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 31
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There was no lack of striped snakes and water-snakes. Rattlesnakes in- fested only the eastern part of the township ; many have been destroyed, but the race is not extinct. The milk-snake has occasionally been found in the dairy coiled in a pan of milk. Frogs in great numbers inhabit all the swamps and ponds. Toads abound. A species of turtle or land tortoise is sometimes found in Franklin, but so rarely as to be of but little interest. The bat is also seen, and innumerable species of insects.
Thus life was everywhere in this section before the coming of civilized man.
Savages are supposed not to have dwelt here, though there are evidences that they sometimes passed over the ground. It is certain they knew of the existence of salt springs in this vicinity.
The pioneers of this section were adventurous and enterprising men and women, whom we proudly remember as our ancestors. Neither rich nor poor, they belonged to a class which, with small capital, maintained a noble independence, by persevering industry and prudent economy. And, if they were not the descendants of parents of high literary culture and scientific attainments, neither were they the progeny of people debasingly ignorant, and uneducated ; but of persons possessing good common sense and natural abilities, who had in a great measure been denied those advantages which may be gained by long and constant attendance at good schools. Not that they were wholly ignorant of books ; tradition says most of them could read and write, knew something of arithmetic and geography, though some were never at school more than two weeks altogether.
A strong religious element, better incomparably than wealth, or worldly wisdom, pervaded the communities in which they were reared, and as a class they imbibed its principles and were intent upon its teachings. Faithfulness forbids the conveyance of the impression that they rose to manhood perfect models of all that is " lovely and of good report ;" or that there were no in- stances of obliquity to cause deep humiliation and life-long regret. And yet it may be truthfully recorded that, with their early surroundings, habits were formed, principles established, and conservative influences diffused, which have not ceased, and which, it is hoped, will never cease, to bear fruits of righteousness; that much of our attachment to social order, virtue, and piety, and of our aversion to their opposites, is traceable to our Puritan ancestry in happy New England.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
The first settlers in old Lawsville came from Connecticut, crossing the Hudson to Catskill, thence to the head of the Del- aware River near Harpersfield, New York ; thence to the valley of the Susquehanna at Wattles' Ferry, a point at the north end of Unadilla village; thence down the Susquehanna to Great Bend; the whole distance being nearly 250 miles, and much of it, west of the Hudson, a wilderness, through which their effects could be transported only by packs, or on an ox sled. From Great Bend they found their way to Franklin by marked trees and the compass, camping out on their arrival until rude cabins could be erected.
In the spring of 1797, James Clark made the first clearing in Lawsville, on the farm now owned and occupied by Billosty Smith.
In September of the same year, Rufus Lines and Titus Smith together left Cheshire, Connecticut, and by the route we have described reached Great Bend, where they learned that four other men from Connecticut had just passed through the place, and were engaged in cutting a road through the forest to Lawsville. Hastening forward, they joined the party-Messrs. Clark, Bronson, Clemons, and Buell; and added their efforts to expedite the undertaking, arriving at their destination, September 27th, the day Titus Smith completed his eighteenth year. Mr. L. was married and had several children, and was impelled to seek a home in a new country, that he might ac- quire more land than he could in his native place.
At this time they were only exploring, and soon went back to Great Bend. A few days later, Mr. Smith returned to his chopping, opposite the place now the property of Mr. Read, which Mr. L. had selected, and where he spent the rest of his life. All returned to Connecticut for the succeeding winter.
Mr. Buell began his clearing near Wylie Creek, quite in the eastern part of the town. He afterwards removed to New Mil- ford, where he died.
In February, 1798, Titus Smith was again on the ground accompanied by an elder brother, Ephraim. They came in with a sled and oxen, bringing provisions and a few utensils. The sled, covered with boughs, was made to serve them for a shelter for a long time, and additional supplies were procured from Chenango Point (Binghamton) and Ochquago, until they raised their own.
Three other settlers had reached Great Bend in advance of them in February: David Barnum and his wife, and his brother Stephen, then unmarried. They emigrated from Vermont. Mr. Barnum purchased the lot which Titus Smith had begun to clear the preceding fall. Mr. Smith commenced anew on the
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farm which he continued to cultivate and reside upon until old age; a paralytic shock disabled him a few years before his death.
Ephraim Smith selected the lot which joined that of Rufus Lines on the south, and there spent the remainder of his days. It is now owned and occupied by Mr. Seamons.
In the fall of 1798 Mr. Clark moved in his family, and now Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Barnum were the only women in the set- tlement. The Smith brothers returned to Connecticut for the winter. In 1799 Ephraim brought his family.
The year 1800 more than doubled the number of families here, and brought Friend and David Tuttle, young unmarried men. The added households were those of Rufus Lines, Titus Smith, Nathan Buell, and Theophilus Merriman; all from Connecticut. This date also marks the arrival of the first per- manent settler in the north part of Lawsville. (See Liberty.)
During the next five years, 1800-1805, Roswell Smith, Josiah Churchell, Ralph Lines, Samuel Chalker, Edward Cox, Asa Cornwell, Enos Tuttle, and Daniel Chalker, with families ; and three Smith brothers, without families, were added to the set- tlement in the south part (Franklin). The Chalkers remained but a few years in the south part, and then removed to the north part (Liberty). Edward Cox removed early to Choconut.
Raymond Smith, one of the unmarried brothers, came in 1803, and began a clearing in the east part of the town, on the farm now occupied by Harry Smith. Lodging at the house of his brother Titus, each morning found him crossing the hills nearly two miles through the woods to his work, carrying his dinner ; and each evening, returning with the pleasant consciousness of hav- ing made good progress in his difficult undertaking. As soon as he had made a sufficient clearing, he built a log-cabin, and, towards the last of the summer he boarded himself, having bought a cow and raised a patch of potatoes. He subsisted for six weeks entirely on potatoes and milk.
He afterwards sold his improvement here to his brother Ros- well, and began anew on the farm adjoining on the north.
These two brothers married sisters (step-daughters of John Hawley) and side by side they spent the remainder of their lives. All lived to be over eighty, and their united ages were three hundred and thirty-four years. The wife of Raymond Smith, widely known as " Aunt Roxy," died in 1868, and was mourned, as a " mother in Israel," by the community. A year and a half later, February 14, 1870, Raymond, the last survi- vor of the pioneers of Franklin, died in his eighty-ninth year. " He was endowed with a fine constitution, a well-balanced mind, and cheerful disposition, which he maintained by tem- perate habits and pure morals. His large, well-proportioned
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frame was little bent, and his mind little impaired, by age." Of his four children, only one, Mrs. Garry Law, is living.
Before the close of the last century, mills had been erected in Great Bend where M'Kinney's mills now are, and there the Lawsville people could usually have their grinding and sawing done; but, in dry seasons, they were sometimes obliged to go to Windsor for their grinding, or later, to Lathrop's Lake in Dimock.
In 1802 or 1803 Mr. Bound, one of the landholders, erected a saw-mill, under the superintendence of Mr. Obed Doolittle, on Wylie Creek, in the eastern part of Lawsville; but it did not work well, and after a short trial was abandoned. Unprofi- table to its owner, it was yet some help to the settlers in con- verting a few of their hemlock logs into slabs and boards, so much needed in the construction of their rude barns and houses.
About this time, or possibly a little prior to it, Captain David Summers, a man of business enterprise, with several sons to assist him, erected a grist-mill in that part of New Milford now known by his name; but the site was not well chosen, or other arrangements may have been faulty; and the benefits of this mill, also, were shared by the inhabitants, while proving unre- munerative to the builder.
The first marriage in the settlement took place May 21, 1804 -the parties being Friend Tuttle, a native of Cheshire, Con- necticut, and Eunice, daughter of Rufus and Tamar Lines. Mr. T died December 19, 1820, aged thirty-nine. Mrs T. was left with eight children. She died August 13, 1869, in her eighty- fifth year.
Anson Smith, one of the seven brothers who settled in Frank- lin, was at work in 1805, on the farm where Charles Lawson now lives, when, by the fall of a limb of a tree into which he was chopping, as is supposed, his skull was fractured. Miss Polly Lord (afterwards Mrs. Dr. Fraser) found him lying help- less by the road, procured assistance, and he was taken to the house of his brother Titus, near by. A skilful physician was indispensable, and his brother Raymond set out at once by a bridle-path and marked trees for Dr. Baker, at the Forks of the Wyalusing. On hearing the case, Dr. B. advised him to consult Dr. Hopkins, of Tioga Point. He then retraced his steps, went down the valley of the Susquehanna forty or fifty miles, and returned with Dr. Hopkins. It was then at least three days after the injury was received; the case was considered hope- less, and the Dr. would not repeat his visit unless sent for. The sufferer lived nine weeks, and his brother went three times for the doctor, each trip requiring three days. Anson was twenty- two years of age and unmarried. The Rev. Seth Williston, a missionary, visited him. The presence of a minister was then a
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
rare event and highly prized. Upon the death of Mr. Smith, the ground for a cemetery was selected, and his burial was the first in the cemetery as well as in the township. The purchase was made from the adjoining farms of Rufus Lines and Ephraim Smith. In that sacred inclosure nearly all the first settlers of the place now rest.
Lyman, the youngest of the Smith brothers, was a minor when he came here. He was then under the guardianship of his eldest brother, Roswell. When he reached his majority he settled on a farm in Franklin, having married a daughter of Capt. Ichabod Buck, of Great Bend, and sister of his brother Ephraim's second wife. In 1820, Lyman became an active and useful member of the Congregational church, and, within a few years after it became Presbyterian, he was elected an elder. In 1849, he removed to Binghamton, New York, and united with a Presbyterian church there, his life corresponding with his Christian profession, until its close in his seventy-fifth year. With the exception of Anson, he was the only one of the seven who did not live to be over eighty years old.
The settlement did not increase rapidly. The new-comers to the south part from 1805 to 1810, were Josiah Davis, Aaron Van Voorst, Simon Park, Calvin and Luther Peck and their father; in 1810, Wright Green and James Watson, from Ire- land, and Andrew Leighton, from Scotland. The last named brought in a small assortment of merchandise and established the first store in a log house near the old well on the present farm of P. T. Dearborn.
Simon Park moved his family into Lawsville in 1809. In his youth he had emigrated from Plainfield, Connecticut, to Kingston, in Wyoming Valley, where he settled on a tract of land owned by his father; from thence, in 1804, he went to Windsor, New York, moving his family and effects up the river on a flat boat. Soon after becoming settled in L., he built a saw-mill on Wylie Creek, thirty or forty rods below the place now occupied by Tingley's saw-mill. This he kept running several years, but, like the other mills mentioned, it served the people better than it did the owner, and was finally left to decay.
In 1811, Leman Churchell, Chauncey Turner, and James Vance (then from Harmony), settled in what is now Franklin.
The line between Franklin and Liberty was run a little lower than appears on the large county map, and included Mr. Vance in Liberty ; but the court granted a petition from himself and next neighbor which assigned them to Franklin.
Boards were then not so easily obtained as to allow Mr. V. ยท gable ends to his cabin for a long while after he entered it.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
During the next four years-1811-1815-Charles Blowers, Julius Jones, Harrison Warner, and some others came in.
From 1815 to 1820, Calvin Wheaton, Allen Upson, Jacob Allard, Joel Morse, Ira Cole, Joseph H. Holley, John Blowers, James Owens, William Salmon, and the Websters came (1818). Joseph Webster, Sr., and his son John, a Baptist minister, located in Franklin, but others of the family in Liberty.
Some of the earliest settlers remained but a short time. David Barnum left prior to 1805, and became a popular hotel-keeper at Baltimore, Maryland.
Charles Miner, in his letter read at the Pioneer Festival held at Montrose, June 2, 1858, said :-
" Barnum, of Lawsville, had married a sister of Colonel Kirby (about that time one of the candidates for Governor of Connecticut), a very superior woman independent of her relationship. The Yankee girls of the best fami- lies readily accepted the invitations of clever, enterprising young men, though poor, to try their fortunes in subduing the wilderness."
The same authority states that "Barnum" was landlord in Lawsville in 1799.
Stephen Barnum's place was further west and on another road. He sold it to a Mr. Townsend and sons, who are its pre- sent owners. He resided in the township nearly to the close of his life, but died in New Milford, at the residence of his son, E. Barnum, in January, 1859, at the age of eighty-two and a half years. He was appointed justice of the peace in 1836, but soon resigned.
Though the principal occupation of the men of Franklin has always been that of agriculture, there have been a few devoted to other business. Rufus Lines was a blacksmith, Raymond Smith a shoemaker, Josiah Davis and S. Chalker stone-masons, and many chimneys built by them still remain.
The number of expert hunters was small, but hunting and fishing were quite often pursued as a pastime, or to secure sup- plies for the table.
The amusements were few and simple. It was customary in some families to promise them to the children as rewards for the faithful performance of required tasks; and thus the privi- lege of a fishing excursion was heightened by the conscious- ness of parental approbation, and enjoyed all the more for being paid for in advance. The season of berries was made subservient to relieve the monotony of work for both boys and girls. The most luscious raspberries and blackberries grew wherever they were allowed on the newly cleared land, and in the absence of cultivated fruit they were of great value.
But sauntering in the wood, or gathering berries, had its drawbacks, for the jingle of the dreaded rattlesnake was often heard, causing a precipitate flight towards home; but
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
this was usually followed by a return to the scene of danger of some one who would give battle to the disturbing reptile, usually terminating in its destruction, and the conqueror coming in possession of its rattles.
Young women of different families visited each other rarely more than once a year ; and then only in the most pleasant season, as it often required a walk of several miles. They in- variably took with them plain sewing or knitting which would not interrupt conversation on topics connected with their daily occupations, which were those most frequently discussed. The making up of plain clothes for themselves or the family; the knitting of socks, stockings, and mittens; the bleaching of home-made linen, etc. etc., were to them objects of ambition only inferior to their spinning! Proof of skill and industry in this was seen hanging against the walls in bunches of yarn, linen, tow, or woolen, according to the season. Woolen and linen were the only sheeting used. Occasionally "a quilting" afforded the girls a fine opportunity for social enjoyment. And, in winter, it was customary for boys and girls to go together on evening visits to friends several miles distant, and for lodg- ing, to distribute themselves among the different families of the neighborhood, who were always ready to accommodate them and make the party happy.
Trainings or military parades were great occasions for the boys. They furnished holidays for them twice in a year-the first Monday in May, and another Monday in autumn. For a general training two days were sometimes necessary. When the parades were at Great Bend, none but the larger boys could go; but it was all the more desirable to them to go so far, and to so grand a place as Great Bend, where there were frame- houses and a store ; the latter, and perhaps a few of the former, being also painted.
They were permitted to don their best suits and start early, with "change" in their pockets to buy gingerbread, and perhaps " a drink ;" if the latter was not thus provided for, it may safely be presumed their fathers " treated" them to one or more during the day, for moderate drinking was then thought a very inno- cent, if not a very necessary, indulgence.
Early in the present century, and before the settlers could raise enough grain for their support from one season to the next, they were sometimes threatened with a short allowance of the necessaries of life. It is said that such was the scarcity of provisions in the spring of 1799, that the new settlers had to dig up and eat the potatoes they had planted. The few in- habitants of the surrounding towns could do little more than supply their own wants.
Great efforts were made to procure even very limited sup-
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
plies. At one time Mrs. Merriman went twenty miles to get as many potatoes as she could bring on the back of the horse she rode; and this, over roads which we should call terrible- being full of knolls, stumps, roots, stones, and mud-holes, with the Susquehanna River to be crossed by fording!
The women of those days could dare and do as necessity demanded. Perhaps they had no sterner trial than to be with- out a suitable attendant at the birth of their children. Mrs. Mercy Tyler, of Harford (afterwards of Ararat), was indeed an angel of mercy to many an isolated mother; but distance sometimes made her inaccessible. "Whether the call came by day or by night, Mrs. T. attired herself suitably to mount her horse astride; and her guide needed not to 'slack his riding' for her sake."
RELIGIOUS.
It is said that in the "Lawsville settlement" the Sabbath was observed from the first. With Saturday night secular labor ceased, and quiet reigned throughout the forest-homes.
The influence of early training, example, and habit preserved the people from open desecration of a day which they had been taught to regard as sacred, though they were far removed from those religious privileges and associations which had at- tended their childhood and youth.
Most of them were from Cheshire, New Haven County, Con- necticut, where no deep religious interest is known to have been felt until many years after the period under consideration. This may in a measure account for the fact that, notwithstand- ing these privileges, few of them had made an experimental acquaintance with religion at the time of their emigration ; but they erected and maintained a high standard of public morals. Mrs. Tamar Lines and Mrs. Sarah Merriman were the first, and for five years the only, professors of religion in the place. Their piety, though unobtrusive, was decided, and in after years they were referred to as almost faultless examples of Christian character. Mrs. M. died in 1835, aged sixty-six ; Mrs. L. in 1843, aged eighty. But their memory has not perished, nor has their influence ceased to be felt. Of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, it may be said that some of them, we have good reason to believe, have "fallen asleep in Jesus;" some are useful citizens and active Christians of Franklin and other townships of this and a neigh- boring county ; and others of them, sustaining the same cha- racter, are scattered in several distant States. Captain Roswell Smith was the first male professor of religion who settled here. He remained at the old homestead in Connecticut a number of
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
years after the others had left it-all but the youngest, to whom he was guardian. He came with his wife and five children,1 near the end of winter, in 1805. Their library consisted of three Bibles, a copy of ' Watts's Psalms and Hymns,' a Metho- dist hymn-book, the ' Assembly's Shorter Catechism,' 'Jenks's Devotion,' and the 'Book of Common Prayer;' with one or two spelling-books.
[After a time, 'Miner's Gleaner' was taken by Capt. Smith, and a small circulating library was obtained for New Milford and Lawsville, John Hawley, librarian.]
Religious worship commenced soon after the first settlement of the town. As early as 1801 or 1802 missionaries came here from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and meetings were held at Mr. Theophilus Merriman's and other private houses, until the old South school-house was built, and then meetings were held there. About 1808-1809, meetings were held by Deacon Ward at Benjamin Doolittle's, in New Milford, and at Deacon Titus Smith's, in Lawsville (Franklin), every alternate Sabbath.
The organization of the New Milford and Lawsville " Union Congregational Church" took place at the house of John Haw- ley, in New Milford, the 28th day of September, 1813, the Rev. Ebenezer Kingsbury, missionary from Connecticut, and the Rev. Joseph Wood, pastor of the first church in Bridgewater, officiating.
The following persons composed the church when organized : Ichabod and Mary Ward, Roswell and Hannah Smith, Titus Smith, Sally (Mrs. Ephraim) Smith,2 Friend Tuttle, Lucretia Truesdell, Hannah Doolittle, Sybil Dayton, Phebe and Merab Hawley. Circumstances deferred Mrs. Lines' and Mrs. Merri- man's connection with this church until February, 1814.
Rev. Ebenezer Kingsbury was chosen standing moderator of the church, Ichabod Ward was chosen deacon, and Friend Tuttle, scribe. Of the first twelve members not one is now living, though nine of them lived to be over eighty years, and three over ninety years of age. Meetings for public worship were kept up by the church until 1814, when the Rev. Oliver Hill, missionary from Connecticut, was unanimously called to be their pastor. He accepted the call, and on the 15th of Feb- ruary, same year, the Luzerne association met at the house of Ephraim Smith to examine Mr. Hill as a candidate for the min- istry. On the 16th his ordination took place in Mr. E. Smith's
1 These had lost their own mother. Three weeks after their arrival in Laws- ville, a daughter was added to the family-the same to whom we are indebted for much of the information contained in this chapter. At the time of Captain Smith's death, he had five sons and six daughters, who were married and had families.
2 Of her it was written, " She lived to the glory of God." She died in 1849.
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barn. Mr. Hill continued his ministrations in Lawsville and New Milford, dividing his time equally between the two places, until May 25, 1819. (He afterwards went to Michigan, and died there December, 1844, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.)
Mrs. Park, in a sketch of her father and mother, Captain Ros- well Smith and his second wife, says of them :-
"They hailed with joy the coming of missionaries, entertained them at their house, sent notices through the settlement where they would preach, and always attended religious worship with as many of the family as circum- stances would permit. When meetings were within two miles all could go. The older children could walk ; father rode on one horse with a child before him ; mother on another, with a babe in her lap. In addition, when neces- sary, they could take one of the older daughters upon a pillion behind them on the same horse. From the place now called Brookdale, in Liberty, to New Milford Valley there were persons who were habitnated to public wor- ship, and many log dwellings between these points were, at different times, crowded for that purpose. People sometimes went to Harford and to Great Bend to hear missionaries, and it was not uncommon when we had preaching to see people from those places in our congregation."
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