The following is quoted from Thomas Murphy's 1928 History of Lackawanna County . 1 (Remember that references to now or today refer to 1928 and do not necessarily reflect life in 2003.)
IN the early settlements of our county, what are known as blast furnaces nad foundaries were then known as forges. The first of these forges within the limits of Luzerne County was built in 1879 [sic - 1789?] by Dr William Hooker Smith and James SUtton on the south bank of the Lackawanna River right at the entrance to the bridge and on the present site of the Riverside Hotel, Old Forge Borough. The second forge in the county was built in Scranton (Slocum Hollow), in 1800.
The Smith-Sutton industrial was henceforth referred to as the Old FOrge in distinction to the Scranton plant, a name which the present municipality still holds.
Dr Smith had come into Wyoming from his native New York in 1772. Except for Dr Sprague, mentioned later, he was the only physician between Cochecton and Sunbury. In 1779 he accompanied General Sullivan on his march against the Indians. On the formation of Luzerne County in 1786 Dr Smith was one of the original justices of the county. His commission was signed by Benjamin Franklin. He made many purchases of land to "dig iron ore and stone coal." The forge which he and his partner operated for years finally gave way to strong competition from up the Lackawanna and down the Susquehanna where ore was found in the greater quantity and of better quality. He removed to Tunkhannock where he died in 1815, aged 91 years.
The Smith-Sutton forge took the place of hte first grist mill built by one Hollister in 1744 and operated by water power taken from the river through a canal, the ruins of which form part of the substructure of the present Cinderella Hotel. A well constructed sawmill operated in conjunction with the gristmill. In the same year Solomon Strong purchased the whole outfit and on July 6, 1775, sold out to Garritt Brinkerkoof. Three years after (1778) both mills were destroyed by the Indians and the ruins washed away by floods, leaving the residence of Ebenezer Marcy the only human habitation along the entire river.
In 1771 Dr Joseph Sprague, one of the proprietors of the original grant, came from Hartford and plotted all the land lying between Pittstown (Pittston) and Slocum Hollow. He built a house and lived with his family on the present site of Main Street, Moosic, until 1774, when he and all his Yankee neighbors were driven away by the "Pennymites." He died in Connecticut the same year. His wife shortly afterward returned and gained a good living by acting as the only accoucheuse between Old Forge and Wilkes-Barre until 1810.
Thomas Smith moved from Nanticoke to Old Forge in 1786 "to get above high water Mark." Cornelius Atherton (of the Taylor Athertons), about this time made the first tailors' shears. He was afterwards employed by the government to manufacture guns and bayonets for the Revolutionary soldiers. He was the first American inventor in the cutlery industry.
For 60 years after the opening of the nineteenth century the settlers were relieved of the misery of Indian outrages, starvation periods, fear of the Pennamites and contested land boundaries.