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Tioga Pioneers
Charleston April 4,1867
Mr. Editor: A more extended notice of the Pioneer Life of Mrs. Fanny Culver recently deceased, might not prove interesting to a portion of our readers.
Mrs. Culver was born near New Haven , Conn. and was also her husband, Timothy Culver. They were unknown to each other in early life and immigrated in different directions, he to the valley of the Delware and she to Vermont. They came together subsequently in Chenango Co. New York and from there, came down the river to Towanda in a canoe. From Towanda they came through the woods to the Tioga River on foot, she leading one horse on which was perched their household goods and he carrying their only child ( then a boy of some three years in age).
They struck the Williamson Road near the present site of Blossburg, followed it down to Tioga and made their first beginning on what is known as the Thomas J.Berry Farm just below the Tioga village.
They remained there about four years and then packed up and removed to Charleston, which was at the time dence wilderness with no roads closer than the Williamson Road running up and down the Tioga River. They came up said road to the mouth of Elk Run about a mile below what is now Covington. They followed it up to the present site of Cherry Flats and there pitched their tent. This was done by pealing a hemlock tree and making a roof of the bark. Their household goods consisted of sundry articles of furniture bought on two horses, two children, a rifle carried by the mother while she led one house and the father led the other and carried one child. The oldest boy now big enough to walk did not have to be carried on this journey.
This was in May of 1804. They remained at Cherry Flats until July when they emigrated to their plantation near Culvers Marsh, which they and their descendents have held to this day. They arrived on a rainy day at their new home. No shelter was at hand save branching tree tops. Under one of these the mother and children cowered while the father peeled bark for a house roof which soon sheltered goods and family, by being placed one end on the ground and the other against the tree. A fire was struck, a chip chopped out of a maple, made smooth on one side with the axe. Indian meal stirred up in water and baked on it for dinner. This was the first Johnny-cake ever baked in Charleston township, and those who ate it said it tasted good for they were hungry.
Their early pioneer life was full of incident as is that of neatly all settlers in new countries. In fact, every man who found a home in the wilderness is a hero whose deeds are worth recording. And this class of heros’ wives have done more to sustain Government than armed men. All honor to Fanny Culver (once Fanny Beebe) and every other American mother who in early life, endured so much that coming generations might be blessed. May their brave deeds be recorded in letters of gold and those who come after them never cease to venerate them
E.W.
Subj: Tioga Pioneer Date: 10/19/2002 7:45:37 PM
Eastern Daylight Time
From: c.lynk@worldnet.att.net (Charlyne Lynk)
To: JoyceTice@aol.com
File: FannyBeebe2.rtf (3566 bytes) DL Time (TCP/IP):
< 1 minute
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Frank Carlson
Galeton, PA
Note from Joyce - If anyone knows the full name of Jesse's first
wife, please let me know so we can properly honor her, also.
From the Wellsboro Agitator
Wednesday June 22, 1904
PATRIOT AND PIONEER
A tribute to Jesse Losey-one of the first white inhabitants of Tioga County
To the editor of the Agitator
Philadelphia, June 17-Tioga County should form a historical society, if it has not already done so, and correct some of the mistakes of it’s local historians. The county has not only a most interesting history, but it is exceedingly rich in the number of distinguished men it has sent to public affairs.
The first prominent white settlers within what is now Tioga County-Jesse Losey and his wife-were historical characters . They located in the county in 1786, at least two years earlier than a local historian has credited Samuel Baker and wife with doing so. Losey had been in the Continental Army, in which he served throughout the Revolutionary War. He had heard the solid shot, shell and red hot ball that rained at Yorktown for more than a week against Cornwallis’s fortified lines and he had listened to the music to which that British General’s army marched out on October 19th , 1781, when he surrendered his forces to the Americans.
In the Spring of 1786 Jesse Losey and his wife anchored their birch bark canoe where Tioga Village is now situated and built a cabin on the site of the present Episcopal Church in this borough. Here they continued to live till his wife died some years later and was buried on the site of the first pioneer home in the wilderness of Tioga County.
Jesse Losey married for his second wife Zilpha Adams, a sister of Peter Adams, and of Isaac Adams, these two men being among the earliest settlers in the county. In the Wyoming Massacre Mrs. Zilpha Losey was taken prisoner and would have met the same fate as nearly all the captives but for the friendship between the Indians and the Adams brothers who were at the time on the most amicable terms.
Jesse Losey was a prominent character in the county from the earliest period of it’s history. He had saved considerable money during his service in the army and he invested it in real estate on Crooked Creek, near Tioga, only to be swindled out of it through defective titles, which afforded the first cases of record in the newly formed county.-April sessions, 1818. He and his second wife lie buried in the old cemetery at Holidaytown, and inhabitants of that locality decorate his grave each year in kindly remembrance of the services he rendered his country in honor of it’s birth, baptism and severe trial..
B. C. Hymes
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