MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 OF 
 
 BETHANY, WAYNE COUNTY, PA., 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DAVID TORREY, D. D. 
 
 SCRANTON, PA : 
 JAMES S. HORTON, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER. 
 
 188=;. 
 

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 Copyright, 1885, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. David Torrey. 
 
 7- 9^1 £>C 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 Jason Torrey, popularly known as Major Torrey, 
 was one of the earliest settlers in Northeastern Penn- 
 sylvania, and was efficiently and conspicuously asso- 
 ciated with the first half century of its material and 
 social development. 
 
 He reared a large family, and the majority of his 
 descendants has remained in the vicinity of the 
 scenes of his laborious and fruitful activities. 
 
 But neither he, nor any of his progenitors, in so far 
 as we know, nor any of his descendants, until within 
 a few years, have devoted any attention to the collect- 
 ing or preserving of any comprehensive genealogical 
 information concerning either the earlier or later 
 generations of the family. Whatever work had 
 been done in this direction, consisted merely of 
 limited family records, made for separate house- 
 holds, and many of these were found to be very 
 incomplete and fragmentary. 
 
 In the autumn of i860, John Torrey, son of Jason 
 Torrey, visited Williamstown, Mass., the place of the 
 latter's birth and early life, and while at the house of 
 
4 Prefatory Note. 
 
 a cousin, who resided on the Homestead, he learned 
 that in the garret there were many old letters which 
 Grandfather had received from his sons after their 
 leaving the parental roof, and had carefully preserved. 
 He arranged with his cousin to select such as were 
 from Jason or his wife, or from his brother Ephraim, 
 who also removed to Bethany, that he might bring 
 them home with him. A large package of letters was 
 thus obtained, written at various dates, from 1793 to 
 the time of the decease of our grandparents. 
 
 These letters contained a great amount of inter- 
 esting and valuable historic information, which it 
 would have been impossible to obtain from any 
 other reliable source. 
 
 A careful perusal and re-perusal of these letters, 
 and of Father's early diary, led John Torrey to de- 
 cide, a few years ago, to endeavor to trace out the 
 ancestry of the family; and he undertook a series of 
 comprehensive and systematic investigations and in- 
 quiries, which have been prosecuted with an amount 
 of labor and a degree of expert skill, which no inex- 
 perienced person would imagine to be necessary, 
 and which have resulted in bringing to the knowl- 
 edge of the now living members of the family, a dis- 
 tinct and unbroken line of descent for very nearly 
 two centuries and a half on this continent; extending 
 back to within twenty years of the landing of the 
 Mayflower, and for a hundred years still further 
 
Prefatory Note. 5 
 
 back in England — viz: to the time of a William Tor- 
 rcy, who died at Combe St. Nicholas, in Somerset 
 County, England, in 1557. 
 
 These inquiries have also revealed, incidentally, 
 many items of interesting and gratifying information 
 concerning persons of excellent worth, and some of 
 broad and honorable distinction, who were descended 
 from the first William Torrey, of Weymouth, Mass., 
 but outside the line which leads to Jason and his 
 descendants. 
 
 While the statistical results of these inquiries have 
 been embodied in a tabulated Genealogy, which will 
 be printed for the family, the diary and letters of 
 Major Torrey, above referred to, and the memories 
 of him thus freshly awakened have led to the printing 
 of the following brief Memoir, as a tribute of grateful 
 affection and reverence from his surviving sons, as a 
 means also, of bringing some knowledge of his life 
 and character to, and preserving it for, his younger 
 and his future descendants, and in the belief that 
 many of the citizens of the county, especially those 
 of more advanced years, will take a pleasant interest 
 in reading these reminiscences of the county's early 
 history. 
 
 The work of finding and selecting the document- 
 ary material for this memoir has been done by the 
 oldest, the expense of putting it in the form of a 
 book borne by the second, and the whole arranged 
 
6 Prefatory Note. 
 
 and prepared for die press by the third and young- 
 est of Major Torrey's surviving children. 
 
 This work has been one of Qreat delight to these 
 remaing sons — with filial pride, as well as with filial 
 affection, they present this brief memorial sketch of 
 their honored Father for the use of his descendants 
 and kindred, and of such other persons as may feel 
 an interest in the character it represents, or in the 
 events it records. 
 
 Honesdale, February, 1885. 
 
MEMOIR OF MAJOR JASON TORREY. 
 
 i 
 
 The name, Torrey, is evidently an Anglicised 
 form of the Spanish word Torre, which originally 
 meant a Tower, but became the patronymic of many 
 Spanish families, and the name often occurs in Span- 
 ish records and dispatches. 
 
 It is probable that our English ancestry came or- 
 iginally from Spain, though we are not aware of 
 owning any "castles" in that country at the present 
 date. 
 
 Nor are we able to learn much concerning our 
 ancestors in England, but through the kindness of 
 our kinsman, Mr. H. A. Newton, of Weymouth, 
 Mass., we obtain the results of examinations made 
 of the official records of Somerset County in that 
 country. 
 
 These records show : 
 
 i That the will of William Torrey, of Combe St. 
 Nicholas in said county, was proven on June 18, 
 1557, and Thomasyne, his wife is named as his Ex- 
 ecutrix. His "children" are mentioned but not named 
 in the will. 
 
 2 That the will of Philip Torrey, son of the above, 
 was dated August 31, 1604, and mentions his son 
 William and daughter Dorothei, and names Marga- 
 ret, his wife, as Executrix. 
 
8 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 3 That William Torrey, son of the above Philip, 
 was living at the date of the death of Jane, his wife, 
 who was buried on the 27th April, 1639. 
 
 4 That the will of Philip Torrey, son of the last 
 named William, was proven on 27th June, 1621. 
 His wife Alice is mentioned as Executrix, and the 
 will mentions three daughters, Annie, Mary and 
 Sarah, and four sons, William, James, Philip and 
 Joseph. The will of Alice, 4 the widow, is dated in 
 1634, mentions the same seven children, by name, 
 and refers to the previous death of the daughter 
 Mary. 
 
 From the provisions of these last two wills it is 
 evident that at the date of the father's death in 1621, 
 all the children were minors and some of them in 
 early childhood. 
 
 We, also, have reliable information that William 
 Torrey, eldest son of the last named Philip, born at 
 Combe St. Nicholas, in 1608, was married to Agnes, 
 daughter of Joseph Combe — the name being sug- 
 gestive of the probability that she belonged to the 
 family which gave the place its name. 
 
 This William Torrey had a son, born at Combe 
 St. Nicholas in 1632, named Samuel, and another, 
 born at the same place in 1638, named William, and 
 then a daughter, Naomi, born at Weymouth, Mass., 
 December 3, 1641, that place having, meanwhile, be- 
 come his residence. 
 
 He is known to have been at his home in Encr- 
 land in the early part of 1640. So that he must have 
 migrated to America during the Summer or Autumn 
 of that year. 
 
Early Colonial Branches. 9 
 
 It is also known that his brother Philip came in 
 the same ship with him, and that he found his home 
 in Roxbury, Mass., where he died in 1686, leaving 
 no children in so far as we know. 
 
 Also that the brother James was settled at Scituate, 
 Mass., in 1640, and there were born to him five sons 
 and five daughters. He was a military officer and 
 was killed by an explosion of powder, at Scituate, 
 July 5, 1664. It is found that after his death his 
 brother William, at Weymouth, became guardian of 
 at least two of his children (Jonathan and Mary) who 
 grew up in his family at Weymouth, with the very 
 singular result that, after more than two hundred 
 years, the numerous Torreys, now living at Wey- 
 mouth, are all descended from James, though Wil- 
 liam was the permanent resident of that place, and 
 reared a large family there; while the only descend- 
 ants of William now there, bear other names. 
 
 From James was descended the Rev. Charles T. 
 Torrey, widely known as the " Martyr Torrey," be- 
 cause some courageous attacks of his upon the sys- 
 tem of Southern Slavery were decided to be viola- 
 tions of law, and he was thrown into a Baltimore 
 prison and died there not far from 1850. 
 
 Still the other and youngest brother, Joseph 
 Torrey, was a land owner at Weymouth in 1643, but 
 settled afterwards at Newport, Rhode Island. The 
 records of that town show that Joseph Torrey was, 
 in 1 66 1, appointed on a committee to raise subscrip- 
 tions for sending Roger Williams and John Clark to 
 England, on business relative to the charter of the 
 town of Newport, and that in 1670 Joseph Torrey was 
 
i o Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 appointed on a commission "in regard to entrance 
 made into our jurisdiction by some people of Con- 
 necticut, and of their carrying away some of the in- 
 habitants prisoners." He died in 1675. 
 
 Thus we have positive information that our Eng- 
 lish ancestor, William, who came to this country in 
 1640, and was commonly designated as Captain 
 William Torrey, had three brothers, residing in and 
 near Weymouth from 1640 onwards. 
 
 II 
 
 The said William Torrey, it will be remembered 
 brought two sons with him from England to Wey- 
 mouth, both in their boyhood at the time of the im- 
 migration. 
 
 The older of these two sons, Samuel, became a 
 man of marked distinction. 
 
 He received his education at Harvard College, 
 almost as soon as it became a college, and must have 
 been one of its earliest graduates. 
 
 He became a clergyman, and after preaching for 
 a few years at Hull, was made pastor in 1664, of the 
 church at Weymouth. 
 
 It is interesting to notice, as a curiosity of this 
 kind of literature, that this Rev. Samuel Torrey, in 
 entering upon his pastorate at Weymouth in 1664, 
 was the immediate successor of Rev. Thomas 
 Thatcher, who, in 1670, entered upon his work as 
 the first pastor of the "Old South" Church, of -Bos- 
 ton, and from whom descended one Rev. Pet'e'r 
 Thatcher after another for three successive genera- 
 tions, and the grand-daughter of the third and last 
 of these became the wife of Major Jason Torrey, of 
 
Rev. Samuel Torrcy, &c. 1 1 
 
 Bethany, Pa., in 1816, and the mother in 18 18 of 
 the writer of these lines. 
 
 Harvard College was not a University in the 17th 
 century, and had no theological department, and it 
 is probable that the said Samuel Torrey pursued his 
 theological studies, privately, at his home, with his 
 pastor, Rev. Thomas Thatcher, and showed himself 
 worthy to be his own pastor's successor, and thus, 
 being "not without honor in his own country," he 
 remained in that position to the end of his useful life. 
 
 He was an eminent divine of his period, as is 
 shown by the fact that he three times preached the 
 annual election sermon, by appointment of the Gov- 
 ernor and House of Deputies of the Colony of Mass- 
 achusetts, and that he was twice elected President 
 of Harvard College, but declined the position for 
 reasons that do not transpire. 
 
 His younger brother, William, who was our ances- 
 tor, born in England in 1638, and brought by his 
 father to Weymouth before he was two years old, 
 was a conspicuous and influential citizen of that place 
 during all the years of his manhood. 
 
 Mr. Herbert A. Newton, descendant of the above 
 mentioned James Torrey, now a resident at Wey- 
 mouth, says that the name of the said William ap- 
 pears, as selectman or member of important com- 
 mittees on almost every page of the records of that 
 town while he lived. 
 
 He was also a member of the House of Deputies 
 of Massachusetts Colony from 1642 to 1649, and 
 again from 1679 to 1683, an ^ was d er k of that body 
 from 1648 to 1658, and again from 1661 to 1666. 
 
1 2 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 As commander of the Weymouth militia he bore the 
 title of captain. 
 
 That he combined habits of abstract thought and 
 metaphysical study with his eminent and successful 
 devotion to practical affairs is revealed by the exis- 
 tence, in the "Boston Public Library," of a book, en- 
 titled, " Futurities or Things to Cornel'' of which he 
 was the author, and which was published, in 1687, 
 with Preface by Rev. Mr. Prince, pastor of "Old 
 South Church." 
 
 Thus it appears that on the score of private re- 
 spectability and of public influence and usefulness 
 and honorable public appreciation, our family had a 
 noble and altogether promising beginning on this 
 continent. 
 
 We can but give credit in our thoughts, to the 
 presumably excellent character of this man's imme- 
 diate ancestry across the sea — inasmuch as figs do 
 not grow from thistles. 
 
 And we actually find in the church records at 
 Combe St. Nicholas, in England, and Weymouth and 
 Boston and Middletown in this country, document- 
 ary evidence of the church membership and the bap- 
 tisms of the children, so as to make it evident that 
 our ancestors and the most of the members of their 
 families were not only under the influence of Chris- 
 tian principles and institutions, but, as individuals, 
 they were Christian men and women and actively 
 connected with the Christian Church — with the es- 
 tablished church of Old England and the Congrega- 
 tional Church of New England. 
 
 As we turn to follow the fortunes of the descend- 
 ants of Captain William Torrey, we find those in 
 
Rev. Joseph and Dr. John Torrey, &c. 1 3 
 
 various lines of descent from him, who have fully 
 maintained the honor he gave to the family name. 
 
 Among- the later descendants of Captain William, 
 who have won honorable distinction, are the late 
 Rev. Joseph Torrey, D. D., deceased, who was a 
 scholarly theologian, translator of Neander's Church 
 History, and President of Vermont University ; and 
 John Torrey, LL. D., the distinguished Botanist 
 and Scientist, who has been for many years Superin- 
 tendent of the Government Assay office in New 
 York City. 
 
 These two, together with a family of Torrey's now 
 residing in New Jersey, in which the name of Wil- 
 liam predominates, are descended like ourselves from 
 Captain William's grandson John. But they are de- 
 scended from this John through his oldest son, Wil- 
 liam, and we through his third son, Samuel, as will 
 appear in the following pages. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the line of our descent from Captain William 
 Torrey, we find that his third grandson, John, re- 
 mained, as his grandfather had done, at Wey- 
 mouth, and had seven children, of whom the third 
 son, Samuel, removed to Boston so early in his life 
 that he united with the Brattle St. Congregational 
 Church there when he was 18 years old. 
 
 In 1726 he was married to Abigail Snowden, at 
 Boston, and to them were born, in that city, six chil- 
 dren, the last in 1735. 
 
 In 1736 he removed to Middletown, Conn., where 
 he united with the Congregational Church, in May, 
 
14 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 1737, and where his wife died in July of die same 
 year. 
 
 In February, 1738, he was married to Martha 
 Strickland, of Middletown, and to them were born 
 five children, the last of them in May, 1745. 
 
 Two or three months before the birth of this last 
 child, the father, Samuel Torrey, at the age 38 years, 
 set out with a force of New England Volunteers, on 
 a military expedition against the French on our 
 Northern" 1 borders, the occasion of which was as 
 follows : 
 
 Nova Scotia was occupied by the British, but the 
 adjacent Island of Cape Breton, with the fortified 
 town of Louisburg, was held by the French. 
 
 In the Spring of 1744 a military force from the 
 latter place, attacked the British settlement at Cun- 
 seau, at the Eastern extremity of Nova Scotia, broke 
 up the fisheries there and took eighty men prisoners, 
 and kept them at Louisburg during the following 
 Summer, after which they were sent to Boston on 
 parole. 
 
 Encouraged by the reports of these men concern- 
 ing the weakness of the defences at Louisburg, and 
 exasperated by the fact that Louisburg was made a 
 harbor for privateersmen from which to make raids 
 upon our fishing interests along the coast of Nova 
 Scotia, the Colony of Mass., decided to undertake 
 the capture of the Island and its fortifications. The 
 colonies of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
 voted money to the aggregate amount of about 
 10,000 pounds, and the New England colonies fur- 
 nished the men to the number of 4,000 — -together 
 
Siege and Capture of Louisburg. 1 5 
 
 with armed vessels sufficient for their transportation 
 which were joined at Nova Scotia by four British 
 armed ships from the West Indies. 
 
 This colonial fleet consisting of 100 vessels, ar- 
 rived near Louisburg, April 30th, landed a large part 
 of their force and commenced a siege which con- 
 tinued until the 17th of June, during which time a 
 French ship of war with 64 guns, laden with supplies 
 for the garrison, was captured by the Yankee fleet. 
 
 On the 1 7th of June the fortress and the entire 
 Island were surrendered to the colonial forces. The 
 achievement of this capture was celebrated with great 
 enthusiasm in England, and so important was the 
 capture of Louisburg regarded, that the Lord of the 
 English Admiralty said that "if Portsmouth, (the im- 
 portant naval station on the British Channel) was 
 in the hands of the French, he would hang the man 
 that should give Cape Breton for it." 
 
 Only 150 men of the Colonial force were killed 
 during the siege, and 60 of these were killed in a 
 brave but unsuccessful night attack upon a battery 
 situated upon a small island in the harbor, and fur- 
 nished with 30 large guns, but which was afterwards 
 silenced a,nd reduced by a land battery constructed 
 on a neighboring bluff. 
 
 A garrison of Colonial troops was left to hold and 
 protect the newly acquired ■possession, and '"ten 
 times as many men died of sickness'" as had fr lien 
 in all the fighting. 
 
 Among these was our ancestor. Samuel Torrey. 
 according to a record made at Louisburg by Rev. 
 
1 6 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 Adonijah Bidwell, chaplain of the fleet, in his diary, 
 as follows: 
 
 "Lieut. Torrey died on the lyth of Sept., IJ45!' 
 
 Louisburg figured quite conspicuously in subse- 
 quent history for a time, and some curious historical 
 coincidences are associated with it. It was peacefully 
 restored to the French in 1748, and by them strongly 
 fortified, but was captured again in 1758 by an army 
 of 14,000 men (largely from Massachusetts) co-op- 
 perating with a considerable fleet commanded by 
 General Wolf, who afterwards took Quebec, and Gen- 
 eral David Gordon, grandfather of the famous "Chi- 
 nese " Gordon, was killed in the latter siege. 
 
 At the battle of Bunker Hill the same old drums 
 and many of the same troops were employed as at 
 Louisburg, and Chinese Gordon's grandfather on his 
 mother's side (Enderly) furnished, by rental, the 
 ships which brought the tea that was thrown into 
 Boston harbor, in the midst of the memorable riot 
 that was one of the immediate causes of the breaking 
 out of the war of the revolution. 
 
 IV 
 
 The death of Lieutenant Samuel Torrey, at Louis- 
 burg, left his wife Martha at Middletown, a widow, 
 with nine children, the youngest of whom, a girl 
 named Martha, was born after the father left for the 
 war. 
 
 Two of these fatherless children, the one William, 
 an infant of 15 months when his father went away, 
 and the other John, not yet four years old at that 
 time, were afterwards apprenticed, the former to a 
 
Parentage and Birth. 1 7 
 
 shoemaker and the latter to a blacksmith. But 
 soon after becoming of age ( 1 766) they took their 
 trades with them and located on adjoining lots of 
 land in Williamstown, Mass. 
 
 The elder of these, John, was married about 1768 
 to Ruth Tyrell, of Milford, Conn., and they were 
 blessed with twelve children, all born in Williams- 
 town, after which (1804) he sold his "place" and re- 
 moved to Richfield, N. Y., though some of his de- 
 scendants are still living near the old farm in Wil- 
 liamstown. 
 
 The younger brother, William, the shoemaker, is 
 our progenitor and was the father of Jason. He 
 married Hannah Wheeler, of Williamstown, April 
 13, 1 77 1, and they remained on the homestead farm 
 as long as they lived. 
 
 The aged mother, Martha, who had been left a 
 widow with nine children by the death of Lieutenant 
 Samuel Torrey, at Louisburg, spent the last years 
 of her life at Williamstown, and had her home, alter- 
 nately, with these two sons who had been her care 
 in their helpless and fatherless childhood at Middle- 
 town, and were now glad to provide for her comfort 
 in her old age. 
 
 We now come to the time of Jason, with whom a 
 new departure originated, inasmuch as he led the 
 way for a portion of the family to find their homes 
 in what was then the almost impenetrated wilder- 
 ness of Northeastern Pennsylvania. 
 
 Jason was born at Williamstown, June 30, 1772, 
 being the first born child of William and Hannah. 
 He had four brothers and one sister, whose names, 
 
1 8 Memoir of Major yason Tor re y. 
 
 in the order of their ages, were, David, Josiah, Sam- 
 uel, Mary and Ephraim. 
 
 The home in which they grew up together was 
 pleasantly situated in the South part of the town, be- 
 ing sheltered under the " West Mountain ;" from the 
 lower and sunny slopes of which the farm fronted 
 the East with the towering and massive hights of 
 Greylock always in view in that direction. 
 
 It was a sweetly quiet and picturesque spot, with 
 broad outlooks upon surroundings of rare beauty 
 and quite uncommon grandeur. 
 
 The boys assisted their father on this farm and be- 
 came familiar with all that range of work, and had 
 access, in Winter, to the common school of their 
 district. 
 
 About all this part of the history of the family we 
 know absolutely nothing in particular, except as we 
 are traditionally informed that a young girl, named 
 Lois Welch, came into the household to assist the 
 mother in her work, but was more a daughter than 
 a servant, and became to the mother what Ruth was 
 to Naomi, and to Jason what Ruth was to Boaz, as 
 will appear when we proceed to use the material 
 furnished us for a more particular history of Jason 
 and those closely associated with him. 
 
 V 
 
 About three miles from the home thus described, 
 at the centre of the town, a brick building fo Hi- 
 stories high, was completed in i 79 1 , designed for a 
 grammar school, and English free school, and was 
 
Academic Studies and First Diary. 1 9 
 
 called the Williamstown Academy. Its first term was 
 opened in October, 1 79 1. Two months after the 
 opening- of this Academy, when he was 19 years old, 
 Jason entered the School for twelve weeks instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1 793 the institution was incorporated as a col- 
 lege, and has since been known as Williams College, 
 the old Academy building being what is called West 
 College. 
 
 Jason made good use of his twelve weeks in that 
 Academy, for in his diary for December 25, 179 1, he 
 writes : — 
 
 / studied arithmetic four weeks, then learned the 
 art of surveying; I gave the rest of the time to the 
 study of grammar. 
 
 We print the words in italics in order to empha- 
 sise the suggestion of energy and efficiency that is 
 in them. The meaning probably is that he studied 
 grammar during the whole quarter — for four weeks 
 simultaneously with advanced arithmetic, and for the 
 remaining eight weeks with trigonometry and sur- 
 veying. 
 
 The above statement constitutes his first entry in 
 what was evidently his first diary. The book con- 
 sists of two sheets of unruled foolscap paper, folded 
 into square form and stitched, but not covered. On 
 the first outside page are the two parts of his name 
 across the top, with a not very successful attempt at 
 ornamentation between, and the word Journal in 
 handsome coarse-hand letters at the middle of the 
 page, and the figures 1791 carefully printed under- 
 neath. 
 
20 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 The opening of this diary seems to have marked 
 a turning point in his life. He began to take prac- 
 tical views of the future, and feel the responsibility 
 of it and lay plans for it. Life began to assume 
 tangible shape before him, and he was taking hold 
 of it as a thing upon which he must act and to which 
 he must give direction and character as the way 
 should be opened for him, or he should be able to 
 open it for himself. 
 
 Life began to assume importance in his eyes, and 
 therefore he began to gird himself for it and to make 
 record of its events in this diary. 
 
 His daily activities ceased to be regarded by them- 
 selves, but were viewed as connected with the long 
 future, and therefore record was made of them, not 
 for other eyes, at all, but for his own future reference 
 and use. 
 
 His diary was meagre at first, but growingly full, 
 in proportion as his hold upon practical affairs and 
 projects grew broader and stronger. 
 
 And this process was not slow after he had fairly 
 entered upon it. His horizon widened rapidly, and 
 his faculties were quickened and energised by the 
 indefinite breadth of his ea^er outlook. 
 
 His twelve weeks work in the Academy had in it 
 the vigor of far-reaching projects, and the sagacity 
 of earnest purposes. His arithmetic and surveying 
 were equipments for practical work, and his gram- 
 mar was such finishing accomplishment as was pos- 
 sible for him, to enable him to do his work hand- 
 somely as well as accurately. 
 
Teaching and Traveling. 2 1 
 
 Then he must earn some money to start out with. 
 And so there follow six months of work on a neigh- 
 bors farm, and three months of teaching. 
 
 And now at the age of 20 the project of going to 
 the "new country," west of the Hudson River, as- 
 sumes the form and substance of a fixed determina- 
 tion, and in April, 1793, he makes a trial trip — walks 
 to Albany (40 miles), to prove himself as to his 
 ability to "travel," and is back at his home on the 
 third day, with five dollars of his hard earned money 
 gone. He must learn to "travel" at a cheaper rate 
 than that, and he does so, as we shall see. 
 
 On the fifth day of the next month, having collected 
 what he could of the money that was due him, and with 
 eleven dollars in his pocket, he sets out to "travel 
 the country," as he expresses it; i. e. he started for 
 that indefinite "West," which seemed more remote 
 and unknown when it extended to Lake Ontario and 
 the Gennesee River, than it does now that it ex- 
 tends to the Sierra Nevadas and Puget Sound. 
 
 He crossed the Hudson River at Kinderhook, 
 passed through Harpersfield, Delaware County, N. 
 Y., came to the Susquehanna River at the mouth of 
 Ouleout Creek, near Unadilla, and kept down that 
 river to Great Bend, where he arrived, "very weary/' 
 on the 13th — eight days from home — and rested at 
 the house of a Mr. Strong, about whom he had evi- 
 dently known something before. 
 
 Concerning the pecuniary cost of this journey he 
 says in his first letter home, written from Mr. Strong's, 
 May 15, 1793: 
 
22 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy. 
 
 " My expense, which amounted to 10 shillings and 
 5 pence, L. M. for the eight days and 191 miles, 
 was less on account of my provisions, having bought 
 but two meals of victuals on my journey. But my 
 feet felt the smart more than my pocket, being blis- 
 tered near half over, but am again pretty well re- 
 cruited." 
 
 It was a strange homeopathic process by which 
 his feet could be recruited as he kept on walking 25 
 miles a day. 
 
 The L. M. above, means " Lawful money" — i. e. 
 Massachusetts currency, which was 3^ dollars to the 
 pound, so that his "expense" for the eight days was 
 just one dollar and seventy-three and a half cents. 
 
 He rested at Mr. Strong's three days, and then 
 proceeded over the hills to a point in the woods then 
 known as Stanton Settlement or Stantonville, where 
 he "concluded to stop." 
 
 This place was in what is now the Town of Mt. 
 Pleasant, and about a half mile South from the vil- 
 lage of Belmont. Mr. Samuel Stanton was the first 
 settler there. Two years before, in the Spring of 
 1 79 1 he had come from Preston, Conn., and was 
 clearing up a farm there, and by this time, a few 
 neighbors around him were doing likewise. 
 
 Making Stantonville his headquarters, and after 
 spending a month in "viewing the country" (which 
 was a heavily timbered wilderness, with settlements, 
 here and there, 20 to 40 miles apart), and working 
 just enough to pay for his board. Jason selected a 
 lot of land for himself, and having hired a man for a 
 week, and collected some provisions, which proba- 
 
Short Fanning — Wanted by Mr. Baird. 
 
 -6 
 
 bly consisted of flour and pork, he commenced clear- 
 ing his land. 
 
 Inasmuch as this spot is to be his home and that 
 of his wife and children, for a few years, by and by, 
 it is worth while to notice that it was situate about 
 three and one-half miles East from Mt. Pleasant 
 Village, and thus over four miles from Stanton's. 
 
 It was apparently his intention, at this time, to 
 clear for himself a farm at that place and build him a 
 log house and fix his dwelling there. 
 
 But how all this was delayed, and with what unex- 
 pected experiences and disciplinary trials and edu- 
 cating advantages to himself, it will be interesting 
 now to notice. 
 
 VI 
 
 The slow and heavy work upon which Jason had 
 entered with his hired man, in "lifting up his axe 
 upon the thick trees" of the forest was interrupted, 
 within a few days, by the appearance of a Mr. Samuel 
 Baird from near Philadelphia, who itseems, was grand- 
 father to Dr. Baird, now of the Smithsonian Institute 
 at Washington. He was surveyor and agent for 
 capitalists in Philadelphia, who had become owners 
 of most of the lands in this Northeastern part of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Mr. Baird wanted Jason's help, as a surveyor, at 
 ten shillings a day, Pennsylvania currency, which is 
 equal to one dollar and thirty-three and a third cents. 
 These were tempting wages for a young man who 
 had been leaching school a few weeks ago for six 
 
24 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 dollars per month, and who could now hire choppers 
 for nine dollars per month. 
 
 So it was less than a week after he had com- 
 menced chopping that he laid aside his axe and took 
 up Mr. Baird's compass and " Jacob staff " and went 
 to Lackawaxen Creek, (probably near the Narrows), 
 where he arrived and met Mr. Baird on June 30th, 
 the very day on which he became 2 1 years old. 
 
 After 15 days of surveying he returned to Stan- 
 tonville, but had proved himself so helpful to Mr. 
 Baird that it was arranged for them to meet again, 
 a few days later, at Wyoming, from which place they 
 went a hundred miles up the Susquehanna River on 
 a surveying tour, which was completed on the 8th of 
 September, when they parted, with an engagement 
 to meet again at Stockport on the 14th of the same 
 month. 
 
 But Mr. Baird was summoned to Philadelphia and 
 Jason was taken sick, soon after returning from 
 Wyoming, and on the 21st of October, having ac- 
 complished his first speculation by selling, for six 
 dollars and a half, a horse which he had purchased 
 for two, he started, with great delight for Massa- 
 chusetts. But eager as he was to get home, he re- 
 strained himself in order to see something of the 
 State of New York, which was also inviting settlers 
 from New England, and he wanted to be able to 
 judge for himself and report at home as to the com- 
 parative attractions and advantages of the two 
 regions. 
 
 So he followed the Susquehanna River downward 
 from Great Bend to Owego, and thence crossed to 
 
Home again — New outlook, 25 
 
 Cayuga Lake, and thence Westward to the Geneva 
 Road, after which he turned Eastward through 
 Oneida and Whitestown to the Mohawk, within 48 
 miles of Albany, and then turned Southward to 
 Cobas Kill, Schoharrie County, from which point he 
 set his face directly homeward, crossing the Hudson 
 at Albany and arriving at Williamstown November 
 9th. He had been absent six months and three 
 days, having traveled 900 miles "on expense," and 
 bringing home with him 16 pounds, 19 shillings and 
 one penny, as the net pecuniary gains. This amount 
 in New England currency was equal to $56.68. 
 
 VII 
 
 Second Trip Westward. 
 
 His pecuniary gains were easily reckoned and re- 
 corded. But it was not so easy to estimate the value 
 of his gains in the way of experience, and knowledge 
 of the new country and of men, and breadth of out- 
 look for himself. 
 
 Especially did his connection with Mr. Baird 
 prove inspiring and helpful to him, as we shall see, 
 by introducing him to immediate business in the 
 surveying line, and also giving him insight into the 
 land operations in which Mr. Baird and other larger 
 operators were engaged. 
 
 However, the coming on of Winter in 1793 finds 
 him at his father's house in Williamstown, and after 
 a term of school teaching, he sets out again, near the 
 end of March, 1794, for Mt. Pleasant, but on the [8th 
 
26 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy. 
 
 of April, goes from that place to Pottstown, Mont- 
 gomery County, to meet Mr. Baird, and agrees with 
 him for a Summer's work of surveying. This neces- 
 sitates the purchase of instruments which cost him 
 $34, and, returning with these to the Beech Woods, 
 he enters upon his work on the 12th of May. 
 
 Apparently this business and the prospects it 
 opens to him do not prove entirely satisfactory, for, 
 in the following November, he writes to his father, 
 recommending him to come and see the country as 
 far West as Cayuga Lake, thinking favorably of that 
 locality for his own permanent home. 
 
 This idea, however, is driven out of his mind by 
 his receiving, just about this time, an invitation from 
 Mr. Baird to spend the Winter with him at Potts- 
 town. 
 
 This invitation was accepted, probably with the 
 expectation on the part of both Mr. Baird and him- 
 self, that through the land office at Philadelphia he 
 might become interested in the purchase and sale of 
 lands for himself. What chances there were for this 
 will appear from the following statement of the man- 
 ner in which a large part of the land business of the 
 State was carried on at that time. 
 
 Warrants for unoccupied lands had been for sale 
 at the rate of 26^3 cents per acre, and large bodies, 
 comprising numerous adjoining warrants, were lo- 
 cated by, and became the property of, individual 
 capitalists. 
 
 In 1 792 the Government of Pennsylvania, on the 
 presumption that the most available of the lands had 
 been sold, put down the price to 6 2 ( cents per acre. 
 
Speculators and Land Warrants. 2 7 
 
 This afforded a fine opportunity for such speculators 
 as had the enterprise to look up the valuable lands 
 that were yet unpurchased. All that such a person 
 had to do was to go to the land office of the State 
 and pay £\o or $20.67 and receive an order, (called 
 a "warrant") requiring the Surveyor General to 
 survey to the holder thereof 400 acres, to be selected 
 by the said holder from any lands still belonging to 
 the State. 
 
 The quantity of land in one warrant was limited 
 to 400 acres, and two warrants could not at the same 
 time be issued to the same applicant. 
 
 But where a speculator desired to obtain several 
 warrants.he had the applications signed by his friends, 
 who immediately on so signing, also signed a "deed 
 poll," conveying the right, under the application or 
 warrant, to the speculator. 
 
 In this way one man could obtain 100 or more 
 warrants at one time. 
 
 Jason had no capital for large operations, even at 
 the low figures at which warrants were then selling. 
 But there was a chance for him to discover the un- 
 appropriated lands, and sell the results of his discov- 
 eries to others who had capital, and make a good 
 business of it. In order to do this he needed to 
 be familiar with the maps at the land office as well 
 as with the wilderness country in which the lands 
 lay, and with which he was already becoming well 
 acquainted. Therefore he accepted the invitation to 
 spend the Winter of 1794-5 with Mr. Bairdat Potts- 
 town, from which place he could have constant inter- 
 
28 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey, 
 
 course with the land office and the land officers at 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 What projects and hopes arose in his own mind 
 within a few months is indicated in a letter written 
 from Pottstown, May 30, 1795, in which he says: — 
 
 "I have discovered about 14,000 acres of vacant 
 land, but at present can do nothing with it. As soon 
 as the office opens again I expect it will at least bring 
 a profit of half a dollar an acre, clear of expense." 
 
 This was a brilliant prospect, at the outset, for an 
 almost penniless young man, and he found it easy 
 to count his fourteen thousand chickens that would 
 be, when they should be hatched, worth half a dollar 
 a piece. But he discovered already that a consider- 
 able time must elapse before they would be hatched, 
 and while waiting for the incubator to be put in op- 
 eration by the opening of the land office, he nursed 
 in his mind another project of enterprising magni- 
 tude, for in the same letter to his father he says: — 
 
 " From here I shall go directly to the Genesee 
 country, and shall, it is probable, spend the Summer 
 there. I shall purchase a large tract of land and get 
 settlers upon it." 
 
 This might seem a visionary project for him, with 
 so little capital at his command. But the entire 
 practicability of it is explained by the fact that, at the 
 date of this letter, (1795) large tracts of land in the 
 State of New York were being offered on very easy 
 terms of payment, to enterprising men, who would 
 contract for them, advancing very little money, and 
 then retail them, in farms, to settlers, at such prices 
 as to make- a handsome profit. Mr. Robert Morris, 
 
Personal plans and Providential leadings. 29 
 
 for example, from whom the village of Mt. Morris 
 received its name, had purchased four millions of 
 acres, west of Seneca Lake, and was still holding 
 large quantities, at this date, and seeking such meth- 
 ods for obtaining settlers. Doubtless just this kind 
 of operation was what Mr. Torrey was contemplating 
 when he wrote the above letter. At all events this 
 seems to have been with him a brief period of 
 brighter hopes and more sanguine expectations than 
 any that came to him for a long time afterward. 
 
 But he evidently doubts whether his scheme for 
 turning aside from his work on his farm and enter- 
 ing upon this course of speculation will meet with 
 approbation at home, for he justifies himself on this 
 wise in the same letter from which we have been 
 quoting : 
 
 " I think it better to live a pilgrim life one or two 
 years more, if by that means I can obtain a comfort- 
 able living without being afterwards under the 
 necessity to enslave myself. Not that I would wish 
 to live without industry, but my constitution will not 
 endure one-half the fatigue which some people un- 
 dergo with pleasure." 
 
 How much of "fatigue," whether with pleasure or 
 otherwise, he found himself compelled to undergo 
 after this, we shall see, presently. 
 
 But, meanwhile, as though it had been the special 
 design of Providence to give the young man the ad- 
 vantage of a year or two of disappointment and trial, 
 there was a closing, just at this time, as we have seen, 
 of the land office, and no warrants were issued, and 
 
30 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 the whole business was at a stand-still, and nobody 
 could tell how long it would remain so. 
 
 But though he found the public land office closed 
 at Philadelphia, yet he found business in the private 
 offices of the land owners to whom Mr. Baird intro- 
 duced him, making maps and drafts of their lands, 
 and preparing papers connected with the titles and 
 conveyance of lands. This was precisely the kind 
 of education he needed, and it also made him known 
 to these men, and thus, in both these ways, he was, 
 without knowing it, preparing himself for his impor- 
 tant life-work and paving the way by which that life- 
 work should come to him. 
 
 Moreover his intercourse with those Philadelphia 
 men, many of whom were gentlemen of high social 
 culture, and personal refinement, and broad acquain- 
 tance with the world, elevated his tastes and widened 
 his views of life and contributed to fashion him into a 
 man of larger proportions and higher degrees of per- 
 sonal improvement than he would otherwise have 
 been. 
 
 Little did he understand the value of the attain- 
 ments he was making and of the advantages he was 
 gaining. On the contrary he was overwhelmed with 
 a feeling of disappointment, and often reproached 
 himself that he was thus waiting for the land office 
 to open, and hanging upon the beggarly hope of 
 getting a Government appointment as deputy sur- 
 veyor, instead of making a sphere and position for 
 himself. 
 
 His regret at allowing himself to be kept so long 
 in an unsettled and chantrable condition was less on 
 
Motherly feelings — Long tour on foot. 31 
 
 his own account than on that of the family at home, 
 for whom, being- the oldest son, he felt a sort of pa- 
 rental responsibility. To such a degree was this 
 true that he says in his diary : 
 
 "I am very anxious about the family at home, and 
 my feelings toward them seem more like those of a 
 mother than those of a son and brother. I am some- 
 times ashamed of these womanly feelings, but fear I 
 shall never get the better of them." 
 
 In this state of mind and with no definite plans for 
 the future, he left Philadelphia early in June, 1795, 
 and spent the next two months in making, on foot, 
 a more extensive trip than before, through Central 
 and Western New York. He was not sure but the 
 far richer lands of the Mohawk Valley, or the region 
 of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, ought to persuade him 
 away from the rough and stony hills of Northeast- 
 ern Pennsylvania. 
 
 So he traveled through those parts of New York 
 — stopping long enough, here and there, to earn 
 some expense money, and to make some acquaint- 
 ances — getting a taste of fever and ague on Cayuga 
 Lake, where Ithaca now is, and seeing others shake 
 with it in the Genesee Valley; also taking a North- 
 ward sweep to Lake Ontario and Oswego, on his 
 way Eastward, and reaching his home at Williams- 
 town near the end of Summer. 
 
 Remaining at home during the Autumn he was 
 off again for Philadelphia in December. 
 
 His stay at home, at this time, had been full of in- 
 tense happiness to him, and he manifests much more 
 feeling at going away than on previous occasions. 
 Indeed he makes record in his diary that "it is with 
 
32 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 eyes full of tears and heart ready to break," that he 
 takes his departure December 28, 1795. 
 
 I cannot resist the conviction that it was during 
 this visit home that he found himself in love with 
 Lois, and probably declared his love and was accepted 
 by her and became engaged to her. Only this will 
 explain the intensity of his happiness during this visit 
 and the warmth of his feelings on going away. And 
 I imagine that a tender feeling toward Lois, of which 
 he was only dimly conscious, had much to do with 
 those "womanly feelings" towards the family of 
 which he was writing in his diary a few months 
 earlier, and which he found it so difficult to conquer. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Third trip Westivard. 
 
 On reaching Philadelphia after several months ab- 
 sence, he finds the land office still closed and the 
 general land business of the State yet at a stand still. 
 
 He finds employment, as before, in private offices 
 — earning at times $1.50 per day, clear of board — 
 and is much in the business counsels of the land 
 owners, and has some social intercourse with their 
 families, which is profitable to him, and also with 
 some young men which is not so profitable, as when 
 he records March 31, 1796: "Last evening I got 
 with a sporting party who eased me of $6." 
 
 A month later, May 3d, he makes this significant 
 entry : 
 
 "I hope I shall not be under the disagreeable 
 necessity of drinking to please others but a few 
 weeks longer." 
 
Disappointed and Perplexed. 3 3 
 
 Fresh discouragement helps toward the fulfillment 
 of that hope. May 28th furnishes this record: 
 
 "It is now ascertained for certain that nothing can 
 be done with the land, till the office opens, and no- 
 body can guess when that will be." 
 
 Moreover, while he was waiting" for something to 
 turn up at the office of the Surveyor General, he 
 was paying $6 per week for board and room, and 
 was obliged to clothe himself for the company of 
 gentlemen, and his occupation in connection with their 
 business, though more advantageous to him for the 
 future than he knew, was not remunerative for the 
 present, and he was getting in debt. 
 
 Therefore, arranging his affairs as best he could, 
 he prepared to start for the woods, weary of waiting 
 upon uncertainties, grieving over what he regarded 
 as wasted years, and yearning to get himself settled 
 in some permanent undertaking and into a home of 
 his own. 
 
 But where? For, on June 15th, he says: 
 
 "I am much at loss where to settle — whether at 
 Stanton's Settlement or in New York State." 
 
 The failure of Mr. Robert Morris, about this time, 
 so that his vast tracts of land in Western New York 
 passed out of his control, and he could no longer 
 offer inducements to enterprising men to take his 
 lands and get settlers on them, may have been the 
 reason why Mr. Torrey did not go to the "Genesee 
 Country," as he was/just last month, proposing to do. 
 
 On the other hand, his acquaintance with Phila- 
 delphia men and the prospect of business growing 
 out of that acquaintance, furnished controlling con- 
 
34 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 siderations in favor of settling in Pennsylvania, and 
 he returned to Stantonville, meeting with an incident 
 which was not of a character to lift a discouraged 
 young man out of his low spirts. His journey was 
 on horseback, and passing over the Kitatinny Moun- 
 tain, through the "Wind Gap," he lost his road and 
 came at evening, to Stroud's (now Stroudsburg) six 
 miles out of his way. Spending the night there, he 
 retraced his steps in the morning, and found his lost 
 road, and, at 9 o'clock, was starting on his way for 
 Bloomingrove, (some 40 miles), but darkness came 
 upon him before he reached that place, and with the 
 darkness came a portion of his journey in which 
 there had been an extensive windfall, prostrating the 
 trees, and many of them had fallen across the road 
 and were still lying there. In attempting to go 
 around these he became fenced in by the tangled 
 trees, and found it impossible, in the darkness, to 
 get back to the road, or to get anywhere, and, 
 though he knew he was within a mile of Bloomin- 
 grove there was nothing for him but to "strip his 
 horse and lie down under a lo<j " and wait for the 
 daylight. 
 
 When the daylight came he found his horse was 
 gone and he had to go back twelve miles for him, 
 and did not reach Bloomingrove till noon. 
 
 Next day he reached Stantonville in a very de- 
 pressed state of feeling, but on going, in company 
 with his neighbor, E. Kellooo-, the following morn- 
 ing, to see his land, he was able to write, with some 
 apparent cheerfulness in his diary: "I found it more 
 to my notion than I expected." 
 
Marriage. 35 
 
 On the very next day, by way of prepartion for 
 chopping the big trees, he went to work for Mr. 
 Mum ford, making the following record for August 
 4th: "I will try to season my hands by mowing be- 
 fore taking the axe." 
 
 Two or three weeks from this time he comes down 
 with a sickness which keeps him in bed for four weeks 
 — a grievious experience of loss of time and heavy 
 expenses, with poor nursing and hard diet, and ex- 
 horbitant bills when he became convalescent. 
 
 It is not strange that he wants to see somebody 
 that has a heart for him, and as soon as his strength 
 is sufficiently restored he starts for home where he 
 is affectionately welcomed on the 12th of October, 
 1796 — being now 24 years old. 
 
 On the nth of the following January he is mar- 
 ried to his beloved Lois, for whom he has not far to 
 go, inasmuch as she is, for many years, a member of 
 the family, as we have already noticed. Subsequent 
 events show that he could hardly have done better 
 however far he might have gone. She proved her- 
 self the best and truest of wives and a very noble 
 woman, as we shall see. 
 
 Their marriage was very quiet, and the wedding 
 party exceedingly select and exclusive. Either to 
 avoid making a wedding, or because they wanted a 
 little more stir on the occasion than would be in- 
 volved in sitting at home to be married, or for other 
 reasons, they drove across the state line into Pownal, 
 the corner town of Vermont, and were united in 
 marriage by Rev. C. Nichols — doubtless a Baptist 
 minister, because he is called "Elder," and the 
 
36 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 family were Baptists. This is all the information he 
 gives us concerning his marriage. He deals only 
 with essentials. 
 
 After his marriage he remains at home about two 
 months, during 1 which time he goes several times 
 with his bride to visit her parents and friends in New 
 Ashford. 
 
 IX 
 Fourth Trip Westward. 
 
 Early in March of the same year (1797) he pur- 
 chases of his father a horse, a pair of oxen, and a 
 cow, and arranged with his brother Samuel to bring 
 the oxen and cow to "Ararat," which was one of the 
 names applied, at that time, to the entire settlemant 
 about Stantonville, but was subsequently applied to 
 a town in Susquehanna County, a little further West. 
 
 On the 1 6th of March he mounts his horse and 
 starts for the Beech Woods. 
 
 Nothing is said this time about parting tears. He 
 is a married man now, and has more definite plans 
 for the future, and goes bravely forth to work them 
 out, happy in the hope of providing a home to which 
 he can bring the wife that he is now compelled to 
 leave. 
 
 He reaches "Ararat" on the 24th of March, with 
 the purpose of taking up his axe again. But he finds 
 it impossible to be merely or mainly a clearer of 
 land. It is only the 2d of April when he finds it 
 necessary to mount his horse again and start for 
 Philadelphia. His horse having been left at Mitchell's 
 
Road to Minni sink. 37 
 
 Mills, near Coschecton, he goes there, and from there 
 over the hills, by way of Carpenters Point, on the 
 Delaware River, near Milford. 
 
 Three times during the season he goes to Phila- 
 delphia, whereby his relations with the land owners 
 and the officials at the land office are very much con- 
 firmed. 
 
 However, he gets some potatoes planted early in 
 the season, and does some sturdy work at chopping 
 and logging, with his own hands, during the Summer 
 and Autumn. 
 
 He is also much interested and occupied, during 
 the season, in laying out a new road from "Ararat" 
 to Minnisink, (Milford) by way of Dybury — assoc- 
 iated with Dix, Stearns, Kennedy, Silas and Eliphalet 
 Kellogg and Stevenson and Schoonover, in fixing 
 the route. He is prominently responsible for secur- 
 ing subscriptions, and is able to say in October: "We 
 have $500 subscribed for the new road, and three 
 parties opening it to Minisink." 
 
 A couple of miles Southwest of his place was a 
 pond of water known as Stephenson's mill pond, and 
 about this time he had an item of experience there, 
 which is perhaps worth mentioning as illustrative of 
 "incidents of travel," in those days, and the difficulty 
 in procuring supplies in a new and rough country. 
 
 He was crossing Stevenson's mill pond after dark 
 in a boat, with a horse and a bag of rye on the 
 horse's back, when the horse fell overboard with the 
 rye. While he and a boy that was with him were 
 fishing for the bag of rye, which they succeeded in 
 recovering, the horse made his way to the shore, and 
 
38 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy. 
 
 started for home through the woods. His owner 
 followed him and brought him back, and loading the 
 soaked grain upon him and walking by the horse's 
 side, they took a fresh start through the dark 
 woods, but had gone only a little way when he lost 
 his slippery load and went home without it, and had 
 to come back for it next day. Such are some of the 
 conveniences of life in a new country. This would 
 be regarded by most of us as paying dearly for rye. 
 But they were glad to get even that at any cost. 
 
 Earlier in this same season it was that he con- 
 structed a house for the reception of his wife, when 
 he should be able, by and by, to fetch her there. And ; 
 it is made evident that his house-building was rapid 
 work. Two days and two half-days brought the 
 mansion to completion, from foundation to ridge 
 pole. He says : 
 
 "Friday, June 2. — Drew logs for my house." 
 "Saturday, June 3. — I laid my house alone and got 
 on the plates. 
 
 "Wednesday, June 7. — In forenoon laid my floor." 
 "Thursday, June 8. — In forenoon laid my roof." 
 His furniture he made at his leisure, at odd mo- 
 ments, and especially on rainy days, when he could 
 do nothing else, for he was pressed with work from 
 dawn till dark. 
 
 His bedstead was made by running a strong pole, 
 seven feet long, from the end of the house to meet 
 another five feet long, coming from the side of the 
 house, and fixing a post under them at their junction, 
 and then weaving strips of strong bark lengthwise 
 and crosswise. 
 
Architect and Mechanic. 39 
 
 His chairs were stools made of split logs and his 
 table consisted of two such stools, higher and longer 
 than the others, with boards laid across them. 
 
 Thus he was ready for house-keeping, and late in 
 December went to Williamstown for his wife. 
 
 It should, however, be stated that before another 
 Winter he erected a larger and better log cabin, not 
 only containing more convenient rooms on the 
 ground floor, but furnishing some very useful "log 
 cabin chamber room" also. 
 
 It will be noticed how wide was the range of the 
 useful arts to which the young men of those times 
 could turn their hands, and young Mr. Torrey could 
 hardly have been behind the smartest of them in this 
 respect. We have just seen how he could build and 
 equip his own house. We shall have occasion to 
 notice that he was as much at home with elegant 
 penmanship and superb drafting as he was with 
 chopping and mowing and rolling up the black logs 
 into heaps for burning. And we find, from his diary, 
 not only that he borrowed tools and made a pail for 
 himself while waiting- for his grist to be ground at 
 Taylor's mill, but that in January, 1 798, at Williams- 
 town, a few days before starting with his young wife 
 for the Beech Woods, he made a coat for his brother 
 David, and in July of the same year, having pur- 
 chased three dressed buckskins, he and Samuel made 
 each of them a pair of trousers of them, and had 
 some remnants worth mentioning left. 
 
 We shall also see that when it comes to erecting 
 public buildings for the new county, he provides the 
 plans, and when he furnishes to the carpenters a 
 
40 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 plan for his own house, two stones high and 33 by 
 42 feet in size, none of them had the courage to " lay 
 out" the frame, and he had to do it himself. 
 
 X 
 
 On Wednesday, January 31, 1798, about 9 o'clock 
 in the morning, Mr. Torrey set out with wife and 
 house-hold goods for Pennsylvania. 
 
 The goods were such as could be stowed, "together 
 with the two persons, in a two-horse sleigh, leaving 
 room for "a pot, a bakepan, a frying pan, a teakettle 
 and tin ware to the amount of 4 shillings and 6 
 pence," which were to be purchased at Albany. 
 
 After various breakings and mendings and other 
 difficulties encountered, and sometimes going for- 
 ward for a few hours with half the load and coming 
 back for the other half — in one case being obliged 
 to leave the sleigh at the coming on of darkness and 
 go two or three miles on the horses, through the 
 dark woods, to find a shelter for the wintery night, 
 they reached the little log house toward which they 
 had been so laboriously toiling — 209 miles, in twelve 
 days, with $4.25 left in the family purse, having 
 started with $18.25. 
 
 It was just before night on the 1 ith day of Febru- 
 ary that the young couple drove up to the humble 
 dwelling in the midst of a small clearing, closely en- 
 circled with forests. 
 
 His brother Samuel, who was also making a be- 
 ginning for himself in another part of the forest, had 
 
Housekeeping Commenced. 41 
 
 been left in care of the premises and the cattle, and 
 may be presumed to have had a good fire on the 
 rough hearth, for whatever else was scarce, fuel, at 
 least, was plenty. 
 
 The meeting of this brother-in-law, who had been 
 for years like an affectionate brother to her in the 
 household at home, must have been a great relief to 
 the young wife, to whom the place must have seemed 
 very wild, and the situation very lonely and dreary. 
 
 The moving in of the household goods from the 
 sleigh was no very serious undertaking for the two 
 strong young men, and by the time the darkness of 
 the Winter night had fairly settled about them, the 
 young Jason had commenced housekeeping, with his 
 beloved Lois as mistress of the mansion. 
 
 The diary is quite silent about the feelings, "uttered 
 or unexpressed," that may have possessed their 
 minds that evening, but to him it was the realization 
 of a long cherished . hope. The homely log cabin 
 must have seemed a different thing to him from what 
 it has seemed before. To him it must have been 
 like the coming of Eve into Eden, and it was easy 
 for him to write the word "home" in his diary that 
 night. But to her all was so new and strange and 
 solitary, and it must have seemed a rough place and 
 a hard kind of life. However there is no audible 
 sighing, and we can believe that she experienced a 
 brave joy in accepting the strange situation. 
 
 After commencing housekeeping at evening, the 
 two brothers start out next morning to brine a load 
 of hay for the horses and cattle, from the farm of a 
 Mr. Dix, three miles away, where Jason had har- 
 
42 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 vested and stacked it, "on shares," during the previ- 
 ous Summer. 
 
 No time could be wasted in the idle enjoyment of 
 their honeymoon in their new home, for only five 
 days after reaching it, Jason is obliged to leave his 
 wife in the rough cabin, and to set out with his team 
 for Wyoming, 60 miles distant, to get a load of grain 
 for the family bread. 
 
 Arriving there, at the farm of a Mr. Jackson, he 
 was obliged to sell one of his horses in order to buy 
 the grain — the horse to be sent back to the buyer 
 after helping to draw the grain home. 
 
 After arranging thus for the purchase of the grain 
 he had to assist in threshing it, which resulted in 3*^ 
 bushels of wheat at one dollar, 15 of rye at 67 cents, 
 and 5 of oats at about 40 cents, receiving for the 
 balance due him for the $60 horse, two notes from 
 Mr. Jackson, payable, respectively, 1st of April and 
 1 st of September. 
 
 He started for home with his precious load, after 
 dark, and crossed the Susquehanna River, in the 
 night, "with the water half-leg deep over the ice," 
 and a little before day-light reached "Taylor's Mills," 
 which were on Roaring Brook, where Scranton now 
 is, and 14 miles from place of starting. Here his 
 grist, is to be ground, but the poor mill is so much 
 like those of the Gods in respect to grinding slowly, 
 that both the day and the night will be consumed 
 before he can get away, and so he improves his time 
 as follows : 
 
 "Found some tools and went to coopering — made 
 me a pail, which is the first I ever saw made." — The 
 capitals are his. 
 
Beginning- of Wayne County. 43 
 
 And next morning taking an early start for home, 
 before the people were up, he left some bran to pay 
 for the pail timber. 
 
 Passing through Cobb's Gap, he spent the night at 
 Swingle's, (South Canaan), and was home about 
 noon the next day. 
 
 X 
 
 New County. 
 
 Just before reaching home he met Ephraim Kim- 
 ble, who had come from the Narrows of the Lacka- 
 waxen, with the information that the new County of 
 Wayne had been "set off" from Northampton 
 County by the Legislature, and Commissioners 
 thereof appointed by the Governor, and that a move- 
 ment was already on foot in the southern part of the 
 new county, and a petition started to have the county 
 seat at Minnisink — i. e. Milford. To head off this 
 movement a meeting of the more northern settlers 
 must be held to-morrow, at Purdy's, on the Wallen- 
 papack. 
 
 Therefore Jason could not have an hour's rest at 
 home, for he must be half way to Purdy's before 
 morning, in order to be in time for the meeting. 
 
 Meanwhile he had to spend the afternoon in driv- 
 ing about the settlement, so as to have an under- 
 standing with the neighbors (each a half-mile or so 
 from the next) about this public business. Then he 
 hurried back to his house and fed his horses and 
 started by moonlight, and taking neighbor King with 
 
44 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy, 
 
 him, made a night ride of 14 miles to "Van Aukens 
 Meadows" — about a mile and a half southeast of 
 Waymart. 
 
 In the morning Mr. King paid the bill because Mr. 
 Torrey had returned from Wyoming with only two 
 pence in his pocket and had no bank to draw from. 
 
 They started early from Van Auken's and went 
 on to Schenck's (Cherry Ridge) to breakfast, which 
 was furnished them gratuituosly in the interest of the 
 county business. 
 
 About 40 of the settlers convened at Purdy's, and 
 a meeting was organized, and a paper drawn by Jason 
 (as the Quakers called him) remonstrating against 
 Minnisink, and asking the Commissioners to select 
 the place for the county seat. 
 
 About 50 signers were obtained to the paper and 
 $20 subscribed toward the expenses of the move- 
 ment, of which Jason subscribed one dollar, though 
 he had noting with which to pay. 
 
 On the return journey the moneyless Jason had 
 some "loading" to carry from Schenck's, for his 
 neighbor, King, whereby he provided for the pay- 
 ment of expenses, thus earning something with the 
 horses, only one of which was his own — the other 
 having been sold for food at Wyoming. 
 
 Discharging his load at King's, he took a boy with 
 him as far as Mr. Dix's, to help him load the last of 
 his hay there, with which he upset on his way home, 
 and had to leave half of it and come back and get it 
 in the dark. 
 
 It is now early in March and he begins to make 
 sap-troughs, as he could command time, and he gets, 
 
Sugar-making and Shad-fishing. 45 
 
 first and last, a couple of hundred of them, and taps 
 as many trees, and makes, first and last, several 
 hundred pounds of maple sugar and molasses — the 
 operation involving an immense amount of toiling 
 and tugging, and long nights as well as days of 
 boiling. 
 
 This work is speedily followed by his ploughing 
 for his Spring crops, and when he comes to the har- 
 rowing in some of these, one of his oxen is sick, and 
 he uses (May nth and 12th) the other ox and his 
 remaining horse for his team, and thus triumphs over 
 the hindrances and gets his crops in. 
 
 Meanwhile he has found time to start a nursery 
 of apple trees, and do some days-works at chopping 
 the black logs in his fallow, and has been out view- 
 ing the work on the new road to Minnisink, and on 
 April 24th started for Wyoming again, 60 miles, to 
 get some seed oats, taking along two axes to be re- 
 paired. Arriving at Jackson's again he finds the 
 settlers occupied in catching shad in the Susque- 
 hanna River, and the smith will not repair the axes 
 for Jason unless Jason will fish for him, receiving 
 half his share, which is agreed to. The catch of 
 shad amounts to 1600, of which 40 are Jason's accord- 
 ing to contract. He buys enough more to make 
 half a hundred, and after dressing- them and corning 
 them, with two quarts of salt, he puts them into his 
 bag designed for the seed oats. Two bushels of 
 oats are put in a borrowed sack. With his two 
 loaded bags across his horse's back, and the two 
 axes over his shoulder, he starts for home, a little 
 before night, and trudges on till midnight, then stops 
 
46 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 for supper and horse feeding, and a little sleep, at 
 Alsworths, (Dunmore), but starts again two hours 
 before daylight, (having paid his bill with a shad), 
 for he must make a forced march of it in order that 
 his fish may not have survived their usefulness when 
 he gets home. He reached that happy place (be it 
 never so homely) after the middle of the second 
 nicjht — he and his burdened horse having toiled on 
 over the rough roads, with very brief stops, for 30 
 hours. Whereupon he writes in his diary: 
 
 " Home after midnight. Called up Samuel to care 
 for the fish — my feet so sore I could not stand to 
 work at them, and so sleepy I could hardly move." 
 
 The next morning the fish were found to be sweet 
 and good — so nice that he sent one as a present to 
 Mr. Rogers, and they were so large and fat that 
 they "more than half filled a barrel." What a load 
 the poor horse must have had ! How provoking to 
 the horse, if he had known it, that the shad would 
 have no relish for him, and that even the oats were 
 for seed and not for feed ! 
 
 It has seemed worth while to go thus into the de- 
 tails of a few weeks of Mr. Torrey's life in the woods, 
 in order to give some idea of what it was — how 
 pressed he was from dawn till dark, and often from 
 dark till dawn, also, with downright hard work, task- 
 ing the back bone and muscle of the man, and how, 
 also, public cares and responsibilities were almost 
 constantly forcing themselves upon his attention, 
 tasking his brain and consuming his time. 
 
 Several roads were already projected and in pro- 
 cess of construction. One to Minnisink, or Milford, 
 
New Roads Projected. 47 
 
 portions of which are still to be seen, below Bethany, 
 down the hill by the Asa Kimble place, and along 
 the East bank of the Dyberry, above and opposite 
 Honesdale, and so down the Lackawaxen by the 
 Indian orchard and the narrows, and Shohola Falls, 
 and so on. Not only had he a general superinten- 
 dence of the construction of this road, as first opened, 
 but many a toilsome day he spent chopping the trees 
 out of it with his own hands. On the 10th of April, 
 1798, he takes great delight in making the following 
 record in his diary: 
 
 "A traveler came through on the new road, and 
 spent the night with us." 
 
 Just at the end of this entry are the familiar char- 
 acters which represent one shilling and eight pence, 
 the amount of the traveler's bill, showing that Jason 
 was not too proud to allow his house to be used as 
 an informal hotel when there was occasion for it 
 
 Another road was from Mt. Pleasant to the Dela- 
 ware river, at Coschecton, to meet there a road from 
 Newburg, and thus furnish a route to New York by 
 way of the Hudson River. The antecedent events 
 connected with the origin and conception of this road 
 are peculiarly interesting. 
 
 From Stantonville to Shield's Mills, on the Dela- 
 ware, near Coschecton, a distance of about 20 miles, 
 was a trackless wilderness. No white man had been 
 through it. 
 
 During one of Mr. Torrey's early visits at Phila- 
 delphia he came across some maps which gave him 
 the material for determining- the courses and dis- 
 tances of a line from Stantonville to Coschecton. 
 
48 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 Giving this data to two of his neighbors, Silas and 
 Eliphalet Kellogg, who imagined themselves survey- 
 ors, he sent them, with provisions for one night, to 
 find a way through the woods to Coschecton. They 
 became bewildered and lost their confidence in their 
 compass, and the second day was stormy, and they 
 lay out a second night, with nothing to eat, and were 
 delighted in the early morning to hear the crowing 
 of a cock, and supposing they were near Coschec- 
 ton, followed the course indicated by the friendly 
 sound, and came out 011 the Lackazuaxen, at a place 
 now known as Tracyville, one mile below Honesdale 
 nearly as far from Coschecton as they were when 
 they started. 
 
 The owner of the crowing rooster on the Lacka- 
 waxen was a half-breed Indian by the name of Bob 
 Bayham, who gave them something to eat and set 
 them on an Indian trail which would lead them up 
 the Lackawaxen till they should come to a road on 
 the Dybury which would bring them to Mt. Pleasant. 
 
 Mr. Torrey was both disgusted and stimulated by 
 this performance, and he took a hand hatchet and a 
 pocket compass, and started alone for Coschecton, 
 and on arriving there met Mr. Thomas Shields, who 
 sent a couple of men back with him, with their axes, 
 and marked a path to Mt. Pleasant, and this for 
 several years was known as Torrey's Path. 
 
 Subsequently, some men from New York were up 
 at Newburg, and were studying to find a route to 
 Western New York without going around by Cats- 
 kill. Some man at Newburg asked them why they 
 did not follow Torrey's Path which led off Westward 
 
Turnpikes — East, West and South. 49 
 
 toward the Great Bend. This resulted in their find- 
 ing Mr. Torrey, and ultimately arranging that they 
 should procure a charter, in New York, for a turn- 
 pike from Newburg to Coschecton, and he, in Penn- 
 sylvania, for a turnpike from Coschecton to Great 
 Bend, from which latter place there would be found 
 a road quite ready for them, leading on to Bingham- 
 ton and to Owesfo, and so on Westward. 
 
 All this was done, and there resulted for Wayne 
 County the well-known "Coschecton and Great 
 Bend Turnpike," which passed through Mt. Pleasant, 
 and which for many years was a great mail route, and 
 was made musical with stage horns and busy with 
 stages, carrying passengers to and fro between New 
 York and the "far West." 
 
 This was the second of the roads of which I was 
 speaking as enlisting the interest and energies of the 
 settlers at Stantonville. 
 
 Another road was projected a few years later still, 
 almost directly Southward toward Philadelphia, called 
 the "Belmont and Easton Turnpike." This road, 
 South of Salem, lay for many miles through a heavy 
 and unbroken forest, called the 1 2 mile woods,, and 
 it was a herculean task to get the men and teams and 
 supplies upon the ground and along the route for 
 carrying it through. 
 
 All these roads reached or passed near the settle- 
 ment at. Stantonville. They were large enterprises 
 in their day, requiring for their accomplishment as 
 much courage and energy as the Erie Canal did in 
 its day. 
 
50 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 Mr. Torrey was actively associated with the con- 
 struction of each of these roads, in the various capac- 
 ities of surveyor and director, and financier and con- 
 structor. 
 
 XI 
 
 It was evidently expected by the settlers at Stan- 
 tonville that it would become an important centre of 
 business and influence as the new country should be 
 developed. How the location of the county seat 
 changed all this, and how the change proved an ad- 
 vantage rather than a disaster to Mr. Torrey, will 
 appear as we proceed. 
 
 Meanwhile the expected importance of that place, 
 and the apparent magnitude of the public and private 
 interests of the settlers, gave an exaggerated conse- 
 quence to questions of neighborhood policy and of 
 individual influence. 
 
 Strong men were concentrated there — men who 
 were sagacious enough to plan, and energetic enough 
 to push, important public enterprises which were 
 reaching out toward New England and New York, 
 in one direction, and toward Philadelphia in the other. 
 Thus these men were not only giving impulse to the 
 development and growth of that whole region of 
 country, but were likely to give shape to its character 
 and history. 
 
 If we had occasion to use the names of these men, 
 in different parts of the northern portion of the 
 county, as those names are constantly appearing in 
 Mr. Torrey's diary, it would be interesting to notice 
 
Leadei'ship at Stantonville. 5 1 
 
 how familiar they are to many of us ; Stanton, Mum- 
 ford, Stevenson, Chittenden, Kellogg, Preston, 
 Woodward, Schoonover, Kimball, Seeley, Schenck, 
 Purdy, Jennings, Dimmick, Kennedy, King, Kellogg, 
 Bunting, Rogers, Collins, Bunnell, Smith, Nelson, 
 Pullis, Miller, Wilder, &c, &c, all are names of per- 
 sons whose descendants are in the county to this 
 day. 
 
 Leadership at Stantonville might become leader- 
 ship in the county, by and by, when the population 
 of the county would be increased tenfold. Men of 
 influence there were already associated and would be 
 associated more and more with men of influence at 
 Philadelphia and Lancaster, which were centres of 
 influence in the State. 
 
 Therefore this little group of farms and cabins 
 scattered in the woods, like islands in a bay of the 
 ocean, no one clearing touching another, was not the 
 insignificant thing which some might suppose it to be. 
 It was already a living part of a great Republican Com- 
 monwealth, and the pulse of the Commonwealth was 
 beating in the veins of the men of this remote com- 
 munity. The elements of popular government and 
 Republican statesmanship were already seething in 
 the minds of these log-cabin and forest-chopping 
 citizens. 
 
 Leadership in such a community was not only 
 gratifying to a man's natural ambition for personal 
 eminence, but gratifying also to every noblest desire 
 for usefulness, and for energetic achievements for the 
 public welfare. 
 
5 2 Memoir of Major yason Torrey. 
 
 Undoubtedly the two principal candidates for this 
 leadership were Esquire Stanton and Surveyor 
 Torrey, and we regret to find in the diary of the latter 
 that this rivalry, which was not intended by either, 
 but was forced upon both by their respective friends, 
 led to serious misunderstandings and conflicts, so 
 that the two were on very uncomfortable terms with 
 each other, for a year or two. There was a grim 
 element in the quarrel which expressed itself in very 
 harsh words, some of which were recorded, and others 
 referred to, afterwards, with shame and regret. 
 
 But a matter of business shut them up together 
 one day, and the conference, beginning with com- 
 plaints and mutual criminations, led on to frank and 
 full explanations, and sundry confessions on both 
 sides, and ended, not only in entire reconciliation 
 and a covenant of personal friendship, but in an 
 agreement that they would quietly endeavor to erad- 
 icate the party animosities of the settlement. 
 
 But aside from these misunderstandings the prom- 
 inence accorded to young Torrey in the community 
 was very beneficial to him — stimulating all his facul- 
 ties, calling his best gifts into requsition, and every 
 way developing and enlarging him. 
 
 He was secretary of almost every public, meeting, 
 and was relied upon to draw up the public papers by 
 which the Courts or the Legislature were addressed. 
 The settlers came to him with their land business, 
 not only when they needed surveying done, but 
 when they needed advice in respect to perfecting 
 their claims and securing their titles. 
 
Various Toils and Attainments. 53 
 
 There was nothing In this line which the best law- 
 yers could have done for them that he could not do, 
 and did not do, cheerfully, as a matter of neighbor- 
 hood favor and kindness. 
 
 Add all this to his surveying work for the Phila- 
 delphia land owners, and for men in other parts of 
 the county, from Stockport to Minnisink and West 
 to "Nine Partners," and to his surveying on the 
 roads, and to the work that was constantly crowding 
 him on his own farm, and his life was made very 
 busy and laborious. But his labors were so various 
 and so much of them brain-work, of a broad and lib- 
 eral character, requiring comprehensive grasp of 
 thought, and familiar acquaintance with the principles 
 and forms of law, together with nice use of language, 
 and exact and compact statements of argument, that 
 it was all very educating to him, and he attained in- 
 tellectual and literary capabilities that were quite re- 
 markable in a person whose technical education, after 
 the meagre schooling of boyhood, was obtained dur- 
 ing those twelve weeks in Williams Academy in 
 1791. 
 
 But these attainments were not easily made. They 
 were the result of the most severe and exhaustive task- 
 ing of both body and mind, during the seven or eight 
 years of his residence at Mt. Pleasant — say from 
 1794 to 1 801 or 1802. It is impossible to be more 
 specific because his getting away from that place was 
 a gradual process, his life being elsewhere for a year 
 or two while his home remained there. 
 
 There were three sons in the family before it was 
 transferred to its new home. William having been 
 
54 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 born in September, 1798 ; Ephraim in October, 1799, 
 and Nathaniel in November, 1800. All in the log 
 cabin at Mt. Pleasant. 
 
 It would have been interesting to notice at the 
 proper date, that when the first child was expected 
 to arrive, and to arrive soon, a part of a day was 
 spent, by Jason himself, in clearing away some logs 
 and other impediments from the poor road through 
 the woods, so that the "women" (there being no 
 doctor) could be sent for by night or day without 
 hindrance, and the said clearing of the road proved 
 to be not a day too soon. "While the cocks were 
 crowing next morning the boy came." 
 
 These were years of extreme poverty for Mr. 
 Torrey, so that he was often absolutely penniless, 
 and well nigh foodless, and burdened with debt, and 
 several times had his oxen and other items of prop- 
 erty attatched by the constable, and was often greatly 
 discouraged and depressed. But he continued to 
 devote much time and labor to public services for 
 which he received no direct compensation, because 
 there was need that the services be rendered by 
 somebody, and nobody else was so well qualified as 
 he to render them. 
 
 If we could have occasionally looked inside that 
 log cabin, during these years, we should doubtless 
 have seen a toiling and often anxious wife and 
 mother there. Aside from the care of her husband 
 and infant children, there would often come land 
 buyers, sometimes gentlemen from the cities, and 
 would need to be furnished with food and lodging 
 for two or three days, while he was out with them 
 
Extent of New County. 55 
 
 from dawn till dark, viewing the lands. On one oc- 
 casion he records that they had nine to breakfast. 
 How they had all been bestowed during the night, 
 and how meals could be provided for so many guests 
 from such scanty supplies, is a question not easily 
 answered. 
 
 XII 
 We come now to an interesting chapter in this 
 history, as it accounts for the change of residence 
 already foreshadowed. 
 
 It will be remembered that a new county was 
 erected by the Legislature in 1798. The act author- 
 ized trustees, who were therein named, to select a 
 place for the county seat, and they selected Milford 
 for that purpose, which was very unsatisfactory to a 
 majority of the people of the county. 
 
 The new county of Wayne extended from the 
 North line of the State, Southward along the Dela- 
 ware River, nearly 150 miles, to within six or eight 
 miles of the Delaware Water Gap. Milford was at 
 one side of the county, while Stantonville was at the 
 other. The dissatisfaction was so great, that at the 
 next session of the Legislature in 1799, an act was 
 passed directing that the county seat should be lo- 
 cated within four miles of " Dyberry Forks" — i. e. 
 within four miles of where Honesdale now is, and 
 that the courts should be held at Wflsonville, until 
 the place for the county seat should be fixed by 
 
56 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 the trustees named, and suitable county buildings 
 erected. 
 
 Various sites, as Indian Orchard, Cherry Ridge, 
 Seeleys Mills and others were suggested to the trus- 
 tees. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, an incident occured of much 
 interest to Mr. Torrey. One of the largest specula- 
 tors in land, Mr. Henry Drinker, of Philadelphia, had 
 obtained warrants for twenty-four adjoining tracts of 
 400 acres each to be located between the Dyberry 
 and the West Branch of Lackawaxen. By reason 
 of a lack of care in preparing the descriptions in- 
 serted in the warrants, the Deputy Surveyor con- 
 cluded that not more than half of Mr. Drinker's 
 warrants could be there located, and so informed Mr. 
 Drinker, who was advised to consult Mr. Torrey 
 about it. In the mean time Mr. J. Nicholson, another 
 land speculator, of Philadelphia, learned of the 
 Deputy Surveyors conclusion, and obtained thirteen 
 warrants, intended to cover what Mr. Drinker's 
 warrants could not take. 
 
 On the subject being explained to Mr. Torrey, he 
 assured Mr. Drinker that if a judicious care was used 
 in fixing the particular location of each tract, all the 
 twenty-four warrants could be there located. Mr. 
 Drinker committed the whole matter to Mr. Torrey's 
 management, promising that if he succeeded in 
 demonstrating this to the Deputy Surveyor, and pro- 
 curing returns of survey to be made on all the war- 
 rants, he would liberally compensate him for it. 
 
 The returns were so made, and patents issued to 
 Mr. Drinker for the twenty-four tracts. This body 
 
Locating the County Seat. 5 7 
 
 of lands extended from within two miles of Dyberry 
 Forks northward, about six miles, so that part of it 
 was within the limits fixed for the county seat. 
 
 In this connection the following entries in Mr. 
 Torrey's journal are of interest : 
 
 May 6, 1800 — "Took surveying instruments and 
 maps covering all the territory within four miles of 
 Dyberry Forks, and went to court at Wilsonville. 
 
 May 9 — "Started out with the county commission- 
 ers and spent two days in exploring the circuit within 
 four miles of Dyberry Forks, for a place for the 
 County seat." 
 
 May 11 — "Made for the trustees, a list of the 
 owners of land within that four miles radius to enable 
 them to write for proposals." 
 
 Proposals had already been received from several. 
 Mr. Tilghman who owned land on Cherry Ridge, 
 and Mr. Drinker, each proposed to give the county 
 any connected thousand acres of his land if they 
 would erect the county buildings on it. 
 
 May 15 — "At request of trustees, set out with 
 them to designate the place for the court house, ac- 
 companied by Esquire Stanton and George Levers, 
 both urging Cherry Ridge. After viewing Cherry 
 Ridge locality, and Mr. Drinker's lands, the trustees 
 proceeded to vote." 
 
 The result of the vote was a decision to locate on 
 the Drinker lands by a majority of 3 to 1 , and the 
 Journal continues: 
 
 May 16 — "The trustees proceeded to designate 
 site for court house by driving a stake in presence of 
 many witnesses — entered their proceedings on their 
 
58 Memoir of Major Jason Ton'ey. 
 
 minutes and subscribed their names thereto, wit- 
 nessed by all present." 
 
 The location thus determined upon was about 1 3 
 miles east-southeast from Stantonville, near the route 
 of the road to Minnisink. It was on a broad slope 
 of high ground, inclining gently to the southeast and 
 dropping off gradually to the right and left into the 
 valleys of two brooks, and at this time all was cov- 
 ered with heavy forest, the nearest settlers being 
 four families close along the Dyberry, viz.: Pullis, 
 Nelson, Asa Kimble and Schoonover. 
 
 Soon after the site for the court house had been 
 selected on Mr. Drinker's land, and the exterior 
 lines of the town plot of 1,000 acres selected by the 
 trustees had been surveyed, Mr. Drinker, in settling 
 with Mr. Torrey for aiding to obtain the land, au- 
 thorized him to locate, for his own use, and subse- 
 quently conveyed to him, 400 acres of land thus lo- 
 cated, adjoining East of the town plot. Much of the 
 homestead farm of Mr. Torrey was on this 400 acres. 
 
 Immediately after the site for the county seat had 
 been located by the trustees, the friends of that loca- 
 tion became eager to have it fastened there, and 
 measures were taken to lay out the town, and com- 
 mence the erection of the public buildings without 
 delay. 
 
 Without waiting to raise funds in the county, they 
 sent at once to Philadelphia and obtained money and 
 supplies on their own credit, for the clearing of the 
 land and the speedy erection of the public buildings. 
 
 We noticed that it was on the 16th of May that 
 the precise spot for the court house was fixed. Fur- 
 
Making a Diary-book, 59 
 
 ther entries in his diary show that on June 2d Mr. 
 Torrey met the trustees at that spot (where no tree 
 had yet been fallen), and drew a plan for the court 
 house and jail. 
 
 On June 10th, the "neighbors" were called together 
 to put up a log house to serve as shelter and board- 
 ing house for the mechanics and other laborers. 
 
 XIII 
 
 These days of the Summer and Autumn of 1 800, 
 are busy and buoyant days with Mr. Torrey. He 
 shoots back and forth between his log cabin and the 
 county seat like a weaver's shuttle. 
 
 The record of his daily doings is quite full, and is 
 preserved in a home-made book consisting of just 
 a quire of large, strong, white, foolscap paper, stitched 
 together without being folded, and protected by a 
 stiff cover, which he had made by pasting solidly to- 
 gether several thicknesses of newspaper. Thus the 
 book is covered with "pasteboard" in the strictest 
 sense of that word. The outside thickness of news- 
 paper is a copy of The Philadelphia Gazette, of June 
 19th, 1 798 — having for its motto, "The public will, our 
 guide. The public good, our aim" and containing a 
 brief message to Congress by President John 
 Adams. 
 
 The paste of the cover has been so tempting to 
 moths or other insects that it is eaten through and 
 through, but the writing is perfectly preserved. 
 
 He has on hand, at this time, two large jobs of 
 
60 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 surveying, viz.: that of dividing the balance of Mr. 
 Drinker's land into farm lots, and that of cutting up 
 the County's one thousand acres into 254 house lots, 
 for the county town, and 163 out lots, of five acres 
 each, adjacent to and surrounding the house lots. 
 
 Besides this he has his farm work to attend to and 
 much of it to do with his own hands, and liberally 
 mingled with this is surveying for others, and con- 
 stant and important correspondence with gentlemen 
 in Philadelphia and elsewhere, so that often in con- 
 nection with the record of a hard day's work, on the 
 farm, or in the woods, will be a notice of writing 
 two or three or half a dozen letters, and reference to 
 their being copied. 
 
 Some of this office work, performed in the log 
 cabin at Mt. Pleasant, is very handsome, showing the 
 nicest skill in penmanship and drafting. And he 
 speaks about this time of being engaged in prepar- 
 ing a plan of the new county town, on "Silk Post," 
 to be sent to Philadelphia. 
 
 The surveying for the village was a new experi- 
 ence to him, and required a new degree of accuracy, 
 so that he had to study up for the work, and tells 
 of going to Stockport (Judge Preston's) "for a book 
 containing the rule for obtaining the true meridian." 
 And in laying out the streets of the embryo village, 
 naming them Wayne street, Court street, Sugar 
 street, &c, he found that one of them was marked a 
 few inches too wide at one end, and had great diffi- 
 culty in adjusting the instruments to the variation of 
 the needle, and the greater difficulty because he did 
 not take into account the diurnal variation — i. e. he 
 
Elegant work in rough places. 6 1 
 
 did not at that time understand that lines, run by the 
 magnetic needle, in the afternoon, will not be in pre- 
 cise correspondence with those run by the same in- 
 strument in the morning, so that the needle cannot 
 be depended upon for the nicest work. 
 
 Nevertheless, he corrected his work as best he 
 could, and actually had the court house frame, after 
 it was raised, moved six inches Southward in order 
 that it might be in just the right place, and all this, 
 be it remembered, in the zuoods, with no single square 
 rod of smooth, cleared surface, but all the measuring 
 done amid stumps and logs and cradle knolls and 
 branches of fallen trees. 
 
 All this is said in order to indicate concerning the 
 man of whom we are writing that he could not only 
 accomplish a great amount of very rapid and varied 
 work, but that he required of himself to do all well, 
 and if necessary with extreme niceness and accuracy, 
 and portions of it with great elegance and beauty. 
 
 Arrangements were made for a sale of town lots 
 at Wilsonville, during an approaching court week, 
 and Mr. Torrey was so hurried in finishing the sur- 
 veying, and preparing the necessary maps, to be laid 
 before the people at the time of the sale, that he 
 makes record that he did not give himself "half reas- 
 onable time for eating and sleeping," and that at mid- 
 night on the 7th of August, he finished his map of the 
 village plot at his cabin at Mt. Pleasant, and started, 
 by moonlight, at 3 o'clock of the morning of August 
 8th, for Wilsonville, where he arrived at 10 (about 
 25 miles over rough roads), and acted as clerk of 
 sale all the week, resulting in sales of lots to the 
 amount of $1,700. 
 
62 Memoir of Majoi" Jason Torrey. 
 
 Returning now to the regular order of proceed- 
 ings we recall the fact that early in June a plan was 
 adopted by the trustees for the public buildings. 
 
 On August 8th, (Mr. Torrey, having been, mean- 
 while to Philadelphia to see Mr. Drinker and others) 
 " assisted the carpenter in making plan and bill of 
 timber for court house," and on the 9th "made bill 
 of scantling and drew contract between trustees and 
 Walter Kimble for furnishing the sawed lumber," 
 (most of the timber for the frame, including studs, 
 being hewed upon the spot.) 
 
 On 1 2th to 15th he and his surveying party "bor- 
 rowed axes, because laboring men could not be pro- 
 cured, and went to scoring timber for the carpenters 
 at fifty cents per day, at the same time that survey- 
 ing business is suffering for which I should receive 
 $3 per day." 
 
 On September 5 the frame of the court house was 
 raised. 
 
 On October 4, the place is first designated in the 
 journal as Bethany, a sweet name, suggestive, by its 
 origin, of rural refinement and domestic peace and 
 affection. 
 
 The inclination for scripture names in the county 
 is indicated by the adoption of such titles for town- 
 ships, as Canaan, Salem, Lebanon and Damascus, 
 and the fact that letters written at the narrows of the 
 Lackawaxen, at this time, were dated at Mt. Moriah. 
 
 So comes on the Winter of 1 800 and 1 80 1 . 
 
 During the Summer and Autumn, of 1801, matters 
 progress finely at Bethany. On September 11 Mr. 
 Torrey writes : 
 
Beginnings at Bethany. 6 
 
 o 
 
 ''County town grows rapidly. Several houses 
 will be comfortably finished this Fall. Three families 
 are now there. The court house has been reported 
 finished, and the jail nearly so." 
 
 Nearly all of these "several houses" were of logs, 
 but one of them, built by Mr. Drinker, was quite a 
 large, double, two-story house, standing across the 
 street, west from the northwest corner of the public 
 square, which is still standing there, and still occu- 
 pied as a dwelling. Into this house Mr. Torrey 
 brought his family in December, 1801. 
 
 To Mrs. Torrey this new home was more lonely 
 than that in the Mt. Pleasant woods. Writing to her 
 "Dear Mamma," in May, 1802, she has a doleful 
 story to tell : 
 
 "Two or three weeks after we moved here, my 
 husband set out for Philadelphia, and did not return 
 for three months. (Where he was and what doing 
 during those three months we shall see presently.) 
 Being- left alone and in a strange neighborhood, 
 added to the poor state of my health, I really thought 
 it the worst of all places in the world. Indeed I 
 never experienced such a Winter in my life. But 
 my husband returned, and a prospect of having in a 
 few days, several families of very agreeable neigh- 
 bors, renders the place again more agreeable." 
 
 Mr. Torrey began clearing a farm on some of the 
 Bethany out-lots, he had purchased, and which were 
 situated just out from Bethany toward the north and 
 northeast, and he expected to build a house for him- 
 self, during the following Summer, fronting on the 
 north side of the public square, where he owned some 
 village town lots. 
 
64 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey, 
 
 Indeed the days of his poverty seemed to be ended. 
 A large and profitable business, congenial to his 
 tastes, in the way of surveying and land agency, had 
 fallen into his hands, and seemed sure to increase 
 from year to year. His debts, that had so burdened 
 and harassed him, were well nigh cancelled. There 
 was a fair prospect that the excessive and wearing 
 toils that had devolved upon him and his faithful wife 
 for the past few years would cease to oppress them, 
 and would be for the future, reduced to a reasonable 
 degree of industry. 
 
 Moreover he was as much interested in the bright 
 prospects of the town and county as in his own — 
 much more, one would think from reading his jour- 
 nal and letters. 
 
 He writes to his home in Williamstown, author- 
 izing his father and brothers to say to any young 
 men who are inclined to go into the new country, 
 Westward, that there is no better place for them to 
 settle, anywhere, than in Wayne County, and near 
 Bethany. 
 
 XIV 
 
 But his patience and courage are to be subjected 
 to new trials. A greivous disappointment awaited 
 him and his immediate neighbors. 
 
 The people of Milford succeeded in pursuading 
 the Legislature in February, 1802, to remove the 
 county seat to that placeyftr three years. 
 
 The injustice of the proceeding seemed great and 
 inexcusable, and although the act of Legislature said 
 
Lobbying with the Legislature. 65 
 
 "for three years and no longer'' yet it was feared 
 that the same influences that had led to the violation 
 of the previous engagement, would secure the viola- 
 tion of this also. 
 
 Mr. Torrey had spent nearly the entire Winter 
 (this is the three months absence to which his wife 
 refers) in attendance upon the Legislature, at his 
 own expense, with reference to this business, and had 
 advanced money to the amount of more than a 
 thousand dollars for the public improvements, and 
 thus found himself burdened with debt again, and 
 greatly embarrassed. 
 
 Besides the financial embarrassment there is the 
 discouraging effect of the fruitlessness of his Winter's 
 work in a cause which he knew to be a just one, and 
 his indignation at the folly and injustice of the action 
 of the Legislature. 
 
 Of course his house-building is postponed, and his 
 life becomes a severe and toilsome struggle again. 
 
 But he shows no signs of faint-heartedness. He 
 goes resolutely forward with the clearing of his farm, 
 and with such other business as comes to his hands. 
 
 He moves into the jail house in June, 1802, and 
 writes to his father that he and his whole family are 
 "in jail" at last. From that home it is that the hard- 
 working wife writes in September, 1802: "We have 
 had for a few weeks past, ten or twelve in the family, 
 but hope it will soon be less." 
 
 Until December, 1802, the nearest Post-office was 
 at Stroudsburg, (50 miles), and from that time ar- 
 rangement was made by private enterprise, to run 
 a "Post" to that place once in two weeks. 
 
66 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 It was during the last of these three years of try- 
 ing uncertainty about the county seat, that Mr. 
 Torrey was elected Major of Militia, on the 26th of 
 November, 1804, and was so commissioned by the 
 Governor for a term of seven years. But the title 
 clung to him, and he was popularly known and 
 spoken of as "Major Torrey" to the end of his life. 
 
 But as the last of these three trying years is pass- 
 ing away, there is a reviving confidence that justice, 
 as well as the visible seat thereof, is coming back to 
 Bethany. The Legislature of 1804-5 was very posi- 
 tive in recognizing the right of that place to have the 
 county seat, and, in the face of strong influences 
 from Milford, refivsed, by a large majority, to alter 
 the act of 1802, which provided for the removal of 
 the county offices to Milford "for thi'ee years and no 
 longer." This refusal carried with it the restoration 
 of the seat of justice to Bethany, and made it sure 
 that the court would hold its sessions there in the 
 Spring of 1805. 
 
 In anticipation of this Mr. Torrey had commenced 
 building his house in the Summer of 1804, and "was 
 obliged to lay out the frame himself — 42x33, with a 
 kitchen in the rear, 20 feet square, and a porch on 
 the east side of the kitchen, 9 feet wide, and a buttery 
 at the north end of the porch." How familiar it all 
 is in the memory of the surviving members of the 
 family ! 
 
 The house was hurried, during the Winter, to such 
 completion as that it was opened as a hotel and en- 
 tertained from 60 to 70 guests during the first court 
 week there, in the Spring of 1805, and the court 
 
Much away from Home. 67 
 
 itself was held, for the first day, in the East front 
 room of that house, and whatever other conveniences 
 they may have lacked they were certainly able to 
 have a ''Bench of Judges," for a carpenter's work- 
 bench, fresh from amid the shavings, was mounted 
 with chairs, and upon it the Honorable Court was 
 perched. 
 
 XV 
 
 We have noticed how much of the time Mr.Torrey 
 was away from his family, on his frequent trips to 
 Philadelphia and on his surveying campaigns, which 
 would sometimes keep him in the woods for weeks 
 together, and he would scarcely return from one be- 
 fore he must be off on another, or some matter of 
 public interest would be awaiting his return, and 
 would hurry him away without allowing a single 
 night of rest under his own roof. 
 
 And so reticent is his journal, for month after 
 month, at times, concerning his family, that you 
 would hardly know that he had any. 
 
 But letters written to the parental home at Wil- 
 liamstown reveal the teriderest interest and care for 
 his wife and little boys. Indeed an occasional revel- 
 ation in that direction is found in the journal, as when, 
 under date of Saturday, February 7, 1 801, he writes: 
 
 "At evening, Ephraim was badly scalded, which 
 prevents my going to court next week." 
 
 Monday, February 9th — "I have sent papers and 
 letters, for trustees, in locked cannister, to Wilson- 
 
68 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 ville. I spend the week in attendance upon the burnt 
 child." 
 
 In a letter to his parents, written from Philadelphia, 
 July 27, 1803, he speaks of his wife as not being as 
 well as usual and then adds : 
 
 "I feel a concern on her account every day of my 
 absence, but to act the part of the eagle in the nest, 
 from the bad report of the sow at the root, would, 
 like other errors, meet censure. Business calls — 
 necessity drives and I obey." 
 
 Thus hurried and driven by the pressure of public 
 and private duties, he had little opportunity for 
 either active or restful enjoyment with his family, and 
 even that little was nearly crowded out from all men- 
 tion by his absorbing business engagements. 
 
 The training of the little boys was left, almost en- 
 tirely to their mother, and safely left there, it would 
 seem, from an occasional report to the grand parents, 
 as when, on July 27, 1803, when the eldest was not 
 yet five, he writes : 
 
 "Our boys are promising, and excel in their learn- 
 ing, to which their Mama is especially attentive, and 
 Billy, the oldest, (not yet five years old), is, in his 
 reading, halfway through the New Testament." 
 
 While, from first to last, in the history of his im- 
 mediate family, he expected his children, as they 
 grew up, to be self-reliant and self-helpful, and to 
 begin very early in life to be helpful to others also, 
 yet no labor, by night or day, was too severe for him, 
 and no last dollar too precious to be used in making 
 generous provision for the comfort of his household, 
 and when, on account of sickness or any misfortune, 
 
Devotion to his Family. 69 
 
 they needed special attention and sympathy, his 
 strong nature responded to the necessity with a care 
 as tender as that of a mother. 
 
 Indeed love for his family — an ambitious and affec- 
 tionate interest in their future, was a deep and con- 
 trolling impulse with him. It was for the sake of his 
 family that he often seemed to neglect his family, just 
 as it is for the sake of his brood that the paternal 
 eagle often flies furthest from the nest, according to 
 the moral of the fable above referred to. 
 
 To use his own form of expression, as already 
 quoted from his earlier diary, while he did not desire 
 that his children should be released, in the future, 
 from the claims of a reasonable and healthful indus- 
 try, he chose to deprive himself of home comforts 
 and his family of his immediate presence and care, 
 and to no forth on those long; and laborious exiles 
 and those ceasless toils and hardships, in order that, 
 by and by, the members of his family might be free 
 from the necessity of slavish and drudging toil. In 
 so far as he had private ends in view, these were his 
 inspiring and controlling motives. And his descend- 
 ants have realized precisely that result to a large 
 degree, and might have realized it in still larger de- 
 gree, if a wise use had always been made of what 
 he accomplished for them. His children and his 
 grand children — some in each of these classes are, 
 down to this day, in their old age, or on their sick 
 beds, experiencing various reliefs and comforts which 
 are the legitimate results of his enterprising labors 
 and self-denying hardships and toils. 
 
yo Memoir of Major Jason Torrey 
 
 XVI 
 
 Returning now to the current history of events, 
 we find that while the conflict about the county seat 
 of Wayne was in progress, from 1800 to 1805, 
 another and broader conflict, having its nearest seat 
 in the adjoining county of Luzerne, but having the 
 proportions of a State and even of an Inter-state ques- 
 tion, was also in progress, and in it Mr. Torrey took 
 a lively interest and an efficient though pacific hand. 
 
 This was the controversy with the Connecticut 
 settlers, and originated in this wise : 
 
 When the Colony of Connecticut received its char- 
 ter from the King of England, in 1631, nothing was 
 known of the geography of the country West of the 
 Hudson River. The description of the Territory of 
 Connecticut, in said charter, seems sufficiently inter- 
 esting and curious to justify inserting it here. The 
 territory is described as "all that part of New Eng- 
 land, in America, which lies and extends itself from 
 a river there called Naraganset River, (Long Island 
 Sound), the space of 40 leagues upon a straight line, 
 near the shore towards the Southwest West, and by 
 South or West, as the coast lieth towards Virginia, 
 accounting three English miles to the league: Also 
 all and singular the lands and hereditaments whatso- 
 ever lying and being within the bounds aforesaid, 
 North and South, in latitude and breadth aforesaid, 
 throughout the mainlands there, from the Western 
 Ocean (Atlantic) to the South Sea (Pacific.)" 
 
 Therefore the Westward boundary of the Colony 
 of Connecticut was no where — i. e. the Territory ex- 
 
Connecticut' 's Vast Claims. 71 
 
 tended across Hudson River and Westward, indefi- 
 nitely, even to the Pacific Ocean, so far as appears 
 from this generous charter. It was making a big 
 thing of snug little Connecticut. Very appropriate 
 are the words "lies and extends" in the charter. 
 
 Of course these bounds were found to interfere 
 with the grant made to the Duke of York for the 
 province of New York, because, according to the 
 above charter, Connecticut would stretch entirely 
 across the Southern part of New York, from East to 
 West, and entirely across the Northern part of Penn- 
 sylvania also. Therefore the King, in 1664, ap- 
 pointed commissioners to determine the Western 
 boundary of Connecticut, and they fixed it East of the 
 Hudson, nearly where it is now, and the Governor 
 and commissioners of Connecticut signed a formal 
 acceptance of that, as the Western boundary of that 
 colony. 
 
 This arrangement was made about 16 years before 
 the grant of Pennsylvania was made to William 
 Penn. 
 
 But when, after the revolution, the colonial prov- 
 inces of Connecticut and Pennsylvania became states, 
 Conneticut still claimed the ownership of the North- 
 ern part of Pennsylvania under the old charter. The 
 dispute between the States was settled, beyond ap- 
 peal by the award of a Commission, organized under 
 the provisions of Section 9 of the "Articles of Con- 
 federation of the United States." This Commission 
 convened at Trenton in 1782, and, after a session of 
 forty days, decreed that "the State of Conneticut has 
 no right to the lands in controversy." 
 
72 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 Also that "the jurisdiction of all territory within 
 the charter boundary of Pennsylvania, and now 
 claimed by the State of Connecticut, does of right 
 belong to the State of Pennsylvania." 
 
 This settled all questions as between the states, 
 but, meanwhile, a large number of settlers had taken 
 up lands and organized 17 townships in the valley of 
 the Susquehanna, under Connecticut authority, be- 
 fore the time of the Trenton decree. These men must 
 not be defrauded of their lands and the improvements 
 they had made on them. 
 
 But these same lands were also' claimed, and justly 
 claimed, by men who had purchased them from the 
 •State of Pennsylvania. 
 
 To secure an equitable adjustment of these con- 
 flicting claims, a Commission was appointed by the 
 Legislature of Pennsylvania, in 1799, to examine all 
 the claims and fix the amount that each settler, under 
 Connecticut, should justly pay to the State of Penn- 
 sylvania in order to the perfecting of his title, and 
 also the amount which the State should pay to those 
 who would thus be required to relinquish the claims 
 which they had purchased from the State. 
 
 This Commission performed its delicate and diffi- 
 cult task with much patient labor, and with the 
 utmost impartiality and fairness, and the result should 
 have been a speedy 'ending of the whole trouble. 
 
 But many of the Connecticut settlers rejected the 
 reasonable and easy terms thus offered them and de- 
 termined to hold their land on the basis of their Con- 
 necticut claims, and maintain the sovreignty of those 
 1 7 townships under Connecticut authority. So per- 
 
Acting as Peacemaker. j$ 
 
 sistent were they in this, through two or three years, 
 that the Governor of Pennsylvania was on the point 
 of using the militia of the State, either to compel 
 them to submission or to eject them from the lands. 
 The Philadelphia land owners (mostly Quakers) 
 were opposed to the employment of any such severe 
 measures as the Governor contemplated, and Mr. 
 Torrey was in sympathy with them. He was also in 
 active though quiet co-operation with them for a 
 whole year, or more, as his private papers of this 
 period show. He was doing business for these land- 
 holders, as their agent, in the Northern part of the 
 State, and his business brought him much in contact 
 with the settlers in the Connecticut townships, and 
 he was quietly using his influence to prevent an open 
 conflict between the settles and the State, and bring 
 about a peaceful arrangement of the whole contro- 
 versy. 
 
 It was on March i, 1803, j ust about three years 
 after the Commission of adjustment was appointed 
 by the Governor, and when about two years of re- 
 sistance on the part of the Connecticut settlers to 
 the awards of that commission, had wrought up the 
 controversy between them and the authorities of the 
 State almost to the point of a violent and bloody 
 conflict, that Mr. Torrey writes to his parents from 
 Philadelphia as follows: 
 
 "When I left home last Monday I expected to be 
 absent four weeks. I now expect to be at home a 
 week from this day." 
 
 "The urgency of my return is occasioned by an 
 interference between the landholders and the Ex- 
 
74 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 ecutive of the State, relative to the Connecticut settlers 
 in Luzerne. The Governor has proposed sending a 
 military force, and we (i. e.: the landholders and Mr. 
 Torrey) are for bringing them to an amicable settle- 
 ment." 
 
 "In this I flatter myself with some success; at least 
 sufficient to avert a civil war with them." 
 
 "For the last twelvemonth, I have taken the posi- 
 tion of a meditator between the landholders and the 
 intruders. Both parties have embraced my proposals 
 and it now remains to put the plan in operation." 
 
 "The law knows no such thing as compromise be- 
 tween the injured and the offender. To punish the 
 one and restore to the other are its only means. But 
 when the offender acknowledges his crime, comes 
 forward with an honorable restitution and allies him- 
 self by strong ties of interest to the party he has in- 
 jured, the Executive may forgive the injury, and even 
 promote and encourage the measure." 
 
 "The mission upon which I am now engaged will 
 decide the fate of the Connecticut settlers, who are 
 under a Connecticut claim. If they treat for a pur- 
 chase, they may, from intruders — violators of the 
 laws of the State, and of the United States — become 
 valuable citizens and good members of society. If 
 these terms are rejected, force will speedily compel 
 them, and they may be exterminated from the 
 country." 
 
 It would seem, from a comparison of these private 
 papers of Mr. Torrey with the known history of the 
 period, that while the Connecticut settlers were for 
 a year or two (1802 and 1803) in a state of unarmed 
 
The Conflict Settled. 75 
 
 resistance to, and rebellion against, the laws and 
 executive authorities of the State, Mr. Torrey, with- 
 out appearing in the public history at all, was able, 
 in an obscure but effective way, to exert a pacifying 
 influence upon the troubled waters of the time. 
 Representing, in a manner, the Quaker land-owners, 
 who were regarded by the rebellious settlers as their 
 antagonists and adversaries, and at the same time 
 familiar with the settlers by personal intercourse, and 
 having their confidence as a disinterested party, he 
 was able to persuade them that their Connecticut 
 claims were legally untenable and morally unjustifia- 
 ble, and to convince them also of the kind feeling 
 of the Quaker claimants, and the fairness of the 
 terms offered by them, and thus to consummate the 
 negotiation and settlement with which he had been 
 privately entrusted, and which evidently assisted 
 largely in the healing of the whole difficulty. 
 
 Doubtless there are men now in the Wyoming 
 valley, whose fathers or grandfathers would have 
 been driven from their homes by military force, but 
 for this peaceful negotiation, and who, by this nego- 
 tiation, were converted from mistaken violators and 
 resisters of the law to peaceful and permanent and 
 valuable citizens. 
 
 ' ' Blessed are the peacemaker's. ' ' 
 
 "There was a little city and few men within it: and there 
 came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great 
 bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, 
 and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remem- 
 bered that same poor man." — Ecc. ix, 14, 15. 
 
J 6 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey 
 
 XVII 
 
 We return to Wayne County. With the county 
 seat restored to Bethany and established there, a 
 healthful prosperity and rapid growth was secured 
 to that young village which was springing up in the 
 midst of the woods. 
 
 There was also a rapid influx of settlers to pur- 
 chase farms and clear up the surrounding country. 
 
 Writing to his father, from Bethany, in March, 
 1805, Jason says: 
 
 "The place is thronged with people seeking situa- 
 tions for settlement, and I conceive the place has a 
 preference, when considered under all its advantages, 
 to any of which I have knowledge." 
 
 So much has been said in these pages about the 
 opening of Bethany, because it has seemed the only 
 way of producing this part of Mr. Torrey's biography. 
 His life was quite identified, for the time, with that 
 of the starting village. Its quickened prosperity 
 brought prosperity and success to him. His prop- 
 erty there becomes valuable and available. The 
 agency for nearly all the land-holders gradually 
 comes into his hands, so that he has a paying and 
 permanent and congenial business. The money that 
 he advanced to the new county, three years ago, is 
 refunded to him. 
 
 Intelligent and enterprising people make their 
 homes there and society comes into existence, and 
 religious meetings are held — often in his house, and 
 a school is started as a private enterprise by him and 
 Esquire Bunting. 
 
First Post Office at Bethany. yy 
 
 January 13, 1807, he writes: "Several persons 
 have recently made a public profession of religion 
 here, and next Sunday (18th) the Lord's Supper is 
 to be administered for the first time in Bethany. The 
 services are to be at my house." 
 
 About the first of June, 181 1, a Post-office was 
 first established at Bethany (Solomon Moore, P. M.), 
 and they rejoiced in the luxury of a weekly mail, 
 coming from Wilkes-Barre, by way of Mt. Pleasant 
 to Bethany and Milford, and returning through Pau- 
 pack settlement and Cobb's Gap. 
 
 This was quite luxurious, and something like 
 civilization, for only a few years ago the nearest Post- 
 office for them at Mt: Pleasant was as far off as 
 Bethlehem, and for a long time the friends at Wil- 
 liamstown were directed to send letters addressed to 
 " Beech Woods, Northamton County, Pa., to remain 
 at Wilkes-Barre till called for." 
 
 In October, 1808, Mr. Torrey entered into mer- 
 cantile partnership with the above mentioned Solomon 
 Moore, a young man of excellent business qualifica- 
 tions and very accurate business habits, which par- 
 tnership continued until March, 18 14, and Mr. 
 Moore's youngest daughter is now for 30 years 
 or more the wife of Mr. Torrey's oldest grandson, E. 
 W. Weston, of Scranton. 
 
 During the first 10 years of the residence of the 
 family in Bethany (from 1802 to 181 2) six children 
 were born into the household — two daughters and 
 four sons, as follows: 
 
 Minerva, born September 19, 1804. 
 Maria, born January 1, 1806. 
 
78 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey, 
 
 John, born April 13, 1807. 
 Stephen, born November 9, 1808. 
 Asa, born October 13, 18 10. 
 Charles, born July 17, 181 2. 
 
 In 181 1, the first death occurred in the family. 
 The third child, Nathaniel, born at Mt. Pleasant, 
 November 16, 1800, died August 20, 181 1, not quite 
 1 1 years old. His disease was a " billious fever ac- 
 companied by nervous affections that were exceed- 
 ingly baffling to medicines." 
 
 No information is furnished us concerning any 
 characteristics of the boy, but he had reached an in- 
 teresting age and the parting with him was a new 
 experience to these parents, whose life was so busy, 
 and to this group of six brothers and sisters, who 
 were old enough to know that there was a vacancy 
 at the table and in the sleeping rooms, and one voice 
 silenced from their plays. 
 
 Five days after this death, there goes a deeply 
 tender and thoughtful letter to the entire family at 
 Williamstown, expressing this, among other thoughts, 
 that the event ought to produce "a religious sensi- 
 bility, far surpassing that which proceeds from the 
 personal or parental disappointment of our expecta- 
 tions and prospects for a promising, son." 
 
 Almost precisely two years later — July 25, 1813, 
 a larger and sadder vacancy was occasioned by the 
 departure of the wife and mother. 
 
 This was occasioned by a violent form of an 
 epidemic fever, running through full 20 days. 
 
 As the end drew near, her tranquility and clear- 
 ness of mind were quite remarkable, as shown in the 
 
Religious Impressions, 79 
 
 counsels and consolations she gave, severally, to 
 husband and children and some neighbors who were 
 present. A parting interview with the husband alone 
 continued for more than an hour. 
 
 Another full and tender letter goes to the family 
 at Williamstown, August 2, 18 13, revealing a very 
 high estimation of the excellence and worth of the 
 departed wife and mother, and deep grief for the loss 
 that had befallen himself and the children. 
 
 The religious impressions made upon him were 
 very profound and effective. 
 
 Near the beginning of his letter he says : 
 
 "My heart is too full for details. I beg your 
 united prayers that this afflicting stroke of God's 
 providence may be sanctified to my spiritual good 
 and to the good of our family, and that neither I nor 
 mine may ever again become forgetful of Him whose 
 we are, and from whom we derive every blessing." 
 
 This language has the more significance because 
 his parents and brothers and sister, for whose intelli- 
 gent piety he had the utmost respect, had been very 
 faithful to him, and he had often asknowleclged to 
 them his appreciation of the claims of personal re- 
 ligion upon him and confessed to a strange and 
 guilty neglect of-those claims. 
 
 And so, further along, he says: "Although I can- 
 not but bemoan my loss, in tears of sorrow and grief, 
 for myself and for my little ones, yet I feel the justice 
 of the stroke too sensibly to raise a murmur against 
 the chastening hand," and then adds: "I have lain 
 in a state of spiritual torper for years. It has been 
 destructive of my enjoyment, even social and in 
 
80 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 domestic life, but more in those of the mind. I feel 
 that less affliction than has been given would not have 
 animated me, and if this does not, I believe more and 
 greater will follow." 
 
 "Great God! enable me to profit by the past and 
 stay thy chastening hand." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Major Torrey's youngest brother, Ephraim, was 
 now living near him at Bethany. Ephraim's wife 
 was a woman of the highest excellence of character 
 and of superior intelligence and good sense, of whom 
 Jason had said, in his journal, when she came to his 
 house, as a bride, in October, 1806: "I have but 
 just seen her, but quickly discover some of her 
 mother's traits of activity." 
 
 And now, in 181 3, this Aunt Eunice, as she came 
 to be called by her numerous nephews and nieces, 
 not only, but afterwards, as an aged widow was 
 affectionately so called by everybody in and about 
 Bethany, until she died in 1870 — this Aunt Eunice, 
 of sweet and blessed memory, bravely and kindly, 
 with the consent and co-operation of her husband, 
 came with him and her children into brother Jason's 
 house and assumed the care of that large family of 
 children, made still larger by the addition of her 
 own. 
 
 Hardly could Jason's children have been better 
 provided for during those needy years. For among 
 the excellences of Aunt Eunice's genial character, 
 
Increasing Land Agency. 8 1 
 
 none perhaps was more marked than the facility with 
 which she could secure the respect and affection of 
 the young, and the effectiveness with which she could 
 stimulate their minds and instruct and influence 
 them. 
 
 Very thankful was brother Jason to have his 
 motherless children in such hands, as well he might 
 be, because his enlarging business was, if possible, 
 
 more exacting upon him than ever before. 
 
 * 
 
 He had hoped with returning prosperity to have 
 
 more of leisure. But at no time was he more driven 
 and pressed, at home and away from home, than 
 now. Large areas of unsettled lands, covering much 
 of what is now Wayne and Pike Counties, and ex- 
 tending into Luzerne and Susquehanna, had been 
 placed in his care. 
 
 This was partly the fruit of seed sown during those 
 discouraging periods at Philadelphia. He was at 
 that time much in personal contact with the large 
 land-owners and served them in their offices, and 
 they not only became acquainted with the remarka- 
 ble versatility of his business capabilities, and accu- 
 racy and thoroughness of his business habits, but 
 they acquired an almost unlimited confidence in his 
 personal integrity. His name was a guarantee for the 
 thoroughest uprightness. This confidence was con- 
 firmed by their subsequent experience of him, as he 
 attended to various matters of business for them 
 from his log house at Mt. Pleasant, and so, when the 
 time was ripe for it, this extensive land-agency came 
 spontaneously into his hands. And he never once 
 disappointed that confidence, but, forty years after- 
 
82 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 ward, those men delighted to tell of the beautiful 
 accuracy, and complete fidelity, even to the nicest 
 degree of truthfulness and integrity, with which the 
 extensive business, so long entrusted to him, had 
 been transacted. 
 
 Returning now from this digression to complete 
 what was being said about the pressure of business 
 that was upon Mr. Torrey at the time that his faithful 
 wife was taken from him and the genial and helpful 
 "Aunt Eunice" came into his house, it remains only 
 to be stated that these vast areas of unsettled lands, 
 of which he had the agency, had been surveyed only 
 in large tracts, often of thousands of acres, and must 
 be divided into smaller lots, say of ioo acres each, 
 more or less, and this work kept him in the woods 
 during almost the whole of several Summers and 
 Autumns — especially the Autumns, after the leaves 
 were off the trees, which was the best time in the 
 year for surveying, until the snows of Winter drove 
 him in. So long were these campaigns in the woods, 
 that he was sometimes for an entire month without 
 seeing a human dwelling, except as he would some- 
 times get a distant view of one from some high hill- 
 top, which had been cleared of its standing trees by 
 a whirlwind. Otherwise there were no views to be 
 had even from the highest summits of the hills. 
 
 And then, when driven in by the Winter storms, 
 he was obliged to shut himself in his office, and make 
 up for the short days by adding the long evenings, 
 often until midnight or after, in order to make the 
 calculations from his accumulated field notes, and con- 
 struct the drafts and maps by which alone the work 
 
Vigor of his old Age. 83 
 
 of the Summer and Autumn could be brought to 
 completion. 
 
 The violent contrast between the months of severe 
 muscular activity in the woods, and those other 
 months of close confinement in the office, was very 
 trying to his physical constitution, and succeeded in 
 making an old man of him by the time he was 50. 
 
 Those who only knew him from that time (as was 
 the case with the writer of this sketch) knew him as 
 a somewhat decrepid old gentleman, with fire enough 
 in his eye, and energy enough in his voice and ges- 
 ture, but with a slow and infirm step, walking always 
 slowly and with a cane, about the grounds of his 
 home, but with his horse and carriage always at 
 hand, and generally, through the day-time, standing 
 at the door, ready for any greater distances. 
 
 He compensated himself as best he could, for his 
 physical infirmity, by the smartness of his horse. No 
 safe and plodding old nag, to crawl around with him! 
 The sturdiest and most spirited animal obtainable, 
 and one that could trot up hill as well as down, and 
 that had life enough to be gay on proper occasions, 
 was the horse for him. And nobody must drive for 
 him. I have known him, when he was over 70 years 
 old and so infirm that it required two of his strong 
 sons to help him down the steps of the house and 
 into his carriage, which was quite open at the sides, 
 in front of the seat — I have known him, when re- 
 turning from a ride and letting himself slowly down 
 by the side of the carriage, precisely between the 
 wheels, and seeing the horse badly frightened by 
 some passing object, to stand helpless and fearless 
 
84 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 between the wheels, holding himself up with one 
 hand upon the waggon, and, instead of asking his 
 attendants to help him or to hold the frightened 
 horse, he would lift his strong cane high above the 
 animal's back and speak to him with a voice that 
 made it evident to the startled but sagacious crea- 
 ture that no horse of his, whether frightened or not, 
 could be allowed to stir an inch from his tracks with- 
 out his permission. And, when he was sure that 
 that impression was fully made, he would drop his 
 cane to the ground, and, with a hearty laugh at the 
 ludicrousness of the whole performance, grope slowly 
 out from between the wheels. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Among the settlements outside of Wayne County, 
 with which Mr. Torrey's business early brought him 
 into acquaintance, was one in Susquehanna County 
 known as "Nine Partners," for the reason that nine 
 New England men came, with their families, as a 
 colony, and purchased jointly, a large tract of land, 
 situated in some branching valleys of little brooks, 
 between some very sharp and high hills, in what is 
 now the town of Harford in that county. 
 
 They were puritans of the straightest kind — 
 "orthodox," not only to the fullest extent of the 
 Westminster catechism, but to the extent of Hop- 
 kinsianism, so that one of the prima facie tests of 
 Christian character among them, even up to 1820, 
 
The Tyler Family. 85 
 
 consisted in a personal willingness to be lost if God 
 could be glorified thereby. 
 
 With their puritan faith there was a deep seated 
 love for education, which soon bore fruit in the 
 establishment of an uncommonly good school. 
 
 Conspicuous among these nine partners was a 
 Mr. John Tyler, whose wife was a daughter of the 
 third Rev. Peter Thatcher, referred to on page 10. 
 
 This John Tyler had four sons, the list of whose 
 names has a sort of poppinjay sound, thus: John, 
 Job, Joab and Jabez. Also five daughters, whose 
 names were Mary, Mercy, Polly, Nanny and Achsah. 
 
 They were a staunch family, and as those sons and 
 daughters came to have sons and daughters of their 
 own, they provided for them the best educational ad- 
 vantages that could be had in the new country, and 
 in the most substantial respects these amounted to 
 much. A fondness for learning was inherited by 
 their children. The only son of John, the eldest of 
 the brothers, worked his way through college and 
 became a brilliant professor at Cazenovia Seminary, 
 N. Y., and while in that position he died at an early 
 age, greatly lamented, and the faculty and students 
 of the seminary erected what was, at that time, a fine 
 marble monument over his grave in the beautiful 
 cemetery of that village, and his high praise may 
 now be translated from the latin inscriptions on that 
 monument. 
 
 The three sons of Joab, who were his only chil- 
 dren, all worked their way through college, and the 
 oldest, Prof. William S. Tyler, is now the Nestor of 
 
86 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 the faculty of Amhurst College, and one of the finest 
 Greek scholars in the land. 
 
 I say they "worked" their way through college 
 because the most that their father could do for them 
 was to spare them from the farms, and they were 
 obliged to earn the money needed for getting their 
 education, as best they could. 
 
 The youngest of the five Tyler daughters, Achsah, 
 became the wife of a young Presbyterian minister, 
 Rev. Whiting Griswold, who was pastor of a church 
 at Hartwick, Otsego County, N. Y., and died there, 
 greatly lamented, after only a few years of ministry. 
 Men who were connected with that church at the 
 time, have delighted to speak, 40 years afterwards, 
 with enthusiasm, of the excellence and usefulness of 
 their Pastor's wife, and the special affection and ad- 
 miration with which she was regarded by her hus- 
 band's parishners. 
 
 On becoming a widow she returned to her old home 
 at Nine Partners, so as to be near her brothers and 
 sisters, and resided in a snug little house of her own 
 which constituted a home for her and her two chil- 
 dren, a boy and a girl, then but a few years old. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Torrey, as far back as when he 
 lived at Mt. Pleasant was accustomed to go occa- 
 sionally to Nine Partners on surveying business for 
 the Tylers and others. These business visits brought 
 him into acquaintance with Achsah Tyler before she 
 was married to Mr. Griswold, and after the death of 
 her husband and of his wife the acquaintance was 
 renewed and resulted in their marriage, August 4, 
 1816. 
 
Happy Second Marriage. 8 J 
 
 This marriage was an exceedingly happy one for 
 him. Hardly would it have been possible to bring a 
 sweeter, nobler and better woman into his family. 
 Writing to his parents just a year after this marriage, 
 he makes this significant statement concerning his 
 wife: 
 
 "The affectionate ascendancy which she early 
 gained and retains, to an eminent degree, over the 
 children, is unusual, and I do not think that cases 
 are frequent when the attatchment of children to a 
 natural mother equals theirs to her." 
 
 Her religious influence in the family seems to have 
 been marked and fruitful — connecting itself with and 
 adding itself to that of the excellent example and 
 tender fidelity of the previous wife, the husband was 
 lifted out of his long continued procrastination into 
 a public and cordial profession of his Christian faith, 
 and ever after, his attitude was clear and decided, 
 and his activity in the church ceaseless. 
 
 Very nearly at the same time five of the eldest six 
 of his children, four sons and the daughter, Maria, 
 became members of the same church. 
 
 Asa fruit of this second happy marriage, there 
 came two more sons into the family at Bethany — 
 James, born September 9, 181 7, and David born 
 November 13, 18 18. 
 
 Of the Griswold children, Joab, the elder, left the 
 family at Bethany during his minority and went to an 
 apprenticeship at Harford, under the care of his 
 uncle Joab, who was also his guardian, and at about 
 the age of 30 went with his family to California 
 where he became a member of the Legislature, and 
 
88 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 died a few years ago, a much-esteemed judge in the 
 City of Stockton. 
 
 The young Achsah Melissa was welcomed and be- 
 loved as a sister in the family at Bethany, and was 
 married to J. C. Gunn, of Utica, in 1835, ar >d soon 
 after came with him to Honesdale, which has been 
 their residence till now. 
 
 This special connection with the Tylers at Nine 
 Partners was of great value to Mr. Torrey also by 
 bringing him into acquaintance with the excellent 
 school that had sprung up there, and with the ad- 
 vanced interest manifested in higher education there, 
 to the influence of which he was, by his natural tastes 
 and aspirations, very susceptable. The result was 
 that during the decade and a half from 1818 to 1833 
 all the sons and daughters, 10 in number, from Wil- 
 liam to David, were, first and last, and sometimes as 
 many as five at a time, in that school, not only profit- 
 ing by its direct advantages, but enjoying also the 
 almost equal benefit of the simple but beautiful cul- 
 ture, intellectual and moral, literary and religious, of 
 the various excellent families into which they were 
 received, not merely as boarders, but as sons and 
 daughters The intellectual and religious growth of 
 most of them was greatly advanced by these opportu- 
 nities and influences. One effect was to enlarge their 
 minds and hearts to purposes of broad usefulness, so 
 that Ephraim went as a teacher, and was more than a 
 teacher, in his influence at Walton, Delaware County, 
 N. Y , and there was awakened in Stephen an almost 
 resistless impulse toward the Christian ministry, from 
 which only failing health deterred him, and William 
 
General Financial Stringency. 89 
 
 was led forth as a foreign missionary to the Spanish 
 speaking people of Buenos Ayres in South America. 
 He went to that country, under the auspices of the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 
 November, 1826. 
 
 He remained there twelve years, when a stop was 
 put to his work by legal enactments making it a 
 criminal offense to preach or teach in the Spanish 
 language, which of course cut him off entirely from 
 the work he intended to do. 
 
 It is perhaps worth while to say one or two things 
 just here, in a sort of parenthetic appendix to this 
 chapter. 
 
 1 The years about which we have found it so easy 
 to write in these last pages, were years of great finan- 
 cial stringency in the new settlements. Business was 
 active and prosperous, but it had to be transacted 
 mostly without money. On the 8th of August, 1825, 
 Mr. Torrey writes thus to his brother, David, at 
 Williamstown: 
 
 "There is a general scarcity of money, which de- 
 prives us of all chance of hiring it. I have for several 
 years been in advance several thousand dollars to 
 the largest landed interest in this county, from the 
 settlers, on which I hold contracts, bonds and judg- 
 ments to the amount of about $70,000, from all which 
 I have not been able, with the aid of the sheriff, to 
 collect even enough to meet the taxes and expendi- 
 tures accruing from year to year without driving the 
 settlers to absolute sacrifice of property." 
 
 That is to say, as the agent of the large land 
 owners in Philadelphia, he held, for them, obligations 
 
90 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 against the purchasing settlers to the amount of 
 $70,000, and yet he could not collect even money 
 enough to pay taxes, etc., let alone sending any 
 money to Philadelphia. The settlers did not pay 
 because they could not, and father advanced for the 
 land owners several thousands of dollars to avoid the 
 the necessity of subjecting the settlers to the sacri- 
 fice of their property. How this stringency was re- 
 lieved we shall see in the next chapter. 
 
 2 The progress of the events narrated in these 
 same last pages having carried us beyond the date of 
 the birth of the narrator, it will accord better with his 
 fillial feelings to use the word father hereafter in- 
 stead of the name of Mr. Torrey. 
 
 3 The reference above to the Harford school sug- 
 gests some account of the origin of schools at Beth- 
 any. In 1803, father and Esquire Bunting engaged 
 a teacher on their own responsibility, requiring other 
 parents to pay $2 per quarter for each child sent, 
 and they making up whatever deficiency might oc- 
 cur in the payment of the teacher's salary. In some 
 such voluntary manner a school was maintained in a 
 log school house, for a part of every year, till 1809, 
 during which year a frame building was erected and 
 paid for by subscription, and the school continued 
 much as before. 
 
 In 18 1 3, an act was passed by the Legislature in- 
 corporating the "Beech Woods Academy," at Beth- 
 any, and appropriating $1,000 on condition that the 
 like sum should be raised by the people. But it was 
 several years before the people availed themselves 
 of this appropriation. 
 
Beech Woods Academy. 91 
 
 Meanwhile, in 1814, brother William was attend- 
 ing a classical school in Sharon, Conn., taught by a 
 Mr. Daniel Parker, and father wrote to this Mr. 
 Parker asking him to send them a good teacher, and 
 agreeing that he and one or two others would be re- 
 sponsible that the teacher's compensation should 
 amount to, at least, a certain specified sum, leaving him 
 the privilege of making as much beyond that specified 
 sum, as he could. 
 
 This resulted in the coming of young Amzi Fuller 
 to teach in Bethany, who afterwards became one of 
 the most valuable and conspicuous citizens of the 
 county. 
 
 In 1 8 16 action was taken for securing the erection 
 of the "Beech Woods Academy," with the aid of the 
 appropriation from the State, and the school lots 
 which had been set apart for that object by the 
 county trustees, and conveyed in trust to father and 
 Judge Abisha Woodward and Isaac Dimmick, were 
 by them transferred to the trustees of the Academy, 
 and the walls of a brick building were erected to the 
 height of the first story. But the building was not 
 ready for occupancy till the Winter of 1820 and 
 1 82 1, when our brother Ephraim was the first teacher 
 in it, after recovering from a sickness incurred while 
 teaching in Walton, Delaware County, N. Y. 
 
 This was a substantial brick building, with rooms 
 above and below for two grades of pupils, and was 
 a creditable institution for many years. Amzi Ful- 
 ler's brother, Thomas, taught in it about 1824, called 
 there doubtless through the influence of his brother, 
 who was very active with father and others in press- 
 
92 Memoir of Maj 07' Jason Torrey, 
 
 ing the Academy to completion and keeping it in 
 operation. Thomas Fuller also became an honored 
 citizen and prominent lawyer in the county. 
 
 About 1826, or 1827, when I was eight or nine 
 years old, Mr. L. C. Judson, father of the famous 
 "Ned Buntline," was principal of the Academy, and 
 under his administration an incident occurred which 
 illustrates at once the familiarity of the children with 
 scripture history and the parental care which the 
 prominent men took of the morals of the youth who 
 were being educated there. 
 
 The large "green" in front of the Academy, 
 although it had a fine smooth turf, had never been 
 plowed and its surface was very uneven because of 
 the "cradle knolls " and the hollows between them, 
 and after a copious rain, these hollows constituted 
 little lakes of water, half-knee deep. One day at the 
 noon recess, my friend Johnson Olmstead and I 
 marshalled the hosts of Israel, consisting of about 30 
 or 40 boys and girls, and I personated Moses and 
 he Aaron. I smote the waters with a very simple 
 rod and he led the army through one sea after 
 another on anything but "dry ground," and this pro- 
 cess was kept up with undampened enthusiasm till we 
 were all called to the afternoon school. Of course 
 everything else was dampened except our enthusi- 
 asm. But we were all used to that kind of exposure 
 and were no more disturbed about sitting in school 
 with wet feet and ancles than would a company of 
 Micronesian children be in the torrid zone. 
 
 But a solemn time awaited us. Scarcely were we 
 arranged in the school for our afternoon work, when 
 
Church Organizations at Bethany. 93 
 
 there marched into the room the stately forms of 
 Major Torrey and Deacon Olmstead — the fathers of 
 the young Moses and Aaron. The teacher had 
 quietly sent for them. The school was brought to 
 a standstill and Johnson and I were arraigned for 
 making sport of sacred things. We were innocent 
 as babes of any bad intention and could honestly 
 avow our sincere reverence for Moses and Aaron 
 and the scriptures. But we had a long lecture from 
 the teacher, endorsed and emphasized by our parents, 
 and alter censure and warning, were allowed exemp- 
 tion from further punishment, on the ground that we 
 had only been guilty of thoughtlessness and not of 
 any profane intentions. 
 
 4 The earliest church organization in what is now 
 Wayne County, was a Free-communion Baptist 
 Church, of six members, that was organized at Stan- 
 tonville on the 28th of June 1796. 
 
 The settlement of Bethany began in the year 1 800. 
 The place was visited from time to time by mission- 
 aries and other ministers of various ecclesiastical 
 denominations, and some of these visits were fruitful 
 in religious awakenings, as was notably the case 
 with a visit of Rev. Messrs. Thompson and Peck, 
 Baptist clergymen, from Mt. Pleasant, during the 
 Winter of 1805 and 1806, and after that time, when 
 they had no preaching, meetings for prayer and 
 reading sermons were regularly sustained. 
 
 In January, 1808, father writes to Williamstown, 
 saying: " We have Methodist preaching, regularly, 
 once in two weeks," and in 18 10, a Methodist class 
 
94 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 was organized in the Drinker House, then occupied 
 by Joseph Miller. 
 
 "The Congregational Church of Salem and Palmyra 
 had been organized in 1805, and in 181 2, the congre- 
 gation of that church embraced also Canaan and 
 Dybury, including Bethany. These four communi- 
 ties united in 18 12 for the support of a pastor, and 
 Rev. Worthington Wright (a missionary under the 
 Connecticut Home Missionary Society) was engaged 
 for three years, with the agreement that he should 
 reside at Bethany, because considerably more than 
 half his support came from there, and because also 
 that was now by far the most important of the four 
 communities. 
 
 Rev. Phineas Camp, a missionary of the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, labored for 
 several months at Bethany in 181 8, and so fruitful 
 was his work that quite a large number of persons 
 desired an opportunity of connecting themselves 
 with the Presbyterian Church by profession of their 
 faith in Christ. 
 
 Consequently a few days before the departure of 
 Mr. Camp to some other field of missionary labor, 
 viz.: on Tuesday, September 22d, 1818, a church was 
 organized with 1 1 members, of which Achsah Torrey 
 (wife of Jason) was one, and of which Dr. Virgil M. 
 Dibol, practicing physician in Bethany, being another, 
 was elected and ordained elder, and on the next Sun- 
 day, 18 persons of whom father was one, made a 
 public profession of their faith, making the church 
 to consist of 29 members. This church and the 
 charter society connected with it, had a strong and 
 
Delaware and Hudson Canal. 95 
 
 healthful growth, so that it was able in 1823 and 
 1824, to build for itself a house of worship which was 
 a noticeably fine one for the time, and is still standing 
 and in use, though robbed by decay, of the tall and 
 handsome spire that once surmounted it. 
 
 Of this society father was an active trustee so long 
 as he remained in business, and of this church an 
 elder from 1818 to the end of his life. 
 
 XX 
 The Delaware and Hudson Canal C ompany. 
 
 The events of the last chapter bring us to the 
 time when there dawned upon the inhabitants of 
 Wayne County the knowledge of a new enterprise 
 which was destined to influence very largely the de- 
 velopment and prosperity of Northeastern Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 Extensive deposits of anthracite coal were found 
 to exist in the Lackawanna Valley — the nearest de- 
 posits being about 17 miles from Bethany at the 
 place where Carbondale now is. 
 
 To get this coal to the New York market it seemed 
 necessary to bring it over by rail from the Lacka- 
 wanna Valley, the waters of which flow into the Sus- 
 quehanna, to the Lackawaxen Valley, the waters of 
 which flow into the Delaware. Between these two 
 valleys lay the Moosic range of mountains. Between 
 the Eastern edge of the Lackawanna coal deposits 
 and the nearest waters of the Lackawaxen was a 
 
96 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 pass in the mountain range, known as Rix's Gap, 
 where the altitude did not exceed 1,000 feet above 
 either of the valleys. The coal brought by rail over 
 this pass could be transported by water down the 
 Lackawaxen to the Delaware, and then down the 
 Delaware to a point from which a canal could be 
 constructed up the Neversink, through Orange 
 County, and then down the Rondout Creek to the 
 Hudson. 
 
 The magnitude and boldness of this enterprise, by 
 which a canal was to be construced from the Hud- 
 son River 110 miles into the wilderness, and comple- 
 mented by a railway over the passes of the Moosic 
 Mountain, seem the greater when we reflect that the 
 coal for the transportation of which all was to be 
 done, was almost entirely unknown beyond its im- 
 mediate locality. 
 
 Outside of Eastern Pennsylvania there were and 
 are no large deposits of anthracite coal known in the 
 world. It was entirely unused beyond the region 
 where it lay, but these enterprising and sagacious 
 men were so satisfied of its valu^ and usefulness 
 that they put their hands to the gigantic endeavor 
 of getting it to market for use. 
 
 Very clear to us, therefore, will be the significance 
 of the historic fact that in March 1823 the Legisla- 
 ture of Pennsylvania passed an act authorizing 
 Maurice Wurtz, of Philadelphia, to "Improve the 
 navigation of the Lackawaxen." It would seem that, 
 not a canal along the Lackawaxen, but the slack- 
 water navigation of that stream, was contemplated 
 at this time. 
 
Navigation of the Lackawaxen, 97 
 
 In April of the same year, the Legislature of New 
 York incorporated the Delaware and Hudson Canal 
 Company and authorized them to construct a canal 
 from the Delaware River, at the mouth of the Lack- 
 awaxen, to the Hudson River — all within the State 
 of New York. 
 
 During the next year (1824) it became desirable 
 that permission be obtained from the Legislature of 
 Pennsylvania, for a transfer to the Canal Company, 
 (with Mr. Wurtz's consent,) of the right to improve the 
 navigation of the Lackawaxen and thus permit the 
 company to extend its works into Pennsylvania. 
 
 It was evident also that in order to secure this 
 legislation in behalf of a New York corporation, 
 there must be some influential advocacy of the 
 measure on the part of citizens of that part of Penn- 
 sylvania through which the new transportation route 
 would extend. Father took a lively interest in this 
 advocacy, as did also Messrs. Amzi Fuller and N. 
 B. Eldred and Judge Abisha Woodward and others, 
 father not only giving largely of his time, but con- 
 tributing liberally to cover expenses of others seek- 
 ing the same object. In April, 1825, the Legisla- 
 ture passed the act authorizing the above mentioned 
 transfer. 
 
 Father also acted energetically and efficiently with 
 the same gentlemen in securing additional legisla- 
 tion in behalf of the Canal Company, as it was 
 needed, in 1826. 
 
 Viz.: In February, 1826, an act authorizing the 
 Canal Company to construct a canal instead of slack 
 water navigation on the Lackawaxen. And in April 
 
98 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 of the same year an act authorizing the construction 
 of a railroad from their coal mines to the canal ; 
 provided such railroad shall not extend further from 
 their mines than to the "Forks of the Dyberry on the 
 West Branch of the Lackawaxen, or to the Belmont 
 and Eastern Turnpike on the Wallenpaupack" — thus 
 leaving the Company to choose between the two 
 routes. 
 
 After the passage of this last act it soon became 
 evident that the route by Dyberry Forks would be 
 preferred to that up the Wallenpaupack, and then 
 for a while it was expected that Keen s Pond, near 
 Waymart, would be the head of the canal. 
 
 But the engineers and officers of the Company 
 soon manifested a preference not to extend the canal 
 further than Dyberry Forks, or, at furthest, to the 
 level space of the Blandin farm, near where the Com- 
 pany's "pockets" now are. 
 
 In addition to the general interest which father, 
 together with all other citizens, had taken in the con- 
 struction of the canal and railroad, he now came to 
 have a strong personal interest in the location of the 
 Western Terminus of -the canal, because he provi- 
 dentially owned a tract of land at Dyberry Forks 
 which was one of the contemplated points of that 
 location. 
 
 I say providentially for special reason. 
 
 Many years after these events of which I have 
 been speaking, when the canal had been in opera- 
 tion for a quarter of a century, father* said to me one 
 day, that his industry and his eager business plans 
 had provided for the sustainance of himself and his 
 
Schoonover Farm. 99 
 
 family and had enabled him to do something for the 
 public, but had brought no accumulations of wealth 
 to him. In so far as he had these they had come to 
 him from unexpected sources. 
 
 One illustration of this fact was found in what we 
 have already noticed that the county seat at Bethany 
 was located on lands that he had been enabled to 
 secure for Mr. Drinker, in the midst of a then un- 
 broken wilderness, and for his special services there- 
 in, Mr. Drinker had conveyed to him 400 acres of 
 land adjoining East of the county town, which he con- 
 sidered as having come into his possession by no 
 planning of his own. 
 
 We now have occasion to speak of another illus- 
 tration of the same fact. 
 
 About the year 1800, a full quarter of a century 
 before the canal was contemplated, Mr. William 
 Schoonover had an improvement on the Dyberry 
 Flats, about a mile above the "Forks," but had taken 
 no steps to secure a title to it. Though his improve- 
 ment gave him a first right to purchase not exceed- 
 ing 400 acres, he was, by neglecting to avail himself 
 of it, in danger of .losing much the greater part of 
 that right, as warrants had already been issued to 
 Mr. Nicholson, which largely interfered with that 
 right. Father as a neighbor warned him of his 
 danger, and assured him of his right to locate 400 
 acres at the land office price, if he would attend to 
 it. Mr. Schoonover could not readily raise the need- 
 ful money, and knew nothing as to what action on 
 his part would be necessary to secure the land. He, 
 therefore, arranged with father to furnish the money 
 
ioo Memoir of Major yason Torrey. 
 
 and have the necessary steps taken to secure the 
 title, and take for his compensation and risk, the 
 part of the land which Mr. Schoonover did not need 
 for his farm. 
 
 Father undertook the business, with every step of 
 which he was familiar, and secured the title, and re- 
 ceived from Mr. Schoonover a deed for the South 
 part of the tract which was then an unbroken forest. 
 
 For twenty years father tried to make a sale of it 
 to persons disposed to settle in the county, but was 
 unable to induce any one to purchase it. He tried 
 to induce Mr. Benjamin Jenkins to purchase and 
 settle on it in 1817, but he preferred to locate where 
 Prompton now is, at a greater price. 
 
 So that the southern half of the Schoonover tract 
 stuck to father's hands, in spite of all his efforts -to 
 the contrary, until the canal was projected and then 
 he was not so anxious to get rid of it, for, from 1825 
 or 1826, there began to be a chance that the terminus 
 of the canal would be there, and in fact the Northern 
 half of the village of Honesdale is on that tract which 
 father had obtained by a sort of accident, and re- 
 tained by a sort of compulsion. 
 
 This ownership affords sufficient reason for the 
 fact that, in 1826, father was personally interested 
 in the question, then undecided, whether the canal 
 should terminate at Dyberry Fork's or at Keen's 
 Pond. 
 
 As was said above the officers of the Company 
 were manifesting a preference for Dyberry Forks, 
 and the degree of father's expectancy is indicated in 
 a letter written to his brother as early as March of 
 
Beginnings at Honesdale. 101 
 
 that year, only a month after the act authorizing the 
 canal along the Lackawaxen was passed, in which he 
 says: 
 
 "If we shall not be disappointed respecting the 
 canal, as relates to this coming season, I must make 
 improvements at the Forks." 
 
 In order to bring on a decision in favor of Dyberry 
 Forks, he proposed to the Company that if the head 
 of the canal should be located on his land, at that 
 place, he would give to the Company a half interest 
 in the entire village plot which would be located 
 there. 
 
 Without receiving any acceptance of his proposal, 
 he so far expected its early acceptance, and it was 
 so generally understood that the head of the canal 
 would be on his land, that he arranged that very 
 season to have land immediately cleared for part of 
 a village plot and built a boarding house with a room 
 for the engineers of the Canal Company. 
 
 Still the question of the precise location of the 
 head of the canal remained unsettled through the 
 next Winter, for, on February 10, 1827. Father 
 writes thus to his brother David : 
 
 "We must expect a scarcity of money here until 
 the location of our canal shall be fixed. We have 
 long been expecting it and now expect it for next 
 Spring. It is located within 15 miles, and made 
 within about 40 miles. 
 
 I. e.: At the opening of the Spring of 1827, the 
 canal was actually made or nearly completed as far as 
 Port Jervis, and its location definitely fixed as far as 
 
102 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 the Narrows of the Lackawaxen (now Kimball's) 
 and no further. 
 
 At the opening of the next season (1827) gangs 
 of men were employed and set to work at Dyberry 
 Forks, so that chopping and^ burning and logging 
 were the order of the day, and before the end of 
 Summer of that year, the location of the head of the 
 canal at that place had been authoritively determined 
 upon, for, in August, after the ground of the flat 
 space North of the West Branch was so much 
 cleared that it could be seen, Mr. Bolton, the pres- 
 ident of the Company, spent a few days there, and 
 on the 13th day of that month, a formal contract was 
 executed by father on his own behalf, and by Mr. 
 Bolton on behalf of the D. & H. C. Co., of which he 
 was president, whereby it was stipulated that the 
 head of the canal should be located on father's prop- 
 erty, and that the Canal Company should be equally 
 interested with father, in the village plot which should 
 be located there, and Mr. Bolton engaged that on 
 reaching New York he would have a copy of the 
 contract, with the Company's corporate seal affixed, 
 sent to father. Before Mr. Bolton left he and father 
 made a plan for the village. 
 
 Up to this time father's co-operation with the offi- 
 cers and agents of the Company in promoting its 
 interests had been very active and intimate, and that 
 the value of his co-operation was cordially appre- 
 ciated and estimated in a most friendly spirit is 
 abundantly shown in the voluminous correspondence 
 between him and President Bolton and others at the 
 time. 
 
Canal-Terminus Fixed. 103 
 
 But in September of the same year the contract, 
 only a month old, was laid before the board of direc- 
 tors of the Company and they declined to approve it. 
 
 At the same time they decided to locate the head 
 of the canal on -a tract of land adjoining, South of 
 father's, which Mr. Wurtz had recently purchased, 
 and which he subsequently conveyed to the Canal 
 Company. 
 
 The fact of the quiet repudiation of such a contract 
 would very naturally cause that the co-operation be- 
 tween him and the company's agents should be less 
 intimate and active than before. And the result was 
 that father and the Canal Company each had a vil- 
 lage plot in Honesdale, and each part of the town 
 has had an honorable and prosperous history. 
 
 The boundary between father's land and that of 
 the Company as arranged by them, is a line running 
 across the plain from East to West through the mid- 
 dle of the court house square and precisely between 
 the legs of the bronze statue on the soldiers' monu- 
 ment there. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Settlement of Honesdale. 
 
 So it remains true that Dyberry Forks was decided 
 upon in the early Summer of 1827, as the place for 
 the Western terminus of the canal and the Eastern 
 terminus of the railroad, and the immediate estab- 
 lishment of a large business and the springing up of 
 
104 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 a considerable town there, were, at once, assured 
 things. 
 
 Father, residing at Bethany, three miles away, ar- 
 ranged for the vigorous continuance of the clearing 
 of his land there, and the laying out of his part of the 
 village. 
 
 The above mentioned boarding house, which was 
 built during the previous Autumn, was on the point 
 of land between the West Branch and the Dyberry, 
 within a hundred feet of each. A half-mile west 
 from that point a dam was constructed across the 
 West Branch and a saw mill erected and put in op- 
 eration. 
 
 I remember that one day that Summer, when I 
 was eight years old, my father took me in his carriage 
 from Bethany, in the morning, and we reached the 
 spot where the boarding house stood, where we took 
 dinner with the bronzed and hungry workmen. 
 
 Before going home we got into the carriage and 
 drove Westward along a narrow, rooty, muddy road, 
 part of the way among the stumps, loose brush and 
 fallen trees, and then through a thicket of lwh 
 and crooked and tough rhoda-dendrons (large-leafed 
 laurels) to the site of the aforesaid sawmill, I having 
 to get out once or twice, on the way, to pull some 
 troublesome laurel stick — as winding as a ram's horn 
 and nearly as hard — from between the spokes of our 
 wagon wheel. Such was the condition of things, 
 just then, in the early Summer of 1827 — no house 
 nearer than Mr. Schoonover's, 1 and no road West of 
 Dyberry except the one I have just described. 
 
Rapid Growth of Honesdale. 105 
 
 Soon, among the stumps and snags, the Forbes 
 house (Wayne County Hotel) and the Foster house 
 made their appearance as the first buildings of the 
 place, and then the growth was rapid — not only the 
 material but the moral and social advancement of 
 the place was very rapid — strong men, in the vigor 
 of their young manhood, and men of excellent char- 
 acter, were brought there by the Canal Company 
 and by the exigences of business, and the village 
 sprang, almost at once, into a condition not only of 
 healthful business prosperity, but of much social ele- 
 vation and high-toned moral and religious strength. 
 
 The quick-grown village early received the name 
 of Honesdale, in honor of Philip Hone, of New York, 
 Mr. Bolton's successor in the presidency of the Canal 
 Company. 
 
 In all this progress of the village, material, moral 
 and social, father took a lively interest, though he 
 could by no means have, directly and personally, so 
 active a hand in the development of Honesdale as he 
 had had in that of Bethany. 
 
 He retained his residence at Bethany until several 
 years after the death of my mother, who was seized 
 away from us by a sudden sickness, in the very 
 prime of her life, at the age of 49 years — though 
 such was the matronly dignity of her manner and the 
 style of her dress, especially in the wearing of caps 
 with broad, flaring ruffles, that she always seemed 
 an elderly lady to me. 
 
 A few years after her death, his daughters having 
 families of their own, and he, finding it difficult, after 
 various experiments, to keep up his separate family 
 
106 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 at Bethany in a satisfactory way, was invited in 1835 
 to find a home in the admirably ordered household 
 of. his son John at Honesdale. 
 
 Within two or three years after this, he was 
 stricken with paralysis, and though he survived for 
 several years, they were years of great physical in- 
 firmity and much physical distress, but the soundness 
 of his judgment and his capability of discriminating 
 thought remained with him until he peacefully died, 
 at the age of 76 years, on the day before Thanksgiv- 
 ing, November 21, 1848. 
 
 During the last few years of his life he made ap- 
 propriations to objects of Christian benevolence 
 amounting to about eleven thousand dollars. 
 
 XXII 
 
 I have been impatient for an opportunity, but have 
 not found it until now, to take a closer and clearer 
 view of father's religious attitude, and to attempt a 
 somewhat analytical enquiry into the religious side 
 of his character. 
 
 We have noticed that he did not connect himself 
 with the Christian church until after his second mar- 
 riage, when he was 46 years old. 
 
 But there is abundant evidence that, from his 
 youth, he was possessed of a deep and abiding relig- 
 ious faith, and that this faith habitually influenced 
 and controlled him in the direction of moral integrity 
 and religious reverence. Even his diary, revealing 
 as it does an almost ceaseless pressure of muscular 
 
His Religious Attitude. 107 
 
 and mental toil — taxing his powers to their utmost, 
 reveals also a constant recognition of the claims of 
 personal religion — often by a spontaneous declara- 
 tion of the supreme excellence of those claims and 
 the transcendent value of religious things. 
 
 He discloses what seems a truly Christian and most 
 unaffected interest in the religious welfare of the 
 community in which he dwells. If an Evangelical 
 Christian minister came to Bethany, father's house 
 was not only open for his personal entertainment, 
 but for the holding of his public services, on Sunday 
 or at any time in the week. And if there was mani- 
 fest any special religious interest in the community, 
 resulting in the conversion of his neighbors, he ex- 
 presses the most sincere and delighted interest in it, 
 and makes record of it, and writes to his parents 
 about it with what seems a truly Christian gratitude 
 and gladness. 
 
 Never does a shadow of unbelief seem to cross 
 his mind. Never is there a moment's rejection of 
 any of the principles of Christian truth, or the slight- 
 est exhibition of a spirit of antagonism to the demands 
 of God's law or of his love as revealed in his word. 
 
 On the contrary there is manifested an habitual 
 spirit of humility, confessing his unworthiness and 
 guilt for not conforming more perfectly to the claims 
 of holiness, and for neglecting those outward observ- 
 ances of religion which should be the appropriate 
 fruit and expression of the inward faith to which he 
 unfalteringly adheres. 
 
108 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 Indeed his language seems to me to be that, not 
 of an unbeliever or rejector of religion, but of a truly 
 religious person, who is a Christian but does not 
 know it, because he is waiting for some better testi- 
 mony of experience and some higher attainments of 
 goodness, before he shall become a "professor of 
 religion." 
 
 His letters to his parents and brothers and sister 
 are more full and clear to the same effect. He had 
 the highest and most sincere respect for their piety, 
 and blames himself for not being able to place him- 
 self by their side, and is never for a moment impa- 
 tient or restive under their faithful and persistent 
 admonitions and counsels. 
 
 Some of these letters are exceedingly interesting 
 by the revelations they make of the depth and inten- 
 sity of his religious life. One written to his parents, 
 February 12, 181 2, is so comprehensive in respect 
 to the time it covers, and furnishes so full a disclos- 
 ure of both the ordinary and extraordinary workings 
 of his mind in respect to religious things that when 
 we have made somewhat copious extracts from it, we 
 shall hardly need to look further. 
 
 This letter was written from Bethany about a year 
 after Nathaniel's death, and a year before that of his 
 first wife, so that it was called forth by no special 
 excitement or disturbance of his soul, but was the 
 calm and deliberate fulfillment of a long-existing 
 purpose to unfold to his parents the religious history 
 and the present religious attitude of his mind. 
 
Letter to His Parents. 109 
 
 Bethany, February 12, 18 12. 
 "Honored Parents :" 
 
 " The reflection has for a long time been painful 
 to me that I have so entirely neglected answering 
 the many affectionate and admonishing letters which 
 I have received from you. And, although more 
 than half a year has elapsed since I came to a de- 
 termination to endeavor to unfold to you the state of 
 my mind in relation to Divine things, I have neg- 
 lected until this time, the fulfillment of a promise 
 which I made to myself and, I believe, intimated to 
 you." 
 
 "Several times I have commenced writing and be- 
 ing unwilling to communicate to you, as an item of 
 my belief, anything concerning which I entertained 
 the slightest doubt, I have as often laid my pen 
 aside without concluding what I had begun." 
 
 "I feel desirous of expressing to you, in some 
 more impressive manner than I have in my power, 
 how much I esteem the blessing of having been bred 
 under the care and watchfulness of parents whose 
 zeal and labors were constantly directed to a sup- 
 pression of vice and an introduction of virtuous prin- 
 ciples, accompanied by a reverence toward God as 
 our creator and benefactor." 
 
 "When 1 view myself as the only member of my 
 father's family who has not made a profession of ex- 
 perimental religion — as the only unfruitful branch of 
 the tree — my feelings are such as I cannot describe. 
 But as the leading object of this letter is to give you, 
 as correctly as I am able, and as fully as the limits 
 of a letter will admit, the state of my mind in respect 
 
1 1 o Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 to Divine things, it becomes necessary to waive sec- 
 ondary subjects." 
 
 "You were not unacquainted with my occasional 
 exercises of mind when I was in the family — espec- 
 ially about the time I commenced study in the Acad- 
 emy. During that Winter season I felt a degree of 
 terror upon my mind which I could not surmount. 
 God appeared just and gracious, but to me terrible. 
 My idea was that I ought to perform duties and I 
 thought I endeavored to. I fancied that if I could 
 lead such a life as I pictured to myself I should be 
 converted, but to my continual sorrow, every attempt 
 at meritorious duty left me lower in the pit. This 
 prayer, by not being more fervent, was but mock- 
 ing God, and that duty, from having a selfish motive 
 was but the "sacrifice of fools." Still my impression 
 was fixed that I must do to obtain spiritual life." 
 
 "On a time in the course of that Winter, as I was 
 riding homeward on a clear evening, with my mind 
 intent on my condition, an impression, as of words 
 without sound, bade me look about me and behold 
 God in his works. By an instantaneous transition 
 my whole mind changed from a view of terror in the 
 majesty of Heaven to that of the most exquisit de- 
 light. Heaven and all God's creation appeared to 
 my mind unspeakably beautiful, and my idea of God 
 himself expanded to a degree which filled my whole 
 soul with amazement and adoration. All thoughts 
 of terror in the idea of God were gone, and nothing 
 but inimitable love, unspeakable beauty, unbounded 
 mercy and infinite, invariable goodness, in all his 
 works and ways, found place in my mind. This 
 
His Vivid Religious Impressions. 1 1 1 
 
 theme, at the time exceedingly delightful, occupied 
 my mind until I approached home, when that which 
 would seem like a visit to another world, like an 
 absorption in meditation which carried the mind be- 
 yond visible things, seemed to terminate, and the 
 reflection upon it afterwards was rather like a 
 reflection upon a past visit, or a past conversation, 
 or a past prospect. An impression was made upon 
 my mind which lasted. I felt a disposition of devo- 
 tion to that Holy God, but thought nothing whether 
 I was personally under favor or condemnation. God 
 ought to be glorified without taking into view the 
 worm of the dust." 
 
 **#*<< g ut m y v j ew f Q 0( \ was as of one 
 God, and the idea of a Trinity staggered me when 
 carried to the extent which I believed and still belive, 
 it is generally carried. And, feeling myself under a 
 necessity of believing that the generally received 
 idea among Christians was correct, I was compelled 
 to so far abandon my own as fixed a belief that all 
 my ideas had been a delusion, and that Satan had, 
 by that artifice, so completely defeated the begun 
 work of conviction in my mind, that I was in danger 
 of never being able to regain it. And yet those 
 same ideas of infinite beauty in the character, and 
 goodness in the providences of God, as one only God, 
 were so rivited on my mind that I never could dis- 
 miss them. When I strove to regain those ideas of 
 terror, the lovely prospect intruded, and for a num- 
 ber of years, when I could not avoid reflection or 
 when I was disposed to meditation, much the same 
 ideas possesed my mind. But my idea of their fal- 
 
1 1 2 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey, 
 
 lacy, in so essential a point as that of the Trinity, 
 made me wish many times that I could forget the 
 subject, and I dared not exhibit the state of my mind 
 to others." 
 
 "Thus I lived until I had been settled about a year 
 and a half in this country, generally speaking solici- 
 tous to crowd those ideas which so enraptured my 
 mind into forgetfulness and if possible to regain my 
 former ones." 
 
 "At that time I was pursuing a journey on horse- 
 back which occupied a day or two in a wilderness 
 and furnished an undisturbed opportunity for medi- 
 tation. Those beauties of the character of God 
 seemed to shine upon my mind and, in a measure 
 absorbed in the subject, I pursued it, tracing the 
 probability of a God in active works, through 
 myriads of worlds and successions of worlds to fill 
 up an eternity." 
 
 "The objection of the Trinity obtruded and I 
 wished to forget the sublime subject. I could not dis- 
 believe the creed of all Christian people that there is 
 one God and one Christ, the only son of God, and 
 that all who are saved derived their salvation through 
 the medium of his atonement. If many worlds had 
 existed and would exist in the universe, exclusive of 
 this little ball of earth, and if those worlds, as well 
 as this, were and would be peopled with rational be- 
 ings, subject, like us, to happiness and misery, a 
 species of physical impossibility baffled my ideas, 
 how the subject could be reconciled. I endeav- 
 ored to reason but only darkened the subject — the 
 one position was too strongly impressed upon my 
 
Adoring Views of God. 113 
 
 mind to be eradicated and the other too strongly 
 supported by scripture and universal belief to be 
 doubted." 
 
 " In this condition, after endeavoring to reconcile 
 the ideas until 1 found myself in a labyrinth out of 
 which I could find no passage, either by retreating or 
 advancing, I yielded the attempt and in fervency of 
 prayer to that God who appeared to me to be all 
 love and goodness, entreated that my mind might be 
 relieved from that distressing anxiety by some dis- 
 play of the subject to my understanding which should 
 reconcile the difficulty with which I was confounded. 
 My mind became absorbed in reverie, and I traveled 
 for a number of miles, so completely without notic- 
 ing any snrrounding object, that when I cast my eyes 
 around me, I knew not where I was or whither I was 
 going." 
 
 "During this time my mind ran upon a train of 
 ideas beyond expression — all the difficulties in respect 
 to the system vanished — all was clear to my mind as 
 the sunshine at noonday, and for a short time I was 
 as happy in contemplation as I believe my nature 
 capable of being." 
 
 "I then had, and upon every recollection of that 
 hour, still have, a feeling similar to that of having 
 heard an elucidation of the whole subject from some 
 one communicating to me. The awful sensibility of 
 my mind at that time surpasses description. In 
 solemn, adoring silence, without occasion to suggest 
 a further doubtful thought which wanted removal, 
 with fixed attention, more delightful than language 
 can paint, my mind was led, as it were, step by step, 
 
114 Memoir of Major fason Torrey. 
 
 through the most enrapturing of all subjects, and 
 after the conclusion, when I found myself alone, on 
 horseback, surrounded by a maze of barren moun- 
 tains, even thought cannot describe the emotions 
 of my mind. Adoration, wonder, gratitude, thank- 
 fulness and praise filled my soul." 
 
 "The subject occupied my mind peculiarly for 
 some days, but I feared to mention the thing even to 
 my wife, lest instead of bolstering I should shake her 
 belief. Occurrences afterward revived the view in 
 such a manner that I could not resist its convincing 
 effect, yet I passed over year after year and thought 
 best not to mention it." 
 
 "Though I cannot say I live without hope at times, 
 which I do not indulge at other times, I have never, 
 at any time, felt that unequivocal assurance of hope 
 whence I could say, without doubting, that my heart 
 was right with God." * * * I can say with 
 all sincerity that I feel myself a monument of his 
 mercy, in that I am still spared who have been fur- 
 nished, as it were by special pains of his own, with 
 such demonstrations of his love and goodness. 
 * * * If my faithfulness in my duty was equal 
 to the smallest comparative degree of his goodness 
 to me, I think I have reason to believe I should en- 
 joy the favor of his presence on my mind, but to my 
 own confusion of face I must say, I live in neglect 
 and forgetfulness of that adorable God who hath 
 dealt bountifully towards me, and whose goodness 
 ought, without any other motive, to draw every fac- 
 ulty of my body and mind devoutly into his service." 
 
Practical Hindrances. 115 
 
 "I have drawn my letter to unusual length, to 
 which I could enlarge if prudence commended, but 
 will only add that my endeavors shall be to answer 
 any enquiries you may make for explanation of what 
 I have written, candidly if I cannot satisfactorily, and 
 with prayers to God for your welfare, to beg a con- 
 tinued interest in yours." 
 
 Your ever dutiful son, 
 
 JASON TORREY. 
 
 These voluminous extracts from a long and com- 
 prehensive letter show that while father's life was 
 essentially controlled, and his character moulded, 
 from his youth up, under the ever present influence 
 of the principles of the Christian religion, he was 
 deterred from making a profession of his faith by 
 both a practical and a speculative reason. 
 
 The practical difficulty was that he wanted to be 
 good before he should profess himself a Christian, 
 and not attaining to any such goodness as satisfied 
 him, he abstained from making a profession that he 
 feared he might dishonor. This is an attitude that is 
 often occupied for years, and even for a life-time, by 
 men whose Christian characters are believed in by 
 everybody but themselves. 
 
 The speculative difficulty was a huge and stubborn 
 one. It was the long-continued — sometimes passive, 
 sometimes active protest of his soul's intelligence 
 and his heart's deep feeling against that aspect 
 of the "orthodoxy" of the time which represented 
 God the Father as implacable and terrible, and in 
 this respect different from God the Son. It was this 
 phase of the doctrine of the Trinity that "staggered" 
 
1 1 6 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 him. He believed this view of the terribleness of 
 God the Father to be held by Christians generally, 
 and among the rest by his father and mother and 
 brothers and sister and wife, in the intelligent piety 
 of each of whom he had unwaivering confidence, and 
 he did not dare to disagree with them in regard to 
 this phase of doctrine. But when he turned his 
 thoughts toward God himself, he could see only in- 
 finite goodness and loveliness in him, as on that 
 Winter ride away back at the time when he was only 
 19 years old. And this view of God wrought in 
 him, at the time, a deep humility and a sweet trust- 
 fulness. But there came back the thought of God's 
 terribleness, as insisted upon by all Christians, and 
 he sank into the discouraging feeling that those de- 
 lightful views of God had been a device of Satan to 
 destroy that "work of conviction" which had been 
 begun in him, and which consisted essentially in that 
 feeling" of "terror" which had left him, and which he 
 was now afraid never would return. And it never 
 did return as a "conviction." But he mistakenly 
 thought it ought to, and he carried along with him 
 the dormant elements of the struggle until, he says, 
 he had been for a year and a half settled in Mt. 
 Pleasant, when, on that journey of several days on 
 horseback, alone, which was probably one of his 
 horseback trips to Philadelphia by way of Minnisink 
 and Stroudsburg, and very likely "the maze of bar- 
 ren mountains" of which he speaks, were the moun- 
 tainous shrub-oak barrens of what is now Pike 
 County — on that journey, he became absorbed in 
 thoughts of God, and God seemed sublimely good 
 
Divine Manifestations. 1 1 7 
 
 and beautiful to him; but the other and "orthodox" 
 thought that God ou^ht to seem terrible to him ob- 
 truded itself, and he tried to push aside the delight- 
 ful view, fearino- that it was a Satanic delusion aoain. 
 But it would not be put aside, and thus the old 
 struggle was fully in operation again within his agi- 
 tated and anxious soul, which was seeking after God 
 and could not decide whether or not he had found 
 him, and then he prayed vehemently that his anxious 
 and distressed mind might be relieved by some such 
 disclosure of God to his understanding as would 
 make the whole matter clear to him, and then he 
 experienced in apparent answer to his prayer, what 
 may properly be called it seems to me, a Theophany 
 — i. e. a manifestation of God to his soul — like that to 
 Isaiah in the Temple, or to Job when God spoke to 
 him out of the whirlwind — only that, in those cases, 
 the manifestations were, perhaps, miraculous in their 
 manner, but in this case not at all miraculous, 
 but natural spiritual, if I may be allowed the 
 combination of words to express the compound 
 thought. That is to say, by the legitimate and nor- 
 mal operations of his mind and soul, with his intel- 
 lectual and spiritual powers all awake and eager, 
 under the combined light of God's works and God's 
 word, he "saw the King in his beauty," and had such 
 views of God's holiness and goodness as to clear 
 away all his disturbances and fill him at once with a 
 solemn awe and an adoring gladness, so that he quite 
 forgot all his surroundings in the rapture of his joy, 
 and was left with a feeling "like that of having had 
 the whole subject of his anxious thoughts elucidated 
 
1 1 8 Memoir of Major fason Toi'rey. 
 
 by some one communicating with him." This is the 
 feeling that comes back to him at every remembrance 
 of that hour, and though he has much difficulty with 
 himself and especially reproaches himself because 
 his life is so unworthy of a person who has had such 
 sublime disclosures of God's character and such 
 adorable views of God's goodness, as he has had, 
 yet the old struggle is not again awakened in him, 
 and in 1818, six years after writing the above letter 
 — he finds his way clear, in close company with two 
 of his sons, to take publicly the attitude of a Christian, 
 without laying claim to any satisfying attainments of 
 personal goodness, and from that time onward his 
 doctrinal agreement with the Presbyterian Church 
 was cordial and undisturbed. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Intellectually father seems to me to have been 
 richly endowed — capable of being master in logic or 
 metaphysics, or of becoming distinguished, under 
 favoring circumstances, in jurisprudence or states- 
 manship. I have the feeling that if the land office at 
 Philadelphia had been open instead of closed in 1 793 
 to 1795, he would have been brought into such rela- 
 tions to the life and leadership of the State, as might 
 have opened to him the doors of a very wide and 
 conspicuous career, and that almost any such career 
 he would readily have qualified himself to fill with 
 distinguished fidelity and ability. 
 
 He was a quick and discriminating observer, with 
 great readiness for broad and sagacious generaliza- 
 
Special Characteristics. 119 
 
 tion, and an instinctive habit of reducing details to 
 system. 
 
 As a learner he had the philosophic method of 
 searching for the causes of things, and was exhaus- 
 tively thorough in the endeavor to master whatever 
 he undertook to know. 
 
 He was a strong thinker and a clear reasoner, with 
 a rare felicity in the use of language, both in respect 
 to the choice of words and to their construction into 
 sentences, and with such power of abstraction and 
 concentration that often, in the midst of the excite- 
 ment and confusion of a popular meeting, he would 
 be ready, at the critical moment, to sit down and, 
 quick as thought, almost, produce the needed writ- 
 ten document for presentation to the people, or to 
 the court, or the Governor, or to the Legislature, as 
 the case might require, that would be compact in 
 form, and full and forcible in statement, and clear in 
 argument, and sometimes as beautiful in expression 
 as thouofh it had been conceived and elaborated in 
 the utmost quiet and leisure. 
 
 No matter how unimposing the subject with which 
 he deals, he magnifies it, and magnifies his office by 
 the masterly thoroughness and skill with which he 
 deals with it, just as the painting of the head of a 
 slaughtered sheep, hanging in a butcher's shop, re- 
 veals the skill and power of the great artist and be- 
 comes a picture that sells, perhaps, for a thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 The records of the church at Bethany, of which 
 father was recording clerk for a series of years, are 
 a monument to his clearness of perception and ex- 
 
120 Memoir of Major y a son Torrey. 
 
 actness of statement. Those records involved no 
 matters of vast public interest or imposing magni- 
 tude, of course, but they cover some years of fierce 
 and bitter ecclesiastical litigation, involving pro- 
 longed and tedious trials of the most intricate and 
 perplexing issues, and the concise and orderly and 
 lucid and accurate records of all the processes and 
 results of the business, reveal a power of compre- 
 hending and expressing intricacies of thought and 
 speech that was equal to the highest achievements 
 in that line, and have commanded the admiration of 
 experts who have had occasion to examine them. 
 
 A few years before father's death, when I was at 
 home from college for a Summer vacation, Mr. Amzi 
 Fuller, then of Wilkes-Barre (previously of Bethany) 
 was visiting, for a day or two, at the house of brother 
 John in Honesdale, which house was both father's 
 home and mine. 
 
 Mr. Fuller was visiting his sister, brother John's 
 wife, and was very intimate in the family. He had 
 come to Bethany, very early in its history, as a 
 teacher, and had begun his professional career as a 
 lawyer there, and had continued it there until the 
 county offices were removed to Honesdale, when he 
 removed his residence to Wilkes-Barre, much to the 
 delight of the people of the latter place, because he 
 was a man of rare excellence and elevation of char- 
 acter, and had become one of the strong men and 
 able lawyers of the State. 
 
 Mr. Fuller and I had stepped out from the break- 
 fast table, or from morning prayers which always 
 followed breakfast in that family, and were convers- 
 
Amzi Fuller s Estimate of him. 1 2 1 
 
 ing together in the yard, and I regarded it as a spec- 
 ial favor to have these few minutes of personal con- 
 versation with him. 
 
 While we were thus standing, father came slowly 
 down the steps of the house, and leaning on his staff, 
 tottered away from us across the yard. 
 
 After he had passed, Mr. Fuller, following him 
 with a look of mingled sorrow and affection, said to 
 me, "Ah David! I fear your father will not be long 
 with us." "The young may die but the old must 
 die." 
 
 It was a subsequent remark of his that I designed 
 to call attention to here, as bearing upon the subject 
 of this chapter, but I have given this by the way, 
 though it may seem irrelevant, because it was sadly 
 impressed upon my memory afterwards by the fact 
 that this same Mr. Fuller and his younger brother, 
 Thomas, who was also a distinguished lawyer in the 
 county, and both in the very prime and vigor of their 
 lives — the fact that both died of some acute disease, 
 while the tottering "old" man still lingered after 
 them, and made us all wonder that the "may" had 
 so outrun the "musty 
 
 After quoting that maxim, with his eyes fixed on 
 father, Mr. Fuller turned to me and said, "I wish, 
 David, you could have known your father in his 
 prime. He was a man of wonderful intellectual 
 force. This whole region of country felt the influ- 
 ence of his energy of mind and will, and in respect 
 to acquaintance with the laws concerning land titles 
 and the ownership and control of real estate, he was 
 hardly surpassed by any lawyer in the State." 
 
1 2 2 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 How clear and positive his ideas were on sub- 
 jects of national and international interest, how vig- 
 orous the grasp of his mind, and how capable 
 he was of holding statesman-like views and writing a 
 statesman-like expression of them, would be clearly 
 shown by reference to his letters and voluminous 
 papers. We can only notice some portions of a 
 letter written to his father in 1805, in answer to re- 
 peated requests for a statement of his views on the 
 agitating political problems of the day. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that it was less than 30 years 
 after the signing of the Declaration of Independence 
 and only about 10 years after the birth of the first 
 French Republic, that from amid the crude begin- 
 nings of things at Bethany, just after his graduation 
 from the log house at Mt. Pleasant, and when he was 
 about 30 years old, he wrote the following letter, 
 and the youngness of our Republic at the time — a 
 little younger than himself — will account for what 
 might otherwise seem the triteness and common- 
 placeness of his opinions and statements about 
 " Government in the abstract." 
 
 Bethany, March 20, 1805. 
 "Honored FatJier .•" 
 
 "In answer to a paragraph in your last and one in 
 a previous letter, I wish for leisure and a private 
 conveyance to communicate my sentiments on Gov- 
 ernment in the abstract, as well as on the past and 
 present administration of our own." 
 
 "I believe that the form of Government which is 
 best suited for one nation might be the worst for 
 
Thoughts on Government. 123 
 
 another. The more depraved and licentious a peo- 
 ple are, the more energetic should be their Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 "I believe that for a wise, prudent, honest and 
 well-informed people, there can be no system of 
 Government so well calculated to promote their hap- 
 piness as a Representative Republican Government, 
 and I believe a people may be so grossly destitute 
 of virtue and honesty that a Republican Government 
 is the worst they can have." 
 
 "I believe likewise that an honest and well-in- 
 formed people, under the best constructed Repub- 
 lican Government which ever existed, are in iminent 
 danger of losing their attachment to honest princi- 
 ples unless there is energy attached to the adminis- 
 tration, and that a Republican Government in an 
 honest and virtuous nation, if administered with 
 cupidity, is in danger of becoming their greatest 
 curse, by introducing national immorality, national 
 dishonesty and the destruction of all national confi- 
 dence, both at home and abroad." 
 
 " The lack of energy in an administration is nat- 
 urally productive of insubordination to the Govern- 
 ment, and this never can exist, from such a cause, 
 without being accompanied by a greater or lesser 
 degree of insubordination to every principle of vir- 
 tue and honesty. Thus that system which, under a 
 wise and energetic administration, would produce 
 safety, happiness and growth in virtue at home and 
 inspire respect abroad, by its imbecility courts licen- 
 tiousness and banishes every virtue." 
 
124 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy, 
 
 "Without enlarging upon the principles of Gov- 
 ernment in the abstract, I would particularly notice 
 ours." 
 
 "I presume no system of Government was ever 
 devised by man, so well calculated to promote the 
 happiness of a free and virtuous people as is defined 
 in our Federal Constitution, nor do I believe there 
 was ever a people so well calculated to be made per- 
 manently happy and secure under a Republican 
 Government as we were at the commencement of 
 the Federal Administration, had we adhered rigidly 
 to the principles of our own Government and let 
 alone the political concerns of Europe." 
 
 "The French Revolution, from a Monarchy to a 
 Republic, was witnessed with too great pleasure by 
 Americans — by means whereof our Government 
 suffered partial depredations on our commerce by 
 their sister Republic, without assuming that deter- 
 mined opposition which would have at once pre- 
 vented its continuance without giving any nation 
 offense. We winked at those inroads upon us which 
 produced a jealousy with the English. They, pro- 
 fessedly and perhaps honestly, assumed that they 
 would treat our flag as we permitted the French to 
 treat it, and commenced their depredations." 
 
 " Government soon found that to remain inactive 
 was to give up our commerce, for a free plunder, to 
 these contending nations, and at this moment of 
 necessary activity, our political contest commenced." 
 
 "The Democratic party wished immediate war 
 with England for daring to treat us as we had per- 
 
Political Views. 125 
 
 mitted the French to treat us, and the Federalists, 
 too late sensible of their remissness, urged an amica- 
 ble treaty." 
 
 " Fortunately the power of deciding was with the 
 Federalists, and a treaty upon terms more favorable 
 to us than, at the time we had reason to expect, was 
 the consequence — for ratifying which Washington 
 was styled by the Democrats, "a fool," "a tool for 
 British partisans," "a superanuated old man," and 
 by some, who are now highly courted by our National 
 Administration, "a scoundrel," and "a man who had 
 never rendered his country a service from any better 
 motive than his own pecuniary and popular advance- 
 ment." 
 
 "This language towards our National Govern- 
 ment and towards the Father of our Independence 
 and the nurse of our Liberties, unparalelled in the 
 most licentious governments, sufficiently demon- 
 strated the consequences of the preceeding remiss- 
 ness, and the impolitic and extremely dangerous 
 measure of suffering ourselves to feel so far attached 
 to the political concerns of another nation as to lose 
 sight of the interest and dignity of our own." 
 
 "Government, by this time, found it necessary to 
 assume a more decided attitude. An Alien law and 
 a Sedition act were passed — acts at the time ex- 
 tremely necessary, and which were only deficient by 
 their limitations. But the track had been beaten for 
 abusing Government with impunity, and whatever 
 was not absolutely calculated to accommodate the 
 French was denounced as aristocratic." 
 
126 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 "We now beheld a set of men, generally disap- 
 pointed expectants of office and vagrant aliens, ex- 
 erting their abilities to produce discontent and in- 
 surrection. With them, to live under a law which 
 made criminal the "falsely, scandalously and malic- 
 iously" abusing the National Government, and 
 especially the "speculator," Washington, was not to 
 be endured. Of course resort must be had to the 
 ignorant rabble, where everything that savored of 
 distrust would be eagerly embraced." 
 
 "By means of this resort our Government has be- 
 come the Government of a faction and nothing 
 more. What is our President? His election, in 
 the first instance, was effected by the Virginia and 
 Carolina negroes. This can be fairly demonstrated, 
 that the additional electors in the Southern States, 
 produced by their number of slaves, gave Jefferson 
 and Burr a majority over Adams and Pinckney." 
 
 "What is the adminstration of the President, 
 elected by the Virginia negroes? It is what it ever 
 was when a faction gained the power. Those persons 
 who had been convicted and were imprisoned for 
 libelling Washington, were pardoned and compli- 
 mented with lucrative places. Fines were not only 
 remitted but refunded after they had been paid pur- 
 suant to sentence of court. Nothing in nature is 
 more clear to me than this, that the same principle 
 actuates the present ruling party in this country 
 which has produced about a dozen revolutions in 
 France, and that by brooding and nursing a few more 
 
Dr. Rowland's Estimate of hint. 127 
 
 Tom. Paines, T.J. Calenders and Tom. Coopers,* etc., 
 in connection with their piece-meal dissection of the 
 body of the constitution and infringment upon its 
 principal parts, it is not without good reason that 
 they and we may expect or shortly witness its exit 
 final." 
 
 Your affectionate and dutiful son, 
 
 JASON TORREY. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Perhaps for a general and final estimate of father's 
 character and worth, it is better not to trust to my 
 own judgment, which would be almost of necessity 
 biassed in the direction of eulogy, by my filial affec- 
 tion and reverence, but to use rather the kindly and 
 appreciative sentiments of Dr. Henry A. Rowland, 
 as they were expressed at the time of father's fun- 
 eral. 
 
 Dr. Rowland was pastor of the church at Hones- 
 dale, at the time of father's death, and had known him 
 only during a few years of his infirm old age, but the 
 following words of the funeral discourse were uttered 
 in the presence of many men and women who had 
 known father longer and better than the preacher 
 had, and from whose private testimonies the mater- 
 
 *Thomas Cooper, for a violent attack on Adams, was tried 
 for libel and sentenced to six months imprisonment and $400 
 fine. In 1806 he was Land Commissioner for Pennsylvania — 
 was appointed judge and in 1811, was removed from office for 
 arbitrary conduct. — Appletori 's Am. Cyclopedia. 
 
i 28 Memoir of Major Jason Torrcy. 
 
 ial for these tributes, to one whose life work was 
 very fresh in their memories, had been obtained. 
 
 Dr. Rowland, said: "We have assembled to bury 
 one of the oldest members of this community, and 
 one whose early history is connected with the first 
 settlement of this county." 
 
 Then after a historical sketch in which many of the 
 events, extending through a period of more than 60 
 years, which have been more fully narrated in the 
 preceeding chapters of this book, were condensed, 
 the preacher concluded his discourse in the follow- 
 ing words : 
 
 "It will be seen from this brief sketch of his history 
 that Mr. Tokrey was a man of uncommon energy of 
 character, and of a determined fixedness of purpose. 
 He had strength of mind and sagacity to search out 
 and discover the path of his duty; and when he had 
 once made up his mind as to the rectitude of a given 
 course, it was as easy to move the hills from their 
 bases as to divert him from it. This great and com- 
 manding trait of his character, had it taken a wrong 
 development, would have rendered him as eminent 
 for a bad influence in society as he was for that 
 which is good. Perhaps, in some instances it would 
 have been better had it been modified to suit the 
 circumstances of a difficult case ; but it was not the 
 habit of his mind to temporize. He could not bring 
 himself, for the sake of policy, to pursue a course 
 which he felt to be even doubtful in point of recti- 
 tude. His energy and decision were equal to any 
 emergency, and as they were displayed in him, con- 
 stituted a great character. They are the attributes 
 
Dr. Rowland's Estimate of him. 129 
 
 of a powerful mind whose influence cannot but be 
 felt in any department of life. Had he devoted him- 
 self to a profession, been called into the councils of 
 the nation, or the command of armies, these qualities 
 would have borne him on to eminence. He would 
 have made his influence felt; and it would have been 
 such an influence as would tend in the highest degree 
 to advance the true interests and happiness of man." 
 
 "In addition to these eminent traits, he was pos- 
 sessed of unbending integrity. Entrusted with the 
 landed interests of a large proportion of this and 
 other counties, constantly transacting business for 
 others, and ever in the receipt and disbursement of 
 the funds connected with an extensive land agency, 
 his whole course of life was marked with that strict 
 honesty which commends itself as worthy of all im- 
 itation. It was a ruling passion with him to do jus- 
 tice, even to the smallest estimable fraction ; and it 
 was this sterling honesty which secured for him such 
 unbounded confidence in the community where he 
 dwelt." 
 
 "Associated with this estimable trait, was his benev- 
 olence. He loved mercy, and conferred it with a 
 bountiful hand on every object of Christian benevo- 
 lence within his reach. He loved especially the in- 
 stitutions of religion, and those objects which give 
 the gospel with its blessings to the poor and desti- 
 tute who are far removed from its privileges. He 
 was charitable in his feelings towards all who bear 
 the Christian name. Though firm in his adherence 
 to the sentiments of his own church, yet he could 
 look with interest on the advancement of religion in 
 
1 30 Memoir of Major Jason Torrey. 
 
 any other communion, and did not hesitate to confer 
 his aid, when solicited, on the various evangelical 
 churches. "It is pleasant," said he, on one occasion, 
 "to see the various branches of Christ's church pro- 
 viding themselves with houses of worship, for it 
 makes the strangers who come among us feel more 
 at home when they can associate with their own peo- 
 ple in the worship of God." It was the expression of 
 a kind and charitable feeling, to which I listened with 
 great pleasure as it fell from his lips." 
 
 "And he endeavored to walk with God. Not that 
 he was ready to communicate his feelings, as some 
 are, but he aimed to act the part of a Christian in all 
 the relations of life, humbly relying on Jesus Christ 
 by faith, as the only ground of his hope. And often, 
 in view of death, which he has for years seen creep- 
 ing on apace, has he expressed a perfect resignation, 
 and an entire readiness to go when God should sum- 
 mon him. I do not think but that he was as ready, 
 at any time, to cross the dark river, as he ever was 
 to get in his carriage and take his accustomed ride 
 to Bethany." 
 
 "He loved the church of Christ in this place, and 
 earnestly desired its permanency and prosperity; 
 and just so long as he was able did he come and take 
 his accustomed seat in this sanctuary, long after he 
 could by reason of an infirmity in hearing, derive any 
 profit from the gospel preached. He came from 
 principle, and that his example might do others good, 
 in this, as in every other duty, finding his reward in 
 the consciousness of the Divine approbation." 
 
Dr. Rowland's Estimate of him. 131 
 
 "And now, my friends, we have come to bear him 
 from this once loved spot to the place appointed for 
 all the living, may his example be long remembered 
 in this church, and the marked excellencies of his 
 character imitated ; and may we so live, under the 
 guidance of religious principle, as to reach in safety, 
 at last, our journey's end. And when we come to 
 die, may our faith be so assured, and our hope so 
 bright, that we shall feel as he did, when we lay our- 
 selves down to rest at night, that it is a matter of 
 indifference to us whether we wake in this world or 
 the next. "And we desire that every one of you do 
 show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope 
 unto the end; that ye be not slothful, but followers 
 of them who through faith and patience inherit the 
 promises." 
 
 [On page 13 of this book, John Torrey, LL. D., the dis- 
 tinguished botanist and scientist is spoken of as though he was 
 still connected with the Government Assay office in the city of 
 New York, while the less welcome truth is that he died in 1873, 
 greatly honored as a man of sterling Christian character, and of 
 very eminent scientific attainments and achievements, and his 
 son, Herbert Torrey, succeeds to his position in the Assay office.] 
 
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