USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 50
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From the beginning until 1818 the meetings were held for the most part in private houses or barns, and occasionally the school-house. In 1817 a house of worship was begun on the site now occupied by the Swedish church, and was completed and first used in 1818. It was a small, cheap, structure, and in 1827 was replaced by a second edifice, which is now occupied for pur- poses of worship by the members of the Swedish Lutheran Church. This house the Methodists were satisfied with until about 1882. In that year their present convenient and commodious church edifice was built. A Sabbath- school was started about sixty years ago, and has been kept up ever since ; the average attendance upon the Sabbath-school is now said to be about fifty. The present trustees of the church and parsonage are Willard J. Davis, John Agrelius, Erastus A. Davis, G. A. Jackson, John Jackson, J. I. Sanford, M. D. Whitney, John Black, Henry Mead. The Sabbath-school superintendent is J. I. Sanford. The other church officers are, stewards, John Agrelius, Sarah Agrelius, Erastus A. Davis, Adelia Davis, W. H. Shortt, Willard J. Davis, Miss Florence Chipman, and Mrs. Jane Thatcher. J. I. Sandford is class leader. There is now a membership in the church of about 125.
In the first half of this century, at the same time that she displayed her
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
unselfish interest in the town by building the stone school-house at Irvineton, Mrs. William Irvine showed her devotion to her spiritual faith by also con- structing, or causing to be constructed, a church in the same community, in which the Presbyterians for some time worshiped, but which is now occupied in common by the Presbyterians and Methodists. The services of the former denomination are conducted by the Presbyterian clergyman from Sugar Grove, and of the latter by the pastors of the Methodist Church of Youngsville. There is also at Irvineton a Roman Catholic Church, which was erected in 1871. It is attended by Father Lavery, of Tidioute, and has a membership of about forty families. At Youngsville also the Swedes have established a Lutheran Church, and have since their organization, some three years ago, occupied the old Methodist Church, though at the present writing they are engaged in building a neat and commodious edifice of their own.
CHAPTER XXXV.
HISTORY OF SUGAR GROVE TOWNSHIP.
"HIS township was formed, as will be seen by reference to the general chapter devoted to the history of township organization, on the 8th of March, 1821, and was called, for immediate convenience, " Number Three." Its northern boundary line is coincident with the southern limit of the State of New York (Chautauqua county). It is bounded on the east by the town- ship of Farmington, south by Brokenstraw and parts of Conewango and Pitts- field, and west by Freehold. The southeastern part of this town is drained by Jackson Run, which flows thence southeasterly through the southern part of Farmington and the northeastern part of Conewango, into Conewango Creek just south of North Warren. Stillwater Creck rises in the western portion of Sugar Grove township and flows easterly through Sugar Grove village, and thence northerly into the State of New York. The soil in the valleys is prin- cipally a gravelly loam, and on the highlands chestnut. The surface was originally covered with a dense growth of forest -on the ridge in the south part with chestnut, to the north with beech and maple, and in the valleys with pine, maple, cherry, and black cherry. The remarkable predominance of maple timber afterward gave to the township its present significant name. For its agricultural wealth Sugar Grove is not surpassed by any region in this part of the State. While dairying is profitable here, it is not the exclusive interest, as the fruits and cereals are easily produced in great abundance.
At the time of the formation of the township a conisderable population had
Rm Gray
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congregated here, composed, for the most part, of the most intelligent and industrious elements of the older societies of the Mohawk valley and New England. A number of the early inhabitants of the town were also natives of Ireland and Scotland. The first permanent settler was undoubtedly Robert Miles, whose son and namesake afterward became prominent in Warren. He came up the river from Pittsburgh in June, 1797, with his family, in the first keel-boat that found its way to Warren. His farm at first embraced an area of nearly three miles square, though it was not rectangular in form. His dwelling house stood about one and one-half miles directly east of the site of Sugar Grove village. (See sketch in later pages of his son Robert.) Soon after his arrival Major Howe, Brigham Howe, and John Dickinson came from Long Island, though none of them was here long enough to become promi- nently identified with the business interests of this part of the county. About 1800 came William Lopsley, the ever-to-be-remembered John Barr, and John Hood; in 1802 John Stuart, and in 1803 James Stuart, all from Ireland. Lopsley made a clearing about two miles east of the village, but moved away at an early day.
John Barr was born in Ireland in 1766. Being of the ardent temperament peculiar to his race, he bore too conspicuous a part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and was forced to flee his native country. His wanderings soon brought him to Sugar Grove, which he decided to make his home. He settled on the summit of the hill, in what is now the village, erecting his dwelling house near the site of the Congregational Church, as it now stands. He is described by those who remember him as an ingenious man, capable of turning his hand at any kind of work, besides engaging in his chosen vocations of agriculture and shoemaking. Many of his descendants are in town at the present day, and are numbered among the most respectable class. Mr. Barr was a born wit, and innumerable amusing anecdotes related to-day attribute their paternity to him. Among his personal possessions was an old-fashioned "bull's-eye" watch, more weighty than accurate. He was, for some reason, perpetually annoyed by questions as to the time of day, to which he invariably replied : "Sex past nine, and be d-d to ye! Keep a time o' your own." In later life Mr. Barr became extremely convivial. He died on the 9th day of January, 1839, and was buried-not with his fathers, but in the village cemetery.
David Brown, who deserves prominent mention by reason of the fact that he probably did more to build up the village of Sugar Grove than any other man, was another pioneer of the county. He was born in Belfast, Ireland, on September 7, 1777, and came to the United States in 1802. He resided in Franklin, Venango county, for a short time, at which place, on the 7th of No- vember, 1803, he married Jennet Broadfoot. Soon after his marriage he removed to Warren, and was for a time in the employ of the Holland Land Company, living in the block-house built by that company on the bank of the
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Conewango Creek, a short distance above the site of the present grist-mill. He was the purchaser from the Commonwealth of a large number of the town lots in Warren borough. He owned land in what is now Sugar Grove village as early as 1806, as the list of taxables of that year sufficiently attests, and moved thither in 1807, or 1808, or possibly as late as 1809. Here he made his permanent home. He erected one of the first framed dwelling houses (by some said to be the first) in Warren county, on the north side of the road from the village to Lottsville, a few rods west of Stillwater Creek, and upon the site of the present residence of James C. Hamilton. His farm had already been partly cleared by John Dickinson. In this house all his children, with the exception of his eldest daughter, were born. The old house has been moved a short distance from its original location, and at this writing (Novem- ber, 1886) still stands, one of the few relics of the early settlement of the vil- lage. Near to the house may still be seen the spring noted among the early settlers for its abundant supply of clear, cold water. Near to his dwelling house Mr. Brown erected, and, to the time of his death, in connection with a farm, carried on a tannery, said to be the first started in the county.
He died November 26, 1825, and is buried in the village cemetery at Sugar Grove. In a lecture on the early history of Warren county, one who knew David Brown well, said : "He was well educated, wrote an elegant hand, and had an casy and flowing style of composition. He possessed the impulsive feelings peculiar to his nation ; was hospitable and generous to a fault. The needy never sought aid of him in vain when it was in his power to relieve them, and he frequently did so to his own pecuniary injury. These estimable qualities were concealed beneath a stern, sedate exterior. He was retiring and diffident, and seldom smiled."
Jennet Broadfoot, who became the wife of David Brown, was born at Wig- ton, Scotland, November 4, 1781. She had the solidity of character, the energy, the quiet resoluteness of purpose, and the tenacious adherence to religious convictions that characterize Scotch Presbyterianism. Attacked by disease that baffled the skill of local physicians, she sought medical treatment at Philadelphia, going the entire distance on horseback, and returning to her home after a few months restored to health. A few years later her husband died, leaving her with limited means to care for a family of seven children, the eldest eighteen years of age. With Christian fidelity, with patient, self-deny- ing love, she met the responsibilities cast upon her. She gave her children such education as was possible with the scanty means at her command, and by precept and example she sought to lead them in the way of Christian liv- ing. She was a friend to the poor, she sympathized with the sorrowing, and her ministrations of love to the sick and the dying were so universal, so con- stant, and so cheerfully rendered, that the benediction of all who knew her rested upon her. She died June 4, 1841, and lies buried by the side of her husband.
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The children of David and Jennet Brown were Mary, now living at Sugar Grove, and the widow of James Jagger ; Barbara, who died at Sugar Grove in 1840, the wife of N. B. Langdon; Catharine, now living at Warren ; John B., who died and was buried at Warren in 1883; Agnes H., now living at Jackson, Mich., and the widow of Walter Fish; James, who died and was buried at Sugar Grove in 1851; and William D., living at Warren, and now the president judge of the thirty-seventh judicial district of Pennsylvania.
About the time of the settlement in Sugar Grove of David Brown, two of his brothers, James and John, also came here to live. The former settled on the farm afterward owned and occupied by Henry Catlin, and went down the river not far from 1820. John was a single man, kept one of the first schools opened in town, and lived with his brother David. He was nineteen years an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, and was prothonotary of Warren county at the time of his death, which happened suddenly at Warren on January 25, 1823, when he was in his thirty-sixth year. He was buried at Sugar Grove with Masonic honors.
Other names found in the tax-list of the county for 1806, belonging to Sugar Grove inhabitants, are those of Charles Byles, William Evans, John Hood, John Portman, and John, James, and William Stuart. The first-named married a daughter of Robert Miles, and resided in town for a number of years. William Evans settled in the south part of the township, in the vicin- ity of Chandler's Valley, where he remained until his death, not long previous to 1840, and where some of his descendants are now living. John Hood was one of the very earliest of the pioneers in this vicinity, being a contemporary arrival with Robert Miles, about 1797 or 1798. He cleared, and occupied all his life after, a farm in the extreme north portion of the township, adjoining the New York State line, on the Jamestown road, and there operated a small grist-mill. He died in the decade of years which closed with 1830. John Portman lived here but a short time, and removed to Pine Grove township. He was still a young man in 1820, and married Pamelia, daughter of Alexan- der Clantz, who was probably the first man on the farm afterward owned by James Brown, and later still by Henry Catlin. Clantz then bought the old Robert Falconer place, and soon went away, giving place to Mr. Falconer himself.
John, James, and William Stuart, three brothers of Irish nativity, settled here between the years 1802 and 1806, residing in the eastern part of the township until their deaths. James died August 3, 1825, aged sixty-eight years eight months and twenty-two days. His wife, Catharine, a sister of John Hood, survived her husband until March 26, 1847, when she followed him, aged eighty-seven years and twenty-eight days. They landed in the United States on the 13th of June, 1795. John Stuart, who was born in Antrim county, Ireland, on the 28th of May, 1780, died in Sugar Grove on
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
the 30th of June, 1862, being the last survivor of the three brothers. He had two sons, James L. and John, the former of whom was born in this town on the 12th of November, 1807, and died in the village on the 24th of May, 1873, leaving a number of descendants in the town. John early went to Clarion county, where he preached the gospel, and ministered as physician, to the ne- cessities of the sick in body.
Clark Dalrymple, who, at the time of his death in July, 1869, was the eldest of the surviving early settlers in Sugar Grove, came here from Massachusetts, his native State, in 1811, when he was but sixteen years of age. In the spring of the next year he was followed by his father, David, who was born in Massa- chusetts in about 1765, and four brothers-David, Mark, Oliver, and Chauncey. The father settled just opposite and about ten rods east of the site of the pres- ent residence of his grandson, Noah Dalrymple (son of Clark), where he remained until about the time of his death in 1840. He also had three daugh- ters, and his descendants now comprise in part a numerous and respectable portion of the population of Warren county.
Abraham D. Ditmars came here from Long Island in the spring of 1814, upon the advertisement and personal importunities of Agent Sacket, of the Holland Land Company, exchanging a farm in Long Island valued at $15,000 for three thousand acres of wild land in this vicinity (and something was given him " to boot"). He selected every alternate tract between what is now Sugar Grove village and Lottsville, after viewing the country in 1813, and established his residence on the top of the hill immediately west of the village. The hardships which he suffered in making the long and perilous journey from Long Island were akin to those that all the pioneers were forced to brave. He brought his family across the Delaware from New Jersey at Easton, traveled thence to Belfonte, and by a rough road to a point opposite Holman's Ferry, on Allegheny River. There he crossed the river and went to the site of Titusville, thence through a trackless wilderness to the rude house of James White, on the Big Brokenstraw; thence to the Widow Mead's, and, by an un- frequented and almost impassable road through Chandler's Valley, to his desti- nation. llis family consisted of his wife, two sons, and five daughters (one of whom afterward became the wife of Darius Mead, of Brokenstraw). They were on the road from the 10th of May to the 19th of June, and stayed two nights in the woods on the Allegheny Mountains, and one night between Titusville and Brokenstraw. At the beginning of the journey they had two good teams and wagons. At the termination they had the fore wheels of one wagon only, and those were nearly a wreck, the family having to travel on foot most of the distance from Brokenstraw. The personal effects were after- ward gathered up with great cost and difficulty.
Mr. Ditmars has been described as a large, athletic man, six feet in height, erect and well proportioned, of gentlemanly bearing, an open countenance,
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large, dark-blue eyes, heavy jutting eyebrows, and a heavy voice. He was convivial to a fault. Another daughter was married to Lansing Wetmore, of Warren. His son, Abraham, jr., taught school in Sugar Grove some time after the year 1820. After living in this town a number of years, Abraham Ditmars returned to Long Island.
David Stilson came to Sugar Grove from Westmoreland, Oneida county, N. Y. (whence many of the early settlers of this town emigrated), in March, 1814, and settled on what has ever since been known as Stilson Hill, in the southwest part of the town. He brought his wife and five children with him, and was obliged to cut his way through the woods. Four children were born to him after his arrival in Sugar Grove. His descendants are still numerous here. He carried on his farm successfully until the time of his death, June 6, 1852, when he had almost reached his seventy-fourth year of life.
In the month of January, 1814, Richard B. Miller, then a young man nearly twenty-three years of age, made his way from Whitestown, N. Y., through Buffalo, up the lake to Mayville, thence through Jamestown and across the country to Sugar Grove, making his home on a piece of land which he had purchased from the Holland Land Company, on which his son Frank R. Miller now resides. He had married on the preceding month. He passed through Buffalo only two weeks after the destruction of that village by the British and Indians, when the whole site of the present city contained but one little log house, then occupied by a widow. Richard B. Miller died in Kentucky on the Ioth of June, 1832. Frank R. Miller, who now owns the place, was born upon it on the 6th of July, 1827.
James Jagger, a native of Suffolk county, L. I., settled in this township in 1815. A brother, Stephen, bought the old John Hood place about the same time, and continued the operation of the old grist-mill. He was in all respects an exemplary man. Among his several descendants now in town is his son Sylvester Jagger. Stephen Jagger died on the 8th of March, 1874, aged eighty-one years six months and eleven days.
By this time (about 1818) the country began to display here and there the traces of advancing civilization. The empire of nature showed symptoms of yielding to the dominion of the rude arts of the woodsmen. There were three or four families in Sugar Grove village, a few settlers in the beech woods be- tween Sugar Grove and Pine Grove, besides the men already mentioned, and a few others. After the passage of the act of 1792 to induce the settlement of pioneers in Western Pennsylvania, and the subsidence of the Indian diffi- culties in 1795, immigration turned its tide in this direction. As already no- ticed, a number of the settlers came to this county by the way of Susquehan- na River and Pittsburgh. During the years 1815-16 about thirty families came from Oneida county, N. Y., and settled principally in Pine Grove, Freehold, and Sugar Grove. Among those who settled in this town were David Stilson
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
and Richard B. Miller, already mentioned, and John Tuttle, Joseph Langdon, and Henry Catlin. Mr. Tuttle resided until his death, some forty years ago, in the western part of the town. Joseph Langdon cleared a place about a mile from the village, on the Ashville road, and during the later years of his life operated a grist-mill. He was born in Berkshire, Mass., on the 13th of January, 1780, and died here on the 27th of April, 1857. His wife, Survina, died June 8, 1833, aged thirty-seven years. A number of their descendants still make Sugar Grove their home.
Henry Catlin, a brother of Mrs. Richard B. Miller, came here about 1816, and settled on the farm next north of that owned by his brother-in-law. He was born in Conway, Mass., on the 15th of January, 1785, and died in Sugar Grove on the 30th of July, 1845. His daughter Julia, now Mrs. L. H. Pratt, was born in what is now Rushville, N. Y., on the 31st of December, 1814, and was consequently but two years of age when her father removed to Sugar Grove. Her retentive and accurate memory, stretching over a period of nearly seventy years, has been of great assistance to the compiler of this chapter.
At this place should be inserted a sketch of one of the most noteworty of the pioneers of Sugar Grove, Robert Falconer. He was born in Inveraven, Banffshire, Scotland, on the 22d of December, 1780. He was descended from a wealthy and ancient family, who could never forget that they were "lairds" in the days of Monteith and Wallace and McDoogh, and bravely fought with Bruce at Brannockburn. Yet Robert was thoroughly republican in opinion and practice. He was graduated from old Aberdeen in 1808, and soon after emigrated to America, not only to increase his wealth, but to enjoy its free republican institutions, to which he was a convert. In this country he married Eliza, a sister of Henry Catlin and Mrs. Richard B. Miller, who was born at New Haven, N. Y., on the 15th of October, 1802, and affectionately per- formed the duties of wifehood until her death, on the 20th of January, 1850. For several years after his arrival in the United States Mr. Falconer was en- gaged in the purchase and sale of cotton in New York and Charleston, S. C., sending farge invoices to Glasgow, and other parts of Scotland. In 1816 a brother in Scotland, who never was in the United States, desired to join him in the purchase of lands, with the intention of making a Scotch settlement, for which the brother at home was to select and send over an extra class of emigrants. Accordingly, Mr. Falconer came to Jamestown, N. Y., in 1817, and passed the summer in examining the surrounding county. He was an excellent surveyor, and many of our early roads were afterward surveyed by him. During this visit he would frequently make long trips into the wilder- ness, always on foot, and sometimes remaining away for a week. His favorite resort was along the valleys of the Stillwater and the Brokenstraw. Finally lic selected lands just east of the village of Sugar Grove, which he declared should be his future home. Ile returned to New York for his family (by his
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first wife) in the winter of 1818, and in the following spring was established in Sugar Grove. He was at that time deemed to be the most wealthy man in this part of the country. He loaned considerable money, and was very active in laying out roads, effecting improvements, and in all ways aiding in the set- tlement of the town. In 1829 he removed to Warren, and became interested in the Lumbermen's Bank, of which he was made president. Through the rascality of those who were supposed to be its friends and supporters, the bank was broken, and in his attempts to save it Mr. Falconer lost largely of his wealth, and suffered a permanent impairment of health. He returned to Sugar Grove in 1840 a mental ruin, where he died on the 20th of October, 1851.
Yet another prominent pioneer of this town and county was Captain John I. Willson. He was born at Pleasant Valley, Dutchess county, N. Y., on the 15th of August, 1781. His wife, Mary Elliott, whom he mar- ried in New York city in 1807, was born in that metropolis on the 29th of August, 1789. Captain Willson's ancestors were from Ireland; Mrs. Willson's were Scotch. Inclined to a seafaring life, he engaged on board a vessel sailing from New York when he was about eighteen years of age. Commencing as a cabin boy, he rose to the command of the brig Franklin, sailing from New York to the Bermudas, of which he also became part owner. After the enact- ment of the embargo on commerce and navigation under Jefferson, he left the ocean, and with his young wife removed to Upper Canada, where his elder brother, David Willson, had preceded him, and where he cultivated a small farm, and taught school winters. In 1819 he removed with his family to Sugar Grove. About 1821 he there opened a public house (which he purchased of Robert Miles, and which still forms a part of the present hotel), and made it for many years the most popular resort for travelers in that section of the country.
Having retained his fondness for navigation, in 1825 he bought an interest in the schooner Milan, of Buffalo, and took charge of her as master in the lake trade. When the steamer Chautauqua, on Chautauqua Lake, was built he took charge of her for one or two seasons. Then, having purchased an in- terest in the schooner Nucleus, on Lake Erie, he was made master. As this was before the era of steamboats on Lake Erie, the Nucleus participated largely in carrying passengers, and was fitted up specially for that business. In 1836 he disposed of his interest in the vessel, abandoned navigation, and returned to his family and home at Sugar Grove. He was a moral and an upright citi- zen, temperate in all his habits, and enjoyed the fullest confidence of the com- munity. He had been educated in the Society of Friends, but was tolerant and friendly towards other societies. He read much and was a man of intelli- gence and culture.
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