Millville - The First 200 Years
Chapter I
The First Settlers
In 1772, the Eves family came from Delaware with all their belongings on a wagon pulled by four horses. They established themselves in the cabin previously built and began tilling adjacent fields as they could clear them.
The site of the spring and cabin was along the Indian trail that led from Nescopeck to a point near Muncy. Indians passed frequently and always were welcome to the Eves' home for a meal or lodging. It was about a half-mile from the creek along the road that led to Spruce Run. Many years passed before a road better than the Indian trail was established.
The family lived and prospered there in comparative solitude until mid-summer of 1778 when the Wyoming Massacre occurred. A friendly Indian, reputedly named Job Shiloway, passed on his way to the North Branch, but was back early the next day with the word of the massacre and advised the family to leave. They loaded their goods and by noon started to Bosley's Mill, a stockade on the site of the present Washingtonville.
An account by Mrs. Perry Eves says: "Grandfather's quotation was `Bad white man got among bad Indian and I can't protect any longer.'" Larry Flinn and his wife were with the Eves family. Larry wanted to keep a young horse to ride back and forth to cut the ripening grain. He made one trip and on the second morning was captured by three Indians. He was traded around until he got into Canada. After the war, he returned and lived with the family for the rest of his days. The Eves family did not return until 1785 or 1786 and found their cabin burned and were required to start again from scratch.
The spring at the cabin site was probably named later for Larry Flinn, also Irish. He and his wife came to America under consideration that the Eves family in return for a fixed number of years of service would pay their ship fare. The arrangement was common in those days.
Great faith was placed in those days on verbal promises, and while the Eves family was living on the property from 1772 on, it was not until 1774 that they received the deed for 1203 acres for 145 pounds. It was the largest land holding at the time in what later became Columbia County. William and Elizabeth McMean had obtained the original patent for the area. Their application for warrants was dated April 3, 1769, and the corresponding surveys were among the first in the area. The title to the McMean property and some adjoining passed to Reuben Haines, a Philadelphia brewer, and then to John Eves.
When the Eves family came in 1772, they brought with them a number of hogs, but the first venture with domestic livestock had unfortunate consequences. The hogs were sheltered among the branches and dead leaves of a fallen tree, but after a few days were attacked during the night, probably by a bear. One was killed and the remainder took off. Much has been written and many authentic instances cited where animals have found their way to former homes, and the hogs apparently possessed this ability.
The pigs were traced and after several months were found to have crossed the West Branch of the Susquehanna River near Milton and made a beeline for their former home in Delaware. Whether they ever reached it is not known. The word "Hundred," as used in Delaware, designated an area where 100 families lived and were not necessarily a definite measure of territory. The same term was used for a long time in Virginia and Maryland, and while discontinued there, still prevails in Delaware.
The Eves family lived in Leicestershire, England, in the 1600s. Some moved to County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1660. John Eves was born in Clanmoore, Ireland, in 1720. When he was 20 years old, he was in the wool business in Edenberry and came from the Dublin Friends Meeting with a letter to the Exeter Meeting, near Maiden Creek. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1750 and became a tutor to two daughters of Thomas Yeatman on a farm about eight miles out of Wilmington, Delaware. The farm was still in the Yeatman family in the 1950s, though not the house in which Thomas lived.
When John Eves was about 31 he married Edith Yeatman, then 17, and for 20 years they lived at Mill Creek Hundred. He was 50 when they moved to establish the community in the Greenwood Valley. With them were their six boys and four girls. Two children, Sarah, nine, and Mark, two, had died in 1762, and confusion exists because later children were given the same names, a practice common in those days. This confusion came up when the Atlantic Refining Company bought the hotel property.
According to the account of Miss Helen M. Eves, they had four children born after coming to this area, the second Mark, Ann, Samuel, and Ezra. Helen Eves' account also says another was named Sarah. The confusion over the two Marks has clouded deeds, and Miss Eves reports that Boyd Trescott explained the affair when the hotel property was transferred. Her account, however, contains some disparities. She says that when John and Edith Eves returned to the area in 1785 or 1786, they had 15 living children. He was 65 and Edith about 58. This does not square with the ages given at the date of their marriage, and apparently is in error, for she reports the oldest child was 30 and the youngest three. It would be something of a medical record if Edith had given birth to a child when she was 55.
When the John Eves family and their numerous children returned after the Revolution, they were accompanied or soon followed by other families, whose names became familiar through the years. These included Masters, Kisner, Battin, Parker, Lundy, and Lemon.
This time the settlement was to be permanent. With 17 children and 104 grandchildren, John Eves looked after the building of two homes for the family, a gristmill that was to stand for a hundred years, and later a sawmill and other essential structures. The dwellings were of logs, and little of the development was on the west side of Little Fishing Creek. Building on the east side of the creek took place simultaneously. Later brick and frame replaced the logs. Siding often was applied to log buildings.
Growth of the community was slow, for it was off the mainstream of travel, which principally followed the two branches of the Susquehanna. When the Eves family returned, their cabin had been burned and the fields were overgrown with brush. Land clearing was necessary for a second time and required a considerable period.
Other families who arrived about the same time scattered throughout the Greenwood Valley. The Lemon family, located in about the middle of the township, and the Lundy family built the house later occupied by Reuben S. Rich, a descendant, and still later by Raymond Eves. Its grove of sugar maples was long a landmark.
Settlement of the Green Creek Valley occurred about the same time. Jacob Link opened the first tavern in the township in 1797. In the same year four brothers, Thomas, Samuel, John, and William Mather moved from the Buffalo Valley to approximately the site of Rohrsburg. Joshua Robbins, Archibald Patterson, George, and William McMichael, native Scots, arrived about the same time.
Originally, Greenwood Township had been part of the vast Wyoming Township, later a portion of the Fishing Creek. Portions of Mount Pleasant and Jackson townships were included in the boundaries when Greenwood was set apart as a separate entity in 1799. Indian trails crossed at the site of Millville. One from Catawissa to Towanda came up Little Fishing Creek and ran along the ridge just below the town at a place long known as The Rocks, on the farm of T. 0. Fortner and later of Walter Pursel. As late as 1910, portions of this trail were still visible, for it had been so heavily traveled that the path was worn to a depth of a foot or more. The other crossed from the West Branch to Nescopeck.
Until 1798, this trail was the only road to the North Branch of the Susquehanna. In that year, a road was surveyed across the Mount Pleasant hills to the river. Berwick’s first families were arriving about the same time as the Eves, and Bloomsburg did not then exist. It was founded in 1802. It was 1856 before the road from Bloomsburg to Laporte was laid out through Millville. In clearing the land, large quantities of timber became available, far more than could be worked into lumber by the few primitive sawmills then in existence. In later years, logs were floated down the Susquehanna in great quantities, but early historians record that both Green Creek and Little Fishing Creek were used during the spring floods. The timber was felled during the Winter and stored along the creek banks in spots where it could easily be pushed into the swollen stream in rafts. In this modern day, such a feat seems incredible. The timber from this area went mostly to mills in Harrisburg and Marietta.
The early residents were almost entirely self-sufficient. Thomas Eves succeeded his father in ownership of the grist mill and built the first house in What is now the borough. It was on the site of the home built later by Josiah Heacock, whose grandson, Marion Reese, used much of the lumber in building his own home in more recent years. David and Andrew Eves opened the first store in the township in 1827, according to an early historian. It was on the site of the later Heacock home. If this account is correct, the residents were forced to travel long distances to purchase such necessities as they could not grow or make. This would have covered more than 40 years and hence seems somewhat unlikely.
In 1831, David Eves was commissioned as the first postmaster. Andrew Eves followed; James Masters held the position from 1842 to 1849, and George and William Masters served until 1886. Mail was brought from Berwick once a week, later twice, until 1879, when a route was opened from Bloomsburg to Sereno. Service then became thrice weekly, and later daily. Subsequent postmasters were Uriah P. McHenry, Ellis Eves, D.F. Herring, W.C. Eves, Joseph C. Eves, Joseph S. Cole, Dr. John W. Biddle, Jay C. Watts, and Donald J. Watts.
Additions and corrections made for this Second Edition.DBG
Second Edition- Copyright Dean B. Girton Dec. 30, 2022
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