A Brief Sullivan County History
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    Sullivan County was first settled by Native Americans. Well known trails crisscrossed the area including the Forbidden Path and the Genesee Trail.
    The first European settlers in the area were the Bird and Molyneux families who were part of a survey team paid in part with land. They cleared land and farmed in the Millview area.
    Sullivan County has an unusual ethnic mix for a rural county, according to Dr. Paul Zbiek, a specialist in ethnic history, associate professor of history and department chairman at King's College, Wilkes-Barre, PA.
    Zbiek maintains Sullivan County's history reflects American ethnic socio-economic trends  in microcosm.
    "It's not often you see this great diversity in a rural area," Zbiek said.
    The first "wave" of settlers came into the county in the early 1800's. They were mostly farmers. Some emigrated from German settlements to the south, Yankees trickled down from the Connecticut claim to the north and from the west came pre-famine Irish settlers who helped build the regions first turnpikes. In the mid 1840's relatives of these early immigrants who were effected by the famine joined their families in the county.
    The German and Irish settlers shared the area's first Catholic Church. Their common religious background and farming vocation helped erase ethnic differences early on. Since most of the settlers were farmers who performed the same kinds of work there was a common goal and understanding amongst people in the community. Commonalties became more evident than differences. Divisions based on economic status didn't occur. Divisions between Protestants and Catholics were softened by the common agricultural background of life.
    At the time of the Civil War approximately 15 to 20% of the county was of English descent, 50% German and 30% Irish.
    In the late 1800's, when lumbering and mining began to boom, a new wave of immigrants flooded into the county to work in the forests, factories and mines. These were people from Eastern and Southern Europe, Ukrainians and Italians who settled the Lopez, Bernice and Mildred areas. Zbiek said as is usually the case, the first immigrants were young unmarried men who gave the Eastern part of Sullivan County a rowdy reputation softened only as they settled down with wives and families.
    By 1895 the population reached 14,000. About 5,000 of these people were estimated to be wage earners. Early industry included a glass factory in 1808 at present-day Eagles Mere and a woolen mill in Forksville which made cloth for the U.S. Army. Flour mills, foundries, a silk mill, dairy, a copper mine, cigar factory and distillery, footware and clothing factories operated in the county at various times but industrial manufacturing never replaced agriculture as the main economic base.
    By the Mid 1920's the flow of immigrants into Sullivan County ceased. The advent of the car, radio and television softened the rural, Appalachian/New England accent which developed here, but traces of it remain.
    "You hear more ruralisms here than in some other rural places," Zbiek maintains.
    Sullivan County developed a rural mountain culture different from surrounding rural areas, Zbiek said. "This was because for a long period of time no industry separated the groups."
    Between 1920 and 1960 farming and tourism provided income. Schools were regionalized further reducing cultural differences in the county.
    Now most of the population is employed in industry outside the county. The people live in rural American but work in industry, while maintaining a rural mindset, Zbiek concluded.
    Many cultures came together in Sullivan County to form uniform singular culture. Zbiek views it as an example of the American "melting pot". Sullivan Countians have a tendency to refer to themselves as just that: Sullivan Countians. Their view of themselves is not as much ethnic as it is regional.

    More details of Sullivan County history are available at the County Library in Dushore and the Sullivan County Historical Society in Laporte.
    Dr. Zbiek's doctoral dissertation is available at the Sullivan County Library.
    The Sullivan Review, the county's weekly newspaper published in Dushore, carries books and pamphlets on the County's  railroads, lumber days and industry.
    A history of the Eagles Mere Chatauqua published by Donna Andrews is available locally.