Edward Jarvis Eldred was born Overshot Mill, Norwood, Middlesex County, England on the 19th August, 1763. Obtaining letters of introduction to Messrs. Bond, the British Consul at New York, and John Vaughan, an extensive land owner of the same city, and Dr. Joseph Priestley, a prominent citizen of Northumberland, PA., Mr. Eldred engaged passage and embarked the 18th of May 1798. The "Molly"reached New York Harbor safely, after a voyage of two and half months, landing Mr. Eldred from a "fishing Boat," on Block Island, the 31st of July 1798. From thence he was soon after conveyed to New York, a city at that time about as large as Williamsport of today. He engaged lodgings at "Bayara's Farm, near the Bowery Lane".

In an interview with Vaughan and Bond, on presenting his letters, they proposed that he should qualify himself for a land surveyor, and on that condition offered him the agency of their lands in Pennsylvania. He made his way across the country to Kingston, opposite Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pa. He visited Mr. Priestley, at Northumberland, and obtained also the agency of his lands, who supplied him with a newly established colony of Englishmen. He engaged a log house of Thomas King Sr., which he transferred in the spring of 1800, such articles of personal property as were then in his possession.

There seems to have been no wagon road through this, or perhaps any other part of Sullivan County at this time - at least no public road. Joseph J. Wallis, who was then the Deputy Surveyor of the first district, had several years before in 1784, cut out and opened a "pack horse" road to supply himself and men with provisions whilst engaged with his official duties. Mr. Eldred procured three oxen, and belling the leader, learned the others to follow him. With this team he made several trips to and from Muncy, encamping in the woods when night overtook him, and releasing the oxen of their burden. The scream of the panther and the howl of wolves was often a horrid serenade around him, but the camp fire and bell of the ox deterred those animals from a closer interview. The necessity of a wagon road soon obliged the owners of the unimproved land as well as the settlers to have one constructed, and in 1802-3 those thus interested, by subscriptions of money and work, opened up for travel a private thoroughfare from Pennsborough (now Muncy) to Meansville (now Towanda), It was for several years the main route for emigrants to Western New York from Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland, particularly to the Genesee country, which gave it the name of the Genesee Road. It is said that as many as 28 Conestoga wagons would spend the night enroute to the Genessee area.

Mr. Eldred, who had erected a log house near it, was soon overrun with applications for lodging, meals, and provender for beasts. He needed to adopt the most feasible method for providing better and more extensive accommodations. The only resource, seemed to be a log house. The plan of constructing four houses of hewed logs, cornering together and forming the fifth, occurred to him and was adopted. It was occupied by the owner in the autumn of the same year, operated as a tavern, and was called "Liberty Hall," It was through Samuel McKean that a post route from Pennsborough to Meansville was established in 1825. Post offices were created, one at Hillsgrove, on the Loyalsock, which took its name from that of the tract of William Clair, called so in the patent, and "Eldredville," named by General McKean, from the five houses he had previously helped to erect on the head waters of Elk Creek.

Over the period from 1808-1845, Eldred collected his notes and papers in what has come to be known as "Eldred's Docket". Since he was Justice of the Peace in Lycoming County for a long time, this compendium has become a major source of historical information bout the early families and events of what later would be Sullivan County. Originally edited by H. Delbert Bird of Muncy, PA, the full title was Edward J. Eldred's Docket: 1808-1845, and parts of it were reissued in Now and Then (Volume X, July, 1952, Number Five, pages 151 to 157). Here is what was said by H. Delbert Bird in his comments on the Docket in 1952: