Early settlement 18th century About 1787, four brothers Silas, William, Benjamin, and Isaac McCarty, came here from
Bucks County. They were of
Quaker extraction. William and Benjamin bought known as the "John Brady farm." John Brady was one of the earliest settlers in the area. He received a land grant which was awarded to the officers who served in the Bouquet Expedition. He chose land west of present-day Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He built a private stockade on this land in the Spring of 1776, close to present day Muncy, Pennsylvania, which he called "Fort Brady." John Brady's Muncy house was large for its day. He dug a trench around it and emplaced upright logs in that trench side by side all the way around. He filled the trench with dirt and packed the dirt against the logs to hold the log wall solidly in place. This log wall ran about twelve feet high from the ground. He then held this wall in place upright by pinning smaller logs across its top, to keep the wall face steady and solid. The John Brady homestead was perilously close to the leading edge of the frontier of that time, the Susquehanna River. The other side of the Susquehanna was fiercely dominated by the Indians. The Indians resisted settler encroachment on their territory by routinely crossing the Susquehanna to raid the settlers. The settlers just as routinely crossed the Susquehanna to pursue the raiding war parties to retaliate and sometimes to rescue captives taken by the Indians during these raids. In this ongoing skirmishing, both sides committed unspeakable atrocities on the other, which drove a long-lasting cycle of revenge for revenge brutalities between the settlers and Indians. It was in the midst of this extreme danger and violence that Major John Brady chose to settle his family, which set the stage for what happened to him and for what so greatly impacted and influenced his family—especially, his sons, Continental Army Captain
Samuel Brady of Brady's Leap fame and
Hugh Brady, who became a
Major General in the
United States Army. The McCarty brothers divided up the former Brady land, with William taking the portion between what is now West Water Street and
Muncy Creek, and Benjamin that portion between West Water Street and the southern boundary. Main Street now represents what was then the boundary between the Brady farm and Isaac Walton's. In 1797, ten years after coming to Muncy, Benjamin McCarty conceived the idea of starting a town, and began laying out lots on what is now Main Street, and sold them to different parties. His example was followed by his brother William, north of Water street, and by Isaac Walton. The town was named Pennsborough in honor of the
William Penn.
19th century The town grew slowly and was nothing but a village for many years. More than a quarter of a century passed before an act of incorporation was applied for. Finally, by act approved March 15, 1826, it was incorporated as a borough. On January 19, 1827, with a population of less than 600, the name was changed from Pennsborough to Muncy. This was done because many persons thought it was "too flat and long," and the new name would be more in accordance with the historical associations of the place, and serve to perpetuate the name of the tribe that first dwelt there, a tribe of
Lenape, named
Monseys. One of the common misconceptions about United States history prior to the
Civil War is that all the citizens of the northern states were against
slavery. In fact many of the "Yankees", were all for slavery, especially in states closer to the
Confederacy like Pennsylvania,
Ohio and
Delaware. There were more than a few abolitionists in Pennsylvania, and Enos Hawley, a
Quaker citizen of Muncy, was one of the most prominent
abolitionists in Lycoming County. Hawley, a
tanner by trade, was, like most Quakers, a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery. The rioters were
indicted in September and went to
trial in October, when thirteen of the eighteen rioters were found guilty as charged. The
jury's
deliberation was quite a long process. ==Geography==