The Tripp House
Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Isaac Tripp, Scranton''s first settler, built a house here in 1771. His son, Isaac II, began the present building--the oldest in Lackawanna County--about 1778. Both men represented this region in Connecticut''s Assembly. Isaac III enlarged the house in the Federal style, 1812. Col. Ira Tripp remodeled it along Victorian lines during the period 1870-91. The house remained in the family until 1900.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1771, Isaac Tripp became the first settler of what would become Scranton, and by about 1778 his son had begun the building that still stands as the oldest in Lackawanna County. Both men represented the region in Connecticut's Assembly—a reminder of the era when Connecticut claimed this stretch of the Susquehanna Valley. Successive generations reshaped the house in Federal and later Victorian styles, keeping it in the Tripp family until 1900.
Why it matters
The house is a rare survivor of the region's frontier settlement and a tangible record of the contested Connecticut land claims that shaped early northeastern Pennsylvania.
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Related people
- · Isaac Tripp
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rev. William Bishop
Scranton, PA · est. 1948
Born in England in 1749, William Bishop became the first ordained minister to serve the future city of Scranton. Around 1795 he raised a combined log church and dwelling near this spot, where he preached to the scattered settlers of the region until moving on; he died in nearby Scott Township in 1816. His humble log meetinghouse was among the first institutions of faith in the Lackawanna Valley.
Keyser Creek
Taylor, PA · est. 1948
In 1769, three families led by Timothy Keys, Solomon Hocksey, and Andrew Hickman built the first European homes in what became Lackawanna County, settling along the creek that now bears Keys's name. The frontier peace did not hold: in July 1778, amid the violence of the Revolutionary borderlands, Keys and others were killed in an Indian raid. Their brief settlement marks the earliest European foothold in the valley.
Elder Miller
Waverly Township, PA · est. 1948
Born in Connecticut in 1775, Elder Miller joined the stream of New England settlers who pushed into northeastern Pennsylvania's Abington region around 1800. On his own farm he hosted the township's first church and its first school, serving his neighbors as both preacher and teacher until his death in 1857. His homestead became the seedbed of community life on a raw frontier.
Forty Fort
Forty Fort, PA · est. 1947
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