Chase Family Letters, 1861-1950: Stephen Wilson's Journal, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1887; Part 1

Biography: Stephen Wilson was born May 13,1802, the son of Elnathan Wilson and Elizabeth Baker (who came to Wilkes Barre, PA from Connecticut to run a mercantile store and hotel in Kingston, PA). He was one of 10 children.

He had a book binding and printing office in Milton, PA and was the editor of a weekly paper called “The Milton Ledger”. He live in the old ferry house in Kingston, PA at the end of the Market Street bridge (Wilkes Barre). His children are Elle, Ann, Stephen and Kate Wilson. He died in 1891 in Collumbia, PA.

He wrote in this journal for his niece, Clara, in 1887

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Dear Clara,

In answering your letter, I will begin with your great grandfather Uriah Wilson. He had 3 sons and two daughters - Uriah Jr., David, Elizabeth, Elnathan and Mary Ann. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Uriah was a Captain and David was a Sargent. The day your grandfather was 16, he also entered the army. When Washington’s army lay at White Plains, about twenty miles above New York, Elizabeth, on one occasion, acted as a spy for the Colonists.

I have written quite a detailed account of the transaction as related to me by my father sixty years ago. Elizabeth afterwards married a man by the name of Fowler and after his death she married Enoch Homes and they lived for some years in the upper part of what was Luzerne County, now Lachawana, at a place called (Capouse); not far from Scranton.

They moved from there to the western part of New York State, from there to Canada, when Aunt Elizabeth died at the age of ninety-eight. Their only son Benjamin remained in New York state. I visited him in 1822 at Lockport. He married in 1811 a Miss Alsworth and with his bride visited us. We then lived in the old Ferry House on the west side of the Susquehanna, right opposite your Uncle Taylor’s mansion. I recollect Cousin Ben from his introduction of his young wife to father as well as if occured yesterday. It was “Uncle, this is my girl!” and she was a very pretty young woman. Benjamin had two sisters, Amy and Eunice; I cannot say much of them. The last time I ever saw Uncle Homes family together was in the winter of 1808, when they lived at (Capouse).

Of Uncle Uriah and Uncle David, I can say very little. Uriah may be living yet for aught I know.

Uncle David died at the premature age of one hundred and six years, I am told. Elnathan, my father and your grandfather, I can say more about. Before he came to the Valley of Wyoming, he lived with his parents in Connecticut near New London. The Wilson family at one time owned a great part of the land upon which New London now stands. After the Revolution, Continental money began to depreciate and finally became worthless. Grandfather and his family held thirty or fourty thousand dollars of this depreciating currency; they were supposed to be rich and held on to this paper money, hoping and expecting that Congress would make some provision for its redemption; which in common honesty they should have done - but never did. This national repridiation of its promise to pay (reviled) many credulous confiding persons, grand-father’s family among them. Father at the age of twenty-five left Connecticut and came to Stroudsburg, PA. He remained there four or five years and then went to Wyoming Valley and took up his abode in the Forty Fort in Kingston town-ship. He employed himself at any kind of labor that presented a chance of making money; he had a good deal of Yankee vim and grit in him and always found something to do.

In those primitive times the village of Wilkes Barre had no better way of getting their salt, sugar, molasses and such heave articles of household use, than to send down the river, approached the towns along the river. At the sound of the boat-horn all the boys and girls within hearing would rush to the river shore; for the sight of a Durham boat was as exciting to the juvenile of that day as Barnum’s show would be now.

Father, for a time, had an interest in one of these boats and went with it as Captain. At that time, there were thousands of shad caught every spring at Wilkes Barre. I have seen five thousand shad on the river shore and selling at three cents apiece (the dams have put an stop to that). About the time father was engaged in the boating business, a family by the name of Baker moved from Connecticut, and settled in Forty-Fort, near where father made his house. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Baker, two sons and three daughters. Shortlly after moving into the valley, Mrs. Baker was killed by lightening while sitting in the house on the side of her bed. The was situated in a beautiful grove of large trees near the high bank of the river, near the Fort, which has given name to that part of Kingston.

Near the grove is a Methodist Church which is still standing and three years ago when I last saw it, a new coat of white paint made it look as bright and young as it did sixty years ago, when I was a boy, used to go there. The house in which the Baker family lived and in which the old lady was struck by lightening was the one in which I was born. It has long since been entirely demolished. At my last visit in 1884, I could find no vestage of it.

As the Baker family were some what remarkable for their size and athletic exploits, I will say a few words about them. The names of the boys were Hubbard and Stephen. The girls were Polly, Elizabeth and Eunice. Hubbard was six feet four inches tall and Stephen was six feet two inches. Polly was nearly six feet , stout and well proportioned, she was called handsome, she married George Cahoun. Elizabeth was the smallest of the girls, when she was fifteen years old, father and Betsy (as he called her) were quietly married by the Rev. A Owens, an old Methodist minister who lived near by in the house that Gov. Hoyt was born in. Eunice the youngest of the Baker girls was tall and stern and as active as a deer. She married Stephen Scott, who, in his prime, could have whipped the boasted prize fighter Sullivan into a jelly in thirty minutes. I once saw his son, Nathan Scott and another cousin of mine John Cahoun clear the courthouse at Wilkes Barre of twenty men, who had taken possesion in order to prevent a public meeting. They bustled them out as though they were children. It was the custom in those early days for the militia of a county to meet every spring at what they called general training and often the review by the General Brigade Inspection. The rest of the day was devoted to athletic sport, wrestling, running, jumping and throwing the shoulder stone. Hubbard and Stephen Baker could throw down, out run and out jump any of the thousands who took part in these exercises. An old friend of Uncles Hubbard and Stephen, told me that two men would hold a pole horizontally six feet and eight inches from the ground and Stephen would stand back a few rods, run and clear it at every jump. This was more than father could do, but he could run and jump over a thirteen inch stone wall as high as his head, this was what few dare attempt, for fear of hurting themselves in they failed.

The Bakers were related to a family in New York by the name of Temple, who were extensively engaged in the Chinese Tea trade. The Temples were rich and their sons and Baker boys had frequent chances to take an ocean sail and in that way acquired a disposition to ramble which they afterwards did. Hubbard left home when I was two years old and his family did not hear from him for ten years. He was then in South America; he never returned to Wyoming Valley. Stephen, the uncle for whom I was named, left home when I was six years old. One evening as I was returning from school, I met Uncle Stephen, who said he was going away and I would not see him for a long time. I have never seen him since. I heard from him fourty-six years after; he was then living in the state of Illinois and had a family of twelve children. But the country was becoming too thickly settled for him and he was preparing to move farther west, that was thirty-three years ago. If he is now living, he is ninety-nine years old. When we parted seventy-nine years ago, he gave me a little Turkey oil-horn to remember him. I have it yet.

Grandma Baker was a sister of the celebrated America traveler John Ledyard, who sailed around the world with Captain Cook and was on shore with Cook when he was killed by the savages of the Sandwich Islands. Ledyard, after he had been around the world by water, determined to travel ‘round it by land and water. As he is a great uncle of yours, I will add a few more lines of his history. Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, was one day walking through the market of St. Petersburg and saw a very pretty girl selling apples. Her beauty attracted his attention. He bought some of the apples and, in conversation, learned that she was a poor orphan with no other way of making a living. Her quiet and ready replies to his questions bespoke her good common sense and enlisted his sympathy. He told her to quit the apple business and he would support her and give her an education, to this she gladly assented. He sent her to school and as the years passed by, she grew into womanhood, her beauty and intelligence captivated his heart and he married her, much to the disgust of many maidens of high degree, who had been hoping for the royal hand. But Peter was an independent old Russ, he loved Kate, the apple girl, and he made her the Empress Catherine and her plebian blood has to Russia the brainiest monarchs in Europe. After Peter’s death, she ruled Russia as the most intelligent monarch in Europe of that day.

It was during her reign that John Ledyard found himself in his travels around the world in St. Petersburg, without friends or money. He was a learned man, had traveled in all quarters of the globe and to be travelling without money just for the fun of it, was a circumstance that, when it came to Catherine’s ears (as it soon did) she did not fully believe; but concluded he must be a British spy, who was in her dominion for an evil purpose. She ordered his arrest and had him sent to England. In London he found Thomas Jefferson, then our Minister to England with whom he was intimately acquainted, he made his circumstances known to Jefferson, who informed him that a company of gentlemen were fitting out an expedition for the purpose of exploring some parts of Africa. A suitable man was wanted to take charge and if he was willing to go in that capacity, he would inform them, which he did, they wrote asking him when he would be ready, he said , “tomorrow morning.” The expedition sailed to Cairo and from there went into the interior. After some months among the negroes, Ledyard was taken sick, he was brought back to Cairo and died there.

We were living in a house about a hundred feet from the west end of Wilkes Barre bridge. My sister Ester was born there. We left the house in the fall of 1807 and went to spend the winter with Uncle Enoch Homes at Capouse. In the Spring of 1808 we moved back to Kingston into a house on the farm of Esq. Peirce. A farm that lies between Col. (Dorrance’s) and the river.

Here your Aunt Ann was born. One day, Polly saw a squirrel in a cherry tree and ran in the house to ask father to shoot it, he said the little squirrel didn’t want to be shot. Polly then said, “if the squirrel said it wanted to be shot, would you shoot it?” He said yes, but he would wait ‘till the squirrel made that request so with that she went away satisfied.

One evening, Father said “ now children, go to bed and sleep and in the morning you can go with mother and me to see the elephant show with your uncle George Chahoons (born) in Wilkes Barre. We hurried to bed but to get to sleep with the glorious anticipation of seeing live elephants and monkeys in our brains was a stretch of power, that, with the help of old Morpheus himself we could not accomplish. We were up at the peek of dawn, hurried on our best wearing gear and little appetite for breakfast, began teasing our parents to go. At last, go we did and saw the most wonderful show. A big elephant called Bets and two long-tailed green monkeys. For a long time afterwards, I boasted of the daring exploits of feeding Bets a roll of ginger bread.

In the spring of 1811, Father leased the old Ferry House, about five acres of land, and the ferry with its equipment of flats and skiffs for one hundred dollars a year. This was a fortunate move, for he took in the first week enough to pay the years rent. The first year we were at the Ferry, father built two flats and two skiffs, as the old ones were getting too shabby and he wanted to own all the ferrying-crafts himself so that if the (rental) should be (mixed) on him the next year, he would own all the boats. The sequel will show the wisdom of this move. The first year of ferrying he made a good living, paid for his flats and skiffs and had three thousand dollars in Bank. He often took in thirty or fourty dollars a day, but then in the winter when the river was frozen over his income ceased except what he took in the tavern, for in those primitive days the old Ferry House was also a hotel. The Trouble brewing between Great Britain and the country that resulted in the war of 1812 caused thousands of families of the Yankee states to move to the far west, but the far West of that day was not the far West of our day. The great bulk of immigration was to what was then called “ The Holland Purchase”, a large piece of good land in the western part of York state that had been bought many years before by a company of Hollanders, who now offered it for sale at a low price to settlers. Thousands took advantage of this offer, traveling mostly by the route that led them to cross the Susquehanna at Wilkes Barre, thus putting sheckles into father’s pocket. Some of the sharp ones of Wilkes Barre who had an eye to business thought and said Wilson is making too much money, we must out-bid him next spring. The ferry was rented by auction.

The next spring, father bid one hundred dollars and George Chahoon bid one hundred and twenty dollars. Father would bid no higher and Chahoon got it, but he soon found he had an elephant on his hands; the crafts belonging to the company were no longer fit for use. Father owned the new ones and wouldn’t sell them, he had not been legally married by the company to give up possession and could not be dispossessed ‘till the ferrying season was nearly over. Chahoon was in a dilemma; the best thing he could do was to let father have it at his own bid and pay the twenty dollars to the company, which he did. At the end of the year, father had an additional three thousand in Bank. By this time, travel began (sensibly) to decrease and father concluded he had got the cream out of the place and would go at something else. He could command six or seven thousand dollars in ready cash and would try store keeping.

Your uncle William was born at the Ferry House on the fourth day of June 1812. The day the world was to end according to the prophecy of the old Nimrod Hughes (Stern) living in Philadelphia.

Now I’ll say something about myself; seeing father handled so much money gave me an itching to make some too; this I did by occasionally rowing a foot passenger over the river and by other means that I will mention presently. One day I ferried a venerable looking man over who told me his name was Asbury. When he got out of the skiff, he put his hand on my head on my head, and pronounced a blessing on the flaxen haired boy, who had brought him safely over the river. He was the Bishop Asbury of M. E. Church.

At another time, I was on the bank of the river and saw a man strip on the Wilkes Barre side and plunge into the stream, he swam one fourth across then threw up his arms and sank.

I was the only person who saw him, I screamed for father and Adam ( a black man who lived with us) father reached the river first and pushed off a skiff, I jumped in with him to show him where to go. Adam came a moment after and, being a powerful young negro, took a flat and rowed across nearly as quickly as father. We saw the man at the bottom of the river, and stopped. While, Adam went to the shore and took in Stephen Butter, who had heard my cry and ran to the river and stripped ready to dive for the drown man. When Adam rowed the flat over the place, Butter went down and brought him up. By this time a crowd had gathered on the shore, when the flat reached there, the man was taken off and every exertion made to restore him, but in vain, the vital spark had fled. Thus died the drunken (Fan) Fry.

I was in the habit (when out of school) of rowing across the river, to make a little money for myself, and father thought I must learn to swim or I might some day fall out of the skiff and go as Fan Fry had gone. We had a long plank running out from the shore to where the water was four feet deep. Father and I stripped for bathing. He was an expert swimmer, and took me out to the end of the plank, put me in the water in nearly a horizontal position and held his hand under my (brest), while all but my head was under water and told me to hands and arms and strike out with my feet just as a frog does. This I did ‘till he said my performance was perfect, he then removed his hand and told me to swim to shore, and I believing I could, struck out without fear and easily reached the landing. This was all I tried to learn, since then I have had no trouble in swimming. Any boy can learn to swim in one hour if he adopts the proper means. Every animal that swims at all can swim the first time it goes into the water and man can do so too if he would exercise common sense.

I had great satisfaction in jingling and counting of the money I earned and when I gathered fifty cents in change, I would go to the bank, which was a few rods above Taylor’s house, and get Mr. Bredle, the cashier, to give me a new half-dollar for it. I was then bent on making money and was after everything I could turn in to cash. There were quantities of wild hops, purple, grapes, walnuts and butternuts growing along the river and the Flats. I knew every vine and tree with in two miles of our house and used to grab the first as soon as ripe. One day, your aunt Polly and Ester and I picked seventy pounds of green hops. They would make twenty pounds when dried and were worth twenty five cents a pound. This was a glorious days work and added to my pile five dollars. Tis said Nimrod of old was a mighty hunter before the Lord, but I don’t believe he ever trapped half as many muskrats as I did when a boy. The last year we lived in the Ferry House I had at one time seventy five muskrat skins hanging in the garret. These I sold to Barney Ulp, a (liatier) in Wilkes Barre for eighteen dollars and seventy five cents. We had a great number of hens, I would start out in quest of eggs, some mornings, and out of the barn and (bushes) along the river shore would gather six or eight dozzen. These I might sell and half of what I got for them was mine. In these and various other ways my ducats accumulated ‘til when we moved from the Ferry, I had ninety-nine and a half silver dollars, These I lent father when he commenced store keeping and have not seen them since.

Before we moved father built a store house and dwelling in the lower part of Kingston village to which we moved in the spring of 1812 and commenced the mercantile business. Trade was brisk and profits large. I remember selling fifty dollars worth of goods one morning to old Ann Blanchard (who kept a tavern at Heulock’s Eddy) and all for cash down. About this time, George C. Wilson was born and about two years after your father was added to the Wilson family, which now consisted of myself, Polly, Ester, Ann, William, George and Lyman.

The war with England was now over. It had been declared June 19, 1812 and a treaty of peace was signed Dec. 24, 1814 and ratified Feb. 17, 1815. It had lasted a little over two years and a half, and during this time the mercantile business was brisk and profitable but the price of goods began to rapidly to decline after the war. This was a time that if it did not try men’s souls, it seriously tried the pockets of all the Merchants in the country. Three fourth of those in this business in the Valley failed and father having a large stock of goods on hand, thought the best thing he could do was to trade his goods for lumber and carpenter work, which he did and built a large hotel with capacious stabling about sixty rods up the street - he was then living on. In this way, he got rid of most of his goods and at fair prices and saved himself from bankruptcy. He closed out his stock, sold his dwelling and store house to a Yankee by the name of Gilbert Lewis and moved into the hotel, which was the largest building in Kingston. He also built another two story frame house about twenty rods further up the street and paid the hands, as well as boarded them who built the large stone house for James Bauer, which is still standing across the street, a hundred feet below our hotel. Father lived in the hotel several years. Your Uncle Thomas was born in the house.. Thomas died at the age of 2 years and was buried in the old grave yard at Forty Fort, first at the right hand of the entrance gate. This was the second death that had occurred in the family of 10 children - I forgot to say I was not the first born - the first child, a boy, died when a week old.

There was a family of Hurlbuts living in a tavern a few rods from us & their oldest son Layman took a great fancy to Betsy Wilson’s boy and would have him called Lyman-Uriah. She did & I believe the goze (goes) by that name yet. The Hurlbuts were very particular friends of ours.

The father, Naphthale Hurlbut, was once sheriff of Luzerne Co. His children were Layman, Esten, Mary Ann & Avery-Lyman married Caroline Sevfield. Esten married (Able) Hoyt, Mary Ann married a man of New York state named Canada & whether Avery ever found a bride, I do not know. This is all I will say of that named you Father.

Mother began to be tired of bringing up a large family of children in a hotel - Our house, for years, was the home of itinerant Methodist preachers. Rev. Benjamin Bidlack Geo. Lane, Marmaduke Pierce, Geo. Peck & a score of others liked in there (their) travels round their circuits, to make it convenient to stop with brother & Sister Wilson, a day every few weeks, for Methodist preachers are proverbial for having a keen relish for good things of this world. They knew their horses would fare well in brother Wilson’s stable & they themselves would fare sumptiously at Sister Wilson’s table, and at the bar, they could take a glass of wine or of good brandy if it were preferred, as it often was. In those days of primitive symplicity Methodist preachers thought it no sin to drink if they did not get drunk. Mother was a splendid cook & her table was always loaded with a profusion of good eatables and well did these good people know it. Mother at last got tired of so much unprofitable patronage & persuaded father to sold his hotel and retire to private life. But before he sold it Polly were married & left the old home, but before I say more, I will give you the record from our old family Bible:

Elnathan WIlson was born Feb.23, 1762

died Mar. 1834

Elizabeth Baker born Dec. 19, 1782

died Oct. 10, 1840

Elnathan Wilson & Elizabeth Baker were married May 1798. The first child died when one week old.

Stephen Wilson was born May 13, 1802

Polly Wilson was born Aug 11, 1804

died May 2, 1883

Esten Wilson was born May (5) 1807.

died Sept. 8, 1848

Ann Wilson was born Aug 27, 1809

William C. Wilson was born June 4, 1812

George C. Wilson was born April 17, 1815.

Lyman H. Wilson was born Dec 4, 1817

Elizabeth Wilson was born Oct 29, 1824

Sometime after Father sold his Hotel & other real estate, he moved to W.B. bridge house & lived there ‘til his death in 1887 - William had learned the harness trade, but two boys were home yet. They were bright specimens of Young America as well could be found, not vicious, but had about as much mischief in them as could be - they were given to all sorts of boyish athletic sports - hand springs, ground & lofty tumbling & they had a peculiar knack of converting themselves into human cartwheels & rolling on hand & feet from one end of the bridge to the other, to the astonishment of pedestrians - George was famous for jumping. I have seen him jump 12 feet & 4 inches on a level floor back & forth. He was also a great wrestler on a side hold - he often took hold of men much larger than himself but I never saw anyone throw him. He was also an expert boxer

- Lyman had his peculiarities. If there was a fish in the Susquehanna river, Lyman could catch it - and if there was a small bird on a tree & he wanted it; he was as good as (David) at throwing stones - He could throw as straight as he could (shous).

At this time I had moved to Milton & had a bookbindery and printing office - George had been apprenticed to Mr. Lynde, a match-maker, but he soon found that sitting so much gave him pain in the breast & would soon kill him. I sent for him & he had not been with me 6 months before he was the fastest type setter & in every way the best printer in the office. We printed a weekly paper called “The Milton Ledger” and books. George could make large wooden type that we often required in printing show bills, could repair the press, or do any other mechanical job that was needed - He was a natural genius, He could write sharp & pointed articles of poetry. The best New Year’s address received at the office of the Keystone” Harrisburg for the year 1841 was set up in type by George, composed as he set it up in the (stock), without having it written off.

After he married Kate Stoughton & moved to Columbis, Ohio, he worked in the largest printing office in the state, & in 1848, I was a delegate to the National Convention that nominated George Cass for the Presidency. I formed the acquaintance of a delegate from Ohio who know George. He told me that George was reported to be the best practical printer in the state.

After William had learned his trade, he also came to Milton & started business & after father’s death, Mother was left with but two children Lyman & Elizabeth at home & she wanted to come to Milton. I bought a house & large lot of ground for her in Milton & she & the two children moved into it, but she did not remain there long before she got tired of keeping house, so broke up & came to live with me where she remained ‘till her death in 1840 --

Ann had married & living in Phila, & Elizabeth went to live with her, Your father, then a good chunk of a boy, drifted into the employ of Gen. Frick, who made a Whig & then a republican of him & what he has been & done since then, he must tell you himself. In his younger days, he was noted for his strength -- I am told he lifted a 1000 lbs. one day on a bunter. I did not see it done, but this I did see -- I had in my store a large sugar hogshead weighing over one thousand four hundred lbs. that lay upon its side. I wanted it set on end and put out of the way & had two negroes trying to do the job but both together could not put it on end -- Lyman happening to come in, saw the fellows had more than their match -- hustled them out of his way telling them they could not lift as much as they could eat for dinner. He set the hogshead on end himself and shoved it where I wanted it -- to the astonishment & dismay of the negroes -- one of whom said, “I don’t want to get in dat boys path no way -- suh”.

At another time, Lyman and I were walking up the canal at Cumley Wharf were some men were unloading plaster from a flat -- They had a plank from the flat to the canal bank & would pick up a piece of plaster as big as a man’s head & walk the plank with it to the shore & drop it on the heap. Lyman asked them why they did not stand on the flat & throw the pieces on the pile without running back and forth wasting time. The men said they were too heavy -- no man could do that. Lyman went on to the flat & began to hurl the chunks of plaster, from 50 - 60 or 80 lbs weight, onto the pile on the shore without stepping off the flat. He threw off a doz. or more pieces & then came on shore & said to the men “that’s the way to unload the flat.” They were very much surprised at this performance and said if old Charley Cumley know that Samson was in town, he would employ him to unload plaster.

Luther and Peter Yarrington of W.B. were the brag fisherman of the valley. They did nothing else for a living -- they could push their fishing canoes up & down the river shore almost as fast as a horse could run -- Your father must have taken lessons from them for he could catch fish where nobody else could get a nibble. I had a proof of this during a little fishing excursion he & I took to Watson town. He rowed up the river opposite that village & set an outline of a 100 or more links baited with lampreys but had hardly reached the shore before we had to go over the line to take off fish & in this way, we were kept busy from a little after dark till midnight, when our bait ran out & we had to quit & go home. On counting our fish, we had 29 salmon, about 100 catfish, eels and other fish. Our extraordinary luck did not satisfy your father he must try it again the next night. We hired boys to catch lampreys for us & got at our fishing station before dark. Some other fishermen, who had witnessed our haul the night before, were persuaded there must be some mystery in your father’s fishing and were determined to find out the secret. They watched him baiting his links. He cut up the bait as they did & so, as they did not see him put anything on his bait to charm the salmon, which was the fish we were all after, they went away satisfied. Your father then went back over the lines, took off all the cut bait & put on line squirming lampreys for salmon are carnivorous & want live food. Your father was then kept busy going back & forth till near daylight, when he again ran out of bait. We counted our fish, found 31 salmon, some weighing seven or eight lbs & more than 100 other fish. There were 3 or 4 other lines above & below us out all night & none of them had caught a salmon. Col. Ed Pipher came our boat & was much surprised when he saw our salmon. He knew there must be some secret about it & offered your father a ten-dollar bill if he would let him know what it was but the money was refused, for your father said he had no secret to disclose.