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 III > Part 25
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Under the "arrangement" of the Pennsylvania regiments in the Continental Line, January 1, 1781, Captain Chrystie continued in command of a company in the Third Regiment. January 17, 1781, the Third was reorganized under Col. Thomas Craig (see page 670, Vol. II), and, after recruiting at Easton, Pennsylvania, accompanied Gen. Anthony Wayne on his southern campaign-or, at least, the larger part of the regiment was detached for that purpose.
Prior to January 1, 1783, Captain Chrystie was transferred to the Second Pennsylvania Regiment, where he con- tinned until his retirement from the service, June 3, 1783-about which time he was hrevetted Major, and also became an original member of the Pennsylvania Branch of the Society of the Cincinnati.
As stated in the preceding foot-note Captain Chrystie was a charter, or warrant, member of Pennsylvania-Union Lodge, No. 29, Ancient York Masons of Pennsylvania. He was the father of Lient. Col. James Chrystie of the 15th United States Infantry, who distinguished himself at Queenstown in the War of 1812. Both father and son were dead in 1824,
#See (*) note, page 1321.
§BLACKALL WILLIAM BALL was commissioned October 16, 1776 (to rank from October 1), an Ensign in the 12th Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line, which was organized in the Autumn of 1776, as related on page 1329 May 20, 1777, he was promoted Second Lieutenant, and July 1, 1778, was transferred to the Third Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line. He was promoted First Lieutenant September 11, 1778. In the "arrangement" of of the 3d Regiment January 1, 1781, he was continued as First Lieutenant, hut prior to January 1, 1783, he was trans- ferred to the First Pennsylvania. In 1783 he became an original member of the Pennsylvania Branch of the Society of the Cincinnati. Prior to September 23, 1783, he had retired from the military service. December 13, 1783, he was
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Lieutenants. Major Moore was appointed to command the battalion, or corps of two companies that was to be organized, and under the date of September 26th the Council issued to him the following instructions *:
"Agreeably to our Communications of yesterday, you will proceed immediately to inlist and embody two Companies of Infantry consisting of one Serjeant Major, one Quarter Master Serjeant, eight Serjeants, eight Corporals, Two Drummers, Two Fifers, and one hundred and twenty-six privates.
"In performing this service you will please to conform strictly to the following rules:
"First, To guard against imposition, every Recruit, before his attestation be signed, is to be carefully examined, lest he should have a rupture, fits, or some other disease which may render him incapable of performing the more active duties of the Soldier. All such are to be absolutely rejected, and those of the best Character, both as Soldiers and Men, to be selected.
"Secondly, When an unexceptionable Recruit shall be engaged, you are to take or send him to some Justice of the Peace, who, finding him to be sober, and having read to him the form of the inlistment receipt and attestation, is to cause such Recruit to sign the said inlistment and receipt, and then to administer to him the oath herewith inclosed; duplicates of which attestation, inlistment and receipt the Justice shall witness. Of these one copy is to be transmitted to this Board; The other you will retain in your own hands.
"Thirdly, The inclosed form of Enlistment receipt and attestation is to be invariably observed. "Fourthly, As an encouragement to such Recruit immediately to inlist, you are authorized to offer on the part of the State the following Ration; One pound of flour, one pound of beef, or three quarters of a pound of Pork, & one gill of whiskey per man per Day; one quart of Salt & two quarts of Vinegar to every hundred rations; Eight pounds of Soap & three pounds of Candles to every seven hundred rations; one suit of Regimental Cloaths annually, consisting of one Regimental Coat, one woollen Vest, one pair of woollen Overalls, one blanket, two Shirts, two pair of Shoes, two pair of Socks, one Hat, and ten Watch Coats to each Company, and the following Monthly pay, to wit: Serjeant Major & Quarter Master Serjeant, each eight dollars; Serjeants, seven dollars; Corporals, five dollars; Drums and Fifes and Privates, four dollars.
"Fifthly, As an additional encouragement to the service, you are at Liberty to give any sum not exceeding four dollars for every sufficient stand of arms and accoutrements furnished by the Recruit whom you may engage.
"Sixthly, No furloughs to be given to any Recruit till the farther order of Council."
The oath of enlistment prescribed by the Council to be taken by the recruits, was in the following formt :
"I do swear to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; that I will faithfully serve it in the corps of foot commanded by Maj. James Moore, for the space of two initiated into Lodge No. 22, Ancient York Masons, at Sunbury, Pennsylvania. He was still living io 1811, but when or where he died we are unable to state.
||JOHN ARMSTRONG was a Sergeant in Capt. John Brady's company (enlisted along the West Branch of the Sus- quehanna in September and October. 1776), of the 12th Penosylvania Regiment, previously mentioned. May 20, 1777, he was promoted Ensign, and December 11 of the same year was promoted Second Lieutenant. July 1, 1778, he was transferred to the 3d Pennsylvania Regimeot, Continental Line, upon the consolidation of the "12th' with it. (See note "t" ahove, for reference to Lieutenant Armstrong's trial by Court martial in 1778.)
Lieutenant Armstrong was promoted First Lieutenant May 12, 1779, and upon the "arrangement" of the 3d Pennsylvania January 17, 1781, and again on January 1, 1783, he was continued as Lieutenant. Sometime later he was promoted Captain by brevet. He retired from the service in the Summer of 1783.
Under a resolution of Congress adopted June 3, 1784, the several States of the Union were required to furnish quotas of troops for service under the orders of Congress for the space of one year. About the middle of August, 1784, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania commissioned Lieut. Col. Josiah Harmar to raise and command a battalion of troops, in compliance with the call of Congress. Among those selected as commissioned officers for this "Continental Regiment" was John Armstrong, who, at Sunbury, August 24, 1784, wrote to President Dickinson as follows: "By a letter from Colonel Harmar I find your Excellency and Council have been pleased to honor me with an appointment in the Continental Regiment under his command. After acknowledgements to your Excellency and Council for their confidence, I beg leave to observe that I feel myself hurt in being ouly appointed Ensign after having served as Lieutenant in the Continental Army since September 11, 1777, and lately honored by Congress with a Captain's commission by brevet. While I accept my present appointment, I hope your Excellency and Council will give me that rank I held in the Continental Army."
At the beginning of December, 1784, Harmar's battalion was in camp near Fort Pitt (the present Pittsburgh, Pa.), and Ensign Armstrong was reported "sick, absent in Philadelphia." Oo December 5th, the battalion marched to Fort McIntosh as a guard to the Commissioners appointed to hold a treaty with certain western Indians. January 1, 1785, Easign Armstrong was present at Fort McIntosh, "sick." April 1, 1785, he was "on command down the Ohio River, about eighty miles from Fort McIntosh." On the returns of July 1 and August 1, 1785, made out at Fort McIntosh, he was noted as being "on furlough." .
SAMUEL READ was commissioned Ensign of the 5th Company in the "New Eleventh Pennsylvania Regiment" (referred to more at length in the notes on pages 1108 and 1179, Vol. II), and was with his regiment at Wyoming and on the Sullivan Expedition in the Summer of 1779. He was promoted Lieutenant October 2, 1780, and on or about January 17, 1781, was transferred to the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line. Under the "arrangement" of this regiment January 1, 1783, he was continued as Lieutenant. Prior to September 23, 1783, he was transferred to the First Pennsylvania Regiment, and continued as a Lieutenant thereof until the regiment was disbanded, November 3, 1783. He died at Wilkes-Barre in September, 1784, of wounds received during one of the Pennamite- Yatıkee conflicts.
** ANDREW HENDERSON was appointed an Ensign in the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line, at Wilkes-Barre, October 9, 1779, by order of General Sullivan, to rank from July 4, 1779, and was duly commissioned as such. He was promoted Lieutenant July 29, 1781, to rank from January 29, 1781. He was transferred as Lieuten- ant to the Second Pennsylvania Regiment, Continental Line, January 1, 1783, and continued as a Lieutenant of that regiment until its disbandment, November 3, 1783. About that time he became a member of the Pennsylvania Branch of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1799 Lieutenant Henderson was residing in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, and was Prothonotary of the County.
*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 127.
tSee "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 128.
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years from the date of this attestation, unless sooner discharged; and that I will be obedient to the orders of the Supreme Executive Council, the Legislature of the State, and the officers by them set over me, according to the Continental Articles of War, or such other Articles as some future Assembly of the State may establish for the government of the corps to which I belong. So help me God!"
At Philadelphia, September 27, 1783, John Armstrong, Jr., Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council, wrote to Capt. Philip Shrawder at Wilkes-Barré, in part as follows *:
"You have been appointed to the command of one of the two companies to be raised for the further defense of this Commonwealth. The recruiting of this corps is specially committed to the commanding officer, Maj. James Moore of the Pennsylvania Line, whose orders you will here- after obey. Council conceive it necessary that you should continue at the Post, and proceed to act in that line of diligence and industry which has already so well deserved their approbation. Many reasons make it prudent, if not necessary, that this appointment should be concealed from the garrison. Among others, it is to be feared that if they were acquainted with it they might relax in their obedience."
As noted on page 638, Vol. II, Col. Zebulon Butler returned from the army to Wilkes-Barré, August 20, 1783. Miner, referring to the condition of affairs in Wyoming about that time, states ("History of Wyoming," page 331) :
"The licentious soldiery, freed from the restraints of discipline, which the presence of an enemy tends to enforce, and encouraged by the civil authority [that is, the newly-commissioned Pennsylvania Justices of the Peace], became extremely rude and oppressive. They took without leave whatever they fancied. Several persons had been arrested and brought before Captain Shrawder. Colonel Butler, indignant at the treatment the inhabitants suffered, expressed his opinions freely. It was enough. A writ was issued, and Colonel Butler was arrested on the 24th of September for high treason, as it was said. Surrounded by a guard of soldiers he was conveyed to the fort [Dickinson], and was treated with great indignity."
Colonel Franklin states that Colonel Butler was kept under guard in the fort for thirty-six hours, and then, "put under a guard of ruffian soldiers, in command of Ensign Chambers was sent on board of a canoe to Sunbury to be committed to gaol; and that he was thus sent without any civil officer, writ or mittimus." Col. John Henry Antest, was at that time Sheriff of Northumber- land County, and he not only refused to receive Colonel Butler into his custody, but directed him to return to Wilkes-Barré. A few days later Colonel Butler was again arrested, and was ordered to be committed to the jail at Sunbury. The original mittimusį, issued in pursuance of this mandate of the Justices, is now in the possession of The Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, and reads as follows :
"Northumberland County, ss: [L. S.]
To the Sheriff, Under Sheriff or Gaoler. These are in the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to require and command you that you receive into your custody in the gaol of said County the body of Zebulon Butler, charged of Treason, and extremely dangerous, as appears to tis the subscribers-Justices assigned to keep the peace for said County-from sundry deposi_
*See ibid., page 131.
+JOHN HENRY ANTES, commonly known as Henry Antes, was born near what is now Pottstown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1736. In early manhood be removed to the Susquehanna region and settled near the present town of Jersey Shore, in what later became Northumberland County, and is now Lycoming County, Penn- sylvania. July 29, 1775, he was appointed a Justice of the Quarter Sessions of Northumberland County. In December, 1775, he is said to have commanded a company in the Plunket Expedition, a full account of which is given on page 859, et seq., Vol. II. January 24, 1776, he was commissioned Captain of a company in the Pennsylvania Battalion of militia commanded by Col. James Potter. In May, 1777, he was commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania Lieut Colonel of the 4th Battalion of Northumberland County militia. In 1779 he was "Conductor of Boats", with the rank of Colonel, on the staff of General Sullivan during the Sullivan Expedition-described in Chapter XVIII, Vol. 11. In 1782 he was elected Sheriff of Northumberland County. He was re-elected in 1783 and again in 1784.
Ia 1778 Colonel Antes erected Dear bis bome, for the occupancy of bis family and his neighbors, a rude stockade, which became known as Fort Antes. It was located on a high bluff overlooking the river, in what is now Nippenose Township, Lycoming County. Colonel Antes became a member of Lodge No. 22, Ancient York Masons, at Sunbury, Pa .. February 8, 1781, and in 1784 was Senior Warden of the Lodge. He died at his home near the ruins of Fort Antes, May 13, 1820. "No name on the frontier shines with brighter luster than that of Henry Antes."
For further and more detailed particulars concerning the life of Henry Antes, see "Frontier Forts of Peno- sylvania", I: 394, and Godcharles' "Free Masonry in Northumberland and Sayder Counties, Pennsylvania", I: 23.
¿A copy of the document was transmitted to the Supreme Executive Council hy Alexander Patterson, and was received by that body December 1, 1783.
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tions and informations before us. And that you safely keep said Zebulon Butler in said gaol, until he is discharged therefrom by law, &c.
"Given under our hands and seals October 9, 1783.
[Signed] "ALEXANDER PATTERSON, "JOHN SEELY "DAVID MEAD."
Relative to his re-arrest, Colonel Butler wrote from Wilkes-Barré under the date of October 11, 1783, to Col. E. Dyer and Jesse Root, Esq., at Hartford, Connecticut, in part as follows:
"Yours of September 12 I received yesterday. I was a prisoner, sent to gaol about seventy miles, when the letter came. I was taken on a writ for treason against the State. The Sheriff gave me a writing to return or go where I chose, only to come again to court. Immediately on my arrival at home I was taken by an under Sheriff for the same thing, and the Sheriff is now waiting to take me away. * * * The inhabitants are in the most distressed situation. Claimers for lands under Pennsylvania are demanding and taking part of their crops of corn, &c. The inhabitants are almost drove to despair. God knows what will be the event."
Once more, then, Colonel Butler was conveyed down the river to Sunbury, where, upon his arrival, he was bound over for his appearance at the next term of the Court of Oyer and Terminer-Messers. Shaw, Bonham and Espy becoming his sureties in the sum of £5,000. Returning to Wilkes-Barré, Colonel Butler was again, early in November, 1783, conveyed to Sunbury by a supposed process of law. The following, copied from originals now in the possession of The Wyom- ing Historical and Geological Society, will explain, in a measure, the why and wherefore of this third excursion to the county-seat of Northumberland County. "Northumberland, Nov. 11, 1783.
"Sir :- Upon reconsideration of the note I have wrote you by Mr. John Mead,* I do not wish you to consider it in any manner as a summons to come to Sunbury, and I hereby order John Mead, or any other messenger of mine who may have you in custody, immediately to enlarge you and suffer you to go home or elsewhere in the County of Northumberland until Court, or further orders from me. Witness my hand and seal the day and year above.
"To Col. Zebn. Butler. [Signed] "Northumberland, County, ss :-
"HENRY ANTES, Sheriff.
"John Mead, being at this time the gaoler of the County aforesaid, saith, That on the 8th November, inst., being sent up to Wyoming by Henry Antes, High Sheriff of the County, the said Sheriff delivered him a paper directing him to apprehend Col. Zebulon Butler and bring him to Sunbury gaol and to keep him safely, agreeably to a mittimus which the Sheriff acknowledged to be in his hands. This deponent accordingly apprehended the said Butler at Wyoming, and brought him down with him to Northumberland town, where he was met by the Sheriff, General Potter, William Shaw, Esq., William Bonham and Captain Robinson. The Sheriff then took the said Butler from him [the said Mead], desiring him to let said Butler go, and he [Antes] would clear him [Mead] for so doing. The Sheriff afterwards delivered a paper to this deponent, by way of indemnifying the deponent for letting said Butler go. It seems to be a copy of an original given by the Sheriff to said Butler, but was signed by the Sheriff himself.
[Signed] "JOHN MEAD"
"Sworn and subscribed this 13 November, 1783, before John Buyers and Chn. Gettig, Esqs."
On October 14, 1783, an election was held in Northumberland County for one member of the Supreme Executive Council of the State, two Representatives to the General Assembly, and a High Sheriff in and for the County. The voting took place at Pennsbury (see page 1342), and thither journeyed Capt. Simon Spalding and twenty-three other Yankee settlers of Wyoming to cast their ballots. After taking the oath of allegiance to Pennsylvania they were permitted to vote, but their ballots were placed in boxes separate from those in which the ballots of the other voters were deposited-the reason for this being that there was some question in the minds of the election officers as to the validity of these ballots, because those who cast them had not resided a year in Pennsyl- vania. The Constitution of the State required a year's residence in the State as one of the necessary qualifications to vote at elections; and up to the Decree of Trenton, Wyoming had been under the jurisdiction of Connecticut.
*A younger brother of David Mead.
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When the returns of this election were made to the General Assembly, that body rejected the ballots of the twenty-four Wyoming voters, whereupon twenty members of the Assembly protested against such action, assigning, among other reasons, the following *:
"We whose names are hereto subscribed, considering the security of elections the only safeguard of public liberty and the peace of the State, do protest against the determination of the House on the Northumberland election, for the following reasons:
"We conceive the twenty-four votes set aside as illegal were given by legal voters, inasmuch as the persons giving them were in fact in the Government (though not in the territory) of Connecticut, which exercised full jurisdiction over them until the Decree at Trenton.
"We observe that, allowing it to be Connecticut (as was contended) until the Decree at Trenton, then they may be deemed persons coming from another State, who, producing certificates of their having taken the oath to this State, became by law entitled to vote. This, it was fully proved, they had done. * * *
"We cannot but lament the fatal policy by which, instead of conciliating these people and adopting them as our subjects and citizens and endearing them to us in political bands, we are straining the laws against them; * *
* which in our judgment has a strong tendency to revive the dispute (which they may yet do under the Articles of Confederation) and drive them back to the jurisdiction of Connecticut, which will be more ready to receive them and renew the old claim when they find the actual settlers excluded from the common privileges of the citizens of this State."
At Philadelphia, under the date of October 18, 1783, President Dickinson wrote to Maj. James Moore, then in Philadelphia, as followst:
"Council, fully confiding in your Integrity, Ability & Industry, commits to you the important charge, the Fort and Post at Wyoming, and wishes you and the other officers now in town [Phila- delphia] to repair to that place as soon as possible with the men that are inlisted. We do not doubt but the utmost care will be taken that the troops behave themselves regularly, and that not the least injury be done to any of the citizens of the State.
"Upon your arrival there you will endeavor to complete the companies by enlisting such of the soldiers in the Garrison as may be approved, and agreeable to the instructions we have given, and who have no improper connection in the neighborhood. If a sufficient number of such men cannot be procured in the Garrison, we would desire that an officer may be sent down to this city to make up the complement. As you go by Harris' Ferryt you will take with you such of the military stores at that place as may be necessary.
"Peculiar circumstances strongly point out the propriety of desiring you, in a very particular manner, constantly to employ the utmost vigilance and alertness for the security of the fort and the maintenance of the station. It is expected that you will be in perfect preparation at every moment to resist any hostile attempt, whether openly or insidiously made. Among other atten- tions it will be indispensably necessary for this purpose that great care should be taken not to suffer the soldiers, on any pretense whatever, to absent themselves from the Garrison, either in an indefensible situation, or beyond the reach of your immediate recall.
"It is our desire that as long as it may be necessary to keep up the Garrison it shall at no time be left without a supply of one month's provisions in stock for the complete establishment of the two companies. We should be glad to have a return of all the military stores, and early, frequent and exact intelligence of your proceedings and of every circumstance that may concern the interest of the State.
"On your arrival at Wyoming you will please to muster and inspect the troops now there, making exact returns to us. You will then express to the officers and soldiers§ the grateful sense we entertain of their services, and discharge them."
Under the date of October 20, 1783, at "Londonderry" (Wilkes-Barré) Alexander Patterson wrote to President Dickinson as follows:
"Since Mr. Mead and I wrote you last (the purport of which was informing you of the measures taken to have in confinement that flagrant offender, Col. Zebulon Butler, who has threatened the dissolution of the citizens of this State and its laws), notwithstanding Colonel Butler was committed from under the hands and seals of three Justices of Peace for treason, he has found security, and is sent back to this place to the terror of the good citizens in this neighbor- hood. The Sheriff has not done his duty, nor do I believe he intends it-being a party man, among which I am sorry to see so little principles of humanity and honour, men who wish for popularity at the expense of the property, and perhaps blood, of their fellow-citizens.
"Strange as it may appear, it is absolutely true that the banditti at Wyoming have been solicited for their votes at the election], caressed and patronized in their villainy, and encouraged in their claims to land which they now withhold, in violation of all law, from men who have
*See Miner's "History of Wyoming," Page 341.
+See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 132.
#Now Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
§The officers and men of Captain Sbrawder's and Captain Robinson's companies of "Pennsylvania Rangers."
Į The election beld at Pennsbury.
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distinguished themselves and taken a very decided part in the late Revolution. Sure I am that it would be an act of justice not to commissionate [as Sheriff] Antes *- the other person on the return I do not know, but worse he cannot be.
"Pardon this freedom. Nothing but a wish for the peace of the citizens would have induced me to have said so much upon this head. I have wrote the Chief Justice concerning Butler, and have prevailed upon the bearer hereof, Capt. John Dickt to carry these despatches. He will return to this place, and may be depended on. I am very uneasy having heard nothing of Major Moore. I wish he was here. I hope your Excellency will think it right to order the troops for- ward as soon as possible."
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