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 87
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Two days after the aforementioned meeting was held the following item of news-probably derived from Captains Butler and Colt-was printed in The New London Gazette :
"By late advices from Wyoming, on Susquehannah River, we learn there are about 200 settlers there under the conduct of Maj. John Durkee of Norwich, and that they have secured 500 loads of good hay, and sown 200 acres with wheat, and are yet sowing. The most of their Indian corn is very good. The several mobs raised by the Pennsylvanians to dispossess the settlers have proved abortive. And we further learn that Major Durkee so behaves and conducts that he hath got the universal esteem of all the settlers ; and notwithstanding the disadvantages he is under of not having any law, either civil or martial, to govern the people by, yet he quiets all their uneasinesses, and they are well united, and do not only love and fear, but honor and obey the Major, who is superiorly accomplished for such an undertaking. He is steady, affable, mild and gentle, but reso- lutely determined to defend their just rights against their unjust opposers, and hath hitherto succeeded to the great terror of those evil-doers ; which gives us great hopes, by the blessing of God, of the settlement of this Colony being greatly enlarged, and thereby a door opened for the spreading of the glorious gospel among the natives of this land, so that the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, and the desert become a fruitful field."
September, 1769, was a busy month at Wyoming. On the 20th of the month, at Fort Durkee, a petition was drawn up and signed, reading as follows :
"To the HONOURABLE GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Collony of Connecticut to be holden at Newhaven on the second thursday of Octor nexte.
"The memorial of us the Subscribers Inhabitants of the Province of Newyork humbly sheweth that whereas we your memorialists being greatly opprest by Quit Rents, and under great necessity for lands for ourselves and children, and having understood that your Honours having large extension of lands to the Westward of Susquehannah, by your Charter grant, we your memorialists therefore pray that your Honours would grant to us the Subscribers a small tract of land lying to the westward of the Lands known by the name of the Susquehannah Purchase. We your memorialists therefore humbly Pro- pose that if your honours would grant unto us your memorialists a Township of six miles square of lands lying westward of said Susquehannah lands a quit claim of all your Right and title to sd lands which you have by your Charter grant, at your present sessions, your memorialists will give an honourable Price for the same in Cash or Good Security suffici- ent to the satisfaction of the Collony. And your memorialists shall in Duty Bound ever Pray &c.
"Dated at Wilksberry Sept: 20th 1769.
"KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS that we the Subscribers Inhabitants of the Province of Newyork do hereby Constitute and Appoint our trusty Friend JEDIDIAH ELDERKIN Esq. of Windham in the Collony of Connecticut our lawfull attorney on the within memorial, in our name and stead to appear at the General Assembly for us to act as though we was Personally present. Granting unto our said attorney full
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Power of Substitution In and about the Premises. In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 20th Septr. 1769-Wilksbury on Susquehannah.
"Present-
"Jno. Durkee,
"Chriso Avery,
"Thomas Knights,
"James Nisbitt,
"Richard Knights,
"Zopher Teed, "John Franklin,
"Solomon Teed,
"Parshall Terry,
"Thos Sutton,
"Benjn Matthews, Jun
"Amos Woodworth,
"Aaron Aspenwall,
"Nathan Beach,
"Benjn Matthews."
The writer of the foregoing appears to have been uncertain as to low the new name of the settlement should be spelled, and so he spelled it in two different ways-"Wilksberry" and "Wilksbury." On the 11th of September a petition similar in form and substance to the foregoing had been drawn up and signed by Lazarus Young, John Espy and Will- iam Young, who described themselves as "of the Province of Pennsyl- vania," and appointed Jedidiah Elderkin their attorney. On the 12th of September a petition of the same character as the aforementioned, but dated "Province of New York, September 12, 1769," was signed by the following-named (who set forth that they were "inhabitants of the Province of New York," but who were actually at Fort Durkee at that tinie): Simeon Draper, Peter Harris, William Buck, Elijah Buck, Richard Brockway, David Mead, James Atherton, Oliver Smith, John Wallworth, Asahel Lee, Stephen Miels, Eleazar Carey, James Stark, Christopher Stark, Jr., Aaron Stark, William Stark, Nathan Kees, Will- iam Reynolds, William Wallworth, Amos Stafford, John Stafford, James Smith, Jr., John Groves, Isaac Barra, Zebulon Hoxsie and John Kinyon. On the 15th of September William Holly, John Holly, Michael Seeley and William Leonard-describing themselves as "of the Province of East New Jersey"-signed at Fort Durkee a petition similar to the fore- going, in which they named Jedidiah Elderkin as their attorney. The following, dated the 18th of September, is a copy of a power of attorney intended to accompany one of the abovementioned memorials.
"Know all men by these that we the Subscribers, inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island, do hereby constitute and appoint our trusty friend Jedidiah Elderkin, Esq., of Windham, in the Colony of Connecticut, our lawful attorney on the within memorial, in our name and stead to appear at the General Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut to be holden at Newhaven on the 2d Thursday of October next-for us to act and transact, as though we were personally present, accepting what our said attorney shall lawfully do in and about the premises ; granting unto our said attorney full power of substitution. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands at WILKESBARRE ON THE BANKS OF THE SUSQUEHANNAH RIVER, this 18th day of September, 1769.
"Present-
"Peter Harris,
"John Groves,
"Stephen Jenkins,
"Silvester Chesebrough,
"Daniel Angell, "James Hopkins,'
"Robert Hopkins."
These several memorials and powers of attorney, together with the memorial dated the 29th of August, and set forth in full on pages 508 and 509, were delivered into the hands of Christopher Avery, who, about the 1st of October, set out for Connecticut. It was expected that the petition of The Susquehanna Company for "a lease and release" of their lands by the Colony of Connecticut would be taken up and finally acted on at the October session of the General Assembly, to which the
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matter had been continued-as noted on page 470-and it was intended that these later documents should be laid before the Assembly at the same time. They were duly presented to the Assembly-presumably by Major Elderkin-and the originals are now to be seen in the volume of manuscripts referred to on page 29. The following is a reduced photo- reproduction of the power of attorney last mentioned, which is in the handwriting of Major Durkee.
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Samuel Avery, at Norwich, Connecticut, under date of October 25, 1769, wrote to Major Durkee as follows* :
* * * "Christopher Avery is now at the Assembly. He has been very industri- ous to promote the affair and to gain all the interest and influence in his power. We do not know whether he will return here from the Assembly, or go directly to you. We are very agreeably entertained with your conduct and character there, which every one that come from you are full of. * * * I understand it is the advice of many, and even some of the leaders of the Company, and even some of the committee of the Company here, for the settlers all to quit their possession and come off if the Assembly act nothing in your favor."
Christopher Avery returned to Fort Durkee from Connecticut about the 1st of November, with the dispiriting report that the Assembly had taken no action on the memorials which he had carried to New Haven, and that upon the Company's memorial, previously mentioned, a com- mittee of conference had again been appointed.
Parshall Terry, in his affidavit mentioned on page 403, states "that some time in the month of September [1769],t a small part of the [Wyoming] settlers, being at work at some distance from their block- houses, were attacked by a party of men, said to be commanded by the Ogdens, and several of the settlers were beat and wounded." Col. Eliph- alet Dyer, Samuel Gray, Esq., Maj. Jedidiah Elderkin and Nathaniel
* The original letter is in the possession of the present writer.
+ It was Friday, September 22d.
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Wales, Jr., Esq., in a long communication made to Governor Trumbull in March, 1771, relative to the affairs of The Susquehanna Company, stated* :
"In September [1769] Amos and Nathan Ogden, with twenty-six others, armed with pistols and clubs, assaulted and wounded sundry of our people, whereby their lives were endangered.+ The same month thirteen of our people, in three canoes loaded with wheat and flour, about sixty miles below Wyoming were met and robbed of their canoes and loading by thirty armed men who came from Fort Augusta, about one-half mile away. In the same month came on the [adjourned] trial of many of our men at Easton. The charge against them was riot. * In the course of the trial challenge was made * to a juryman for having some time before expressed an opinion openly against our people -but neither that nor any other exception would prevail. The jury were treated with wine by the King's Attorney before verdict, which verdict was brought in against the prisoners, and they condemned to pay a fine of £10 each, with large costs, in which was included the cost of the wine the jury were treated with."
Messrs. Dyer and Elderkin, in their joint-affidavit mentioned on page 475, state with reference to the trial of the settlers at Easton in September that "they were convicted and punished accordingly with fines and costs to the amount of about sixty dollars each. Some made payment, and others being impoverished were committed to prison, where they remained until they made their escape."
Colonel Talcott having been either unable or unwilling to go to Easton to act as counsel for the New Englanders, Colonel Dyer was sent in his stead, with authority to employ a Philadelphia lawyer to assist him in the case. He accordingly secured the services of Richard Peters, 2d, later Judge Peters (mentioned in the note on page 262), and together they proceeded to Easton and defended the twenty "rioters." David Hayfield Conyngham of Philadelphia, an intimate friend of Judge Peters, wrote many years later in his "Reminiscences"} the following paragraph relative to Judge Peters' connection with this case. "The Gaol [at Easton] then being built of logs could only hold from twenty to thirty persons, and the Judges and lawyers not knowing what to do with so many demanding daily of the Sheriff bread and quarters, he [Peters] told me he went among them and advised them to go home ; and, meeting Col. E. Dyer, asked him to walk out with him to talk over the business they had in hand ; and, returning, went to the prison, when the Sheriff told them that the whole party of Yankees had gone off." The escape of the prisoners occurred in the evening of Sunday, September 24th, and the next day the Sheriff prepared an advertisement which was printed some days later in the Pennsylvania Gazette at Phil- adelphia, and probably in other newspapers. It read as follows :
" £60 REWARD !"
"Easton, September 25, 1769 .- WHEREAS, in the night of the 24th inst. the follow- ing persons made their escape out of the goal at Easton, viz .: Benjamin Follett, William Buck, Samuel Gaylord, Richard Brockway, Timothy Smith, Timothy Peirce, Ezra Beld- ing, Silas Bingham, Stephen Harding, Elias Roberts, Rudolph Brink Vanorman and
* See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, IV : 401.
t The Moravian missionaries at Friedenshütten (Wyalusing) recorded in their journal, under the date of October 23, 1769, the following (see "Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society," I : 200): "We cautioned the Indians not to hunt at Wyoming, as intelligence reached us of a collision there between the New England settlers and the Pennsylvanians." News traveled slowly in those days.
Relative to the preparations which had to be made to bring about the "collision" abovementioned, and as to the expense attending the same, we get some information from the previously-mentioned "Penn-Physick MSS.," III : 89 and IV : 227 and 229. September 15, 1769, Charles Stewart paid Joseph Morris and John Dick each £10, 15sh. "in full"-presumably for services. The same date William Ledlie was paid £1, 12sh. 7d. for stores. September 19, Charles Stewart paid Thomas Craig, Jr., "for himself, horse and expenses, four days, riding and summoning men to go to Wioming, £2, 5sh." Same date, "paid George Wolf for himself and expenses going over the mountain, five days, to provide necessaries for the people summoned to Wioming, £1, 7sh .; paid Conrad Teeter for a beef cow, £2, 6sh." In October, 1769, Receiver General Physick paid to Charles Stewart £220, 11sh. 1d., "in full for his account for stores, wages for sundry people, and for dividing [into lots] Sunbury and Stoke Manors."
# See the "Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society," VIII : 231.
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Nathan Denison-being a company from Connecticut who were lately convicted and im- prisoned for committing a riot at Lachnawanock, on the East Branch of the River Sus- quehanna ; which said escape was effected by the aid and assistance of one Thomas Dyer, wlio, being at liberty, had free access to his companions. I, the subscriber, do therefore hereby offer the above reward for all the said delinquents, or £5 for each of them that shall be taken up and secured in any of His Majesty's goals within this Govern- ment, &c.
[Signed] "JOHN JENNINGS, Sheriff."
None of these twelve "delinquents" was captured, for, as expe- ditiously as possible, they proceeded to their respective homes, beyond the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania Courts and the grasp of their processes.
About the middle of September, 1769, arrangements were made by the "Committee of Settlers" at Fort Durkee with respect to the locating and laying out of the five "gratuity," or "settling," towns, or townships, provided for by the resolutions of The Susquehanna Company, as de- scribed on pages 465 and 466. It was decided that the three authorized by the Company to be located together should be surveyed on the east side of the Susquehanna, and the remaining two on the west side. David Mead, one of the settlers, who was a practical surveyor, was selected to run the lines, and "Deacon" Timothy Hopkins, Capt. Eliph- alet Whittlesey, Capt. Prince Alden, John Smith, Esq., and Christopher Avery, Esq., were appointed "a committee to reconnoiter and view the ground for the townships, and to assist the surveyor in laying out and pitching them." Nathaniel Wales and Andrew Metcalf assisted the aforenamed in laying out one or more of the townships. What surveyor Mead was paid for his work we have not been able to learn, but each member of the committee named above was paid four shillings per day for his services. Twelve days were occupied in doing the necessary work, which was completed by the first of October. However, the boundaries only of the five townships were surveyed and laid down at that time, the work of subdividing each township into "divisions" and "lots" being done in 1770 and subsequent years.
The first township to be surveyed comprehended the settlement of the Yankees at Fort Durkee and that of the Pennamites at Mill Creek, and it formally and immediately received the name which, some weeks previously, had been bestowed by Major Durkee upon the Yankee set- tlement-"Wilkesbarre." South-west of and adjoining "Wilkesbarre" there was surveyed a township which included the former site of the village of the Nanticoke Indians, and also the whole or a part of the township of Nanticoke which had been laid out by the Pennamites in April, 1769, as mentioned on page 487. To this township the Yankees gave the name "Nanticoke"; but a year or two later-as is more fully related hereinafter-"Hanover" was substituted for the original name by the then proprietors of the township. Adjoining "Wilkesbarre" on its north-eastern boundary the third township was surveyed, to which, subsequently, the name "Pittstown" was given-later changed to "Pitts- ton." Passing over to the west side of the river the surveyors laid out for the "First Forty," in the locality previously selected by those settlers, the township to which they were entitled. This township was known and referred to as the "Forty Township" until the Summer of 1771, when it received the name "Kingstown," subsequently changed to "Kingston." Adjoining the "Forty Township" on its south-west boundary the fifth and last of the settling towns was laid ont. To it, later, was given the name "Plymouth." The relative locations of these five townships are fairly well shown on the map facing page 468.
516
/457.
4457
Wilkessbarre, 1769.
NIKON
UMQI
1350
DOEZ
PERCHES
Stoke
₦140₦
JESSI
10
SCALE OF PERCHES
05¢
PLOT OF THE ORIGINAL TOWN, OR TOWNSHIP, OF WILKES-BARRE, WITH RELATION TO THE MANOR OF STOKE.
Specially prepared for this work, from original data, by William H. Sturdevant, Civil Engineer.
SOUTN
WEST
1768.
Original
of
517
None of these townships was square, as the Company, by its reso- lutions, contemplated they should be; and none of them contained exactly twenty-five square miles of land. The metes and bounds of "Wilkesbarre" were as follows: Beginning at a point on the river bank, in the locality of the present village of Plainsville ; thence south, 61° east, 1,497 perches (4.67+ miles) to a point beyond the crest of Wilkes-Barré Mountain ; thence south, 44° 30' west, 1,950 perches (6.09+ miles); thence nortlı, 51° 30' west, 1,554.5 perches (4.85+ miles) to the river, and thence, along the eastern margin of the river, to the place of beginning. The township thus contained nearly twenty-nine square miles of territory, and, as is shown by the plot on page 516, in- cluded nearly one-half of the Pennsylvania Proprietaries' Manor of Stoke. Further, the island at the bend of the river, now called Fish's Island, was (as noted on page 51) annexed to and considered a part of this township, and for many years thereafter was known as "Wilkes- Barré Island."
It cannot be doubted, apparently, that the name which Major Dur- kee coined and bestowed upon this town was "Wilkesbarre"-or, written so as to indicate the correct pronunciation of the name, "Wilkesbarré." The Major's original design or intention was, clearly, to make of two proper names a new word-"Wilkesbarré," a name sui generis ! This idea may have been-indeed, probably was-suggested to him by the name of Saybrook, an ancient town within the borders of his native Colony and situated only about twenty-five miles from his birth-place ; a town whose name, it was well understood, had been compounded of the names of two men-as mentioned on page 240, ante. Moreover, it was the common custom at that time, in America as well as in England, to write and print as one word the name of a town or place formed either of two nouns or of an adjective and a noun. Thus, in England there were then "Easthamstead," "Newhaven," "Westfield," "Newbourn," "Newcastle," "Newmarket" and "Kingswood"; while in America there were, in addition to "Saybrook," "Halfmoon," "Easthampton," "Marble- head," "Northampton," "Westchester" and "Newhaven"-the name of the well-known Connecticut city being at that period written "New- haven" as often as "New Haven." Major Durkee was no dullard ; he had seen something of the world, and the abovementioned facts were undoubtedly known to him. At any rate, from an examination of the various known and accessible examples of Major Durkee's handwriting, in which the name of our town appears, we find that he invariably wrote it "Wilkesbarre." He may have done this ignorant of the fact that Colonel Barré, in writing his name, used "é" and not "e"; or, knowing the fact, may have mistakingly looked upon the diacritical mark over the "e" as unnecessary.
Uninformed as to the etymology of the name, and having heard it mispronounced in a variety of ways, many persons in the early days of the town wrote the name "Wilksborough." Examples of this form written in 1771 and 1774 are still in existence. In the Act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania erecting the county of Luzerne, passed September 25, 1786, the name of our town was printed "Wilkes- burg"; but in a supplement to the Act passed in 1788 the name was printed "Wilkesborough." Colonel Pickering, for a short time after he took up his residence here in 1787, used the form "Wilkesburg," but
518
later he wrote the name "Wilkesborough"-these being the two forms used in the Legislative Acts mentioned. Afterwards, having discovered what the real name of the town was-"as originally given to it by the New England people"-Colonel Pickering wrote the naine always "Wilkesbarre"; some times, however, writing the diacritical mark over the final "e." In January, 1789, he brought the matter of the name of the town to the attention of President Mifflin of the Supreme Executive Council of the State, and in a resolution passed by the Council in March following, relating to certain affairs in Luzerne County, the name "Wilkesbarre" appeared for the first time in the official records and en- actinents of the State of Pennsylvania.
In many of the records of the Courts of Luzerne County for the years 1788 and 1789-writs, records of convictions, Sheriff's returns, etc .- "Wilksborough" and "Wilkesborough" appear, as written by attorneys and the officers of the county. "Wilksburg" appears on a inap of Pennsylvania published in The Columbian Magazine for January, 1788 ; also on the map accompanying Weld's "Travels through the States of North America," first published in 1798-although in the body of the book the author uses the form "Wilkesbarré." In the twenty- fourth edition of Webster's "Spelling Book," published at Boston in 1802, there is a list of the various counties in the United States, with their chief towns, and "Wilksburgh" is given as the county-seat of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. "Wilksbury" was another form that the name early took when written by some of the local scribes. We find this spelling in some of the minutes of town-meetings held in 1771, and in the records of The Susquehanna Company for the year 1773. It was used as late, even, as 1789 in certain deeds. Judge Matthias Hol- lenback used the form "Wilksberre" in an acknowledgment to a deed in December, 1789. "Wilksbarry" was the manner in which Ezekiel Peirce, clerk of a town-meeting in 1772, spelled the name. Col. Nathan Denison wrote "Wilksbarra" in February, 1789. This same form was used by Lord Butler, Sheriff of Luzerne County, in a deed written and executed by him in September, 1789; but in 1793, in writs issued by him as Pro- thonotary of the county, he used the form "Wilksbarre." Col. John Franklin sometimes used the forin "Wilksbarra" prior to 1785, but after that year he invariably wrote the name "Wilksbarre." The Rev. Jacob Johnson used the form "Wilksbarre" in the years 1772 to 1779, and per- haps in later years. His son, Jehoiada P. Johnson, used the same spelling as late as 1804. On Reading Howell's map of Pennsylvania, published by authority of the State in 1791, "Wilksbarre" appears *; as it does also on an engraved map of the State in Proud's "History of Pennsylvania," published in 1798. From original letters among the "Pickering Papers" (mentioned on page 29) we learn that in 1789 Judge Richard Peters used the form "Wilkesbarre"; in 17SS Tench Coxe wrote "Wilkesborough" and William Montgomery "Wilksborough."
The separation of the name into two parts, and the use of "B" in- stead of "b" in writing the last half of the name, was of very infrequent occurrence in early days. The first known instance of the use of this form is shown in the document reproduced on page 508. In February, 1770, Zebulon Butler wrote "Wilks Barry," and in the following April he wrote "Wilkes Berry" and "Wilks Barre." After 1771 or 1772 he
* See Chapter XXIII for a reproduction of a portion of this map.
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invariably wrote the name "Wilks Barre"; which same forin was some- times used-in early years, at least-by John Jenkins, Sr. The use of the diacritical mark over the final "e" seems, from the beginning, to have been observed by very few persons. Colonel Pickering, who was an exceedingly well-informed man, and who was careful and particular in matters of detail, used the forin "Wilkesbarré" in his diary in Feb- ruary, 1787, and subsequently to 1791 he used it frequently. "Wilkes- barré" was the forin generally used by Judge Thomas Cooper, a man of wide information and much culture ; and in all the certificates issued by him and the other commissioners under the Act of April 4, 1799, for lands in this township, the name of the township was printed "Wilkes- barre" and written "Wilkesbarre."* In 1816 a work on "Gas Lights," written by Judge Cooper, was printed at Philadelphia, and the name of our town appears therein "Wilkesbarre." Throughout the various editions of Stone's "Poetry and History of Wyoming," mentioned on page 19, "Wilkesbarré" is the form used.
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