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Wayne County, PA
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Created on March 21, 1798, from part of Northampton
County and named for General Anthony Wayne. Honesdale,
the county seat after 1842, was laid out in 1827 and
incorporated as a borough on January 28, 1831. It was
named for Philip Hone, president of the Delaware and
Hudson Canal Company. Earlier county seats included
Wilsonville (1799–1802), Milford (1802–1805), and
Bethany (1805–1841).
 Part
of the Pennsylvania lands claimed by Connecticut
settlers, eventually supported by their government until
1786, this area was also contested with Indians in
1755–1757 and again in the Wyoming Massacre campaign of
1778. At a high altitude and originally heavily
forested, Wayne yielded lumber which was floated down
the Delaware. This was the first industry. The county
was soon found to be good for grazing livestock.
Originally not thought to have any coal itself, Wayne
profited from being on the route of the coal carrying
Delaware and Hudson Canal and its railroad extension
from Honesdale to Carbondale. Philip Hone from New York
was an early developer. In 1829 the first locomotive to
run in North America, the “Stourbridge Lion,” ran in
Wayne County. Christian Dorflinger came from New York to
White Mills in 1865 and built a glassmaking complex. He
died in 1915, and his factory closed in 1921. Dairy
farming and poultry are important but have declined
since 1980. Farms today occupy 30 percent of the land.
The county includes the very northeastern tip of the
Northern Anthracite field. Mining was profitable from
the late nineteenth century until about 1946. Sharing
with Pike and Monroe Counties the phenomenal residential
growth, produced by immigrants from New York and New
Jersey arriving since 1975, the county’s economy is now
shifted toward tourism, health services, and home
construction. Many new dwellings have gone up, mostly
outside the old community centers. |
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