History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 82

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 82
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 82
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 82

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).

Geo. Abraham.

Twice his mill was burned, but he rebuilt, the present one in 1883, one of the first steam saw-mills in that section of Wayne County and capable of cutting twelve thousand feet of tim- ber a day. He also operates a grist-mill at the same point. In October, 1870, while engaged at his work, he met with a serious accident, and was compelled to have one of his arms amputated. He is one of the most industrious of the many lumbermen of Damaseus township, and has cleared up a large traet of valuable land. He is recognized as one of the successful and influen-

JOHN BURCHER.

Of all the old families of Damaseus towuship, Wayne County, Pa., none is more numerously represented or more highly respected than the Burcher family. John Burcher, to whom this sketch is inseribed, was born at Westminster, London, England, September 27, 1803. His grandfather, John Burcher, after whom he was named, worked at the trade of a carpenter in England, and is said to have done work for King George III. William, father of John, was also by trade a carpenter and joiner, but emigrated

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

to this country in 1807 as agent for a friend in England, and bought of Tench Coxe a thousand acres of land in Mount Pleasant township, Wayne County, Pa. Owing to the death of his principal, he was obliged to take the land lıim- self, and after clearing about fifty acres of it, found it necessary to release it. He then bought fifty acres of land of Robert Mason, of Mount Pleasant, for which he was to pay by building Mason a house and barn.

who married Warren Dimmick, of Herrick, Wayne County ; Helen, who married Titus Yerkes and removed with him to Michigan; John, our subject ; and Samuel, who died nine days after his father, in December, 1839.

John Burcher assisted his father in clearing up the homestead in Damascus, and after his death added largely to it. His present tract comprises nearly four hundred acres. He also bought and cleared most of the two hundred

JOHN BURCHER.

He also lost this property through not receiv- i ing the deed, after performing the services. In 1819 he bought two hundred acres of land of a Mr. Salter, in Damascus township, and in the year following brought his family from Eng- land and located at Mount Pleasant, residing there about ten or twelve years. He died in 1839, after having led an industrious and useful life. His wife, whom he married in England, was Betsey Passmore, by whom he had six chil- dren,-Mary, who became the wife of Aden Cramer, of Mount Pleasant ; Elizabeth, who married Joseph W. Yerkes, of Damascus ; Sarah,

and twenty acre farm occupied by his son, Wal- ter V. Burcher, and also engaged extensively in lumbering, having rafted down the Delaware to Philadelphia for over forty-two years. He erected his present residence in 1842, and that occupied by Joseph Burcher, his son, in 1874. He pur- chased and cleared portions of other farms in Damascus, and is one of the oldest and best known of the early settlers of Wayne County who came to this wild region and carved out homes for themselves and their children from the primeval forest. He has been a member of the First Baptist Church of Damascus since

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WAYNE COUNTY.

1835, assisted largely in the erection of the very beautiful church edifice, and for a long period served on the board of trustees. To the pas- tors of the church he has been a true friend ; to his home they were ever welcome, and no one has contributed more liberally to their support than he.

John Burcher married, July 14, 1825, Max- imilla, daughter of John Land, one of the original settlers of Damascus. She was born April 2, 1807, and died June 8, 1879. She was a woman of many excellencies of character, a worthy helpmeet, good wife and faithful and devoted mother, and was a consistent member of the Baptist Church during the same period as her husband. Their children were William P., died June 26, 1873; Lydia M., died August, 1878; Samuel, farming in Damascus ; Phebe T., who married Jonathan Yerkes, of Damascus ; Caroline, residing with her father as house- keeper ; Walter V., John L. and Joseph I., farmers in Damascus; James F., who died May 15, 1884; Titus C., died May 30, 1867 ; and Avis, died June 19, 1877.

Jolın Burcher's life has been one continued struggle from a boy. When only ten years of age it was a common thing for him to walk over stones and stumps for three or four miles -there were no roads thien-with a bushel of rye on his back, to the mill, and subsequently, when clearing his farm, he worked day and night, keeping one team in the barn whilst working the other, and it can be truly said that no resident in Wayne County has endured more hardships or worked harder than the subject of this sketch.

His home was always open to the stranger as well as the friend, and there is scarcely a family for twenty miles around but at some time has partaken of his boundless hospitality. Man and beast were alike cared for. His unobtru- sive benevolence will never be known until around the throne in heaven the Master shall say unto him, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto nie."

He is a man of sterling integrity. It is a daily saying, in speaking of Mr. Burcher, " Un- cle John's word is as good as his note." As a

politician he was never a blind follower of party, preferring to vote for the man whom he considered would best serve the interests of his country.

And now in the evening of his long, useful and active life, he is beloved by all, hated by none, and when the summons shall come calling him to his reward, "A great man in Israel will fall " and hundreds will gather at his tomb to pay the last token of respect to the memory of a truly noble and generous citizen.

CHRISTOPHER T. TEGELER.

Mr. Tegeler was born in New York City, April 24, 1846. His parents were Wm. H. and Catherine (Tennant) Tegeler, the former a cabinet-maker by trade, who engaged in the furniture business in New York City for many years. In April, 1854, he removed his family to Damascus town- ship, Wayne County, Pa., and located them on a farm which he purchased of Thomas Shields. He himself remained in business in New York for some time, but subsequently removed to Damascus, where he passed the remainder of his days. In 1865 he bought the store prop- erty of J. H. Lounsbury, at Eldred, in Damas- cus township, and engaged in trade until his death, in 1871. He left two children, Christo- pher T. and Frederick W., the latter a farmer in Damascus township.

The former was eight years of age at the time that he came to Damascus township with his parents. He had already attended the pub- lic schools of New York City, and after a further attendance at the district school in Da- mascus, completed his educational course at the academy at Monticello, New York. After clerking for a year in his father's store he en- gaged in farming and lumbering for a number of years, selling his lumber along the Delaware to be rafted down that water route to Phila- delphia. In March, 1880, he embarked in trade at the store (his present location) at Eldred. Besides carrying on the usual busi- ness of a country store-keeper, he has dealt largely in cattle and stock throughout Wayne Connty, and has been the agent for the Cham- pion Mower and Reaper for eleven years. He

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

also owns the farm formerly belonging to his father, near Eldred, and is thus still identified with the agricultural interests of his township. He has been prominently identified with the inter- ests of the Democratic party in Wayne County, served as a school director in Damascus town- ship for three years, and in 1881 was elected a member of the Board of County Commissioners for the usual term of three years. He was ap- pointed postmaster at Boyd's Mills, Septem-

and officially connected with, the Delaware Lodge, No. 561, F. and A. M., since 1874, and as administrator of the Jarrett P. Yerkes estate and committee of the estate of Frank McCol- lum, his ability in their successful management is recognized. He married, December 4, 1868, Amelia M., daughter of James Lovelass, of Damascus, who died in August, 1873, leaving three children,-Wilhelmina E., Grace and Amelia Tegeler. His present wife, whom he

R. T. Jegelen

ber 24, 1885, and reappointed November 27, | married in 1874, is Fannie A., daughter of C. 1885, there having been considerable opposition B. Noble, of Damascus. Her children are Hattie, Charles B., Beulah and Luella Tegeler. to the removal of the office to Mr. Tegeler's store at Eldred, where it now is. He has al- ways been interested in all movements tending JOEL G. HILL. to develop and improve the locality with whichi Joel G. Hill is a descendant of Silas Hill, who was an early settler of Otsego County, N. Y. His son Alpheus, father of Joel, in 1848, removed to Equinunk, Wayne County, Pa., bringing his wife, Elmira, daughter of Cul- he has been identified since boyhood, and is held in general respect. He is a member, and was for several years a deacon, of the Christian Church, at Eldred. He has been a member of,

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ver Gillette, of Otsego County, and two sons, Abner G. (now residing in Tioga County, N. Y.) and Joel G. Hill, with him. He engaged in farming and Inmbering at Equinunk nntil 1864, when he removed to California, where he now lives.

His son, Joel G. Hill, was born in the town of Lawrence, Otsego Connty, August 1, 1845. He was reared at Eqninnnk, Wayne Connty, and received a common-school education at that place. In 1863 he responded to his country's call for volunteers and enlisted in the Fiftieth Regiment of New York Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Spaulding. He served in the engi- neer corps in front of Petersburg and elsewhere, in the building of forts and intrenchments, and was present at the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, Virginia. After the elose of the war he returned to Equinunk and worked for Holbert & Branning for four years, in the Inmbering business at that place, and, in 1869, entered the employ of Isaac Young, who owned a large tract of land in the northern section of Damascus township. Two years later he purchased fifteen hundred acres of this land, including a saw-mill and dwelling-house, and entered into the lumbering business on his own account.

At that time only abont twenty-five acres of his land was cleared, while he now has a good farm of seventy-five acres reclaimed from the condition of primeval nature and devoted to the purposes of agriculture. He built a grist-mill in 1881 and a cider-mill in 1882, and now gives employment to a number of men and has developed quite a little settlement around him. He is engaged in farming, lumbering, in carry- ing on the mercantile business in the store which he found it necessary to establish and in opera- ting his grist and cider-mills.

He conveys the products of his mill to Phil- adelphia on rafts and has been making regular trips down the Delaware for that purpose since he was nine years of age, with the exception of the time he served in the army. He now las about eight hundred aeres of land left of his original purchase, and is one of the most popu- lar and highly esteemed residents of his town- ship. He has uniformly declined to accept po-

litical office, and has no ambition in that direc- tion.

He married, June 17, 1873, Mary J., daugh- ter of Thomas and Margaret Flynn, of Man- chester township, and has had fonr children, all of whom are living, viz., Lewis G., John A., Harris G. and Myra A. Hill.

CHAPTER XII.

THE BOROUGH OF BETHANY.

THE legislative act of 1798, which erected the new connty of Wayne, named trustees who were authorized to select a place for a county- seat, and Milford was their choice, though this location of the courts proved very unsatisfac- tory to the majority of the people in the county. At that time Milford was one of two principal settlements, using the word in its broad sense to signify not only the few centrally located honses that composed the village, but also the scattered pioneers' cabins within a radius of many miles that were tributary to it. In this sense, Milford included all the settlements along the Delaware, while Stantonville was the centre for the population of the western part of the new county. Travel was mnch impeded by the absence of roads, and the location worked great hardship on the Stantonville settlers, who were obliged to make long circuits through an almost unbroken wilderness, to attend to the smallest legal matters. There was much dis- satisfaction, and the pressure brought to bear upon the Legislature of 1799 caused it to pass an act directing a re-location of the county-seat within four miles of " Dyberry Forks," as the site of Honesdale was tlien designated, and that the courts should be held at Wilsonville until the permanent county-seat should be decided npon, and suitable county buildings erected by the trustees named. During the few months next ensuing, the probable choice of the trustees much agitated the sparse population scattered along the valleys of the principal streams, and Indian Orchard, Cherry Ridge, Seely's Mills and other locations had their advocates. Pro-

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posals to furnish land for the connty town were sent in by the owners of various tracts, and in those of Mr. Tilghman, who owned land in Cherry Ridge, and Mr. Drinker, who had twenty-four tracts of four hundred acres each, lying between the Dyberry and the West Branch of the Lackawaxen, were made offers of any contiguous one thousand acres of land, if the county buildings were erected upon a portion of the gift. On the 15th of May, 1800, the trustees, accompanied by Jason Torrey, who was agent for the Drinker lands, went out to view the various lands offered. Esquire Stan- ton and George Levers, who were also of the party, are recorded in Mr. Torrey's journal as having nrged the selection of Cherry Ridge. It is presumable that Mr. Torrey favored the Drinker tracts, as he had located them for the owner, and afterward received four hundred acres near the site of the county town for his services. The vote was three to one in favor of the Drinker tract, and on the following day, May 16th, a stake to designate the site of the court-house was driven in the presence of many witnesses, and the proceedings were entered on the minutes, duly subscribed to, and witnessed by all present.

The broad slope selected was then covered with virgin forest ; deer bounded through its shadowed runways, stately elk stood listening in the long aisles beneath its hardwood trees, and buds were swelling on the rhododendron copses where now fair fields stretch up to peaceful Bethany amid the hills. The selection of the trustees was most gratifying to the settlers about Stantonville, and satisfactory to those in Salem and Panpack, and all were most anxious that the county-seat should be fixed there without delay. The friends of the location at once sent to Philadelphia to obtain money and supplies on their own credit, that the work of clearing and erection might proceed without awaiting the more tardy action of the anthorities to pro- vide the necessary funds. On June 2d, the trustees met Mr. Torrey on the spot selected as the site of the new buildings, and examined a plan he had drawn for the court-house and jail, and eight days afterward the settlers in the vicinity were called together to assist in put-

ting up a log house to shelter the mechanics and laborers employed in the constructive work. This was the first building erected in Bethany. The work of surveying the thousand acres, which later on was deeded to the county, fol- lowed. There were laid off two hundred and fifty-four honse-lots to form the town, and one hundred and sixty-three ont lots, of five acres each, adjacent to and surrounding the town.

A contract between the trustees and Walter Kimble, of Indian Orchard, who was to furnish the sawed lumber, was drawn on the 9th of Augnst, and the work of erection commenced soon after. The building was thirty-six feet front and thirty-two deep, and a large log jail, disconnected from the other buildings, was built near by. The jail was afterwards de- stroyed by fire, while, in 1816, when the second conrt house was erected, the old one was moved to the west side of Wayne Street, where it is still used as a store.

A healthful impetus had been given to the town, and it commenced to grow rapidly. With- in a few months after the first tree had been felled there were acres of fallow abont the spot where the trustees drove the stake, and several honses were under way. There were three families at Bethany in September, 1801, and in December of that year Jason Torrey moved from Stantonville, making the fourth.

A sudden check was given to the growth of the place by the adverse action of the Legisla- ture, which, in February, 1802, yielded to the importunities of the people of Milford, and re- moved the county-seat to that place " for three years and no longer." This was the cause of much financial embarrassment to those who had advanced money for public improvements, with the expectation of being more than repaid by the business derived from the sessions of the courts and the appreciation of property that must necessarily follow the prosperity of the village. Building ceased, bnsiness was depressed, and there was much uncertainty and anxiety as to whether the same influences that had succeeded in getting the courts once more in Milford would not be successful in keeping them there at the expiration of the three years. During the fol- lowing winter an attempt to induce the Legis-

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lature to repeal the obnoxious aet proved abort- ive, and the people settled down to the hard labor of clearing their blackened fallows, and awaited the term of removal to expire. But there was some private enterprise. In Deeem- ber, 1802, arrangements were made for a "post," onee in two weeks, from Stroudsburg, the near- est post-offiee, and the next year a school was started. Relieved from the pressure of business which was incident to the courts, the people found time, too, for religious meetings, and the foun- dations of two strong churches were laid, so that the period was not altogether unprofitable.

THE FIRST DEATH .- It was on the 26th of May, 1803, that John Bunting, Jr., the son of Esquire John Bunting, was found drowned at Seely's Mills, a faet which made the settlers aware that they had no burial-plaee available. Lots for sueli a purpose had been set aside from the Drinker lands, and were in the hands of the trustees ; but the aet which had remanded the county-seat to Milford had also suspended their powers, and they could not make a legal deed of the lots intended for sehool, church or grave- yard. Under the eireumstances there was a very natural unwillingness to make an inter- ment on lands that might possibly revert to their grantor. In this emergeney an agreement was made between Jason Torrey and Esquire Bunting to use, as a private burying-ground, the rear end of a fifty-foot lot which adjoined the cemetery plot and was owned by Mr. Tor- rey. Here it was that young Bunting was buried, on the 27th of May, 1803.

The lot was inelosed with a neat board fence, and there being no other ground set apart for such use, it was for several years used by all families in the vieinity having oceasion to bury the remains of deceased friends. These faets will explain why the families of so many of the early settlers were interred in that ex- treme southern corner of the Bethany Cemetery grounds. Subsequently the rear part of the church lots and school lots were appropriated for use as a burial-ground.

Soon after the death of Jolin Bunting, Jr., his mother visited friends in New Jersey, and on her return brought with her sonie strawberry plants, and, under the impulse of a fond moth-

er's love, she carefully planted them on the grave of her son. These plants flourished, and the seeds of the delicious fruit were seattered by birds in various parts of the cleared fields in and around Bethany, so that in a few years all the meadows within a mile or two were largely stocked with these Bunting strawberries.

They differ from any of the other wild-grow- ing varieties, in that they are white, are free from aeidity, and in being plucked from the plant, separate entirely from the hull, like a black- berry.

While the Bunting strawberry was so abund- ant in the vieinity of Bethany, and did not ex- ist in other parts of the county, the grass fields in the other settlements were well-stocked with wild-growing varieties of the red strawberry, which, being more hardy, have nearly supplanted the Bunting strawberry. Some of the latter, however, are still growing in the grassy fields around Bethany.

THE RETURN OF THE COURTS .- The very positive refusal of the Legislature of 1804-5 to alter or amend the act that limited the re- moval of the courts to Milford for three years, and this in the face of very strong influenees from the latter place, brought about a restora- tion of the county-seat to Bethany in the spring of 1805. As soon as this was assured, in antici- pation of the event, Mr. Jason Torrey had eom- meneed building his house in the summer of 1804. The building was hurried to sueh eom- pletion during the winter that it was opened as a hotel on the first eourt week, and the court itself was eonvened in the east front ehamber, the first day of the session. It was at this time that Hon. John Biddis, president judge, and Hon. John Brink, associate, oeeupied ehairs on a earpenter's bench, a literal "Beneh of Judges," and the jurors sat on rough plank seats below. At that term the grand jury ignored three bills, and found one true indictment for assault and battery. The subsequent attempts of the people in the lower part of the county to re-locate the county-seat, the refusal of the county commis- sioners to entertain the legislative proposition to erect county buildings at Blooming Grove, and other matters pertaining to the early civil history of the county, have been referred to at

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

length in the chapters devoted to those topics, and it is proper here to write only of those de- tails that were intimately connected with the history of Bethany as a village. In spite of the dissatisfaction of those who lived below "The Barrens," as the region between the Delaware River and the Wallenpaupack Creek was called, and the sharp animadversions that it bred, the town continued to increase in size and healthful prosperity. At this late date, when most of the actors in these early scenes have passed away, it is impossible to give minor events in their exact chronology ; but the principal changes of the first few years are substantially summed up in the following paragraphs :

It has already been stated that John Bunt- ing's hotel was one of the first buildings. Soon afterward the red store north of Judge Man- ning's was erected, and about the same time Sally Gay built a small house below Dr. Scud- der's ; John Bishop built on the Bunnell place ; James Woodney finished a house and other im- provements were made near by. From 1802 to April, 1807, John Bunting, then a venerable man, had a small room in his tavern fitted up with a little stock of goods, and this was the beginning of mercantile business. A most ju- dicious, accurate and indefatigable collector of local history 1 has kindly furnished the writer with the following hitherto unpublished inter- view with one of the carliest residents:

" My earliest recollections date to when the only houses in Bethany were the Henderson place, then called the Bunting house, the Drinker place ,the Ma- jor Torrey house, the court-house and old log jail, and the dwellings of Sally Gay, James Woodney, John Bishop and David Bunnell. Mr. David Wilder built his house in 1809. Captain Charles Hoel came from New Jersey and built a little house near where Ham- lin's now stands. Benjamin Raymond, a New Yorker, located near where you turn to go to the old glass factory. After Solomon Moore dissolved partnership with Major Torrey, he built a store where Oscar Hamlin now is; Alva Flint, of Connecticut, but more lately of Salem, located opposite. After Mr. Wilmot had built his first house he exchanged properties with Captain Hoel. Mr. Miller, who succeeded John Bunting, sold to Eliphalet Kellogg, and erected the house where Mrs. Scudder now resides. The first res- ident lawyer of Bethany was Mr. Oliver Bush, of

Damascus ; he settled soon after the courts had been removed from Milford the second time. Judge Isaac Dimmick and his brother Ephraim were teachers, and both taught in the old court-house. Isaac built the house now occupied by Mrs. Butler, and I remember that he had a stove in it, which was the wonder and admiration of all the neighborhood. Up to that time nobody about Bethany or in Wayne County, so far as I know, had used anything except fire-places. The old log jail was used several times as a residence. Major Torrey lived there first ; afterwards, when the school-house was built, Judge Eldred and Jacob S. Da- vis, both of whom were just married, were living there. After the academy was built, Judge Eldred bought the old school-house, built an addition to it and lived there for some time. He finally sold it to Mr. Bald- win, a hatter, and a brother-in-law of Mr. Hamlin, who taught the latter his trade. Its next tenant was Esquire Little, who occupied it as a residence, and also carried on a leather and harness business there. Joseph Miller sold his place to Judge Eldred, and Walter Weston bought the old court-house building, and moved it to where he now keeps store on Wayne Street. The first printing-office, that of Mr. Manning, was near his late residence, in a house afterwards oc- cupied by E. Hadfield. The Spangenburg house was built by Major Torrey."

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 82

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