History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 45

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 45
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 45
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 45

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).

For a short distance along the Delaware, in Pike County, the main line of the Erie is upon Pennsylvania soil. For the right of building

1 Lossing,

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and maintaining it there the State has charged the company ten thousand dollars a year.

A trustworthy newspaper writer has given the following interesting account of the man- ner in which the rails for the Erie Railroad were procured and delivered along the Dela- ware and a great iron company thereby built up in Scranton.

" When the New York and Erie Railroad was originally built, rails made of English iron, and cost- ing the company eighty dollars a bar, were used from New York to Otisville. In the straitened financial circumstances of the company in that day, the work must have stopped if opportunity had not offered for obtaining iron cheaper. In 1846 the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, which had been organized at Harrison, now Scranton, in 1843, by the Scrantons,. was struggling against great difficulties for success. In the first year named the Erie Company made a contract with the iron company for twelve thousand tons of iron rail for the Delaware and Susquehanna Divisions, to be made and delivered at the mouth of the Lackawaxen River during the years 1847-48. The fulfillment of this contract, against obstacles that ordinary inen would have failed to conquer, gave the iron company the first step toward that great emi- nence and importance it now boasts, and the railroad company was saved from bankruptcy and ruin, as it was enabled to open its road to Binghamton four days ahead of the time required by law. The first fifteen hundred tons of the iron were delivered at Lackawaxen in the early part of 1847. It was carted in wagons to Archbald, Pa., and thence by the Dela- ware and Hudson Canal Company's railroad to Honesdale, and from thence to Lackawaxen by canal. The Erie agents there took charge of it and delivered it by canal at Port Jervis, and it was laid from there to Otisville. Owing to the delay the Erie was sub- jected to in gaining entrance into Pennsylvania at the 'Glass-House Rocks' above Port Jervis, speed in delivery of the iron was required. An arrangement was made with the iron company for the delivery of the balance of the iron at different points along the route. Hundreds of teams were put to work, and the iron was carted over the rough, hilly roads of Luzerne (now Lackawanna) and Wayne Counties to Nar- rowsburgh, Cochecton, Equinunk, or Lordville, Stock- port, Summit, and Lanesboro'. Thus a simultaneous laying of the rails took place along the required dis- tance, and the railroad company was saved and the iron company made."

It is a popular misapprehension that the Erie Company originally contemplated building their road through the valley of the Lackawaxen- that the valley was a part of the route first de-

cided upon, and was abandoned because of the opposition of the people. Such is not the fact. The charter of the road originally provided that the road should be built wholly in New York, and no amendment was made to the charter un- til it was found necessary to build a portion of the line along the Delaware in Pennsylvania. The company asked permission to come into the State, of the Pennsylvania Legislature, in 1845. But the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company thought it was the purpose of the Erie to run a branch into the Lackawanna Valley and compete with it in the coal trade, and it further thonght that the ouly practicable route then open was through Cobb's Gap. Under inspiration of these views, the Delaware and Hudson company, through William H. Dimmick, one of its attor- neys, who was elected to the State Senate in 1844, defeated the railroad company's bill, and the managers of the company organized the Washington Coal Company (now the Pennsyl- vania Coal Company) and secured the route through Cobb's Gap. In 1846 the Erie re- newed its application to the Pennsylvania Leg- islature. The Delaware and Hudson Company, having secured itself, withdrew opposition and the identical bill defeated the year before was passed.

Much of the lukewarmness of the people of the Lackawaxen, and nearly all of the opposition that was manifested by them at the time the Erie sought to come into Pennsylvania, grew out of the fact that the company did not ask to come their way. They thought that if the ap- plication was defeated, the company would be compelled to seek the route by way of the Lack- awaxen, and that the Legislature of New York would at length give way on that point rather than defeat the enterprise.

The availability of the route was afterwards thoroughly considered by the Erie managers, and was twice surveyed, but while it was admit- ted that it would shorten the route by about seventeen miles, the consideration that the road was already built along the Upper Delaware and that it must be maintained, overweighed what- ever of advantage was promised by the more dircet route by Honesdale and the Lackawaxen or Dyberry. The time may come, however,

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when the Erie Company may feel constrained to make use of this short cut across the corner of Pennsylvania.

HONESDALE BRANCH OF THE ERIE -- THE JEFFERSON RAILROAD .- In 1851 a number of the citizens of Honesdalc, being desirous of ob- taining railroad communication with the outer world, secured a charter for building what was with a purpose vaguely denominated the Jeffer- son Railroad. The authorizing act was passed by the Legislature April 28th, and appointed Earl Wheeler, Esq., Charles S. Minor, Esq., Francis B. Penniman and Benjamin B. Smitlı as commissioners to receive subscriptions and organize a company to be called the Jefferson Railroad Company, under the general railroad law. This chartered organization was to have the right to build a railroad from any point on the Delaware River in Pike County, by the best route through that county and the county of Wayne, and terminating in the county of Susquehanna at the New York State line. An effort to get the Erie Railroad Company to build the whole or a portion of the line failed ; the Jefferson Railroad Company remained prac- tically inert, and nothing was accomplished for more than ten years. The commissioners and the Erie Company, however, both had the pro- posed line surveyed.

In 1862-63 the Pennsylvania Coal Company built along the Lackawaxen from Hawley to the Delaware, connecting with the Erie at Lack- awaxen Station, and leased the line to the Erie Company.

On March 18, 1863, a supplement to its charter was passed, giving the Jefferson Com- pany the right to build a " branch "-so-called -from the Moosic summit (in Susquehanna County) to Carbondale. Work upon the line was not begun, however, until 1869, though Charles S. Minor, Esq., had in the mean time se- cured the right of way. The pseudo-branch was finished in 1870 by the Jefferson Company-the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company furnish- ing the money-and shortly after its completion the line was leased to the Erie, under a lease which is still in effect.

About 1864 the Jefferson Company raised capital and issued bonds for building along the

linc which they had originally contemplated, from Honesdale to Hawley, thus, making, with the road built by the Pennsylvania Coal Com- pany, a continuous line from Honesdale to Lackawaxen, and placing the former town in direct connection with the Erie. Members of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, in individual capacity, took much of the stock. Among the people of Honesdale most promi- nently identified with the project at this period and later, were Judge C. P. Eldred, Samuel E. Dimmick and Zenas H. Russell.

It was not until May 6, 1867, that actual work was begun on the line, but it was then pushed forward with rapidity, and on June 23, 1868, the first locomotive run over the line and steamed proudly into the quiet town, where the first locomotive in America made its trial trip, thirty-nine years before. On July 10th, fol- lowing, the first passenger train ran into Hones- dale. On July 13th passenger trains (mixed with freight) began running regularly, and on November 23, 1868, trains composed entirely of passenger cars began running, and have since continued uninterruptedly, affording the people of Honesdale and the dwellers throughout the valley of the Lackawaxen excellent facilities for travel, and a close connection with the Erie to and from New York and other points.

The road upon its completion was leased to and has since been operated by the Erie Com- pany. E. B. Hardenburgh has been for a long period the efficient conductor upon the Hones- dale Branch.

No attempt has ever been made to connect, by an independent line over the Moosic range, the two railroads built under the charter of the Jefferson Company, and it is probable that none ever will be made, for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's Gravity Railroad, from Honesdale to Carbondale, is a sufficient connecting link.

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CHAPTER V.

Agricultural Societies-The Farmers' Institute.1

THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES OF WAYNE COUNTY .- " Furius Cresinus, an emancipated Roman slave, having obtained from his small estate much larger crops than his more wealthy neighbors from their vast domains, they became so envious that they charged him with employ- ing enchantment to attract to his grounds the products of their fields. Having been suni- moned by Spurius Albinus, and being fearful of condemnation, he introduced into the Forum, as the tribes prepared to vote, his robust, well-clad family, his agricultural implements, his heavy mattocks, his ingeniously constructed plows, his well-fed oxen, and then exclaimed : 'Behold, Roman citizens, my magic ! But I am still unable to show you, or to bring into the market-place, my studies, my constant vigilance and my unceasing labors !' Scarcely had le finished when he was absolved by public ac- clamation."

Not less true is it now than when the elder Pliny put the foregoing historical incident upon record, in the early days of the Christian era, that only by study, vigilance and incessant labor can the husbandman hope to achieve the high- est degree of success in the development and cultivation of the soil. This fact is so patent, and is so often demonstrated, that there is no longer any danger that exceptional prosperity will be attributed to witchcraft, or even luck. The best methods, the best seed, the best blood, the best machinery, the best exercise of brain and muscle-all these, combined with the best conditions of soil and climate, can only be ex- pected to produce the best results and insure to the modern farmer, as to the ancient Roman slave, full granaries, thriving cattle and a well- fed family.

Out of this knowledge was developed the Ag- ricultural Society and its kindred associations.

At first they were simple conferences between neighboring tillers of the soil and keepers of flocks and herds, in which, through mutual re- lations of experience, the acquired knowledge of one became the property of all, whether as to the avoidance of erroneous or the adoption of correct methods. These casual and informal gatherings finally became regular and eventi- ally provided for their perpetuation by organiz- ation under forms of written constitutions and by-laws. As the centuries passed, their unques- tionable advantage to the State in general be- came so apparent as to lead to the passage of laws not only encouraging and fostering, but in many cases subsidizing them at the common expense.

Our own county has always pursued a wise and liberal policy in this respect, and the Key- stone stands pre-eminent among the States for the intelligent and practical interest she has ever taken in the welfare of the farmer and the promotion of his interests. To what extent her beneficent laws in this direction have affected the material prosperity of Wayne County, and through what agencies they have been brought to bear, the writer has accepted the task of showing in the course of this chapter.

When Wayne County was set off from North- ampton, in 1798, it was for the most part a wilderness. The primeval forest covered its hills and lined the streams which flowed through its valleys. Even as late as 1810, when the Legislature was asked to erect from its territory the county of Pike, the prayers of the petitioners cited as a reason for their request " the unin- habitable region over which they were obliged to travel" to reach the county-seat at Bethany. At intervals during the last quarter of the eighteenth century isolated families, and, in rare instances, little colonies, of squatters and settlers had quietly crept in from New England, New Jersey and the southern part of our own State, and located on the Delaware and its tributaries, but the population was still so sparse and scattered as to leave the county in a practically undeveloped state. The opening up of the lands to actual settlement, upon easy terms, through purchases from the State Land Office or large landholders, the location of the seat of

1 Nearly the whole of this chapter was written by Thomas J. Ham, Esq., editor of the Wayne County Herald, and for many years secretary of the society. The account of the Farmers' Institute was furnished by Hon. N. F. Underwood, of Lake Como.

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justice within four miles of the territorial centre of the new county, and finally the incursion of a band of sturdy, industrious and exceptionally intelligent pioneers, naturally began to bear good and tangible fruit. By 1810 the Great Bend and Cochecton and Bethany and Ding- man's Choice turnpikes were built, and in the following year the Belmont and Easton turn- pike was chartered. Before that time the road from Mount Pleasant to Stockport was finished, and a few years later the Belmont and Ogh- quaga put in traveling condition. All of these highways played important parts in the develop- ment of the county. Some of them were thoroughfares, not only for the accommodation of local settlers, but for the use of through travelers to and from the lake country and the seaboard cities. They were the veins and arteries of the new country, through which life and business pulsated, and by which energy was taught and ambition stimulated among our people. Along their courses, and upon laterals built to connect with them, immigration settled. Little clearings developed into fine farms, houses clustered into hamlets, villages of considerable pretensions sprang into existence. For many years, however, after the erection of the county its chief industry was not that of farming. Splendid timber of nearly every variety covered its territory, and the Delaware River furnished a natural thoroughfare whereby the product of the forests could be conveniently and profitably floated to market either sawed or in the log. Incidental to the lumbering trade, or perhaps more properly regarded as branches of it, were various manufacturing enterprises. Tanneries were built wherever great bodies of hemlock bark could be easily and cheaply obtained. Pot and pearl-ash factories were started in the hardwood regions. Sugar-making from the maple was extensively carried on. Glass fac- tories created a considerable demand for wood, and at later dates establishments for the manu- facture of umbrella and parasol handles, clothes- pins, bed-frames, etc., have contributed no small share to the extermination of our timber as well as to the employment of our people. It has only been within the past twenty years that our county-as a whole-has made rapid prog-

ress in agriculture. During that period her advance has been as phenomenal as her previous progress was slow. There can be little doubt that while the gradual abandonment of the lumbering and tanning branches of business, from exhaustion of raw material, has so released labor and turned it into its natural channel- the cultivation of the broad acres which under- laid the forests-as to contribute largely to this result ; the influence of the several agricultural societies which have from time to time existed in the county, has also been potent and benefi- cent in bringing to our farmers that information as to the proper treatment of lands, culture of fruits, care of stock, etc., which has insured their success and resulted in their present pros- perity.

The popular impression that the present Wayne County Agricultural Society is the only organization of its kind which has ever existed within her borders is a very erroneous one. Nearly a hundred years ago a quantity of ma- ple sugar, made in what is now Manchester township, was sent by Samuel Preston and John Hilborn to Henry Drinker, at Philadelphia. He forwarded a box of it to George Washing- ton, and received in reply a letter in which the President wrote : " And being persuaded that considerable benefit may be derived to our country from a due prosecution of this promis- ing object of industry (the manufacture of maple sugar), I wish every success to its cultivation which the persons concerned in it can them- selves desire." Mr. Drinker, who was a large land-owner in this county, at once had a little book printed setting forth the pleasures and profits of the sugar industry, and shortly after- ward set about organizing a society which was to be called " The Union Society, for promoting the manufacture of sugar from the maple tree and furthering the interests of agriculture in Pennsylvania." The society's attention, it was further set forth, should be " primarily and principally confined to that purpose and to the manufacturing of pot and pearl ashes." This society was organized in Philadelphia in 1792, and had among its trustees and shareholders not only Mr. Drinker and other large land spec- ulators, but some of the most prominent men in

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the country, including the United States treas- urer, two signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, judges of the United States Supreme Court and others of equal note. Its capital stock was fifteen hun- dred dollars, which was expended for three thousand acres of land in Manchester township. Four years later it was disbanded. An inven- tory of its effects taken at that time will give some idea of the extent of its operations. There were on hand thirty-seven potash kettles and twelve hundred sap troughs. Thirty-eight acres of land had been cleared and three lionses and a saw-mill built. The concern was solvent, but had not been sufficiently profitable to warrant its continuance, and its personal prop- erty was sold to Mr. Drinker and his agent, Mr. Preston. Notwithstanding the clause in its title pledging the association to a furtherance of the interests of agriculture, its immediate in- fluence upon that industry was, in all probabil- ity, not very apparent. Still, as it brought large tracts of land into market, which have since become among our most profitable farms, it doubtless had an indirect bearing upon hus- bandry sufficient, at least, to warrant its being mentioned as the initial society of its kind in the county.

As has been said, it was along the line of the principal roads constructed through the county that the most rapid advancement in the develop- ment of farm lands was made in the first and second decades of the present century. In 1801 there were thirty houses or settlers' cabins, and fifty-four taxables in Mount Pleasant township, which then included parts of Dyberry, Preston and Clinton, which townships have also been more or less sub-divided since their erection. In 1822, owing to the opening of the thorough- fares before referred to, the number of taxables in Mount Pleasant, shorn as it had been in the mean time of more than half of its territory, was two hundred and seventcen. Increase corre- sponding to these figures, though perhaps not quite so rapid, had occurred in other towns, no- tably Canaan, Salem, Paupack and Damascus. These inhabitants occupied good farms along the turnpike centering at Mount Pleasant village and Belmont, a short distance west. Bethany, | by the grand jury on rejected bills of indict-

the county-seat, had become quite a thriving place, with five stores, commodious hotels and a printing office. Among the earliest settlers in the village was Solomon Moore, a young man of superior education and exceptional public spirit. He was the first postmaster and one of the first merchants of Bethany. In 1819 he was elected sheriff of the county and in 1827 prothonotary, in which office he died in 1831. While engaged in his store and discharging his duties as sheriff he was brought into contact with most of the farmers of the county, and took every occasion to impress upon them the advisability of organ- izing an agricultural society. He was seconded in this movement by Jacob S. Davis, then com- missioners' clerk and deputy treasurer, and who afterwards became treasurer of the county. Mr. Davis came to Bethany from Paupack settlement in the early part of the century. He was an excellent carpenter and worked at his trade for some time, but the superior education he pos- sessed and his fine social qualities, which in- cluded a good knowledge of music, soon began to assert themselves and he rapidly worked into public prominence. In November, 1822, he became the editor and co-publisher of the Re- publican Advocate, in which connection he re- mained until January, 1830, when the name of the paper was changed to the Bethany Inquirer, with his former partner, William Sasman, as editor. During Mr. Sasman's management of the Inquirer, Mr. Davis was a voluminous con- tributor, his writings including an interesting, though somewhat imperfect, " History of Wayne County," which ran through many numbers, and was designed for subsequent publication in book-form. Notwithstanding Mr. Davis' gen- eral popularity, he happened to have a wife with Xantippe's personal characteristics, and about 1814 or 1815 she left his bed and board. He tried hard to induce her to return, among other efforts writing her an affectionate letter, in which he promised to overlook the past, and pictured the happiness that might be in store for then. The lady with whom the absconding spouse was living testified during the divorce proceedings which followed, that Mrs. Davis, on receiving the cpistle, inquired as to the indorsement placed

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ment. Being told, she simply wrote "ignoramus" on the back of the letter and returned it to her husband, whose experience in the county offices had made him very familiar with technical legal terms, and by whom the hint as to the inad visa- bility of pressing his suit was taken without the necessity of " a kick " to give it emphasis. Other prominent advocates of the agricultural society scheme were Sheldon Norton, father of E. K. Norton, of Clinton, and his brother, Alvah W., Judge Samuel Preston, Major Jason Torrey and Levi C. Judson, father of the author, E. Z. C. Judson, better known as " Ned Bunt- line." This agitation for a society was com- menced in 1819, but took no practical form until after the passage of an act by the Legisla- ture on the 20th of March, 1820, which pro- vided that " as soon as the board of commission- ers and two-thirds of the grand jury of any county in the commonwealth shall agree in writing under their respective hands that a so- ciety shall be established within the same, it shall be lawful for twenty or more inhabitants of any such county, fifteen of whom shall be practical and actual farmers, to sign an agree- ment promising to pay to the treasurer of said society, so long as he shall remain a member thereof, the sum of one dollar each or morc, an- nually, for the purpose of paying rewards for promoting or increasing the culture of sugar from the maple or sugar tree, or any other sub- stances, the extraction of salts from ashes of vegetables, the introduction of any new grain, grass or root into cultivation, the raising the greatest quantity of grain, grass or roots on any given quantity of ground, the invention of any new and useful utensils in husbandry, the raising and manufacturing of wool, hemp and flax in greater quantities or improving the value thereof, the introduction of mineral or other measures, the improvement of the breed of horses, black cattle, sheep or hogs, the making of butter or cheese in any given quantities, or any improve- ment in all or every of aforesaid articles, and cause such agreement to be filed in the office of the prothonotary, whereupon such society shall become a body politic and corporate in deed and in law, with rights, etc., and be entitled to have fron the county treasury annually the

sum of fifty dollars for every member which said county is entitled to elect to the House of Representatives."

In compliance with this law the Wayne County Agricultural Society reached the point of actual organization at Bethany, on the 17th of November, 1821. Its original members were,-

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 45

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