The North Mountain Historical Society

Meeting: November 2000

November 20, 2000

The History Buffs met on Monday, Nov. 20, 2000 at the Brass Pelican with 62 people present. Jim Vance asked the blessing then asked everyone to introduce themselves and tell where they were from. After that the minutes of the last meeting were read. Jim then asked for suggestions for future topics. The December meeting will be a presentation of Christmas traditions and customs. In January John Laubach will speak on the Laubach family, particularly Dr. Frank Laubach, world famous missionary. In February, Betty Victory will speak on the Fritz family and how many people in the area are related to the Fritz's. Other suggestions were: the McClure house in Bloomsburg, the Underground railroad in the area, the White House, Greystone, Moses Van Campen Hotel, the McHenry Distillery. Jim will try to get these lined up for future meetings.
After breakfast, Jim introduced the speaker for the morning Mr. Charles Petrillo from Wilkes Barre. To augment his presentation Mr. Petrillo had slides of the area about which he was speaking, some taken from pictures as the area was then and then the same area as it appears today. This added much to the interest of his talk.
He started with the town of Harvey's Lake- how it started out as a lumbering town in the 1870's. Later it became a recreational area that reached its height about the time of World War II. There were several steamboats on the lake- the last one taken off in 1940. The Lehigh Valley railroad served the Harvey's Lake Area and many of the railroad beds are now hiking trails.
Mr. Petrillo had excellent "Before and after" pictures of Mountain Springs a thriving town in the area at one time. It had two large ponds that were first used for holding logs for the timber industry- later these ponds were used to harvest ice, which was shipped out on the railroad to neighboring towns.
After this Mr. Petrillo told us about the Ricketts family. They settled in Orangeville. Robert Bruce Ricketts was a student at Wyoming Seminary; He later entered the army, became captain of an artillery unit, participated in a crucial battle at Gettysburg and came out of the Civil war a Colonel and a hero.
After the war he married Elizabeth Reynolds and entered the banking industry founding what was originally the Anthracite Bank of Wilkes-Barre. It is still in existence today following several takeovers and changes in names.
Col. Ricketts bought timberland largely at tax sales until he owned what is estimated to be 80,000 acres. He built the Stone House at Ganoga Lake as a retreat for his family. Later a hotel known as the Ark was built close to it.
The town of Ricketts was located on what is now Route 487. Part of it was in Wyoming County, part in Sullivan County. A concrete bunker type building is the only building left standing in the town of Ricketts. Mr. Petrillo had pictures of the town in its heyday- many of which were taken by Ronald Douglas a deaf-mute photographer. He also had pictures taken recently that show nothing left at the site but a few foundations.
Col. Ricketts and his wife died within 6 weeks of each other near the close of World War I and are buried in the family cemetery on the former Ricketts estate.
Our thanks to Mr. Petrillo for a most interesting presentation. The next meeting will be Monday, Dec 18 at the Brass Pelican. Be prepared to tell of your family's Christmas traditions.