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Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
Families of the Tri-Counties
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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Hector Families Moved from Schuyler for New Lives in North Pennsylvania
by J. Kelsey Jones
Published in The Schuyler County Historical Society Journal, October
2001
Many of us think of pioneer families who removed from what is now Schuyler
County in the early nineteenth century to have gone to the frontier of
western New York, Ohio, and other Great Lakes states. However, there were
families who removed from Hector in the 1820’s and 1830’s to an area that
saw its first settlement in the 1790’s.
Their destination was two townships, approximately sixty miles south,
to a location in Pennsylvania not far from Elmira, New York. Wells Township
is in northwest Bradford County and its neighbor to the west is Jackson
Township in northeast Tioga County. It was here on the rolling hills of
these two Pennsylvania townships that many families from eastern Hector
settled.
What drew these families from Hector to settle in Pennsylvania? Better
land? Better opportunity? Certainly family connections were integral as
Wells Township saw a large influx of families from Sussex County, New Jersey
in the 1820’s and 1830’s and some of the Hector families had New Jersey
roots.
The most productive agricultural land was and is in the Seeley Creek
Valley, which has its beginning in southeastern Jackson Township, the creek
flowing north through northwestern Wells Township and on into the town
of Southport, Chemung County and on to the Chemung River. The Hector families
began agricultural pursuits on the rugged hills of Wells and Jackson surrounding
the Seeley Creek Valley, primarily on Judson Hill in western Wells Township
and Parmenter Hill and nearby in eastern Jackson Township.
The only village within Wells Township was Mosherville, formerly known
as French Mills, a small village of a few homes with the usual store, blacksmith
shop, church, and schoolhouse, situated at the junction of Beckwith Creek
and Seeley Creek. The village of Daggett, about the same size as Mosherville,
was a few miles away from Mosherville, further south on Seeley Creek and
in Jackson Township.
These are the two villages that many of the Hector families visited
for supplies, mail collection, social events, and church services. By the
mid to late 1800’s most of Wells and Jackson Townships had been cleared
and productive hill farms were plentiful. However, the cleared farms on
the once forested hills did not remain. The growing city and industry of
Elmira, New York attracted many sons and daughters and grandchildren of
those hearty Hector families and they began leaving the farms to work in
the city of Elmira.
The forest has reclaimed many of the fields that were once cleared and
will continue to claim more. Only a stonewall or the stone foundation of
an old barn remain in many areas to inform us of what once existed.
Some of those families who settled in Wells and Jackson from Hector
were: Levi Finch Adams and Huldah Swartout, William Brewer and Lucy Barber,
Johnson Brewer and Samantha Barber, Jacob and Martha Bryan, Aaron G. Bryan
and Elizabeth Applegate, the Beeman family, Aaron Burr, Robert A. Campbell,
James Minor Carley and his mother Chestina Treman and her second husband
Solomon Smith, Justus Garrison and Phebe Barber, Elisha and Mary Gifford,
Rev. Joel Jewell and Mary Adriance, the Leonard family, Selah T. Little
and Rebecca Remer, Clark Stillwell and Mary Searles, the Sturdevant families,
Foster Updyke, John and Catherine VanSciver, and others.
Many of the Hector families lie interred in the cemeteries of Mosherville
and Judson Hill in Wells Township and Daggett and Jobs Corners in Jackson
Township.
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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