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being pursued closely by two wolves, ran up to him, and placed its head between the legs of Leach to seek protection from its half-starved pursuers. This was done in a manner so abrupt and hurried, as to first convey to the rider a knowledge of the chase. The wolves came up with a bound, within a short distance of where the fearless arm interposed for the trembling animal, and, giving one ferocious view of their white, sharpened teeth, crouched away to their retreats.

So frightened had the fawn become, that not until the path opened distinctly upon the clearing of Leach, could it be induced to leave the side of its protector.

Deer and elk, at that period, thronged along the mountains in such numbers that droves often could be seen browsing upon saplings or lazily basking in the noonday sun.

The Moose, from which the mountain range bordering the Lackawanna derived its name of Moosic, were found here in vast numbers by the earliest explorers in the Lackawanna Valley. The clearing of Mr. Leach subsequently embraced the Indian salt spring, mentioned heretofore.

Parker and Smith located upon land north of this, while Clark, drawn by the delicious landscape of Abington's fairest mount, plunged into the woods, where now thrives a village honoring his memory, in the preservation of the name-Clark's Green.

On the summit of the hill commanding such a sweep of mountain, meadow, lowland, and ravine, as stretches to the eye turned to the south or the east, there then stood the straight pine and the shaggy hemlock, interspersed with the maple and the beech, where was erected the original dwelling-place of Deacon Clark. It was a substantial compact of unhewn logs, notched deep at either end, placed together regardless of beauty or timber. The floor came from ask-plank, full of slivers, unaided by the saw or plane--the keen ax alone being responsible for

smoothness and finish. It was, withal, a comfortable affair built in the wood-side, some 1,300 feet above tidewater; but energetic, contented, and industrious, the old gentleman passed under its humble roof many a pleasant hour in the long evenings of autumn, when the hearth glowed with the crackling fire, while his daily duties were to give thrift and culture to one of the finest farms in Abington.

John Lewis, James and Ezra Dean, Job Tripp, Robert Stone, Ezra Wall, and Geo. Gardner, also settled in the new region the same year. Job settled in the western portion of Abington while it possessed all its native ruggedness. Most of those who had plunged here in this old forest, were, like those who had commenced along the Lackawanna, so poor as to be unable to pay for their land, until from the soil, they could, by their honest industry and frugal management, raise the necessary means. Not so, however, with Job; he had a little money, and was determined to make the most of it. He purchased a grindstone and brought it into Abington, which for six years was the only one here. This he fenced in with stout saplings, allowing no one to grind upon it unless they paid him a stipulated sum, and turned the stone themselves. This enterprise, although it was comprehensive in its design, and brought to his barricaded grindstone one or two dull axes a week of the toiling chopper, could not bring into play all the energies of his mind, so he fenced in much of the woods by falling trees, for a deer-pen or park, into which, after the deer had wandered for his morning browse, or had been driven by Job, the passage to the pen was closed, when the deer was to be slain, and dried venison and buckskin were to effect such a revolution in the commercial aspect of Abington, and he was to be the Midas who had brought it. The chase over the acres he had thus fenced proved more invigorating to his stomach than beneficial to his pocket, and the project of the old man died with him a few years

later, marked only by the remaining débris of the fence yet seen around "Hickory Ridge."

Elder John Miller, a man alike eminent for his long services as a minister, and his virtues as a man, settled in Abington in 1802. He was born February 3, 1775, in Windham, Connecticut. Young, hopeful, and robust, he emigrated to the inland acres of Abington, where, for half a century, identified intimately with its local and general history, he gave cheer and character to society around him as much as the brook crossing the meadow imparts a deeper shade and more luxuriant herbage to its banks. The great influence he exerted over the people of the township up until the very day of his death, in February, 1857, in keeping alive the spirit of improvement, husbandry, and morality, can yet be observed along the farms of his neighbors, in the enterprise, intelligence, industry, customs, and habits of the yeomanry of Abington. Previous to the coming of Mr. Miller to "The Beech," as Abington was designated until the formation of the township in 1806, few had inclined toward its rigorous domain. He located upon the spot marked and vacated by the trappers twelve years before, purchased three hundred and twenty-six acres of land for forty dollars-$20 in silver, $10 in the customary tender of maple-sugar, and $10 in tin-ware.

The only store in the county of Luzerne was kept in Wilkes Barre by Hollenback & Fisher, offering a variety surpassed by the ordinary pack of the modern peddler of to-day. At this store, Elder Miller was furnished with the necessary tin, which he manufactured into such ware as the county called for.

Almost simultaneously with his arrival, he began to preach the gospel and "turn many to righteousness." During this long five-and-fifty years of spiritual labor, he married nine hundred and twelve couples, baptized (immersed) two thousand persons, and preached the enormous number of eighteen hundred funeral sermons before

he was called to receive his reward on high. It was rare to witness a funeral in the valley when the elder was in his prime, and find absent from the mournful gathering his frank, friendly face, ever full of words of comfort and kind reminiscence of the dead.

For a period of twelve years he officiated in the valley as the only clergyman laboring here of any denomination. Being a practical surveyor withal, there are few farms in the northern portion of Luzerne County he did not traverse while tracing and defining their boundaries. His wife -an estimable lady-was the fifth white woman living in Abington. Elder Miller, although he held his own plow and fed his own cattle, was the great representative of Abington, whose various qualifications to counsel and console, whose characteristic desire to do good, whose benevolence of heart, grave but kind deportment as a man of the world or the adviser of his flock, gave him an ascendency in the affections of the community attained. by few.

While he has passed away, he left behind him in manuscripts events of his life, and incidents in the early history and growth of Abington, whose publication could not fail to interest all who knew him, and recall to the mind of the reader the gray head and kindly greetings of a man whose age, calm, deliberate air, whose venerable and unquestioned piety, and whose great sympathy in the hour of sorrow, made him one of the most remarkable persons ever living in Abington.

This township was the twelfth one formed in the county of Luzerne, and is sixty-three years old. At the Court of Quarter Sessions, held at Wilkes Barre, August, 1806, Abington was formed from a part of Tunkhannock, "Beginning at the southwest corner of Nicholson township, thence south nine and three-quarter miles east to Wayne County, thence by Wayne County line north nine and three-quarter miles," etc.

The original inhabitants were from Connecticut and

Rhode Island; and even now, after the lapse of over half a century with its mutations, the stern morality, the honest industry, and the social virtues literally impressed upon the hills of the parent State, are distributed and distinguished among their descendants. Although no evidence of coal or iron exhibits itself within the boundaries of Abington, it furnishes one of the best farming and grazing areas found in the county of Luzerne.

The only colored feature in the picture of Abington is a colony of negroes, which, in spite of the double disadvantage of prejudice and hereditary indolence, has drawn from the frosty hills thereabout the wherewithal to sustain animation in a very creditable manner.

ELIAS SCOTT, THE HUNTER.

Daniel Scott emigrated to the Lackawanna in 1792. His son Elias was widely known throughout the country forty years ago, as a successful Nimrod, but the encroachments of civilized life crowded the forest world from his reach with the same remorseless force that the Indians have been rolled up and frenzied to the very base of the Rocky Mountains.

Some years ago, while he was standing near the Wyoming House, in Scranton, in an apparently thoughtful and sorrowful mood, the writer asked him what was the matter.

"Matter! matter!" he exclaimed, as he looked up with a sigh, and pointed his wilted hand and hickory cane toward the depots. "See how the tarnal rascals have spiled the hunting-grounds where I've killed many a bear and deer."

In the autumn months he would take long hunting. jaunts, sometimes being absent a week from his home. Upon his left hand appeared unmistakable evidence of an encounter with a bear many years ago, while out upon such an excursion on Stafford Meadow Brook, running

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