USA > Pennsylvania > Tioga County > History of Tioga County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations, portraits and sketches of prominent families and individuals > Part 60
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Nathan Niles was commissioned justice of the peace
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THE WILLIARDS OF TIOGA.
for the whole county January 7th 1808, and in the fall of the same year was elected one of the first commissioners of the county, by whom the initial steps were taken for the official administration of it; he was also collector of taxes for the year 1804 under the Lycoming county con- trol of Tioga township. The Bible record of his birth and death, as also that of his wife, was lost in the de- struction by fire of A. E. Niles's house, in October 1878, and hence definite dates of these events cannot be given here. He died about 1837, in his 83d or 84th year.
COBIN VAN CAMP, who came here at about the same time with Spencer and Niles, settled on a part of the south end of the Crozier tract, and his house was erected on the spot now occupied by David L. Aiken's. It is not known whence the family came, or whether of New Jer- sey or Pennsylvania stock. Van Camp sold a portion of his claim on the north to Benjamin Bentley, that on the south after his death probably passing into the hands of John S. Allen. Four members of the Van Camp family died very nearly together- the son Benjamin and a daughter of "Polly's " first, and about 1815 the father and mother, dying within a few days of each other, the mother last, and all of them were buried in the Van Camp burying ground, on their own land. There were six children in all, William, Benjamin, Isaac, Solomon, Ella and Mary. The surviving members of the family early moved away.
THE WILLARD FAMILY .- Dr. William Willard, a native of Lenox, Mass., born February 5th 1762, married Mary Rathbone at Troy, N. Y., October 13th 1791; moved from thence to Middleton, Rutland county, Vt., in the winter of 1793, and finally to Tioga February 1798. He settled on land occupied by the Roberts family, prob- ably purchasing a portion of the Peter Roberts claim, and finally the whole of it, occupying all that space which lay between the claim of Benajah Ives on the south and that of John Ives on the north. He built a square log house on the ground now occupied by Philo Tuller's drug store and the post-office, consisting of two rooms on the first floor and a sleeping loft or chamber above. Here he commenced the business of inn keep- ing, opening his house to public accommodation, and it soon became the nucleus around which gathered the business and subsequent growth of Tioga village, or rather "Willardsburg," for it was chiefly so called by the old residents, not only of the place itself but gener- ally of the county, up to 1837-8. At this time A. C. Bush was postmaster, and, the name of the post-office as well as of the township being Tioga, he sent a large number of circulars to post-offices throughout the country, stating the name of the office and township, and that its proper designation was not "Willardsburg." Dr. Willard was then dead. The fortunes of William Willard jr. were then on the wane, and he soon after removed to Wil- liamsport, when the old term of designation gradually grew out of use, with the disappearance of the family itself.
Dr. William Willard was an intelligent and enterprising man, and one whose influence largely commanded re-
spect. He followed his profession of medicine, and was the postmaster of Tioga from July ist 1809 to April Ist 1815, when he was succeeded by his son William. About the year 1809 or 1810 he rebuilt his house, constructing a two-story frame clapboard one on the site of the old. but extending much further south along the Williamson road, our present Main street; the entire length, includ- ing a shed on the south end, being about 120 feet and the breadth 36, with an L part on the north ex- tending back some 60 feet. It had a center hall on the first floor, and a dancing hall above. Subse- quently the son William closed up the shed part, constructing four rooms more on the first floor, and enlarging the dancing hall above. The doctor built at about the same time with the house, or perhaps previously, a saw-mill on the present race of the Bayer saw-mill, further east than the present one and within the west line of the Bartholomew and Patton tract; also the story-and-a-half "red-house," which stood on the site of P. S. Tuttle's dwelling, and in which Jabin S. Bush and wife commenced housekeeping. At one time a store was kept in one of the rooms of this dwell- ing and the upper room or chamber was used as a masonic hall. The son William built the "red store," on the southeast corner of Main and New streets; the old " Wil- lard mansion," on the site of F. E. Smith's residence, subsequently removed by Hiram Adams; the "Willard saw-mill," on the site of the present Bayer mill; the "Willard farm house," on the site of Eleazer Seager's new dwelling, the frame of which the latter removed and it is now the dwelling of his son-in-law, Mr. Lloyd; and the third "Willard saw-mill," on Crooked Creek, sub- sequently that of William B. Kyes. The last three
structures named were built after the acquisition by Wil- liam Willard jr. of the two Robert Morris tracts and the George Meade tract, lying west of the Bartholomew and Patton lands. These tracts he bought about 1821 or 1822, of Judge Charles Huston, consisting in all of over 3,000 acres of very fine pine and hemlock timbered land. In 1838 or 1839 he mortgaged this land to Judge Ellis Lewis, of Williamsport, for $4,000, and to Mrs. Sylvia Parmentier, of Brooklyn, N. Y., for $10,000; by this means Mrs. Parmentier subsequently acquired possession, and since her death the part remaining unsold is the property of her daughters, Mrs. Edward Bayer and Miss R. M. Parmentier. This property includes both the In- dian and Bayer Hills.
Dr. Willard died in one of the rooms of the old public house, October 28th 1836, and was buried on his son William's land, close to the line fence between it and the " old cemetery," west side, which land, by an agreement of some seven years previous between him and James Goodrich, was to be appropriated for cemetery purposes, and to the same extent as the part granted by the latter. A very fine large marble slab was placed horizontally over the grave of the doctor by the son William; and be- neath the same stone the son, dying in 1842, was buried; and the mother in 1864, in Evergreen cemetery. The remains of the father and son were some three or four
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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.
years since removed to the Evergreen cemetery, through the instrumentality of Mr. Snyder, of Williamsport, a son-in-law, and a suitable monument was ereeted to their memory.
Of the family of Dr. Willard there were the wife, Mary Rathbone, who was born at Providence, R. I., April 4th 1770, and died at the house of her grandson, H. W. Caulking, February 29th 1864: William jr., born at Troy, N. Y., July 6th 1792, died at Tioga, October 16th 1842; Mary Ann, born at Troy, September 19th 1793, died at Elmira, July 19th 1874; and Henry, born at Middleton, Vt., April 3d 1796, who died in West Tennessee, Decem- ber 17th 1858. Mrs. Dr. Willard was a cousin of Major William Rathbone.
William Willard jr. was postmaster at Tioga from April Ist 1815 to 1819, when he was succeeded by John Berry; was county treasurer by appointment of the county commissioners for the years 1825 and 1826, and was one of the incorporators of the Tioga Navigation Company, the first meeting of which, to receive subscriptions to stock, was held at the house of A. D. Caulking, Wells- boro, Monday May Ist 1826. After the change of this company to a railroad company by various aets of the Legislature he was one of the directors of it, and it is be- lieved he was for a short period its president. About 1836 he had the survey of a railroad route from Tioga to Jersey Shore, via Pine Creek, made by Civil Engineer Hovey, of Williamsport. He was the contractor for building the first " Burr bridge " in the county, generally known as the " Berry " or "red bridge," spanning the river above Tioga by a single arch, 165 feet long, con- strueted during Job Geer's commissionership, 1831-34, and which still stands, after fifty years of service, one of the best publie bridges in the county. Robert Mathews and Clinton and Jerome Brady were the mechanics, and the material for the arches, bents, braces, ete., was sawed by Joseph Fish sen. from the best quality of pine timber, such as would be very valuable to-day. In 1836 Mr. Willard received the Whig nomination of the district for Congress, in opposition to Samuel W. Morris, the Demo- cratie nominee. He made a strong and vigorous cam- paign and one of much excitement, but was defeated. In 1825 and 1826 he was in trade at Tioga, and again in 1837 and 1838 in eopartnership with E. W. Derow. About 1839 he purchased property at Williamsport, and removed his family there; but often returned himself to look after his property interests at Tioga.
Notwithstanding his peculiar character and habits he was kind and indulgent to his family, and endeavored to give them good opportunities for education, and this was said to be his chief motive for moving to Williamsport. He sent Waldo, his eldest son, to Yale College, and the young man was there at the time of his father's death, which resulted in a discontinuance of his studies. While the family were yet at the old farm house at Tioga he en- gaged an Italian by the name of Gaetano Meucei, who spoke both the French and English tongues as well as his own, to teach his family the French. Mary Ann, the eldest daughter, was probably much benefitted by his in-
struction, as he remained in the family for some length of time.
This tutor was a very singular man, and is worthy of some description here. He was tall and slim, with a full round chest, dark hair and eyes, aequiline nose, and a countenance rather stern and morose, though at times, in his more cheerful tnoods, it seemed pleasant and agreeable enough to his friends and acquaintances. It was understood that he was a political refugee, who had left Italy for his participation in the revolutionary insur- rection in Modena and Bologna in 1831 against the papal authority, which was suppressed by Austrian inter- vention; and he was supposed to have been a member of the carbonari, as were also the sons of Louis Bonaparte, who were obliged to flee Italy for the same offense. He sailed from that country in a merchant vessel bound for the United States, and Mr. Willard found him in Phila- delphia and brought him to Tioga. Generally he was cheerful and social enough, but at times extremely de- spondent, and then much inclined to excessive use of the eup. The writer has reason to remember the man with gratitude, for his friendship brought him the first knowl- edge of the elements of a French grammar, and also the gift of a book-a universal history. On leaving Mr. Wil- lard's service the tutor went to Williamsport, where he was for a time lodged in prison for debt; but through the generous intervention of the young men of that place it was paid, and he was liberated. He subsequently went to Virginia, and became a professor in the William and Mary College, Williamsburg.
The original town plot of Tioga was laid out by Wil- liam Willard jr .; that is, Cowanesque, Center and Walnut streets, and Meeting House Alley, and at a later date the fine avenue, 100 feet wide, known as Broad street. The two streets farther north styled Berry and Willard are of a recent origin, opened about ten years since; Summit street about the same date; and New street, an extension of Wellsboro street, about twenty-five years ago. Mr. Willard sold in August 1836 the ground now occupied by the Catholic church for the construction of a school- house thereon, which was built by Hobart B. Graves. It was a very good and substantial building for the time, and was used for the village school from about 1836 up to the construction of the present one, on Broad street, in 1859. He also gave the ground for the Methodist Episcopal church, by deed executed March 11th 1834, through the solieitation of Munsell, Burlingame, Fish and others, in order to obtain as a result of it a promised subseription of $100 from A. C. Bush, when title was so acquired. He had verbally donated the ground as early as 1826 for the construction of a union church, and as the deed was requested for the Methodist association it was finally reluctantly acceded to.
Mr. Willard died while on a visit to his property at Tioga, at the house of one of his tenants-the "old Mansfield house," on Crooked Creek, and at the point of the hill a short distance above the third railroad bridge. His death resulted chiefly from inflammation and ex- haustion ensuing from obstinate hemorrhoids of long
THE INSCHO AND ELLIOTT FAMILIES OF TIOGA.
257
standing; a disease which was also mainly instrumental in the death of his son Waldo.
Of Mr. Willard's family there were Waldo, Mary Ann, "Tinker" (who finally christened himself Willard Wil- lard), Julia, Jerusha, Josephine, Levanche and Eugene, and two children who died early and were buried on the south line of the present Willard street. Mrs. Willard, who was Clarissa Lamb, daughter of Glad Lamb and sis- ter of Lorain, died in March 18SI, at Williamsport, aged about 87 years.
Waldo Willard married Ann De Pui for his first wife; his second was Sarah Maynard, and his third Emily Wickham; at his death he left two children at Williams- port, and a son of the last wife, named Waldo, is at pres- ent in Tioga; Julia, who taught school for some time at Tioga, married a physician named Smith, at Washara, Wis .: Jerusha married Dr. Hall; Josephine, Mr. Mitchell; and Levanche, Henry Snyder, grandson of Governor Snyder.
Henry Willard, second son of Dr. Willard, married Nancy Hall. In 1826 he kept a public house at South- port, McKean county, and finally moved to west Ten- nessee, where he died in 1858, and where his descendants are at present living.
An old cherry desk, standing on a table, three feet long by two wide, with a sloping lid or cover, and con- taining within it ten drawers and ten pigeon holes, once the property of Dr. Willard, and transferred by him to James Goodrich when the latter became postmaster, is now in the possession of the writer, by special gift; and he regards it as a valuable memento of one of the early settlers prior to the present century.
THE INSCHO FAMILY .- Obadiah Inscho, the grand- father and great-grandfather of the present Inschos of Tioga village and township, came from Delaware in 1798, and settled on the river a little above Lawrenceville; and his son John, who married Lovina Mitchell, subsequently moved into the limits of Tioga township, a little north of Robert Mitchell's. It is supposed from the orthogra- phy of the name, and the State from which the father came, that he was of Danish or Swedish extraction, and a descendant from one of the earliest families of Dela- ware. He was about 40 years of age when he came, and had sons Isaiah, Thomas, Moses, John, Obadiah, Robert and Solomon, and daughters Ruby K., Judith J. and Lo- vina M. He died May 9th 1820, aged 62 years, and is buried in the Bentley graveyard. John Inscho was born November Ist 1789, and died April 20th 1865. His wife, Lovina, daughter of Richard Mitchell sen., was born August 26th 1795, and died November 11th 1861; and they are both interred in the Mitchell burying ground. They had children Richard I., who died Jan- uary 20th 1875, aged nearly 59 years, and was buried in John Elliott was born November 3d 1760, and died December 13th 1845; his wife, Penina, born March LIth 1777, died August 29th 1870; Augustus, their son, Evergreen cemetery; Ruby K., wife of Alpheus Keeney; Obadiah; Judith J., wife of Samuel Broakman; John J., William M. and Lovina M. Mrs. R. P. Inscho, widow of born January 18th 1809, died March ist 1849; Julia Richard J., and their two sons, James L. and Jesse P., are residents of Tioga village.
THE ELLIOTT FAMILY .- John Elliott was a resident
of Lawrence township up to the date of his death, but the remains of himself, wife, son and daughter are bur- ied in the Evergreen cemetery at Tioga, and his business relations were much with Tioga during his residence on the old farm. He was born in Kent, Litchfield county, Conn., and was a lineal descendant in the fourth degree from John Elliott of missionary fame. He was first cousin to the first wife of Uriah Spencer, and related to the Hon. James Hillhouse, of New Haven, Conn., whose mother was an Elliott. He came early in the spring of ISoo with a Connecticut title, having bought an interest in Uriah Spencer's purchase from the Hon. James Hill- house. He crossed the Hudson River at Catskill March end of that year, on the ice, it having frozen very hard the night previous, with two sleighs and two teams of horses. The sleighs were run over by hand, and the horses led singly with a long rope noosed around the neck of each. He succeeded in getting to Unadilla with his sleighs; there put his effects on a raft, floated down to Tioga Point, and stopped at the house of Judge Her- rick. Thence he came to Tioga and procured the ser- vices of Robert Mitchell, with a canoe, and returned to Tioga Point for his goods. On their return from that place he stopped at Erwin Centre, and there learned of the arrest of Uriah Spencer and his conveyance to the Lycoming county jail. He thought it best to remain out of Pennsylvania, and did so until IST1, when he removed to the village of Lawrenceville, occupying land that was subsequently acquired by James Ford, and for which he paid Michael R. Tharp-brother-in-law of James Ford- as agent for the same, 8400 down as part payment. In some manner this payment was lost, and he was forced to sell his interest at Lawrenceville to James Ford in 1816; and, going farther up the stream, he bought what is now known as the "Elliott farm," of John Shepard at $4 per acre, with the improvements of Uriah Spencer, who formerly occupied it. He subsequently entered by warrant, at 26 cents per acre, a vacant tract of land ad- joining him on the south. It contained 65 acres, in a triangular shape, and lying along the west bank of the Tioga. Mr. Elliott was a justice of the peace in his na- tive State, and had also been a member of its Legis- lature. In 1878, shortly after the death of Julia Elliott, the writer had occasion to make some inquiries of his father in regard to John Elliott, and the reply was: "He was a good man; an honest, conscientious, upright one; and as long as I knew him I never heard his neighbors question his integrity of character." His wife was Penina Walter, nearly 17 years younger than he. It is said that when she was a mere child he took her on his knee, and said to her he was going to wait for her to grow up to be his wife.
Elliott, spinster, born June 27th ISto, died July 27th 1878. The eldest son, William, died, it is believed, in Allegany county, N. Y., leaving his property to Julia;
32
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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.
and Julia, after her father's death, became owner of the old homestead, and managed it until her death, in 1878. She willed the same, after certain bequests, to her brother John, living in the west, who generously divided his in- terest with his brother Homer S., residing in Lycoming county. The old homestead house, with its porch and four tall, round columns, with a sign post from which depended three black balls, overlooking from its promi- nent position the valley to the east, and kept as it was for many years as a house of entertainment, has in its day been an object of much curiosity and tradition, and though the sign of the three black balls is gone, and the house no longer occupied by any members of the Elliott family, it remains to-day an interesting landmark of for- mer times.
ELIJAH BURLEY .- But little is known of this pioneer except that he was a preacher, and lived in a log house at the head of the Cove, the remains of which were vis- ible for a good many years and occasioned much specula- tion as to its original purpose and occupant, some sup- posing it to have been a sort of frontier fort at a very early day. He was here in 1800, and how much earlier than this period it is difficult to say; Jacob Kiphart does not enumerate him among the settlers when he came, while Jacob's sister Betsey remembers such a man, that he lived somewhere up the river, and that he was a preacher. It is not known that he had a family, or whether he built the house in which he lived, or whence he came, or when he went away. However, he must have remained here several years, for Harris Hotchkiss, who came in 1804, had a knowledge and recollection of the man, which is a fact remembered by tradition through his son Dennis.
THE PRUTSMAN FAMILY .- Nicholas Prutsman, the grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grand- father of the Prutsman family of Tioga, was here also in 1800, as were widow Boher and her daughter Eleanor, who came from the same section of country and at the same time. The father of Nicholas Prutsman, whose name was also Nicholas, was of German or Dutch descent, and came from the Rhineland, accompanied by two brothers, about the year 1762. One of the brothers set- tled near Philadelphia, the other near Pittsburg, and Nicholas in South Smithfield township, north of Easton, in Northampton county, this State. The son Nicholas jr. sold his farm at the place above mentioned, came in the year 1800 to Tioga, and settled on what has subse. quently been known as the De Pui farm. He was a mill- wright by occupation, as well as a farmer. He built him- self a log dwelling, close by the group of some fifteen apple trees which he planted and which are still standing, seen on the right bank of the race as you cross the bridge below the Abram Prutsman homestead. He was here four years before his sons came, and in the mean- time worked industriously clearing land. In 1804 his sons Jacob, Nicholas and Adam also came from South Smithfield, now Monroe county, coming by the same route the father did, over Pocono Mountain to Wilkes- Barre, thence by the State road zia Wyalusing to Tioga
Point, and thence to Newtown and Painted Post, where Jacob's family remained one week, until he and his brothers had time to visit the father at Tioga, pick out a location for settlement, and return to bring them to it. He brought with him a wagon, a span of horses, and some cows, which were milked on the road and butter made in the churn by the jolting of the wagon. His family accompanying him consisted of his wife and four eldest children, John, Polly, Abram and Betsey, of whom the two daughters are still living, one the widow of Elias and the other of Abram Westbrook. He erected a log house-a very rude one-on the spot where now stands his son Abram's homestead, and occupied for his claim a tract lying between that of his father, Nicholas, on the north, and that of George Prekay on the south, including lands both in the Thomas Willing and Robert Crozier warrants. Soon after the arrival of the sons the father commenced the construction of a grist-mill about forty rods above the De Pui mill, subsequently built. It had one run of stones, and is said to have been the first erected in the county.
Nicholas Prutsman jr., who had married previous to his coming, settled in a log house on the site of the old Elliott mansion. Adam returned to Northampton county, married there. and came back to Tioga, when shortly afterward he and Nicholas jr. moved to the town of Jasper, Steuben county, N. Y.
Jacob bought or acquired through George Prekay a large addition to his farm, and subsequently built a saw- mill on Bear Creek, now on the rear part of Hiram Adams's farm, said to have been the second one erected in the township, either Dr. Willard's or Uriah Spencer's having preceded it. The mill, though of rude construc- tion, supplied a large quantity of lumber for the local wants of the community, as well as for transportation down the river. In 1827 he built a new mill on the west bank of the river, not far from the present residence of A. M. Prutsman, and constructed a dam across the river, both of which, for that time, were works of considerable magnitude and cost. From this mill he sent large quan- tities of lumber, in rafts and arks, to market on the lower Susquehanna. He also shipped in the arks grain and farm produce.
Jacob's trade previous to leaving Northampton county was that of a cabinet-maker, and for a number of years after his settlement at Tioga his services were much in demand for supplying coffins to various sections of the county. A very large bureau, or high chest of drawers, made by him, is now in the possession of his daughter Margaret-Mrs. Edwin Goodrich-and is not a very bad relic in these times of antiquarian rage for old furniture. He built a second log house, of more ample size and completeness, on the site of the present old "Prutsman mansion," and about the year 1831 the mansion itself, at which place he lived until he sold the farm to his son, George, himself and daughter Rachel removing to the Vaillant or J. W. Guernsey house, in the village, about the year 1851.
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