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 71
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On the same day that Armstrong and his command set out from Fort Shirley the Rev. John Elder, at Paxtang, wrote to Governor Hamilton as follows :
"As a number of volunteers from this County, on the return of Colonel Armstrong, design to scout a little way into the enemy's country, our troops would gladly join the volunteers, if it's agreeable to your Honour ; and as that favour, they imagine, has been granted the troops on the other [the west] side of the Susquehanna, they flatter then1- selves it will not be refused these two companies. Their principal view is to destroy the immense quantity of corn left by the New England men at Wyoming, which, if not con-
* Mentioned in foot-note (III) on page 206. Since that note was printed I have ascertained that in 1756, during the Indian hostilities in Pennsylvania, three of Andrew Montour's children, who were in Philadelphia, were put under the care of Governor Morris, "independent of their inother"; as also a twelve-year old son of Montour's "by a former wife, a Delaware, granddaughter of Alluminapees," inen- tioned on page 186. Montour also had at that time a daughter named Kayodaghscroony, or "Madelina," who was living among the Delawares. (See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 95.)
+ See original letter among "The Horsfield Papers," previously referred to.
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sumed, will be a considerable magazine to the enemy, and enable them, with more ease, to distress the inhabitants, etc."
Governor Hamilton replied to this communication on the 5th of October, and stated that he "could have no objection to their scouting as far as Wyoming and destroying the corn, if any be left there," but he positively prohibited the marching of the troops to, and the destruction of, the Indian town at Wyalusing, as was contemplated by the Lancas- ter and Cumberland officers. The inhabitants of southern Pennsyl- vania and the Governor at Philadelphia were, without doubt, under the impression at this time that the settlers at Wyoming, in consequence of the proclamation of the Governor ordering them to depart from the valley, and in view of the perilous condition of the times, had, without delay, suspended their operations and returned whence they caine. Such, however, was not the case. On the 10th of October the Gover- nor wrote again to the Rev. Mr. Elder, as follows :
"I should not have anything to add at this time but for a letter the Commissioners and I have received from Mr. Robert Callender, acquainting us that Major Clayton* has applied to him to furnish provisions for 200 men for twenty days; by which it is con- ceived that he hath an intention of going upon some expedition against the Indians, without having communicated the same to me and received my approbation-a step I can by no means approve in an officer bearing the King's commission."
On the same day Governor Hamilton wrote to Timothy Horsfield as followst:
"Repeated applications have been made to me from the officers of the Lancaster companies, with some volunteers of that frontier, for permission to scout as far as Wyo- ming and destroy a great quantity of corn left, as they say, by the Connecticut men ; and from thence to proceed and attack Wihilusing, which they look upon as a receptacle and retreat to all the scalping parties that have invested our northern frontier. I have, in consideration of Papoonhank and the other religious Indians who live there, absolutely forbid them to go near that place for the present, till I can learn whether the enemy Indians are received and harbored by them. If that should turn out to be the case, they would richly deserve whatever mischief could befall them ; but, whether it is or not the case, I am of opinion it will not be long possible to restrain the ardor of the people for revenging-on all of that colour, whether friends or foes, wherever they come across them -- the horrid cruelties daily committed on our inhabitants. It is indeed enough to wear out the patience of a saint !"
October 13th Major Clayton, with a force of eighty soldiers and volunteers from Lancaster County, arrived at Fort Augusta en route to Wyoming. Joined by Lieut. Samuel Hunter and twenty-four men belonging to the garrison of the fort, the party set off on Saturday the 15th for their destination up the river. On the following Monday (October 17th) the Rev. Mr. Elder, at Paxtang, wrote to the Governor as follows :
"Your favor of the 10th I received last night, and am sorry to find that our pro- ceedings are any way disagreeable to the Legislature. Our two companies, fired with resentment on hearing the barbarities committed by the savages, and willing to serve their country to the utmost of their power, signified to me their strong desire to join in any expedition that might be undertaken against the common enemy. And encouraged by your acquainting me that you 'had no objection against our destroying the corn teft at Wyoming, I ordered them to proceed on that service ; strictly prohibiting them, in obedience to your Honour's command, to make any attack on Wialusing. The party, though small, set out from Hunter's last Tuesday [October 11th] in high spirits ; so that it is impossible to suspend the expedition now, as the troops are, by this time,
* ASHER CLAYTON was appointed and commissioned by Governor Morris, May 24, 1756, Lieutenant and Adjutant of the Pennsylvania Regiment commanded by Col. William Clapham, and in July, 1756, was with the regiment in camp at Shamokin. (See pages 339 and 360.) January 9, 1758, he was commis- sioned Captain in the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment, then commanded by Col. James Burd, and was stationed at Fort Augusta. In June, 1760, he was still in service as Captain in this Battalion. Upon the organization of the "Rangers" by the Rev. John Elder in 1763 Asher Clayton was commissioned Major of the battalion, and early in 1764 he succeeded Elder as Colonel of the same. In 1771 he resided in Philadelphia.
¡ For the original letter see "The Horsfield Papers."
# Hunter's Mill, mentioned on page 320.
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advanced, I doubt not, as far as Wyoming. What success they may have I know not ; but if they destroy the corn and improvements-made there by the New England men lo the great displeasure of the Indians and in contempt of your Honour's authority- and can happily intercept the murdering party on their return from Northampton, I pre- sume it will be of considerable service."
The "murdering party" referred to in the foregoing letter was a band of hostile Delawares led by Teedyuscung's son "Captain Bull", previously mentioned* ; and concerning their depredations Governor Hamilton had sent a message to the Provincial Assembly on October 15tlı, in these wordst:
"Within a few days past I have received well attested accounts of many barbarous and shocking murders and other depredations having been committed by Indians on the inhabitants of Northampton County, in consequence whereof great numbers of those who escaped the rage of the enemy have already deserted, and are daily deserting, their habitations ; so that, unless some effectual aid can be speedily granted them, to induce them to stand their ground, it is difficult to say where these desertions will stop, or to how small a distance from the capital our frontier may be reduced."
The Quakers who controlled the Government of the Province "seemned resolved," says Francis Parkman in his "History of the Con- spiracy of Pontiac," "that they would neither defend the people of the frontier nor allow them to defend themselves, and vehemently inveighed against all expeditions to cut off the Indian marauders. Their security was owing to their local situation, being confined to the eastern part of the Province." Only a short time before this General Amherst, annoyed by the apparent deafness to all entreaties of the persons in con- trol of the Pennsylvania Government, wrote: "The conduct of the Pennsylvania Assembly is altogether so infatuated and stupidly obsti- nate, that I want words to express my indignation thereat."
"Captain Bull", who headed the war-party of western Delawares in its destructive incursion into eastern Pennsylvania, had, as we have previously noted, spent at least ten years of his life among the western Delawares. He was, therefore-it may be presumned-thoroughly im- bued with the sentiments which generally prevailed among those Indians with reference to the English. In the Spring of 1760 he visited his father at Wyoming, and in June accompanied the latter on his peace mission to the western tribes-as we have shown on page 388. Whether or not he returned from that mission to Wyoming with his father we have no means of ascertaining ; nor can we learn whether he was at Wyoming or on the Ohio when Teedyuscung came to his sudden and fiery end. It is quite probable, however, that he was at one of the Mingo-Delaware towns in what is now Steuben County, New York ; or, perhaps, was in the region west of the Alleghenies.
The first intimation the inhabitants of the eastern borders of Penn- sylvania had that there were hostile Indians in their midst came to them on the Stli of October, 1763, when, before daybreak, "Captain Bull" and his band attacked the house of John Stenton, on the main road from Bethlehem to Fort Allen, where Capt. Jacob Wetterhold and a squad of soldiers, of the Provincial service, were lodging for the night. In this attack Wetterhold and several others of the whites were wounded and three were killed. Only one of the attacking party was killed. The same day the Indians plundered and destroyed several other houses and killed a number of people in that locality. A day or two later Yost's inill, about eleven miles from Bethlehem, was destroyed, and all the
* See the fourth paragraph of the note on page 308; also, pages 388 and 389.
+ See "Pennsylvania Archives," Fourth Series, III : 217.
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people at the place, excepting a young man, were cut off. These dep- redations and murders were all committed within only a few miles of "Captain Bull's" ancestral home. Altogether twenty-three persons were killed and many dangerously wounded. The settlers were thrown into the utinost distress, fleeing from their plantations with hardly a suffi- ciency of clothing with which to cover themselves, and coming into the town of Northampton (now Allentown) where "there were but four guns at the time, and three of them unfit for use-with the enemy four miles from the place." The Indians, however, fled to the mountains, and made their way in the direction of Wyoming.
On Saturday, October 15th-the self-same day that Maj. Asher Clay- ton's expedition set out from Fort Augusta for Wyoming, and that Governor Hamilton, at Philadelphia, notified the Provincial Assembly of the outrages which had been committed in Northampton County- the settlers at Mill Creek, in Wyoming Valley, were busily engaged in their various occupations at different points-unsuspicious of danger and unprepared for disaster. Some of the inen were at work about the inill, others were in the fields on the flats ; some were felling trees along the edge of the forest, others were erecting two or three additional log cabins needed for the more comfortable accommodation of the growing colony, while nearly all the women and children of the settlement were occupied in and about the block-house and the various cabins. It was near the hour of noon, and all was peaceful and serene in the little settlement on that bright and cheerful Autumn day, when, suddenly, "Whoop after whoop with rack the ear assail'd,
As if unearthly fiends had burst their bar ! And sounds that mingled laugh and shout and scream- To freeze the blood in one discordant jar- Rang to the pealing thunderbolts of war."
"Captain Bull" and his warriors-increased in number to 135* since their devastating descent upon the Lehigh settlements-had swooped down upon the unsuspecting people of Wyoming, and death, dispersion and destruction quickly followed. Not all the names of those who were either killed or carried away into captivity on that direful occasion have been preserved. Somne eigliteen or twenty persons were killed, among whom were the Rev. William Marsht (the minister of the settlement), Thomas Marsh, Timothy Hollister, Sr., Timothy Hollister, Jr., Samuel Richards, Nathaniel Terry (a brother of Parshall Terry, previously mentioned), Wright Smith, Jesse Wiggins and Zur-
* According to the printed statement of Isaac Hollister. See page 439.
+ The Rev. WILLIAM MARSH became one of the proprietors of The Susquehanna Company in May, 1762, by the purchase of one "right" from Z. Clark of Stratford, Connecticut, an agent of the Company. At the same time Elihu Marsh-presumably a relative of the Rev. William-purchased one "right" from agent Clark. As previously noted, William Marsh was one of the original settlers at Mill Creek in the Autumn of 1762 ; and when the Company voted (see page 413) that "some proper well-disposed person be procured * * * to carry on religious instruction and worship" among the Company's Wyoming set- tlers, the Directing Committee selected Mr. Marsh,
The present writer is indebted to the Rev. John T. Griffith, D. D., of Edwardsville, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, for the following interesting information concerning the Rev. William Marsh, extracted from a paper, entitled "Early Religious Movements in the Wyoming Valley," read by Dr. Griffith in March, 1904, before the "Cleric" of Wilkes-Barre, and in June, 1904, before the Baptist Ministers' Confer- ence of Scranton.
"Morgan Edwards, the Baptist historian, says that William Marsh was born at Wrentham [Norfolk County, Massachusetts], and ordained among the 'Separate' branch of the Congregationalists. About 1749 he, with sixteen others, formed an independent Church at Maisfield, in Tolland County [adjoining Windham County], Connecticut, of which he became pastor. In 1751 they settled in the north part of Newtown, Sussex County, New Jersey, where, in 1756, Mr. Marsh and eight others originated the first Baptist Church organized at Wantage. Mr. Marsh was baptized at Newtown by Elkanah Fuller in 1752. This company of 'Separates' or 'New Lights,' who had emigrated in a body from Mansfield to Newtown, had not been long in their settlement before some (who at Mansfield had had scruples about infant baptism) declared openly for the baptism of believers. But now the same question puzzled them which had puzzled others, both in England, Germany and elsewhere, viz. : 'Whether baptism administered by an unbaptized person is valid'-for they considered infant baptism as a nullity. However, they decided
MASSACRE OF THE FIRST WYOMING SETTLERS, 1763. Photo-reproduction of an engraving by J. C. McRae (published in 1852), after the original drawing by F. O. C. Darley entitled " Wyoming."
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viah Whitney. Among those who were taken prisoners were Isaac Hollister, Benjamin Sheppard, Daniel Baldwin and Jane, his wife, Abra- hamn Baldwin (said to have been a son of Daniel and Jane), John Hower and Emanuel Hower.
When the savages reached the settlement Timothy Hollister, Sr., and his son Isaac were at work near the river. The father was instantly killed and Isaac was seized and bound; while, at almost the same moment, Timothy Hollister, Jr., who was at work about half a mile distant, was shot down and scalped. The brothers John and Emanuel Hower were at work upon a chimney, being built in a house on the flats, when they were made prisoners by the marauders, who had already another captive with them. The three men were marched off by their captors (six or eight in number), and, as they went up the hill near where the village of Plains is now located, they met, coming down, a man carrying a small bundle in his hand, perfectly thoughtless of danger. The Indians immediately surrounded him, and with their spears thrust him through and through. Then they scalped him and passed on. Parshall and Nathaniel Terry were on their way to their cabin for dinner. Nathaniel, seeing an Indian just ready to shoot at his brother, cried out : "Parshall, the Indians! the Indians !" The savage immediately fired at Nathaniel and killed him, but Parshall, who was unarmed, dropped down in the tall grass. The Indian searched for him a long time, frequently coming within a few feet of him, but did not find him.
The settlers who were at the mill, the block-house and the cabins were alarmed by the gunshots and war-whoops of the Indians on the flats near the river, and, without waiting to gather up any of their belongings, fled in haste through the woods to the mountains on the east. "As they turned back, during their ascent, to steal an occasional glance at the beautiful valley below, they beheld the savages driving their cattle away and plundering their houses of the goods that had been left. At nightfall the torchi was applied, and the darkness that hung over the vale was illuminated by the lurid flames of their own dwellings -the abodes of happiness and peace in the morning. Hapless indeed was the condition of the fugitives. The chilly winds of Autumn were howling with melancholy wail among the mountain pines, through which, over rivers and glens and fearful morasses, they were to thread their way sixty miles to the nearest settlement on the Delaware, and thence back to their friends in Connecticut-a total distance of nearly 250 miles. Notwithstanding the hardships they were compelled to encounter, and the deprivations under which they labored, many of them accomplished the journey in safety, while others, lost in the mnazes of the swamps, were never heard of more."
Those fleeing settlers who managed to survive the hardships of their long and difficult journey through an unbroken wilderness, reached
the question in the affirmative, from a consideration of necessity, and accordingly William Marsh was baptized by Elkanah Fuller, and then Mr. Fuller by Mr. Marsh. This was in the Winter of 1752, for 'it is remembered,' says the author of the History of Sussex County, 'that the ice was broken, for the pur- pose, in the form of a grave !' Next year there were baptized by Mr. Marsh : Joshua Cole, Captain Roe, Daniel Roberts, Hezekiah Smith and his wife and Rodolphus Fuller. These eight persons were, Noven- ber 14, 1756, formed into a Baptist Church by a new covenant, which is still extant. William Marsh's name appears in the minutes of the Philadelphia (Baptist) Association for the years 1761, '62 and '63, and then disappears."
It will be observed that Elkanah and Rodolphus Fuller, mentioned in the foregoing account, were, as well as William Marsh, among the original settlers at Mill Creek in 1762. One of the routes from Con- necticut, and Orange County, New York, to Wyoming Valley, traveled by inany of the first settlers in coming to the valley, or in returning home, lay through Sussex County, New Jersey ; aud in later years a number of inhabitants of that county inimigrated here.
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the Minisink settlements* about the 21st of October. There they found gathered a large number of refugees from the upper settlements of Northampton County, and, joining these, the Wyoming settlers remained in that locality for some days in order to regain their strength and ac- quire new vigor before setting out for New England. The following letter, printed in The New London Gazette (New London, Connecticut) November 18, 1763, was written on the 6th of that month by Capt. Lemuel Bowers of Hanover, New Jersey, "at headquarters twelve miles above Colonel Van Camp's, t on the River Delaware, on the frontiers of New Jersey."
"I arrived here with my detachment of ninety men, by order of his Excellency William Franklin,¿ where I found 150 persons, men, women and children, who were driven to this station by the cruel savages of the wilderness. Of these [refugees] fifty at least lodge every night in one small room, in a very uncomfortable and confused manner. In the morning they throw what beds and covering they have out of doors in one heap. These poor people (if ever there can be such), it seems, are the most proper objects of our commiseration, for they have been compelled to quit their little all-their provisions, their corn and, in short, their whole dependence-to be devoured and consumed without any hope of security. What can ever animate a Christian to unsheathe the sword and bathe the same in blood, if the distress of his brethren, by reason of the inhuman cruelty of savages, will not? * * * Every time I see these piteous objects and hear their lamentations methinks I feel something within that makes me uneasy, without revenge."
Wyoming was now, in very truth, deserted and forsaken! But neither that fact, nor any information concerning the massacre that had taken place here, had yet been communicated to the authorities at Phil- adelphia on the 20th of October, 1763; for on that day Governor Ham- ilton (pursuant to His Majesty's instructions, under his sign manual, dated at the palace of St. James June 15, 1763) issued a commission to Col. James Burd (previously mentioned), appointing him to act as a Commissioner on the part of Pennsylvania, jointly with a Commissioner to be appointed by the Governor of Connecticut, in communicating His Majesty's strict commands to the Connecticut settlers at Wyoming. The commission to Colonel Burd read in part as follows§ :
"His Majesty signified it to be his will and pleasure that I should forthwith, by commission, constitute and appoint a person to be a Commissioner on the part of Penn- sylvania to act in concert with a Commissioner in like manner to be appointed by the Governor of Connecticut. And I am directed and required to instruct said Commissioner with all convenient speed to proceed with the said Connecticut Commissioner to the settlement at Wyomning, and there to cause his commission to be read and published ; and then to require and command the inhabitants, in His Majesty's name, forthwith to desist from their said undertaking."
This commission was sent by a special messenger to Colonel Burd at Fort Augusta, but, in the evening of the very day that the commis- sion had been issued, Major Clayton and his troops returned to Fort Augusta from their expedition to Wyoming and reported the condition of affairs here ; so that, when his commission reached his hands, Colonel Burd knew that the New Englanders had already been most effectually estopped "from their said undertaking." The following is an extract from a letter written at Paxtang, in Lancaster County, October 23, 1763, and published in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia) on the 27th of the same month :
"Our party under Captain [sic] Clayton is returned from Wyoming, where they met with no Indians, but found the New Englanders who had been killed and scalped a
* See note, page 189.
+ Col. JOHN VAN CAMPEN is here referred to. He lived and, as early at least as 1758, owned a flour-mill at the Minisinks, in what is now Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, not far from Dela- ware Water Gap.
# Governor Franklin of New Jersey, a natural son of Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia.
§ See "Pennsylvania Archives," Fourth Series, III : 218.
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day or two before they got there. They buried the dead-nine men and a woman-who had been most cruelly butchered. The woman was roasted, and had two hinges in her hands-supposed to be put in red hot-and several of the men had awls thrust into their eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, etc., sticking in their bodies. They [Clayton's troops] burnt what honses the Indians had left, and destroyed a quantity of Indian corn. The enemy's tracks were up the river towards Wighaloasing [Wyalusing]."
It is not probable that Major Clayton's party found and buried the bodies of all who had been massacred on the 15th of October. The recorded testimony of those witnesses most familiar with the facts is that there were from eighteen to twenty persons killed on that day at differ- ent points within a mile of the block-house at Mill Creek. The soldiers were not in the valley longer than one day, or one day and a-half, hav- ing received, soon after their arrival, a message from Fort Augusta to return there without delay ; therefore they did not have time in which to make a thorough search for the dead. In addition to the corn and other property at Mill Creek which the soldiers destroyed, they also burned down the few houses still standing on the site of the town formerly occupied by Teedyuscung.
On the 25th of October, at Paxtang, the Rev. John Elder wrote to Governor Hamilton as follows* :
"I acquainted your Honour the 17th instant that it was impossible to suspend the Wyoming expedition. The party is now returned, and I shall not trouble your Honour with any account of their proceedings, as Major Clayton informs me that he transmitted to you, from Fort Augusta, a particular account of all their transactions from their setting out from Hunter's till they returned to Augusta. The mangled carcasses of those un- happy creatures, who had settled there, presented to our troops a most melancholy scene, which had been acted not above two days before their arrival ; and by the way the savages came into the town [Wyoming], it appears they were the same party that committed the ravages in Northampton County."
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