USA > Ohio > Ohio and her Western Reserve, with a story of three states leading to the latter, from Connecticut, by way of Wyoming, its Indian wars and massacre > Part 6
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and those agreed upon were William Whip- ple, of New Hampshire; Welcome Arnold, of Rhode Island ; David Brearly and William Churchill Houston, of New Jersey ; Cyrus Griffin, Joseph Jones, and Thomas Nelson, of Virginia. On November 12, 1782, the court opened at Trenton, N. J. Distinguished coun- sel, including on both sides men then or after- ward famous for service as soldiers, statesmen, and legislators, appeared before the tribunal -Eliphalet Dyer, William Samuel Johnson, and Jesse Root for Connecticut ; and William Bradford, Joseph Reed, James Wilson, and Jonathan D. Sargeant for Pennsylvania.
It is a remarkable fact that although this court held a session of forty-one judicial or working-days, heard voluminous arguments from the full array of able attorneys-of whom one spoke for four days-and deliv- ered a momentous decision, scarcely any rec- ord exists of its deliberations, nor in the cen- tury since has it transpired just what were the arguments made nor on precisely what ground was the verdict rendered. The judges had announced in advance that they would not make public the reasons which guided
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them to their decision, and they kept their secret inviolable. The verdict was flatly for Pennsylvania. "We are unanimously of opin- ion that Connecticut has no right to the lands in controversy," declared the judges, and they added : "We are also unanimously of opin- ion that the jurisdiction and preemption of all territory lying within the charter of Penn- sylvania, and now claimed by the State of Connecticut, do of right belong to the State of Pennsylvania."
While it is reasonable to suppose that all of the old contentions concerning the charter claims were most minutely gone over, it amounts almost to a certainty that the tedious and dangerous dispute was decided more on the matter of intent than on the literal ren- dering of the fundamental documents, and that expediency was paramount in the minds of the judges to all other considerations com- bined. On its face, taking everything as lit- eral, Connecticut's "real, though impracticable claim " would doubtless, in the estimation of an unbiased judge, have appeared better than Pennsylvania's ; and yet that Connecticut should have jurisdiction over the great slice
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of Penn's province lying westward of her border, and so continuing westward "to the South Sea," would have been not only mon- strously absurd, but dangerous to the public interest.
A new nation was entering upon the crit- ical period of its formation, and its young life was imperiled by the conflicting claims of the very States that went to compose it. Massa- chusetts had a claim for millions of acres in western New York, on the same ground that Connecticut claimed a portion of Pennsylva- nia. Virginia and other States had similar imaginary mortgages on the West. Conten- tion and bloodshed had already ensued, and the future threatened worse results than the past had developed. Somewhere a sacrifice must be made-a sacrifice of individual inter- ests, or even rights-for the common good. The case in hand was that of Connecticut against Pennsylvania. Why not begin here ? Such, in brief, it seems sure was the most weighty argument in the minds of the judges, and dictated the Trenton Decree. The opin- ion of public men, in surprisingly unanimous approval of the verdict, was strong testimony
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to its wisdom and practical justice. It was a first, firm, forward step in nationality.
Another curious question that arises from the finding of the Trenton Court is: Did not the judges enter into a tacit and secret under- standing with the Continental Congress that, in recompense for being deprived of her claim in an existent sister State, Connecticut should be allowed a grant from the lands farther west, which would inflict loss upon no single colony, because they were the common heri- tage of the new nation as a whole ? Again there is not an iota of legal evidence on which to reply, but an affirmative answer is, never- theless, almost compelled by the conditions which existed. Such supposition is rational, leaves nothing to be accounted for, satisfies one's sense of justice toward a long-suffering people, and is given strong support of a nega- tive nature in the partial secrecy of the pro- ceedings of Congress relating to the prelimi- naries of the grant to Connecticut of the West- ern Reserve, in Ohio.
The Wyoming men acquiesced quietly in the decree, but a new trouble arose. Juris- diction had been securely vested in Pennsyl-
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vania, but the question of private ownership had not been touched upon, and therein lay the seed of a new contention which brought on a third "Pennamite War"-for, though the Penns were eliminated from the equation, the old name was retained. Pennsylvania, however near the right formerly, was now clearly in the wrong. Her people would not even allow the question of private ownership to be settled by a tribunal provided for in the Articles of Confederation. Thomas Jefferson sought in Congress to have such a solution of the problem resorted to, but a spirited re- monstrance from the Pennsylvania Assembly put an end to the proceedings. In lieu of Jefferson's wise measure, the Pennsylvanians proposed an immediate relinquishment of half the Yankees' possessions, and an early relin- quishment of all (with a slight time indul- gence for the benefit of "the widows of those who had fallen by the savages "). These terms they resolved to enforce, and when the Yan- kees rejected the offer the matter was put for execution into the hands of that same Captain Alexander Patterson who had been conspicu- ous in the former contentions, and with two
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companies of militia he repaired to the long- troubled valley. His first act was the sum- mary arrest of Colonel Zebulon Butler, the old hero of Wyoming, and Colonel John Franklin. A flood assisted the designs of the Pennsylvania claimants and land jobbers. It swept away many buildings and obliterated some landmarks. Patterson's men did the
rest. They proceeded to lay out the lands in accordance with the Pennsylvania survey, cre- ated new civil divisions, and even replaced the cherished name of Wilkesbarre with that of Londonderry.
In the middle of May the work of wiping Wyoming from the map was ruthlessly com- pleted. The scenes that followed the mas-
sacre were now reenacted. The soldiery marched out and at the point of the bayonet dispersed at least 150 families, in many in- stances setting fire to their dwellings. Five hundred of the evicted-men, women, and children, infants in arms and old men-were literally driven from the valley, mostly on foot, poorly provided with food. They tramped through the mountainous wilderness toward the Delaware, only less miserable than the
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thronging refugees from the scene of the mas- sacre six years before. Some died in the for- est. Others reached the settlements only to succumb there to the rigors of their seven days' forced march-semi-starvation, exposure, and exhaustion. This was the seventh time the Connecticut people had made an enforced exodus from the valley.
The Pennsylvanians were in possession, but their high-handed method of procedure had alienated the sympathy of the right- minded of their own State. Shame and in- dignation led to the sending of a sheriff's posse to restore order, and the hasty recall of the evicted settlers. Patterson remained suf- ficiently in power to extend to the first who returned a warm reception, but finally, as the refugees rallied in greater force, Colonel John Franklin took command of them, and they went through the valley like a scourge, dis- possessing the Pennsylvanians wherever they came upon them. Patterson, gathering his followers in a fort, stood at bay. A battle ensued in which men were killed on both sides. And so civil war again crimsoned the country. To quell this, Colonel John Arm-
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strong-the same who was the author of the celebrated "Newburg Addresses " which had brought Washington's army to the verge of mutiny in the Revolution-was ordered with 400 militia to the scene of disturbance. It was the expectation that he would act im- partially as a peace officer, but, like his col- league, Patterson, he hated the Yankees, and it was these only that he disarmed ; and hav- ing done so, immediately declared them pris- oners, manacled them in couples, and marched them to prison.
It is probable that now, but for the in- tervention of a peculiar Pennsylvania institu- tion, the Council of Censors, and John Dick- inson, who together created a new system for the Yankee settlers and mitigated the rigors of their prosecution, the colony of Wyoming would once more have been stricken from existence. But most of Armstrong's prison- ers escaping, or being released, they swarmed back to the valley with that indomitable per- sistency they had exhibited for a quarter of a century, and resumed the defense of their homes. The conflict was now carried on in a desultory but determined way for years,
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and many lives were lost, both through the predatory Indian methods of war, involv- ing the scouting of sharpshooters, and in collisions of considerable forces, before the war closed.
But cessation of armed hostilities in this case did not mean any improvement in the situation. Every change in the Pennamite Wars seems to have been to something worse. And now, while there was a respite from fighting, it was only because of the with- drawal of Armstrong and Patterson's sol- diery ; and the Connecticut men, who had so long battled for homes in Pennsylvania with numbers augmented by fresh arrivals and em- boldened by partial success, were preparing for a coup which, had it been carried out, would have convulsed the country, and made its history read very differently from that we now have.
Civil war at the beginning, instead of seventy-odd years afterward, would very prob- ably have rent the Confederation and possibly have precluded the formation of the republic itself; but civil war-and of very formidable dimensions, and over an issue well calculated
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to shatter faith in the success of a democratic government-was precisely what the Connect- icut people now meant.
The formation of a new State-it might have been the State of Franklin or Susque- hanna-was not only contemplated, but actu- ally commenced, and that it would have been consummated had not Pennsylvania finally accorded tardy justice is beyond doubt. Con- sidering their experience with Pennsylvania and their long siege of complicated troubles, it is not strange that the Connecticut settlers at last conceived the idea of severing themselves from connection with the Quakers, and found- ing a new and independent State of which Wyoming should be the nucleus, and which they would probably have so carved as to contain all of Pennsylvania originally claimed by Connecticut; that is, all north of the forty- first parallel of latitude. By 1787 the new- State idea amounted to a furore in Wyoming, and there was an enthusiastic backing for the project in New England and New York. The plan was immediately upon its declaration to rush in a great mass of immigrants, to each of whom should be granted 200 acres of land,
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and maintain its existence and integrity against all assaults.
Colonel Ethan Allen, with the fresh pres- tige of leading the "Green Mountain Boys " to success, came out to Wyoming in the summer, and it has always been supposed was not only there to lend en- thusiasm to the undertaking, but with a view to conducting a cam- paign of arms when the action Ethan Allen of the long - op- pressed settlers should precipitate attack. It is significant that he had been presented with several thousand acres of land by the Susquehanna Company.
Another remarkable man of the times, Colonel Timothy Pickering, also appeared, but he came as one of the Pennsylvania com- missioners, and it was largely owing to his
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skilful and astute handling of affairs that the most serious situation that ever confronted tortured Wyoming, and in fact equally threat- ened Pennsylvania and the country at large, « was eased by diplomacy combined with judi-
ciously decisive acts. He showed here much of that ability which enabled him in later years to adorn successively the high offices of Postmaster-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, and to render acceptable service as Member of Congress and Senator of the United States from Massachusetts. He was originally from that State (to which he returned), and was chosen for that reason by the Pennsylvania Government, for it was believed that a New Englander could more effectively labor with the Connecticut men than could a Pennsylvanian. Pickering went among the Wyoming folk intent on making an equitable settlement of the vexed question and authorized to promise, in the name of the Government, that their lands should be con- firmed to the settlers in clear title. Pennsyl- vania came reluctantly but of necessity to this concession, for her leading men had grown to fear that the unjust course which had been
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persisted in would bear bitter fruit. So it was with a mingling of the patriotic and pol- itic in motive that the shrewd Pickering went on his mission. He took up lands under Con- necticut title, cultivated the people, talked conciliation and conces- sion, and almost at the outstart made an adher- ent of brave old Zebulon Butler.
Simultaneously with Pickering's progress, very important work of a di- verse nature went on in the States of Pennsylva- nia and Connecticut. The Michening. former passed what be- came famous as "the Confirming Act of 1787," expressly to disrupt the new-State movement ; and at the very time, though the Quakers did not know how far it had gone, the Connecticut schemers were actually drawing up a plan of government for the proposed new State. Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, had written its constitution, while Major William Judd, of the same
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State, had been decided upon for the first governor and Colonel John Franklin for lieutenant-governor.
Thus close had the new State come to bursting into being, when the legislative act of Pennsylvania and the diplomacy of Pick- ering averted the danger. But the colonel, redoubtable in peace as he had been in war, was still unable to swerve all of the Wyoming men to acceptance of his proposition. Not being able to conciliate his old companion in arms, Colonel Franklin, he forcibly captured him, put him in irons very promptly, and sternly hustled him off to Philadelphia, where he was clapped into prison and long languished under the charge of treason. As a sequel to this, Colonel Pickering was in June, 1788, ar- rested in retaliation, held as a hostage, and hurried from place to place by his Yankee captors, who for weeks eluded four compa- nies of militia, a troop of horse, and a sheriff's posse.
Long before this the Connecticut settlers held a typical New England " town meeting " to discuss the question of accepting or reject- ing the Compromise Act of 1787, which re-
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vealed the fact that a majority of them were in favor of accepting Pennsylvania's terms. Those opposed argued that the act confirming their titles had only been passed to stop the new-State movement, and time proved they were right, for in 1790 the Legislature re- pealed it as being unconstitutional. But the land-jobbing projects of the holders of Penn- sylvania titles, who had brought about the repeal, gained nothing by the measure. There was in the act so much of wisdom and good policy, so much of justice to the long-suffering Connecticut men who had bought in good faith those Wyoming lands and expended their blood in defending them, that the spirit of the law actually survived and was potently active, even when the body of the act was dead and destroyed-stricken from the stat- utes. The settlers continued to hold their lands and were not again molested, though the legal war continued for years. The " Yankees " eventually made the State a tri- fling payment for the lands, and finally the last vestige of injustice toward them was wiped out by an act passed in 1807, exactly half a century from the date when Connecti-
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cut's pioneers came to Cushutunk on the Del- aware, and almost as long since the initial set- tlement at Wyoming.
What, now, were the ultimate results to Pennsylvania and rewards to Connecticut flowing from this unique invasion and un- paralleled contention ?
In a certain sense Pennsylvania was the chief gainer. Already having a more hetero- geneous population than any State in the Union, she received still another distinct ele- ment, and the Yankee people who came among the Germans and Scotch-Irish either with or as a result of the Connecticut invasion-not, however, all locating at Wyoming-were by no means the least useful and influential citizens of the so-called Quaker State, as be- comes evident on reflection that among the representative men of this blood were such statesmen as David Wilmot, of "Proviso " fame (who, in 1846, became a conspicuous figure in the great congressional campaign against slavery, in which, as we shall see, his Ohio compatriots of Connecticut origin were already engaged); Hon. Galusha A. Grow, Pennsylvania's veteran congressman-at-large,
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whose career covers half a century ; Governors William F. Packer and Henry M. Hoyt; such able commanders of industry, colossal philan- thropists, and college founders as Asa Packer and Ario Pardee, and such sterling city found- ers as the Scrantons.
Aside from the Connecticut contribution of men to Pennsylvania, thus merely indicated, perhaps the most important service that the Yankees rendered Pennsylvania lay in its initiative and example of the common-school system. They had been at Wyoming-as, in- deed, wherever the New England colonies were planted-the pioneers of public schools- and when Pennsylvania came tardily to es- tablish these institutions she was influenced by the Connecticut element and found models on the Susquehanna which had existed for more than half a century.
With these facts in view, it is apparent that there were results of far-reaching good growing out of Connecticut's contest for Wy- oming, which it is gratifying to chronicle ; for without these there would appear a peculiarly pathetic and irreconcilable inadequacy of out- come for all those fifty years of stubborn strife.
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As for the Yankee colonists, they secured clear title eventually to what is called "the seventeen townships " or about 300,000 acres of land, including the beautiful valley they had fought for for fifty years, from which they had seven times been evicted, and in which their people had twice been massacred. They had coveted and contested this ground for its agricultural worth and its picturesqueness ; and curiously enough their heirs found the value of the lands doubled or deci-multiplied, and the loveliness of the land for the most part destroyed by one and the same cause- the discovery of anthracite coal therein, and the development of the most extensive mines in all America.
But the greater reward that came to the Connecticut people lay not in the country for which they had carried on their heroic, even if mistaken contest, but in the Western Re- serve, which is a region a trifle larger than Connecticut, possessing a population almost equaling it at the last census, and exercising, in some respects, a power surpassing it.
In the granting to Connecticut of that huge tract-unquestionably influenced, as be-
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THE WYOMING MONUMENT.
Erected in 1833, near the scene of battle and massacre of July 3, 1778.
Results of the Massacre
fore explained, by the idea that some measure of mercy, if not of justice, was due in com- pensation for its being deprived of possession in Pennsylvania-in its superb colonization and the consequences flowing therefrom-is to be found, historically speaking, the justifi- cation for the warfare at Wyoming.
The reward which Connecticut received in Ohio, for her otherwise well-nigh profitless persistency in Pennsylvania, was a reward of victory vicariously bestowed, inasmuch as it came, for the most part, to other men than those who had toiled in the Quaker State- and even to another generation-but it re- dounded hugely to the advantage of the State ; and her people, as a whole, improved the opportunity newly opened to them to the very utmost.
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New England well may boast The band that on her coast, Long years ago, Their Pilgrim anchor cast- Their Pilgrim bark made fast- Mid winter's howling blast And driven snow.
Long since hath passed away,
Each Pilgrim hoar and gray, Of that lone band ; Yet where their ashes lie
Sprang seeds that shall not die, While ever yon blue sky Shall arch our land ! Sons of that Pilgrim race Were they from whom we trace Our Buckeye blood.
LEWIS J. CIST.
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CHAPTER V THE WESTERN RESERVE, OR CONNECTICUT TRIUMPHANT IN OHIO
CONNECTICUT heroically, even if mistakenly militant in Pennsylvania, where her sons had tried to carve a State from the territory which royal carelessness had bestowed both on Wil- liam Penn and her own founders, became Connecticut completely triumphant in Ohio. A great host of her sons, undeterred by re- peated disaster in warfare with the "Pennam- ites " for possession of the lovely valley of Wyoming, made an invasion of northeastern Ohio (while it was still a portion of the old Northwest Territory) every bit as peaceful and prosperous as that of the preceding gen- eration had been troublesome and, so far as immediate result was concerned, almost profit- less. They came in swarming thousands, absolutely unopposed save by the elements
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and the wilderness, and theirs was here, in reality, the majestic march of a peaceful con- quest most profound in consequence, because giving a mighty impulse to interior develop- ment. The contrast between the prompt and complete success of the Ohio settlement and the long baffled and only partial prosperity of the attempts at colonization in Pennsyl- vania was caused by the fact that in the later project Yankee shrewdness, profiting by early experience, had the way perfectly paved with law before her pioneers set foot in the coveted field. The Western Reserve, unlike Wyoming, was to them not merely a " promised land," but one actually conveyed by deed, signed, sealed, and delivered.
The settlement was hugely significant in several ways, but in none more so than in the fact that the pioneers of that vast army of occupation planted in the "New Connecticut," or Western Reserve, the last organized and distinct colony of Puritanism, which, as such, made a deep and historic impression upon the conscience of the country.
In the critical period of the old confeder- ation preceding and preparing the way for
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HOW THE CONNECTICUT PIONEERS CAME INTO THE WESTERN RESERVE.
Connecticut Triumphant in Ohio
the formation of the United States, one of the most portentous problems that patriotic statesmen had to solve was the vestiture of all land claims in the General Government- the surrender of private pretensions for the public good. This problem-constituted by confusion in regard to the ownership of the Northwest Territory by the several colonies bordering it or lying easterly in the same latitude - darkened the prospects of the American Union, retarded the ratification of the articles of confederation, and threat- ened the very existence of the colonies. Thus menaced by grave dangers within, after suc- cessfully withstanding those from without, the country had arrived at a crucial stage when Congress appealed to the claiming States to make such sacrifices as should avoid discord and avert disaster. It was successful. New York responded first, and ceded her western claims to the United States in 1780. Virginia followed in 1784, but with a reser- vation, and Massachusetts in 1785 ; Connecti- cut coming last, reluctantly, tardily, and thriftily. Finally, by an act dated May 11, 1786, she relinquished " all her right, title,
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interest, jurisdiction, and claim" to lands within her chartered limits " lying west of a line 120 miles west of and parallel with the western boundary line of the State of Penn- sylvania." But all within her chartered limits for 120 miles westward from Pennsylvania, and lying between latitudes 41° and 42° 2' north, she reserved from conveyance, and hence came in time the name " Western Re- serve of Connecticut." Congress after a pro- tracted debate accepted the cession on May 26th, and it was duly confirmed by deed on September 14th, following.
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