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Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
Family History & Biography
Section
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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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West to Bradford County, Pennsylvania by J. Kelsey
Jones
From an article printed in the Old Sussex Almanack, a newsletter of
the Sussex County, New Jersey Historical Society, Fall 1996.
Many of us think of the western movement from New Jersey in the nineteenth
century to have taken families to the midwest, the Great Lakes states,
the plains, and beyond to the frontier. However, many families from Sussex
County went west to Pennsylvania, to a place already civilized, to the
rolling hills of northwestern Bradford County, Pennsylvania. What drew
these families from Hardyston, Frankford, Wantage other townships in Sussex
County to Wells township and northern Columbia township in Bradford County?
The removal was so large that by the 1860's nearly half the inhabitants
of Wells township and northern Columbia township were from Sussex County.
The only village within Wells township was Mosherville, formerly known
as French Mills, a small village of a few homes with the usual store, blacksmith
shop, etc., situated at the junction of Beckwith and Seeley Creeks (the
latter sometimes known as Daggett Creek). The most productive agricultural
land was and is in the northwest corner of Wells township in the Seeley
Creek and Hammond Creek Valleys, but the families of Sussex County began
agricultural pursuits on the rugged hills in central and southern Wells
and northern Columbia. By the mid to late 1800's most of Wells township
and northern Columbia township had been cleared and productive farms were
plentiful. However, the cleared farms on the once forested hills did not
last forever. The growing city and industry of Elmira, New York attracted
many sons and daughters and grandchildren of those hearty Sussex pioneers
and they began leaving the farms to work in the city of Elmira. Today,
there are less than a dozen active dairy farms in Wells township and that
number continues to dwindle. The forest has reclaimed many of the fields
that were once cleared and will continue to claim more. Only a stone wall
or the stone foundation of an old barn remain in many areas to inform us
of what once was. Many of those Sussex County families lie interred in
the cemeteries of Mosherville, Judson Hill, and Coryland in Wells township
and Baptist Hill in northern Columbia township. Some were buried at Webb
Mills and Pine City over the state line in Chemung County, New York. Still
others were buried in Woodlawn, the large city cemetery in Elmira, when
salesmen traveled Wells and Columbia townships selling burial lots. Some
of those families who settled in Wells and northern Columbia from Sussex
County were: Ayers, Beardsley, Bowman, Brasted, Brink, Buchanan, Carr,
Compton, Cory, Coursen, DeWitt, Dillistin, Dunning, Edsall, Ferguson, Fries,
Gustin, Holly, Ingersoll, Joralemon, Killgore, Kymer, Lain, Lewis, McWhorter,
Pellet, Roe, Roy, Rutan, Scofield, Shephard, Snover, Struble, Swayze, VanKirk,
Vannoy, VanWert, Westbrook, Westfall, and Wortendyke.
Intro
to Early Wells Families
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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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