Mountain Top
Pennsylvania
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Rice Township
Rice Township is relatively young compared to the other townships in the Mountain Top Area, the early part of this history synopsis is about that part of Hanover and Wright Townships that is now Rice Township.
The original Hanover Township was granted as a county by the Connecticut Company to Captain Lazarus Stewart and his associates in 1770. In 1790 it was divided into eleven townships which included what was to be Wright Township.
Wright Township was formed from Hanover on April 12th, 1851 and named after the Hon. Hendrick B. Wright of Wilkes Barre.
The first recorded white settler of this Mountain Top Area was Conrad Wickeiser in 1798. The second settler was James Wright from the Wyoming Valley.
He had to chop out a road before his ox team to his place on the Big Wap wall open Creek, about a mile Southwest of Penobscot. He built a log cabin and at various times he built three saw mills.
The next settler was Harvey Holcomb from Connecticut. He located a short distance down the creek from Wright's.
The first settlers in what is now definitely Rice Township were Samuel B. Stivers and William Vandermark. They loca ted in the vicinity of where St.Martins Church now stands. They were natives of this County. A John Hoffman also soon settled near the Stiver's place.
The next settler was Cornelius Garrison, who built a saw mill on the Big Wapwallopen Creek in the vicinity between Church Road and Blytheburn Area. He also raised the first crop of grain and set out the first orchard.
The first road in the area was the Wilkes-Barre and Hazle- ton Turnpike which ran diagonally across the area from Solo mon's Gap to Albert.
Some historians claim it followed what is now Main Road, and some claim it ran from Brown Street at Mountain Top through Heslop Road to Albert. We do know from old residents long since departed, that a turnpike did exist in the Brown Street-Heslop Road Area. There was also an old in the area of Boyle's Pond.
The original Hanover Township was granted as a county by the Connecticut Company to Captain Lazarus Stewart and his associates in 1770. In 1790 it was divided into eleven townships which included what was to be Wright Township.
Wright Township was formed from Hanover on April 12th, 1851 and named after the Hon. Hendrick B. Wright of Wilkes Barre.
The first recorded white settler of this Mountain Top Area was Conrad Wickeiser in 1798. The second settler was James Wright from the Wyoming Valley.
He had to chop out a road before his ox team to his place on the Big Wap wall open Creek, about a mile Southwest of Penobscot. He built a log cabin and at various times he built three saw mills.
The next settler was Harvey Holcomb from Connecticut. He located a short distance down the creek from Wright's.
The first settlers in what is now definitely Rice Township were Samuel B. Stivers and William Vandermark. They loca ted in the vicinity of where St.Martins Church now stands. They were natives of this County. A John Hoffman also soon settled near the Stiver's place.
The next settler was Cornelius Garrison, who built a saw mill on the Big Wapwallopen Creek in the vicinity between Church Road and Blytheburn Area. He also raised the first crop of grain and set out the first orchard.
The first road in the area was the Wilkes-Barre and Hazle- ton Turnpike which ran diagonally across the area from Solo mon's Gap to Albert.
Some historians claim it followed what is now Main Road, and some claim it ran from Brown Street at Mountain Top through Heslop Road to Albert. We do know from old residents long since departed, that a turnpike did exist in the Brown Street-Heslop Road Area. There was also an old in the area of Boyle's Pond.