History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 114

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438

USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 114
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 114
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 114

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The next attempt to start and maintain a paper in Hawley was in 1874, by H. P. and F. P. Woodward, who, on the 18th of Septem- ber, issued the first number of a weekly paper called The Hawley Times. It was a folio shcet, with seven columns to the page-each page being fifteen and a half by twenty-one and a half inches, with the subscription price two dollars in advance. The Times was published by the Woodward Brothers until the close of the first volume (September 18, 1875), when H. P. Woodward sold out his interest to his brother, Frank P., who continued to publish it until June 30, 1876, and it was then suspended. In August, 1876, H. P. Woodward again started it. The paper was reduced in size to a six- column folio-each page being thirteen and a half by nineteen and a half inches-and the subscription price reduced to $1.50 per year in advance. On the 13th of September, 1878, the paper was restored to a seven-column folio,

and continued until October 13, 1882, when it was enlarged to an eight-column paper-each page being eighteen by twenty-four inches. The Hawley Times was published by H. P. Woodward until January 1, 1885, when the paper was sold to Herbert W. Wagner, who is the present proprietor and publisher.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

LEVI BARKER.

His father, Jolin Barker, a native of Connec- ticut, spent his active business life on Long Island, and was a boat-builder. He erected the first house ever built on Coney Island, a part of which is standing in 1886. John Bar- ker's wife, Hannah Berlin, who died in 1855, at the great age of ninety-nine years, bore him the following children : Mary, wife of Samuel Tredwell, of Hempstead, Long Island, where both died ; Polly, married Richard Denyce, of Gravesend, Long Island ; Joseph went aboard a privateer during the War of 1812 and was never heard from since ; William was a sea- faring man, was captain of a wrecking vessel off Florida Reef, and died in New York ; Sarah first married Abram Van Syckel, and af- ter his death became the wife of Cornelius Van- derbilt ; Eliza married Albert Palmer, of New York ; Jane married Silas Ficket, of Alexan- dria, Va .; Levi, subject of this sketch ; and John who came to Hawley with his brother Levi, and was engaged in boat-building until his death, which occurred in 1881, at the age of sixty years. Hc left a widow and one daugh- ter. The father of these children died in 1821. Levi Barker, son of John Barker, was born at Jericho, Long Island, February 9, 1810. He had very limited opportunities for any educa- tion from books, but his early impressions, gained through necessity, of industry and econ- omy as necessary to success in business, came to be of great value to him, and gave him practical ideas and good judgment which characterized his life's work. As a boy, he began learning boat-building with his father, but completed his education on this subject by serving a term of

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

four years with Alderman Buckmaster, a boat- builder of New York City. In 1832 he went to Montville, N. J., where he engaged in build- ing boats on his own account, for use on the Morris Canal, and continued this business there until 1848, when he came to Honesdale, Wayne County, and worked at his business for one year. In 1849 Mr. Barker settled at Hawley, where he has been constantly engaged since in the construction of boats for the Pennsylvania

general mercantile business about 1855, which he has personally managed until recently, the management of which is now mostly in the hands of his son-in-law, M. M. Treadwell, Esq. Besides his other business he has dealt somewhat in real estate, has built several resi- dences, and owns and occupies the residence first built on the east side of the Lackawaxen.

He is one of the few men who have encour- aged the various cuterprises that have contributed

Barker

Coal Company, and the Delaware and Hudson | to the growth and prosperity of Hawley, and Canal Company, and in mercantile business. For these two companies he has constructed some three hundred and fifty boats, at a value of about fifteen hundred dollars each, and even at his ad- vanced age oversees his workmen and superin- tends his boat-building works with the same anxiety and care that he did when much younger in years.

Mr. Barker opened a store at Hawley for

from straitened circumstances as a boy he has, by his own honest industry, obtained a fair competency. He married, in 1835, Eliza Hiler, of Montville, N. J., who was born April 1, 1817. Her father, Peter Hiler, died in 1837. Her mother, Charity (Collard) Hiler, died in 1847. She has two sisters,-Ellen married a Mr. Cassidy, of Essex County, N. J., and re- sides at Dundee, Mich., and Jane married a Mr.

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WAYNE COUNTY.

Slingerland, of Montville, where she died, leav- ing one son. Of the seven children of Levi and Eliza Barker, only two grew to mature years, viz .: Mary (1845-72), was the wife of Gilbert Luddington, of Carmel, N. Y., and died leav- ing one child, Joseph Barker Luddington; and Josie married, in 1875, M. M. Trcadwell, a na- tive of Ipswich, Mass. He is the son of Na- thaniel and Emeline C. (Jewett) Treadwell, the former a boot and shoe manufacturer, who died in 1857. His paternal grandfather, Na- thaniel, a sea captain, commanded a privateer in the War of 1812, and was one of the prison- ers confined in Dartmouth Prison. After the release he went to sea, but was never after heard from. His great-grandfather was of English birth.

On account of the death of his father he was compelled, when only a boy, to do for himself. Upon the breaking out of the late Civil War, Mr. Treadwell enlisted at Boston, in the Twelfth Massachusetts, and served in various positions until the close of the war. He came to Haw- ley, Pa., from Boston, in August, 1869, and was in the employ of the Pennsylvania Coal Com- pany until he took charge of his father-in-law's mercantile interests in 1876. He read law with E. Richardson, Esq., of Hawley, and was admitted to practice in 1883.

JACOB S. AMES.

Jacob S. Ames, merchant, banker and miller, of Hawley, Pa., was born in Canaan township, Wayne County, Pa., June 26, 1830. His boy- hood days were spent on the home farm and at- tending the district school. At the age of sev- enteen, resolving to carve out a competence and home for himself, he began work for the Dela- ware and Hudson Canal Company for the daily wages of eighty-one cents. After nine months he went to Hawley, where he was en- gaged on the Gravity Railroad until it was completed. For three years following the com- pletion of the road he ran a stationary water- wheel for drawing the cars up the inclined plane at Station No. 15, on the Gravity Rail- road, and for the next three years tlicreafter he was employed at Hawley to run the stationary 68

power there. By this time, by economy and prudence, he had saved from his earnings suf- ficient to embark in business for himself, and for five years he engaged in buying cattle and sheep in Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and at first drove them to Eastern markets, but sub- sequently shipped them by rail to New York and Boston. In 1861 he quit droving and opened a general mercantile house at Hawley, which he has continued since, a period of twenty-five years. In 1872 he built his present steam grist-mill in the, borough, where the farmers in the surrounding country find ready sale for their grain or have it prepared for home consumption. On July 28, 1885, Mr. Ames established a private bank (the first of any bank being located in Hawley), which, to- gether with the mercantile business, are mostly conducted by his son, Gaston W. Ames. About 1870 he engaged largely in the lumber busi- ness ; rebuilt one steam saw mill and one water- power saw-mill in Paupack township, Wayne County ; purchased large tracts of timber land in Palmyra, Paupack, Lake and Salem town- ships ; and, after clearing off large quantities of the timber and manufacturing it into lumber, he sold several hundred acres of this land for farming purposes, yet retaining some two thou- sand acres to himself. His annual sales have averaged five million feet of lumber, which has been marketed mostly in Philadelphia, New York and Newark. Although only twenty- five years in established business, Mr. Ames has given to Hawley and surrounding country as much enterprise and labor to those classes depending upon work for their livelihood as any other citizen in the community. His hon- orable purpose in life's work, his integrity in his business and his sterling habits make him esteemed by all who know him. He married, October 26, 1854, Harriet N. Woodward, of Paupack township, Wayne County, who was born March 7, 1836. Their children are Gaston W. Ames, merchant and banker, before nien- tioned ; Helen Augusta (1856-78) and Hat- tie Florine (1875-80), bothi deceased. Mrs. Ames' father, Amasa L. Woodward (1806- 78), was a resident of Paupack township, Wayne County, and was the son of John Wood-

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

ward, of Cherry Ridge township, where Enos Woodward was one of the first settlers. Amasa L. Woodward was a cousin of the late Judge Woodward, of Wilkesbarre, and belonged to the same family as the late Judges Warren J. and George W. Woodward, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, whose ancestors were also among the first settlers of Cherry Ridge town- ship. Mrs. Amcs' mother, Irene R. Kellam (1809-64), was a native of Paupack settle-

Woodward, a leading grocer at Hawley. Mrs. Ames' maternal grandfather was Moses Kel- lam, Esq. (1792-1862), a prominent and es- tecmed citizen, who was justice of the peace at Paupack settlement for many years, and a county surveyor. The father of Jacob S. Ames -Joseph Ames-(1790-1849) was a native 'of North Stonington, Conn., and came to Cherry Ridge township in 1814. He was a teacher, and taught here several terms. About 1815 he

P. S. Ames

ment, on the Wallenpaupack, where the family settled during the early days of the county. The children of Amasa L. and Irene R. Wood- ward are Helen, deceased ; Melissa, wife of John H. Ames, of Hawley; Harriet, wife of Jacob S. Ames, subject of this sketch ; Adelia ; Robert Bruce (resides on the homestead in Panpack township, Wayne County); Moses, deccased ; Ellen, deceased; and Cassius H. |

bought some two hundred acres of land, where Canaan Corners are now located, and there made the first clearing. Subsequently he set- tled about one mile cast of the Corners, where he owned some one hundred and fifty acres of land, where he spent the remainder of his days. He belonged to the old Whig party, and most of his descendants are Republicans. His wife, Gertrude, a daughter of Colonel John H.

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WAYNE COUNTY.

Schenck, was born in 1793, and, in 1886, re- sides at Somerville, N. J. She is a woman of high moral character and Christian excellence, and instructed her children in all that makes true manhood and womanhood. Colonel Schenck came from German ancestors, early settlers in New Jersey, of whom many may be found in Somerset and Monmouth Counties, in that State, and was an officer in the Revolu- tionary War. He was one of the early settlers of Cherry Ridge township, from Millstone, Somerset County, N. J., and subsequently re- moved to Canaan Corners, where he died. Gertrude Schenck is an own cousin, on her father's side, of the late Theodore Frelinghuy- sen, who ran for Vice-President with Henry Clay on the Whig ticket, in 1844. The chil- dren of Joseph and Gertrude (Schenck) Ames are Erasmus D., died in Somerset County, N. J., in 1873; Nelson W., died in Mattoon, Ill., in 1883 ; Eliza H. Ann, first married A. G. Anderson, of Dundee, Scotland, and, after his death at Dubuque, Iowa, she married Joseph Annin, of Liberty Corners, Somerset County, N. J. ; Caleb T., died at the age of fourteen years; George R., of Elk Falls, Kan. ; Clar- issa K., wife of Jolin Clawson, of Somerville, N. J .; Henry C., on the old homestead in Canaan township; Jacob S., subject of this sketch ; John H., a merchant at Hawley ; Reu- ben T., in business at Hawley ; and Sarah Den- ton, wife of John Stryker, of Somerset County, N. J.

The grandfather of Jacob S. Ames-Joseph Ames, of North Stonington, Com .- was a pri- vate in the Revolutionary War, and, upon the breaking out of that memorable struggle, his patriotism led him to leave his plow and join the Continental army.

Nearly the whole Ames family of North Stonington remained there and spent their lives in their native placc. The Hon. E. B. Ames, ex-judge of the courts of Minneapolis, Minn., and ex-minister to Germany during President Pierce's administration, is a cousin of Jacob S. Ames, and his father was William Ames, who settled in Rockford, Ill.

Judge E. B. Ames was the law-partner, at Springfield, Ill., of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas,

candidate for President of the United States in 1860. The Ames family in Wayne County, Pa., are of the same stock as the late Bishop Ames, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the religious persuasion of the family is of the same church. They are of English origin, and the Schencks of Holland extraction.

JAMES MILLHAM.

James Millham, merchant, of Hawley, Pa., was born near Newton, Sussex County, N. J., August 1, 1832, and is the son of John and Charity (1804-80) Roof Millham. John Millham, born May 11, 1804, near Newton, re- moved from Sussex County with his family and settled on a farm one mile east of Hawley, in Pike County, on the Milford and Bethany turn- pike, where his wife died. He was a black- smith by trade, but since his removal has car- ried on farming and blacksmithing. His children arc Caroline, wife of Alexander Tuttle, of Hawley; George, of Creeklock, Ulster County, N. Y. ; James, subject of this notice ; Eliza J., wife of William Cromwell, of Haw- ley ; Mary ; Allen S., of Hawley ; and Joanna, wife of S. T. Wells, of Hawley. Morris Mill- ham, grandfather of James, died near Hawley, whence he had come from Dover, N. J., at about the age of fifty-six years. His maternal grandfather, Jacob Roof, came from Holland, served in the Continental army during the Rev- olutionary War, and settled in Sussex County, N. J., where he was a farmer at Paulenskill, raised a large family of children and died there.

James Millham, like most of the boys of a half- century ago, started out in life without home as- sistance, but with resolution and a purpose to ae- complish something. He had obtained only the limited book knowledge to be gathered in the district school. At the age of twenty he began a clerkship in the store of William C. Conkling, an old and respected merchant of Hawley, where he remained for two years. He then spent a short time as clerk for Ira Daniels ; when he engaged as clerk in the store of Joseph Solliday, of Hawley, where he remained for four years. In 1857, himself and J. T. & W.

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

Cromwell bought out the store of Mr. Solliday, lower branch, he served on the several commit- tees-elections, compare bills, iron and coal companies, printing and elections. which they successfully carried on for three years, when Mr. Millham sold out his interest to his partners, but remained with them as In 1864 Mr. Millham opened a store for general mercantile business at the Erie depot, in East Hawley, which, together with his lumber interests in connection with Mr. Solliday for a salesman for two years thereafter, and until 1862, when he was appointed by Samuel Oliver, of Easton, Pa., assistant assessor of internal revenue for a part of Wayne County. This | few years, he has continued to carry on since.

James Milcham

place was held by him until a change in the administration, in 1866, but he was reappointed in 1868 by General Selfridge, of Bethlehem, Pa., and held the office until 1870. He was clected a justice of the peace at Hawley, and served in that capacity from 1870 to 1875, and he served as school director for the year 1880. In the fall of 1880 he was elected to the State Legis- lature from his district on the Republican ticket and served one term, and while a member of the

He is an active and thorough-going business man, and has identified himself with the growth and prosperity of Hawley, and interested him- self in its educational and other kindred works. In the spring of 1860 he married Mary Dun- lap, of Hawley, who was born June 17, 1842. Her father, James Dunlap, born in Scotland in 1804, and residing with Mr. Millham in 1886, was brought up in Edinburgh, where his father was a merchant; resided in Glasgow for a

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short time, but in June, 1821, came, via Can- ada, to New York, where he was engaged as a mason on the Croton Aqueduct. He worked at his trade on the construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and since 1847 has been tlie mason for the Pennsylvania Coal Company at Hawley. His wife, Sarah Rexian, died in 1863, and bore him the following children : Elizabeth, wife of Andrew C. Bryden, of St. Louis ; Mary, wife of James Millham ; John (deceased) ; and Sarah, wife of Robert Bryden, of Carbondale, Ill. The family resided in Hawley since Mr. Dunlap's business relations began with the Pennsylvania Coal Company. James Dunlap has a brother who came to this country with him and remained in Canada, where he carries on farming and is a large cat- tle dealer, and shipper to New York and other Eastern markets. The children of James and Mary Millliam are Eva J., wife of Wilson D. Decker, of Dunmore, Pa .; Sarah E .; and Lucy Millham.

CHAPTER XXVII.

PAUPACK TOWNSHIP.

ALTHOUGH composed chiefly of territory lying in the immediate vicinity of the old Wal- lenpaupack settlement in Pike County, and penetrated by pioneers almost coeval with those of the earliest townships in the county, Paupack did not have a separate civil existence until the year 1850, when, on petition of the inhabitants of the southwestern portion of Palmyra for better election facilities, the exci- sion took place at the September Term of the Quarter Sessions. By the lines then run it is bounded on the northwest by Cherry Ridge, northeast by Palmyra, southeast by the Wal- lenpaupack and west by Salem and Lake town- ships. Its early settlers did not find that the land was as arable as that in adjacent townships, and its growtli has been exceedingly slow. Forty or fifty years ago, when the turnpikes that passed through it were main arteries in the commercial activity of the county, its hamlets were considered important locations, destined to be towns of prominence ; but the competition of

Hawley and Honesdale drew its enterprises from it, and the township has naught left to depend upon but lumber, that is being rapidly exhausted, and the cultivation of its stony and not very fertile soil. Most of the lands in the northern and eastern portions are unimproved, while parts that have been cleared up along the Wallenpaupack have been allowed to grow up in brush and scrub timber. A portion of the western part of the township was in the dark and dreary swamp known as " The Shades of Death," and low, wet bottoms are common along the lake line. The township is well watered and on the streams that lead from Goose, Long and Purdy's Ponds are some good mill-sites. Through the northeastern section the Middle Creek flows, and the Wallenpaupack, which forms about one-third of the township boundary, is a deep, slow-moving and navigable stream for small steam-boats from Wilsonville to Ledgedale. Before the French and Indian War a man named Carter had settled at Wal- lenpaupack, and though he and his family were murdered and his house was burned, liis place of settlement always remained a post on the route from Connecticut to Wyoming. Later a number of emigrants to the latter place located there, abandoning their first plan of going on to the lovely valley of the Susquehanna, and a log fort was erected, which served as a refuge for settlers and emigrants alike. The road to Wyoming was a path through the woods .of Paupack marked by blazed trees, and it was the custom of tlie emigrants to send a party in advance a day's journey to the top of Cobb's Mountain, where at eventide a fire was kindled which could be seen by those in the fort, and was the signal that the advancing party had traversed the distance in safety, and would await the coming of their companions. This signaling was made the more practicable, be- cause "the oak woods," as it was afterwards called, had been quite recently burned by the Indians, and was so cleared up "that a deer was visible as far as the eye could see."

Silas Purdy and his family were the first settlers who located in the then unbroken wil- derness on the west side of the Wallenpaupack, having come from Kingston, N. Y., by the way

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

of Cushutunk and the Wallenpaupack settle- ment, in what is now Pike County, in 1783. He was surrounded on all sides by dense forest, his location was isolated, and the difficulties and hardships which he and Hannah, his wife, had to endure were even greater than those which fell to most pioneers. Little by little he ex- tended the clearing on which he had erected his modest cabin and sowed the seed corn which he brought on his back from the Wallenpaupack. Farm implements were crude and unadapted to the conditions under which they had to be used, . and were scarce withal. The virgin soil was broken by a rude plow borrowed from a settler at Wilsonville, and until the first crops were ripe the family lived on game, that abounded on every side. But under all the unfavorable conditions he prospered, and raised a large family of stalwart sons and capable daughters. Jacob, the oldest son, was the first blacksmith in the township, and after working at his trade for many years, emigrated to the lake country, in Western New York, at the age of forty. The second son, Ephraim, was also of a mechanical turn of mind, and built the first grist-mill, which was patronized by the settlers at Salem, Canaan and all along the Lackawaxen River. It was located at the outlet of Hallock Pond, and, although it was built toward the close of the last century, decayed timbers still inark its site. Amos and Isaac, two other sons, emi- grated to Ohio, and settled on the Connecticut Reserve. Nicholas, Marshal, Fannie (the wife of S. C. Purdy) Chester (who lived at Cincin- nati) and Peter were also children of Silas. The homestead descended to the last-named, and is still occupied by his descendants. The old stone chimneys are still standing and mark the site of what was a pretentious house for that time. It was located on the old road from Milford by the way of Blooming Grove to Hezekiah Bingham's, and thence through Purdyville to Cherry Ridge and the North and South road, which it intersected near Asa Stanton's. For many years a tavern was kept in the old house, and it was looked upon as the most important business location in the town- ship.

Elder William Purdy, a cousin of Silas,

was of Connecticut origin, having been born in Fairfield County. In 1769 he married Rachel, a sister of Silas Purdy, and soon afterward moved to New York State, residing for some time at " Nine Partners," in Dutchess County. Afterward he moved to New Marlborough, where he was baptized on profession of faith by Rev. Jacob Drake. He settled at Pleasant Valley, and was soon ordained a deacon of the church there, and was subsequently licensed to preach. In 1793 he moved with his family to Paupack, and settled about two miles west of Silas, on lands that had been taken up two years previous. He erected a house of hewn logs, and aided by his sons commenced clearing up a farm. He immediately commenced preaching, too, and his labors soon extended to the sur- rounding settlements. A number of his own family were converted, and soon the interest in religious life was so strong that the Palmyra Baptist Church was organized, and he was made its pastor. His ministerial labors were not confined to this church and its dependencies. Following the rough road over the Moosic Mountain, he carried the Word all through the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys. He con- tinued thie esteemed pastor of the Palmyra Church for nearly a quarter of a century, labor- ing without stated salary, and sustaining his family by his own exertions, and died in 1824, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He had a family of six boys and two girls. Reuben, the eldest son, lived adjoining his father, and as a licentiate filled the pulpit in his father's absence. He was also for many years a justice of the peace, and died in 1855, aged eighty-two. His son, Reuben R. Purdy, was at one time a county commissioner in Wayne. Darius G. Purdy, another son, is the postmaster, and one of the most prominent residents of Purdyville at the present time.

Solomon Purdy, a second son of the elder, occupied lands adjoining his father on the north, and was a prosperous farmer, devoted to hunt- ing and fishing, and beloved by all as a pleasant companion and excellent sportsman. He lived to be eighty years old. James, the third son, who first settled east of his father, afterwards bought a farm on the Lackawaxen, near Pau- :

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 114

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 1438

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438