FAIRMOUNT TOWNSHIP C

Huntington Valley runs along north and south through the two townships C is not a valley after the fashion of the Wyoming Valley. It is rolling, might be called perhaps, better a Asecond bench,@ but is, until you strike the mountains in the north of Fairmount township, all a fine quality of arable land. The farmers find their outlet to Shickshinny on the river by a turnpike road, and in an early day the old Berwick turnpike led north to Elmira and south to Berwick.

Huntington is one of the seventeen Acertified townships@ laid out by the Susquehanna Company and confirmed by acts of the assembly passed in 1790. Under the Connecticut title previous to 1776, it was known as Bloomingdale Township and the name was changed to Huntington in 1799 in honor of Samuel Huntington, a native of Windham Connecticut who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

This township lay across an ancient and well-trodden path of the red man and in his travel to and from the western frontier during the dark days of border warfare, the few settlers suffered greatly in the loss of some of their number who were murdered or taken prisoners, to say nothing of the stock and provision s taken and destroyed by the savages.

The first settler was John Franklin. He came from Connecticut in the spring of 1775 as one of the Susquehanna proprietors under the Connecticut claim. He located on Huntington Creek below what is now Hublersville (Huntington Mills) where he built a log house and spent most of the summer with his family. He returned to his native State in the autumn on account of difficulties arising between this country and Great Britain.

Levi Seward, from Connecticut, located in 1776 in the north part of the township and from him has sprung a large and respectable family. Nathaniel Goss came in 1776 and located on the farm now known as the Howard hotel property at Huntington Mills. The tract of 334 acres on which he settled was granted to Henry marks by letters patent dated April 4, 1775. In 1782 or 1783 Abraham Hess settled near the head waters of Shickshinny Creek in the northwest part of the township. He came from New Jersey and was the progenitor of a large and influential family. Stephen Kingsbury was one of the pioneers locating where J. W. Kingsbury now lives, near Town Hill. He was a surveyor and assisted in the original survey of Huntington Township. Reuben Culver arrived from Connecticut February 14, 1795 and located in the west part of the township where Oliver Culver lived. The latter was born March 18, 1795 on his present farm. Reuben Culver was the father of a numerous family who have married into some of the first families of this County. Abiel Fellows, Stephen Harrison, and Samuel and Amos Franklin in 1777 located in the southwest part of the township where many of their descendants still reside. From 1778 Thomas Williams, one of the pioneers who escaped from Forty Fort lived at the foot of Knob Mountain during the remainder of his life.

Solon Trescott was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts in 1750 and located in Huntington in June 1778. He built a log house near Harveyville. About a month after he came he and Solomon Goss and Thomas and Samuel Williams were warned by the military authority to appear at Forty Fort for the defense of the inhabitants against the Indians and Tories. There they were taken prisoners but escaped the same night and reached their home sin Huntington on the night of the third day. They sought safety in Connecticut in the autumn of that year. After a few years Mr. Trescott returned to find that a chestnut tree had grown up through the middle of his mansion. He left it as monument to mark the place of his pioneer hut and built another an d better log house a short distance from the old one which he occupied for many years. His father Samuel Trescott held a proprietary right in Huntington under the Connecticut claim and was one of the original surveyors of the township.

Among the early settlers previous to 1800 were Amos, Samuel and Silas Franklin, Richard Williams, David Woodward, Stephen Kingsbury, Thomas Tubbs, John Chapin, George Stewart, Peter Chambers, Nathan Tubbs, Jonathan Fellows, E. Wadsworth, Joseph Moss, Benjamin Fuller, Robert Wilson, Stephen Sutliff, Stephen Harrison (in 1796) and Levi Seward (1776).

Obadiah Scott who settled on Huntington Creek about two miles below Huntington Mills built the first farm house. John Koons had a cloth mill at an early date, and was also engaged in the mercantile business besides carrying on a large farm. He was a soldier int he War of 1812. He is later lived at New Columbus.

Epenetus Wadsworth located in 1794 near Town Hill. He was the first blacksmith in Huntington. He burned charcoal for himself and others. He was also the pioneer horticulturist having set out an orchard on his lot in 1799 of which 100 years later in 1890 the trees were still bearing and affording a good quality of fruit. The Indian trail from Shickshinny to Williamsport crossed his farm near the brick schoolhouse of Town Hill. The well beaten path was still visible in 1890. Mr. Wadsworth was an extensive land operator for those days and was also a local preacher.

Thomas Harvey, an Englishman, located at Harveyville and opened a shop where he carried on blacksmithing several years. This was soon after the advent of ADeacon Wadsworth.@ The pioneer tanner and shoemaker was Benjamin Fuller. He located near Huntington Creek not far from the Larned place. The first grist mill was a log structure built in 1788 with one run of stones by Mr. Hopkins a the mouth of Marsh Creek. He built a sawmill at the same place. Nathaniel Goss built a gristmill on the stream that empties into Huntington Creek from the North on the North side of the old Goss farm. It would grind about three bushels of corn per day. It was first run by hand and subsequently by water power. Nathaniel Goss, Jr. built the mill know as the Workheiser mill which stand son the opposite side of the stream from the old on. The land on which Hopkins Mill stood was donated for mill purposes by the Susquehanna Company. In 1798 Nathan Beach built the Rogers mill on March creek. Bacon=s carding and fulling mill was built on Huntington Creek in 1817. The gristmill at Harveyville was originally built in 1798 and replaced in 1837 by a new one which was subsequently burned and the present one built in 1869.

The first settlements in Wyoming valley were made under the auspices of the Susquehanna Company, organized in 1753 by some 600 citizens of Windham County, Connecticut and approved the following year by an act of the colonial assembly. The surveryors of the company were sent out in 1755 and at that time and subsequently seventeen townships were laid out, each five miles square and containing fifty shares each of 300 acres. They were located in blocks on the bottom-land along the rivers and embraced territory now within the limits of Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Bradford, and Susquehanna counties. The names of these townships are Huntington, Salem, Plymouth, Kingston, Newport, hanover, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Providence, Exeter, Bedford, Northumberland, Putnam, Braintrim, Springfield, Claverack and Ulster.

The first attempt to settle on the lands laid out by the company was made in 1762 and continued in 1763 but owing to the hostility of the Indians, no permanent settlement was effected until 1769. Constantly harassed by the savages compelled to carry on a continuous struggle, amounting at times to open warfare, with rival claimants to the land on which they had built houses and established homes, almost annihilated by the terrible massacre of Wyoming during the Revolutionary war, these brave and hardy men of Connecticut still maintained their ground in 1783 the population of the seventeen Acertified@ townships is estimated to have reached 6,000.

This Town History was donated by Linda.

© 1997-2010 by Mary Ann Lubinsky for the PAGenWeb Project, and by Individual Contributors

 Back To Luzerne Genweb