USA > New York > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 22
USA > Pennsylvania > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
At a meeting, held at noon, Butler, Denison, Dorrance, Garrett and other prudent leaders urged that a battle be delayed until expected rein- forcements arrived; but Stewart and the impetuous ones who followed him insisted there be no delay. It is said Stewart openly charged Butler with cowardice. Be that as it may, the great majority sustained Stewart ; and about 1 o'clock, a little over three hundred men left Forty Fort and took the Great Road, as Wyoming Avenue was then called and marched forth to their doom. After a delay at Abraham's creek, a natural position for defense, where the cautious leaders contended the battle line should be
185
formed Stewart again had his way. The march was resumed and the battle line formed parallel with the present Fourth Street, Wyoming Borough, and extending from the bluff overlooking the lowlands on the right to the swamp on the left. Colonel Butler, Major Garrett and Captain Robert Durkee commanded the right wing and Colonel Denison, Lieutenant Colonel Dorrance and Captain Samuel Ransom commanded the left wing. These field officers were mounted.
As the Americans formed, Major Butler fired Fort Wintermute and ordered Fort Jenkins burned. The rising smoke, as Butler designed, deceived the Americans with the belief the British were retreating and quickened their advance. The thin and feeble line, extending nearly two thousand feet across the plain, moved quickly through the woods. The flanks on either side were unprotected and the center unsupported by a reserve. The bluff curves away from the river, and consequently the dis- tance to the swamp being less, the American line closed up considerably at the point of conflict.
Major Butler posted his men, in a fine open wood west of Fort Win- termute and a little north and parallel with the present Valley Avenue, and for their safety ordered them to lie flat on the ground. He had between six and eight hundred men; and posted the rangers, under his immediate command, on the left and in the center, and on the right and concealed in the swamp, flanking the American line were stationed the Indians under Sayenqueraghta. Under him were the most adroit war chiefs of the Seneca nation, including, Roland Montour, Governor Blacksnake, Captain Pollard, Little Beard and Stuttering John Montour, who each commanded a band of skillful and unrelenting warriors. Butler, having removed his uniform and the insignia of his rank, and with only a black handkerchief tied round his head to distinguish him, lay down in the ranks and coolly awaited the conflict.
Within six hundred feet of his line, the Americans began firing by platoons and three volleys were discharged. An Indian flanking party on the right, concealed in the brush under the bank of the bluff, wounded Lieutenant Daniel Gore and mortally wounded Captain Durkee, but they were dislodged and driven back. The rangers rose from the ground, fell back some distance and fired. They were pursued by Captain Hewitt's company, who mistook their movement for a retreat ; and thus the Amer- ican right wing got some thirty rods in advance of the left wing, when suddenly the hideous warwhoops of the Indians sounded and the savage war- riors poured from the swamp and began the destruction of the left wing. Outflanked by the Indians, who were now a considerable distance in his rear, Colonel Denison ordered Captain Whittlesey to fall back and form an angle to the main line and protect its flank. This was mistaken for an order to retreat and the whole left wing, terrified by the yells of the savages, was thrown into indescribable confusion and panic. They not only carried the center with them but also the right wing. Colonel Dor- rance was shot and thus disabled fell into the Indian's hands. Butler and Denison were unable to check the flight and Major Garrett was killed.
186
The only part of the line intact was held by the Continental com- pany under Captain Hewitt. Confronted by the terrible disaster, an officer said to Hewitt: "The day is lost, see the Indians are sixty rods in our rear, shall we retreat" "I'll be damned if I do," was his answer and to the lad at his side he shouted, "Drummer strike up." Just then, a bullet struck him dead and the last of the crumbling line gave way in a pandemonium of flight.
The battle, which began at 5 o'clock, lasted about thirty minutes. Colonels Butler and Denison, being mounted managed to escape and reached Forty Fort. Encompassed on all sides, the fugitives ran hither and thither. The only avenue of escape was the river. Roger Searle and William Buck fleeing thence were pursued by an Indian, who shouted "Me give quarter." Buck paused was seized and slain. Anning Owen and Ben- jamin Carpenter, in hiding, saw Elijah Shoemaker plunge in the river, and heard Henry Windecker, a Tory, in pursuit, say, "Shoemaker come back, I'll protect you." Windecker grasped his hand to help him up the bank and then struck him dead with his tomahawk. William Hammond, swimming to Monacanuk Island, was promised protection by Secord, a Tory, who slew him. Cyprian Hibbard and Samuel Carey were pursued. Hibbard was killed and Carey captured. The next morning, Roland Mon- tour who took him under his protection, went to a dying warrior and persuaded him to consent to Carey's adoption by his parents, and thus his life was saved. Henry Pencil, hiding behind a log, was discovered by his brother, John, a Tory, who said, "So it's you." Henry implored, "You wont kill your brother?" John stood on the log with pointed gun, and replied, "Yes, I'd as soon kill you, as look at you, you damned rebel." He pulled the trigger and to make sure his brother was dead, sunk his hatchet in his skull and scalped him. This is the terrible and celebrated story of "The Fratricide of Wyoming," which is pretty well authenticated.
Butler, the Christian head of all this deviltry passed the night on this field of woe, seemingly undisturbed, save, it is said, by a nausea caused by the effluvium of burning flesh. The Indians made their campfires in the woods south of the battlefield and around them, grouped in bands, each of which had its own peculiar method of torment and torture. Some thrust splinters of wood into living bodies and tore the hair and nails from their victims ; others disembowled their prisoners and burned them at the stake, tore arms and legs from the sufferers and decapitated the dead. Around the "Bloody Rock," still to be seen, fourteen bodies were found. The scene there enacted was ascertained from Lebbeus Hammond who escaped. The prisoners, each held by an Indian encircled the rock, and each victim had his head pressed against the rock by the savages, while Queen Esther with a heavy maul dashed out his brains. Hammond, seeing his turn approaching, slipped from the clutches of the Indian who held him, sprang into the brush and escaped. Nine other bodies were found in another circle, from which, it is said, Joseph Elliott escaped.
In the morning, while the squaws were seen, "fixing the scalps on bows and scraping off the flesh and blood and carefully drying them," the
187
Tory, Philip Wintermute escorted Mrs. John Jenkins over the field and said to her, "Look but don't seem to see." She saw charred corpses smouldering on piles of burning logs, legs, arms and heads lying about and mutilated bodies everywhere. Colonel Dorrance, wounded and cap- tured while being taken to Forty Fort for ransom, became exhausted and his captors killed him and divided his scalp, sword, cocked hat and coat between them. This was the last life taken.
Major Butler's official report stated that two hundred and twenty- seven scalps and only five prisoners were taken in the action. The number of slain, listed on the monument at Wyoming is one hundred seventy-three, and the number of survivors fifty. The number engaged, according to Colonel Denison, was over three hundred, consequently, there must have been more slain than listed, indicating Butler's report is more nearly correct.
Forty Fort was surrendered, July 4th at 4 p.m .; and the capitulation provided for destruction of the forts, the inhabitants not to rearm but remain on their farms, their lives to be preserved and their property spared, so far as Butler's influence could prevail. The property taken from the Tories was to be made good and they to remain peaceably on their farms.
As a matter of fact, no women and children were killed during the invasion, but plundering immediately began and a wild panic seized the survivors, who began to flee the night of the battle. Those living in Pittston and Providence fled by Cobb's Gap to the Delaware and never stopped until they reached Goshen and Newburg. They carried with them those living on the Delaware and Wallenpaupack. In Providence, the Hickman family were killed, and Daniel St. John and James Leach were slain above Pittston. Jonathan Fitch, sheriff of Westmoreland county, alone, led more than a hundred women and children by the Warrior Path to Fort Allen. The greatest number went over the wild Pocono mountains to Fort Penn (Stoudsburg). Helpless women and children, unguided and unguarded, wandered through the great swamp, since known as the "Shades of Death." Screeching panthers and howling wolves added to their alarm. Many were lost and others died by the wayside from starvation and exhaustion. An authority has stated that over two hundred perished in this wild flight. Those living in the lower twonships made their way by the road and river to Fort Augusta. They communicated their panic to the settlers living on the West Branch, who also fled. Sunbury was abandoned and Northumberland county broken up, in this "Great Run- away," as it was called. But few remained north of Harrisburg.
Zebulon Butler with a hundred troops reoccupied Wyoming, August 4th; and buried the remains of those slain in the massacre in a common grave, but the intense summer heat had so shriveled the bodies, that none could be recognized. The Indians captured Luke Swetland and Joseph Blanchard, near Wilkes-Barre, and Isaac Tripp his grandson Isaac, James Hocksey and Timothy Keyes in Providence. Tripp was released, his grand- son taken to Canada. and Keyes and Hocksey killed.2 Colonel Thomas Hartley with his regiment marched by the Sheshequin Path to Tioga
188
Point where he destroyed Queen Esther's village. On his return, he fought a slight engagement at the mouth of Tuscarora creek and reached Wilkes-Barre October 4th.3 The Indians continued to ravage Wyoming and the West Branch and a list of their depredations is contained in a note.4
NOTES-CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1. The story, that the Montours, the celebrated Indian halfbreed family were descended from Frontenac, governor of Canada, is fabulous. Lord Cornbury, governor of New York wrote in 1708 (N. Y. Col. Docs. V, 650), that there had come to Albany, from the far Indians (Senecas), one Montour, son of a French gentleman and Indian woman, and that there were also two daughters. Catherine Montour, the first one of whom we have authentic knowledge, considered herself a Seneca, and may have been one of the daughters. In Paris Documents, N. Y. Col. Docs. IX, 601 and 830, there is reference to the wounding by the Mohawks of one Montour, who may have been the father; and also the killing of a Montour, evidently the one mentioned by Cornbury, because he had gone over to the English, by Joncaire, acting under orders of Vaudreuil, governor of Canada. In the Mem- orials of the Moravian church, it is stated, Catherine, Madame Montour first married Roland Montour, a Seneca, by whom she had four sons, Andrew, Henry, Robert and Louis; and that French Margaret was her niece. After his death, she married Carandowna, alias Robert Hunter an Oneida chief. If so Roland Montour may have been the one killed by Joncaire in 1709. Harvey, History of Wilkes-Barre I, page 205, lists Madame Montours children: 1, French Margaret, married Peter Quebec, children; Catherine married Thomas Hutson, children, Roland, John and Belle : Esther (Queen Esther) married Eghobund, Monsey chief, lived at Tioga Point where he died; and Molly : 2, John or Jean; 3, Andrew, Indian name Sattelihu; 4, Henry ; 5, Louis or Lewis. All were prominent and frequently mentioned in the colonial records.
2. For account of battle and massacre, see: Miner, History of Wyoming ; Stone, History of Wyoming; Harvey History of Wilkes-Barre; Brewster, History of Kingston.
3. Pa. Archs. VII, 5.
4. In October, 1778, three soldiers killed on Kingston flats: William Jameson killed, William Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. Hagerman and daughter Leonora, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lester and five children captured in Hanover. Hagerman escaped. In November : John Perkins was killed in Plymouth and the Utley family were murdered in Nescopeck. In December, Isaac Inman was killed in Hanover. In February, 1779, Stephen Pettebone, Asahel Buck and Elihu Williams Sr. were killed and Frederick Follett wounded on Kingston flats opposite Wilkes-Barre. In March : Captain James Bidlack and Josiah Rogers attacked while crossing Kingston flats. Bidlack was captured and Rogers escaped to Kingston Blockhouse. Soldiers from Fort Wyoming drove the Indians to bank of Toby's creek where over two hundred were secreted. An engagement, lasting two hours, ensued but the losses were slight as both sides fought under cover.
The settlers on the West Branch were widely scattered and exposed to attack from the Indians who lived in the upper part of the valley. In June, 1777, Zephaniah Miller, Abel Cady and James Armstrong were killed on the opposite side of the river from Fort Antes. The preceding winter, a man was killed on Sugar Run. The Brown and Benjamin families on the Loyalsock were attacked and the house set on fire, from which the Benjamins fled. Benjamin was killed and his family captured. Brown, his wife and daughter were burned to death. A man, named
189
Satzman was killed on the Sinnemahoning. David Jones was murdered near Far- randsville, and a man killed on Penn's creek and one near the Great Island. In May, 1778; Jacob Stanford, his wife and daughter were killed and son captured in Penn's valley. Six men, while mowing hay a mile above Williamsport, were killed. A man, woman and child were captured near Pine Creek and two men, seven women and children were captured on Lycoming creek. Sixteen persons were killed or captured on the Loyalsock; and Andrew Armrstrong, his son and Nancy Bundy captured near Linden. Captain Berry and party of twelve were destroyed on the Loyalsock, who had they taken the advice of Robert Covenhoven, the only one saved, might have escaped. Of the same party, Peter Schoefelt and Mr. Thomas killed and William Wychoff captured in present Williamsport, and same day, nearby, Mrs. Peter Smith, Mrs. William King, a boy and girl and a Mr. Hammond and Mr. Snodgrass, were killed. In August, James Brady son of the noted Captain John Brady was wounded and subsequently died. A man, named Cottner was killed and Captain Martel wounded near Fort Muncy, erected by Colonel Hartley, shortly before October 2nd; two sergeants of Hartley's regiment killed near Fort Muncy.
190
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FRANCES SLOCUM
The most fascinating episode of the frontier is the story of Frances Slocum. About midday November 2, 1778, three Delaware Indians stealthily approached the house of Jonathan Slocum, a Quaker, who with his wife, six sons and three daughters, lived within half a mile of the fort at Wilkes-Barre. A gunshot startled Mrs. Slocum, who looked out of the window and saw the savages scalping Nathan Kingsley, aged fifteen years, who with his brother Wareham had been sharpening a knife on a, grindstone in the front yard. Wareham ran to the house. Mrs. Slocum slammed the door behind him and screamed to her children to run. Then, clasping her seven weeks old son in her arms, she ran and hid in the swamp back of the house. Mary Slocum, aged ten, took in her arms, her year and a half old brother, Joseph and fled towards the fort, the Indians laughing at her efforts to escape, which they did not attempt to prevent. Meanwhile, Frances Slocum, aged five years and seven months and Ware- ham Kingsley hid under the staircase and would have escaped, but Frances' feet protruding, they were detected and seized. The fourteen year old Ebenezer Slocum, being crippled, was unable to flee and easily captured. Mrs. Slocum ran from her concealment and implored the Indians to release her children. Pointing to her crippled son, she said, "He can do thee no good." They delivered him to her. One Indian shouldered the plunder, another the Kingsley boy and the third little Frances, who struggled, screamed and kicked. This was the last time the mother saw her golden haired child. Alarmed by the shot, soldiers from the fort ran toward the Slocum house and met the fleeing Mary with her little brother. A futile pursuit of the savages was made. The following December, the father and his son-in-law, Isaac Tripp were killed by the Indians, and his son William Slocum wounded, but he managed to escape.
The taking of the Slocum girl differed little from many other captures on the frontier, but her discovery after sixty years and the reunion of the family tinged it with romance. Mrs. Slocum never despaired of recover- ing her lost child, and her sons made several journeys to the Indian coun- try in quest of their sister, but after the death of the mother, they lost all hope of her recovery.
Colonel George W. Ewing, an Indian trader, living at Logansport,
191
Indiana, while on a trip through the Miami Indian reservation, in 1835, stayed one night with an Indian family at Deaf Man's village on the Mississeneva river. It was the home of the widow of an Indian chief, who was known by Colonel Ewing to be a white woman. After supper, the old woman kept him up with conversation about her farm, until the other members of the family had retired, when she told him she had something to impart. She spoke in the Miami language, and only told him, because she was old, then ill and expected to die. She said she had been captured, when a mere child from a place on the Susquehanna river, near a fort, that her father named Slocum was a Quaker and wore a broadbrim hat, and she had many brothers and sisters, she presumed all dead, as she believed herself to be about eighty years old.
Colonel Ewing, on his return home, wrote a letter detailing the in- formation he had received, with a request his letter be published in a newspaper and addressed it to the postmaster at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The postmistress, there was Mrs. Mary Dickson, who was also published of the Intelligencer, a newspaper of that place. Strangely enough, she did not realize its importance and laid it away among other letters, where it remained until 1837, when it passed to her successor. He discovered it and handed it to John W. Forney, who had purchased the Intelligencer, from Mrs. Dickson. Recognizing its importance, he gave it prominent publication in an 1837 issue of his paper, which featured the temperance and religious activities of the community. This was another strange and advantageous circumstance, for the religious features of the issue, attracted the attention of Rev. Samuel Bowman, rector of the Episcopal church in Lancaster, who procured a copy, and thereby chanced to read the Ewing letter. It happened, that Mr. Bowman had been born and reared in Wilkes- Barre, knew the Slocum family and had often heard the story of Frances Slocum's abduction. Otherwise the Ewing letter would, probably, have been overlooked, as Wilkes-Barre was then a long ways from Lancaster.
This play, of real facts, fit together as well as a fine plot in a superb work of fiction and give the story of Frances Slocum another tinge of romance. Mr. Bowman forwarded the publication to Joseph Slocum at Wilkes-Barre, who corresponded with Colonel Ewing; and made arrange- ments with his brother Isaac, who lived near Sandusky Ohio, and his sister Mrs. Towne, who carried him to the fort, for a trip to Indiana. Isaac arrived first and visited the woman and was convinced she was his sister. When the others arrived at Peru, Joseph and Isaac Slocum together with Mr. J. T. Miller, an Indian interpreter journeyed to her home. Mrs. Towne, being unable to make the trip on horseback, remained at Peru. Before her capture, one of Frances' fingers had been crushed by a ham- mer and was badly scarred. This disfigurement, together with her recol- lections, completely proved her identity. Having a suspicion, they designed to take her back to their homes, she was reluctant to go to Peru, but after consulting Godfroy chief of the Miami band living there, she decided to go and meet her sister Mary. The reconciliation was complete.
Frances Slocum was rich for the times. She lived in a good log
192
house, and had many conveniences of civilized life. She owned six hundred and forty acres of very fertile land, possesed some sixty horses, twenty cattle, a hundred hogs and large flocks of chickens and geese. Her family consisted of a daughter married to Captain Peter Broullette and another daughter with numerous children. They were all respectable and highly regarded by their white neighbors. She recalled many incidents of her childhood and her mother; and told them that she was first adopted by Turk Horse, a Delaware chief and his wife, who were very good to her. She had lived at Niagara, Sandusky, on the Detroit river and for thirty years at Fort Wayne. Her adopted father could talk a little English and as long as he lived she was able to speak it, but since his death she forgot it. Her first husband was Little Turtle, a Delaware who went to the wars and did not return and she was married a second time to She-pan-can-ah, a Miami chief by whom she had four children, two sons who died young and two daughters. Her Indian name was Ma-con-a-quah.
In 1839, Joseph Slocum and his two daughters Hannah, Mrs. Ben- nett and Harriet visited her. Mrs. Bennett wrote in her diary: "They had six beds, principally composed of blankets and other goods, they folded together. They spread a cloth on their table and gave us a very com- fortable meal of fried venison, potatoes, short cake and coffee." Mr. Slo- cum entreated his sister to accompany him to Wilkes-Barre on a visit, but she wisely refused, as she was unaccustomed to the white way of living and could not stand the confinement.
When the Miamis were removed to Kansas, due to the desire of Frances, the Slocums, who were wealthy and influential people, induced Congress to pass an act, whereby Frances Slocum and her descendants were to be paid their annuities at Peru, thus permitting them to remain in Indiana. As the white settlers encroached on her land and pilfered her horses and cattle, she appealed to her brothers for protection; and the Rev. George Slocum, son of Isaac went to Indiana, and resided, for a number of years near her as her protector and as a missionary among the Miamis. Frances Slocum died at her farm, March 9, 1847, and was buried in the little Indian cemetery, nearby where a fine monument was erected, by the Slocum family, to her memory and unveiled by two of her grandduaghters, residing there, May 17, 1900.
Much has been written and published about Frances Slocum, of which the most interesting and authentic are: "Frances Slocum, the Lost Sister of Wyoming" by John F. Meginess ; and "Frances Slocum, the Lost Sister of Wyoming" by her grandniece, Martha Bennett Phelps.
193
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE CHERRY VALLEY MASSACRE
Evidently, concerting with the Senecas, who were preparing for their descent on Wyoming, the Indians, under Brant at Oquaga and Unadilla, became active. They attacked the little settlement at Cobleskill, ten miles from Schoharie, May 30, 1778. Christian Brown, captain of the militia, there, apprehensive of an attack, summoned aid from Middleburg and Captain Patrick with a small force was sent. About twenty Indians were discovered and pursued a mile, when a larger force was encountered. An engagement ensued, Patrick was wounded and Brown ordered a retreat, during which five soldiers, defending themselves in a house, were killed. Their resistance gave the others time to escape, and enabled the fleeing women and childen to reach Schoharie in safety. Besides the five soldiers killed, fourteen other bodies were found. Ten houses were burned and horses, cattle and sheep lay dead all over the fields.1
June 5th, the enemy appeared north of Johnstown and captured four persons. Two men and a boy, travelling in a wagon, between Fort Schuyler and Fort Bull were attacked. The men were killed but the boy escaped. July 18th, Springfield, Andrustown and the settlements on Otsego Lake were destroyed. Eight men were slain, fourteen persons captured, the houses burned and the horses and cattle driven toward the Susquehanna. Early in August, a company of regulars and some Pennsylvania and New Jersey militia had a slight engagement with the Indians near Cochecton. The Brooks house near Pienpack, New York was raided by Indians, under the notorious Tory, McDonald and eleven people taken. Two soldiers of a scouting party were killed near Major Edmunston's place on the head- waters of the Unadilla.2
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.