Onondago. A small number, friendly, and good neighbors, lived on the flats half a mile above Mill creek, and frequently visited the stockade. Among them were Capt. Job Gillaway, Black Henry, and John Lystrum. The wife of Capt. Gillaway seemed pious and well disposed. From the Moravians she had derived the name of Comfort, and the knowledge to knit and to sew. The men were excellent hunters and supplied the fort with game.

The first marriage in Wyoming was that of Mr. Nathan, afterwards Col. Denison, and Miss Sill. The Rev. Jacob Johnson was the officiating minister, and the place where the knot was tied, and the nuptials celebrated, was a house on the spot now occupied by the mansion of the late Col. Welles, at the lower corner, on River street, of the Wilkesbarre town plot.

From the stockade the people, breakfasting early, taking with them a luncheon, went forth armed to their daily labour. The view here presented, with slight variations, was exhibited in four or five different places in the valley. Stockades, or block-houses were built in Hanover, and Plymouth. The celebrated Forty Fort in Kingston was occupied. Many returned to the east for their families, and new settlers came in. It was a season rather of activity than labour; moving and removing, surveying, drawing lots for land rights, preparing for building; hastily clearing up patches to sow with winter grain; the sad consequence of which was, the harvests of autumn were not sufficient for the considerably augmented number of inhabitants. Until the conclusion of 1772 very little of the forms of law, or the regulations of civil government had been introduced or required. Town Committees exercised the power of deciding on contested land rights.

Thus: "Doings of the Committee May 22, 1772.

"That Rosewell Franklin have that right in Wilkesbarre, drawn by Thomas Stevens.

"That James Bidlack have that right in Plymouth, drawn by Nathaniel Drake.

"That Mr. McDowell be voted into the Forty town, (Kingston.) "That for the special services done this Company by Col. Dyer, agreed that his son, Thomas Dyer, shall have a right in the Forty, if he has a man on it by the first day of August next.

"That the rights that are sold in the six mile township, or Capouse, shall be sold at sixty dollars each, and bonds taken;" etc.

It may be regarded as a transition year, full of undefined pleasure, flowing from the newness and freshness of the scene-a comparative

sense of security-the exultation from having come off victoriousthe influx of old neighbours from Connecticut, who must listen to the adventures and hair-breadth escapes of the narrator, an older settler by eighteen months than his hearer. Then the beautiful valley must be shown to the new come inquisitive wives and daughters, who had been told so much of its surpassing loveliness. The year passed without justice or lawyer-judge or sheriff-dun or constable-civil suit or crime; and from the representations of the old people, may be considered as a season of wild, joyous, almost unalloyed happiness.

The month of February, 1773, had so nearly exhausted the provisions of the Wilkesbarre settlement, that five persons were selected to go to the Delaware, near Stroudsburg, for supplies. Mr. John Carey, (an excellent soldier, a most worthy citizen, whom we shall again have pleasure to mention,) then a lad of sixteen, volunteered as one of the party. The distance was fifty miles through the wilderness; numerous streams, including the deep and rapid Lehigh were to be crossed. Had these been frozen over so as to be passable, their toils would have been sensibly mitigated, but the ice had formed on each side, many feet from the shore, leaving in the centre a deep rushing flood. Stripping naked, tying their clothes and sacks on their heads and shoulders, cutting a way through the ice from the shore to the stream, and from the stream to the opposite shore, they waded through, dressed themselves, and found warmth in marching rapidly. Arrived at the good old Scotchman's, and sending in to make known their errand, Mr. McDowell came out, rubbing his hands in great glee, bade them welcome, but in his Scotch dialect, broad as his benevolence, told them he had a house thronged with company, on the occasion of his daughter's wedding. Among the guests were magistrates and others, whose enmity was to be dreaded, if they knew a party of Yankees were within reach; but gave directions that they should warm themselves noiselessly at an out-house, then take shelter in the barn, where comfortable blankets were spread on the mow, a most royal supper sent them, with spirits and wine; their sacks were filled with flour, and their pockets with provisions. The four men took each an hundred pounds, young Carey seventy-five, and welcome was their return to their half-famished friends at Wilkesbarre. Never was an opening Spring, or the coming of the shad, looked for with more anxiety, or hailed with more cordial delight. The fishing season of course, dissipated all fears, and the dim eye was soon exchanged for the glance of joy

and the sparkle of pleasure, and the dry, sunken cheek of want assumed the plump appearance of health and plenty.

The Spring too was attended with sickness. Several deaths took place. Captain Butler buried a son named Zebulon; and soon after, his wife followed her boy to the grave. Both were interred on the hill, near where the upper street of the borough is cut through the rocks, as it passes from the main street to the canal basin. This picture of the early settlement, simple in its details, we could not doubt would be agreeable to numbers now living, and not less so to readers in future years, when the valley shall become, as it is destined to be, rich and populous, not surpassed, if equalled in the Union.

Among the first objects of general interest was the erection of a grist-mill. This was undertaken by Nathan Chapman, to whom a grant was made of the site, where Hollenback's old mill now stands, near the stone bridge, on the road from Wilkesbarre to Pittston. Forty acres of land were part of the donation. Mr. Hollenback brought the mill-irons in his boat from Wright's ferry, and the voyage was rendered memorable by the loss of Lazarus Young, a valuable young man, who was drowned on the way up.

Immediately afterwards, the town voted: "To give unto Captain Stephen Fuller, Obadiah Gore, jr., and Mr. Seth Marvin, all the privileges of the stream called Mill Creek, below Mr. Chapman's mill, to be their own property, with full liberty of building mills, and flowing a pond, but so as not to obstruct or hinder Chapman's mills: Provided, they will have a saw-mill, ready to go by the 1st day of November, 1773, which gift shall be to them, their heirs and assigns, forever." And this was the first saw-mill erected on the upper waters of the Susquehanna.

The township of Wilkesbarre had been surveyed in 1770, by David Meade, and received its name from John Wilkes and Colonel Barre, members of Parliament, and distinguished advocates for liberty, and the rights of the Colonies. "Wilkes and LibertyNorth Britain-45," was then heard from every tongue. A final division was now made of the back lots among the proprietors. The town plot, now the borough, was laid out by a liberal forecast, on a very handsome scale. On a high flat, on the east bank of the Susquehanna, above all fear of inundation, the position was chosen. Two hundred acres were divided into eight squares of twenty-five acres, and these into six lots each, containing, after the streets were taken off, about three and three quarters of an acre. A spacious

On

central square was allotted for public buildings. The main avenue, perfectly straight for two miles, passing through the town plot from north-east to south-west, was cut at right angles by five streets. the bank of the river a wide space was left, still beautiful, though much diminished by the ice and floods of the stream.

Two ferries were kept, one opposite Northampton street, the other at Mill Creek; and from these a revenue of some moment in those early times, was derived. From twenty-five dollars a year, the rent of the lower ferry soon rose to sixty dollars; that at Mill Creek yielding half that sum, until discontinued on the erection of mills in Kingston.

Mills and ferries having been provided, with true Pilgrim zeal, attention was immediately turned to the subject of a gospel ministry, and the establishment of schools.

"At a town meeting, December 11, 1772, Captain Stephen Fuller was appointed moderator. Voted, to give and grant, unto the Rev. Jacob Johnson, and his heirs and assigns forever, in case he settle in this town, as a gospel minister, fifty acres of land, &c."

In August following, feeling themselves more able, or more liberal (for the time it was munificent) provision was made.

"At a town meeting held at Wilkesbarre, August 23, 1773, Mr. Jacob Sill, chosen moderator, Joseph Sluman, clerk.

Voted, That a call or invitation, shall be given to the Rev. Jacob Johnson, late of Groton, in the colony of Connecticut, who for some time past has been preaching in this place, to continue a settler with us as our gospel minister.

2d. That Mr. Johnson shall be paid sixty pounds the year ensuing, on the present list, and his salary shall rise annually, as our list rises, till it amounts to one hundred pounds, etc." (Connecticut currency, six shillings to the dollar, or $333 1-3.)

In laying out the town originally, two lots containing about four hundred acres of back lands, had been set off for the first settled minister, and for schools. One of those lots, and the fifty acres above mentioned, together with a town lot of four acres, will show the liberal provision made for gospel purposes.

Mr. Johnson, a Presbyterian clergyman, was a graduate of Yale College, and was the grandfather of Ovid F. Johnson, Esq., the present (1842) Attorney General of Pennsylvania. Some highly interesting additional particulars of this eminent man, ("that wicked priest of Canojoharie") will be found in another page.

It is but just to observe, that amidst this zeal, there prevailed the most amiable spirit of toleration. Finding that a number of the inhabitants were Baptists, and attended the ministrations of Mr. Gray, at Kingston, the vote was rescinded which demanded a tax from them, and a different, but satisfactory arrangement made with their minister.

At a subsequent period, during the temporary absence of Mr. Johnson, the Rev. Elkanah Holmes officiated, preaching in Plymouth, Kingston and Wilkesbarre.

A vote was also passed, "To raise three pence on the pound, on the district list, to keep a free school in the several school districts in the said Wilkesbarre." A subsequent meeting specially warned, adopted measures for the keeping open free schools, one in the upper district, one in the lower, and a third on the town plot.

These votes, thus early in the settlement, passed in the midst of poverty and danger, may be referred to by the descendants of those pilgrim fathers, with honest pride. They will remain to all enduring time, monuments of religious zeal, and their earnest desire to advance the intellectual and moral condition of their children.

Military organization was not neglected. Following the order then existing in New England, discipline was enforced as indispensable to the existence of the settlement. In each township a company was enrolled, and led to the choice of officers; and in Wilkesbarre, from its being divided by natural boundaries into two sections, and its more rapid increase of inhabitants, at an early day two companies were formed. If the splendid uniform, the glittering bayonet, the evolution, rapid and precise, with the imposing band of many instruments of music, did not grace their trainings, there was yet upon the ground the strong-banded old French musket, the long duck shooting piece, and more efficient than either, the closedrawing rifle, little known in New England, but becoming familiar among the settlers on the Susquehanna. At a moment when it has become popular to deride the militia, I deem it proper to say, in defence of a thorough, and never relaxing organization and discipline, that in my opinion America owes her Independence to immediate and remote causes connected with the militia system, the enrollment and training existing in the colonies: and that Pennsylvania cannot too seduously encourage and preserve that right arm of her power, never forgetting, or encroaching upon, what should be deemed the sacred rights of persons conscientiously scrupulous of bearing

arms.