HAMLIN

SALEM TOWNSHIP

Salem: Land of Peace

Also known as: Little Meadows, Salem Corners and Hamlinton

This area was set apart from Canaan and Delaware Townships in 1808, but history in these parts started decades before.  An old Indian trail passed through what is now Salem Township.  Earliest mention of this area was 1741.  The trail ran east to west, coming from the Hudson River to the Delaware River onto the Wyoming Valley.  The Connecticut settlers going to Wyoming made this into a wagon road in 1762.  This is the first road is now Route 590 and in what now Wayne County is.

A few miles east of Hamlin were Little Meadows (just before Goose Pond Road).  A clearing was made by beavers building dams, flooding the land, killing the timber, and making the meadows.  A man by the name of Seth Strong, on his way to Wyoming in 1770, made his home here.

The day after the battle of Wyoming on July 4, 1778, Strong with some others had a desperate fight with the Indians at this place.  Strong and his family were massacred and Jacob Stanton was the only man who escaped.  He fled and notified the settlers upon the Paupack of their danger, thereby saving many lives.  Late in the fall of 1779, Stanton came back to Little Meadows and found the Indians had burned down the house.  He dug a grave, gathered the bones of the Whites and Indians, placing them together, and he raised a mound over them.  This later became the “Land of Peace” and was the only site of a Revolutionary War battle fought in Wayne County.

Was settled by Harris Hamlin in 1801 and was also named for a doctor by the name of Orlo Hamlin, who moved to the area partly due to the fact that he wasn’t pulling in enough business in Providence, now a part of Scranton.

Two buildings still standing are the public school which is now the Methodist Church and the other was the I.O.O.F. Hall, which still stands today.

Hamlin had two turnpikes such as the Belmont and Eastern (from upper New York state to Easton) and the East and West (from New England). 

The old Hamlin Cemetery also resides in Hamlin.  Some of the names found in the cemetery are Hobart Nicholson who fought in the battle of Antietam in 1862.  Another was 1^st Lieutenant Lyman Nicholson who fought in Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.  The cemetery was founded by the Methodist and the Presbyterian congregations in 1840. 

There were three congregations in this town, the Methodist who organized in 1827, The Episcopal who organized in 1843, and the Presbyterian.  The nearest Roman Catholic Church was St. Mary’s in Ledgedale.

There are many homes long gone, these are just a few that can be mentioned. 

The first house to built in Hamlin was built by Harris Hamlin of Connecticut in 1802.  The house was situated on now Route 590 and was built on the North/South Road, now Routes 191/196 north of the corners.  Charles Hamlin had the house moved – pulling and rolling it on logs to its present location.  It was last owned by Laura Chapman before her death.  It was torn down in March 2009 to make way for the new Rite Aid.

In the latter part of the 18^th century, Jesse Morgan and his son George, came from Connecticut, acquired the title to a tract of land in Hamlin.  The hill nearby had been called Morgan Hill and after some time, Jesse Morgan returned to Connecticut and invited his nephews, Samuel and Aaron Morgan, to come back with him to the “Beech Woods” and buy the southern end of this tract of land.  They settled here, clearing up the land so that they could make homes.  In 1820, Samuel and Aaron Morgan returned to Connecticut to marry and bring their young brides to their new homes.  Samuel married Rebecca Stratton and Aaron married Ruby Wells Rathbone.

Aaron Morgan bought 120 acres of the old London land of Charles Goodrich Sr., situated at Salem Corners, about two miles south of Morgan Hill.  Some time later, Aaron Morgan exchanged his Hill Farm with Hammond Fowler for the George Lee Farm.  Adjoining his farm on the east was property later owned by his grandson, Clark A. Abbey.  Aaron Morgan brought his family to an old log house, said to be the oldest in Salem.  Very near this house are two large springs known as “The Old Log Cabin Springs,” or the “Laurel Springs.”  From these two springs, water was later supplied to Hamlin piped by Robert Spangenberg in the late 1920’s.  The land on which the Stone House stood was originally deeded to Tilghman, who conveyed it to Edward Dondon in 1801.  London transferred the title to Charles Goodrich Sr., in 1802.  Finally, Goodrich deeded the property of Aaron Morgan.

Salem, especially that part including Hamlin, had very few houses prior to 1837, the year the stone house was built. 

Aaron Morgan came to Salem prior to 1838, perhaps about 1836.  He lived for a time in the log house near the Spangenberg spring, until the Stone House was completed.  An old barn he built near the log house was later moved to the Stone House property, where it stood.  The Stone House took about one year to build and most all the stone used in its construction was quarried at the Morgan Hill quarry, about two miles  north of Hamlin on the Easton and Belmont Turnpike.  The stone was transported to the site by ox teams.  The masons were Arthur, Ruben and James Megargle.  The house contained a store and millinery in the front room and in later years a real estate office until its end in the 1990’s, when it made room for the parking lot for CVS Pharmacy.

The Hamlin Hotel was built by Oliver Hamlin in 1816.  Located just north of the 1850 Weston building on Route 191 and houses Luke’s bar.  It’s considered the oldest existing building in Hamlin. Oliver Hamlin then built the Hamlin House in 1817 next to the hotel.  In 1876, it was moved to its present location on Route 590, opposite the Texaco (now Locklin’s) station, to make way for Oliver’s son Butler Hamlin to build the existing Victorian house on Route 191.  The original Hamlin House was owned by Laura Chapman and sold by her estate.

The Olver and Hawthorne Store was built in 1816, the new store was built by Luther Weston in 1850.  The 1816 store was later attached to the Polley house and was the oldest structure in Hamlin until it was torn down in 2001. The Olver and Hawthorne store occupied Weston’s building, which stands on the corner.  The front part of the building was torn down in February 2009 to make room for the parking lot for the new Rite Aid.

The Wolf  House used to sit on the southeast corner of Hamlin.  Henry Herman built a hotel and bar in 1817 here; later it became the Walker House, which was torn down in 1904 to build the Queen Anne style Wolf House.  The Wolf House was torn down in 1997 to make room for the Jack Williams Tire Company.

The old Hamlin diner was built on the corner (where present day Pennstar resides) in 1948.  The diner was removed in 1985 when the present Hamlin Diner was built, east of the corners on Route 590.