This is one of the original five townships formed under Connecticut, and its existence dates back to l768—124 years ago. Each township was five miles square, [p.616] and each was to be given to forty settlers who would organize, go upon the lands and become permanent settlers. Hence the word forty came to be a conspicuous one in this section of the country. Forty Fort is, therefore of itself, a historic name. Of the hundreds of millons of beings then animate, breathing lusty life, struggling, warring or cooing, not one is now left upon the earth alive—what a silence so far as they are concerned! What a thought, applied to any century and a quarter! What a gruesome and appalling silence and waste would settle upon all this world were this stream of new life dammed but a brief space of time! There was not even the solitary white man residing here in 1768. But the hour had struck when all was prepared for the white man's advance, and the pressure behind broke away the obstruction and the tide came that was never to recede.
At a glance the reader will know it was named for Sir William Pitt, the elder of the English statesmen, spelled originally Pittstown. It is situated on the left bank of the Susquehanna river and in the northeast corner of the county.
The Pittston township formed in 1768 under Connecticut was one of the five townships of the Susquehanna Land company, and was surveyed and established in 1768. In 1784 the high waters destroyed the surveyors' marks, and an act was passed for a new survey to ascertain the land claims of the Connecticut settlers. The lands in this township thus resurveyed became certified Pittston and contained thirty-six square miles.
The leading families who were in the township prior and during the Revolution were the Blanchards, Browns, Careys, Bennetts, Sibleys, Marceys, Benedicts, St. Johns [Miner says that Daniel St. John was the first person murdered at Forty fort after the surrender], Sawyers, the gallant Cooper, Rev. Benedict, the first preacher in that locality. Capt. Jeremiah Blanchard, Sr., was commander of the Pittston company. His command was cut off from Forty fort at the time of the battle and could not reach the patriots in time to partake in the fight. Zebulon and Ebenezer Marcy were brothers. The flight of Mrs. Ebenezer Marcy through the wilderness after the July 3, 1788, battle, with an infant six weeks old in her arms and leading another child two years old, and the death of the latter in that awful journey through the "Shades of Death" (most literally so in this case) is one of the many terrible tales of those times of deepest afflictions.
Zebulon Marcy was the first white man that ever built a brush or log cabin in the township, and may, therefore, be known as the first settler.
In 1776 Brown's blockhouse was erected in what is the borough of Pittston and in the attack in 1778 this building was the refuge of all the women and children in the vicinity, and was guarded by thirty men under Capt. Blanchard.
As said this township was one of the five formed in 1768. The first step that was so soon to be followed by the migrating of the first forty of the "Moss trooping" Yankees from the east and whose arrival and finding the Pennites in possession, determined to hold that possession, especially against the Yankees, was the opening episode in the "first Pennamite and Yankee war." This arrival of the Yankees was on the 8th of February, 1769, still in the dead of winter.
The morning of July 4, 1778, after the surrender of Forty fort to the British officer Butler, he sent a detachment across the river to Pittston and demanded the surrender of Fort Brown, commanded by Capt. Blanchard., The fort was capitulated on fair terms. Mr. Miner says the Indian captors marked the prisoners "with black paint on the face, telling them to keep it there, and if they went out each should carry a white cloth on a stick, so that, being known, they would not be hurt." It is related elsewhere how the two Butlers, with Obadiah Gore, Dr. Gustin and Col. Denison, met in the ruins of Wintermoot fort, and there the articles of capitulation were agreed on and signed for the surrender of Forty fort.
From Stewart Pearce's Annals we take the following, as the settlers of Pittston who were assessed in 1796. ln this list, of course, is nearly every one of the first settlers. The descendants of these are to-day among the prominent family names in this part of the county:
[p.617] James Armstrong, Enos Brown, David Brown, Elisha Bell, Waterman Baldwin, Jeremiah Blanchard, John Benedict, Ishmael Bennett, A. Bowen, James Brown, Jr., Anthony Benschoter, R. Billings, Conrad Berger, J. Blanchard, Jr., Samuel Cary, John Clark, George Cooper, James Christy, Jedediah Collins, John Davidson, David Dimock, Asa Dimock, Robert Faulkner, Solomon Finn, Nathaniel Giddings, Isaac Gould, Ezekiel Gobal, Joshua Griffin, Daniel Gould, Jesse Gardner, Richard Halstead, Isaac Hewitt, Daniel Hewitt, John Honival, Joseph Hazard, Abraham Hess, Jonathan Hutchins, John Herman, Lewis Jones, Joseph Knapp, Samuel Miller, William Miller, Samuel Miller, Jr., Ebenezer Marcy, Jonathan Marcy, Isaac Miles, Cornelius Nephew, John Phillips, James Scott, John Scott, William H. Smith, Rodger Searle, William Searle, Miner Searle, James Stephens, Elijah Silsby, Elijah Silsby, Jr., Comfort Shaw, Jonathan Stark, James Thompson, Isaac Wilson, John Warden, Crandall Wilcox, Thomas Wright.
The settlers on this side of the river in 1778 bore then part in the common defence, for we find records and traditions of at least two forts or stockades here, one near Patterson's lumber-yards and the other not far from the stone gristmill at the ferry bridge.
Dr. Nathaniel Giddings was the first physician in the settlement. He came from Connecticut in 1787, and practiced medicine here until his death, in 1851. He set one of the first orchards in the township on his farm, near the Ravine shaft. About the time he came Z. Knapp, grandfather of Dr. A. Knapp, located in that vicinity. William Searle came from Connecticut before the massacre, and occupied a farm near those just mentioned. Rodger Searle's first house stood where the Ravine shaft is, but in 1789 he moved to Pleasant Valley. David Brown, mentioned as assessed in 1796, had settled the D. D. Mosier place as early as 1790. Some of the trees he set for an orchard on his farm are still standing, and mark the spot where he lived. His son, Richard Brown, settled Thomas Benedict's farm. Samuel Miller's farm was in this immediate vicinity. His date is 1789. Elijah Silsbee was here in 1778. His residence was on the north side of Parsonage street, opposite James L. Giddings. William Slocum lived where Edward Morgan now does, and the Benedict family lived near Mr. Morgan's stone-quarry. One of the first clearings, in what is now the lower part of Pittston borough, was made where the depot and the Farnham house now are. One of the early orchards was here. Another was set by Mr. Benedict near where the Pittston knitting-mill stands, and Rodger Searle set another at the same time on his place.
For sixty years after the settlements were begun in Pittston, the Yankee element predominated in the population of the township, but with the discovery of coal began the great influx of the various European nationalities that make up the heterogeneous population as it is found to-day. The Scotch came in large numbers in 1850-5, although many of the most experienced miners came to America before coming to Pittston, attracted by the gold mining of California. The inroad of the Welsh was more gradual, as they had previously come to the older mines at Carbondale, and came down the valley as the coal fields were developed.
The coal interests soon became the largest source of wealth in the township, although there is some valuable farming land in the small valleys and on the hillsides within its boundaries. Col. James W. Johnson was one of the pioneers in the mining and shipping of coal. He sent considerable quantities down the river in "arks" when this was the only mode of transportation. These "arks" were built during low water and floated off in high water, much in the manner of rafting. Col. Johnson sold his coal works to William R. Griffith and his associates, who also purchased the franchise of the Washington Railroad company, and by a consolidation of charters formed the Pennsylvania Coal company and became a large operator in mines and mining. The first shipment of coal ever made to the West was from this point. The humble beginning of what is now a never-ending stream. The Erie Railroad company became the proprietor of what is known as the Hillside Coal [p.618] & Iron Company colliery at Pleasant Valley, now known as Avoca. The Pittston Coal company was organized in 1875, by parties who had purchased the old Pittston & Elmira company, and operate the Seneca Slope, the Ravine shaft and The Twins. The Columbia mine, by Grove Bros., was opened in 1862; it stands at what was the head of the canal. Near them is the Phoenix Coal company. J. M. McFarlane & Co. sunk the Eagle shaft at Tompkins' colliery in 1850. They were succeeded by Alvah Tompkins in 1855.
The old Butler mines were opened as early as 1835 by John L. and Lord Butler. Their brother-in-law, Judge Mallory, of Philadelphia, became a partner, and their canal shipping point came in time to be called port Mallory, and this name was applied to the old hotel at that place.
The first sawmill in the township was built near the mouth of the Lackawanna, in 1780, by Solomon Finn and E. L. Stevens.
In 1790 the strong necessity for highways and river crossings brought in action a board of authority in the premises with authority to lay out public highways in the township. The board was as follows: John Phillips, David Brown, J. Blanchard, Caleb Bates, John Davidson and J. Rosin.
The settlement on the Pittston borough side of the river dates as far back as 1770. In 1772 John Jenkins, Isaac Tripp, Jonathan Dean and others established a ferry to connect these settlers with the settlement at Wyoming and Exeter. This was the old rope ferry, now supplanted by the two elegant wagon and foot bridges that span the river.
The next year James Brown, Lemuel Harding and Caleb Bates were constituted directors of the township, with authority to assess and collect taxes.
The first bridge was built in 1850 by the Pitts Ferry Bridge company. This took the place of the rope ferry. This bridge was replaced in 1864 by a covered wooden bridge, which was destroyed by the ice flood of 1875. The next year, 1876, was built the present elegant iron bridge—a toll bridge by the King Iron Bridge company—and now belongs to the Ferry Bridge company.
The present elegant depot bridge was built in 1874, partially destroyed in 1875; rebuilt the same year. The railroad bridge was erected in 1874.
McCarthyville (popularly Corklane) is a mining town or collection of houses in Pittston township; joins Pittston on the east extending eastward a short distance beyond the D. & H. C. Company railroad and on the north reaches to Hughestown borough line and south to Browntown, and is separated from the latter by a line extending from Fairmount breaker to Market street, Pittston. There are 900 inhabitants in McCarthyville; 140 dwellings. The community is engaged in the collieries. Has a new school-building of four rooms, 163 pupils; 2 hotels, 2 stores and 1 coal breaker; it is reached by the D. & H. railroad and the Central of New Jersey.
Browntown is a mining place in Pittston township, on Pennsylvania coal company leaseholds. It joins Pittston on the east and extends toward the D. & H. Canal Company railroad; bounded on the north by a line from Fairmount breaker to Market street and on the south by an extension of Swallow street to the D. & H. Canal Company railroad. It is supplied with water by the Pittston Water company; has an estimated population of 1,000, in 200 dwellings, engaged in the mines.