of Judge Post, of Montrose, emigrated from Long Island to this county, about the year 1799, intending to take up land under the Connecticut title; but, finding it defective, he purchased of the Pennsylvania claimants. For this he was mobbed by the Yankees, who would not bear that their titles should be suspected. Finding him at a distance from home, in another township, they insulted him, burnt him in effigy, and threatened his life-hoping, by intimidation, to make him accede to their views. But the old gentleman had been a revolutionary soldier, and was not to be frightened so easily. They released him, threatening his life if he complained. He made a complaint the next day; and although the offenders were nominally put in jail, they only remained there during the daytime, at night having liberty to go where they chose. Such was the state of public feeling, that these outrages were little reprobated; and many of these same men became afterwards sheriffs, justices, and representatives.

Among the more prominent of the early settlers were Putnam Catlin, Esq., of Great Bend, Mr. Hines, Judge Post and his brother, Mr. Chase of Montrose, Dr. R. H. Rose, Mr. Carmalt of Friendsville, Mr. Asa Lathrop, Charles Miner, Esq.-who came out in 1799, then a young man, and a zealous advocate for the Connecticut title-and others whose names are unknown to us. A small creek of the county bears the singular name of Nine-partners' creek, from an association of the early immigrants.

*

It is well-known that, soon after the revolution, all the lands in the northern part of the state, then a wilderness, became an object of speculation, and were taken up in immense tracts by Robert Morris, John Nicholson, George Clymer, John Read, Judge Peters, Tench Francis, and others. It was difficult, for some years, to get actual settlers to come in under the Pennsylvania title, on account of the opposition from the Yankees already here. Among those most eminent in sustaining the Pennsylvania title was Dr. Robert H. Rose, from Chester co., who came to this county while it was yet a wilderness. He was a man of refined taste, as a poet and a scholar, of great enterprise, and indomitable firmness. He purchased about 100,000 acres of land, from the widow Francis and

John Nicholson was comptroller of the state of Pennsylvania, from 1782 to 1794; during which period more than $27,000,000 of public money passed through his hands, under circumstances of peculiar complication and difficulty, arising from the then state of paper money and government credit. He became the object of political persecution, and resigned his office. His private transactions were very extensive. At this period he was the owner of about 3,700,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, besides large possessions, real and personal, elsewhere. To meet his various pecuniary engagements for these lands, he formed joint-stock companies, to which he conveyed a large portion of them. His affairs became embarrassed; he was committed to prison, and died in confinement, and insane, during the year 1800. So early as the 17th and 18th of March, 1797, deeds had been made to the Pennsylvaina Land Co.; and individual creditors had obtained judgments against him.

The commonwealth had an immense claim against him for unsettled land-warrants, stock accounts, and other items, in liquidation of which the vast amount of lands held in his name, throughout thirty-nine counties, reverted to the commonwealth, and have since been taken up or purchased by others. Conflicting claims, besides that of the state, were previously existing; and have tended greatly to complicate the title to these lands. The matter has several times been closed, and as often re-opened, by legislative enactments, special courts, and new lawsuits; and recently a sweeping claim has been laid, by the individual heirs of Nicholson, to an im. mense amount of lands throughout the whole state-attempting to unsettle titles supposed to be quieted many years since.

others, at a low price, and became the agent for a great portion of the Pennsylvania claimants. Mr. Caleb Carmalt, too, was of great assistance to him, in furnishing him with capital, and joining him in his purchases. Mr. Carmalt settled subsequently at Friendsville, a neat and pleasant Quaker village, in the northwest part of the county. Dr. Rose, after entering, with great public spirit, into various enterprises for the establishment and improvement of the county, erected for himself an elegant mansion, on the bank of Silver lake, surrounded by one of the largest farms

in the state. In the cultivation of this farm, in the sale of his lands, and in the enjoyments of an extensive and well-selected library, he passed his later years. He terminated his useful life about two years since. Among the most admired of his literary productions was a vivid description of a panther-hunt, published in the "Port Folio," the scene of which was laid near the cabin of Mr. Conrad Sox, an old pioneer, on the headwaters of the Lehigh. He also published several poems.

During the last twenty years, enterprising settlers from New York, New Jersey, and the eastern states, have continued to come in; and the county now abounds with well-cultivated farms. There is still room, however, for a much larger population; and many tracts of good land can be bought for from $3 to $5 an acre.

MONTROSE, the county town, is delightfully situated on a hill above the sources of Wyalusing and Meshoppen creeks. From its elevated site it commands a fine view of the adjacent country. It contains a neat courthouse and other county buildings, an academy, the Susquehanna County Bank, and Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Universalist, and African churches. Population in 1830, 450; in 1840, 632. There is a striking air of neatness and comfort about this village that denotes a people who love their homes and take a pride in adorning them. The private dwellings are generally of wood painted white, with green blindsmany of them displaying architectural elegance, and set back from the street amid yards and gardens full of flowers and shrubbery. The streets are wide, and well shaded with trees. The whole appearance of the town is that of a place which has grown up gradually in the midst of a

thriving and intelligent agricultural population, remote from the expensive luxury of large cities, and the great highways of speculation. The place was laid out in 1811, and received its name of Mont-Rose in honor of Dr. Robert H. Rose, who, with the Messrs. Post, and other gentlemen, made donations of lots for the use of the county. Previous to that time the old frame house, built in 1807, (and now occupied as a tavern by Mr. Morse,) and a log cabin, were the only buildings on the site. The borough was incorporated 29th March, 1824. The Silver Lake Bank, now extinct, was established in 1816.

The annexed view was taken from Mr. Morse's tavern. On the left,

is the post-office. On the right, about half-way up the street, is the bank, the academy, and private dwellings.

DUNDAFF is a pleasant town situated near Crystal lake, in the southeastern corner of the co., 22 miles from Montrose, and 7 from Carbondale. It contains a Presbyterian church; a banking house, formerly used by a bank now extinct; a glass factory, established by Messrs. Gould, Phinney & Co., in 1831; and dwellings, stores, &c., sufficient for the accommodation of 304 inhabitants. Peter Graham, Esq., of Philadelphia, has a splendid country seat, with an extensive farm, adjoining the village.

GREAT BEND is a village on the Susquehanna, at the mouth of Salt Lick creek, about three miles above where the river re-enters the state of New York. It is built upon an extensive flat surrounded on all sides by hills. A trestle bridge 600 feet long crosses the river here. It was erected by individual subscription, in 1814, at an expense of $6,500. A turnpike runs from here to Coshecton on the Delaware. Were it not for the difficulties attendant upon two different state jurisdictions, the New York and Erie railroad would undoubtedly have passed through Great Bend: at present it is located about ten miles north of it. When finished, it will be of great advantage to this section of the county. Among the earlier settlers at Great Bend was Putnam Catlin, Esq., the father of George Catlin, the distinguished artist and traveller among the Indians. The latter is a native of the county.

HARMONY is another small village on the eastern side of the Great Bend, on the left bank of the river, about two miles below the New York line. There are several other small but pleasant villages in the county, each containing their post-office, tavern, church, stores, and blacksmith's shop, with dwellings more or less according to the situation. Such are FRIENDSVILLE, 10 miles N. W. of Montrose; "the FORKS," (of Wyalusing,) 12 miles west, and RUSHVILLE, 14 miles west of Montrose; HARFORD, in the eastern part of the county; HERRICK, NEW MILFORD, SPRINGVILLE, Auburn, JACKSON, GIBSON, BROOKLYN, &c.

TIOGA COUNTY.

TIOGA COUNTY Was separated from Lycoming by the act of 25th March, 1804 in 1806 the seat of justice was established at Wellsborough: in 1808 county commissioners were first elected, and in 1812 the county was fully organized for judicial purposes. Length 36 miles, breadth 31; area 1,108 sq. miles. Population in 1810, 1,687; in 1820, 4,021; in 1830, 9,071; in 1840, 15,498.

The county is traversed by the high undulating ridges skirting the northwestern base of the Allegheny mountain, or rather of Laurel hill, which sweeps past the southeastern corner of the county. These ridges pertain generally to the hard sandstone strata of formations X. and XII. of our state geologists, and the lower strata of formation XIII., which comprehends the coal measures. The uplands in the vicinity of the larger streams are well covered with white pines of a superior quality; the sugar-maple abounds in many places, and large quantities of sugar are produced from it. The county is well supplied with navigable streams, having the Tioga river, a south branch of the Chemung, on the east, which is navigable for rafts and arks about 30 miles above the N. York line; the Cowanesque creek on the north, navigable about the same distance, and Pine creek on the west, also navigable; so that no part of the county is distant more than ten miles from descending navigation. A very extensive lumber business has been done on these streams, especially on Pine creek, whence a vast amount has annually been sent down the Susquehanna. The recent crisis in monetary affairs has tended in some measure to check this trade. Several men from the cities, with more capital than industry, and more enterprise than prudence, had embarked in the business, and driven it beyond its profitable limit.

Until the year 1796-'7, Tioga and the neighboring counties were a howling wilderness, entirely cut off from the West Branch settlements by the lofty barrier of the Allegheny mountain-and trodden only by the beasts of the forest, and the savage on his hostile expedition to the lower settlements. About that time a Mr. Williamson of New York, an agent for Sir William Pulteney, first opened a rough wagon road through this wilderness, across the mountains from the mouth of Lycoming cr. to the sources of the Tioga, and thence down that river to Painted Post in New York. This road was made at the expense of Sir William Pulteney for

the purpose of rendering his lands in the state of New York accessible to German or other emigrants coming up from Philadelphia and Baltimore. Old Mr. Covenhoven (Crownover) of Lycoming co., and Mr. Patterson, superintended the workmen on the road, who were principally German redemptioners. This road became a great thoroughfare, and was extensively known as the "Blockhouse road," from a log-house, (called blockhauss by the Germans,) erected by Williamson near the mountains for the accommodation of travellers.

It is still a tavern stand and the site of a post-office, about 12 miles south of Blossburg. This house was kept in the primitive times by one. Anthonyson, a sort of half French and half Dutchman.. Anthony, according to his own story, had spent most of his life as a soldier, during the stormy times of the French revolution; and he had thereby neither improved his morals nor his fortune. He made no scruple, by way of amusing his guests, of boasting of his bold-faced villany-there was no one of the ten commandments which he had not specifically broken, time and again. With the habits of the old soldier, he had little disposition to get his living by tilling the ground; and found the military mode of pillage much more to his taste. He raised no oats, but always charged travellers for the use of his troughs, and for sleeping before his fire. Whiskey was the staple commodity at his house, serving both as meat and drink. Many of the early emigrants to the Genesee country drove their young cattle along. There was a wide track of some fearful tornado, not far from Anthony's house, in which he had contrived to cut an open space, with a narrow passage into it; making a kind of unseen pen. To this spot the cattle of his guests were very apt to stray, in the night. In the morning the poor emigrants were hunting, far and near, for their cattle, with Anthony for their guide; but on such occasions he never happened to think of the windfall.

The unsuspecting guests, after two or three days of fruitless search, would leave, paying roundly for their detention; and instructing the old scoundrel to hunt the cattle, and when found, to write to a certain address, with a promise of reward for his trouble. Anthony never had occasion to write; but it was always remarked that he kept his smokehouse well supplied with what he called elk-meat. When or where he caught the elks was never known. Some lone travellers, who stopped at his house, it is strongly suspected, never reached their intended desti

nation.

After the opening of this road, many of the pioneers from the Wyoming country, and from New England, came into the eastern part of the county, and took up lands under the Connecticut title. For quite a number of years, the uncertainty of this title gave rise to much wrangling and litigation. A Mr. Gobin, an assistant-surveyor under the Pennsylvania title, was shot in his camp, but not killed. At length the litigation was ended by the compromise at Trenton: the settlers quietly acknowledged the validity of the Pennsylvania title, and compromised their claims with the agents of the landholders from Philadelphia. A large portion of the lands, in the eastern section of the county, belongs to the Bingham es

tate.

Soon after the cutting of the Blockhouse road, Mr. John Norris, from Philadelphia, first came, about the beginning of the year 1799, to the