USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne County [Pa.] > Part 11
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M., and the latter sold his part to Daniel Kimble, Jr.
Daniel Kimble, Sen., located at White Mills. He married Jane Ross, a native of New Jersey, and they raised a large family. He was, for many years, a jus- tice of the peace, and was a noted man among the first settlers. A man by the name of George Neldin first commenced an improvement at Paupack Eddy, and built the first saw-inill in that region. Joseplı Atkin- son, from New Jersey, when a young man, first came to the Narrows and worked in the mills built there by Robert L. Hooper, who committed said mills to the care of Esquire Snyder, a grandfather of Joseph At- kinson. This was about 1810. Atkinson soon left and went up to Paupack Eddy and engaged to work in Neldin's mill. After continuing in Neldin's employ several years, he bought out all of his posses- sions, married a daughter of Ephraim Kimble, at the Narrows, and continued to live there during his life. In middle life he lost his first wife, and afterwards married Fanny, a daughter of Benjamim Kimble, and consin of his first wife. She is yet living at the old homestead at Paupack Eddy. Joseph Atkinson had sixteen children, most of whom are yet living. He was proud of his family and his wife, as he had good reason to be. About 1792, Judge James Wilson, then one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the Unit- ed States, owned the lands upon the Wallenpaupack and was made to believe that they were peculiarly adapted for the raising of hemp and flax, and that the manufacture of the same could be made profitable, and
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in or about 1792, commenced the building of a factory for that purpose, at a point above the tannery of Judge Cromwell. The building was completed and well built, but of its size and cost nothing definite can be learned. Its cost was estimated at from $8,000 to $12,000. Its size is supposed to have been from thirty to forty feet square. It was put in operation and did some work, but failed for the want of material. About the same time, Judge Wilson failed. The factory was sold to Benjamin Kimble, and some one else, who, after tak- ing out what was valuable, burnt it down to get the iron. While said factory was building several houses were erected at Wilsonville, but the place soon de- clined, and in 1822 there was only a tavern-house, be- longing to Leonard Labar, who sold the premises to John and William Shouse, who disposed of the same to Frederick W. Farnham. It would be wrong to forget John R. Compton, who, with his family, lived below Samuel Kimble on the old Milford and Owego turnpike road. He was always constable or super- visor in Palmyra. David Compton lived below John R., and sold out his farm, in 1846, to John M. Ball, a Baptist minister from Orange county, N. Y., who built or owned a saw-mill on Swamp pond creek. He had five children, all now living, three sons and two daughters. Henry Ball, proprietor of the Wayne County Hotel, in Honesdale, is the only one of the family living in the county. The Balls were of Eng- lish descent.
About sixty-five years ago Jason Torrey, Abisha
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Woodward, and Moses Kellam bought the place after- wards called the Daniels farm, built a frame house, call- ed it "New Castle," and carried on lumbering on a large scale there for years, and then sold out the premises to Joseph Atkinson, who, in his turn, sold them to Russell Daniels, from Connecticut. He be- came a noted lumberman, and for many years kept a public house. He had several sons, namely, Franklin, Ira, George, Martin, Edmund, and Dighton. The lumber manufactured at "New Castle" was always in demand at Philadelphia.
In 1828, fifty-one years ago, Joseph Atkinson and David Bishop, with their families and workmen, made up the population of the present site of Hawley. The canal was not then built. Paupack Eddy, in time of freshets, was almost bridged across by rafts of sawed, hewn, and round white-pine timber, intermixed with cherry and ash, the sale of which brought a large amount of money into the county. At that time all the hills along the Lackawaxen which are now deso late and treeless, were mostly covered with white pine. In that year Henry Heermans and Zenas Nicholson, of Salem, built a saw-mill on the Pike county side of the Paupack, at what was called the Sliding Fall, about one-third of a mile from the mouth. Hunting- ton Collins and myself are the only survivors of all who helped to build it. Inclining toward the Circling Eddy, at the foot of said Sliding Fall, were rocks, which were sometimes out of and sometimes under the water, in which the water, by revolving pebble-stones,
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
had worn holes of uniform size to the depth of three or four feet. The holes have a circumference from two to three feet, and will at some time be shown as strange curiosities. The best of pine boards were then but nine dollars per thousand in Philadelphia. Heermans and Nicholson succeeded in their enter- prise and sold out to Fuller & Co. In 1829 the Del- aware & Hudson Canal was completed and commenc- ed work ; then a turnpike and plank-road was built between Honesdale and Panpack Eddy; and that part of the village of Hawley east of the canal at once assumed the character of a hamlet with a church, several stores, and an excellent house of entertain- ment. About 1847, the Pennsylvania Coal Company's Road was built, and gave existence to Hawley. The length of said coal road from Hawley to Port Griffith is forty-seven miles. It is a gravity road, worked by stationary engines. In 1865, the locomotive railroad from Lackawaxen to Hawley, called the Hawley Branch of the Erie Railroad, was built, length sixteen and nine-tenth miles. In 1868, this branch was ex- tended to Honesdale. For the convenience of the traveling publie, a passenger train has been for years rum between Hawley and Dunmore. In 1829, a sur- vey was made to ascertain the most feasible route for a railroad, or canal, or both of them from the coal- fields of the Lackawaxen to Paupack Eddy. An act of Assembly was passed, 7th of April, 1830, incorpor- ating "The Wallenpaupack Improvement Company." Nathaniel B. Eldred, David Noble, Jeremiah Bennett.
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James M. Porter, and Evans Rees, very able men, were commissioners. H. G. Sargent, civil engineer, made a flattering report of the feasibility of making a double-track railroad from the coal mines to the forks of the Wallenpaupack, sixteen miles, thence by canal or slack-water navigation to Wilsonville falls, eighteen and one-half miles, thence again by railroad or by canal one mile and a half, down a declivity of three hundred and twenty-five feet to the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The cost of constructing the whole was estimated at $430,500. But the whole project failed for want of capital, and the Pennsylva- nia Coal Company afterwards chose a better route for descending from the head waters of the Wallenpau- pack to the Lackawaxen. The great fall of three hun- dred and twenty-five feet in the Wallenpaupack be- tween Wilsonville and the mouth of said stream, attests the astonishing amount of water-power afforded for the propulsion of machinery. Nothing of the kind of equal magnitude can be found in Northern Pennsylvania. If that power were all judiciously ap- plied, it would move more machinery than is used in the great manufacturing town of Lowell, in Massa- chusetts.
The first fall, which is of about seventy feet, is a few rods below the bridge across the Panpack, at Wilsonville. Here, in the last century, Judge Wilson greatly benefited the first settlers by building a grist- mill and saw-mill. The next fall is called the Sliding Fall; then there are two more where the water falls
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perpendicularly, about thirty feet at each, and the last is above Judge Cromwell's tannery, and is seen from the cars of the Honesdale Branch of the Erie R. Road. Below White Mills is an eddy called " Fish Pole Eddy," on the shore of which grew the largest pine ever known to the lumbermen on the "Lackawack." Charles Kimble put it into the eddy and ran it down the river to Philadelphia, for Mr. Hambleton. Ten or fifteen feet above the ground it was forked, and had to be split in order to run it. At its stump it was eleven feet in diameter, and in jest it was called "The Fish Pole." The joke brings to mind the description of the enormous Norwegian fisherman :
" A two-inch cable he took for a line, For a pole he cut a tall mountain pine ; He caught a sea-serpent and cut off his tail, Then sat on a rock and bobbed for a whale."
The north-western and north-eastern parts of the township are sparsely settled, and, although the agri- cultural population is increasing, yet the township is better adapted for trade and manufacturing, and may thereby become one of the wealthiest townships in the county.
The township has one weekly newspaper, the Haw- ley Times ; ten common schools, including the newly established graded school, which has an imposing building; one Roman Catholic church, Saint Philo- mena; one Baptist; one German Reformed; one Pres- byterian ; and one Methodist Episcopal church.
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CHAPTER XIV.
TOWNSHIPS-PAUPACK.
INHIS township was taken off of Palmyra in 1850. It is bounded north-west by Cherry Ridge, north- east by Palmyra, south-east by the Wallenpaupack, and west by Salem and Lake. Most of the lands in the northern and eastern parts are unimproved. The township is well watered, having the Goose pond in the middle of the southern part, and Long and Purdy's ponds in the western part. The outlets of the latter- named ponds furnish good mill sites which are used ; Middle creek runs through the north-east section, and the Wallenpaupack furnishes one-third of the boundary of the township. So wide, deep, and slow-moving is the Wallenpaupack that a few years ago the Ledgedale Tannery Company ran a steamboat several summers on that stream between Wilsonville and Ledgedale, to carry up hides and take back leather.
Silas Purdy, Sr., and family were the first settlers permanently located on the west side of the Wallen- paupack, about the year 1787. He was a farmer by occupation, and he had six sons and several daughters. His oldest son, Jacob, was the first blacksmith, and at the age of forty emigrated to the Lake country. Ephraim, the second son, built the first grist-mill, and
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
was patronized by Salem, Canaan, and all along the Lackawaxen river. It was built on the outlet of the Hallock or Long pond creek, and its location is still known by the old decayed timbers. Amos and Isaac Purdy emigrated to Ohio. Peter Purdy fell heir to the old homestead ; he was a blacksmith and built the first saw-mill on a stream on his farm. A public house was kept there many years, for it was once looked upon as the most important business location in the township, as it was when the first road authorized by law was laid out from Milford by the way of Blooming Grove to Hezekiah Bingham's, thenee passing through Purdyville, and thence onward to John H. Schenck's, and thence to Asa Stanton's on the north and south road. Among the papers of Judge Samuel Preston is found a petition to the Judges of Wayne county to convene at Milford, Dec. 10th, 1798, asking for the confirmation of said road, signed by Willliam Purdy, Jacob Purdy, Solomon Purdy, Reuben Purdy, William Purdy, Jr., Ebenezer Purdy, Ephraim Purdy, Silas Purdy, Amos Purdy, Jedediah Willis, Solomon Willis, Henry Husted, Robert Hartford, Elias Hartford, and James Hartford. We remember them all excepting Solomon Willis. The road was confirmed and a branch therefrom laid through Rollisonville to the cross-roads at Salem Corners. This shows who were the real resi- dents at that time. But to resume the history of the Purdy families. Elder William Purdy came to this township from Nine Partners on the North river in the State of New York, in 1792, with a family of six
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sons and two daughters, and began two miles west of Silas Purdy, Sen. The lands were taken up two years before the family moved into the county. The minis- terial labors of Elder William Purdy, who was a Bap- tist clergyman extended through parts of Luzerne, Wayne, and Pike, from Wilkesbarre to Abington in Luzerne, and from Mount Pleasant to Paupack. He was one of the leading spirits in organizing the first Baptist church and the Abington Baptist Association. He died in 1824, aged seventy-five. Reuben Purdy, the eldest son of the Elder, located adjoining his father, and as a licentiate filled the pulpit in his father's place .. He was many years a justice of the peace. He died in 1855, aged eighty-two. His son, Reuben R. Purdy, who was a popular commissioner of Wayne, and who became the proprietor of his father's estate, died a few years since. Darius G. Purdy, his son, to whom we are indebted for much of the history of the Purdy family, is yet living at or near Purdyville. Solomon Purdy, the second son of Wm. Purdy, occupied lands adjoining his father on the north, was a prosperous farmer, and loved the sports that hunting and fishing afforded. He lived to the age of eighty years. James Purdy, the third son of Elder William Purdy, settled east of his father, and afterward purchased a farm on the Lackawaxen near Paupack Eddy, where he died, aged seventy. William Purdy, the fourth son, was a Baptist minister, living and preaching many years at Bethany, afterwards emigrating to the State of Ohio. Ebenezer, the fifth son, owned a farm north of his
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
brother Solomon, and died in the prime of life. Abner, the youngest of the family, removed to Ohio, and in 1876 was living at the age of eighty-six. We would not neglect to state that Silas Purdy, the first settler, died in 1814, and that Martial Purdy is yet living on the old homestead. The Purdys must have been of Puritanie origin, as they preached, prayed, and read in the sing-song tone of the old Puritans. They were a quiet, peaceable, law-abiding, temperate people. They were more or less lumbermen, as the forests were then waving with the noblest of white pines. Simeon Ansley, a son of Major John Ansley, lived about two miles below Silas Purdy's, and there kept a hotel on the old Lake country road. Mifflin Ansley was his son. The Hartfords will be mentioned under Salem town- ship.
Ambrose Buckingham, from Saybrook, Connecticut. about 1825, began at or near the line between Salem and Paupack. He was a very industrious man and the father of Emma May Buckingham, the poetess. and the authoress of the works entitled, "A Self-Made Woman," "Silver Chalice," "Pearl," etc.
Uriah Williams, a lineal descendant of Roger Wil- liams, lived in Paupack many years; his wife was a Hewitt. George Williams lives on the old homestead. John H. lives at Nobletown. He had other children whose residences are unknown.
Paupack has one Methodist Episcopal church, and in 1878 had six public schools.
At Hemlock Hollow is a post-office, and about that
TOWNSHIPS-PAUPACK. 169
village seems to center the principal business of the town, and it is strange that it was not called Purdy- town, as it ought to have been.
On or near the western border of this township was a dark, dreary swamp called "The Shades of Death." Chapman, in his history of Wyoming says, when describing the sequel of the massacre at Wyo- ming: " The remainder of the inhabitants were driven from the valley and compelled to proceed on foot six- ty miles through the great swamp, almost without food or clothing. A number perished on the journey, principally women and children, some died of wounds, others wandered from the path in search of food and were lost, and those who survived called the wilder- ness through which they passed, "The Shades of Death," an appellation which it has since retained." The settlers in Paupack, whose account is sustained by Miner, in his history of Wyoming, asserted that there in that dread swamp a child died, and the fran- tic hunger of the sufferers led them to cook and eat it, the abstaining mother standing by and weeping. The next day they all crossed. the Paupack, after which she went back and drowned herself, to escape from the distracting memory of the tragic event.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY.
CHAPTER XV.
TOWNSHIPS-CANAAN.
THIS was an original township, established soon - after the erection of the county, in 1798. It then included Salem, which was set off in 1808, and a part of Cherry Ridge, since erected, leaving the township then bounded north by Mount Pleasant, east by Dy- berry, (now mostly by Cherry Ridge), and south by Salem, and west by Luzerne county. The northern part was taken off in 1834, to make up the township of Clinton, and in 1851, Waymart was scooped out of its northern part. Finally the territory remaining in 1851 was divided by an order of court, of February sessions, 1852, into Canaan and South Canaan. To give with accuracy an account of the first settlers, it will be necessary to consider the bounds of the town- ship, as it was after the excision of Salem township. The township is well watered by the Middle creek and its branches, and the streams running into and from the ponds, the chief of which are called Elk Forest. Stanton's, Keene's, Hoadley's, and Curtis's ponds. The Moosic mountain runs through the north-western part of the township. The rest of the land is not in- conveniently hilly, has a south-eastern or southern declivity, and produces excellent crops of hay, corn.
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rye, oats, and buckwheat. The old Easton and Bel- mont turnpike road, which was called the north and south road, was made and finished in 1819-20. Coach- es, carrying mails and passengers, ran daily upon it, and large numbers of cattle and sheep were driven down and along it from Western New York to Easton and Philadelphia, for twenty-five or thirty years. It furnished what was then considered a convenient com- Inunication with Easton, from which the merchandise and goods used in the lower part of the county were transported in wagons. There was much travel upon the road. The Milford and Owego turpike was built or finished in 1815. Besides daily mail-coaches there was a constant stream of travel over it, it being then one of the roads lying in a direct line from the city of New York through New Jersey and Northern Pennsylvania to the western counties of New York, and many droves of sheep and cattle were driven year- ly in the fall months to market. The Honesdale and Clarkville turnpike, built in 1831, afforded the people of Canaan and parts adjacent easy access to the mar- kets at Honesdale. But the travel and business of the county having been diverted into other channels by the railroads, the said turnpikes, the making of which drew severely upon the resources of the people, have been thrown up, and, like paupers, are supported by the townships where they belong.
We must now speak of the early settlement of the township. It has been stated in the former part of this work, that the object of the writer is to pre-
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sent a history of those who first settled and cleared up the country as it was when God made it, with all its hills and valleys, lakes and streams. Asa Stanton, Margaret Bryant, of Bethany, daughter of John Bur- leigh, and widow Sarah Reed, of Honesdale, daughter of Otto Wagoner, deceased, all born in Canaan town- ship, furnished most of the following history :
John Shaffer, originally from Germany, moved from Orange county, N. Y., to Canaan, in 1783. He bought a tract of land, and first lived on Middle creek, below the old north and south road. His son, John Shaffer, was born in Orange county, N. Y. His second son, Moses Shaffer, was the first child born in the town. His third son, Samuel Shaffer, was born in the same place. John Shaffer had five daughters, all born in Canaan, namely, Catherine, married to James Mc Lean, (who was killed by a limb that fell from a tree), Susan, married to Joshua Burleigh, Ef- fie, married to Jacob Swingle, Betsey, married to Edward Doyle, of Buckingham, and Polly, married to Samuel Chumard. The said John Shaffer built an overshot mill, upon the Middle creek, at or near the place always thereafter called "Shaffer's Mill." This was the first mill of any worth. There had been one built further up the creek, which had no bolter. The women sifted the ground corn and rye through sieves, made of perforated buckskin, stretched over a hoop.
Adam Wagoner. His granddaughter, Mrs. Reed, thinks he first came into the county in 1783, that he moved into a sugar house, built of logs and covered
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with bark, upon the farm now owned by Edgar Wells, and thence moved to the farm now owned by Jonathan Swingle, where he died in 1793. He had two sons, Otto Wagoner, who died about eleven years ago, aged eighty-two years, and John Wagoner, who died long ago, and four daughters, one of whom, named Sally, the widow of Frederick Swingle, deceased, is yet liv- ing, aged eighty-nine years. Adam Wagoner was of Pennsylvania German descent.
Hans Sura Swingle, from Germany, settled in this township in 1783. He had six sons, namely, Conrad, Jeremiah, Frederick, Jacob, John, and Henry, all of whom settled about him and were successful farmers. He had, also, four daughters, namely, Katy, married to Geo. Enslin; Morilla, married to Henry Curtis; Christina, wife of Silas Woodward; and Mary, wife of Moses Shaffer, all of whom have gone to their rest. The descendants of the above named family are so numerous that to give their names would take more space than can be spared. Perhaps there is no fami- ly in the county that has so well kept up its name and numbers as the Swingle family.
Henry Curtis was a German. He came into the town about 1784, and settled on Middle creek. For four years he was in actual service as a soldier in Ger- many, and three years as such in the Revolutionary war. He had one son, Hans Curtis, who married Polly Wagoner, daughter of Adam Wagoner.
George Enslin, a blacksmith from Newport, Pa., located at an early day. He had one son, Simeon
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Enslin. He had other children, all of whom are dead, leaving children now resident in the town.
John Bunting, a Quaker, made the first clearing between Col. Asa Stanton's and the Swingle Settle- ment, near the old Cortright tannery. He made an assessment of the town, in 1800, when there were only thirty-four taxables, including Salem, Sterling, part of Cherry Ridge, and part of Clinton. He assessed to himself 446 acres of land. In the year of 1802 he was appointed the first justice of the peace in Canaan. Daniel Bunting, his son, succeeded him as assessor, and served several years, and then removed and settled on the west branch of the Lackawaxen below Aldenville, took up a large quantity of land, and there, for some years, kept a house of public entertainment. All the families afore-mentioned, save that of John Bunting, were Germans. Their neighborhood was always known as the "Dutch Settlement." They were industrious, hospitable, and honest. There were no sharpers or speculators among them. They took up the very best lands in South Canaan.
The history of the Stantons is given by Asa Stan- ton as follows: "My father, Asa Stanton, was born in Preston, Conn. His wife, Zibah Kimble, was a cousin of Walter Kimble. He first moved into Pau- pack, lived there one year, and, in 1790, moved to Canaan and located on the old north and south State road, about where I now live. He had nine children, four of whom besides myself are now living, namely, William Stanton, of Waymart; Levi Stanton, of Mich-
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igan; Louisa, who married Philander Bettis; and Julia, who married Harrison Wentz. Samuel Stanton, a cousin of father's, settled in Mount Pleasant, twelve miles north of us, in 1791. Father built a large log- house and kept travelers and drovers. We had to learn how to do without everything that we could not raise or make for ourselves. Salt was brought from Newburg on pack-horses. The winter of 1792 was se- vere, and really terrible. According to father's account, the snow began on the 18th of November, and fell most of the time for two weeks. He had raised some corn that season, and he bought some rye, but it was not fit for food until it had been ground. So in the winter of 1793, Elijah Dix, Elder Elijah Peck, and he went to mill at Slocum Hollow, (now Scranton,) with three yoke of oxen and a span of horses, and, being snowed in, they were gone nine days. They fed out one-third of their grists to the teams. In the winter of 1791, father carried up provisions to Samuel Stan- ton's family in Mount Pleasant to keep them from starvation. Game and deer were plenty, or we should all have perished. He bought three hundred and twen- ty acres of land on the old State road, and three hun- dred acres around the Stanton pond, where he built a saw-mill. Father was deputy-sheriff of Pike county, under Abraham Mulford, and afterwards treasurer. He was elected colonel after the organization of the county. We sometimes went to mill at Slocum Hollow, some- times at Wilsonville, and sometimes at Ephraim Purdy's; frequently we pounded our corn in a mortar.
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