USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume III > Part 1
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Pittsburgh Library System
http://www.archive.org/details/historyofwilkesb03harv
ZEBULON BUTLER
FIDUS ET FORTIS
FRONTISPIECE VOLUME III
A HISTORY OF
WILKES-BARRÉ
LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
FROM ITS FIRST BEGINNINGS TO THE PRESENT TIME; INCLUDING CHAPTERS OF NEWLY-DISCOVERED
EARLY WYOMING VALLEY HISTORY
TOGETHER WITH MANY BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND MUCH GENEALOGICAL MATERIAL
BEGUN BY
OSCAR JEWELL HARVEY, A. M.
AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF LODGE NO. 61, F. & A. M.", "THE HARVEY BOOK", "A HISTORY OF IREM TEMPLE", ETC.
AND COMPLETED BY
ERNEST GRAY SMITH, M. S., LL. B.
PRESIDENT AND EDITOR OF THE WILKES-BARRE TIMES-LEADER
(At the time of Mr. Harvey's death, March 26, 1922, he had finished the manuscript of the first eight Chapters included in this volume.)
ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY PORTRAITS, MAPS, FACSIMILES, ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND CONTEMPORARY VIEWS
. .
COMPLETE IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME III WILKES-BARRÉ, PA. 1927
Dar
1.6437 V. 3 cap. 1
COPYRIGHT 1927, BY ERNEST G. SMITH
THE RAEDER CO. Wilkes-Barre, Penna.
Preface To Volume III.
The death of Oscar Jewell Harvey, March 26, 1922, was destined to secure what had not been accredited him in life-recognition, in the popular mind, of the splendid attainments he had during nearly half a century, brought to the study of the history of a community he so dearly loved.
Mr. Harvey had a genius for painstaking care, a persevering patience . which overcame physical handicap, a mind equipped by extensive travel and wide reading to see events in their larger relationships, yet disciplined by studious habit to accuracy and exactness, a memory remarkable for its orderly record of memoranda, an imagination which pictured clearly occurrences of the past, and a pen which recorded these pictures with engaging faithfulness.
In the latter years of his residence in Wilkes-Barré, he led a life of reticence and retirement. His family and friends knew that he suffered much from phys- ical ailments. But no complaint escaped him. To the end, he maintained a cheerful outlook on life, and a philosophical attitude in all his relationships.
It is violating no confidence to say that at his death it became known why his history had not been completed. For nearly a score of years, he had devoted all his leisure hours, and a considerable portion of each business day, to the collection and preparation of the data of his first two volumes.
These were published in 1909, with a promise that a third and final volume would shortly be forthcoming. The historian, however, had reckoned without sufficient thought of finances. His slender means were almost completely ex- hausted before the work was off the press, and from this financial blow he never recovered. That fact, which pride forbade him to disclose to others, stood in the way of the completion of his life work. Returns from the sale of his two volumes were pitifully small. The late Abram Nesbitt contributed liberally to the de- ficit, but to few others were these circumstances revealed. The remaining volumes of the set, stored at the time of his death, were mortgaged to the printer.
It is small wonder that bitter discouragement was his. Had men of means among his neighbors and friends been conversant with conditions, there can be no doubt but that a fund sufficient to have endowed the work would quickly have been raised.
It was with a sense of unfitness for a task that has grown with the months, that the writer accepted from the family of Mr. Harvey the data he had collected, and a commission to finish the History of Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley which he had so auspiciously begun.
A careful inventory of the manuscript among the effects of the dead his- torian disclosed that he had written but few Chapters to the third volume. These were, in all probability, completed about the time of the appearance of the two volumes in print. A discouraged pen thereafter made copious notes, in various
1
note books, old ledgers and upon loose folios, but no effort to arrange these memo- randa in sequence had followed.
Some three months were required to assort, in chronological order, the contents of two trunks, a vacant home serving a useful purpose of providing sufficient floor and other surface for the purpose. The six Chapters completed by Mr. Harvey seemed possible of subdivision into eight and these form Chapters XIX to XXVI inclusive, of the present volume.
From notes of the dead historian, Chapters XXVII to XXX inclusive, were constructed, the balance of Volume III and the whole of Volume IV being based on the writer's own research.
Without the assistance of Wesley E. Woodruff, Esq., upon whom has fallen the exacting task or proof reading the final volumes and indexing the entire work, the completion of this liistory would never have been attempted.
Nor could such attempt have been possible without the generous financial assistance of :
F. M. Kirby
Col. Asher Miner,
Gilbert S. McClintock,
J. N. Conyngham,
H. H. Ashley, H. B. Schooley,
W. H. Conyngham, Chas. S. Forve, Col. Dorrance Reynolds,
F. J. Weckesser, Richard Sharpe, Isaac S. Thomas,
Percy A. Brown,
Abram G. Nesbitt, William MacWilliam
Mrs. Kate P. Dickson,
J. W. Hollenback, John C. Haddock
The Boston Store.
To these public spirited residents of the community, the writer submitted outline plans for the completion of the work and its probable cost. They agreed at once that the undertaking was a community project of sufficient importance to engage their support and encouragement.
With these measures of assistance at hand, there seemed nothing left for the writer to do but proceed as best lie might. The task of completion has meant the burning of midnight oil, feverish activity as opportunity presented, and a satisfaction at its completion which can be little understood, excepting by one who has set for himself a season of five years of over work.
That the completed volumes may be a monument to Oscar Jewell Harvey, a credit to those who have aided in its production, and a source of authentic information to those who find in the stirring history of Wyoming a record of achievement peculiar in the annals of America, are hopes of the author.
Qwest &. Smith.
Contents of Volume III
CHAPTER XIX.
INDIAN INCURSIONS UPON WESTMORELAND-MANY RESIDENTS OF THE TOWN MURDERED, OR CARRIED AWAY AS PRISONERS, BY THE INDIANS-THE DISCOVERY OF HARVEY'S LAKE-HARD TIMES. 1239
CHAPTER XX.
COL. ZEBULON BUTLER AND THE WESTMORELAND TROOPS GARRISONING FORT WYOMING TRANSFERRED TO OTHER POSTS-LARGE LOSSES SUSTAINED BY THE INHABITANTS OF WESTMORELAND IN THE YEARS 1778-'S1-THE LAST SCALP TAKEN BY INDIANS IN THE WYOMING VALLEY-THE END OF THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 1270
CHAPTER XXI.
PENNSYLVANIA PETITIONS CONGRESS FOR A HEARING OF CLAIMS LONG IN DISPUTE- CONNECTICUT CONCURS-A DISTINGUISHED COURT OF COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED- SIDELIGHTS ON SESSIONS OF THE COURT-A SUMMARY OF THE CONFLICTING CLAIMS-THE DECREE OF TRENTON-DISSATISFACTION WITH THE DECREE IN WYOMING-PRIVATE RIGHT OF SOIL NOT ADJUDICATED AND INDIVIDUAL DISPUTES NOT SETTLED BY THIS . DECREE 1293
CHAPTER XXII.
INHABITANTS OF WYOMING LEFT BY CONNECTICUT TO FIGHT SINGLE HANDED PETITION THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK-THE CONTINENTAL GARRISON AT WILKES-BARRE WITH- DRAWN AND COMPANIES OF PENNSYLVANIA MILITIA SUBSTITUTED-DISTRUST AUG- MENTED-RETURN OF QUOTAS OF REVOLUTIONARY TROOPS TO WYOMING 1308
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSIONERS REACH WILKES-BARRE-MUCH TESTIMONY TAKEN AS TO THE RIGHT OF SOIL-COMPROMISE SUGGESTIONS REFUSED-COMMISSION DEPARTS AFTER ELECTING PARTISAN OFFICE HOLDERS-SOLDIERS QUARTERED UPON THE IN- HABITANTS AND ENCOURAGED TO OPPRESS SETTLERS-SECOND PENNAMITE-YANKEE WAR BEGUN-DISASTROUS FLOOD AT WYOMING.
.. 1325
CHAPTER XXIV.
EVENTS OF THE SECOND PENNAMITE-YANKEE WAR-OPPRESSIONS OF SETTLERS BY PENNA- MITES MULTIPLY-THE INTERVENTION OF CONGRESS AGAIN INVOKED-YANKEES, DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOMES, ESTABLISH FORTS LILLOPEE AND DEFENSE-SKIRMISHES BETWEEN THE CONTENDING PARTIES CAUSE A DISASTROUS FIRE-THE FIGHT AT LOCUST HILL. 1374
CHAPTER XXV.
PENNSYLVANIA MILITIA REACH WILKES-BARRE FROM EASTON-A DISASTROUS TRUCE ARRANGED-HOSTILITIES AGAIN PROVOKED-SEVENTY-TWO YANKEES SENT TO THE EASTON AND SUNBURY JAILS-THE INJUSTICES DONE CONNECTICUT SETTLERS EXCITE GENERAL INDIGNATION-JOHN FRANKLIN'S OATH-FORT DICKINSON EVACUATED BY THE HATED ARMSTRONG AND HIS MILITIA, THUS ENDING THE SECOND PENNAMITE- YANKEE WAR-GREAT REJOICING AS THE SETTLERS RAZE THE FORT 1411
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONNECTICUT APPEALS TO CONGRESS FOR JUSTICE TO THE SETTLERS-AFFAIRS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY AGAIN REVIVED AND NEW SETTLERS REACH WYOMING-FEW PENNAMITES REMAIN IN ACTUAL POSSESSION OF THEIR CLAIMS-DELEGATION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY VISITS WILKES-BARRE-THE "HALF SHARE" MEN. ....... 1458
CHAPTER XXVII.
GENERAL ETHAN ALLEN ESPOUSES THE CAUSE OF THE CONNECTICUT SETTLERS AND COMES TO WILKES-BARRE-UNWARRANTED PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY- WYOMING WITHOUT THE BENEFITS OF LAW, ESTABLISHES AN EXPERIMENT IN SELF GOVERNMENT-A NEW STATE PROPOSED BY ALLEN AND KINDRED SPIRITS-THE SETTLERS DIVIDE ON THE ADVISABILITY OF THIS SCHEME-MANY SETTLERS SUBSCRIBE TO ERECTION OF A NEW COUNTY-PENNSYLVANIA AROUSED. 1479
CHAPTER XXVIII.
.
THE "WESTERN RESERVE"-GENERAL ETHAN ALLEN RETURNS TO VERMONT-COLONEL TIMOTHY PICKERING VISITS WILKES-BARRE-JOHN FRANKLIN AND JOHN JENKINS, JR. "YANKEE OUTLAWS," PLEAD THE SETTLERS' CAUSE BEFORE THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY-A LAW ERECTING LUZERNE COUNTY FOLLOWS THIS VISIT. 1511
CHAPTER XXIX.
LEGISLATIVE FOUNDATION UPON WHICH THE COUNTY OF LUZERNE WAS ERECTED-ANNE CAESAR, CHEVALIER DE LA LUZERNE-BAPTISM OF THE COUNTY BY THE GREAT "PUMP- KIN FLOOD"-COL. TIMOTHY PICKERING ARRIVES AS PEACE COMMISSIONER-HIS MANY OFFICES-THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY'S LAST PROJECT-JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS "IRRECONCILABLES" FOMENT DISCORD-PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST ELECTION UNDER PENNSYLVANIA .1529
CHAPTER XXX.
ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY OF LUZERNE-A LIST OF THE ELECTORS-METHODS AND EVENTS OF THE FIRST ELECTION-THE CONFIRMING LAW OF 1787-HOSTILITIES AGAIN AROUSED-DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SETTLERS LEAD TO A RIOT AT FORTY FORT- OLDER SETTLERS, TIRED OF CONTESTS, DECLARE FOR COMPROMISE-THE FIRST COURT · OF COMMON PLEAS-COL. PICKERING'S MANY DUTIES-FOUR ATTORNEYS ADMITTED
TO PRACTICE-THE FIRST FRUITS OF SELF GOVERNMENT
.1552
CHAPTER XXXI.
INFLUENCES OF TIIE FRANKLIN PARTY IN WYOMING AFFAIRS-WILD SPECULATION IN SHARES OF THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY-HATCHING THE PLOT FOR FRANKLIN'S ARREST -THE STORY OF HIS VIOLENT APPREHENSION-RETALIATORY MEASURES AGAINST COL- ONEL PICKERING-PICKERING'S EXILE AND RETURN TO WYOMING-SUSPENSION OF THE CONFIRMING LAW-PENNSYLVANIA'S DUPLICITY-THE ADMINISTRATION UNDER PICK- ERING. 1578
CHAPTER XXXII.
HARSHI TREATMENT OF COLONEL FRANKLIN-RETALIATORY MEASURES THREATENED-THE ABDUCTION OF TIMOTHY PICKERING-PENNSYLVANIA STIRRED TO ACTIVITY-CONGRESS ORDERS CONTINENTAL TROOPS TO HIS RESCUE-HIS VOLUNTARY RELEASE-ARREST OR DISPERSION OF HIS CAPTORS-COLONEL FRANKLIN'S PLEDGE-ANALYSIS OF HIS CASE- THE SUPREME COURT AT WILKES-BARRE-FRANKLIN NOT TRIED-SENTENCES OF AB- DUCTORS-THE "STATE OF WESTMORELAND"-"THE SEQUEL" 1598
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE FIRST COURT HOUSE OF LUZERNE COUNTY-SOME UNUSUAL CASES TRIED-TIIE MILITIA PROBLEM-EARLY ROADS-INFANT INDUSTRIES-THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF PENNSYLVANIA-COLONEL PICKERING'S CONFERENCE WITH THE SIX NATIONS-HE BECOMES POST MASTER GENERAL-EARLY AGRICULTURAL DIFFICULTIES-PARDON OF COL. JOHN FRANKLIN-TWO HEROIC FIGURES LEAVE WYOMING NEVER TO RETURN. . . . 1627
CHAPTER XXXIV.
AGGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP AT WYOMING IS MISSING-FAILURE OF TIIE "CONFIRMING LAW" AND ITS REPEAL-THE "INTRUSION ACT" A MOCKERY-REVIVAL OF THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY WITH ATHENS AS A HUB OF RESTLESS ACTIVITIES-THE "COMPROMISE ACT OF 1799"-ADVERSE COURT DECISIONS-ABILITY AND SINCERITY OF THE "COMPROMISE COMMISSION" INSPIRE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE-RIGHTS OF SOIL FINALLY DETERMINED. . . 1650
CHAPTER XXXV.
EVENTS OF THE LAST DECADE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY-SHAD FISHERIES-HUNTERS AND HUNTING OF THE PERIOD-INDUSTRY OF THE WOMEN-THE WHISKEY INSURRECT- ION-CAPTAIN BOWMAN'S COMPANY-BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE IN WYOMING AFFAIRS-REAPPORTIONMENT OF TOWNSHIPS-THE COUNTY'S FINANCES-VISIT OF JEMIMA WILKENSON-EARLY PREACHERS AND DOCTORS-WILKES-BARRE'S EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS. . 1674
.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE FOUNDING OF ASYLUM BY FRENCH REFUGEES-SOME OF ITS DISTINGUISHED RESIDENTS- ROBERT MORRIS, THE "FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION" CONNECTED WITH THE VENT- URE-THE "QUEEN'S HOUSE" BUILT TO RECEIVE MARIE ANTOINETTE-ITS SCENES OF GAYETY AND BRILLIANT RECEPTIONS-VISITS OF TALLEYRAND AND THE DUKE OF ORLEANS, AFTERWARDS LOUIS PHILIPPE, KING OF FRANCE, WITH HIS TWO YOUNGER BROTHERS-THEIR STAY IN WILKES-BARRE-FINANCIAL REVERSES OF THE COLONY AND ITS FINAL ABANDONMENT-PREPARATION FOR WAR WITH FRANCE-CAPTAIN BOWMAN'S COMPANY AGAIN MUSTERED INTO SERVICE-WAR AVERTED BY A CHANGE OF FRENCH POLICIES
. 1697
CHAPTER XXXVII.
BEGINNINGS OF SUSQUEHANNA RIVER COMMERCE-WAREHOUSES AND BOAT YARD ON THE RIVER COMMON-LAUNCH OF THE "JOHN FRANKLIN"-DURHAM BOATS AND RAFTING- EARLY GRIST-MILLS-HISTORY OF THE MINER-HILLARD MILL,-ERECTION OF "THE MEETING HOUSE ON THE SQUARE"-FUNDS TO COMPLETE THE STRUCTURE RAISED BY THE WILKES-BARRE MEETING HOUSE AND BANK LOTTERY- THE LOTTERY BRINGS FINANCIAL, DISASTER-BELL, OF "OLD SHIP ZION"-"OLD MICHAEL" THE SEXTON. . . . . 1719
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
EVENTS OF THE EARLY YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY-JEFFERSON'S ELECTION CELEBRATED-PARTISANSHIP OF THE PERIOD-ECHOES OF LAND DISPUTES-THE IDEA OF PERMANENCE OF THE COMMUNITY GAINS GROUND-BUILDING OF THE SECOND COURT HOUSE-THE STONE JAIL-EASTON AND WILKES-BARRE TURNPIKE-THE BOROUGH OF WILKES-BARRE INCORPORATED-FIRST OFFICERS OF THE BOROUGH-THE STONE "FIRE PROOF"-THE WILKES-BARRE ACADEMY-VARIOUS SOCIETIES FORMED. . . . . . . 1750
CHAPTER XXXIX.
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN EXCITES WONDER-FIRST BRICK BUILDING ERECTED-SHIP BUILDING COMPANY PROMOTED-LAUNCH OF THE "LUZERNE" -- THE COUNTY LOSES AND GAINS TERRITORY-AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY ORGANIZED- WILKES-BARRE'S FIRST BANK-FINANCIAL REVERSES-EVENTS OF THE WAR OF 1812-MILITARY ORGANIZA- TIONS PARTICIPATING-A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS-END OF VOLUME III. 1774
CHAPTER XIX.
INDIAN INCURSIONS UPON WESTMORELAND-MANY RESIDENTS OF THE TOWN MURDERED, OR CARRIED AWAY AS PRISONERS, BY THE INDIANS-THE DISCOVERY OF HARVEY'S LAKE-HARD TIMES.
"Oh! wherefore come ye forth In triumph from the North, With your hands and your feet and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout Send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press that ye tread?" -Lord Macaulay, in "The Battle of Naseby."
"In the dark, they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime. They know not the light.
"For the morning is to them even as the shadow of Death. If one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of Death." -Job, XXIV: 16, 17.
COLONEL BUTLER, who was in command of Fort Wyoming at Wilkes-Barré at the beginning of the year 1780, set out for New England on February 7th, leaving Captain Schott in command of the fort. The Wyoming garrison at this time was composed of the following Continental troops: Schott's Corps, Capt. Simon Spalding's Westmoreland Independent Company, and a small detachment from the 3rd Connecticut Regiment; together with a handful of
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Westmoreland militiamen under the captaincy of Dr. William Hooker Smith of Wilkes-Barré.
There were at this time-as shown by existing fragmentary records of the Wyoming Post-"detached guards", or scouting parties, from the garrison on "command", or duty, at "Nanticoke", "Shawnee," and "the Clock-house over the River."
Colonel Butler returned to Wilkes-Barré March 22, 1780, and resumed command of the Wyoming garrison three days later. In reporting his return to General Washington he wrote :*
"I arrived at this post after a tedious journey, being obliged to travel about forty miles of the last of it on foot, the snow being so deep. It is yet too deep to get a horse through the woods. I am making preparation to join [my regiment] as soon as possible."
Within two or three days after the return of Colonel Butler, the members of one of the scouting parties from the fort reported that they had discovered traces of Indians in the woods near Wilkes-Barré.
In the morning of March 27th Thomas Bennett and his sixteen-year-old son Andrew were plowing on the flats above Forty Fort, when they were surprised and seized by four Indians, who hurried them off to a gorge in the Kingston
*See the Rev. Horace E. Hayden's "The Massacre of Wyoming" (page 68), published at Wilkes-Barre in 1895.
+THOMAS BENNET, whose name is mentioned on pages 672 and 675, Vol. II, and on various other pages herein, was one of the "First Forty" settlers at Wyoming to whom the township of Kingston was allotted. He was born in 1721. either in eastern Connecticut or in Rhode Island. About 1750 he was married to Martha Jackson, and they settled at that time, or within a year or two thereafter, in the town of Scituate. Providence County, Rhode Island. Here they resided until the Autumn of 1763, when, with their two children, they removed to the Minisink region, Orange County, New York, and located not far from the present town of Port Jervis.
Scituate, Rhode Island, adjoins the county of Windham, Connecticut, where The Susquehanna Company was organized in 1753, as hereinbefore related, and Thomas Bennet, having become a shareholder in the Company about 1763. proposed to remove to Wyoming Valley; but, about the time of his arrival in Orange County, the settlement at Wyoming was broken up and devastated by the Indians (as related in Chapter VI), and so Mr. Bennet abandoned, for the time, his intention of settling on the Susquehanna, and early the next year removed to a farm near Goshen, in Orange County.
Mr. Bennet cultivated this farm until February, 1769, when he accompanied the "First Forty" settlers to Wyoming. When, in the Spring of 1772, the lands of "the Forty", or Kingston Township, were allotted to the proprietors thereof, Thomas Bennet drew his share, and upon his "house-lot", not far from Forty Fort, erected a "double log house", in which he and his family took up their residence. When the 24th Regiment, Connecticut Militia, was organized in Wyoming in 1775, Thomas Bennet was fifty-four years old. Nevertheless, in Decetuher, 1775, Mr. Bennet, together with his eldest son, Solomon, fought in the ranks of the regiment at the battle of "Rampart Rocks", described on page 861, Vol. II.
Under the Connecticut law of 1776 Thomas Bennet hecame an enrolled member of the "Alarm List" of the 24th Regiment, and in July, 1778, when Wyoming was invaded by the British and Indians, he was called into service with the other elderly men who constituted the "List". During the battle of July 3d Mr. Bennet was one of the garrison at Forty Fort-in which place were also his wife and three youngest children; Solomon, the eldest child, having marched with his company to the field of battle. (See note on page 1032, Vol. II.)
Some days after the battle and massacre the Bennets fled from Wyoming-Thomas, the hushand and father, accompanying his wife and two youngest children, and proceeding to what is now Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Martha. the elder daughter of Thotuas Bennet, fled with other fugitives from Forty Fort to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and suh- sequently to Stroudsburg, where she joined her mother and sister Mary, a child of seven or eight years of age.
Early in August, 1778, Thomas.Bennet, in company with Matthias Hollenhack, Benjamin Harvey, James Nisbitt and other Wyoming men, set out for Wilkes-Barre, where they arrived August 16th and joined the detachment of militia under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Butler. (See page 1096, Vol. II.) About that time Mrs. Martha Bennet and her two daughters, Martha and Mary, journeyed to Goshen, New York, where they remained until the following Spring, and then went to Litchfield County, Connecticut, where they had relatives. Late in the Autumn of 1779 Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her daughters, rejoined her hushanid and their two sons, Solomon and Andrew, at Wyoming .
In the Spring of 1780, Thomas, Solomon and Andrew Bennet (the last named being only sixteen years of age) were enlisted and sworn into service as privates in Capt. John Franklin's company of Connecticut Militia. (See page 1229, Vol II.)
It is said that, after the existence of Harvey's Lake became known to the inhabitants of Wyoming Valley, Thomas Bennet cut through the wilderness the first bridle-path from Kingston to the Lake-the path being known for a long time as "Bennet's Path". Andrew Bennet, the younger son of Thomas, launched the first canoe upon the Lake, in 1800.
Thomas Bennet died at his home near Forty Fort in the Spring of 1796, aged seventy-five years, and his widow Martha (Jackson) Bennet died in May, 1811, aged eighty years. The remains of both are interred in Forty Fort Cem- etery, and upon their tombstone the death of Thomas Bennet is recorded as having taken place in 1798. This is an error, as the records of the Orphans' Court of Luzerne County show that letters of administration upon his estate were granted in May, 1796, to his widow Martha and to Benjamin Carpenter.
Thomas and Martha (Jackson) Bennet were the parents of four children who grew to maturity, as follows: (i) Solomon, horn about 1751; was married to Mrs .- -(Stevens) Upson, the widow of Asa Upson is supposed to have removed to Canada. (ü) Martha, horn January 15, 1763; married to Philip Myers; died January 3, 1851. (See below.) (iii) Andrew, horn in 1764; died November 20, 1821. (See below.) (iv) Mary, born August 15, 1772; married to John Tuttle; died- (See below.)
(ii) Martha Bennet, born in Scituate, Rhode Island, January 15, 1763, was married in Kingston Township. Wyo- ming Valley, July 15, 1787, to Philip Myers. The latter was born in Germany in 1759, and in 1760 accompanied his parents and brothers Lawrence, Henry and Michael to America, and settled at Frederick, Maryland. During the early part of the Revolutionary War Lawrence Myers served as a Lieutenant and Philip Myers as a private in the Maryland Line in the Continental army, and they took part in the battle of Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Lieut Lawrence Myers having settled in Wyoming Valley, as described on page 837, Vol. II (see also pages 1164 and 1227, Vol, 11), was followed hither by his brother Philip in 1785, and then or later by his brother Henry (who died in Kingston March 4, 1816, aged 59 years). A few weeks after his marriage to Martha Bennet, Philip Myers was elected and commissioned Lieutenant of the militia company in the "Upper District of Kingston", which was commanded by Capt. Benjamin Smith and was designated as the 7th Company in the "1st Battalion of Luzerne County Militia", commanded hy Lient. Col. Matthias Hollenback.
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Philip Myers received from his father- in-law a house-lot just north of the site of old Forty Fort (within the limits of the present borough of Forty Fort), and upon this he built a comfortable house of hewed yellow- pine logs, pointed with lime mortar and plast- ered on the inside. Here Mr. Myers and his wife lived for a number of years, and long after their respective deaths this quaint house stood as a reminder of early days. It was destroyed by fire in June, 1887.) It being located near an eddy in the Susque- hanna River, Mr. Myers kept there for a number of years an inn, which was much resorted to hy raftsmen from the upper Sus- quehanna on their way down stream. Politi- cally, Mr. Myers was a sterling Democrat, and in early days the Democrats of Luzerne County frequently held their nominating conventions at this house. Mr. Myers also owned a farm of 140 acres, extending from Forty Fort to the top of the Kingston Mann- tain, the larger part of which he cultivated. THE OLD MYERS HOUSE, FORTY FORT From a drawing made in 1857 Philip Myers died at Forty Fort April 2. 1835, and his widow, Martha (Bennet) Myers, died there January 3, 1851, within twelve days of her eighty-eighth birthday. Referring to her death The I'ilkes-Barre Advocate said at the time: "Perhaps no white person had resided so long in the Valley as Mrs. Myers. She was an authority with respect to many details concerning early events here."
William L. Stone, who visited Wyoming Valley in 1837, prior to writing his "Poetry and History of Wyoming", says (on page 242 of his book): "Forty Fort stood upon the bank of the river, and the spot is preserved as a common -beautifully carpeted with green, but bearing no distinctive marks denoting the purposes for which the ground in those troublous times was occupied. Near the site of the fort is the residence of Mrs. Myers, a widow lady of great age, hut of clear mind and excellent memory, who is a survivor of the Wyoming invasion and of the horrible scenes attending it. * * * She was in Forty Fort when Col. Zebulan Butler marched out at the head of the Provincials against the enemy. Her recollections of all that passed beneath her eye on that occasion are remarkably vivid. * * * Mrs. Myers was present at the capitulation on the following day, and saw the victorious entrance of the enemy, six abreast, with drums beating and colors flying."
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