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 35
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Mr. Mckenzie was once returning from Brooklyn late at night, and, reaching the Meshoppen, he wearied himself in
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searching for means to cross it. The weather and water were cold, and this, or the depth of the latter, prevented him from wading. At last he espied a tree growing on the opposite shore, which was so much inclined over the stream, that he caught a twig of one of the topmost branches, and proceeding hand-over-hand, he reached the other side.
He was married November, 1810, to Sabrina, daughter of Ezra Tuttle, of Springville. She died in 1851. Four of their sons reside at the west, one in Scranton, and one son and two daughters in Montrose; two daughters are dead, and one son, Charles, was killed while in the Union service.
Mr. McK. cleared one hundred and twenty-five acres of his own farm, and fifty-three of that of his father-in-law.
Late in life he sold his farm, and purchased a house and lot in Montrose. Just before his death, which occurred February 9th, 1872, in his eighty-eighth year, he was the oldest man in the borough, the member of longest standing in the Presbyte- rian church, and was held in honor by all.
Edward Fuller, whose wife was a sister of Elias West, came from Connecticut, with his family of five children in 1806, and located on the upper part of the farm of the latter. He under- stood making " wrought" nails, and this of itself was sufficient to make his advent a blessing to the community. He built a large frame house, two stories in front, with a porch, and a door opening on it from the second story; while the rear was only one story. It became a central point, being the place for holding elections; and, from the Christian character of Mrs. Fuller, the place where the early religious meetings were held. As yet, not a, man of the south neighborhood was a professed Christian. Determined to impress upon her children her esti- mate of the Sabbath, she always dressed them in their best that day, even if that were no more than a clean apron to each one. They learned to be less boisterous than on week days; so, praying mothers could meet and sing " the songs of Zion," and occasionally listen to a sermon read by Mr. Fuller or Mr. Raynsford.
Here the family resided until 1812, when Mr. Fuller having received his appointment as sheriff, removed to the county seat, and kept the hotel built by I. Post, for one year, before enter- ing the one described on a later page.
He died in Montrose April, 1854, in his eighty-sixth year. Mrs. Fuller, the last survivor of the original ten members of the Presbyterian church, died in Scranton, December 14, 1861, also in her eighty-sixth year. Her funeral was the first service in the new Presbyterian church in Montrose. Her surviving descendants then numbered six sons (Charles, Edward, George,
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Henry, Francis, and Isaac) and two daughters, thirty grand- children, and seventeen great-grandchildren.
Alba Cornwell, Jr., came in from Connecticut " the fall before the great snow," and lived with Stephen Wilson through the winter. In what is now Montrose there were then but two buildings.
He was soon after joined by his father, and they settled north of Jones' Lake (or Wheaton's Pond, as then called), on the place since occupied for many years by Timothy Warner, and now the farm of Charles Lathrop. The father and son built the "Newburgh turnpike," from New Milford to Mount Pleasant.
Alba Cornwell, Sen., removed, after a few years, out of the township. Alba, Jr., went to the Wheaton farm, where he died in 1815. He made the first clearing on "the Mulford farm." His widow came to Montrose with her son, now Dr. N. P. Cornwell, of Jessup, and her two daughters, and lived in a log-house built for her opposite the present residence of Mrs. Fanny Lathrop. She died April 12, 1852.
About 1806, Nathaniel Curtis, Sen., was the pioncer of East Bridgewater. Originally from Connecticut, he had located for a time in Herkimer County, N. Y., and came from there with his five sons, Nathaniel, Jr., Harvey, Warren, Daniel, and Ira, all of whom remained many years in the township. Harvey went West in 1837. Daniel came to Montrose before its in- corporation as a borough, and built what was then considered a commodious hotel, and kept a popular house. It forms the nucleus of the Tarbell House. His wife was a daughter of Major Ross, of Rush. They moved to the West about 1841, where Mr. C. died in 1862. Nathaniel Curtis, Sen., died a few years later ; Nathaniel, Jr., died May, 1850.
During the winter of 1806-7, Henry Congdon, Asa and Samuel Baldwin, from Salisbury, N. Y., arrived in the settle- ment, and located a mile or two north of Bartlet Hinds. They browsed their cattle where the court-house now stands. John and Benjamin Fancher located in March still further north. These families were permanent settlers. The heads of the first two were among the constituent members of the Baptist church of Bridgewater, now Montrose. Henry Congdon died here in 1841, aged eighty-two; B. Fancher in 1840, aged sixty- four; S. Baldwin in 1870, aged eighty-five
Nathan Brewster, a native of Massachusetts, and Simeon Tyler, a native of Vermont (who had married a sister of the former), came in together from Connecticut, February, 1807, with their families, ten persons in all, and all halted for five weeks at the house of Joseph Raynsford, whose only daughter was the wife of Nathan Brewster.
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Simeon Tyler began preparations for building a log-house large enough to accommodate his own and Mr. Brewster's family. Mr. B. was laid aside from work, having cut his foot in getting out boards. But at length, when all was ready, the great "snow-storm" delayed their removal until some time in April.
This storm, to which reference is made by aged persons nearly as often as the great eclipse, occurred on the last day of March and the first day of April, 1807. Before the storm, Mr. Mckenzie and others observed a peculiar appearance of the sun ; it was surrounded by three very bright circles (probably more haze-like than is shown by the diagram), and where they crossed on the outside were three luminous bodies, called " sun-dogs."
Fig. 20.
SUN-DOGS, 1807.
For several days, it was with the greatest difficulty that any locomotion was possible-snow-shoes being requisite for safety.
The cabin of Mr. Tyler was three miles from Mr. Raynsford, being at the northern foot of the first hill, due north of Mont- rose, one of the very longest and steepest of our hills. The season did not allow them to put up a chimney, and, until the frost was out of the ground, a hole in the roof was made to serve the purpose for two fires. Cooking was done on each side of a central pile of logs, and blankets served as a partition between the two families. Mr. Tyler had five children, and Mr. Brewster only one, a son, Nathan Waldo; Waldo being the maiden name of Mrs. B.'s mother, Mrs. Joseph Raynsford. And here it may be fitting to refer to the manner in which this section gathered in its settlers. The Brewsters were drawn here by the Raynsfords; Simeon Tyler by his connection with the Brewsters; the Raynsfords, by the fact that J. W. Rayns- ford's wife was a daughter of Walter Lathrop, who had settled on the Wyalusing in 1800. This is but an instance of what
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occurred in other family connections, as in the case of the Hewitts and Backuses, and the settlers from Long Island.
In the fall of 1807, Nathan Brewster built a comfortable log- house directly opposite that of Mr. Tyler, on the site of the large framed house in which he afterwards lived for many years, and where he died. Both houses were near the source of one of the minor tributaries of the Wyalusing. In the swamp not far from them, Mr. Brewster lost, during the first season, one of the horses of a pair he brought into the county. There was no feed for horses, except as they browsed, and it was the custom to attach a bell to their necks that they might be found when wanted. In this case, though diligent search was made, no sound of the missing horse was to be heard. At length, weeks after, it was found mired to the neck, and had starved to death.
Mr. Tyler had brought a yoke of oxen, but, soon after the loss of Mr. B.'s horse, one of the oxen was killed by the fall of a tree. Thus the two farmers, at the outset of their pioneer life, were crippled in their efforts to subdue the wilderness. But Mr. T. finally succeeded in bartering off the ox for another horse, and thus a team was secured which was used in common by the separate owners.
Simeon Tyler died July, 1850. He had eleven children, of whom the eldest, Harvey, has been our late representative at Harrisburg.
Nathan Brewster had nine children, of whom only three sons and three daughters lived to adult age. He died March 7, 1847, aged 66; his widow in 1850.
James Train, who lived in the vicinity of Montrose until his death in 1845, arrived at Stephen Wilson's "in the great snow."
Samuel Fessenden arrived during the same storm ; he located for a time near J. Meacham, but afterwards near Joseph Backus, in Western Bridgewater. His son Henry, years after, bought a part of the old Doud farm between R. Kingsley and Joseph Butterfield. He died in 1847.
S. B., son of Samuel Fessenden, a resident of Bridgewater, now eighty years of age, when fourteen years old rode on horse- back from his father's to near the mouth of the Wyalusing Creek, and worked in the harvest field until he earned grain suffi- cient for a grist, took it to the nearest mill, and when ground returned safely home. When twenty-one years of age he was at work by the month near the foot of Jones' Lake, when a deer came bounding down the hill, jumped a descent of fifteen feet into the water, when he pursued and caught it around the neck, holding on with a will, until assistance came, when the deer was killed and dressed.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
We have now reached an important period in the history of Bridgewater. From a historical discourse delivered by Rev. A. L. Post, fifty years later, we glean the following :-
" An incident in the providence of God which makes it sure that 'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,' brought Elder Davis Dimock from Exeter (Luzerne County), on a visit to this place-then known as the ' Hinds Settlement.' It was this : Captain Bartlet IIinds, then its prin- cipal settler, and, by the way, a member of the Middleboro' (Mass.) Baptist church, in the early spring of that year went to Wilkes-Barre on business. While there, he was told that there was to be preaching, at evening, in the court-house, and without knowing anything of the person who was to preach he went to hear. As the narrative of another day runs, the preacher was in the prime of young manhood, and personally prepossessing, having a square- built athletic frame, a fine smooth countenance, a dark brilliant eye, musical voice, and quick fancy. He announced his text, "The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin ;' and spoke with a life, pathos, and anima- tion that commended both the gospel and the preacher to the liearers, and especially to the one here introduced. That hearer took the young preacher into his heart and resolved to secure a visit from him to his wild-wood home. The preacher, by invitation, went to General Ross' to tarry for the night. Being an old friend of the general, Captain H. followed. An introduction and nearly an all-night interview, resulted in an agreement on the part of Elder Dimock, for he was the young preacher, to visit (D. V.) the Hinds Settle- ment, on the twenty-ninth of the month (March, 1807). On that day, after a horseback ride, through forest paths, from Harford, where he had preached to a small Baptist church, the day previous, Elder D. reined his horse up to the door of the log-cabin of 'Father' (a cognomen more generally used by him) Hinds, and received a most cordial welcome.
" Here, after taking refreshments, he preached to the people, who had gen- erally gathered from all the surrounding country, the first gospel sermon ever preached in the settlement. A deep interest was felt and a strong desire expressed by many that he should remain another day and preach to them another sermon. To this he consented; but with the next day came a storm known as ' the great snow storm,' in which the snow fell to the depth of four feet on the level. This detained him full a week; during which time he preached several sermons to the people, who turned out on snow-shoes and otherwise as best they could, to hear. Before leaving, as he did on the next Monday after his arrival, he was induced to promise future visits in the course of the season. 'This lie did, making the place twice in his circuit from Exeter to Harford and Wyalusing. At one of these times he baptized two persons, probably the first ever baptized in the county. These visits were the source of great comfort and encouragement to the few disciples who were scattered in these wilds; so much so that they began the holding of regular weekly meetings for prayer and conference, instead of occasional ones as formerly. The final result was the establishment of a little church, in 1808, under the name of the Bridgewater Baptist church, and the settle- ment of Elder Dimock as its pastor in 1809. He moved his family into the settlement June 17th of that year. From that time, this place became the central point of his labors." [See later page.]
In July, 1807, Samuel Scott and family, from Long Island, settled in the north neighborhood.
Asa Baldwin married S. Scott's eldest daughter, who is still living in Montrose; her husband died over fifty years ago, leav- ing her with eight children. Mr. Scott died April, 1835, in his seventy-sixth year. He had eleven children, and only one a son,
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Nehemiah, who was a member of the Baptist church over forty years, and long one of its most active deacons. Activity was characteristic of the man.
A newspaper writer says: "It was claimed by his father that the son, when twenty-one years old, mowed four acres in half a day."
He married a daughter of Elder D. Dimock, and had a large family. He died in September, 1870, aged seventy-four years.
A daughter of Samuel Scott was once lost two days in the woods.
" While searching for her, Elder Dimock lost his watch. The next season the late Mr. Samuel Baldwin, while looking for cows, found the watch hang- ing on a bush. A small twig having run through the links of the steel chain had taken it from the pocket unnoticed.
" The same men were out hunting deer ; the former hearing footsteps and seeing signs of something moving in the direction, raised his rifle, and when just upon the point of shooting, saw an object move, more of the appearance of a hat than a deer's head, and instantly dropped his rifle to the ground. It was a hat, and on the head of Mr. Baldwin. The effect was such upon Elder Dimock that he never went hunting afterwards."
Thomas Scott, brother of Samuel, was also here in 1808.
In March, 1808, Scott Baldwin and wife came to the farm adjoining that of Simeon Tyler on the north, and lived for sixty years on the same spot. They were originally from Connecti- cut, but moved to this place from Montgomery County, N. Y. From a statement made by Mr. Baldwin just fifty years later we copy the following :-
" We had but one dollar in money left when we got here. We had to work out part of the time for a living, and the rest of the time for our place. Our house was a log-house, the floor made of slabs split out of trees, the win- dows made of sticks crossed and paper put on them for glass. The nearest grist-mill was three miles off, and we had to go farther sometimes, and carry our grists on our backs. At one time we had to pay $1.62 for rye, and that we had ground without bolting. When our bread was almost gone, we had to lay some by for the children, and go without ourselves. Day after day we had to depend on our guns for meat. For tea, we used spicewood.
" We used to make deer-licks by putting salt in certain places in the woods. One time I went to the place where I had put salt, and saw a very large deer- track. I climbed a tree, some thirty or forty feet high, with my gun. Be- fore dark I tied my gun to a limb of the tree, pointing it, as near as I could guess, where the deer would come. There I sat, all night, until daylight, but no deer came. I thought I would not give it up so, and tried it again. The third night I sat on the tree as before until the cock crowed for morning. I then heard something coming. It proved to be a deer. He came to the lick, I fired, and when I came down from the tree, found I had killed a very large buck. We then had meat again.
" In the fall we got out of salt, and there was but one place we could get it, and there only, at the price of $3.00 per bushel. I had nothing to buy it with, and concluded to see what hunting would do. I took my gun, went out into the woods, and found a bear that had gathered a large quantity of chest- nuts, I shot it, took its skin, and with it bought a bushel of salt.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
" Brother Samuel and myself went to Dr. Rose's for work. He gave us the job of clearing out the road between us and Silver Lake. We had to go from six to eight miles to our work. Our living was corn-bread and dried venison. Our bed, hemlock boughs, with leaves for covering.
"There were settlers about six miles this side of Binghamton, and, on this end of the road, for about four miles north of Montrose; between them were dense woods, the path being only marked trees."
Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin lived together sixty-four years, and reared a family of twelve children, of whom one is at present associate judge of the county, and there was not a death among them until all were over thirty years of age, when the youngest, Isaac, was killed during the late war, at Springfield, Missouri. Mr. Scott Baldwin died January, 1869, in his eighty-first year. Samuel Baldwin's family was also large, and, at one time, the two brothers were obliged to pay two-thirds of the salary of the school teacher as their due proportion.
Noah Baldwin, the father of Asa, Samuel, and Scott, came in from Connecticut a little later, with his fourth son, Matthew, who is still living in East Bridgewater. He lived to be eighty - two years old, and his funeral was the first held in the old Presbyterian church, of which he was a member. His wife died in 1842 aged eighty-six.
Simeon Cook and Richard Daniels settled on the North road, in 1808.
Luther Dean came from Braintrim, the same year, and set- tled two miles west of Montrose, on the Owego turnpike. A beautiful double row of maples mark his location. He was one of the constituent members of the Baptist church. He died in Sept. 1813, and was the first adult buried in the village ceme- tery. Of his seven children, Mrs. N. H. Lyons is the only one now in the county.
Moses Tyler, an older brother of Simeon, and a native of Massachusetts, came from Wilmington, Windham County, Vt., in the spring of 1808, not then anticipating to find a home in this section; but, stopping in the south neighborhood to spend the Sabbath, it became known that he was a Congregationalist, and one ready to take an active part in a prayer-meeting. The circle of Christian mothers that had met from one Sabbath to another without the presence of a man to lead their devotions, now importuned him to bring his family to the settlement and remain to aid in sustaining religious services. Deeming this an indication of Providence, Mr. Tyler relinquished his inten- tion of going farther west, and returned to Vermont. In the fall of that year he came with his wife and nine children, all girls but one, Moses C., late associate judge; and was accom- panied by Samuel Davis and his family, which was also large, and all his children, but one, were boys. The party came in via Great Bend. Mr. Edward Fuller happening there on business,
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met them, and hastened home with the joyful news, “ Moses and the children of Israel are coming through the wilderness."
Mr. Tyler stayed with all his family at the house of Stephen Wilson until he finished a log-house on what is now the Jessup farm, not far from the old brick-yard. He bought of the Penn- sylvania landholder, J. B. Wallace. Afterwards, when the county was set off, the lands donated to it covered part of his tract. He received some indemnity for his improvements, and removed to the farm in Dimock which is now owned by John Wright. He moved back some years later, near his old loca- tion, to a small house that occupied the site of Dr. J. Black- man's present residence. Later, he resided again on a farm, just south of Stephen Wilson's old place, until his last removal to the home of his son, in Montrose. He was a deacon of the Presbyterian church many years. He died April, 1854, aged eighty-eight; Mrs. T. in 1856, over eighty. They had twelve children. While living by the brick-yard (then only a swamp), Mrs. Tyler went to visit Mrs. Wheaton, when she met a bear, sitting on his haunches and staring her in the face. She screamed and struck the brushwood, when the bear turned and walked quietly away, and she proceeded on her errand. The young men at Wheaton's were hunters, and, on hearing her story, they went in pursuit of the bear and dispatched him.
Mrs. Porter, a daughter of Jonathan Wheaton, taught the first school near the house of Stephen Wilson, in April, 1809. She had six scholars so young that they were obliged to have blankets on which to take their naps. In the winter of 1809 and 1810, the school was taught by J. W. Raynsford.
Samuel Davis built his log-cabin on a part of the farm of Phineas Arms, near the present north line of Dimock, and which is now owned by F. Wells.
Phineas Arms came in the spring of 1809. A few years later he left his place to be gate-keeper on the Wilkes-Barre turnpike, near Benj. Lathrop, leaving his place to his son Phineas. He was one of the first deacons of the Presbyterian church. He removed to Bradford County in 1838.
Phineas Warner settled on the North road in 1809.
Obadiah Green was on the northwest part of Isaac Post's old village farm, where he made a little clearing, and was connected with the first ashery on the stream below Sayre's old ashery. He was afterwards on the Jos. Watrous farm. He was born in West Greenwich, Kings County, R. I., Feb. 5, 1772, and died in Auburn, Susquehanna County, Oct. 17, 1860, aged eighty- eight years.
Edmund Stone, prior to March, 1809, was on the Kingsley farm. A few years later, when Mrs. Stone was returning through the woods from a meeting at the South school-house, on horse-
20
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back, a panther leaped for the child she held in her arms, but, missing his aim, passed over the horse's head. Mr. Stone's death, in 1814, was the first that occurred among the members of the Presbyterian church.
Adrian and Caleb Bush, and Joseph Beebe, purchased lands near Montrose about 1809-12; their descendants still reside in the vicinity.
In June, 1809, Elder D. Dimock removed from Exeter to Bridgewater, with his wife and five children, all on horse- back, five horses accommodating the family ; while a cart load of goods for them was brought in by A. Hinds. Dr. R. H. Rose had given him, as the first pastor of a church on his lands, one hundred acres, and the church gave him one hundred more, on the North road ; and he occupied this place until June, 1815, when he removed to the hill on the same road, overlooking the village; and his eldest daughter with her husband, Nehemiah Scott, occupied his first location. Elder D. was accustomed to relate with glee that for his first marriage fee he received a bunch of goose quills. Before detailing further account of his life here, we return to a sketch of his previous career, given in the discourse to which reference has already been made :-
" ELDER DAVIS DIMOCK was born at Rocky Hill, Hartford County, Conn., May 27th, 1776. His parents were David and Sarah Green Dimock. His father at the opening of the Revolutionary war entered the service first as a ser- geant, and afterwards as lieutenant of the Continental army.
" He, with his mother and three brothers, on the opening of the war, were taken as a measure of safety into Vermont.
" At the close of the war the family returned to Connecticut, and resided at Norfolk until the year 1790, when with the tide of emigration from Con- necticut they came into the Wyoming Valley, and settled at Wilkes-Barre.
"The subject of this sketch was then fourteen years of age.
"To a compact, symmetrical, and truly admirable physical organism, there was added a pleasing personal address. To an extremely social nature there was added an almost unbounded and attractive humor. To a quick percep- tion of the relation of things, and the workings of human nature, there was added an ambition that knew no bounds but those of patriotism and honor. And to a heart unsanctified by the Divine Spirit, and that had come to drink in, quite deeply, infidelity to Christ and the Bible, there was added a pur- pose to gain and enjoy as much as possible of the world's pleasures, riches, and honors.
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