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 21
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In March, 1807, Asa Dimock, Sr. (an older brother of the late Hon. and Elder Davis D.), came from Pittston, Pa., with his wife and four children, to a log house of one room, which had been built for a school-house, on the old road south of the turnpike, a little southeast of A. Gregory. He moved up with the others when the turnpike was finished (or about 1811), and located about one hundred rods east of John Kent's tav- ern, which was afterwards and for a long time kept by his son, Warren Dimock. The locality was known as "Dimock's Cor- ners,"1 though the post-office kept by him was named Herrick Center, and retained the name until its removal, in 1858, to its present location on the Lackawanna. W. Dimock was ap- pointed postmaster in 1826.
Asa D. was appointed a justice of the peace by Gov. McKean during the summer of 1808, and by Gov. Snyder was commis- sioned as major of the 1st battalion 129th regiment Pennsyl- vania militia. This was composed of the militia of Northumber- land, Luzerne, Ontario (Bradford), and Susquehanna counties.
He was the first blacksmith in the vicinity, and built a shop near his residence on the turnpike.
He carried the United States mail from Chenango Point to Newburgh, on the Hudson River, once a week, sometimes on horseback, and sometimes in a single wagon or cutter.
"I recollect," says his son Shubael, now of Wisconsin, " his coming home from Newburgh with the mail, flying a white flag from a pole stuck up in his cutter with the word 'Peace' inscribed on it in large letters. This, at the close of the war with England, caused great excitement along the road.
1 Asa D. was postmaster of "Dimock's Post-office," here, as early as 1815, but the township was then included in Gibson.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
" Often have I heard the panther scream and the wolf howl in the wilder- ness around us, and seen the scalps brought to my father, to secure to the successful huntsman a certificate for the bounty allowed for them. I recol- lect an old hunter (Wademan) once came in my father's absence, and, while waiting for his return, he took out from his knapsack some nice white-looking meat to eat for his dinner, and, at the same time, invited us to taste it. Ī was the only one who accepted the invitation, and then he told us it was the meat of the panther he had killed."
John Kent, Asa Dimock, and Parley Marsh, a school teacher (1812-13), were the first settlers at or near the Corners.
In 1818, Asa D. removed to Clifford, and purchased a farm of Amos Morse, who lived half a mile below "the city," down the east branch of the Tunkhannock. Two years later he was located on the present site of Dundaff, where there was but a hat shop, a school-house, and three dwellings.
[Another statement : "Asa Dimock, Sr., had a store (1817) on the corner opposite (and south) of the hotel which was then kept by Warren Dimock. It then consisted of only the present back part of Phinny's. These were the only two houses in 1817. There was then no road past Crystal Lake, but it was being cut out."] Asa D. removed, in 1827, to Lenox, where he resided with his son Shubael to the close of his life, in 1833. Warren and Shubael had returned to the " Corners."
In the month of September, 1807, Edward Dimmick, and his son, Martial, came from Mansfield, Conn., and located on the Lackawanna, not far from the present church at Uniondale, the father having bought three hundred acres of Thomas Meredith. In the spring of 1808, he brought in his family, consisting of a wife and eight children. As the spelling of the name indi- cates, there was no relation existing between this family and that of Asa Dimock, who preceded Edward Dimmick only a few months in coming to the township. John Coonrod Awalt and Joseph Sweet were the only settlers then in the vicinity of Uniondale, except two or three outside the present bounds of Herrick. David Burns was four miles below, in Clifford, and Sam. Stanton had been settled some years, about three miles northeast, at Mount Pleasant. Mr. Dimmick had been a Revo- lutionary soldier. His sons were Martial, Eber, Joshua, Til- den, Edward, and Shubael.
In his reminiscences of early days at Uniondale, his oldest son, Martial, communicates the following :--
" In July, 1808, towards night, there came a thunder shower, which con- tinued till near midnight; and although I have lived here sixty-two years, I have never seen, I think, half as much water in the Lackawanna, at one time, as there was the next day. It swept bridges and all before it to its mouth. Everything in our little cabin was as wet as though it had been dipped in the sea. In June, 1809, I went to the Chenango River, five miles above its mouth, to one Mr. Crocker's, and brought three bushels of corn on horseback, between forty and fifty miles, as none could be obtained nearer.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
But what a change has taken place in the sixty-two years since I came to this section ! Then it was woods, woods, all around, abounding with wild ani- mals; and these were really necessary for food for the inhabitants. One could shoot and kill a large fat buck that would weigh about two hundred pounds, and nice wild turkeys that weighed twenty-one pounds dressed, or catch them in traps, as I have done. The Lackawanna Creek, passing right through the settlement, swarmed with speckled trout. Surely these were almost the staff of life, for bread was often scarce; but this game has passed away, and the time which made it necessary.
" The settlers had many sore trials to pass through; poor roads, poor houses, a want of buildings to store what little they did raise, and a want of many things they had been used to having before they came here; but with all their trials, there was some real enjoyment."
In 1810, Blackleach Burritt, Hezekiah Buckingham, Abijah Hubbell, James Curtis, from Connecticut, and David N. Lewis, from Wyoming Valley, came with their families into the neigh- borhood. Lewis Lake received its name from the latter, and near it he had a grist-mill-the first in what is now Herrick.
Blackleach Burritt settled first on the Flat, near M. Dimmick, but afterwards moved to the Wilkes-Barre turnpike, below Stephen Ellis, in Clifford, where he died. His widow died in the fall of 1869, aged ninety-one. His sons were Grandison, now in Wisconsin, Samuel, Rufus, and Eli. One other died young, and Rufus, at two years of age, was drowned in the creek, during the fall of 1813. Of the sons of Samuel Burritt, Loren P. has represented this county in the State Legislature two years; and Ira N. is now private secretary to President Grant to sign land patents. Both did active and protracted service in the Union army.
About 1809, Philip J. Stewart bought a part of John Kent's farm, and built a house opposite him.
In 1810, Stephen Ellis and family came in from Connecticut. J. T. Ellis, his son, at present one of the commissioners of Susquehanna County, was then but five years old. They were located near the Tunkhannock Creek, on what is now Lyon's street. Stephen E. bought of Moses Wharton, a large land- holder in that section. He was afterwards a Revolutionary pensioner. He died November, 1847, aged eighty-four. His son, Capt. H. H. Ellis, died in 1828.
"Smith's Knob," a hill near Uniondale, was named after Raynsford Smith, a settler in the vicinity, in 1811, whose resi- dence was, however, just over the present line of Clifford.
In 1811, James Giddings, formerly a sea-captain, came from Connecticut, and purchased a farm of Asa Dimock and Walter Lyon, Sr., next above that of the latter. He had thirteen children, twelve of whom lived to adult age.
His son, Giles A. Giddings, left Susquehanna County in 1835, and died in 1836, from wounds received in the battle of San Jacinto, Texas. J. D. Giddings, a lawyer, went to Texas in
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
1838, to take care of the landed property his brother Giles had left ; and there he accumulated a large fortune before the War of the Rebellion. George H., another brother, is also in Texas. Still another brother, John J., who went there as mail-contractor, was killed on the plains by the Indians early in 1861. Several daughters of Capt. Giddings married and settled within the county. Near a spring on his farm, traces of its former occu- pancy by Indians have been found, such as beads, pipes, hatchets, etc.
In 1812, Eli Nichols settled on the place now occupied by his daughter, the widow of Samuel Burritt, Esq. He gave, three or four years afterwards, a large number of books to form a library for general circulation, which were kept for years at Mr. Ellis'. The postmaster at the present "Center," Ira Nichols, is his son, and to his enterprise the locality is in- debted for much of its recent prosperity. A large tannery and a store are under his management, at the point where the old Newburg turnpike crosses the Lackawanna.
In 1813, a road was laid out from Gideon Kent's to A. Gre- gory's.
About this time, possibly a year or two earlier, Wm. Tanner kept a tavern on the turnpike near the western line of the present township.
A year or two later, Dr. Erastus Day succeeded him, and be- came quite a prominent man in the vicinity.
Saw-mills were built or owned by Asa Dimock and Carlton Kent.
"On the 6th of July, 1814, about 5 P.M., there came up a thunder shower, accompanied with a hurricane," says Mr. M. Dimmick, "which leveled almost everything before it, for five or six miles in length and about a half-mile in breadth, com- mencing on the north side of Elk Mountain, and reaching to Moosic Mountain. It unroofed buildings and tore down others, and opened a new world in appearance."
The first store, for many miles around (except that of Joseph Tanner, in Mount Pleasant), was kept, in 1815, by M. and E. Dimmick, at Uniondale. People came to it from ten and fifteen miles, and even farther, to trade.
The year 1816 was marked here, as elsewhere, by the pe- culiarity of its seasons. "The most of January and the whole of February was like what our weather generally is in Septem- ber-the ground dry and dusty, and the atmosphere warm and pleasant as summer. This was followed by a cold sickly spring and summer. Many died of 'inflammation of the lungs.' It snowed in June."
Philip J. Stewart kept a tavern in 1816, and Eber Dimmick in 1817, on the Newburg turnpike. In 1818, A. and Hubbell Gregory opened another.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
In 1817, Rev. Williams Churchill came to the township from Rhode Island. His wife is a descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. They celebrated their golden wedding May 18, 1870, in Herrick, surrounded by nine of their children, and others of their descendants.
In 1819, the first school-house in the southeast part of the town was built, and a teacher (Gurdon H. Tracy) kept school in it a few weeks, when it was burned.
At this time, Uniondale, as well as all of Herrick, bordering on Clifford (below a line extended to Wayne County from the line between Gibson and Clifford), was in the latter township. It was not until six years later that Herrick was erected.
It is difficult here, as elsewhere in our county, to associate the early settlers with the name of a township which now includes the places of their former abode, but which had no existence until they had passed away.
Thus, prior to 1796, the settlers on lands now within the bounds of Herrick, were in the old townships Tioga and Wya- lusing, Luzerne County. From that time for ten years they were in Nicholson; from 1806 to the organization of Susque- hanna County they were in Clifford; from 1814 they were, with the exception mentioned above, included in Gibson, until, in 1826, the tax-list of Herrick was made out for the first time, the township having been erected the year previous.
By reference to the annals of Gibson it will be seen that a division of the township had been petitioned for once or twice before the eastern part was set off for Herrick. The peaks of Elk Mountain and the ridge of Tunkhannock or East Mountain formed a barrier to oneness of interest among its inhabitants, and to ease in the transaction of township business.
To the writer, while on a recent visit to that section, it was a matter of surprise that they had continued so long together ; but it was then no longer a surprise that the people of Herrick, as early as 1827, 1831, and again in 1839, sought to be set off with Clifford, to form a part of a new county, proposed on our southeastern border. The natural features of the country countenanced the wish, as at the present day, most of the business of the section is done with Carbondale and Scranton ; but it is none the less painful to see our own county more foreign to some of its inhabitants than Wayne and Luzerne. Happily, political considerations just now are too powerful to make them desirous of any immediate change of county rela- tions. The completion of the Jefferson railroad facilitates egress from their retreat southward, and also brings them into readier communication with the townships north of them, and may thus ultimately unite them to the interests of their own county.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
RELIGIOUS AND MISCELLANEOUS.
In the Kent Settlement a Methodist class was formed in 1810. The earliest notice of any religious services in the vicinity of Uniondale is related thus :-
"In 1812 there came along an old man, and stopped at the house of Mr. Buckingham, just before night, and, giving out that he was a minister, ap- pointed a meeting. The whole neighborhood assembled at short notice, and had a good meeting. Though the preacher, Phillips, a Baptist, could give a good discourse, he was very illiterate, being unable to read writing at all. "'The neighbors gave him a piece of land and built him a small log-house, where he lived alone. He preached for us about a year.
" In the fall of 1813, Mr. Hill, a missionary from the Connecticut Society, came and labored for a short time, and in the winter following there was quite a revival. A Congregational Church was formed by Rev. E. Kings- bury and Rev. Worthington Wright of Bethany ; ten of its members being in this vicinity, and five in Mt. Pleasant. In 1833 the connection between them was dissolved, and the Uniondale Presbyterian Church was formed with forty-three members. Their meeting-house, the first in the place, was erected in 1835." A new one is built on its site, but the old house stands near.
A Baptist church was formed in the western part, June 1834, and consisted of ten members, viz .: Jacob and Mahala Lyons, Thomas and Alex. Burns, Benjamin and Harriet Coon, Silas and Emily Finn, Martin Bunnel, and Benjamin Watrous. From 1839-41 Eld. Joseph Currin was pastor. In 1840 Silas Finn "received liberty to improve his gift" as a preacher in this denomination, and was afterwards licensed. In 1842-43, Rev. John Baldwin was pastor. The highest number of mem- bers was thirty-one. The church was disbanded in 1851.1
A Methodist society was organized about forty years ago, by Rev. V. M. Coryell.
Religious services were held in a school-house for many years, but, in 1853, a neat church edifice was built near the residence of Walter Lyon, Jr. This gentleman, with his brother, the late Wheeler Lyon, Esq., Carlton Kent, and Andrew Giddings, were chiefly instrumental in its erection, though the community, in general, were liberal in their contributions to it.
In 1851 or 1852 there was a Freewill Baptist church erected about half a mile north of the Methodist church. Most of the church members have died or moved away, and the house is now unoccupied except on funerals or extra occasions.
A Bible Society, in connection with Clifford, was formed at an early day; Sabbath schools and temperance societies were also formed and have been continued ever since. They have changed somewhat in form, but not in substance. The Herrick
1 From E. L. Bailey's Hist. of Abington Association.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
Anti-Slavery Society was organized in 1838 : Martial Dimmick, President, and Grandison Burritt, and Dav. W. Halsted, Vice- Presidents.
Politically, the township was democratic until 1830.
While Herrick was a part of Gibson, in 1814, the heaviest tax-payers in the former were of the Kent family; after the separation, they were Samuel Benjamin, a tavern keeper, and Walter Lyon, Sr.
Within the last thirty years, nine Welsh families have lo- cated in Herrick, though they are considered as belonging to " the settlement," whose members are principally in Clifford and Gibson.
CHAPTER XIII.
HARFORD.
IN November, 1807, the court of Luzerne County granted (" Nisi") the petition of John Tyler and others for a new town- ship from the north part of Nicholson, seven and a half miles wide and six and a half long, to be called Harford; but this grant was not "finally" confirmed until January, 1808. The name was varied from Hartford, at the suggestion of Laban Capron, to make the orthography of the word correspond with its customary pronunciation. A petition had been presented to the court as early as 1796 by the same parties, "inhabitants of a place called Nine Partners," praying to be set off into a new township, and commissioners were appointed to examine whether the same was necessary. Their report, January 17, 1797, was favorable to the petitioners, and the following bounda- ries were described :-
"Beginning at the dwelling-house of Mr. Amos Sweet, then running on a straight line north till within five miles of the line of Willingborough, then turning a corner to the west, running five miles to a corner, thence running seven miles south to a corner, then east five miles, then turning north and running that course until it meets the aforesaid."
Thus making a township seven miles north and south by five miles east and west, which was to be called Stockfield; but no further record is found respecting it.
In the eleven years that elapsed before the "Nine Partners" secured township privileges, the settlers between them and Willingborough had also petitioned for the township of New Milford; and this occasioned an alteration in the boundaries proposed by the former, when at last their object was virtually
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
attained. The north line was then established on that of Nicholson, two or three miles south of the one given in the report of the first commissioners, and the center was essentially different, many new families having been added to the settle- ment. The western boundary of Harford is Martin's Creek, a tributary to the Tunkhannock, like every stream in the town- ship. Its principal feeder is the outlet of the Three Lakes. Van Winkle's Branch and Nine Partners Creek, in the eastern part, have their principal sources in other townships. Upper Bell Brook rises near the center of Harford Township, in the vicinity of Beaver Meadow, memorable as the birthplace of the settlement. (See diagram.) The brook reached the Tunkhannock in Lenox near the early location of Elisha Bell. Spring Brook, which flows into Martin's Creek at Oakley, was visited by a remarkable flood in the summer of 1870.
The lower of the three lakes, and the larger part of the middle one, with Tingley Lake, a much larger sheet, with a pure sand bottom, and two ponds about three miles west of it, are in the northern part of Harford, while Tyler Lake rests on the top of a hill, and is the pet and pride of the village. The beautiful white pond lily is found here, also in the lower and middle lakes.
In the vicinity of Montrose depot, which is in the northeast corner of Harford Township, a rare variety of the mullein (Verbascum thapsus-white.flowered) . was found by Rev. H. A. Riley, of Montrose. A German work, written in Latin, describes the plant, but it is known to but few American botanists.
The timber is principally beech and maple. In the early years of the settlement, pines four feet in diameter at the ground and sixty feet high beneath the lowest limb, were com- mon, and were of great service in building. Shingles were made from them three feet long, the roofs being ribbed, that is, the shingles were held on by poles fastened at the ends of the roofs.
The township is uneven, but the soil is very fertile. A graft put in a plum-tree by Milbourn Oakley, in the spring of 1868, had grown eight feet and six inches before December following.
The following four pages are compiled principally from the Historical Discourse of Rev. A. Miller :-
In the fall and winter of 1789 several young men, afterwards its first settlers, were deliberating together in Attleborough, Massachusetts, on the subject of emigrating from the place of their nativity. Most of them were unmarried and unsettled, but several were married and proprietors of small farms. The difficulty of obtaining near home and from their own resources an adequate supply of land, urged them to seek ampler room in some new region and on cheaper soil. A company of nine concluded to enter upon the adventure in the spring. They were Hosea 'Tiffany, Caleb Richardson, Ezekiel Titus,
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
Fig. 16.
NORTH
160.
150
160.
4 MILES.
150
180
/ MILE
SPRING
NINE PARTNERS' PURCHASE.
The supply of provisions raised was insufficient for all. Grain or flour was procured even from " the French settlement" or from Wilkes-Barre, on horseback, and sometimes nearly that distance by hand. For several years after this, the nearest mill was in the vicinity of Binghamton. The stump at the door, excavated to form a large mortar, was often the most convenient substitute for the mill, in the preparation of a scanty measure of grain for food. It will not appear at all surprising that the settlers of some of the first years did, at times at least, find themselves uncomfortably straitened in their necessary articles of food, both as respects variety and quantity. Except for the abundance of deer, they would often have suffered severely.
In the spring of 1794, the additions to the settlement were : Laban Cap- ron, wife, and children-Wheton, Nancy, and Hannah; Thomas Sweet, wife, and daughter Charlotte; John Carpenter, wife, and son John; Samuel Thacher, wife, and son Daniel C .; also John Tyler, Jr., and Dr. Comfort Capron.
In the fall of that year, John Tyler and wife, and their children, Job, Joab, Achsah, and Jabez; and Thomas Tiffany, wife, and children - Lorinda, Alfred, Thomas, Pelatiah, Tingley, Dalton, and Lewis. They came from the Delaware to the Susquehanna at the rate of ten miles per day, over a road cut out without being worked. The Tylers were three weeks on the journey.
In the fall of 1795, Amos Sweet, wife, and children, Asahel, Stephen, Oney, Polly, and Nancy; Ezekiel Titus, wife, and children-Leonard, Richardson, Preston, and Sophia-and Ezra Carpenter.
To these were added the same year or years immediately succeeding, Elkanah Tingley, Obadiah Carpenter and sons, Obadiah and Elias ; Joseph Blanding, Obadiah Thacher, John Thacher, Moses Thacher, Abel Reed, Thomas Wilmarth, Noah Fuller, Nathaniel Claflin, and others.
All the accessions previous to 1800, it is believed, were directly or indi- rectly from Attleborough, except Jotham Oakley, who came from Thorn- bottom, and was a native of Dutchess Co., N. Y.
Most of the settlers of Attleborough, Mass., were from Attle- borough, Norfolk Co., England.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
John Tyler, son of Captain John Tyler of Mass., was born in Attleborough in 1746, and belonged to a line of John and Job Tylers of several genera- tions, who were descended from Job Tyler of Andover, England. The sons of John Tyler were John, Job, Joab, and Jabez. The first-mentioned and four sisters (married) were already in Pennsylvania when their parents came in the fall of 1794, with the remaining daughter and sons.
John Tyler was chosen to fill the office of deacon by the Harford church, April, 1803, and after his removal to what is now Ararat, he served also in the same capacity ; in each case being the first elected by the church. He was from an early day the agent of Henry Drinker in the disposal of lands on the head-waters of the Tunkhannock and Lackawanna. This, with his position in the church, and with somewhat larger means than most of those around him, gave him influence, while his wife Mercy, by her untiring and un- selfish efforts in behalf of the sick, far and near, gained as much, or more, in the sphere allotted her. The volunteer testimony of two of the oldest physi- cians of the county now living, is sufficient to endorse ler skill as a prac- titioner in the specialities she adopted. (Dr. E. Parker, now of Luzerne County, and Dr. Streeter.)
Dea. Tyler died in Gibson (now Ararat) in 1822, at the age of 77. His son John, at Harford, in 1857, aged 80. Colonel Job Tyler, the same year, in New Milford, aged 77. Dea. Jabez Tyler in Ararat, April, 1864, aged also 77. John W., only son of John Tyler, Jr., died in 1833.
Dea. Joab Tyler (of whom we give a portrait) upon the removal of his father to Ararat in 1810, took his farm in Harford, and his place eventually, in civil and religious affairs. He contributed freely to the erection of church and school-houses, and built miles of turnpike and plank road from his own means. To his public spirit Harford owed much of its growth and prosperity. At a great pecuniary sacrifice, early in the temperance reformation, he bought out his partners in the distillery business, and stopped the sale of its spirit- ous products. He died and was buried in Amherst, Mass., Jan. 1869, in his 84th year.
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