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NICHOLSON township was incorporated in August, 1795. It was then thirteen miles by twenty. The east line was on the boundary between Wayne and Susquehanna; the north line was in part the north line of Harford. The section east of Harford was incorporated into a township called Clifford in 1886 (the northern portion of which became Gibson in 1813), and the section west of Martin's Creek having also been incorporated, the inhabitants of Nine Partners, at a special meeting, chose a committee to petition the Court for a township, situate and lying between Martin's Creek and Clifford, extending six miles from north to south. This petition was presented and the grant made nisi in November, 1807, and confirmed in January, 1808. "Hosea Tiffany suggested Hartford as the name; Laban Capron said strike out the 't', which was immediately agreed to by all." Harford township is in the southeast central part of the county. It is bounded on the north by New Milford, on the east by Gibson, on the south by Lenox, and on the west by Brooklyn. Martin's Creek, which forms the western boundary, drains the western part of the township, receiving the waters of East Martin's Creek, which is the outlet of the upper, middle and lower lakes in the northwestern part of the township. The outlets of Tyler and Tingley Lakes unite in the village and form a little creek that flows into Partners; Creek, which flows south into the Tunkhannock. Butler Creek is the outlet of Butler Lake, in the center of Jackson township. It flows southwest through Burrows' Hollow in Gibson; thence southward through the eastern part of Harford, uniting with Partners' Creek, near the south line of the township. The surface of Harford is broken into hills and valleys, and the land is well strewn with stones, but the soil is fertile, and the mountain air and spring water are pure. The township was originally timbered with beech, maple, hemlock and pine.
**(1)NINE PARTNERS.---In the fall and winter of 1789
(**FOOTNOTE=(1) Caleb Richardson, son of one of the original Nine Partners, wrote a history of the settlement, which he left to his grandson, Rev. Adam Miller, and Miss Blackman has followed this history substantially.)
several young men, afterwards its first settlers, were deliberating together in Attleborough, Mass., on the subject of emigrating from the place of their nativity. Most of them were unmarried and unsettled, but several were married and proprietors of small farms. The difficulty of obtaining near home and from their own resources an adequate supply of land, urged them to seek ampler room in some new region and on cheaper soil. A company of nine concluded to enter upon the adventure in the spring. They were Hosea Tiffany, Caleb Richardson, Ezekiel Titus, Robert Follet, John Carpenter, Moses Thacher, Daniel Carpenter, Samuel Thacher and Josiah Carpenter. Messrs. Tiffany, Titus and Follet were married. Mr. Tifffany only was over thirty years of age; the others were mostly under twenty-five. They left Attleborough by two different routes on the 27th and 29th of April, 1790, to meet at West Stockbridge; thence they proceeded via Kinderhook to Albany, NY. Information was sought of the surveyor-general. He suggested Canajoharie, Herkimer and German Flats as inviting fields, or, if not suited there, Cherry Valley, or some towns soon to be surveyed west of the Unadilla. Reports of the sickliness of the otherwise most attractive portion of the Mohawk Valley induced them to turn aside from the river at Canajoharie and proceed to Cherry Valley. Here they were strongly inclined to settle. But, visiting William Cooper at the outlet of Otsego Lake, they were invited to pass down the Susquehanna in a boat with him in a few days, free of expense, to view lands of which he had the agency, lying about one hundred miles south. To this southerly movement consent was given the more readily in hope of finding the climate warmer, as a settler at Cherry Valley had stated that during five years of his residence there, not a month had passed without frost. Passing down the river, they arrived at the Great Bend May 16th. Here they found a few families, with whom they remained the next day, which was the Sabbath, and attend worship. On Monday, with Mr. Cooper, surveyor and others, they proceeded into the wilderness in a southern direction. On Tuesday, the 19th, they reached the Beaver Meadow, and having found a good spring, they erected a bark cabin and encamped. This was the first dwelling erected and occupied by a white man. (The first log house was afterwards built under the hill, between the house of Captain Asahel Sweet and the village.) The emigrants found snow, on their way from Massachusetts, one and a half feet deep, and on their arrival in Pennsylvania the trees were in full leaf, and the ground covered nearly everywhere with leeks or wild onions. The Nine Partners' settlement is in a valley having the appearance of being sheltered, and probably before the forests were cleared it was more sheltered then now. It is certain that the pioneers here supposed they were locating in a much warmer country than the Mohawk Valley. They, doubtless, lived long enough to be undeceived. After some days had been spent in viewing the vicinity, a tract four miles long and one mile wide was purchased for 1198 pounds. By a subsequent arrangement with Mr. Drinker, the landholder, their joint obligation for the wholesale purchase was canceled, and each individual became responsible for his own possessions. The corner of the tract was near the spring mentioned; thence a line ran northwest one mile, and thence four miles northeast, northwest one mile, and thence four miles northeast. The center of a parallelogram with these sides would fall a short distance southwest of the Congregational Church in Harford village. The writings were drawn and signed on a hemlock stump, May 22 1790.
At that time Northern Pennsylvania and the adjacent parts of New York presented, with a little exception the solitude of an immense wilderness. Between Harmony and the mouth of the Snake Creek about a dozen families had located but a year or two previous. Another small settlement, styled the Irish settlement, had been made at Hopbottom, (now Brooklyn), and another fifteen or twenty miles south, at Thornbottom, below the present county line. From neither of these could our adventurers expect an adequate supply of provisions, if they should continue through the summer.
Wilkes-Barre and a "French settlement" on the Susquehanna, below Towanda, were the nearest places on which they could depend; and to reach these, a wilderness of forty or fifty miles must be traversed, without beasts of burden and without even a path. These considerations determined their return to Attleborough to secure their harvests. From the diary of Caleb Richardson, Jr., we learn that the following agreement was made in the spring of 1790, after the return of the purchasers to Massachusetts:--- "To run a center line lengthwise, which should be one hundred and sixty rods from the exterior lines; then beginning at the northeast end and going upon the center line one hundred and fifty rods, would make two lots of one hundred and fifty acres each; and to proceed until they should have sixteen lots--eight on each side of the center line--the remainder at the southwest end to remain as public property to the company. Then, to apportion each man's share, it was agreed to make sixteen paper tickets to represent and designate the sixteen lots, and to let each man draw for himself two lots, and upon going back in the fall and viewing the land, each man to make his choice of the two he had drawn. Then, for adjusting the remaining eights lots, it was agreed that he who, in the candid judgment of the company, had the poorest lot of the eight already chosen, should have his choice out of the remaining eight lots, and to proceed in this way until the whole should be disposed of."
This was eventually done to general satisfaction. In the fall of the same year, nearly all returned, accompanied by several others. They brought with them an ox-team, tools, clothing, provisions, etc. Having labored awhile, they left again,
late in the season. The spring of 1791 found most of them on their land, clearing and cultivating. In the fall they returned to Attleborough. About that time the settlement became extensively known by the name of "Nine Partners," from the fact that the original purchase was made by nine partners, though only eight returned to share the first division. On the 2nd of February, 1792, Hosea Tiffany and wife, with their children, Hosea, Amos and Nancy, and Robert Follet, wife and daughter, Lucy, left Attleborough with ox-teams and reached the settlement the first week in March. In this company were the first white women who visited this place. A considerable number of persons were on the ground, without families, during the season. Among these was Joseph Stearns, who occupied what was afterwards known as the John Tyler farm. He was from Tolland County, Conn., and returned there in the fall for his family, and on the way back to Nine Partners he stopped at Mt. Pleasant, and remained there, but his sons Otis and Ira afterwards became residents of Harford and Gibson. Ira Stearns died in Harford December 1870, in the eightieth year of his age.
The supply of provisions raised was insufficient for all; consequently the settlers resorted to the French settlement, Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton (then Chenango Point) to mill. The stump at the door, excavated so as to form a mortar, was often the most convenient mill. The settlers here, as elsewhere, were often uncomfortably straitened in the necessary amount of food, but an abundance of deer and fish tided them over many hard places and proved to be manna in the wilderness to them. Caleb Richardson, in his account of the settlement, says, "That the middle of the center line was not only the middle of the first purchase, but is now near the center of Harford a short distance southwest from the graveyard. In coming upon their lands in the fall for the purpose of chopping, a number of others accompanied them from their native town, with a view of purchasing. Those of the first purchase came with a team attached to a wagon, which is said to have been the first wagon that ever passed over the road from Mt. Pleasant to Harford. While running the center line they came to a quagmire, difficult to cross, and Follet called it a pulk, a name that it still retains, as well as the creek that issues from it. Several new beginnings were made that fall and most of those that began then returned the next spring."
About this time the settlement became known as Nine Partners, a name which was retained until Harford was incorporated. There was a great deal of travel between this place and Attleborough, and the place became extensively known by that name. "In the early settlement there was the greatest degree of cordiality and good understanding among the settlers; their interests and employment being similar, there was nothing to create discord; there was no great road near them and no newspaper circulating among them. They knew but little of politics. They built their own cabins and in the fall of the year visited one another in the evenings with undissembled friendship." "To be sure, their tables, perhaps, were mostly flat stones, their provisions mostly roast potatoes, and no one could much exceed his neighbor in furniture; there was no round-about road nor fences to get over to go home; all that was necessary was a brand of fire and to notice marked trees."
Hosea Tiffany and John Tyler had the two central lots, where the village of Harford is now located principally upon the Tyler lot. Hosea Tiffany (FOOTNOTE -There were a number of Tiffany brothers, Captain John, who settled in Mount Pleasant, Wayne County; Zachariah and Ezra settled in New York; Noah, Hosea and Thomas in Susquehanna County. They were all Revolutionary soldiers. Their sister Patty married a man by the name of Wilmarth, who died, and she came with her children to Nine Partners. Caleb Richardson, Sr's, wife Esther was also a sister, and Dexter Stanley's mother was another sister) was the oldest of the "nine Partners". He came with his family in 1792. He was one of the county commissioners in Luzerne before Susquehanna county was set off. He was also appointed justice of the peace in 1799, which commission expired when the new county was erected in 1812. His first log cabin stood on the ground now occupied by the Congregational Church, and his garden was the present grave-yard. He afterwards lived where C.S. Johnson now lives, and his son Amos kept a public-house there. An amusing story is told of him as justice of the peace. He had married a couple who, becoming dissatisfied, came to him to be unmarried. He invited them outside, and taking his ax and putting his foot on the log said, "Let the one that wants to be unmarried first, lay the head there." He married Nancy Wilmarth. Their children were Nancy, wife of Captain Asahel Sweet. Hosea Tiffany, Jr., was the county commissioner two terms; he married Polly Sweet, and lived on a farm below the village. His son, William C., succeeded him on the homestead and was justice of the peace two or three terms. His daughter, Mrs. Martha Carpenter, resides there now. Amos Tiffany lived with his father and commenced tavern-keeping as early as 1817. About the time the Philadelphia and Great Bend turnpike was built, he built the Gow House. His son Vernon, the only one of his children now living, resides in North Harford. Angeline, one of the daughters, was the wife of Otis Grinell. Joshua K. Adams married Peddy, the youngest daughter of Hosea Tiffany. He came to Harford in 1811, and was a cabinet maker and undertaker. His first shop was near his father-in-law's. This burned down and he moved where Barnard now lives, which was a part of the Hosea Tiffany homestead. Here he erected another shop, and was the village cabinet maker, making chairs, tables, etc. He had worked for Jacob Blake, an old settler here, who died without children before erecting the latter shop. He had six daughters by his first wife. Polly, wife of David Hine and Sarah lived in the place. His second wife was Minerva,
daughter of Ezra Follet. They had four sons,--Alva, Loris, J. B. and Edwin, who were all in the late war. One of Alva's sons, Samuel K. lives in Salem, Wayne County.
EDWIN TINGLEY TIFFANY. The New England homestead of this family was at Attleborough, Massachusetts, where John Tiffany died in 1788, and his wife, Deliverance Parmenter, died in 1798, at the age of eighty one years. One son, Thomas Tiffany (1756-1835), married Melatiah Tingley (1762-1835), a sister of Elkanah Tingley (1760-1838), the first settler of the Tingley family in Harford from Attleborough in 1795, and the daughter of Thomas and Martha Tingley. In the fall of 1794, this Thomas Tiffany, with his wife and children, Lorinda, Alfred (1781-1860), Thomas (1784-1848), Pelatiah, Tingley (1788-1866), Dalton and Lewis, came from Attleborough and joined the Nine Partners' settlement. He had other children born here, Betsey, Millie, Preston and Orvill. The oldest, Lorinda, married Noah Potter, of Gibson; Alfred settled near Kingsley's Station, where he resided until his death, (his son Judson succeeded him, and his grandson, Edson M., is a merchant at Hop bottom, whose sketch is in this volume); Thomas resided north of the Nine Partners' settlement, the property being owned in 1887 by his grandson, George W. Tiffany; Pelatiah resided in Brooklyn and died at the Center; Dalton resided adjoining the homestead in Harford; Lewis resided adjoining his brother Thomas in Harford; Millie became the wife of Calvin Corse, of Jackson; Betsey, the wife of Nathaniel Norris, of the same township; Preston resided on Meshoppen Creek in Dimock; and Orvil lived and died in Nicholson township, Wyoming County. Thomas Tiffany, Sr. upon settling in Harford, located on a lot in the southwest corner of the Nine Partners settlement, which included the Beaver Meadow, where Dalton Tiffany's sons now own. He spent the remainder of his life on that farm; was commissioned a justice of the peace in 1799.
Both himself and his wife were laid to rest in the old cemetery at Harford village. His fourth son,
Tingley Tiffany settled on a woodland tract of one hundred acres, one and one-half miles north of the Nine Partners' settlement, cleared most of it and made it his homestead. He went as a substitute for another man to the War of 1812, and belonged to Col. Fred. Bailey's regiment. He belonged to the old Whig party, and was an Anti-Mason. He was a public spirited man, took a deep interest in all matters pertaining to education and gave liberally to the support of the church and charities. He married, January 1, 1818, Achsah Carpenter (1798-1868), a daughter of Obadiah and Mercy (Tyler) Carpenter, who had settled in Harford in 1795, also from Attleborough. This Achsah Carpenter was a devoted wife and mother, a Christian woman and a member of the Congregational Church at Harford. Their children are Edwin Tingley, born June 17, 1821; Cynthia A., born in 1826, wife of E. Wells Butler, of Griggsville, Ill., and Achsah Melissa (1820-1890), died unmarried.
Edwin Tingley Tiffany spent his boyhood on the home farm, attended the home district school, and was further educated at Franklin Academy under the eminent educator, Rev. Lyman Richardson. For a dozen or more terms he was a teacher in Harford and adjoining townships, in which capacity he was known as a good disciplinarian, a thorough instructor and a careful student. He also has done a large amount of land surveying in the vicinity. In 1845 he married Margaret Hardenbrook, who was born in Montgomery, Orange County, NY, March 11, 1822. For eleven years following he farmed the homestead, teaching a part of the time during the winter seasons. In 1856 he began as a clerk in the store of Penuel Carpenter, where the residence of Dr. Blakslee is now located, and in the fall of 1860 bought out Mr. Carpenter, ran in debt for his goods and began mercantile business on his own account. He afterwards bought out Cyrus S. Johnston, and removed his business across the street, where he continued trade until January, 1866 when he sold to Jones, Babcock & Tanner. The same year he built his present store, which he opened with goods the following 1st day of March, and successfully conducted general merchandising until 1883, when he disposed of his business to his sons, who continue in trade. Mr. Tiffany has been closely identified with the political and business history of the township and village for many years, and one of the strong supports of the church, and of the educational interests in the vicinity. Altogether he served twenty-one years as postmaster at Harford, being first commissioned by President Lincoln. He was displaced by Johnson and reinstated by President Grant, and served until displaced by Postmaster-General Vilas. He voted for Henry Clay in 1844, was one of the foremost in the organization of the Republican party in 1855-56 in Harford, and voted for General Fremont, and was a warm supporter of President Lincoln and his administration throughout the war. He has served his township as town clerk, treasurer and school director, and was one of the early members of the Harford Agricultural Society, of which he has served as secretary, treasurer and one term as its president. In 1855 he united with the Congregational Church, which he has served as deacon for many years, and for fifteen years past he has superintended the Sunday-school connected therewith. His children are Henry Judd, 1847, married Maggie A. Gillespie; Clara Melissa, 1849; and Amherst Lee Tiffany, born in 1851, married Ida M. Crandall and has one son, Ralph Douglass Tiffany, 1881.
John Tyler built a log house up in the lot on the farm now owned by Mrs. Jones. He came from Attleborough, Mass., where he was born in 1746. He was one of the first deacons in the Harford Church, and served in the same capacity after his removal to Ararat. He was an agent of Henry Drinker in the disposal of lands on the Tunkhannock and Lackawanna Rivers. His wife, Mercy (Thacher) Tyler, was known far and near by her untiring and unselfish efforts in behalf of the sick. She was a skillful practitioner in the specialties which she adopted. Deacon John Tyler died in Ararat in 1822, aged seventy-seven, and his wife died in January, 1835, aged eighty-three. Their sons were John, Job, Joab and Jabez. Their daughters were Mercy, Mary, Polly, Nannie, and Achsah. John was a farmer and lived where widow Hotchkiss now lives. Of his three children, Clara was the wife of Wm. M. Clark, of Syracuse, NY (she is a talented lady and has traced the pedigree of a number of old families very carefully); John W. died at Cazenovia; Harriet A. was the wife of Rev. Willard Richardson. . Job Tyler married Sallie Thacher and settled in New Milford. Joab Tyler married Nabby Seymour and retained the homestead, which embraced the ground now occupied by the village. He was elected a deacon in the church and eventually took his father's place in civil and religious affairs. He was public spirited and contributed towards churches and schools and built miles of turnpike road. He died at Amherst 1869, in his eighty-fourth year. His sons, William S., Wellington and Edward S. were educated at Amherst College.
WILLIAM S. TYLER was born at Harford, September 2, 1810. He graduated at Amherst College in 1830, and in 1831 became a classical teacher in Amherst Academy. He afterward graduated at Andover Theological Seminary and was licensed to preach in 1836; but, being elected professor of the Latin and Greek languages and literature in Amherst College about that time, he was not ordained till twenty-two years later. He has published "The Germania and Agricola of Tacitius," "The Histories of Tacitus," "Prize Essay on Prayer for Colleges," "Plato's Apology and Crito," "Life of Dr. Henry Lobdell," "Theology of the Greek Poets," "History of Amherst College," "Demosthenes De Corona," "The Olynthiacs and Philippics of Demosthenes," besides contributions to papers. He is undoubtedly the ablest
Next section (Part
Two)
for Harford township extracted from the Stocker Centennial History of
Susquehanna County
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