Person talk:Joshua Austin (6)

Austins in Shickshinny, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

from: [1] Due to overlapping land grants made by Charles II of England and overlapping land purchases made from Native Americans, both Connecticut and Pennsylvania laid claim to the land known as the Western Reserve. A series of battles over land ownership, known as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars (1769-72, 1775 and 1784), were waged by the land companies unsupported by governmental authority.

During this time, the Pennsylvania - Connecticut dispute was being pursued through official channels to determine who was entitled to settlement rights and under what conditions. Eighteen year old Ralph Austin arrived in this very area in 1769, followed, in 1774 by his father, Joshua Austin, a man in his mid-fifties. The father and son (descendants of Richard Austin of Charlestown, MA) were the first Austins to leave the Suffield, CT area in the previous 100 years. As far as they were concerned, they were just moving to another part of Connecticut.

By 1774, two men, Noah Griswold and Titus Brown, had obtained a full right of land ownership from the Susquehanna Land Company by paying money to Daniel Ellsworth, a member of the land committee. In return, they obtained from the committee “leave to lay out a pitch in the aforementioned Shickshinny.”

In 1775 Joshua and his twin brother Caleb together managed to purchase half of the original right of the Susquehanna Purchase. “The land was surveyed to me (Joshua) and by me actually within the years 1774 and 1775.” Joshua, along with his brother Caleb and his sons Ralph and Elijah were, in all probability, the first settlers in Shickshinny in 1774. During the time of the American Revolution, Joshua returned to Suffield, but in 1779 he migrated to Shickshinny permanently, bringing with him his wife Tryphena and his youngest son Shadrach, who was nine at the time. The rest of his children either remained in Connecticut permanently or came to join Joshua and his wife at a later time. Ralph was primarily a farmer, but he also established and operated an inn.

On June 15, 1790, Joshua sold his land to his son Elijah. (See deed book No. 1, Page 278, Luzerne County Court House, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania). In the same year, Caleb’s land went to his son Gustavus, (See deed book No. 2, page 285, Luzerne County Court House, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania). In 1782, the Continental Congress, in the famous Decree of Trenton, decided the Pennsylvania-Connecticut boundary dispute in favor of Pennsylvania. In 1800 Connecticut relinquished all claims to the area. As a result, the land which originally belonged to Ralph Austin came into the possession of Matthew Hollenback under the Pennsylvania claim. At the time of his death, the land passed on to his daughter, a Mrs. Cist.

After relinquishing the title of his land to Hollenback, Ralph moved to Ohio and then to Illinois. A letter from his brother Elijah to another member of the family, dated April 30, 1825, said, “He lives at Fort Shoal Creek, Illinois.” Although the date of his death is unknown, it appears that Ralph was living at Fort Shoal Creek, Illinois at the time of his death. After the land boundaries had been legally and officially established, Joshua and Shadrach petitioned the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to retain their land which they had occupied for twenty-seven years.

Their petition was refused and the land was granted to the Pennsylvania claimant, Jeremiah Thatcher, who had been granted title to it on April 30, 1784 by John Dickinson, Esquire, President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania (See patent book No. 2, Page 471 in the Rolls Office, State of Pennsylvania). Thatcher died in 1802 but his last will and testament decreed that the land in question was to be sold to Shadrach Austin. Shadrach then purchased the land from Thatcher’s executors, for the sum of six hundred dollars. He built a home there and that farm, known as “Stony Ridge,” remained in the Austin family for one hundred and three years until sold by his great granddaughter, Sarah Elizabeth, in October of 1924. Shadrach died in Muhlenburg, Pennsylvania in December of 1850. Joshua died in Shickshinny in October 1801 at the age of 82 and was buried there. His grave was visible in the 1800s but now no trace of it remains.--henk 16:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)