beauty. Earliest white settlement was at Great Bend; General James Clinton, with 1600 men, encamped here in 1799, en route to join General Sullivan at Chemung against the Indians. Chief industry, agriculture and butter making.
Montrose, population 1661; made county seat in 1811, first settled by Stephen Wilson of Vermont in 1799, is a notable health resort because of its altitude; it was developed through the liberality of Dr. R. H. Rose and Isaac Post, the latter was first postmaster in 1808. Dr. Rose purchased 100,000 acres in 1807, partly in Silver Lake Township, and developed the resources of the county. Public buildings face the square, in which is the monument to Civil War soldiers. Courthouse, a fine structure, colonial architecture, built in 1842, contains a portrait of Honorable Galusha A. Grow, who was sent to Congress from this county. The conference building seats 3000; here The Bible Institute is held each summer. At Springville was farm of Zophar Blakeslee, whose daughter, Sarah, was married to Honorable Asa Packer. Brooklyn was early residence of George Catlin, who became noted as a painter of Indians. Jackson started as a beaver meadow. When Thomson was first settled, in 1820, an unbroken forest of beech wood stretched eastward for fifty miles.
Bradford County
XLIV
BRADFORD COUNTY
FORMED February 21, 1810, as Ontario; on March 24, 1812, named in honor of William Bradford, an attorney general in the cabinet of Washington; surface hilly or rolling. Chief industries are dairying and breeding of fine cattle and thoroughbred horses. Said to be first place on record visited by a white man in Pennsylvania; in 1615 Stephen Bruhle, explorer and interpreter for Samuel Champlain, with twelve Huron Indians, came to Carouantian, a palisaded village of the Carouantiannais, on Spanish Hill, just above present towns of Sayre and Athens; he found here 800 warriors, 500 of whom went with him to aid Champlain against the Onondaga stronghold in New York. Bruhle returned to Carouantian, remained during the winter of 1615-16, and explored the Susquehanna River to the sea, making report to Champlain.
First road was the great Indian warpath along the Susquehanna, used by General Sullivan and his Continental Army in expedition against the Indians in 1779; the state road, from Wilkes-Barre, up the river, through Wyoming and Bradford counties, is substantially on this old trail; historic places along the road are well marked, a monument thirteen feet high, native stone, from Campbell’s Ledge above Pittston; erected by the Moravian Historical Society in 1871 near Wyalusing, marks location of the Moravian mission, inscription, “To mark site of Friedenshutten (Machwilusing), a settlement of Moravian Indians between 1765-1772”; this mission was removed to Beaver County in 1772. Farther west, near the Presbyterian church, is a large boulder with bronze tablet, inscription, “Near this site from August 5-8, 1779, camped the army of Maj. Gen’l Sullivan, on their expedition against the Six Nations, erected by Machwilusing Chapter, D. A. R. 1914”; this road after leaving Wyalusing, leads over the hill a distance from the river, to which it returns again at Rummerfield, near where Mrs. Roswell Franklin was killed by Indians; her family was rescued.
Farther up the river is the county’s oldest historic landmark on west bank of the Susquehanna, “Standing Stone,” 25 feet high, 21 feet at base, tapers from 4 to 3 feet in thickness, rising out of the water; a landmark even in early Indian history; plainly visible from the road; General Sullivan’s army of 3500 men camped on the plain opposite; three miles east of Towanda is Wysox village and creek, in front of an old brick church is where Major Henry van Campen, with two other captives, succeeded in releasing themselves, under guard by twice their number of Indians, killing all except one. Near is a large boulder of Barclay sandstone, with bronze tablet; inscription: “This stone commemorates the passing through Wesauking, Aug. 9 and Oct. 4, 1779, of Maj. Gen’l John Sullivan and his troops against the Six Nations. Erected, 1908, by the George Clymer Chapter, D. A. R., Towanda, Pennsylvania”; on the level plain between this creek and the river General Sullivan’s army camped.
From Wysox the road diverges west from the old trail, continues over a modern steel bridge, built in 1915, replacing an old covered wooden one made in 1834, to Towanda. Eight miles northwest is Ulster; passing on the way: near mouth of Sugar Creek is site of an important palisaded Indian village called “Ogehage,” later “Oscalui,” still later, in 1779, “Newtychanning,” marked; at junction of this great warpath along the Susquehanna, with one leading from this point to head waters of Towanda Creek near Canton; thence to head waters of Lycoming Creek, down that stream to West Branch of the Susquehanna near Williamsport. At Ulster (old Sheshequin) was a Moravian mission, removed at time of migration to Beaver in 1772; a steel bridge crosses the river here. Next is Milan village, near which was Indian Queen Esther’s Town, destroyed by Colonel Hartley in 1778.