e Dallas Post An independent paper, of the people, devoted to the great farm- ing section of Luzerne and other counties. ; Trucksville, Shavertown, Lehman, Dallas, Luzerne, The Greater ~ West Side, Shawanese, Alderson, Centermoreland, Fernbrook, Lake- ton, Sweet Valley, Harvey's Lake, Huntsville and Tunkhannock are circulated by The Dallas Post. Also 100 copies for Wilkes-Barre readers; 150 copies outside of Luzerne and Wyoming Counties, but within the boundaries of Penn-- sylvania; 200 copies to friends far away. Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Office at Dallas, Pa., under Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription $1.00 per year ~ Payable in advance Address all Communications to THE DALLAS POST Lehman Avenue Phone Dallas 300 Dallas, Pa. ® EDITORIAL COLUMN Devoted to the Current Topics of the Day : COMMENCEMENT Beauty surrounds us on all sides at this time of the year. Every hillside, stream and hedge-row holds a charm that can be found at no other season. The whole world renews itself and springs to life. With renewed strength d ccurage we face new problms. Everything in nature is fresh, clean and sike all periods when we are most deeply touched by nature and surrounding, ~ there is a poignant sadness about it all which we cannot comprehend. Shelly in his Ode to a Sky Lark expressed it: ; We look before and after; i We pine for what is not; : Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught. E Our sweetest songs are those gy That tell of saddest thought. By this time next aSturday most of the schools in this vicinity will have closed for the summer vacation. It will be rather lonely around the Dallas “Post, for we have enjoyed frequent visits of teachers and pupils who have ; topped in often to give us items land contribute to our school page. Li Many of these young faces we will probably not see again for some time. In the fall many of the graduates will be leaving for college or will enter some We shall always be glad to hear from them and we They will always find in the business or industry. will take pride in their successes and triumphs. Post a friend cager to share their honors. I have burned down twice and through sickness and troubles I have never accepted charity from any one. I am an old man, and by proper hand- ling what is left of my property will support me and bury me. Contributors’ ~~ Column — iditor of the Post: : _ Your Word-O-Gram page interests me both as a puzzle and as a mathe- matical wonder. You say in your de- scription of the contest that there are een advertisers om the page. Turn to i count them. . 2 pr A. SUBSCRIBER. Many thanks for the correction. well let it run the same way ag: this week, just to let everybody see how well we can add. Next’ week we'll correct it. i THE EDITOR. If T wish to spend my last days with my one child who understands me, and takes good care of me, I cannot se2 why so much must be said about it. I wish to say it is very foolish for any- one to think, much less say, that I ever cheated them out of anything, or that they. have anything coming to them from my property but the one who feeds, clothes, pays’ all my bills, unless I feel like selling it to them. No use to say what any one will de after T am dead. My land or any per- sonal property I will do with as I see fit, and hearsay does not bother me in the least. I want anyone in doubt with any money to spare to find out while T am alive and well and in my right mind, not after IT am dead, so that I can defend myself. I wish no hard feelings or ill fill of any one. 1 only take this means of explaining my true feelings. CHARLES OAKLEY. R.F..D Route I. Box 12, Dallas, Pa. The Vagabond There’s one weekly newspaper that we like especially. Now that we've embarked in the newspaper business and know some of the difficulties and problems facing the country publisher, we appreciate it even more. We started to read the Tunkhannock New Age and Republican soon after we had learned to read; when Sioux was pronounced S-eye-ox and many other words took on colorful and wierd pronunciations. Since that time we have eagerly looked forward each week to the arrival of this fine old paper. When we were in college we received it regularly and next to let- ters from home and once in a while one from Wilkes-Barre, nothing the postman could hand us was more ap- preciated. Unless memory plays us a trick, we can remember no time when this big news letter failed to reach us some- time on Thursday; an accomplishment one appreciates when he knows some- thing about newspapers. Since our earliest recollection we cannot once re- member having seen a typographical error or misspelling in the New Age. It’s always clearly printed and its al- ways bulging with news. Never have its editors been in such a mad rush for advertising that they have sacrificed ideals for increased revenue in the business office. The editors have very definite opinions on cigarette smoking, dancing and other little habits that some of us are wont to call petty vices. Rather than be- lieve one thing and print another, the Tunkhannock New Age and Republi- can has turned away hundreds of dol- lars which it might have gained by printing dance, cigarette, playing card and other similar types of advertising. Rather unusal for a newspaper in this day and age when its good ethics to editorially hammer Lucky Strikes, radio advertising on one page and on another print a full page advertisment suggesting that young. women reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet in cff- der to keep a trim figure. Unlike many other community papers, pushed by the competition of big city papers, the New Age does not lift news items from other papers and print them as its own. When items are reprinted full credit is given to the original writer. That's a virtue. Of course, we're always proud when we = Roses and Brickbats Tditor of the Post: ~~ ¥ like your paper very much. ts more interesting now than ever before. ~ But can’t you print it clearer? ; The pictures last week were Very indis- tinct. The point to your cartoon was ompletely lost: because the printing ‘was so poor on the last picture. I like style headings. y A WYOMING COUINTIAN. / weve worked hard this week to make the press print better. Do you think we've gotten any results in this week’s edition? i your new THE EDITOR. “ And Still Another : itor of the Post: nothing like being frank z about it. In the Dallas personals last week under the title “Auxiliary Pic- nie,” yeu come right out with it and ‘say what Kind of time is in store for But didn't you leave some words Or did you get excited because he dominie and wife were mentioned in the next paragraph. I'm glad you told your readers sometime ago that a machine doing the spelling on the Post now and not humans. Yours for more of the new type ‘gpelling. : gel > A. GEOGRAPHER. Can you beat that?—KEditor. A Bit Personal To Whom It May Concern: I wish to make this statement through the Post. So much has been said concerning my property that i own, and always have owned, that 1 feel the only way to reach every one 18 through the press, so I take this means to explain the real facts. The property 1 now occupy, as well as the one I sold to Mrs. Jenkins, was bought and paid for by my OWN IONey. gave ‘my mother, Mrs. Elizabeth oyt, now ‘deceased, a life lease so she would be assured of a ‘home as long as she lived. After a short time she sold it her brother, Joseph Hoover, her life lease. He occupied the place for some forty years for the sum of three hundred dollars. After mother’s death the property came back to me, as Joseph Hoover always knew it would. This has made ‘some hard feelings in the family, which I feel should not be, as it is lawfully and by al right, my property. My mother had no dime or dollar in my property. I am sole owner. I can ell, borrow or dispose of it any time. Anyone who knows anything should know I could not borrow a thousand dollars on some one else's property. If am not mistaken, the law says I am entitled to all the property rights my deed calls for and that I pay taxes on. owding over fences and using prop- rty that belongs to me must come back or, so my la r informs me, sould not will away my property. Tha she could do was to sell her life Early History of Dallas (Continued from Page 1) Up to the present time, local histor- ians have found so much of interest connected with the settlement and growth of Wyoming Valley that they have neglected to note many import- antevents in the rise and progress of the country surrounding. There is, no doubt, a vast deal of interesting his- toric meterial connected with every township in the present county of Luzerne, which, years ago, could and should have been recorded and given: permanent place in its annals, which, from long neglect, is now either | lost forever, or so poorly and inaccur- ately handed down -to us as to be comparatively valueless. In some parts of the country the work of collecting this material ‘has been too long delayed to make it possible now to get any- thing like an accurate account of men and events from the date of the first settlement. The men who knew of theri own knowledge, who lived and had experience in the earliest days, are gone, leaving ds only the children or grandchildren to relate what was told them by their ancestors. This kind of hearsay and tradition lets in an ele- ment of uncertainty which should not exist in any historic record. With the view and purpose of writ- ing down what I can learn, at this late day, concernig ‘the “over the moutain” or hill country west of Wyo- ming Valley, and especially of the present township and borough of Dallas, I began inthe year 1885 to make some effort to collect these materials and data from every source known to me, from examination of records, from conversation and correspondence with those whose memory runs farthest back and is clearest, from monuments, maps, deeds, &c., and have, in: the following pages, recorded, as best I can, the result. I have endeavored to collect abundant proofs and the best evidence to be had before putting down any statement herein as fact. For the reasons given above, I have not been able to entirely exclude hear- say evidence or tradition; but when- ever relied upon it has been fortified by thetestimony of more than one witness on the same point. The township of Dallas originally embraced all the teritory of Luzerne county northwest of the present boun- dary lines of Kingston, Plymouth and Jackson townships, extending to the present Sullivan, then Lycoming coun- ty line. Tt included all of the township of Monroe and parts of Forkston, North Branch, Northmoreland and Eaton townships, in present Wyoming county. All of Lake and Lehman town- ships and part of Ross, Union and Franklin townships in present Luzerne county. Dallas township originally joined to Kingston township as it now does on the line cf the gonthestaniy side of certified Bedford township. The northern portion of present Dallas township is drained by Leonard's Creek which passes through the villiage of Kunkle to Bowman's Creek and with that into the Susquehanna river near Tunkhannock. The southern and lar- ger portion of present Dallas township including nearly, if not quite all, of certified Bedford, is drained by Toby's Creek, which pases, by an easy grade, through a cut or gap in the mountains to Wyoming Valley at a point near the center of greatest population and activity. This is noted as an important fact, because the first immigrations to a country always follow the streams. This opening through the mountains made the country about the head waters of Toby’s Creek very accessible to those living near its outlet. As woon as the settlements in the valley in- creased so that neighbors lived near enough to see each other, there were some restless souls uho felt crowded and began ti seek homes farther back into the woods. The soil in the valley was sandy and not very vich:i> The trees. that grew -upon it were scrubby and small, while upon the higher lands about Dallas the soil seemed stronger and was covered with a heavy forest of very large trees. Some who first settled in the valley reasoned from this that the soil about Dallas, which could raise such very large Arees, must be richer and better for farming purposes than the soil of the valley, and they sold their farms in the valley and moved back. Of course, the anthracite coal of the valley was not known of or considered then. The Earliest Settlers and Their | Improvements The difficulties of settling Dallas township were very great. It was comparatively an easy thing to cut a path or road along the banks of Toby's Creek and find a way even to its source, but to settle there alone, many miles from any clearing, and meet the wolves, bears and other wild animals, which uere terrible realities in those | early days, saying nothing of the still pending dread of the prowling Indian, | was a very serious undertaking. When a young boy I heard Mr. Charles Harris, then an old man, tell some of his early recollections, which ran back to about the time of the battle and massacre of Wyoming. He told us of the Indians who once came into the house where he and his ‘mother were alone and demanded food. There being nothing better they roasted a pumpkin before the fire and scraped it off and ate as fast as it became soft with cooking. He also told us about his father’s first settling on the westerly side of Kingston mountdin at what is still known as the “Harris Settlement” about two miles north of Trucksville. He said that his father forked al the first day felling trees and building a cabin. Night came on before the cabin could be enclosed. WitWh the darkness came a pack of wolves, and, to protect his family, Mr. Haris bruilt a fire and set up all night to keep it burning. The wolves wer dazed and would not come near a fire, and when daylight came they disap- peared. To pass one night under such circumstances required bravery, but to stay, build a house, clear a farm and raise a family uith such terrors con- stantly menacing exhibited a courag that commands our highest esteem. The time had arrived, however, for the settlement and clearing up of that “pack of the mountain” country, and seen some of our humble work re- Everyone who knows me Knows printed in the New Age. ly mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Hoyt, there were volunteers ready and anxious to do it. Of those volunteers ~ By Albert T. Reid | i ) [AU j \ li, i mn 1 br / ; <I Bh f WHR (Weer penne IA rs - iG " hi Jd il | | 3 ah i \ I lp | tif) ed [i= a vel & Ry La dA | 1 b | A= ! ssa nT bid 2 i doh is wai + nad Sr Re % of | Ws 3 2 p. 4 3 ~ = J X 3 4 “a 3 | 3 i 4 <4 EE i 1 \ I have been able to get the names of a very few and to learn where some of them lived. They settled alone and lived alone, leaving almost no evidence except a thread of tradition as to how they lived. ' Among those earliest settlers in that cast wilderness about Dallas were John Kelley, John Wort, Elam Spencer, Ephriam McCoy, William Trucks, John I.eonard, Thomas Case, the Baldwin family and the Fuller family. There were many others who came after the beginning of the pres- ent century, but most, if not all, of the above named, had settled in that region before the year 1800. John Kelley and John Wort were revolutionary soldiers and settled near each other in present Dallas (then Kingston) township. They were, in mv opinion. the first who settled and built homes within the present town- ship of Dallas, probably earlier than McCoy or Leonard (Mr. eParce in his Annals of Luzerne County gives Mc- | Coy as the builder of the first house in Dallas), as both names appear in the assessment books of Kingston tounship for the year 1796, while Mc- Coy’s name does not appear there un- til several years later, probably for reasons hereafter explained. John Wort then (1796) had fifty acres of land, three of which were al- ready cleared, while John Kelley had a like number of acres in all, of which six acres were then cleared. Wort then had one horse and two cattle, while Kelley was credited with owning no horses but four cattle. John Wort’s settlement was on the souther- ly sile of the present road leading from Dallas borough to Orange post- office or Pincherville, in Franklin township. The old log house in which he afterwards lived was still standing a few years ago nearly opposite where Leonard Oakley then lived, about half a mile southwest of late residence of Sanford Moore, nou deceased. John Kelley lived on _the same side of the same road about three-quarters of a mile near Orange postoffice on the lot in the warrantee name of John Eaton. In the early days of this century the “Kelley clearing,” as John Kelley's im- provement was caled, was a somewhat noted spot, and is found frequently mentioned in the early road views, descriptions in deeds, etc., in that part of the country. ePople went there from miles around to cut hay from his low marsh land, where grass grew abundantly before it had yet been started on the newly cleared land of the neighborhood, Among other things most difficult to get at that time was hay for horses and cattle. The first clearings, I am told, were all used and needed to raise a sufficient supplp of grain and other food for the families, and a long time elapsed before enough land was cleared so that farmers could spare a part of it to stand in grass or hay. The first hay crops were, as a rule, exhausted long before the new grass could be had, and one of the methods of piecing out the horse feed was to send the boys in early spring to gather the ferns that would push themselves up from the ground and begin to unroll almost before the snou was gone. Another expedient was to cut evergreen trees and brush of different kinds and drag them into the barnyard for the cattle and sheep to feed upon. John Leonard settled and made a clearing at the lower or southeastern end of part two of lot one and part one of lot two of certified Bedford (then Kingston and now Dallas) town- ship, near the new stone county bridge across Toby's Creek, also exactly at’ the point where the northermost and the middle branches. of Toby's Creek some together near the eastermost corner of Dalas borough, now called Leonard’s Station on the Wilkes-Garre and Harvey's Lake Railroad. The clearing made by him still remains surrounded by almost unbroken woods as he left it. A few stones from the tumble down chimney of his héuse and a few apple trees standing near mark the spot where his house stood, near the eastern end of the clearing. It has always been and is still known as Leonard’s Clearing or Leonard’s Meadows. He bought this land, 150 acres, of a relative, Jeremiah Coleman, of Plymouth, in the year 1795, and probably settled there soon after. In the deed for the land I.eonard is named as a resident of Plymouth township. In 17966 he uas assessed in Plymouth township as the owner of 45 acres of land, a log house and four cows. He does not appear to have been assessed in Plymouth township after 1796. The assessment books for Kingston township for the next seven years cannot now be found; but in the vear 1804 we find him assessed: in Kingston township with 18 acres of cleared land (about the amount of the present clearing) and the 145 acres of unimproved land, one house and four COWS. He was regularly assessed thereafter in Kingston township for the same property until 1807, when all trace of him disappears. He was a shingle-maker, and the spot where his 1 clearing was made is said to have been an old halting place for the Indians, who used to travel up to Harvey's Lake and across the country that way. Joseph Shaver, of Dallas borough, informed me that his father, John P. Shaver, who afterwards bought and | settled near the Leonard clearing, {used to tell of the trials he had when a boy, about the year 1802, in driving a team from Wilkes-Barre up Toby's Creek to John Leonard's clearing to get a load of shingles. There were no roads, only a roadway cut through the woods from the valley along Toby's Creek to where Trucksville now is, and from there over the hills some- what as the main road now runs, to a point near the maple tree by the pres- ent road on the present line between Kingston and Dallas townships, near the cross roads and late residence of James Shaver, deceased. From there he said there was a path down to Leonard’s house. There (were no bdiges then, and the difficulties of the trip were greatly increased by his be- ing obliged frequently to cross and] recross the creek and part of the way to drive. in the bed of the creek, both going and returning. : In the woods a few rods south of the Leonard clearing there is still stand- ing a carefully dug and walled up cellar in the center of which stands a tall pine tree. I have been unable to find anyone who could give me any information as to who built this cel-- lar. It may have been the commence- ment of a house for John Leonard, Jr., who appeared about the year 1906 as a single freeman, but who disap- pears with John Leonard, Sr., in 1807, after which date the records of this county show no further trace of either of them. Charles Car Scadden (or (Skadden), of Plymouth, bought a lot next to Leonard’s from same grantor in the same year, but, as far as I can learn, never lived on it. Dev. William Case,” of Xingston borough, tells me that I.eonard was related to his family and to the Skad- den family—all formerly of Plymouth —through marriage, and that, in his opinion, this same ohn Leonard moved to Ohio and settled near Cleveland about the year 1810. This fact, and the vague uncertainty about it and about the exact name, no doubt gave rise, a few years since, to an effort on the part of a portion of the Case and Skadden families at Plymouth to establish relationship with the great philanthropist and millionaire,’ Leonard Case, who died at Cleveland, Ohio, in the winter of 1879 and 17880, leaving as it was, by some supposed, no nearer heirs. Elam Spencer, a, Connetcicut Yankee, bought the balance of lot one of certi- fied Bedford—168 acres—of Jeremiah Coleman in the year 1800, and is said to have moved into the house with John I.eonard and to have lived there while erecting a domicile for himself on the upper end of the tract, near where his son, Deming Spencer, after- wards lived in the Leonard House, this son, Deming Spencer, was born in the year 1800. (This is given as an old tradition about Dallas, although the tombstone of Deming Spencer gives the date of his death 1873, aged 76 years). He is said to have been the first white child born within the terri- tory of present Dallas township. (Continued Next Week) Beyond Power of Proof “There is gold at the end of the rainbow,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown. “Like other beliefs, this persists because no traveler has been The Week's Doings The First National Bank of Dallas has received samples of the new and smaller currency which the govern- ment will put into circulation next month. The one dolalr bills bear the portrait of George Washington, the two dollar bills that of Jefferson and the five dollar bills that of Hamiltok The older bills now in circulation will be withdrawn only as they become soiled and ragged. In size the new bills resemble the French franc and the ‘paper money of other European countries, although the paper used is of better stock. —_—— Contractor Peter O. Lutz has re- ceived the contract to build a 40x80- foote garage for Chapin. the Chevrolet dealer Benton, Tie wullding > i “e. was designed by Mr. Lutz and is to be’ of modern brick and block fireproof construction. The building will be erected on the- site of the old Benton Store Company structure which was destroyed in the famous Fourth, of July fire in 1920. Benton is Mr. Lutz's old home and he is especially pleased to win the contract for the construec- tion of one of the community’s largest and finest new buildings. —(— There has been considerable activity around the Lehigh Valey station this week where the genial A. S. Culbert is station master and master of cere- monies. Early in the week a carload of mules and horses was unloaded for the Bulford stables. A number of tank cars of heavy oil for the Dallas- Kunkle road were also unloaded this week. James Oliver has installed a novel device in his garage to carry off the carbon monoxide and smoke from run- ning automobile motors. The arrange- ment has three intake pipes located in different parts of the garage. These are placed over the exhaust pipes when motors are running and are conected with an outlet pipe on the roof of the building. The system keeps the garage free from dangerous gases and bad air. A. J. Sordoni has purchased a $10,000 automatic telephone pole-hole diger and erector which the Common- wealth Telephone Company is trying out in the vicinity of Lake Winola. The machine, operated by two men, can erect and dig holes for forty poles a day. Under the old system it took three hours for a man to dig one hole. —_—— L. A. McHenry is rapidly disposing of the stock of lumber of the A. O. Adleman Lumber Company, which he recently purchased. A carload of mixed lumber was shipped to Stull Brothers Lumber Company of Alder- son this week. A part of the remain- ing stock will be used by Mr. McHenry this fall when he builds his new apart- ments and store building on Pierce street, Kingston. Janitor, editor, printer, printer's devil, pressman, advertising solicitor, and in his spare fime man-about- town, Irwin Coolbaugh, with his capable partner, Ben Rood, this week hauled truck load after truck load of ashes to fill in the gullies around the Dallas Post building and give the property a more presentable appear- ance. Eager to finish the work, Coolie and Ben hauled ashes from back yards and cellars without charge until the local supply was exhausted and the price of ashes went up accordingly. The last local quotation on ashes was $1.00 a load plus carrying them out of the celar and hauling them away. Needless to say, Coolie has quite haul- ing for the time being in order to let the market settle before further at- tempting to improve the appearance of the Dallas Post property. In the meantime residents who are willing to give their ashes away and have them hauled away will do the Post a favor by calling Dallas 300 and asking for the clean-up committee. —0 Character Character is what you build into your life by industry, sobriety, thrift, and trustworthiness. ~ It is worth more to you than a bank account. You able to say it is untrue.”—Washing- ton Star can always turn character into cash, but never cash into character. ; - i i 9 “
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers