Place:Kingston, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, United States

NameKingston
TypeBorough
Coordinates41.266°N 75.889°W
Located inLuzerne, Pennsylvania, United States     (1857 - )
Also located inKingston (township), Luzerne, Pennsylvania, United States    
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Kingston is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located on the western bank of the Susquehanna River opposite Wilkes-Barre City. Kingston was first settled in the early 1770s; it was incorporated as a borough in 1857. As of the 2010 census, the population was 13,182, making it the most populous borough in the county.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early history

In the early 1660s, King Charles II owed Admiral Sir William Penn a large sum of money. To settle this debt, he granted Penn’s son, William, a territory in North America, which later became known as Pennsylvania. However, Connecticut also claimed a portion of this land.

Count Zinzendorf was one of the first people to take an interest in the Wyoming Valley. In 1742, he came to the region to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. At the time, the valley was inhabited by several Native American tribes (including the Susquehannock and the Delaware).

His reports led a group of Connecticut settlers to form the Connecticut Susquehanna Company. This company bought the land from the natives. In 1768, they met in Hartford, Connecticut, and decided to survey and divide the territory into five townships (each one was five square miles). The plan was to sell and divide each township among forty settlers. The first forty pioneers took possession of Kingston Township.

By the late 1760s, both Connecticut and Pennsylvania settlers fought over this territory. The conflict was eventually settled in the 1780s. The disputed land was granted to Pennsylvania. The location of modern-day Kingston became part of Northumberland County. However, Connecticut settlers remained determined to create a new state in northeastern Pennsylvania. Timothy Pickering was sent to the region to politically examine the situation. This led to the Pennsylvania Assembly passing a resolution which created Luzerne County. This ended the idea of creating a new state. Luzerne County was created from part of Northumberland County. Under Pickering’s leadership and direction, county elections were held, the courts were established, and a government was formed.

Revolutionary War

During the Revolutionary War, British forces arrived in the Wyoming Valley on June 30, 1778. The next day — July 1 — Colonel Butler sent a surrender demand to the militia at Fort Wintermute (Wintermoot). Terms were arranged that the defenders, after surrendering the fort with all their arms, would be released on the condition that they would not again bear arms during the war. The American militia at Fort Wintermute surrendered that same day. Several miles away, Fort Jenkins (a Patriot stockade in present-day West Pittston) also capitulated. It was later burned to the ground.

On July 3, the British spotted the American militia near Forty Fort. Butler wanted to lure the Americans away from their fortifications. He ordered for Fort Wintermute to be set ablaze. The Patriots, believing it signified a British retreat, advanced rapidly. British soldiers, with the assistance of about 700 Native Americans, ambushed the oncoming American militia. In the end, nearly 300 Wyoming Valley settlers were killed in what would be known as the Wyoming Massacre. Today, in the Borough of Wyoming, a monument marks the gravesite of the victims from the battle.

The next morning, July 4, Colonel Nathan Denison agreed to surrender Forty Fort and two other posts, along with what remained of his militia. Butler paroled them on their promise to take no part in further hostilities. Non-combatants were spared and only a few inhabitants were molested after the forts capitulated. The war ended in 1783 when America finally gained its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Incorporation

The community has a rich history in American education. It is said that the first public school in Pennsylvania was erected in Kingston (in the 1770s). The borough is also home to the Upper School of Wyoming Seminary, a prestigious college preparatory school founded in 1844. During the first year, it enrolled 31 students (17 boys and 14 girls). Today, Wyoming Seminary's historic campus hosts roughly 450 students.

Kingston witnessed a population boom after the construction and operation of the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad. It was incorporated as a borough on November 23, 1857. The borough is named after Kingston, Rhode Island.[1] The first election for the community was held on December 15, 1857. Ruben Jones was elected burgess and justice of the peace. Some of the first council members elected included Bestor Payne, Marshall G. Whitney, Reuben Marcy, Thomas Pringle, and Richard Hutching.[2]

In 1923, the Kingston Armory was built. On September 11, 1950, 33 guardsmen from the 109th Field Artillery Regiment were killed in a train accident near Coshocton, Ohio. In the following days, the dead were moved to the Kingston Armory, where the remains were relinquished to the grief-stricken families.

Coal mining was a chief industry in and around Kingston prior to the Knox Mine Disaster. The 1959 tragedy essentially shut down the mining industry in and around the borough. In June 1972, Kingston was devastated by the flooding of Hurricane Agnes. The hurricane wreaked havoc on Kingston and neighboring Wilkes-Barre, causing a state of emergency. The natural disaster earned national attention and a visit from President Richard Nixon, who recruited Wyoming Seminary graduate Frank Carlucci (Nixon's head of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) as a point man to oversee flood recovery efforts. After the flood, Kingston adopted a home rule charter. It became effective in January 1976.

Research Tips

The Municipality of Kingston was incorporated in 1857 as a Borough. Kingston became a "Home Rule Charter" Municipality in the late 1970s. The Borough of Dorranceton merged with the Borough of Kingston sometime in the 1920s and ceased to exist as a separate local government.



This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Kingston, Pennsylvania. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.