timothy, Belus, and Amanda. Belus died in New Milford in 1841. His son Edwin was the first (1842) Daguerrean artist in Mon- trose.
It is probable that Nathan Buel and Peter Davis came in 1801. Josiah Davis, father of the latter, was in Lawsville. Mr. Buel then had two children-Arphaxed and Polly, after- wards Mrs. Leighton.
John Hawley was here as early as November, 1802. He was elected one of the overseers of the poor of Lawsville in 1804, though his location was within a mile of the Salt Lick. Hezekiah Leach was, the same year, a supervisor of Willing- borough, though, certainly, three miles below the line of that town as recorded in 1791 and 1793. Both were in the same justice's district, which, from 1801 to 1806, extended from the State line, and included Lawsville and Nicholson, as well as Willingborough. These remote townships of Luzerne were little known at the county seat. Some of the inhabitants of Nicholson and Willingborough were placed in either at differ- ent times, as, for instance, " S. Hatch, taverner in Nicholson ;" and "Abel Kent, Wright Chamberlin, and Hosea Tiffany, tav- erners in Nicholson and Willingborough."
Mr. Hawley lived less than half a mile east of Mr. Doolittle. " He, being a widower, had married a widow, and she had two daughters by her first husband, whose names were Merab and Roxanna Andrews. His sons were John (well known in later days as Deacon Hawley), Uriah, and Newton ; his daughters were who married Elias Carpenter, of Harford (then the Nine Partners), and Betsey, who married Belus Foot, and lived all her life in the neighborhood."
Deacon Hawley died in 1866, aged 84; Merab, his wife, in 1830, aged 55; Phebe, his widow, in 1869, aged 83.
Christopher Longstreet, from New Jersey, may have been in earlier than 1803, since he bought out Robert Corbett, who appears to have left a year or two before this date ; but at pre- sent nothing positive can be asserted of Mr. Longstreet's pre- sence here until that time.
Mrs. Longstreet died in 1813; and, soon after " Col." Long- street removed to Great Bend. " Old Prince," a colored man, who came in with them, remained in New Milford until his death, July, 1815. Like " Prince Perkins," of Brooklyn, he seems to have been quite noted in his day.
There were probably other settlers of 1803. Early in 1804, at least, Cyrenius Storrs, Job Tyler and family, and Joseph Sweet and family, were on the main road southeast from Cap- tain Leach. Some of the posterity of the first named remain in the township.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
Colonel Job Tyler (from Harford) had three children : Jared, now in Harford, but until recently in New Milford; Nancy, wife of Francis Moxley, on the Tyler homestead ; and another daughter, Mrs. Brewster Guile of Harford. He was "an ex- cellent farmer," public spirited, and quite widely known. He died in 1857, aged 77.
Joseph Sweet's farm was afterwards Jonas B. Avery's.
The substance of the following sketch was kindly communi- cated to the compiler in personal interviews with Seth Mitchell, Esq., but subsequently (Jan. 1872) some other listener prepared it for the ' Montrose Republican,' from which it is taken.
"Seth Mitchell was born in Roxbury, Litchfield County, Conn., April 9th 1785. Left an orphan at eight years of age, his boyhood was passed in hard labor and service, with very small opportunity for schooling, the nearest school being nearly two miles distant. When seventeen years old he worked one winter for his board and attended school, acquiring sufficient knowledge of arithmetic to enable him to transact all ordinary business. I have known him to beat good accountants in computing interest, both as to speed and correctness-and this when past threescore and ten. In 1804, when 19 years old, he came with Mr. Benjamin Doolittle to New Milford, Susquehanna (then Luzerne) County, and worked for him that summer, returning on foot to Roxbury in December. The next spring, 1805, he came again to New Milford, and bought 1001 acres, being a part of what was long known as the ' Mitchell farm.' At this time, excepting two families, his nearest neighbors were distant six miles, south and west, the log house of Esq. Hinds being the only dwelling in Montrose, and there were no roads through the woods -even cut out. This season he worked two days in a week for his board, and two days more to get a yoke of oxen to use two days for himself, in this way clearing and sowing five acres, and returning to Roxbury in the autumn. In the spring of 1806 he came 'west' again, his brother Nathan coming with him and buying a lot adjoining. This summer he cleared and sowed eight acres more, going back east again at the approach of winter. In 1807 he came ' west' the fourth time, driving a yoke of cattle. Enlarging his clear- ing still more, he returned again to Roxbury to spend the winter. The spring of 1808 found him again early at his ' western home.' This season, besides clearing and fencing more land, he built a log house and frame barn, again going east in December to spend the winter. In February, 1809, he was married, and one week afterwards started ' west' to prepare his log mansion for his bride. In June next he returned to Roxbury and moved his family (wife) with a few necessary house-keeping articles, to their home in the woods of what was then 'the great west.' In 1815 he built a large frame house, which is still standing, and is at present owned and occupied by Mr. Ezra Beebe, nearly three miles west of what is now New Milford Borough. During these years and afterward he gradually added to his farm, until it finally numbered 470 acres. Three times he made the trip from Roxbury to New Milford on foot, twice driving before him a yoke of oxen, and twice he footed it from New Milford to Roxbury, carrying his clothes and provisions on his back, some of the way breaking his own path through snow knee deep. The distance was about 170 miles. At the age of 23 he was elected captain of a company raised in New Milford and Lawsville, having risen from the ranks. His commission was for four years. He afterwards served as justice of the
" He bought of the landholder Bound or Bowne. The Wallace estate joined. that, and was principally in old Bridgewater (including Brooklyn).
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
peace ten years. The few old settlers who are now living still call him Cap- tain or Esq. Mitchell. His wife dying, he married again in 1837, but has been the second time a widower for nine years. By his first wife he had eight children, five of whom are now living. He has cleared over 300 acres of land, and built more than 700 rods of stone wall-has built one log and six frame dwellings-seven barns, besides two horse-barns, cattle sheds, out build- ings, etc. He has used no strong drink for the last forty-two years. He has been to the Mississippi River five times, once alone, after he was eighty-two years old. He is now nearly eighty-seven, with his faculties all well pre- served, and recently walked from his home to Montrose (two and a half miles) to attend meeting at the Baptist church, of which he has been an active member about fifty years. He acquired a handsome competence, wholly by hard labor and judicious economy. As an instance of how money was made in early times, he stated that he raised large crops of corn with which he fattened large numbers of hogs, and packing the pork, carted it to the lum- ber region on the head-waters of the Delaware River, a trip requiring three days, and selling it on long credit. Pork was then worth five dollars and beef three dollars per cwt. Butter ten to twelve cents, and cheese five to six cents per pound."
Seth Mitchell was supervisor of the township fourteen years. The following is clipped from his autobiography.
" The first house that we stopped at when we came in, in 1804, was Cap- tain David Summers's. He lived in a log house at what is now Summers- ville. He had then just built a frame grist-mill, which was quite a large building for this region in those days. In that year, a ball was held in Sum- mers's mill, and was attended by the young people of New Milford, Great Bend, and Lawsville. There were about twenty-five couples present. The mill floor being smooth and the room large, it was a good place to dance. I attended. We had a very merry time. That mill was afterwards altered into a house, and became Summers's hotel-afterwards Barnum's-long famous for its good table, and much resorted to by young people and pleasure-seek- ers as Phinney's now is.
" The turnpike had been lately finished from Newburgh to Mount Pleas- ant when I moved out in 1809, but it was not then built from Mount Pleas- ant to New Milford.
" After living on the old farm about thirty years, I purchased an almost unimproved one, about three miles from Montrose, on Snake Creek, where I cleared up about fifty acres and built a house and barn."
Since 1857, the home of Seth Mitchell, with but temporary interruptions, has been in Montrose; and he is now (August, 1872) the oldest man in the borough. Three of his sons, Thompson, Norman, and Charles, are dead. Norman was a much esteemed deacon of the Baptist Church; his death oc- curred June, 1870.
In the spring of 1805, Josiah Crofut and Joseph Gregory moved in from Connecticut ; and Seth Mitchell boarded with the former while he cleared five acres on his own land, which adjoined theirs. Provisions were scarce that summer, as every - thing had to be purchased at Great Bend. The large log-house was but half-floored below, and above there were only five . boards, on which S. Mitchell's straw-bed was placed; and to which he climbed by the log walls. Josiah Crofut died in 1836, aged sixty-seven.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
Seth and Nathan Mitchell boarded with Mr. Gregory in the summer of 1806. In 1807 Nathan moved into his own house, where he lived until his death, in 1816, at the age of thirty- five years.
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