| Male, Born | in Westmoreland (now Wilkes-Barre), Pennsylvania on ?/?/1774 |
| Died | 5/10/1855 |
Born in 1774, probably at Westmoreland (now Wilkes-Barre), Pennsylvania, of Perrin ROSS and Marcy (OTIS) ROSS. Joseph had brothers Daniel, Jesse, John, and Perrin, Jr.; and a sister named Elizabeth.
When Joseph was but four years of age, his father was killed at the Battle of Wyoming. On July 2, 1778, the night before the battle, Joseph's father (Perrin) sent his family from the valley with a pack horse, destined for the old family home in Connecticut. (See Perrin ROSS for more details.)
Joseph, his mother, sister, and brothers, returned to Montville, New London County, Connecticut, where they remained until 1782. In March 1782, after they had returned to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, his widowed mother married Lieutenant Samuel ALLEN.
Joseph’s step-father was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, in 1743. He had a lengthy and varied military record beginning about 1760. He was previously married, but his first wife’s name has not been preserved; he is said to have had six children by her, one of whom was Pauline, born 1768 and married to Captain Jesse BROWN. Samuel ALLEN bought a considerable amount of land and became one of the most active and affluent men of his day.
About 1796, Joseph married Pollyanna CAMP, born in 1776 and died on April 27, 1864, at the age of eighty-eight. She was the daughter of Albert CAMP, who was one of a numerous family, children of Job CAMP, a pioneer prior to 1793 along the Wyalusing River five miles from its mouth. Camptown, Pennsylvania, was named after Job and his descendants. Albert CAMP died in 1822 at a very advanced age. Pollyanna’s brothers were Isaac (who lived in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, in 1870); Levi; Jonathan (who lived in Illinois in 1870); and Nelson, who occupied the original homestead below Middletown Center, Pennsylvania, just prior to 1870.
Joseph followed the tide of immigration up the Wyalusing River, living for a short time below Rushville, where he set out an orchard. In the spring of 1800, Joseph ROSS and Albert CAMP (his father-in-law) became the sixth and seventh settlers, respectively, on the north branch of the Wyalusing River in the township of Middletown, Pennsylvania (in the vicinity of what is now Middletown Center, in northwest Susquehanna County – not the Middletown near Harrisburg).
Those were cruel times and the land seemed alive in its refusal to be subdued. “The men would go in the woods to chop, become faint, and eat the inside of bark, and when their work was finished have milk alone for supper.” Because of the lack of a mill to make flour for bread, Joseph made what was called a spring pestle. “A large hard-wood tree was cut down and a hole burned in the top of the stump. The pestle, or pounder, was made of a sapling, five or six inches in diameter, and about five feet long, with a stick run through for handles. This was attached to a spring pole, so adjusted that the pestle could work in the wooden mortar, and the grinding apparatus was complete. The mill on the Joseph ROSS place was used not only by his family, but by his neighbors. The spring pestle was all the mill privilege they had for years, except when Mr. ROSS took corn on his back seventeen miles, to Black’s mills below Camptown.”
“Joseph was an active man in Middletown; his house was its political center. He was often engaged in surveying and locating roads, and from his comparative abundance of means, was called upon to be the succor of others. At one time when the children of neighbors were crying for food, Mrs. ROSS had but a crust to give them.” He had a small tannery on his fram where he prepared leather for himself and neighbors. Mrs. ROSS would often go with her children two or three miles into the woods after the cows.
Joseph ROSS built the first sawmill at Middletown Center. A few years later he built a grist mill on the other end of the same dam. This he sold in 1843 to Otis FROST, the sawmill having long before “gone down”. The sawmill was subsequently restored, and eventually was owned temporarily by Joseph’s son, Norman.
Joseph ROSS was among the sixty-four taxpayers of Middletown Township in 1815. He is also shown on the list of taxpayers for 1838. Joseph and Polly were early and prominent members of the Methodist Church, some of the meetings of which were held at the ROSS home.
It seems reasonably certain that Joseph and Polly had ten children, though one source says there were eight and another reports nine. The source reporting ten children only lists names of eight (which agree with other sources). One child, Auxilla, died as an infant: “The first burial ground in the township… contains some headstones as old as 1804, and one of the first to be interred there was a member of the Joseph ROSS family.” A subsequent daughter was also named Auxilla. Joseph’s sons were Otis, Norman, and Orrin J (also spelled Orin). His daughters were Anna, Betsey, Amanda, Mary, Auxilla (twice), and Matta (or Malta).
Joseph died May 10, 1855, at the age of eighty-one.