A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 37

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909-1930
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734

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, Vol. I > Part 37

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tude ; and then by a straight line Westwards to the limit of Longitude above mentioned. "Yeelding and paying therfore to us, our heirs and Successors, two Beaver Skins to bee delivered att our said Castle of Windsor, on the first day of January, in every yeare ; and also the fifth parte of all Gold and silver Oare which shall from time to time happen to be found within the Limitts aforesaid, cleare of all charges.

"And of our further grace, certaine knowledge and meere motion wee have thought fitt to Erect, and wee doe hereby Erect, the aforesaid Country and Islands into a province and Seigniorie, and doe call itt PENSILVANIA; and soe from henceforth wee will have itt called."

It may be noted here that the granting of this Charter was opposed by the Privy Council, by the Council for Plantations, by the Proprietors of New York and the Proprietors of Maryland.

It will be noticed that the bounds of the "Pensilvania" grant not only overlapped the Connecticut grant but interfered with the claims of New York-the rights to which Province had been granted in 1664 by King Charles to his brother the Duke of York, who, in the same year, wrested the government of the Province from the hands of the Dutch .* The New York-Pennsylvania boundary-line remained undeter- mined and in dispute for many years, as may be perceived by a reference to "Pennsylvania Archives," II : 60; to the Map of New York on page 33, ante, and the Map of Pennsylvania in Chapter V, whereon the sup- posed boundary-line is shown, together with the information that "the Northern Boundary of Pensilvania is not yet Settled."

Having been invested by his Charter with "all the powers and pre- eminences necessary for government," William Penn issued a procla- mation to the people already settled upon a portion of his grant. It was, in part, as follows :

"I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. * * I hope you will not be troubled at your chainge and the King's choice ; for you are now fixt at the mercy of no Governour that comes to make his fortune. You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free and, if you will, a sober and industrious People. I shall not usurp the rights of any or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution, and has given me His grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men can reason- ably desire for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with." * *

"Such," says Bancroft ("History of the United States," II : 364), "were the pledges of the Quaker Sovereign on assuming the govern- inent. It is the duty of history to state that, during his long reign, these pledges were redeemed. He never refused the free men of Penn- sylvania a reasonable desire."

Ever since Adam and Eve were forced to migrate from the Garden of Eden, man has sought to better himself and improve upon his sur- roundings by migration and emigration. One of the most notable illus- trations of this fact, in the history of man's progress from the gate of Eden towards better and greater things, is to be found in the chapter relating to the settlement of the North American Continent by the Anglo Saxon race. Our Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers set forth for this New World beyond the sea with the hope that it would redress the wrongs of the Old. They were not guided in their choice of territory by thirst of gain. They wanted to found a Nation-to begin again (breaking with the traditions of the past) in a place where neither Eng-

* By the grant of the King to the Duke of York the tract of country called New York was bounded on the east by Connecticut River, thus conflicting with the express letter of the Massachusetts and Connec- ticut Charters, which extended those Colonies westward to the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. As late as 1783 New York claimed as hers all the territory of the present Vermont, while Massachusetts claimed nearly all the territory within the present limits of New York lying, in one direction, between the 75º of west longitude and the south-eastern shore of Lake Erie, and in the other direction between the 42º of north latitude and the southern shore of Lake Ontario. (See Woodrow Wilson's "A History of the American People," III : 47-49.)

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lish law and government nor the English Church, as directed by Arch- bishop Laud and operated through the Star Chamber, could follow them.

The process of settlement in New England was slow, but it was sure ; and within only a little more than a century and a-third after the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod Harbor we find that in the Colony of Connecticut alone there were about 127,000 white inhabitants *-

* * * "a stirring, hardy race, Keen, careful, daring, ready to embrace Peril for profit-in each form, or all The forms encountered by the Apostle Paul."

The spirit of emigration-that restless, roving spirit inherited from European ancestors in whom the migratory instinct was most power- fully developed-that same Anglo Saxon temperament which brought our ancestors into New England, and which constantly pushes forward to the trial of unknown fortune-began its manifestations in Connecti- cut about the middle of the eighteenth century, and sought its gratifica- tion first in what is now Vermont, and then here in Pennsylvania. "It is true," says Edward Everett Hale, t "that the passion for emigration is in the blood of the people of all the different Colonies. Perhaps the students of heredity will yet prove to us that this desire to make a new home is one of the desires which most often transmits itself to men's posterity."

"Nothing," says Bancroft, "could restrain the Americans from ·

peopling the wilderness. To be a freeholder was the ruling passion of the New England inan. Marriages were early and fruitful. The sons, as they grew up, skilled in the use of the ax and the rifle, would, one after another, move from the old homestead, and, with a wife, a yoke of oxen, a cow and a few husbandry tools, build a small hut in some new plantation ; and, by tasking every faculty of the mind and body, win for themselves plenty and independence. Such were they who began to dwell among the untenanted forests that rose between the Penobscot and the Sainte Croix, or in the New Hampshire grants on each side of the Green Mountains, or in the exquisitely beautiful valley of Wyoming, where, on the banks of the Susquehanna, the wide and rich meadows, shut in by walls of wooded mountains, attracted emigrants from Con- necticut, though their claim of right under the Charter of their native Colony was in conflict with the territorial jurisdiction of the Proprie- taries of Pennsylvania."

"A passion for occupying new territories and forming new settle- ments rose to an amazing height in New Hampshire and in every other quarter of New England ; and the gratification of this taste fostered a

* In 1749 it was computed that there were 70,000 whites and 1,000 negroes within the bounds of Connec- ticut. No estimate of the number of Indians was made. It was in 1756, however, that the first formal census was taken, with the following showing :

Counties-HARTFORD. NEW HAVEN. NEW LONDON.

FAIRFIELD.

WINDHAM.

LITCHFIELD. Totals.

Il'hites, 35,714

17,955

22,015

19,849

19,670

11,773

126,976

Negroes, 854

226

829

711

345

3,019

Indians,

617

Aggregate,

130,612

The principal towns, or townships, of Windham County, with their respective populations, were : Windham (2,406 whites and 40 negroes). Plainfield (1,751 whites and 49 negroes), Canterbury (1,240 whites and 20 negroes) and Voluntown (1,029 whites and 19 negroes). In the town of Lyme, New London County, there were 2,762 whites, 100 negroes and 94 Indians. Governor Fitch of Connecticut, in a report to the Board of Trade, London (under date of July 6, 1756), based on the census then recently completed, stated : "By the best computation our inhabitants have doubled in twenty-four years, which we attribute to an industrious, temperate life and early marriage. * * * Near one-half of the Indians dwell in English families, and the other half in many small clans in various parts of the Colony, and are most of them peaceably inclined." (See "Colonial Records of Connecticut," X : 622.)

In "Domestic and Social Life of the Colonists."

(1892.)

# In "History of the United States," V : 165.

2.17

stubborn resolution and habits of daring and hardy enterprise congenial to the prevalent sentiments of independence, and propitious to the efforts which these sentiments portended. * Among other new settle- ments created by the exuberant vigor of New England, at this period, was one whose primitive manners and happiness, as well as the miser- able desolation which it subsequently underwent in the Revolutionary War, have been rescued from neglect and oblivion by the genius of a poet of Scotland *- the settlement of Wyoming on the banks of the river Susquehanna."+

To many of the inhabitants of rocky and unfertile eastern Connec- ticut, about the year 1750, the marvellous richness and beauty of this valley of Wyoming had become known through the enthusiastic reports carried back from here, from time to time, by a few adventurous traders and explorers. On the rocky hill-sides of Connecticut, where farming was the chief occupation, the population, which had doubled in less than a generation-as reported by Governor Fitch-"was beginning to seem redundant, and was already looking for some outlet. Connecti- cut, it was thought, had about reached the limit of its self-supporting capacity. The farming lands were all taken up, and there was no longer the same chance for the young men who were poor to achieve prosperity, as there had been for their fathers. The time had evidently arrived to begin the settlement of that vast tract beyond the Delaware River which belonged to the Colony by its Charter. *

"It was a land flowing with milk and honey, waiting to be occupied by the chosen people. True, the savage Canaanite inhabited the land -the Indian tribes who, under French influence, in case of war might be objectionable neighbors. There were suspicions, too, that the heirs of William Penn, Proprietors on the southern border of the tract, * might be unfavorable to its occupation as a part of Connecticut. But these considerations were easily disposed of. As to the Indians, the land would be purchased from them in a fair trade.} Still less was serious trouble to be expected from the peace-loving, non-resistant in- habitants of the 'City of Brotherly Love.' Were they not all mild and harmless Quakers-too fair-minded to question the indisputable title of

* THOMAS CAMPBELL. See page 64.

+ From Graham's "History of the United States, " IV : 128.

Į Prior to May 9, 1717, it was legal for any freeman of Connecticut to purchase of the Indians their title to unlocated lands within the Colony ; and this was a sufficient title. But this method of proceeding being attended with difficulty, it was enacted by the General Assembly of the Colony-after premising that difficulties arose "by reason of so many purchases of lands made of the Indians without the preced- ing allowance or subsequent approbation of the General Assembly"-that "all lands in this Government are holden of the King of Great Britain as Lord of the fee ; and that no title to any lands in this Colony can accrue, by any purchase made of the Indians on pretense of their being native proprietors thereof, without the allowance or approbation of this Assembly."

At that day the Colony did not pretend to sell its lands, but portioned them out among its citizens by suffering them, under the discretion and control of the Government, to become purchasers of the Indians. Whenever the Assembly judged that the public good required an extension of settlements, they permitted individuals or companies to acquire lands of the natives for that purpose. A previous permission or sub- sequent approbation was all that was necessary to render the transaction valid. Settlement and popu- lation, rather than speculation and gain, were the objects of this policy.

The Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), in his "Travels in New England and New York," states : "The annals of the world cannot furnish a single instance in which a nation or any other body politic has treated its allies or its subjects either with more justice or more humanity than the New England colonists treated these people [the Indians]. Exclusively of the country of the Pequots, the inhabitants of Connecticut bought of its native proprietors-unless I ant deceived-every inch of ground contained in that Colony. The people of Rhode Island, Plymouth, Massachusetts and New Hampshire proceeded wholly in this equitable manner. Until Philip's War, in 1675, not a single foot of ground in New England was claimed or occupied by the colonists on any other score but that of fair purchase."

"Land grabbing," wrote Joel Eno in The Connecticut MMagazine (VII : Numbers 3 and 4) in 1902, "has never been practised in Connecticut ; neither was it in any of the other early New England Colonies. State what you will about the austerity and sternness of the Puritanic character, it was at least just in its treatment of its predecessors. The Norwich tract, which included the present towns of Norwich, Bozrah, Franklin and Lisbon. was purchased of Uncas in 1659 for supplies which enabled him to raise the siege of the Narragansetts, and €70 in money. Plainfield, with Canterbury, was purchased from the Quinebaug Indians in 1659, and about 400 of them continued to live amicably with the new owners. Windham * >

24S

Connecticut and too peaceable to inake trouble for inoffensive neigh- bors who minded their own business and kept within their rights ?"*

In 1753-and for many years thereafter-the legislative power of Connecticut was vested by its "Constitution," or royal Charter, in a " General Assembly, which was composed "of the Governor of the Colony (or in his absence the Deputy Governor) and twelve Assistants (called the Upper House), and Representatives not exceeding two from each town,t chosen by the freemen of the respective towns they represent (called the Lower House)." This Assembly was in session at Hart- ford from May 10th to June 2d in 1753, and at some time during this period the following memorial§ was presented to it and read :

"TO THE HONORABLE ASSEMBLY to be holden at Hartford, second Thursday of May next, the memorial of the subscribers, inhabitants of Farmington, Windham, Canter- bury, Plainfield, Voluntown, and in several other towns, all of Connecticut Colony, humbly showeth: THAT, WHEREAS, there is a large quantity of land lying upon a river called Susquehanna, and also at a place called Quiwaumuck||; and that there is no Eng- lish inhabitant that lives on said land, nor near thereunto; and the same lies about seventy miles west of Dielewey [Delaware] River, and, as we suppose, within the charter of the Colony of Connecticut"; and that there is a number of Indians that live on or near the piece of land aforesaid, who lay claim to the same. And we, the subscribers, to the number of one hundred persons ** , are very desirous to go and inhabit the aforesaid land, and at the place aforesaid (provided that we can obtain a quiet or quit-claim of the Hon- orable Assembly, of a tract of land lying at the place aforesaid, and to contain a quantity sixteen miles square, to lie on both sides Susquehanna River); and as the Indians lay claim to the same we propose to purchase of them their right, so as to be at peace with them.

"WHEREUPON WE HUMBLY PRAY, that the Honorable Assembly would grant to us a quit-claim of the aforesaid tract, or so much as the Honorable Assembly shall think best, upon such terms as your Honors shall think reasonable, and in such a way and manner that in case we cannot hold and enjoy the same by virtue of said grant, yet, not- withstanding, the same not to be hurtful or prejudicial on any account to this Colony; and in case we can hold and possess said land, then to be always under the government and subject to the laws and discipline of this Colony-and provided that we, the said subscribers, shall within three years next coming lay the same out in equal proportion,

was bequeathed by the will of a son of Uncas to his friends, John Mason and others, in 1675. * * Had- dam, with East Haddam, was secured from the Indians by the payment of thirty coats worth $100. Say- brook [including Lyme], with Old Saybrook, Essex and Chester, was granted by treaty with the Indians in 1636. * * The interesting records are replete with such entries. * * It is clearly evident that the charges of purloining Indian property are without foundation. * * While Connecticut was not the entire country at that time, it was a large portion of it and wielded a strong influence. * * The Puritan, however narrow and rigid, was sympathetic and humane. with the keenest sense of honor and justice. Even in his religious ardor he was no more the bigot than is our present political enthusiast."

* From "Wyoming ; or Connecticut's East India Company." By Henry T. Blake of New Haven, Con- necticut. (Fairfield County Historical Society-Reports and Papers, 1897.)

+ According to the Connecticut system, which has prevailed for many years, a "town" is a municipal district equivalent in many respects to what is known as a township in Pennsylvania and many other States. Within the bounds of the Connecticut "town" there may be, and usually are, several hamlets, post-villages or cities, all, of course, bearing different names. As for instance : The town of Lyme, in New London County, contained about seven or eight miles square of territory, or more, seventy years ago. and within its limits were the hamlets and villages of Lyme (sometimes called "Lyme Street," and again "Old Lyme"), North Lyme, South Lyme, East Lyme, Black Hall and Hamburg ; while the town of Wind- ham, in Windham County, now contains within its limits the post-villages of Windham, North Wind- ham and South Windham (and perhaps others) and the city of Willimantic.

Į "Colonial Records of Connecticut." X : 624.

¿ In reprinting this document neither the spelling (except in two or three instances) nor the punctua- tion in the body of the original has been adhered to. The spelling of the names of the memorialists has been followed, however; but for the sake of convenience the names have been arranged alphabetically.

! Wyoming. See pages 59 and 60.

{ As to the beliefs of some others, about this time, relative to the bounds of Connecticut, it may be noted : (1) In 1730 Governor Talcott of Connecticut, in an official communication in answer to certain queries by the Board of Trade, London, concerning the Province, stated that its "reputed and known boundaries" were Massachusetts on the north, Rhode Island Colony on the east, Long Island on the south and New York Province on the west. (2) In July, 1756, and again in 1761, Governor Fitch of Connecti- cut, in reply to queries of a like character from the same source, inade a statement similar to the fore- going-except that he bounded the Province "southerly on the sea or sound." (3) In May, 1774, the Rev. Richard Peters, at Philadelphia, wrote to the Proprietaries' solicitor in London, as follows ( see "Pennsyl- vania Colonial Records," X : 177): "In the year 1741 the Proprietary Thomas Penn went from here for England, and from that time to this I have been well acquainted with all sorts of Indian negotiations. and have had a great share in the management of theni-either as the Proprietary's Secretary, or as a Member of Council, or as Provincial Secretary, so that I can speak from the best grounds of every matter relating to Indians for above thirty years ; and I can with truth declare that before the year 1753 I never, that I can remember, heard of any claim set up by the Government or any of the inhabitants of the Colony of Connecticut to any lands within this Province."

** There are ninety-two names appended to this memorial.

2.19

and settle upon the same, as also purchase the right of the natives as aforesaid. Or, in some other way, grant us the land aforesaid, as your Honors shall think best-and we, in duty bound, shall ever pray, &c. March 29, 1753.

Peter Avers,

John Kinne,

Nehemiah Parke.

Ephras Andrus,

Jeremiah Kinne,

Jolın Parke.

William Andrews,

Moses Kinne,

William Parke,

Nath. Babcock,

Gideon Keeney,

John Pike,

Noah Briggs,

Nathan Keeney,

Jonathan Pettibone,

Benjamin Crary,

Stephen Keeney,

Josiah Russell,

Christopher Crary,

Thomas Keeney,

Stephen Rhodes,

George Crary,

Samuel Kasson,

Cyprian Stevens,

Oliver Crary,

Adamı Kasson,

David Stevens,

Thomas Cole,

Archibald Kassou.

John Stevens, Samuel Smitlı,

William Cady,

John Keigwin,

Francis Smith, 3d,

Josiah Curtis,

Hugh Kennedy, Jr ,

John Smith, Jr.,

Jedidiah Darbe.

Stephen Kellogg,

John Smith, 2d,

Thomas Douglas,

Henry Linkon,

Benjamin Smith,

Robert Dixson, 3d.

Peter Miller,

Ebenezer Smith, Jr.,

John Dorrance,

James Montgomery,

Stephen Stoyell,

Lemuel Deane,

Timothy More,

Jonas Shepard,

David Downing,

Matthew Patrick, Sr.,

Ezra Spalding,

Patrick Fay,

Matthew Patrick, Jr ..

John Spalding,

Jabez Fitch,

Jacob Patrick,

Eleazer Spalding,

Elijah Francis,

Ezekiel Peirce,

Amos Spalding,

Isaac Gallup,

Jolını Pellet,

Solomon Stoddard,

William Gallup,

Joseph Parks,

Thomas Stewart,

George Gordon,

Nathan Parke,

Phinehas Tracy,

Robert Gordon,

Robert Parke.

Samuel Thomas,

Samuel Gordon,

Thomas Parke, Sr.,

David Waters,

Phinehas Green,

Thomas Parke, Jr.,

Eliphalet Whiting,

Henry Hart,

Joseph Parke,

Ichabod Welles,

Robert Hunter,

Benjamin Parke,

Joshua Whitney.

Robert Jameson,

Asa Parke,

Just when and where the project for the purchase and settlement of the Wyoming lands by inhabitants of Connecticut had its inception it is impossible now to state, but, judging by the fact that a large number of the memorialists hereinbefore named were residents of the county of Windham, and that some of them were men of more than local promi- nence, it is quite probable that Windham County was the birth-place of the movement, and that the work preliminary to the signing of the memorial and its presentation to the Assembly was done in the town of Windham-the shire-town, the center of whose business and social life was at "Windham Green," near the center of the town and about two miles south-east of the present city of Willimantic.

"The occasional traveler who strolls along the silent streets of the venerable town of Windham, meeting no inhabitant except perhaps a straggling cow, and hearing no sound but the hum of a drowsy insect, or the feeble croak of a town-born frog, receives little impression of its activity and importance as a political and business center before the Revolution. Then it was one of the wealthiest, most bustling and thriving towns of the Colony ; gay with elegant social life and the home of influential leaders in Connecticut affairs. Within its limits were in- cluded as parishes several of the now adjoining towns. It had four well-trained military companies, four meeting-houses, a court-house and jail and numerous stores. It furnished nineteen Captains and more than sixty other officers and soldiers to the old French War. Its appearance was far more attractive than at the present time. At the head of its capacious public square stood the Congregational Church, elegantly painted in a brilliant yellow, and around the square stood public build- ings and stores and the handsome dwellings of the aristocracy.

William Church,

James Keigwin,

250

"The prosperity of Windham has departed, its glory has faded away, the ancient church and other public edifices have disappeared, and solitude and silence have taken possession of the streets."* The population of the town of Windham was probably between 2,200 and 2,300 in 1753. For its population and that of Windham County three years later, see page 246.

The published records of the Colony of Connecticut do not give any information as to what disposition was made by the General Assembly of the memorial presented to it at its session in May, 1753; but we learn from those records that four of the memorialists-Capt. Jabez Fitch, Capt. Isaac Gallup, Ezekiel Peirce and Joseph Parke-were members of the Assembly at that time. Evidently the project proposed in the memorial was looked upon generally with favor in the Assembly, for we find that within a very short time after the matter had been presented to that body the Hon. Hezekiah Huntington, Col. (later Maj. Gen.) Phineas Lyman, Maj. (later Col.) Eliphalet Dyer, William Williams (in 1776 a signer of the Declaration of Independence), Capt. Stephen Lee, Isaac and Elisha Tracy and other gentlemen of prominence who had been Representatives at the May session, together with George Wyllys, Secretary of the Colony, and Roger Wolcott, Jr., son of the then Governor of Connecticut, became participators in the movement on foot.

In the meantime the projectors of this movement were busy in dif- ferent quarters of Connecticut soliciting their neighbors and friends to join them in the "Susquehanna affair"-as it was commonly called at the time. At length, on the 18th of the ensuing July, some 250 of the men who had become interested in the "affair" met at Windham and organized "THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY." "Articles of Agreement" were drawn up and recorded at length in the record- or minute-book of the Company, referred to on page 28, ante ; it being intended, evidently, that each person who might become a member of the Company should sign these "Articles." This intention was never carried out, however ; but the names of all shareholders and members were duly entered in the books of the Company by the Secretary. A reduced photo-repro- duction of a portion of the original "Articles of Agreement," as recorded on the first page of the "minute-book" mentioned above, will be found facing this page; while the following is a copy of the document in full -except that the punctuation, capitalization and spelling (save in two or three instances) of the original have not been followed.

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A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 37

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray Publication date: 1909-1930 Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press Number of Pages: 734

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909-1930
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734