Robert CORBETT

                   In Mass. "Soldiers and Sailors of the war of the Revolution", a work compiled from the archives of the State, it is stated that Robert Corbett of Mendon, Massachusetts was a private in Captain Gershom Nelson's Company which marched on the alarm of April 19,1775, to Cambridge and Roxbury. He was also of Captain Nelson's Company July 19,1776.  Of his brothers, mention is made of Sergeant Nathaniel, Corporal Peter, Privates Eldad, Daniel and John, although the latter would have been but 14, if he was Robert's youngest brother, at the time of the battle of Lexington. Robert's wife, Elizabeth Daniels, came from a family, which had many representatives in the War, also.  After the close of the Revolutionary War the town of Mendon was divided, and the part where Robert Corbett lived was named Milford.  About 1790 he moved with his family to northeastern Pennsylvania, in the vicinity of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna.  Being disappointed in obtaining title to a track of land for which he had bargained, he went to the Susquehanna Valley.  It has also been claimed that he came to this location through the influence of Judge Cooper, of Cooperstown, and as Robert Corbett named his youngest son after Judge Cooper, this story would apparently be a reasonable one.  It must have been a tedious journey from Massachusetts to northern Pennsylvania probably made in a large wagon on the order of the prairie schooner, with some members of the family on horseback. His first location was in the pleasant valley of the Salt Lick Creek, in the county of Luzerne, on territory which was afterwards a portion of New Milford, Susquehanna County.  As he was the first settler of this section, the name of New Milford was doubtless given by him in remembrance of his old home in Milford, Massachusetts.  "In March 1791, the Court of Luzerne ordered the erection of the township of Willingborough, and Robert Corbett, though then where New Milford now is, was a taxable inhabitant.  As early as 1791, the settlers of Mt. Pleasant began opening a road through to Great Bend.  This highway, after reaching the house of Daniel Leach, ran nearly north to the Salt Lick, then to Robert Corbett's, then north six miles to the ferry at Great Bend."  In November 1792, "the court granted a review of the road different man, among whom, Asaph Corbett, then in New Milford, and Asahel Gregory, in what is now Herrick, must have been disinterested parties." Quotations from "The History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania" by Emily C. Blackman, Philadelphia, 1872. Warner Corbett son of Robert Corbett, died aged seven years in 1795, and his gravestone shows that he was the first one buried in the New Milford Cemetery. In 1801, Robert Corbett was taxed as an Innkeeper, among the ninety taxables in Willingborough, and the amount of the tax raised was $810.59. In that year he sold his holdings to Christopher Longstreet, and settled on the land between the two Snake Creeks, bordering the Susquehanna River, just over the New York state line.  A log cabin, midway between these two creeks, became their home until 1804.  Robert with his sons Sewell and Cooper, built their homestead near the Big Snake Creek. A Sawmill and grist mill had been built on this creek, a foundry was added, and they named the new place Corbettsville.  The grist mill continued to turn out flour and feed for more than half a century, the saw mill converted the logs into lumber for seventy-five years or more, and the foundry was converted into a tannery which manufactured leather long after the Civil War.  A stage coach running from Binghamton, New York brought the mail, which was taken care of in the Corbett homestead, in a desk with compartments specially built for that purpose.  The desk was later used in the post office in the general store,
for many years.  About 1869, when the railroad was built, land was given for the station, which was called Conklin, after the township.  At Corbettsville, the virgin soil of the newly cleared land yielded abundant crops.
Their cattle, sheep and swine and fowls furnished them with meat.  The streams teemed with fish; an eel rack was set in the sawmill raceway.  Their bees made honey and sugar bush furnished sweet for their morning pancakes. They made their own butter and cheese. Their wool was sent to a woolen mill above Great Bend to be made into blankets and coverlets.  Guests were always welcome.  The Corbett home was a regular stopping place for the ministers; divine service was held often.  These were the days of true hospitality, no guest or vagrant ever left the door of the Corbett home hungry.  Cornelia Bayless, Robert's daughter-in-law, said that he was a small man, very much of a gentleman, dressed well, wore something of a Quaker dress, and shoe buckles, which were handed down to his grandson Robert.  He was a good scholar. From all accounts, it must have been the spring or early summer of 1791 before the family arrived in New Milford, as Cooper was not born until Oct. 1790, at Milford, Massachusetts.  (Melvin C. Corbett)