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 7
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
exquisite beauty, and hardly inferior to it is the view obtained in descending the Salt Lick.
A western gentleman, while recently passing over the Erie Railroad in the vicinity of Great Bend, exclaimed, " This equals the Sierra Nevada !"
There are no lakes in the township. There were formerly many willows on the banks of the Susquehanna, but the basket- makers have cut them down. Sarsaparilla, the white snake- root, and black cohosh, and a number of medicinal herbs, are common. This locality appears to have first attracted the notice of the white man during the Revolutionary War.
From a sketch prepared by Mr. Du Bois, we retain the follow - ing :-
"A part of General Sullivan's army, under command of General James Clin- ton, encamped on the banks of the Susquehanna at Great Bend in the summer of 1779. The Six Nations (with the exception of the Oneidas), incited by British Agents and British gold, joined the British and tories of the Revo- lution, in their murderous assaults upon the border settlements. In order to check their attacks, General Sullivan, with a portion of his army, was sent up the Susquehanna by the way of Wyoming to the mouth of the Chemung River, where he awaited the arrival of General Clinton, who proceeded from Mohawk to the headwaters of the Susquehanna, and from thence down the river."
[Mr. DuBois had the pleasure of reading many years ago, the MS. diary of one of General Clinton's officers, and relies on his memory of its contents, in relating what follows.]
" When General Clinton arrived at the head of the river, Otsego Lake, he found the water very low, and the navigation of the Susquehanna, on rafts, as intended, impracticable. In order to raise the water, it was decided to build a dam at the foot of the lake, which some of the soldiers under the directions of the officers proceeded to do, while others were detailed to con- struct timber rafts below, upon which the army was to descend the river. When the dam was completed, the rafts being ready, and a sufficient quan- tity of water having accumulated in the lake, the flood-gates were opened, away sped the fleet of rafts, with their noble burden, amid the loud cheers of the soldiers.
" Very soon new troubles arose, for not one of these 1600 men knew any- thing about navigating the Susquehanna. The Indian canoe only had here- tofore broken the stillness of its waters, consequently some of the many rafts were at almost every turn brought to a stand-still by the bars and shallows of the river. These " shipwrecks," as the soldiers called them, produced shouts of mirth and laughter from those who were more fortunate in drifting clear of the shoals ; but, as the water was rapidly rising from the great supply in the lake above, these stranded rafts were soon afloat again, and very soon were passing some of those rafts which had first passed them, and from whose crews came shouts of derisive laughter, and now were stranded in like manner. Both officers and men emjoyed this novel campaign on rafts down the beautiful Susquehanna (to use the officer's word) "highly." He said that, notwithstanding they had to keep a sharp lookout for the " Red Skins," it did not in the least mar the great enjoyment of the sports of this rafting expedition; fishing, frolic, and fun were the order of the day. Nothing worthy of mention happened to the expedition on their way to this place, and here,
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
on a bright summer day, in 1779, they landed to pass the night, and to allow some of the dilatory rafts to come up, and here at Great Bend, on the Flats near the "Three Indian Apple Trees," General James Clinton's army en- camped, and here for one night, at least, brightly barned the camp fires of 1600 of the soldiers of the Revolution. The officer in his diary says of the three Indian Apple Trees which they found here, that they then bore the marks of great age. There were no Indians seen here by them, although there was every indication of their having only recently left. The next day they went on board of their rafts and proceeded down the river.
Of the venerable trees mentioned above, only one is now standing, the second having fallen within a short time after the compiler visited the spot in the summer of 1869. The trunk was then entirely hollow, and a person might stand in it; but its decay had been gracefully concealed, in part, by a circle of trained morning-glories exhibiting a thoughtful care and touch- ing reverence for a relic of the past, which is linked with "a race that has had no faithful historian."
THE PAINTED ROCKS .- About two miles above the village of Great Bend, the Susquehanna River is quite narrow, with high rocks on each side of the stream. It seems as if by some great convulsion of nature, a passage had been opened through the mountain of rock for the passage of the river, form- ing high precipices on each side of the stream. The Erie Railroad, by their improvement, have cut away the rock on the north side, thus destroying the original beauty of this once interesting spot. The top of the cliffs were once covered with trees and a thick undergrowth, and many a deer while fleeing before the hounds has unwittingly taken the fatal leap from the top of this precipice. And the wary fox, too, fleeing before the pursuing loud-mouthed beagles, has from these cliffs taken his last leap, being dashed upon the fro- zen river below.
This romantic locality was known to the early settlers as the Painted Rocks, from the fact, that, high upon the face of one of these cliffs, and far above the reach of man, was the painted figure of an Indian Chief. The out- lines of this figure were plainly visible to the earliest white visitors of this valley ; but long after the outlines had faded, the red, which predominated in this figure, still remained; this in after years caused the inhabitants not familiar with the early history to call the place "Red Rock," and by that name it is known to this day. As to how and when this once beautiful painting was made on these rocks, at a place, too, apparently inaccessible to man, has been the subject of much mystery and many conjectures, for this full-length portrait was evidently done by a skilful artist's hand, long be- fore the whites had settled in these parts.1
Before the settlement of Susquehanna County, according to a statement in 'Wilkinson's Annals of Binghamton,' "a purchase was made of the Susquehanna valley from the Great Bend to Tioga Point, by five gentlemen of Philadelphia, viz., Messrs. Thomas, Bingham, Hooper, Wilson, and Coxe. Thomas's patent embraced the Bend, and extended six miles down the river; then Bingham's patent, extending from Thomas's west- ern line to two or three miles beyond the village of Bingham-
1 By J. Du Bois, Esq.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
ton, two miles wide, lying equally on both sides of the river." No account of the Thomas patent can be found at Harrisburg.
Mr. Wilkinson adds, that when Joshua and William Whitney came, in 1787, to the valley of the Chenango, near its junction with the Susquehanna River, they found two or three families living at Great Bend.1 These were doubtless the Strongs at the west bend, the Comstocks at the east bend (now Harmony), and the Bucks between them at Red Rock. At least these families might have been found there, in the fall of 1787. It is known that the first two families preceded the last named, though it is not positively stated which one of the two was first in the vicinity; but Ozias Strong, formerly of Lee, Mass., was the first settler, so far as can now be ascertained, within the limits of the present town of Great Bend, and the first resident purchaser of land under Pennsylvania title.
Besides the above, the only settlers now known to have been here, in 1788, were Enoch Merryman and wife, and their son Bishop and his wife; Nathaniel Gates and wife with five chil- dren, and three sons-in-law-Jedediah Adams, David Lilly, and William Coggswell, with their wives; Jonathan Bennett (in Oakland first) with his sons Jonathan and James, and his sons- in-law, Asa Adams and Stephen Murch, with Thomas Bates and Simeon Wylie, sons-in-law of Rev. Daniel Buck. All had families.
In 1789, John Baker, a native of Hatfield, Massachusetts, came to Great Bend, at the age of twenty-four, and soon after married Susanna, a daughter of Ozias Strong.
The public records of Luzerne County show, that Ozias Strong, June 9, 1790, bought of Tench Francis, for one hundred and thirty pounds sterling, four hundred and fifty-three acres of land north of the river, in the vicinity of the present Great Bend bridge. Two days later, Benajah Strong (possibly a brother of Ozias) bought, of the same landholder, six hundred and one acres, south of the river, on both sides of the mouth of the Salt Lick. This tract was sold by B. Strong, September 21, 1791, to Minna Du Bois and Seth Putnam, for seven hun- dred pounds sterling. Minna Du Bois was made attorney for his brother Abraham, of Philadelphia, June 23, 1791.
On the same day of Ozias Strong's purchase, Tench Francis gave deeds to other parties. Ichabod, Enoch, and Benjamin Buck bought of him one hundred acres for one hundred and twenty-five pounds.
1 The village which soon clustered around the Whitneys was supplanted after a few years by the settlement at Chenango Point, now Binghamton. This was laid out into village lots in 1800. A saw-mill was erected in 1788, on Castle Creek, and a grist-mill, in 1790, on Fitch's Creek, in the town of Conklin. These were the first mills in all the region. See ' Annals of Binghamton.'
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
Elisha Leonard1 had lands adjoining Ozias Strong's (which adjoined S. Murch's), and Edward Davis's also adjoined lands of E. Leonard's.
But few items have been preserved of the families who came to Great Bend before 1790. The Merrymans were here when Nathaniel Gates came. The latter had lived, previous to 1778, at Wyoming, though he was from home, engaged in his coun- try's service, when the massacre took place. Mrs. Gates fled with others to the mountains, and finally reached Connecticut, with her seven children, where she was afterwards joined by her husband. One child being sick, during her flight, was carried by a neighbor; while Mrs. Gates carried another in her arms and one on her back-the rest were able to walk.
The family had lived in Wayne County before coming to Great Bend. Three children of N. Gates were drowned in the Susquehanna, but their bodies were recovered and buried at Great Bend, February 16, 1791.
Polly, daughter of Asa Adams, and two young men of the Strong family, and Samuel Murch, and his sister Polly, had been drowned, previously, in the same stream. [No name occurs more frequently among the early wives and sisters than Polly-always a synonym for Mary.]
Not far from this time, a son of Mr. Gates, who had been taken prisoner by the Indians while the family lived on the Delaware, escaped and reached Philadelphia where he learned the whereabouts of his parents. He came on via Mt. Pleasant, from which there were only marked trees to guide him, the snow being twelve inches deep. When within a hundred rods of a hunter's shanty, where Phinney's hotel now stands, in New Milford, his strength gave out. He was about to lie down in despair, when he saw the sparks from the shanty, which so revived him he was able to get there; but he could not speak, so badly was he frozen. He was able, at length, to tell where his friends were-about six miles distant; and the hunter, after two or three days, managed to notify them, when they took him home; but, for days, his life was despaired of.
James Parmeter may have been here as early as some of those previously mentioned, but was not here when the Bucks came.
" He built his 'log cabin' on the south side of the Susquehanna, near the south end of the present bridge across the river. For some time he sub-
1 " Not many rods from the farm house of the late Abraham Du Bois, on the place formerly owned by Seelye and Daniel Trowbridge, there is a fine spring of fresh water, clear as a crystal, always flowing, never freezing in winter, but cold as ice-water. This spring, since my earliest recollections, has been called, and is well known to this day, as Leonard's spring. My father (A. Du Bois) told me it was named after an early settler ; and I think the one named above." J. D. B.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
sisted by hunting and fishing. One of the first Connecticut settlers, who came into this county, and was on his way to a settlement not far south of Montrose, and who staid over night at his cabin, told me that his cabin was then completely covered with the skins of wild beasts, among which he saw those of the panther, bear, wolf, deer, and wildcats. As other settlers came into this valley and commenced to settle further west, he, from the necessity arising from his location, was transformed from a simple hunter into a hotel keeper and ferryman (1793) ; for these early pioneers would stop at his house, as it was the only one near, and he assisted them to cross the river. As it could not be forded, except at very low water, he was compelled to build a ferry boat, as his house could not hold these blockaded travelers, the travel having now greatly increased by settlements further west, even as far as the lake country."
John Baker bought a piece of wild land, went to work, and after he had nearly paid for it, found there was a mortgage on it for more than it was worth; he gave it up and bought another, and built a log cabin. He was prospered for a time, but one day as he and his wife were returning from work in the field they found their house and all its contents had been burned up; nothing was left except the clothes they had on. He sold his land and moved to Homer, New Jersey, in 1794. He had then three children. He came back to Great Bend to spend the following winter, and here, March 1795, his son, David J. Baker, was born. From him (now living at Dryden, N. Y., in his seventy-seventh year) we learn that his parents returned to Homer, in a canoe, as soon as the ice was out of the river, the same spring. His was the ninth family in the township (Homer) of ten miles square.
The 'Bellevue (O.) Gazette' of a recent date contained a bio- graphical sketch of Mr. Baker, from which the following items are taken :-
" His parents died when he was quite young. He never went to school a day. At the age of eighteen he served six months in the Revolutionary army. " At Great Bend he and his wife joined the Presbyterian Church, and re- mained consistent professors of religion all their lives. His wife taught him to read and write, and by his own efforts he acquired an education. He was a man of good natural ability, and fond of argument. Of the four sons and three daughters born to them here, three sons are still living ; two at the west, and David in Dryden, N. Y. He was the first deacon of the church in this town."
Mr. D. J. Baker adds : " The Strongs all left Great Bend after my father did. My grandfather, Ozias Strong, had a family of six sons and six daugh- ters, namely : Major Joseph, Horatio, Francis, Zadock, Peltiah and Abner. His daughters with their husbands' names were, Beulah Treet, Roxy Benedict, Hannah Gates, Susanna Baker, Polly Jones, and Lovina Todd. Peltiah was drowned in the Susquehanna River while his father lived at Great Bend; the rest of this large family lived to a good old age, and all but one of them had large families. When Horatio left the Bend, he settled in the valley of the Scioto River in Ohio, and had a family nearly as large as his father. When my grandfather, Ozias Strong, left the Bend, he, together with three of his sons (Francis, Zadock, and Abner, who were then unmarried) settled at South Cortland, which was then called Homer, on 350 acres of land. When Major Joseph Strong left the Bend, he settled in Manlius, Onondaga County, New
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
York, in 1812; he moved to Huron County, Ohio, in 1814 ; Zadock followed him in 1815 ; Francis Strong and my father, John Baker, who married Susanna Strong, followed them in 1816, and in 1825 or 1826 Abner and Aunt Todd, she being then a widow, followed; and all settled near each other in Ohio, on a ridge of land which is to this day called Strong's Ridge. Zadock Strong's marriage was the first marriage of the settlers of Homer, N. Y. He and his bride rode on horseback through the woods from Homer to Ludlowville, in Tompkins County, N. Y., a distance of thirty miles, to find the nearest person who was qualified to perform the marriage ceremony. Uncle David Jones, from Boston, who married Aunt Polly Strong, bought my grandfather's farm at South Cortland, and took care of the old people the last years of their lives. Capt. Benajah Strong moved to Lansingville, N.Y.
" I left Great Bend with my parents when an infant, but I remember of their speaking of Stephen Murch so frequently that it is to me like a household word."
The following sketch by J. Du Bois, Esq., is copied by per- mission from the 'Northern Pennsylvanian.'
" LATHROP ISLAND .- About one-third of a mile above the Great Bend Bridge, in the middle of the Susquehanna River, there was formerly a beautiful island, known as Lathrop Island, thus named from the fact that one Ralph Lathrop,1 a very early settler, cleared it up and cultivated it. When the whites first came into this valley, this was quite a large island, some acres in extent, the surface being very level, and as high above water as the shore opposite. The early settlers said that a part of this island had been cleared by the Indians. Upon being questioned about it, the Indian Doctor told me that this island was a great resort for Indian fishing and hunting parties ; in fact, the Indian picnic grounds. Here all the canoes for miles around, filled with the dusky sons of the forest, and their wives and little ones, came at stated periods to hunt, to fish, to feast, and to celebrate some of their games. One of their games was a boat race ; this always took place soon after landing. Many strove for the honors ; for he who paddled his canoe around the island and came to the starting-point first was immediately invested with all the honor and power of a chief, to last during the festivities or stay upon the island. The victor's word for the time being was law, and the entire pro- ceedings of the party during the festivities were directed by him. Long after this valley was settled by the whites, this beautiful island was the favorite resort of the settlers and their children. Here they came in boats, with their wives and little ones, not forgetting cooking utensils, for our mothers and grandmothers were not content with 'cold victuals,' as the custom now is at picnics, but here, upon this almost enchanted spot, they cooked the tender venison and fresh fish provided by their husbands and sons, not forgetting to bring cakes and other good things.
" This island, except a fine cluster of large trees left at its head for its pro- tection, and a fringe of beautiful shade trees around its border, was cleared. No such charming and inviting spot could be found in this vicinity, and it was the favorite for picnic parties for many years ; now nothing remains of it but unsightly gravel bars. This once beautiful place of resort was de- stroyed by mischievous boys. The timber standing at the head of the island, and which had for ages protected it from destruction, was the receptacle of vast quantities of driftwood. These boys went upon the island one summer's day, in a dry time, and set this driftwood on fire, which destroyed the trees ; and as soon as their roots decayed, this once beautiful place became an easy prey to the destructive ice floods of the Susquehanna; and this once charm- ing spot, for pleasure parties and recreation, is lost to the citizens of this neighborhood for all time to come.
1 Mr. Lathrop was a son-in-law of Priest Buck. He afterwards became in- sane.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
" If any one wishes to satisfy himself as to this island being once the resort of the Indian fishermen, let him take a walk along the north shore of the river opposite, and he can, even now, find any number of the sinkers used by the red men. They fished with a hand line ; a round or oval stone from two to three inches in length, and from one-half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness was selected, a notch was cut in each edge, around this the end of the main line was fastened, short lines and hooks were attached to the main line, after the hooks were baited, the sinker was thrown far out into deep water, and the line, to use a sailor's expression, 'hauled taut,' and the least motion on the short lines was conveyed to the hand of the fisherman with almost electric speed."
Incidents in the early history of the Susquehanna Valley are related by J. B. Buck, a son of Capt. Ichabod Buck, whose father was the Rev. Daniel Buck referred to below. (Most of these were contributed to the 'Susquehanna Journal,' published at Susquehanna Depot.)
" My great-grandfather, Eben Buck, was an Englishman ; his son Daniel, my grandfather, was a Presbyterian minister, ordained in Connecticut, his native State. In early life he was engaged in the old French war, in which he distinguished himself, and rose to rank and high position. He was a self- made man, and a doctor as well as minister. In 1786, he left the valley of the Mohawk, near Albany, where he had resided some years, and brought his family with teams to Otsego Lake, crossed it and came down the river in canoes, seventy miles, to near where Windsor village now stands. Here he remained nearly two years, and then moved down to Red Rock. My father (the oldest son) and Uncle Benjamin were then married and had families. Father built his house just north of where the Erie Railroad passes through the tunnel, Uncle Benjamin just south of this place, and grandfather between them, on the line of the track over the tunnel. The old cellars are now to be seen.
" When my father came to Red Rock, it was all wild. But on examination some marks were found that could not be accounted for. The high rocks on the river were painted red, and on the island was found the foundation of a house. This was found quite plain when the land was cleared up and plowed, but it had been so long ago that it was grown up with trees. There for five years he had to pound the grain in a mortar to make flour and bread. There I was born, when but few whites were there, but hundreds of Indians often passed up and down. There were no roads-nothing but a path in the woods.
" After this time a mill was built at Tioga Point (now Athens), and we went with a canoe to mill-62 miles. About this time father subscribed for a paper published by Mr. Miner at Wilkes-Barre. It was about ten by twelve inches to the page. We took it two years, and then it was doubled, and it was enlarged again from time to time.
"My father was of steady habits, and possessed a strong, observing mind. After one year grandfather and Uncle Benjamin removed down the river a mile or two; the latter on the farm since known as Newman's, and the former on that one long owned and occupied by the Dimons, near the Bend bridge. Uncle Denton (Enoch) did not come in quite as soon as father; he located at Taylortown.
" Father and uncle had begun to farm, and families would often get in a strife ; by agreement, when haying and harvesting were over, we would have a holiday. One day uncle took his oxen and cart and brought his family to father's, and all went on the hill for huckleberries. We filled all the pails, and then went to killing rattlesnakes. That afternoon we killed 411. It will be understood that in August the females go back to their dens to have their young. We killed 33 old ones, and the rest of the 411 were young ones.
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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
" Here was found great abundance of wild animals of different kinds, and birds also. When out late at evening we were often followed by panthers, but never molested. At one time the wolves drove a deer upon the ice on the Susquehanna, not far from our house, and caught it. After devouring it, they had, a frolic. We had a horn made of a sea-shell. We ran out with the horn, and, after watching them at their play, sounded the horn. They stopped at once ; then, catching the echo rather than the first sound, they ran directly towards us till about half way, when they stopped a moment, discovered their mistake, and then ran up the river for a mile for dear life. There were fifteen of them.
" I well remember the first wagon brought here. It was drawn by four oxen. Father bought the fore wheels, and uncle the hind ones. The tires were in six pieces for each wheel-spiked on. Brought from Boston by a Mr. Dorset."
" Fire was obtained either by flashing powder, or with the flint and steel. Friction matches were not invented for fifty years afterward. It was always expected that fire would be kept on every hearth. If by neglect the fire went out, it was common for families to send half a mile to a neighbor's for fire.
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