LVI WYOMING COUNTY

FORMED April 4, 1842; named from the Wyoming tribe of Indians who occupied the land when the white settlers came; name signifies extensive flats.

Lies in the northern opening of the wonderful Wyoming Valley, celebrated for its fertility and beauty; surface diversified by numerous spurs of the Appalachian system, which tower into lofty peaks; Mount Solecca, 1000 feet above the river; Mount Chodano, nearly opposite, about the same height; Mount Metchasaung, still higher, at La Grange. Several lakes are well stocked with fish; the largest, Lake Cary, three miles long, one mile wide, is surrounded by lofty pines and hemlocks. Glen Moneypenny, six miles below Tunkhannock, is a wildly picturesque location; many such are to be found among the mountains of this country.

This beautiful setting was the scene of Indian plottings that culminated in the Wyoming Massacre in 1778 (see Luzerne County). The following year General Sullivan’s army passed through this region, on march to subdue the Six Nations, and encamped on the shore of the Susquehanna River at Tunkhannock, where the tannery now stands. Forty years ago passenger pigeons were so plentiful that when they flew across a town in dense flocks, they obscured the sun; one colony occupied a strip of woodland in Wyoming County, seven miles long by three miles wide; Alexander Wilson wrote of counting ninety nests in a single tree. Chief industries, agriculture and manufacturing.

Tunkhannock, county seat; population 1736, first called Putnam, after General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary War; settled, 1790; was incorporated 1841. Lies due north and south, east and west. Courthouse on Courthouse Square has two marble tablets in the corridor, with names of Revolutionary War soldiers buried within the limits of Wyoming County, placed by Tunkhannock Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. The Soldiers’ Monument is on the same grounds. Among the churches of different denominations, the Methodist may be mentioned for Gothic architecture. At Factoryville is the Keystone Academy. Crossing Tunkhannock Creek, near Nicholson, is the Tunkhannock Viaduct, said to be the largest concrete bridge in the world, 2375 feet long, 240 feet high, above water level; height from bedrock 300 feet; carries the double tracks of the main line of the Lackawanna Railroad from mountain to mountain across the valley.