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DR. JOSEPH SPRAUGE.

With the first party of adventurers coming into Wyoming, there came no physician, because the invigorating character of exercise and diet enjoyed by the pioneer, whose daily life, enlivened by the choir of falling trees or the advancing ax, knew the want of no medical representative, until Dr. Joseph Sprauge came from Hartford in 1771.

Of the yet uninhabited forest, called in the ancient records, "Ye Town of Lockaworna," whose upper boundaries extended nearly to the present village of Scranton, Dr. Sprauge was one of the original proprietors. To dispose of lots or pitches to the venturing woodsman, probably contributed more to bring him hither than any expectation of professional emoluments or advantage in a wilderness, making, in the hands of the Indian, a materia medica which no disease could gainsay or resist.

His first land sales were made in May, 1772.1 For a period of thirteen years, with the exception of the summer of 1778, Dr. Sprauge lived near the Lackawanna, between Springbrook and Pittston, in happy seclusion, fishing, hunting, and farming, until, with the other Yankee settlers, he was driven from the valley, in 1784, by the Pennymites. He died in Connecticut the same year.

His widow, known throughout the settlement far and near, as "Granny Sprauge," returned to Wyoming in 1785, and lived in a small log-house then standing in Wilkes Barre, on the southwest corner of Main and Union streets. She was a worthy old lady, prompt, cheerful, successful, and, at this time, the sole accoucheur in all the wide domain now embraced by Luzerne and Wyoming counties. Although of great age, as late as 1810 her obstetrical practice surpassed that of any physician in this

1 See Westmoreland Records, 1772

portion of Pennsylvania. For attending a case of accouchement, no matter how distant the journey, how long or fatiguing the detention, this sturdy, faithful woman invariably charged one dollar for services rendered, although a larger fee was never turned away, if any one was able or rash enough to offer it.

DR. WILLIAM HOOKER SMITH AND OLD FORGE.

If the Lackawanna Valley owes its earliest explorations and settlement wholly to Moravian fugitives, who, to escape persecution, fled from the banks of the Neckar and the Elbe to the yet untroubled plateau above the Blue Mountains, in 1742, it owes to the memory of the late Dr. William Hooker Smith, whose mind first recognized and faintly developed its mineral treasures, its grateful acknowledgments.

He emigrated from "ye Province of New York,"1 and located in the Wilkes Barre clearing in 1772, where he purchased land in 1774.

The Doctor's father was a Presbyterian clergyman living in the city of New York, and the only minister there of this denomination in 1732; and such was the feebleness of his congregation, that he preached one-third of his time at White Plains.

As a surgeon and physician, his abilities were of such high order that he occupied a position in the colony, as gratifying to him as it was honorable to those enjoying his undoubted skill and experience. With the exception of Dr. Sprauge, Dr. Smith was the only physician in 1772 living between Cochecton and Sunbury, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles.

The formation of Luzerne County created positions of trust and honor, among which was the magisterial one; and although the doctor was a Yankee by birth, habit, and education, such confidence was reposed in his capacity 'Hist. Col., N. Y.

1 Westmoreland Records, 17772.

and integrity, that he was chosen the first justice in the fifth district of the new county. His commission, signed by Benj. Franklin, then President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, bears date May 11, 1787.

In 1779, he marched with the troops under General Sullivan into the Indian country along the upper waters of the Susquehanna, and by his cheerfulness and example taught the soldiers to endure their hardships and fatigues, taking himself an earnest part in that memorable expedition which brought such relief to Wyoming and such glory to the American arms.

Nor did Congress, prompted by noble impulses, forget his services as acting surgeon in the army, when, in 1838, $2,400 was voted to his heirs.

That his mind, active, keen, and ready, looked beyond the ordinary conceptions of his day, is shown by his purchased right, in 1791, to dig iron ore and stone coal in Pittston, long before the character of coal as a heating agent was understood, and the same year that the hunter Gunther accidentally discovered "black-stones" on the broad, Bear Mountain nine miles from Mauch Chunk.

These purchases, attracting no other notice than general ridicule, were made in Exeter, Plymouth, Pittston, Providence, and Wilkes Barre, between 1791-8. The first was made July 1, 1791, of Mr. Scot, of Pittston, who, for the sum of five shillings, Pennsylvania money, sold “one half of any minerals, ore of iron, or other metal which he, the said Smith, or his heirs, or assighns, may discover on the hilly lands of the said John Scot by the red spring.'

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Old Forge derived its name from Dr. Smith, who, after his return from Sullivan's expedition, located himself permanently here on the rocky edge of the Susquehanna, beside the sycamore and oak, where first in the valley the sound of the trip-hammer reverberated, or mingled with the hoarse babblings of its water. The forge was erected

1 Luzerne County Records.

by Dr. Smith and James Sutton in the spring of 1789, for converting ore into iron. It stood immediately below the falls or rapids in the stream, about two miles above its mouth, and not far from the reputed location of the silver mine before spoken of. Before the erection of these ironworks none existed in Westmoreland except those in Newport, operating in 1777.

I

"My recollections of Pittston and Old Forge," wrote the late Hon. Charles Miner, in a letter to the writer, twelve years ago, "are all of the most cheerful character. have, at the old tavern, on the bank of the river above the ferry, seen the son of Capt. Dethic Hewit, the gallant old fellow, who, in the battle, when told, 'See, Capt. Hewit, the left wing has given away, and the Indians are upon us; shall we retreat? answered to his negro drummer, Skittish Pomp, 'No, I'll see them damned first,' and fell. His son was at the house, and sang with the spirit his father fought--

"So sweetly the horn

Called me up in the morn,' &c., &c.

"But to the Forge.

"The heaps of charcoal and bog ore, half a dozen New Jersey firemen at the furnace! What life! What clatter! And then at the mansion, on the hill, might be seen the owner, Dr. Wm. Hooker Smith, now nearly superannuated, who, in his day, was the great physician of the valley during the war, and if, perchance, the day was fine, and his family on the parterre, you might see his daughters, unsurpassed in beauty and grace, whose every movement was harmony that would add a charm to the proudest city mansion."

The doctor was a plain, practical man, a firm adherent of the theory of medicine as taught and practiced by his sturdy ancestors a century ago. He was an unwavering phlebotomist. Armed with huge saddle-bags rattling with gallipots and vials and thirsty lance, he sallied forth on

horseback over the rough country calling for his services, and many were the cures issuing from the unloosed vein. No matter what the nature or location of the disease, how strong or slight the assailing pain, bleeding promptly and largely, with a system of diet, drink, and rest, was enforced on the patient with an earnestness and success that gave him a wide-spread reputation as a physician.

The forge prospered for years--two fires and a single trip-hammer manufacturing a considerable amount of iron, which was floated down the Susquehanna in Durham boats and large canoes. The impure quality and small quantity of ore found and wrought into iron, with knowledge and machinery alike defective; the labor and expense of smelting the raw material into ready iron in less demand down the Susquehanna, where forges and furnaces began to blaze; the natural infirmities of age, as well as the rival forge of Slocum's, at Slocum Hollow, all ultimately disarmed Old Forge of its fire and trip-ham

mer.

After leaving his forge, he removed up the Susquehanna, near Tunkhannock, where, full of years, honor, and usefulness, he died in 1815, among his friends, at the good old age of 91.

THE SIGNAL TREE.

As the emigrant from Connecticut found himself, after a long journey, on one of the peaks of the Moosic Mountain, five miles northeast from Scranton, overlooking the fertile plain of Wyoming, twenty miles away, he could discover, by the naked eye, when the day was clear, looming up from the surrounding trees, covering the mountains northwest of Wyoming, a pine-tree, majestic in its height, its trunk shorn of its limbs almost to its very top, resembling, from the marked umbrel spread of its foliage, a great umbrella, with the handle largely disproportioned. This is the tree known as the signal tree. Over the deep foliage of trees surrounding, this one floats with an air of

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