Program

Hometown Heritage™

Subject

Industry & Commerce, People

Location

1340 Wilkes Barre Turnpike, Montrose, PA 18801, USA

Lat/Long

41.903821, -75.91614

Grant Recipient

Apalachin Lions Club

In 1809, Dr. Robert H. Rose acquired 248 land tracts, estimated at over 99,000 acres of land in total, in what was then Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The following year, Susquehanna County was formed from part of Luzerne County and in 1813, Dr. Rose helped to establish the township of Silver Lake in the new county. He served as the first postmaster of Silver Lake until his death and as the first president of the Silver Lake Bank, founded in 1817.

Over the next several decades, Dr. Rose sold lots of land to those who would agree to directly reside on and develop the property. As early as 1809, he advertised in newspapers “to settlers,” noting the good quality soil for farming and offering land at $2.50 to $3 dollars per acre. By 1816, “several hundred farms” had been established in Silver Lake (“Some Account of Susquehannah [sic] County; Accompanied by a View of Silver Lake, The Seat of Robert H. Rose, Esq.,” Port Folio, June 1816).

Eventually, Dr. Rose would target specific populations to come to Silver Lake. In 1841, he advertised the area’s good farmland and schools that had been established in the township in order to attract new residents, including Irish immigrants to the United States. In the October 30, 1841 edition of the Irish paper, The Tipperary Free Press, his letter to the Committee of Irish Emigration of New York was published in which he encouraged Irish families to come to Silver Lake. In the letter, he stated there were “many hundreds of Irish families” already residing in the surrounding county and he estimated that three hundred of these families had settled in Silver Lake.

Shortly after this, Dr. Rose passed away in Silver Lake on February 24, 1842 at 65 years old. Historian Emily C. Blackman’s 1873 History of Susquehanna County noted that “Perhaps to no one individual is Susquehanna County more indebted for the early development of its resources than to Dr. Rose.”