USA > New York > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 19
USA > Pennsylvania > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 19
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In this resolution is the key to the conduct of affairs at Wyoming for the next two years. It constituted a military plantation. Pursuant to the resolution, one hundred ten men, under the command of Major John Durkee, and with some of the "First Forty" entered the valley, May 12th. They were joined a few days later by one hundred fifty more. Twenty cabins, surrounded by a palisade, were erected and when completed, it was called Fort Durkee. It stood on the river bank in the present city of Wilkes-Barre. Farming occupations were begun on the Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth and Kingston meadows.
Colonel Turbutt Francis, representing the Proprietaries of Pennsyl- vania, with sixty armed men appeared, June 22nd, before Fort Durkee and demanded its surrender, which was refused. This armed invasion may be considered the commencement of the conflict, known as the First Yankee-Pennamite War.
In September, David Meade, a surveyor and one of the occupants of Fort Durkee, ran the lines of the five gratuity townships, Kingston, Wilkes- Barre, Nanticoke (later called Hanover), Pittston, and Plymouth. That month, there was a skirmish between the Yankees and Pennamites. November 11th, Captain Ogden made a sudden attack and captured a number of Yankees, including Major Durkee, who was put in irons and sent to the Philadelphia jail. The next day, Sheriff Jennings arrived with a posse of two hundred men, and on the 14th, the fort surrendered, four- teen Yankees, being permitted to remain at Wyoming, in care of the cattle and crops, but they were soon plundered of their possessions and driven from the valley.
In January 1770, Zebulon Butler and Ebenezer Backus, agents of the Susquehanna Company, enlisted the services of Lazarus Stewart and the Paxtang Boys, by offering them one of the gratuity townships; and the following month, forty of these dreaded rangers entered the Wyoming Valley and quickly dispossessed the Pennamites. Ogden soon returned with a considerable force and occupied the blockhouse at Mill Creek. Major Durkee with a Yankee force and stock of provisions and supplies rein- forced Fort Durkee and soon attacked the Pennamites at Mill Creek. Baltzer Stager, the first victim of the war was killed. The Yankees built a blockhouse on the Kingston side of the river, and from this began to cannonade Ogden's blockhouse with the cannon, they had captured from the Pennamites. The store houses were burned, and, April 8th, Ogden surrendered and left the Yankees in undisputed possession.1,1
During the summer, the success of the Yankees was viewed by the
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Pennamites with dismay; but, in September, a sheriff's posse of one hundred forty, and Ogden, left Fort Allen and marched with great celerity and secrecy, by the Old Warrior's Path. They suddenly entered the valley, surprising the Yankees, who were in small parties, at work in the fields. Many of these were captured. Ogden withdrew, as suddenly as he came, to his bivouac on the Warrior's Path. There was gloom and confusion, at Fort Durkee, but it was determined to send four messengers, that night, to Cushietunk for aid. As the Yankees conceived, Ogden would anticipate this move and have forces, on the Cushietunk and Wind Gap roads, to intercept the messengers, they were sent by the little used War- rior's Path, and consequently fell into Ogden's bivouac. They were cap- tured and from them, learning of the confusion at Fort Durkee, Ogden determined to immediately attack it. The assault was so sudden, the Yankees were completely surprised. Several of them were killed, and Zebulon Butler was saved, from a bayonet thrust aimed at his breast, only by the humanity and timely interposition of Captain Craig, one of the Pennamite officers. The next morning Ogden crossed the river and cap- tured Kingston village, now Forty Fort. Seventeen Yankees and their families were permitted to remain, and the Pennamites left a force of eighteen to guard the valley.
At 3 o'clock in the morning of December 18, 1770, the fort, now in possession of the Pennamites, was entered by a detachment of the Paxtang Rangers, under Lazarus Stewart, and the little garrison immediately sur- rendered.
This seesaw of the contending forces still continued, and January 18, 1771, the sheriff of Northampton county with a posse of one hundred men began the erection of Fort Wyoming on the river bank, near the present Northampton street. Two days later, during either, an attack on Fort Durkee or a parley, as the Pennamites contended, Nathan Ogden, a brother of Amos was killed. That night, Lazarus Stewart and most of the rangers fled. The remaining Yankees were taken, as prisoners to Easton, and Ogden at Fort Wyoming was in complete possession of the valley.
Early in July, Butler and Stewart, at the head of one hundred and fifty New Englanders began the siege of Fort Wyoming. The old cannon was resurrected from its hiding place, by the Yankees; and, to assist the cannonade, Obadiah Gore, a Connecticut blacksmith made a cannon from a sour gum tree, but it exploded with such terrific effect, that its iron bands were hurled a thousand feet across the Susquehanna. The siege con- tinued during July and August, and the besieged became so desperate, that Ogden determined on a daring scheme to secure relief.
As the sentinel paced his beat, he saw an object, floating in the dark water, below. His suspicion, being aroused, he fired. A volley from the soldiers followed, and the floating object was riddled with bullets, but it did not sink and drifted on in the gentle current. The soldiers were dis- armed of their suspicions, that it might be a messenger from the fort floating in the water. The ingenuity of Captain Ogden insured his escape. He tied his clothes in a bundle which he fastened to a log. To this he connected
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a string tied to his arm. Swimming on his back, so deeply, as only to keep his mouth out of the water, he drew the decoy after him, but at a distance of more than a hundred feet. As he anticipated, he escaped observation, and the floating bundle drew the sentinel's fire. Far below the fort, Ogden swam ashore, dressed and proceeded rapidly over the mountains, and on the third day thereafter was in Philadelphia.
The Pennamites hastily responded to Ogden's disclosure and Captain Dick with thirty men and provisions was dispatched to the relief of the besieged garrison, but the Yankees ambushed him in the mountains. He lost the provisions and horses, but he and Ogden and some twenty men succeeded in escaping to Fort Wyoming. This disaster discouraged the Pennamites and the hungry garrison surrendered August 15, 1771. This ended the first Yankee-Pennamite War.12
The failure of the Pennamites to evict the Yankees and maintain pos- session of the disputed land was due to the inherent weakness of the provincial government, the antipathy of many Pennsylvanians to the pro- prietaries, to the parsimony of Thomas Penn, who constantly grumbled about the great expanse, and to the opposition of many residents of Lan- caster and Northampton counties.
The success of the Yankees was largely due to themselves, as the Sus- quehanna Company was so poor, it had to beg and borrow the meager support it gave the settlers. The inspiration actuating them was the American colonist's natural craving for better and cheaper land.
No longer bewitched and bedeviled by the Pennamites, the Yankees, with one brief interruption, enjoyed peace for seven years, during which the population rapidly increased. Immigrants poured into the Wyoming Valley from New England, New York, New Jersey and even Pennsyl- vania. In the first five townships, the farms were allotted, the lands cleared, fields fenced and substantial log houses and barns built. Five new town- ships were established, Exeter and Providence in the north and Newport, Salem and Huntington in the south. Lying far inland, the settlers had to rely upon themselves for the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life. Sawmills and gristmills were erected and tan yards and distilleries con- structed. Skilled craftsmen came from Connecticut, the land of ingenuity, including : carpenters, cabinet makers, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, shoemakers, saddlers, masons, potters, tailors, weavers, loom makers, spinning wheel makers, reed and comb makers. There were few physicians, but the old granny women and herb doctors kept the people in tolerable health. Their greatest blessing was, that there were no lawyers to bother them. They had a settled minister and various itinerants also conducted divine worship. Their greatest glory was the establishment of free public schools. The town- ships were divided into districts, in each of which a log school house was erected, and the teachers were paid, from the income of the lands, which had been set aside for that purpose.
The fertile lowlands yielded abundant crops of wheat, corn, rye, oats, buckwheat and potatoes, and the orchards they planted bloomed with apples, peaches, pears and plums. In the spring, the sugar maples in the
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hills poured forth their sweet sap and afforded them an abundance of sugar. Great shoals of shad, coming up the Susquehanna every spring, were caught in great quantities and pickled in barrels for winter use ; while the woods, encompassing the valley abounded in wild fowl and game.
During the Pennamite War, the settlers yielded obedience to a mili- tary plantation government, but with peace, the armed camps were broken up and the men dispersed to their farms. Then, there was no organized government and perhaps they needed none for no crimes of consequence are reported ; but the New England preference for organization prevailed and articles of agreement were entered into by all who pledged obedience to the governing directors. But these directors had no real power to settle disputes and finally the Connecticut assembly was induced to exercise jurisdiction, and in January, 1774, it erected all the territory between the Delaware river and a line fifteen miles west of the Susquehanna (com- prising all the Delaware Purchases and some of the Susquehanna Pur- chase) into a vast town called Westmoreland and attached it to Litchfield county, Connecticut. This included Cushietunk and Blooming Grove, the settlement on the Wallenpaupack. This town elected two members of the Connecticut assembly, and a militia regiment was organized and its officers were commissioned by the governor of that colony.13
In September 1775, a considerable number of settlers left Wyoming and established themselves on the West Branch within the limits of the Susquehanna Purchase, but they were dispersed by Dr. William Plunket, judge of Northumberland county and their leaders sent to the Philadelphia jail. This unsuccessful adventure provoked the Pennamites to action, and Dr. Plunket, who was commander of the Northumberland militia, assembled his men to the number of six or seven hundred and prepared for an invasion of Wyoming.
Late in December, this formidable force left Fort Augusta and with bands playing and colors flying slowly wended its way up the Susque- hanna. Never before was Wyoming's peril so great. In the previous war, the inhabitants of the valley were principally men and there was little property to protect. Now, were cleared and cultivated farms well stocked with horses, cattle and sheep, and the comfortable cabins housed numerous families of helpless elderly people, women and children. Zebulon Butler, colonel of the 24th regiment of Connecticut militia, assembled his men, some four hundred, to repel the invaders. They were poorly armed, and some had only pitchforks and scythes. They made their camp on the flats at the mouth of Harvey's creek, in the present village of West Nanticoke. In the evening of the 23rd, Major Garrett sent by Butler had a parley with Plunket, but there was no accommodation. The following morning, leaving Ensign Alden and a guard of twenty men at the encampment, the main Yankee force retired and took position behind a ledge of rocks, which extends above the ravine through which Harvey's creek flows and along the mountain side almost to the brink of the river. This natural rampart of rocks was an impregnable position and behind it, Butler deployed his men to the best advantage. Lazarus Stewart with a force was dispatched
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to the east side of the river to guard its passage, and the right flank was protected by a detachment placed on the mountain above the bluff of the ravine.
As the Pennamites advanced, Alden retreated and joined the main body. When Plunket discerned the Yankee line posted behind the ram- part of rocks, he is said to have exclaimed, "My God, what a breastwork." When the Pennamites approached, Butler ordered his men to fire by platoons, which deceived the enemy as to their numbers. In this skirmish, Hugh McWilliams was killed and three other Pennamites wounded. In the evening Plunket attempted to cross the river, but he was repelled by a deadly fire from Lazarus Stewart's men, and Jesse Lukens son of the surveyor general of Pennsylvania was killed and several other Pennamites wounded. This ended the first day's engagement.
At daybreak, Christmas morning, the Pennamites advanced and the Battle of Rampart Rocks began. The firing was general along both lines. Plunket's men stormed the barricade, but were driven back with consider- able loss. A force attempted to turn, the Yankee right flank, but the men Butler had posted above the bluff beat back their assailants. Although the engagement continued, until nightfall, no impression was made on the Yankee lines. The futility of further assault being apparent, Plunket ordered a retreat. They fled down the west side of the river and were pursued by Lazarus Stewart and his rangers.
The Yankee loss was four men killed and some ten or fifteen wounded, and that of the Pennamites was quite severe.14
In 1776, the town of Westmoreland was erected into Westmoreland county, which continued to function as a regular Connecticut county with- out interference for a period of six years.
Wyoming's history, during the Revolution, is narrated in a subse- quent chapter; but beyond the period and scope of this work are the famous Decree of Trenton, the bitter, bloody last Yankee-Pennamite War following it and the fascinating story of the Fourteenth Commonwealth. However, in conclusion, it is necessary to say, that after thirty years of unparalled strife, Pennsylvania, by the great compromising act of 1799, con- firmed the Connecticut land titles in the following seventeen Connecticut townships laid out before the Decree of Trenton : Salem, Huntington, New- port, Hanover, Plymouth, Kingston, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Exeter, Bed- ford, Northmoreland, Providence, Putnam, Braintrim, Springfield, Clave- rack and Ulster.
NOTES-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1. Susquehanna Papers 2, 64, 65, 66.
2. Ibid, 67, 68, 69.
3. Ibid, 72, 73.
4. Ibid 99.
5. Harvey's History of Wilkes-Barre 1, 441; Miner's History of Wyoming 82; For a thorough discussion of claims of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, see Hoyt's
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Brief of Title in Seventeen Townships and address of William Brewster, "The Connecticut Claim," at exercises at Wyoming Monument in 1939. All agree that the legal title was in Connecticut and that the settlement of the New York boundary did not affect lands west of New York. A Pennsylvania historian, Mr. Sidney G. Fisher agrees that the settlement of the New York boundary was no defense of the Pennsylvania claim, but he contends the king could change his mind, which is a new, novel and absurd defense.
6. Harvey's History of Wilkes-Barre 1, 451, 452; Miner's History of Wyoming 106, 107.
7. Susquehanna Papers 3, 43; Pa. Archives 2nd series, 18, 58.
8. The First Forty: Asahel Atherton, Ezra Belding, Thomas Bennet, Silas Bingham, Richard Brockway, Elijah Buck, William Buck, John Comstock, Reuben Davis, Jonathan Dean, Nathan Denison, Simeon Draper, Thomas Dyer, Vine Elder- kin, Benjamin Follett, Joseph Frink, Samuel Gaylord, Joshua Hall, Stephen Gardner, Peter Harris, Stephen Harding, John Jenkins, Stephen Jenkins, Zerubabel Jearum, Cyprian Lothrop, Timothy Pierce, Benajah Pendleton, or Pembleton, Elias Roberts, Elijah Shoemaker, Benjamin Shoemaker Sr., Oliver Smtih, Timothy Smith, Isaac Tripp, Henry Dow Tripp, Rudolph Brink Vanorman, Nathan Walsworth, Theophilus Westover, Allen Weightman, Benjamin Yale and Job Yale.
9. Susquehanna Papers 3, 91, 92.
10. Ibid, 96; Pa. Archs. 3rd series 18, 63.
11. Miner History of Wyoming, 107 to 121; Harvey, History of Wilkes-Barre, 1, 475 to 477; Susquehanna Papers 3, 150, 200, 214; Brewster History of Kingston Chapter 2.
12. Chapman History of Wyoming 70 to 87; Miner History of Wyoming 125 to 135; Harvey History of Wilkes-Barre 2, 669 to 706; Susquehanna Papers 4, 154, 160, 162, 164, 166, 241, 245; Col. Recs. 9, 715, 716, 748, 750; Brewster History of Kingston, Chapter 3.
13. See Chapman, Stone, Miner, Harvey and Brewster histories.
14. Ibid.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TICONDEROGA
Twenty-one days after the Battle of Lexington, Ticonderoga was cap- tured. It was the first complete American victory ; and while achieved by New England men, the exploit was accomplished on the northern New York frontier. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts early recognized its strategic importance and commissioned Benedict Arnold to effect its, capture. Even earlier, individual members of the Connecticut Assembly, upon their own responsibility provided money and sent Edward Mott and Noah Phelps, as agents to accomplish it. Passing through Connecticut and western Massachusetts, they enlisted some forty men in their enter- prise, and arrived at the Catamount Tavern, at Bennington, where they found Ethan Allen. The tavern was so called, because its sign was a large catamount stuffed and mounted on a tall pole, with its open jaws and savage, protruding teeth facing the west, as a warning that all New Yorkers should beware.
Allen was a man of gigantic stature, bluff and bold, who feared noth- ing, a professed atheist, who abhored all Gods, whether Jehovah or otherwise. He was, however, kindly, charitable and strictly honest. So honest, that this long told tale well illustrates his character. In later years, when financially embarrassed and sued on a note, he employed a lawyer to obtain a continuance of the case brought against him. The lawyer stated the note was a forgery. Stop!", thundered Allen, as he rose and strode before the court, and to the abashed and cringing lawyer said, "I didn't hire you to come here and lie, but to obtain a continuance, so I could have time to pay my honest debts. I signed it."
Bennington and the Catamount Tavern were, then, the headquarters of the settlers living in the outlawed territory west of the Connecticut river and north of Massachusetts and called the New Hampshire grants. It was so designated, because Benning Wentworth, royal governor of New Hampshire, with little legal claim to the territory, began, as early as 1749, granting lands within that section. Induced by the remunerative patent fees paid him, Wentworth issued his grants by the basket full, to all, who applied and paid, so that by 1764, when stopped by action of the crown officials, he had chartered one hundred thirty-eight townships and granted the land therein. These grants were greedily obtained by sturdy
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young New England farmers, who when the French and Indian War ended, swarmed, like bees, from Connecticut and Massachusetts to the Green Mountains. New York protested against the Wentworth grants and proclaimed the New Hampshire settlers intruders and outlaws. The governor of New York patented large tracts, covering the Wentworth grants, and these patentees began ejecting the New Hampshire men from their farms.
The Allen boys, Ethan, Heber, Heman, Levi and Ira, restless spirits, living on stony farms in northern Connecticut, secured some choice New Hampshire grants of fertile land and moved to the Green Mountains. When the New York grantees began evicting the settlers, by common consent, Ethan Allen was chosen leader of the New Hampshire men. Allen began their defense by written argument and contests in the courts, but his lawyers were bowled out by the corrupt New York judges. Realizing, peaceful defense was of no avail, Allen gathered about him a little army, called the Green Mountain Boys, of which he was elected colonel. His resistance was not a campaign of warfare and bloodshed, nor of murder and assassination, but one equally as effectual and irresistible. New York surveyors, agents and settlers were warned off and driven out under penalty of death if they returned. One obnoxious New Yorker was seized, stripped half naked, strapped to a chair and hoisted up the pole directly under the threatening catamount of the Bennington tavern and left suspended there for hours. When released, he was so mortified and terrified, that he fled and never returned.
Such insults, shame and degradation, the New York emissaries could not stand and few ventured across the border.
The real purpose, of the Connecticut agents, was to win the support of Allen, and they, probably, had a secret commission, in their pockets, appointing him commander of the Ticonderoga expedition. Allen says in his narrative; "Directions were, privately sent me from the colony of Connecticut, to raise the Green Mountain Boys, and if possible with them to surprise and take the fortress of Ticonderoga." The wisdom of the Connecticut men is manifest, for there was, probably, no other man, in the colonies, of sufficient skill and daring to take the strongest fortification in Colonial North America without the loss of blood.
Allen sent his couriers through the countryside and in an incredibly short time, two hundred and thirty of the most valiant Green Mountain Boys gathered at Bennington. They marched immediately to Castleton, arriving May 7th. Benedict Arnold, who had been hurrying across Mass- achusetts, arrived there, only, to find his ambitious plans anticipated. He produced his Massachusetts commission and demanded the command be turned over to him. But, the Green Mountain Boys would have nothing to do with Arnold and flourishing their guns, hurrahed and shouted they would follow no leader but Ethan Allen. Baffled, Arnold submitted and was permitted to serve as a volunteer, but without command.
A detachment was sent to capture Skenesborough at the head of Lake Champlain, seize the boats there and stifle all communication with Ticon-
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deroga. By a rapid march, Allen reached Shoreham opposite Ticonderoga, the night of May 9th. There, he impressed as his guide a young lad, named Nathan Beeman, who played with the boys of the garrison and knew all the ins and outs of the fort. Crossing the lake was slow business, because of the scarcity of boats, and only eighty-three men had crossed to the western shore, when the first beams of morning light, admonished Allen that he could tarry no longer. He ordered his men to file in, briefly harrangued them, and then the silent march began up the heights on the summit of which could be discerned the grim, gray outlines of the great stone ramparts. With the boy in the lead followed by Allen and Arnold at his side, the Green Mountain Boys quickly made their way to the southern sally port. The sentinel, at the wicket gate, snapped his gun but it failed and he fled within the fort closely followed by Allen.
The Green Mountain Boys poured through the covered way to the parade ground and formed in two files facing the barracks. Allen with the boy at his side, sprang up the outside stairway, which led to the com- mandant's apartment. He banged the door with the hilt of his sword and demanded admittance. Captain Delaplace the commander, partly awake, tumbled out of bed, badly befuddled by the tumult outside, and clad only in his drawers stumbled to the door. He was closely followed by his likewise scantily dressed wife, who held a flickering candle in her trembling hand. Holding his breeches in one hand, with the other he threw open the door and confronted the burly form of Allen who demanded his sur- render. He had wit enough to stammer out, "By whose authority?" "In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," thundered Allen. This was somewhat ironical, for Allen cared naught for Jehovah and Delaplace less for the Continental Congress, but he did care mightily for Allen, who with a terrible oath, swung his huge sword over the captain's head and threatened to cut him asunder, if he did not immediately comply.
Delaplace ordered the garrison to form on the parade ground without arms and Ticonderoga was formerly surrendered. The cooks were routed out and a good hot breakfast with plenty of rum was served Allen and his men. The garrison consisted of five officers and forty-four men; and the spoils were one hundred twenty pieces of iron cannon, fifty swivels, ten tons of musket balls, three cart loads of flints, and a vast amount of other stores.
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