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Sanderson lent intelligence, integrity to city

He came to Scranton in 1855, and his work shaped the land itself and the
lives of the people who lived here.

George Sanderson Sr. was born on Feb. 25, 1810. Early in life, he set out to
make his own way in the mercantile business in New York. From there, he
moved to Northeast Pennsylvania, married Marion W. Kingsbury and settled
in Towanda, where he practiced law with the Honorable David Wilmot of
Wilmot Proviso fame. Mr. Sanderson served his county as district attorney
and his state in its Senate. That is where he met George W. Scranton, whose
praises of the growing area named for him influenced Mr. Sanderson to move
here.

He put his intelligence, integrity and energy to work toward the young city's
development and progress.

Like many of his contemporaries, Mr. Sanderson had a hand in a number of

different enterprises. When he first came to this city, he started the banking
house of George Sanderson & Co, which later merged to form the
Lackawanna Trust & Safe Deposit Co. In 1857, he and partner Edward N.
Willard opened a law office on Lackawanna Avenue, then the primary
commercial street in town. The partnership dissolved when Mr. Willard went into active service in the Civil War in 1864. Mr.
Sanderson then retired from the law.

Much of the city's land was undeveloped at this time. Mr Sanderson built his first residence, a handsome two-story home, on a site
across town from his law office. In between lay a swamp. A short distance from Mr. Sanderson's home, Elisha Hitchcock lived in a
humble, one-and-a-half-story frame house at what is now Monroe Avenue and Linden Street, and 220 acres of farmland surrounded
it. In 1854, Mr. Hitchcock sold the farm to Mr. Sanderson, who plotted it into lots for a fine residential neighborhood that marked th e
edge of the city.

At the time, the city ended at Vine Street. Green Ridge was a wooded suburb, more wilderness than residential area. George
Sanderson was one of the first to move there. He built a home on what is now Sanderson Avenue. To facilitate transportation t o and
from the downtown, he and a number of associates obtained a charter for the Scranton and Providence Passenger Rai lway Co. in
1866 and built a road that began on Lackawanna Avenue and went as far as Sanderson Avenue and East Market Street. The cars
were pulled by horses.

But Green Ridge was about to undergo a great change, and Mr. Sanderson would play an important role in that change.

A wide gap existed between the outer edge of Central City, around Vine Street, and Green Ridge. Nearly midway between Vine
Street and his residence, and in line with Capouse Avenue, was a large knoll some 30 to 40 feet in height. To the west of this knoll,
the land was lower with several hollows. The Lackawanna Iron & Coal Co. owned all of this land. About 1880, the company level ed
the knoll and used the gravel and soil to fill in the hollows.

Green Ridge was now suitable for development. Mr. Sanderson purchased the Whaling farm and became its chief developer. In
1886, Edward B. Sturges began construction of a project that would contribute further to the development of Green Ridge - the
Scranton Suburban Railway Co. The city's first electric trolley system made travel between the downtown and the suburb of Green
Ridge easy and inexpensive. Mr. Sanderson served as secretary of this innovative new company.

George Sanderson left a lasting imprint on the city he adopted and helped to grow. The H ill Section continued to develop. Green
Ridge became an important neighborhood. The bank he founded continued to thrive. And the electric trolley revolutionized
transportation.

CHERYL A. KASHUBA is a freelance writer specializing in local history. Visit her at scrantonhistory.com. Contact the writer:
localhistory@ timesshamrock.com