USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 84
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"After Fulmer's information we were of opinion that the sachems should be convened, that we might confer with them. Accordingly Taokogwando and another Onondaga sachem, and two [sachems] from each of the other nations now in town, were convened, at which meeting were also present Messrs. Dean, Kirkland, Bleecker and Fulmer, interpreters. The Indians being made acquainted with the business of the meeting Taokogwando gave the following information : That, coming from the meeting preceding. that in which the Susquehanna lands were mentioned, Colonel Francis took him by the hand, informed him that all the other sachems had been to see him, and asked him why he did not come and smoke a pipe with him, and then invited him to his room in the evening, that he had something to say to him. The sachem replied it was not the custom of the Indians to come alone on such an occasion, and he would, therefore, bring one or two along with him. Two accordingly came with him in the evening. After they had drank a little and began to be intoxicated, Colonel Francis informed them that Governor Penn had directed him to make enquiry about the sale of the Susquehanna lands; upon which Taokogwando then related what he, being a lad, had heard Connasiatigo inform his father-being the same, in sub- stance, what he had delivered in his speech. He observed * * * that what he had said was not in con- sequence of any directions he had either from his nation or the Six Nations. Taokogwando further says that Colonel Francis promised to give the sachems of the Six Nations something, provided he [ Taokog- wando] would deliver it [the speech] at the close of the business of the next meeting, and not mention his name (meaning Colonel Francis)."
Accompanying the foregoing letter was an affidavit of the interpreter Thomas Fulmer, made before Justice Abraham Ten Broeck at Albany, December 18, 1775, and reading in part as follows : "The day before the last conference was held in the Presbyterian Meeting-house Colonel Francis, one of the said Commissioners, requested of this deponent to know who was the chief of the Onondaga nation. He answered, Taokogwando, and thereupon he requested deponent to bring the said Indian to him. That when the said Indian was brought the said Francis desired the favor of smoking a pipe with him at his lodgings. * * * That about nine o'clock in the evening of the same day this deponent was sent for by Colonel Francis to attend him at his lodgings at Mr. Bloodgood's; that deponent went, and found there
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"By express from Wyoming dated the 12th inst. I have an account that 146 New Englanders had that afternoon passed by the settlement there and encamped on the east side of the river, a little below; and that as many more were expected there the next day. * * The account further informs that they expected to be joined by 100 people from the lower parts of the Susquehanna, chiefly from Lancaster, and that they were meditating a settlement on the West Branch. I doubt not but your own interest, as well as that of the Proprietaries, will excite you and your corps to give any assistance in your power to our people at Wyoming, as well as to prevent, if possible, any of our people from joining them. *
* It seems scandalous in the people of the country, who have long experienced the indulgence of the Proprietaries, to join a parcel of Robbers who are come to seize upon their [the Proprietaries'] lands by violence. * * All that can at present be done is to attempt keeping the possessions we have got. In this respect you and your associates may be of service. * * If your health is such as that you can safely venture a journey, I should be glad if you could go yourself to Wyoming."
Almost immediately after their arrival at their destination the set- tlers under Major Durkee began the erection of twenty odd substantial and commodious one-story log cabins, which they built closely together in the form of a parallelogram. Each cabin faced towards the quad- rangle thus formed, and was entered therefrom-the rear, or outward, walls of the cabins being constructed without either doors or windows, but with loop-holes through which the inmates of the cabins might dis- charge their fire-arms at assailants. All the cabins were completed and occupied by the 20th of May. Then, about the 1st of June, in view of certain occurrences which had taken place (and which are described hereinafter), it was deemed advisable to surround the cabins with a wooden stockade. This was accordingly done without delay.
No detailed description of this defensive work has been preserved, but without doubt it was constructed in the same manner and form as nearly all structures for similar purposes were built at that period. A ditch three feet deep having been dug, hewn logs ("stoccadoes")-each usually about one foot in diameter, from fifteen to eighteen feet in length and pointed at one end-were set close together in a single line in the ditch, with their pointed ends up; after which the ditch was filled in with earth. Sometimes a double row of timbers was set up, in order to break joints. Loop-holes were then constructed at proper and conven- ient points in the walls, and at each corner of the stockade a watch- tower, or sentry-box, was erected, extending several feet above the tops of the upright timbers. Along the inside of the walls huts, or barrack- like structures, were erected for the accommodation of the occupants of the fortification. Generally there were two strongly barricaded gate- ways, or entrances, opposite each other. Except in front of these gate- ways a ditch, several feet wide and deep, was dug about four feet outside
Taokogwando and two other Onondaga sachems; that they smoked, drank and discussed together for some time, until the Indians appeared to this deponent to be considerably in liquor, when Francis told them that Governor Penn had requested him to ask the Onondagas who had first bought the lands called Wywaymick-the said Governor Penn or the New England people. That the said Indian chief thereupon answered that he had heard from his uncle that Governor Penn had bought the lands on the east side of the Susquehanna, and that he did not know whether the New England people had bought any lands or not. "That the said Francis further asked the said Indian chief if he did not know how many dollars Governor Penn had paid at Fort Stanwix for the said lands. The said Indian answered he had not seen all the money, yet he had heard that he had paid 10,000 dollars. Francis then asked the said Indian whether he would, on the following day, in the public conference, when the other business was done, declare the same in public-but not mention his name-which the Indian promised to do. Whereupon Francis told him that if he did, he and Governor Penn would give a present to the Onondaga Indians- which said discourse, at the request of Colonel Francis, was interpreted between them by this deponent. That when the Indians left his (Francis') lodgings he presented them with a bottle of rum."
Accompanying the foregoing documents was a letter from Oliver Wolcott to Congress, in which he referred to the conference and treaty with the Six Nations, and then said : "I have enclosed their [the Indians'] testimony with regard to their parting with the Susquehanna lands, together with our reply. You will, I conceive, readily believe this to be a most insidious manœuvre to give a bias and prejudice against the Colony's claim. For myself, I cannot doubt of it, as it was a matter entirely foreign to our negotiations-a matter of which the Indians could make neither claim nor complaint. I have spoke my mind freely respecting the business of attempting to injure a cause in this manner."
Of the last years of Col. Turbutt Francis' life we have not been able to learn any particulars. In "The Shippen Papers," previously referred to, it is stated that he died in 1797; but according to the assessment lists of Buffalo Township, Northumberland County, he was dead in 1782.
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and parallel with the stockade, against which the excavated earth was thrown, forming a sloping embankment to the inner edge of the ditch.
Upon the completion of their stockade early in June the New Eng- landers named their fortified group of cabins "Fort Durkee," in honor of their leader, Maj. John Durkee.
Concerning the exact site of this primitive fort there have been some differences of opinion in recent years. Chapman (see page 19), writing in 1818, stated in his "Sketch of the History of Wyoming"- page 76-that the settlers "built a fort a short distance from the bank of the river by the side of a small stream which flows through the plain. Near the fort they erected about twenty log houses, which were provided with loop-holes. *
* Their fort consisted of a strong block- house surrounded by a rampart and entrenchment, and being guarded by the river on one side, and a morass extending along the brook on another, afforded a very secure place of refuge." Contemporaneously with the writing of his history Chapman drew a map of Wyoming Valley, which he intended should be published with the history. The original map is now in the possession of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, and upon it is indicated the brook mentioned above, as well as the site of Fort Durkee. William L. Stone (see page 19), writing in 1839, said in his "Poetry and History of Wyoming"-page 163-"their [the settlers'] first work was to build a fort upon a convenient site, protected by the river on one side and a creek and morass upon another. It was a regular military defense, consisting of a strong block- house, surrounded by a rampart and entrenchment. In the immediate . neighborhood of the fortress *
* they erected about thirty log houses, with loop-holes." Charles Miner, following Chapman and Stone in point of time, states in his "History of Wyoming" (page 109): "270 or 280 able-bodied men in all assembled on the river banks, where Wilkesbarre now stands, on the 10th of April [1769]. The block-house at Mill Creek was too remote from the flats near the old town of Wywa- mick, where large fields, long since cleared, invited cultivators. A new fortification, called Fort Durkee, after the new commander, was there- fore erected on the banks of the river at Fish's Eddy (near the lower line of the borough) and twenty or thirty [huts] were built in its im- mediate vicinity."
The brook, or creek, referred to in two of these quotations, was the little stream which formerly emptied into the river at Fish's Eddy, and which is described on page 59 .* What Chapman and Stone refer to as a "morass" was, without much doubt, a ravine-as indicated on the sketch reproduced in Chapter XVIII-through which the aforemen- tioned brook flowed.
In the foregoing statements of Chapman, Stone and Miner are the following well-ascertained errors: (1) There are in existence certain letters, reports and affidavits written and executed in Wyoming Valley and elsewhere in the years 1769-'71 (we shall quote from some of them hereinafter), which show conclusively that, excepting the small block- houses hastily and rudely built early in March at the mouth of the Lackawanna, the New England settlers neither erected nor occupied at Wyoming in 1769 any other houses than the twenty odd huts or cabins
* See, also, in connection therewith : On page 455, "A Plot of the Manor of Stoke" ; on page 516, "Plot of the Original Township of Wilkes-Barre"; in Chapter XVIII, a reproduction of "A Sketch of the En- campment at Wyoming in 1779," and in Chapter XXIII, a "Map of Wilkes-Barre and its Suburbs in 1872."
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which we have described as being surrounded by a stockade, and which constituted Fort Durkee. (2) There were no New England settlers in Wyoming in April, 1769, as stated by Miner. Durkee and his company did not arrive here until May 12th, as we have previously shown. (3) " The block-house at Mill Creek," referred to by Miner, was the small block-house erected early in January, 1769, by Captain Ogden, and occupied by him as a trading-house. There was no intention shown or effort made on the part of Major Durkee to oust Ogden and take posses- sion of his block-house. The objective point of the New Englanders was the locality near Ogden's abandoned store-house, at the bend of the river, and it was there, and nowhere else, that they halted, encamped and, a few days afterwards, erected their log cabins-later incorporated into Fort Durkee.
In referring to the erection of Fort Wyoming in 1771, on the river bank below Northampton Street, Wilkes-Barré, Charles Miner states ("History of Wyoming," page 126): "Ground was broke and a fortifi- cation commenced on the bank of the river, sixty rods above Fort Dur- kee." The site of Fort Wyoming (which fort is fully described herein- after) was well known to Mr. Miner. In fact, when in 1800 he came to Wilkes-Barré to reside, "the remains of this fort were in tolerable preser- vation," as he himself has stated; but all traces of Fort Durkee had then disappeared. The positive statement of Mr. Miner, that these two forts were only sixty rods (or 990 feet) apart, seems to have been accepted by all subsequent writers of Wyoming history as an absolutely correct statement ; and in consequence the generality of people in this com- munity have come to understand that Fort Durkee was located where now stands the residence of Mr. William L. Conyngham, at the south- east corner of South Street and West River Street. Supposing this to be a certainty, then it cannot be true that the fort stood "on the banks of the river at Fish's Eddy"-as Mr. Miner has also stated-for that locality is distant 200 yards or more from the Conyngham residence ; nor was it possible for the fort to stand-as stated by Chapman and Stone-on or near the bank of the little brook which emptied into Fish's Eddy, and at the same time occupy the ground now covered by the Conyngham residence. The fact is, unquestionably, that Mr. Miner's positive state- ment as to the distance between Fort Durkee and Fort Wyoming was based upon a guess.
To the present writer it seems very clear that Fort Durkee stood a few rods south-west of the intersection of the present West River Street and Ross Street-being only a short distance from the river and near the right bank of the ravine through which ran the brook previously mentioned. The evidence upon which the writer bases his judgment is as follows :
(1) The location referred to was a desirable one, because, in the first place, it was in a measure protected against the near approach of would-be assailants-on one hand by the river, and on the other by the ravine ; in the second place, clear and unobstructed views of the upper and lower reaches of the river could be had from that point, and the approach of boats up and down the river could be seen for some distance ; in the third place, the ground just there had been for some years almost entirely cleared of trees, they having been cut down and utilized in building the houses and fences required for Teedyuscung and his Dela- wares, and in building Ogden's store-house (see pages 371 and 444); in
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the fourth place, it was contiguous to the extensive plain-treeless, stoneless and fertile (now known as the Wilkes-Barré Flats, and described on page 50)-which had been in part cultivated by the Indians, and which the New Englanders purposed using in their agricultural operations ; in the fifth place, it was at, or in close proximity to, the intersection of the much-traveled trails running from Tioga Point down along the river and from Easton and Bethlehem over the mountains to Wyoming-as described on page 445.
(2) Isaac A. Chapman, the author of the first published history of Wyoming, was a skilled surveyor as well as a practised writer, and in his history and on the manuscript map previously mentioned (both of which were prepared in the year 1818) he located the site of Fort Dur- kee near the nameless brook to which we have so frequently referred- at a considerable distance south-west of South Street.
(3) In the Spring of 1830 George Jones, A. M., then a Tutor in Yale College, spent some time in Wilkes-Barré in company with Prof. Benjamin Silliman of Yale, and while here drew a "Map of the Wyo- ming and Lackawanna Valleys, principally from a map constructed by Col. John L. Butler of Wilkesbarre." This map was published in The American Journal of Science and Arts for July, 1830 (No. 2 of Volume XVIII), and the site of "Fort Durgee" is thereon noted near the con- fluence of the aforementioned little brook and the river, at the elbow of the river some distance below South Street.
(4) As previously mentioned, Miner states in his "History of Wyo- ming" (page 109) that Fort Durkee was "erected on the banks of the river at Fish's Eddy." The location of this eddy is described on page 59, ante.
(5) In 1850 there was published a "Plan of the Town of Wilkes- barre from original surveys by J. C. Sidney of Philadelphia," and on that "plan" the "site of Fort Durkee" is indicated as being 450 feet north-west of the junction of Ross Street with South River Street ; which would make the site about 150 feet west of the intersection of the present West River Street and Ross Street-the former street having been laid out, and the latter street having been extended to intersect it, since the "plan" referred to was published. (See in Chapter XXXVI a reduced facsimile of the abovementioned "plan.")
(6) In 1895 Mr. Amos Stroh, an aged citizen of Wyoming Valley, wrote an account of an incident that occurred in 1835 or 1836 with rela- tion to the sites of some of the old Wyoming forts. Several Wyoming Valley survivors of the Revolutionary period were gathered together one day on the site of Fort Wyoming, and with them were Col. John L. Butler (born at Wilkes-Barré in 1796) and Mr. Stroh, then a youth. The latter, in his account, says (see Johnson's Historical Record, V: 163):
"Mr. Butler stated that those places [the fort-sites] should be marked by permanent stones, for in a few years the exact spots would be unknown. Some one remarked that the 'records' would tell. Mr. Butler replied : 'Years ago everybody was a surveyor, and did it [surveying] with a squint of the eye; and when the eyesight told him it was so many rods, it was so recorded. But the time is coming when the rising generation will *
demand locations, lines and courses by the fraction of an inch.' * The party then went to the location of old Fort Durkee, which was in the westerly side of an orchard, below the Common, near the bank of a small stream that flowed to the river at Fish's Eddy."
The orchard referred to above was that of Jabez Fish. Where the residence of William L. Conyngham, previously referred to, is now located, formerly stood, for many years, the frame dwelling-house of Jabez Fish, an early Wyoming settler. He owned forty-six acres of land extending
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along the river bank from South Street, Wilkes-Barré, to the "Meadow Road" (now the "Old River Road"), and having a frontage on the river of 174 rods. Mr. Fish's orchard stood east of the ravine previously referred to, in the locality where now West River Street and Ross Street intersect ; and, according to an advertisement published in February, 1806, the orchard contained "200 trees, producing from sixty to eighty barrels of cider annually." In the orchard was "a never-failing spring of water"-perhaps the selfsame spring from which the inmates of Fort Durkee obtained their water-supply.
(7) In the Summer of 1770 Samuel Wallis, an experienced sur- veyor, was in Wyoming Valley assisting to survey The Susquehanna Company's lands (see Chapter XI), and from observations which he made at that time he found the latitude of Fort Durkee to be 41° 14' 27" north. (See F. C. Johnson's Historical Record, I: 121 and III : 70.) As previously mentioned (see page 44), the latitude of Wilkes- Barré's Public Square is 41º 14' 40.4" north, which was ascertained with great care by the Pennsylvania Geological Survey in 1881, and is recorded on a monument erected at that time in the Square. It is evi- dent, therefore, that the difference in latitude between this monument and the site of Fort Durkee, according to the observations of Wallis, is 13.4," or about eighty rods. On the map facing page 456 the respective latitudes of these two points are indicated by two east and west lines, or parallels of latitude ; and on an inspection of the more southerly of those lines it is apparent that where that line intersects South River Street is the point in the line nearest to Fish's Eddy-due north of the "Ice Pond," indicated on the map. It may be safely presumed, however, that the instruments used by Samuel Wallis in making his obervations were of a simple-perhaps primitive-char- acter, and that he neither attempted nor deemed it necessary to be abso- lutely accurate in his reckoning. Allowing, therefore, for supposed errors and probable inaccuracies, we may confidently conclude that Fort Durkee stood a few rods south- west of the intersection of the present West River. Street and Ross Street.
In June, 1899, Wyoming Valley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, of Wilkes- Barré, erected on the River Com- mon-a few feet from the north side of South Street, at the corner of West River Street-a monument marking the site of Fort Durkee .* A tablet of bronze let into the mon- olith bears this inscription :
"FORT DURKEE was built 82 feet south- west of this Stone in 1769 by the Connecticut FORT DURKEE MONUMENT. settlers as a defence against the Indians. It became a military post in the contest over the jurisdiction and title to the Wyoming lands between the settlers and the Proprietary Government.
"Erected by the Wyoming Valley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution, June 14, 1899."
* For an account of the dedicatory exercises see Chapter LIII.
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In locating the site of the fort "82 feet south-west" of their monu- inent the "Daughters" simply fixed upon the spot-the ground now occu- pied by the residence of William L. Conyngham-which has generally been understood heretofore to have been the site.
A few scraps of information relating to certain features of Fort Durkee-additional to those already mentioned-have been gleaned from various letters and other documents written in the years 1769-1771 by men familiar with the structure. The fort occupied about one-half an acre of ground and was of quadrangular forin. At the north-west corner, facing the river, there was a gate, and at the south-east corner there was another one. The buildings within the stockade were chiefly on the north, east and south sides of the quadrangle. Near the middle of the stockade forming the westerly side of the fort there was an elevated sentry-box, and it is probable that there was a second one on the opposite side-overlooking the plain on which the town-plot of Wilkes-Barré was subsequently laid out.
This plain was almost entirely covered with a growth of Common Pitch Pine (Pinus Rigida) at the time of the coming of the Yankee settlers in 1769. Referring to that period seventeen years later, Col. Timothy Pickering wrote (see his "Life," II : 256): "Wilkesbarre was a pitch-pine plain, though pretty fertile; yet by no means comparable with the flats before described [in the extract on page 50, ante]. Its surface is considerably higher than that of the flats, and being of a drier, firmer soil, is a more suitable plat for a town." Chapman, writing in 1817, stated* that the plain on which Wilkes-Barré was built was "twenty-eight feet above the common surface of the river."
In many natural features Wyoming Valley resembled at that time central and eastern Connecticut, and this fact helped to make the former region attractive to the natives of the latter sections of country. There was a "great" river-very similar to the Connecticut River, and in some respects quite like the Thames-flowing into which were a smaller river and numerous creeks; there were lowlands and uplands, "dark- some gorges" and sunlit plains ; there were rocks and crags a-plenty, and vast forests of splendid timber. But to the men from Connecticut there was nothing so desirable or attractive among all the features of this new country as the several thousand acres of stoneless and treeless flats, more arable and fertile than the richest fields in New England. As soon as the settlers under Major Durkee had made their log cabins habitable they proceeded to clear and break up for cultivation land on the flats south-west of their settlement, and by the first of June they had 200 acres planted with Indian corn, turnips and pumpkins, "which were tended well and were very promising of good crops." The portion of the flats which was put under cultivation was shut in on the land side by rail fences.
In the meantime, while the work of building and planting was going on, the number of settlers was being gradually increased from time to time by arrivals from New England and elsewhere. The local committee, called the "Committee of Settlers," for the management of the affairs of the settlement and its government, was early organized in conformity with the several resolutions passed by The Susquehanna Company, and Major Durkee was chosen as the head of this committee,
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