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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
Rome Church History by V. C.
Detty
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| FOREWORD
In 1935 the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of the erection
of the present brick church was noticed by one of the members of the Presbyterian
Church of Rome, and the attention of the pastor was called to the date,
December 21, 1886, when the church had been dedicated. A committee
was appointed to make plans for the observance of the fiftieth anniversary
and the pastor began writing a history of the church from the date of its
organization in 1844 to the time of the dedication of the second church
edifice, 1886.
Upon the completion of the history of 42 years of the church’s
existence, it was though appropriate to bring the account down to date
for publication. After much correspondence with the descendents of
former members and others, and a considerable amount of visitation with
older members, together with research in the records of the church and
in volumes of local history, the results have come to make up quite a volume
of Americana. Church, family and village life in a township in Northeastern
Pennsylvania for nearly a hundred years is delineated in the pages of this
book.
The writer is indebted to members of the church for the facts
and impression they have freely shared with their pastor for this history.
Miss Mary Rice has gone over many of the records and given many items of
explanation and information. Mrs. U. M. Holmes has made available
the diaries and personal papers of her great-grandfather, elder O. F. Young,
who was clerk of the session over half a century. Mr. Charles S.
Pitcher has read the manuscript and contributed suggestions. The
department of History of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
in the U.S. of A. has furnished much data on membership and other annual
reports.
Victor C. Detty
Wysox, April 1942 |
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BACKGROUND
Rome, Pennsylvania was so named at the suggestion of Larmon H.
Elliott, son of William, at a meeting of citizens held in 1831 to organize
a new township from parts of Orwell, Sheshequin and Wysox townships, that
since the township was in the same latitude as Rome, Italy, this new township
should take the name of “the Eternal city.” The majority voted to
accept that same.
Rome Township has an area of about thirty square miles, comprising
one thirty-ninth of Bradford County, and is drained by the Wysox Creek
and its tributaries which include Bullard, Johnson, Park’s, Hicks and Bear
Creeks. Wysox is a name derived from an Indian phrase meaning “place
of grapes,” according to the Pennsylvania state highway marker. Within
the bounds of Rome township were the Wysaukin and Minnisink Indian trails.
The former was a short cut northward going up the eastern side of Wysox
Creek. The latter was a path crossing the township on its northern
border leading from the village of Tioga to the Delaware River.
Along the Wysox Creek a broad and fertile vale extends on either
side, and ascends into high and rolling tablelands and hills. It
is the scene of dairy and poultry husbandry.
The first settler was Nathaniel Peasley Moody, who was born in
Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1760, who became the great-great-grandfather
of Mrs. Marjorie Moody Holmes, present pianist of the Rome Presbyterian
Church, the line of descent being through Moses, Lemuel L., and William
L. Moody. When sixteen years old Nathaniel P. Moody left Yale College
and enlisted on an American privateer, being captured by the British and
pressed into Dutch navel service for two years until exchanged. After
that he enlisted in the Revolutionary army, served to the close of the
revolution having fought six battles, and rose to the rank of major.
After his discharge, Moody went to Great Barrington, Massachusetts where
he married Miss Susan griffin, and resided until March, 1795 when with
his oxen and sled, his wife and their children, Enos, Moses and Menzentius,
he started for the then “far west”.
They crossed the Hudson on the ice at the city of Hudson, and
arrived after many weary days of travel, at Tioga Point, where they heard
of a place a few miles below called Sheshequin, whither they went, and
worn with the long journey, resolved to go no farther. Levi Thayer
at that time claimed, under the Connecticut title, not only all of the
lands now included in Rome, but a large tract of the surrounding country.
His surveyor ran out the lands into tracts, and also a township which Thayer
called ‘Watertown’. Moody helped Thayer to cut a road from the valley
of Sheshequin to the Wysox Creek, which road intersects the creek near
the center of the present incorporation of the borough of Rome. Moody
purchased a piece of land of Thayer about a half a mile lower down, near
the confluence of the Bullard creek with the Wysox.
“In the autumn of 1796 he erected a log cabin, and in May, 1787,
he came with his family to his forest home. Another son had been
added to his family in the meantime, Simon Spalding Moody, who was ten
months old when the log cabin home in the wilds of Rome was first inhabited.”
On this trip night came on before they reached their cabin, and
though but a half mile distance, they were compelled to camp at the junction
of Bear and Wysox creeks. Mr. Moody with flint and steel soon kindled
a fire in a dry pine tree, in the light of which they slept on the ground,
their lullaby being the howling of the wolves in the distance. In
the morning Mrs. Moody was frightened at what she supposed were Indians,
but who proved to be some settlers from below—Henry Tallady, Peter Florence,
Matthias Fencelor (the hermit), and Mr. Hathaway. They had been hunting
and had a wolf by his heels on a pole, which they bore on their shoulders,
past the encampment. It was small wonder that a Massachusetts woman
should mistake such costumed men for natives of the forest. It was
a glad surprise to her, however, to learn she had white neighbors so near,--four
miles distant.”
The Matthias Fencelor referred to was a hunter who lived as a
hermit at a place now owned by Mr. Smith A. Forbes in Wysox township.
One time when returning from Sheshequin by way of Bullard Creek, he found
himself being followed by wolves when darkness overtook him before he could
reach his cabin. He found a rock cliff jutting out from the creek
bank which could be reached only across a narrow neck of ground.
Here he built a fire and tended it all night, for he knew that the wolves,
whose green eyes reflected the firelight on the other side, would not cross
the passageway as long as the fire burned. When dawn came he saw
them slink away into the woods, and not long afterward he made his way
down the creek to his cabin. The place of vigil became known as Fencelor’s
Fort, and may be see along the North Rome road, a little east of the farmstead
of Mr. Avery Forbes, which was settled by William Elliott.
The next year after Nathaniel P. Moody came (1798), Godfrey Vought,
Henry Len and Frederick Eiklor came from Catskill, New York, with their
families. They were all Revolutionary soldiers.
According to Rev. David Craft’s History of Bradford County, Moody
and Eiklor exchanged farms about 1800, and as Moody had the most cleared
land, Eiklor paid him one hundred pounds of ample sugar for the estimated
difference in the value of the farms.
“Soon after Mr. Moody settled on his farm he disposed of his
oxen, and thenceforth contended with the heavy forest without a team.
Two or three acres was the extent of the clearing made, the logs being
rolled together by hand, and the wheat then sown and hoed in.”
John Parks came in 1801 and settled the place owned in 1878 by
Dan C. Wattles, now by Leon Bidlack, on the highway to Wysox. Elijah
Towner, a Revolutionary soldier under Arnold, came first from Danbury,
Connecticut, and next from Columbia County, New York, and settled on Towner
Hill in 1806 after having lived on various farms near Sheshequin for a
number of years. He was the ancestor of Daniel B. Towner, gospel
song composer.
George Murphy settled on Towner Hill in 1803 and lived to be
over a hundred years old. He was a son of John Murphy who was slain
at the battle of Wyoming. John Hicks came to the hollow west of him
in 1804. In 1805 William Elliott came to Rome bringing a party of
nineteen, and settled on a farm on Bullard Creek. A descendant, Joseph
Elliott, lives near the old farm.
Achatius Vought, a brother of Godfrey, began a clearing on Park’s
Creek, about two miles northwest of Rome village, in 1807. Reuben
Bump, of Hugenot descent, and a veteran of Bennington and Saratoga, came
to the northwestern part of the township in 1806, with his brother-in-law,
Russell Gibbs, a native of Vermont.
Peter Johnson, a native of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, came
to Wysox in 1796, married Sarah Moger about 1799, and settled on Johnson
Creek in the southern part of what is now Rome Township. He operated
a farm and a saw-mill. He had four sons—Hiram, Miner, John, Herbert;
and three daughters—Polly, Eliza, and Amanda.
Other pioneer settlers included, according to c. F. Heverly’s
History and Geography of Bradford County, Jacob Wickizer from Luzerne County,
who with Willard Green, bought land and settled on Johnson Creek.
John Horton came from Wyoming in 1811 and settled on Wysox Creek.
Isaac Strope, a son of John Strope of Wysox, settled in Vought Hollow about
1813. Simeon Rockwell came in 1815 from Connecticut, was a cabinet
maker, and also farmed. John Kneeland, said to have been in the “Boston
Tea Party,” having served on land and sea in the Revolutionary War came
to Rome in 1816, a native of Massachusetts. Sylvester Barns, born
in Connecticut, came in 1813, bought the Ridgway mill in 1819, and became
a Baptist deacon. Other settlers were David Weed, a wearer of deerskin
dress; Edward Griffin, a miller on Bullard Creek, Samuel, Ephrian H. and
Isaac Parker, locating at Bumpville; Eli Morris coming from Green County,
New York in 1825; Lewis Goff and Nathan Maynard in 1930; Walter S. Minthern
and Silas Cole, 1930.
The territory now included in the village borough of Rome was
once divided into two school districts, known as the upper and lower districts.
The Baptists held their meetings in the lower, and the Methodists in the
upper school house. In 1827 Deacon Stephen crammer, who came to Rome
in 1812, organized the first Sunday School of the township in the lower
school house and was its superintendent for several years.
On May 18, 1835 the Methodists organized a Sunday School in the
upper school house, and continued it there until they began to hold their
meetings in the Baptist Church, which was the first church edifice erected,
some two or three years previous to the building of the Presbyterian Church
which was organized in 1844. The Methodist house of worship was built
by George W. Eastman and dedicated in February, 1850, when the population
of the town was 1308.
The first religious service was held at the house of John Parks,
in 1801. The preacher was Elisha Cole of Monroe Township, a Methodist.
The first school teacher was Frederick Eiklor, brother of Mrs.
Jesse Allen of Pond Hill (Lake Wesauking). He taught in the first
log school house built in the township, in 1803, or near that time.
It stood near the present farm home of Mr. Ulysses M. Holmes, formerly
occupied by Oscar F. Young.
James Moore, a native of Ireland, lived for a time on the Hudson
where he married Eunice Van Buren. He settled on Towner Hill about
1808. Once of his children was named Martin Van Buren Moore, and
Craft says he was so named for his maternal grandfather. One of his
daughters, Elizabeth, married Enoch Towner, and named one of her sons Martin
van Buren Towner. She bore seven sons and seven daughters.
The Reverend Corrington E. Taylor’s father, Benjamin, came from
Connecticut in 1817. He was a native of Groton, and his wife, whose
maiden name of Bathsheba Janes, was born at Springfield, Massachusetts.
Her brother, Bishop Edmund S. Janes, was one of the founders of Drew Theological
Seminary. Benjamin cleared a farm in the eastern part of the township,
known as Taylor Hill, where descendants still live. An article by
Rev. C. E. Taylor shows the pioneer conditions of early Rome, and is printed
below.
ANNALS OF TAYLOR HILL
By Rev. Corrington E. Taylor
Incidents connected with the early settlement of our county increase
in importance as the years pass by. Taylor Hill is a place not only
known by nearly every man, woman and child in Rome township, but also in
some of the adjoining townships. For many years after its first settlement
it was in Orwell, but when in 1831 the township of Rome was instituted
it became a part of that town. The hill is quite high, and very steep,
especially in approaching it from the north. There are but few roads,
much traveled in the county as steep as this, a part of the way.
Much of the road is a great deal steeper now than the one was in the early
settlement of the hill, as it then wound its way around, taking advantage
of the depressions by its meandering course, and did not reach the top
of the hill. But when the farms came to take definite forms, the
road was laid out between them so that each should furnish one-half of
the fencing and also be equally accommodated by it.
The approach from the west is easier and from the south still
much easier. From the east there is now no road, though there used
to be. It lies directly east from the borough of Rome, about one
and a half miles. Its surface is quite uneven, yet scarcely a foot
but what may be cultivated.
FIRST SETTLERS
One of the first settlers was Benjamin Taylor, from whom the hill
took its name. He came in 1817. He was born in Groten, Conn.,
May 24, 1787, and was married to Bathsheba Janes, April 24, 1811.
She was born in Brimfield, Mass., Nov. 16, 1786. After a few years
they heard the voice of ages, “Go West.” A number of their neighbors
had already come and settled in these parts and he came out prospecting,
and as the valley lands were already taken up, he made selection of this
hill for his future home. After making a beginning in the forest
he returned and brought his family, consisting of his wife and three children.
They came in a two-horse wagon, crossing the Hudson River at Newburgh.
The first year after their arrival here, they lived in a house of Simeon
Rockwell’s, at the foot of the hill on the Wysox creek. During this
time he was engaged in clearing land and in putting up a house. He
did not follow the example of most settlers and put up a log house, but
built a frame one. The sides were covered with wide inch boards,
beveled so the edges of the upper ones shut over the lower ones, to make
the house warmer and to prevent the storms from driving in. The nails
used were wrought ones, made by the blacksmith, and brought from Connecticut
for that specific purpose. For some time the only doors were blankets
hung up, and for years there was no chimney, but a stone fireplace in the
center of the house and an opening in the center of the roof for smoke
to escape.
Here in this wilderness home on the 11th day of Aug. 1818, the
writer of these lines first saw the light of the sun, being the first white
child born on Taylor Hill. “Aunt Chloe” wife of the late James Lent,
I have been informed, was the conspicuous and the very responsible person
on that occasion. My father finding it quite difficult to support
so large a family in such a forest home, and as he was a cooper by trade
and as his work was much wanted in Wysox, Shepard Pierce, an old acquaintance,
persuaded him to move down there and work at this trade. This he
did, living in a house which stood a few rods below where the family residence
of the late Mr. Pierce now stands. He remained there about three
years. As my mother was a weaver she did much in that line towards
supporting the family. Here he lost a valuable cow and on a post-mortem
examination a quantity of pounded glass was found in her stomach.
She had troubled a certain neighbor, and one of the sons of that neighbor
had sworn vengeance against her. But on the whole he was prosperous,
and when he returned to his forest home he took with him three cows and
forty sheep, and was well provided with household furniture. Soon
after their return a chimney was built in the house. This under the
circumstances was rather a difficult job, for the mason must stop while
the dinner was being cooked. When completed it was furnished with
a log-pole, but this was quite as troublesome as well as dangerous
thing, for occasionally it would take fire and burn in two and let the
pole and kettles down into the fire. I remember on a certain occasion
that we children were boiling sap and our parents were both gone, when
we looked and beheld the log-pole on fire. I remember how we cried
and took on, expecting every moment that it would give away, and the kettles
with their boiling contents would come down with a crash into the fire;
but to our great joy our parents returned in time to relieve us of our
trouble. After a while an iron crane was obtained and put in, as
a substitute for the log-pole, and it seemed like an acquisition of almost
infinite importance. But the hand that fashioned it (Nathan Maynard)
has these long years been moldering in the dust, and the anvil no longer
echoes to the stroke of his hammer. That crane is still in existence,
my oldest brother having it in use. Sacred relic! What remembrances
gather around that old crane! Few children of the present generation
ever saw one, or know what it is, it is now stoves! Stoves! Stoves!
Then such a thing as a stove in this country was hardly known. I
must have been ten or twelve years of age before I ever saw one, and perhaps
fifteen before I saw a cooking stove. How great the change!
The woods gradually receded. We generally cleared three
or four acres a year and put it into wheat, and hardly ever failed of getting
an abundant crop. This, with the minor crops, furnished enough for
the family and some to spare. The virgin soil which had remained
uncultivated through all the past age was wonderfully productive.
Some of the land was what is called windfall—where the trees had been blown
down and was covered with briers. This was easily cleared, and could be
immediately plowed, as the roots of the trees were nearly all gone, and
the crops of corn, buckwheat, potatoes, etc., raised upon it was very large.
The cattle and sheep daily ran at large, to a great extent at
least, as it was some years before pasture could be given them. The
cows had among them the “bell cow” and the sheep the “bell sheep”.
The cows must be at home every night in order to be milked, and the sheep
be in a fold near the house to protect them from the wolves. The
cows would generally come by choice to get their bags relieved of the day’s
accumulation, but the sheep must always be sought for, and securely penned.
Occasionally the cows would stay away, or in some manner be hindered from
returning at night, and then a search would be commenced for them, lasting
into the night or perhaps all of the night. This was a painful supplement
to the farmers after a day of hard toil. Now and then, in spite of
all the care exercised, the hungry wolf would succeed in entering the fold
and satisfy his hunger upon some member of the flock. The number
of hawks, owls, foxes and skunks made great watchfulness necessary over
the poultry, by day and night. The deer and squirrels were soon to
obtain part of the different kinds of grain, and the quails and pigeons
did not go hungry. But still amidst all, by industry and frugality,
the wants of the family were well supplied and some advancement made every
year “something being laid aside for a rainy day.”
The above Annals of Taylor Hill were written by the Reverend
Corrington E. Taylor, a Methodist minister, son of Benjamin Taylor, who
was the great-grandfather of Mr. Harold Taylor of Brooklyn, N.Y., and of
Mrs. Albion Jenkins, his sister, who make their summer home in Rome.
Rev. Corrington E. Taylor died in 1888 at the age of 70 years. He
had no surviving children.
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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Published On Tri-Counties Site On 02 MAR 2004
By Joyce M. Tice
Email: JoyceTice@aol.com
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