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. II > Part 37
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"The affairs of that Company have taken various turns since that time, through the whole of which I have never taken any part, or troubled myself with their concerns, until the last Summer, when, being at my former home in New Haven, I accidentally met with a pamphlet, wrote on the side of the Susquehanna claim, addressed to 'J. H., Esquire."* In this performance I found mention made of ancient memorials respecting the history and title of the Colony, some of which were quite new to me. This put me upon searching more fully into the matter, the consequence of which was that I became more convinced than ever of the groundlessness of the Colony's claim to the western lands; and in order to preserve the train of my own ideas of the matter I committed them to writing. The materials and papers which I had thus collected I obtruded upon none; at the same time I showed them freely to every one who desired to see them, and one of the Susquehanna gentlemen took a complete copy of the piece which I wrote. * * * Dr. [William] Smith, Provost of the college here, came to me and requested a sight of them, informing me that he was writing upon the subject of the Susquehanna Claim. Other gentlemen applied to me for the same purpose. * * *
"After due consideration I concluded to deliver to Dr. Smith, to be published, the records and papers which were in the nature of proofs, as I had been able to collect them. * * I also gave him the manuscript which I had wrote on the subject, for him to make use of as he thought proper. * * * I am not in the secrets of the counsels of this Prov- ince, nor am I actuated by any lucrative or sinister views. I have believed the people were going wrong, therefore have I spoken. I have an interest in the Colony and have a right to speak; and I wish, since there is to be a dispute between the two Colonies, that the same may be carried on on both sides with a temper and spirit becoming men, who shall appear to act from principle and not from wild enthusiasm or party heat. * *
however, until the Summer of 1761, when he returned to Connecticut. In the Autumn of 1762 he was elected a member of the Council, or Upper House of the Assembly, of Connecticut. In October, 1764, he went to England on private business, and while there accepted the office of Stamp Distributor, or Agent, for Connecticut. He returned home in July, 1765.
In satisfaction for the humiliating treatment which he received at the hands of the "Sons of Liberty" (as previously related), Mr. Ingersoll was subsequently appointed by the Home Government Judge of the Court of Vice-Admiralty in the Middle Colonies, with a salary of £000 sterling per annum. His com- mission arrived from England in January, 1769, and as his duties required that he should reside in Phila- delphia he removed thither with his family in April, 1771. The breaking out of the War of the Revolu- tion put an end to his judicial employment, but he continued to reside in Philadelphia until September, 1777, when, on account of his sentiments and proclivities as a Loyalist, he incurred the displeasure of the Pennsylvania Government and was obliged to remove from the State. He returned to New Haven, where he lived until his death. August 25, 1781, at the age of fifty-nine years.
Jared Ingersoll was married August 1, 1748, at Branford, Connecticut, to Hannah, eldest child of the Hon. Joseph and Hannah ( Trowbridge) Whiting of New Haven. She died October 8, 1779, aged sixty-six years, and Judge Ingersoll was married January 6, 1780, to Hannah, daughter of Capt. Samuel and Sarah Miles of New Haven. By his first wife Judge Ingersoll had four children, three of whom died in infancy. The fourth child-Jared Ingersoll, Jr .- was born at New Haven October 24, 1749, and was graduated at Yale College in the class of 1768. He studied law with his father, and in 1771 removed with his parents
to Philadelphia, where he continued his legal studies under the direction of the Hon. Joseph Reed, and was admitted to the Bar April 26, 1773. In 1774 he went to London and thence to Paris, where he con- tinued his legal studies. Returning to America late in 1778, after the removal of his parents to New Haven, he settled in Philadelphia, where he was re-admitted to the Bar in April, 1779. During the Revo- lution, although the son of a Loyalist, he zealously supported the cause of the Colonists. In 1780-'81 he was a Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, and in 1787 was a member of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. In 1790, upon the adoption of a new Constitution by Penn- sylvania, he was appointed Attorney General of the State, and held the office until 1799. In the Autumn of 1811 Simon Snyder was re-elected Governor of Pennsylvania as a Democrat, defeating the Federal candidate by a large majority. "There was not at that time in Philadelphia," states John Binns in his "Recollections," ""a Democratic lawyer known to the Governor. The latter dwelt with much and entire satisfaction on the high character of Jared Ingersoll, Esq., and expressed a determination to appoint him [Attorney General to succeed Richard Rush], if that gentleman would accept." He did accept, and was appointed to the office in December, 1811. In 1812 Mr. Ingersoll was the candidate of the Federal party for Vice President of the United States. Later he held the office of United States Attorney, and from 1820 until his death was President Judge of the District Court of Philadelphia. At the time of Judge Ingersoll's death (in 1822) it was declared that "no man had ever done more honor and service to the Bar of Philadelphia " than he.
Jared Ingersoll, Jr., was married in December, 1781, to Elizabeth Pettit of Philadelphia, who bore him four sons, three of whom survived him. The eldest of these three was Charles Jared Ingersoll. He was an earnest supporter of the War of 1812, and was one of the strongest advocates of American rights upon this continent. He was a Member of Congress from 1818 to 1815, and from 1841 till 1849. In 1815 he was appointed United States Attorney for the District of Pennsylvania. He was the historian of the War of 1812, and the author of numerous pamphlets, among which was the celebrated " Inchiquin The Jesuit's Letters."
Joseph R. Ingersoll, the third son of Jared Ingersoll. Jr., attained high rank in the legal profession, and for a considerable number of years served as a Member of the United States House of Representa- tives. In 1852 he was appointed Minister to England.
*Mentioned on page 770 ante.
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"There are certain people at this time who, if a word is said against dear Susque- hanna, behave as if they thought an open attack was made upon their honor and their property, and impute all that is said to the worst motiyes. They can charge nothing of the kind upon me but what I may just as well charge upon them; with this difference, however, that they have confessedly a personal interest in the matter, while I have none. * * Shame on those, then, who, under feigned names in newspapers, attack those who venture to oppose them-not with arguments (this would be fair and right)-but with abuse, and even with intimidation. They do not consider that it is equally in the power of others to trace the conduct of the principal leaders and managers among The Susque- hanna Company through all their negotiations for twenty years past; and with the help of a few groundless reports, ill-natured hints and wicked inuendoes, to explain their motives, their views and their conduct in a manner that would do them little honour. But I will not myself so far forget the rights of humanity as to follow the vile example."
The action taken by the Connecticut Assembly, the letter of Jared Ingersoll, that of the writer whose pseudonym was "Many," and various comments which were printed in the newspapers, relating to the lands west of the Delaware, produced considerable tumult and faction in the Colony. The Susquehanna Company had its opposers from the start, and they, as well as many other citizens who previously had taken no particular interest in the matter, now asserted that the claim of the Colony was unfounded. These malcontents readily adopted the sug- . gestion of " Many " (see page 792), that a convention of delegates from the various towns of the Colony should be held at Middletown "to consult on measures to be pursued to evade the evils" which were apprehended. At the written request of more than 200 citizens of New Haven the Selectmen of that town ordered a town-meeting to be held at the State House in New Haven March 10, 1774. Upon that day the number of the inhabitants who assembled was so great that, owing to the smallness of the State House, the meeting was adjourned to the Brick Meeting-house. By "a very great majority " it was then and there voted, " that it is the opinion of this town that this Colony's ex- tending their jurisdiction over those lands west of New York, on the Susquehanna River-and challenged by Mr. Penn-without first pros- ecuting their claim before His Majesty in Council, will be tedious, expensive, and of dangerous tendency." The meeting then appointed a committee to represent New Haven at the convention at Middletown. The following account of a town-meeting held at Fairfield, Connecticut, March 14, 1774, is taken from the Pennsylvania Packet of April 4, 1774. "At a legal town-meeting held this day in this town, the question relating to the Colony's claim to the western lands, called Susquehanna, and the dangerous consequences that it is feared will follow from the Colony's undertaking to assert their claim thereto, and exercise jurisdiction and government there, as lately resolved, were considered, when G. S. Silliman* and Jonathan Sturgest were chosen a committee to repair to Mid- dletown on the last Wednesday in this month, to meet and confer with the committees from the other towns in this Colony as to what measures it may be most prudent to adopt, to prevent those dangerous consequences. * * The meeting was the fullest that hath almost ever been known in this town on any occasion."
Stratford, and other towns in the central and south-western parts of Connecticut, held meetings similar to those held at New Haven and Fairfield, and on Wednesday, March 30, 1774, delegates from twenty- three Connecticut towns met in convention at Middletown. Upon the adjournment of this convention a full report of its proceedings, includ- ing a petition addressed to the General Assembly, was printed in the shape of a broadside, copies of which were freely disseminated through- out the Colony. An original copy is now in the possession of Mr. James
* GOLD SELLECK SILLIMAN, a graduate of Yale College in the class of 1752. He died in 1790.
t A graduate of Yale College in the class of 1759. In 1806 he received the degree of LL.D. He was a Member of the Continental and United States Congresses, and a Judge of the Superior Court of Connec- ticut. He died in 1819.
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Terry of New Haven (previously mentioned), and it reads in part as follows:
"At a meeting of the Comtees of 23 towns in this Colony at Middletown March 30, 1774, appointed by their respective towns to confer together on the present alarming situation of this Colony, respecting the public measures lately pursued by the Honorable General Assembly respecting SASQUEHANNAH MATTERS, & to prepare a Petition and Remonstrance to be presented to the next General Assembly; * * Whereupon it was voted that the annexed petition and remonstrance be printed and dispersed through all the towns in this Colony, that the general sense of the Public may be fully had there- upon. * * *
" Your Honours' Remonstrants beg leave, with the freedom of ENGLISHMEN and the duty of subjects, to lay their grievances before your Honours, the principal of which -and from which, as from its source, all other grievances are derived-is, that the pro- prietors of The Sasquehannah Company ( who claim the lands over which the Jurisdiction is extended) who were Members of the last Assembly and deeply interested in the questions discussed and determined, were suffered to, and did, sit and act in said Assembly in those very matters in which they were so deeply interested, and for which their partners-settled on said lands under their votes and for their benefit-were suitors to said Assembly. * * * We will not take up your Honours' time to prove their interest and partiality in the present case, since it is so apparent and notorious that not a Freeman in the Colony can be ignorant of it. * * *
"Your Remonstrants beg leave to say that it is not men but measures they regard. They have no personal dislike to the gentlemen who are members of that Company. They would think themselves warranted to complain in any case where men, the best of men, with the same interests and prejudices were admitted to debate and decide. * * Your Remonstrants beg leave to shew to your Honours that they conceive the extension of jurisdiction to those lands by the last Assembly was of dangerous-and, in their appre- hension, may be of fatal-tendency. The title of the Colony to those lands is contested; should the same, on trial, be found effective, we conceive the Colony might justly be charged with usurping an unwarrantable jurisdiction and misusing and abusing their chartered powers and privileges-and thereby a pretence be furnished for depriving us of our dearest rights and privileges-at this time especially impolitic, when debates run high between the Parent State and her Colonies. Again, our humanity is shocked when we consider what bloody tragedies may ensue from the clashing of opposite jurisdictions, actually exercised, or attempted to be exercised, within the same limits.
"We apprehend that great numbers of subjects in this Colony, taught as they are from their youth to place the highest confidence in the Legislature, will be by the Acts of the last Assembly tempted to transport themselves and their effects, and settle on said lands pending the controversy about the title, and will waste their personal estate in im- provements of said lands; and, in case the title of the Colony should finally fail, they would be reduced to abject wretchedness, despondence and poverty there, or fall back on this Colony, by thousands, in extreme penury, to waste the residue of their lives a burden to themselves and an expence and a dead weight upon the community-by which means the support of the poor, already a heavy burden, will become intolerable. * * * We
pray your Honours to exclude the proprietors of The Sasquehannah Company from a voice on these matters, and reconsider the aforesaid votes and doings of the Assembly in October and January last; and, as we are willing to do justice to all men, let The Sasque- hannah Company, by their counsel, be admitted to have a public and open hearing upon the aforesaid matters, which we esteem of the highest and last importance. In the mean- time, we humbly hope that the inhabitants of the new-made TOWN OF WESTMORELAND may be suspended from interfering in the voting-being represented-or otherwise transacting in the affairs of Government during such term as the title of the Colony to the same is in suspense and undecided."
At Lebanon, Connecticut, under the date of March 24, 1774, Gov- ernor Trumbull wrote to Governor Penn of Pennsylvania as follows:
"Sir: I received your letter of 24th of February last. It is with pleasure I observe that you will do everything in your power to avoid contentions and disorders among His Majesty's subjects. A great number of people, possessed of and settled on a part of the lands of the Colony of Connecticut, at or near a place called Wyoming, lying west of the Delaware, within the boundaries and descriptions of your Royal Charter, made their application to our Assembly for protection and government. In consequence thereof, the town of Westmoreland was made, constituted, and assigned to our County of Litch- field, thereby forbearing the exercise of our jurisdiction over a great number of others who have more recently entered under grants from the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, and claim other parts of the land belonging to Connecticut. It is not to be doubted that your power and influence may prevent the attempt of others to settle under your claim, and the disagreeable consequences which may follow the want on your part of a similar forbearance towards the people of Westmoreland until a legal and constitutional decision of the point may be obtained, which both you and Mr. Wilmot, Solicitor of the Propri- etaries, have acquainted us they will never decline.
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"It is the duty of our Governor and Company, in faithfulness to the trust reposed in them, to assert and support the rights of this Government, and its inhabitants. They do not look upon themselves chargeable with any fault for their exercise of jurisdiction over the people who inhabit land they have good reason to think themselves entitled to by legal purchase from the Aborigines, true proprietors thereof, and hold the unerring possession of under the right of preemption, for the benefit and within the limits of this Colony. I am to acquaint you that several gentlemen from hence, by virtue of an Act of Assembly, are employed and instructed to ascertain the latitudes of places beyond Dela- ware River. They design to set out the 18th of next month for that purpose.
"I am, Sir, with truth and regard, your obedient, humble servant,
[Signed] "JONATHAN TRUMBULL."
In The Connecticut Courant of April 5, 1774, the following bur- lesque advertisement was printed.
"A State race to be run for the Royal Plate (on which the arms of this Colony are engraved ) by the young horse ' Westmoreland ' against the old horse ' Charter,' at Hart- ford on the second Thursday of May next. It is said that very extraordinary bets are laid, and in such a manner that every Freeman in the Colony is interested in the event. 'Westmoreland ' is a horse of great spirit and fierceness, and very long legged; it is thought he will run with great vehemence, and will be crowded hard by the jockies. 'Charter' has been an excellent horse in his day, more valued for his good carriage and elegance of form than largeness of size, and, when mounted by a good rider that under- stood his temper, hath performed well and scarce ever was distanced. However, he was forced into a race with the horse 'Purchase' last season, when not at all prepared, and hav- ing been rid hard the day before, and also obliged to carry the weight of numbers-which by no means should have been suffered-when the race was won he got worsted, which sunk his spirits very much and occasioned his legs to swell, and is not yet recovered so as to be quite fit for another race. However, his spirits recruit daily, and it is thought if he can have a good rider, and such a number of steady friends on the spot as to see that he has justice done him, he will perform as well as ever." * * *
In the same issue of the Courant as the foregoing the following article was printed:
"The affair of Susquehanna has of late been much the subject of conversation and scribbling, but many of the pieces have been stuffed with puns and ridicule to cast an odium on one side and the other. 'Tis well known that The Susquehanna Company have been unremittedly worrying and teasing the General Assembly for near twenty years past to give up the Government's right to the western lands into the hands of that Company. The Government have always told them, 'We have no right, and will not pretend to give you any.' * * * Is it not well known that the Company consists of two sorts of men! The first sort, men of large fortunes, who, if the Colony obtains, intend to make tenants of the middling sort of people in this Colony, and they and their families live in affluence on the labors of their poorer brethren. The other sort, bankrupts and men of desperate fortunes who intend to go there to dwell and get small estates without paying anything for them, as they have no estates here to pay rates for, having spent them in riotous living and extravagant schemes. They say they have nothing to lose if the Company fails in the suit.
"Are not many of the Company the inhabitants of the Provinces of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island ? * * * Strange that this Company should endeavor to control this whole Government. They say they can secure the voice of the east side of Connecticut River, and their friends on the west side in the several towns will so divide them as to make a majority. They will, by threatening printers, and threatening to remove Courts, affright many; and they have their emissaries in almost all our towns, who en- deavour to flatter the Freemen they will remove the [ Yale] College if they will help them in this scheme about Susquehanna. 'Tis said the College is already promised to six towns in Hartford County ! * * * They take much pains to exclaim against Mr. [Jared] Ingersoll, and they fear him more than all Pennsylvania. And why? I answer, because he knows the futility of the claim better than almost any one else. He was their Agent in England, and saw and was told there was not the least shadow of probability of the Colony's obtaining the land. They declaim much against the Middletown meeting, * * and the common cant of the friends to Susquehanna is, that the people on the west side of the Connecticut River are fools and madmen !" * * *
In the Courant of April 5, 1774, appeared also the first of a series of letters written by the Rev. Benjamin Trumbull*, A. M., of North
* BENJAMIN TRUMBULL was born at Hebron, Connecticut, December 19, 1735. son of Benjamin and grandson of Benoni Trumbull, who was a descendant of John Trumbull of Rowley, mentioned on page 470. Benjamin Trumbull was graduated at Yale College, A. B., in 1759, in the same class with Jonathan Sturges and the Rev. Enoch Huntington, hereinbefore mentioned. He studied theology with the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, hereinbefore mentioned, and in 1760 was ordained pastor of the Church at North Haven, Connecticut. In 1762 he received the degree of A. M., and in 1796 the degree of D. D., from his Alma Mater. He was the author of a "A Complete History of Connecticut from 1630 till 1764," first pub- lished in two volumes, in 1797. He was also the author of a "General History of the United States of America." He died at North Haven, Connecticut, February 2, 1820.
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Haven, Connecticut, in support of The Susquehanna Company, and the claim of Connecticut to the western lands. These letters, which ran through several numbers of the Courant, were written principally in reply to Jared Ingersoll's letter (see page 799), and the pamphlet (pre- viously mentioned) and various newspaper articles published by the Rev. Dr. Smith. Subsequently, in 1774, these Trumbull letters were collected together by their author, and, after some revision and addi- tions, were published by Thomas and Samuel Green of New Haven in a post 8vo pamphlet of 161 pages, entitled: "A Plea in Vindication of the Connecticut Title to the Contested Lands lying West of the Province of New York. Addressed to the Public. By Benjamin Trumbull, A. M."* In his introduction to these letters Mr. Trumbull wrote :
"A cause of equal magnitude and importance with that now depending between the Colony of Connecticut and the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, relative to the western lands, was, probably, never litigated in North America."
In a note printed in the pamphlet Mr. Trumbull stated :
"As Dr. Smith, in a late publication in The Pennsylvania Gazette and New York Gazetteer, has injuriously insinuated that the Governor of Connecticut was acting at the head of a party, and that there were great numbers in Connecticut opposite to the measures of the last Assembly, &c., I have thought it but an act of justice due to their Honors, and to the Colony in general, to say: The country for which we contend is part of the inheritance and birthright left us by our fathers. They encountered almost every danger, endured all manner of hardships, toiled and bled to obtain and transmit it, with the most ample immunities and privileges, to their posterity. Shall we give up the in- heritance of our forefathers without a trial ? By no means ! Let us like men-like the descendants of ancestors so truly noble and heroic-arise and vindicate our title. Justice and faithfulness, not only to ourselves but to our posterity, no doubt require it.
"These, most certainly, have been the sentiments of the Honorable General Assembly. Upon the most mature deliberation, and after they had obtained the opinion of counsel of the first eminence in the Nation, in the Law Department, they, in full House, asserted their claim to the controverted lands, and, with a great degree of unanimity, appointed a committee of both Houses to make report of the measures, &c. They made a report, advising all the measures which have been since adopted by the Legislature. As they have so maturely taken up the matter, it is to be presumed that they will prose- cute it to effect. Especially may this be effected, since the freemen of the Colony have given such a public testimony of their approbation of the measures which have been taken, by a re-election of the Governor and the honorable gentlemen of the Council Board-by far the greatest number of votes ever brought in for any Governor or Council in this Colony."
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