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 35
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*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 623.
tSee "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 639, et seq.
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from certain Pennsylvania claimants, deposed as follows:
"About the middle of July Giles Slocum, Gideon Church & eight others came to the house of the Deponent about Noon and Plundered the house of two Rifles and some Ammunition, and went off. About a week afterwards Came one Phelps and seven others, and Demanded of the Deponent's wife the keys of the Chest. Mrs. Goodwin being Terrified by their talk and appearance, opened the Chest, out of which they took some Ammunition. The Deponent also heard one Tyler swear they would storm the Fort and put every one to Death; the Children they would Tawmehack. The Deponent asked Timothy Underwood August 11, 1784, for his (Goodwin's) Rifle, and said Underwood cocked his Rifle to shoot the Deponent."
Mrs. Lois King, who, with her husband, John King, had settled in Wyoming Valley in the Spring of 1784, deposed :
"Her husband's house is just above Forty Fort. Some time in the middle of July Phineas Stevens, Edward Inman, Elisha Satterlee and Ishmael Bennett, Jr., came to her house and threat- ened to set fire to it, with many other threats to throw her into the river. Being afraid of her life if she staid, the deponent came down to the town of Wyoming [Wilkes-Barré] to ask advice as to what she should do. When she went back to her house she found the roof tore off and the honse plundered. Benjamin Jenkins, Gideon Church and William Jacques were in her house when she returned from the fort.
"The deponent, when she went back, collected what few things she could find, and came down about half a mile below her home to the house of the Widow Harris. When she came to the Widow Harris' she saw Gideon Church, who had come on before her, and Waterman Baldwin. When she had passed a little distance from Harris' house Waterman Baldwin shot at her. The ball missed her, but went through the thigh of her dog that was walking close by her side. She knows Baldwin fired at her, for she turned around instantly and saw him with his gun in his hand and the smoke of the powder over his head."
Pamelia Taylor deposed :
"About the 16th of July came one Stevens and several others to the house of deponents' father, and threatened to kill the old man -- that they would cut him into inch pieces and burn him; any other death would be too good for him. Further, they said they would drive every one to the fort, and they would put men, women and children to death; that they disregarded the laws-there were none for them or against them; that they had kept the ground by the point of the sword, and were determined to keep it so still."
Colonel Franklin states that on July 18th, Benjamin Harvey returned from his mission to Sunbury and Philadelphia, bearing a letter from Sheriff Antes to Colonel Franklin, "giving information that he could grant the Yankees at Wyo- ming, no relief without assistance, which he could not then obtain; that he had not been able to obtain orders to raise a military force-without which it was in vain for him to attempt to execute his warrants against the rioters at Wyoming, or to grant relief to the unhappy sufferers; that he (the Sheriff) had received no answer in writing to the letters which he had sent by the hands of Mr. Harvey to the Supreme Executive Council and to Chief Justice Mckean." Colonel Franklin further states, in his "Historical Sketches": "Mr. Harvey also in- formed us that the Chief Justice sent directions verbally to the Sheriff to do his duty, and not to send to him for orders."
According to Colonel Franklin (who seems to have been in command of the Yankees at Wyoming at this time), Maj. Joel Abbott, commanding a detail of twenty-three armed men, was sent out from Fort Defence on Tuesday, July 20, 1784, for the purpose of inspecting the growing grain on the "Shawnee", or Plymouth flats, which had been sowed by the Yankees in the Autumn of 1783, was now believed to be nearing maturity, and which they purposed harvesting. News of the movements of this reconnoitering party having, by some means, reached Fort Dickinson, Alexander Patterson despatched about forty of his henchmen, under the command of Capt. Henry Shoemaker (one of the North- umberland County Justices of the Peace), to intercept the Yankees. This they did by going into ambush alongside the highway near Ross Hill*, not far from Shupp's Creek, in the eastern end of Plymouth Township.
Major Abbott's party, unsuspicious of danger at that point, were marching quietly along, when, without warning, they were fired upon by their hidden *See pictures facing pages 52, 72 and 208, Vol. I, and 1090, Vol. II.
.
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foes. Two young men of the party were shot-Elisha Garrett being instantly killed, and Chester Peirce* being so severely wounded that he died the next morning. The Yankees immediately fired into the bushes, whereupon the Pennamites, without returning the fire, fled with precipitation and returned by devious ways across the river to Fort Dickinson. However, they left behind them at the scene of action two of their band-Henry Brink and Wilhelmus Von Gordent-who had been badly wounded by the fire of the Yankees, while a third member of the band returned to the fort with one of his arms broken and swinging at his side.
Franklin says that "the Yankees were by this time convinced that they must either be massacred, quit the country or, like Yankees, defend themselves. They resolved on the latter. The first law of Nature-the law of self-preservation- called them to arms!" Therefore, on July 22d, they first sent a messenger from Fort Defence to Fort Dickinson, to inform Patterson and his adherents that all the Pennamites who had families in the valley were at liberty to leave the fort and, without interference, remove their families and take all their movables out of the valley. "Their families," says Franklin, "were at that time living in every part of Wyoming, and a number of the men came to Shawnee from Fort Dickinson on the 22d, took off their families and furniture, and promised to leave the settlement. However, they removed no farther than the Garrison at Wilkes- Barré."
Then, the same day, sixty-two Yankees in command of Colonel Franklin, marched forth from Fort Defence and proceeded down the west side of the river to Plymouth, dispossessing every Pennamite family-excepting, on the score of humanity, the families of Henry Brink and Wilhelmas Van Gorden, who had been wounded two days previously, as related, and were then lying at their respective homes. Crossing over to Nanticoke, Colonel Franklin and his men marched up towards Wilkes-Barré, turning out every settler who did not hold under a Connecticut claim. The majority of the people thus dispossessed made their way to Fort Dickinson.
Referring again to the affidavits of the Pennamites, we find the following:
"William Brink, one of the Constables near Wyoming, and particularly for the Shawanese Township, in the County of Northumberland, personally appeared before the Hon. Thomas Mckean, at Philadelphia, July 27, 1784, and made oath that on Tuesday, July 20, he and divers other inhabitants of the aforesaid Shawanese Township were informed that divers persons from Connecticut and Vermont were coming to Wyoming armed, and under the command of a certain Maj. Joel Abbott; and that a certain John Franklin was also coming there with another party of armed men.
"That he, this deponent, and between twenty and thirty of his neighbors, assembled together in the township aforesaid, armed with their muskets and bayonets, and staid in a body until about three o'clock, when they concluded that the Connecticut and Vermont party were not com- ing, and they thereupon set out for Fort Dickinson. Having marched about half a mile beyond the flat lands, commonly called the Shawnee Flats, and were got into a wood very thick with brush, they were fired upon by a party of men who lay in ambush, and three of them were wounded two mortally and one slightly. That some of the party with this deponent returned the fire, and then they all retreated back across the Susquehanna River and up to the Fort [Dickinson], where they all-or at least the greater part-remained, until Thursday, July 22d, when this de- ponent's wife sent his son, about twelve years of age, with a horse for him to ride home; but he left his horse at the Fort and returned home by water in a canoe.
"At the river's side he found his wife and family, also Ezekiel Schoonover's, Joseph Mon- tanye's, James Grimes's, Peter Taylor's, Preserved Cooley's, John Cortwright's and Nicholas Brink's families, and some others, standing there, women and children, under the guard of John Swift, Giles Slocum, Waterman Baldwin, Elisha Satterlee, John Inman and some others, armed with rifles and guns, who had driven them from their habitations, without suffering them to bring
*See page 711, Vol. 11.
¡Some years later Wilhelmus Van Gorden applied to the State of Pennsylvania for an annuity, on the ground that he had been wounded in the hip "in an action with the Connecticut settlers at Wyoming July 20, 1784, while serving under Capt. Henry Shoemaker."-See "Pennsylvania Archives", Second Series, XV: 770.
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anything with them except the Clothes they wore, and a few bed clothes for two or three of them. That this deponent then spoke to John Swift, and the others, and told them they had had recourse to the Law, and did they now mean to act arbitrarily and by force. He thought they had been contented; but they severally replied that they expected no satisfaction from the Law, and were therefore resolved to take their own satisfaction; that they meant to kill every man they saw carrying arms.
"They then asked the deponent whether he intended to take his wife and family into the Fort, to which he answered that he did not, but to take them out into the country down to the Delaware. They then told him they meant to take the Fort, and to show no quarter to those whom they should find in it, men women or children. That this deponent thereupon went with his family to Justice Seeley's, about four or five miles from that place, where they remained all night, and the next morning proceeded with his family, cattle, and a little provisions, together with a blanket and coverlid, to the house of Mr. Tillbury, near the Dclaware River, in Northamp- ton County, where he left them while he set out for Philadelphia-which was yesterday morning [Monday, July 26, 1784]." * * *
Henry Brink, aged twenty-two years, deposed as follows:
"That on July 20 as he the said deponent was marching in company with one Wilhelmus Van Gorden from Shawnee towards Kingstown flats, being about 100 yeards in front of Squire Shoemaker and some others, near two miles from Shawnee Garrison*, the deponent spied a dog in the road before him. He then turned to Van Gorden and asked what was the meaning of that dog being in the road. Van Gorden said he did not know, but believed it belonged to the house above. The dog then turned into the bushes, and the deponent looking at the bushes saw them shake. He told Van Gorden he believed there were Yankees there, but Van Gorden said it was nothing but calves. Immediately on mentioning this the second or third time there were eight or nine guns fired at the said deponent and Van Gorden, four shots of which hit and wounded the deponent-two through the left arm, one in the breast and one through the right arm, and one shot wounded Wilhelmus Van Gorden.
"The deponent further saith, that after the first eight or nine guns were fired the Yankees raised the Indian yell, and fired about fifteen guns before any of the Pennsylvanians fired a gun. The deponent further says that he and Van Gorden never discharged their guns. Van Gorden's rifle fell off his shoulder when he dropped."
Pamelia Taylor deposed :
"That on July 20 she went to [the house of Frederick Eveland] to see Wilhelmus Van Gorden, a man that was wounded by the Connecticut party. Among some discourse she heard the wounded man say to one Thomas Heath, Jr., that the Yankees fired first. Further, he said that as they were walking along the road he [Van Gorden] spied a dog in the bushes, and was turning towards Henry Brink, who was next to him, to tell him he believed it was a Yankee dog; that, just as he was going to speak, he and Brink were shot; and, looking towards Heath, who was sitting on the bedside, he said: 'You are the person that was going to blow out my brains as I was lying there wounded; and you would have done it had it not been for one of your party that struck away your gun and reprimanded you.' "
Catherine Courtright, aged twenty-two years, deposed:
"On July 20th I was at the house my mother lived in. Thomas Heath, Jr., and Phineas Stevens, with four others, came into the house, while there was a great body of men out about the street. This was just at dark. The party ordered me out of the house, immediately, when one of said party took a chunk of fire and tried to kindle a blaze in one corner of the house, but could not. Stevens at the same time ordered him to burn it down, and then went off. Soon after Leonard Cole came, and swore he would have satisfaction if he killed every Pennamite on the ground. Then he went off. Then one Thomas Heath, Jr., came and told about the shooting of Brink and Van Gorden. Heath said he drew his tomahawk and ran up to Van Gorden to tomahawk him, but Van Gorden begged for quarter. Heath said he then drew back into the bushes to load his gun again. Then guns began to be fired from all quarters.
"John Franklin, who was commander of said party, came to the door and ordered my mother and myself to be off by daylight, or be prepared for what would follow. One of the party said : 'Damn their souls, nail them up in the house and burn them all up alive!' "
Mary Cooley (the wife, undoubtedly, of Preserved Cooley), being duly sworn, deposed:
"About the 20th or 21st of July, as I was dressing the wounds of Henry Brink who had been shot in four places by a party .of the Connecticut settlers, John Swift, William Slocum, Wm. Smith, Mason Fitch Alden & a number of other men, to the number of fifteen, came to my house. Swift ordered me to be out of the house by the next morning; I told him I could not go & leave the wounded man, & likewise ask'd him by what authority he ordered me out. Swift damn'd me and said it was by his own. Further, he said with a Severe oath, if I was not out by Nine o'clock to morrow he would burn the house over my head, I said I had but one life to lose; if it was my fate to be kill'd by him, I could not help it. Swift then ask'd where Mr. Cooley was; I told him I did not know but that he had kill'd him. Swift said, let him be where he would, if he could find him arm'd or unarm'd he would kill him-and then went off.
"The second Day after, Prince Alden, William Jones, Waterman Baldwin, Daniel Peirce, Phineas Stephens and one Bennet came to my house. Wat. Baldwin told me the half hour was
*This was Shawnee Fort, mentioned on page 886, Vol. II, It was undoubtedly not much more than a ruin in 1784
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Expired & I must march. I begged for time to move my things off. Peirce & Baldwin told me I should have none, & Immediately Threw my things out of the house and marched me off with a Guard to the River, I begged of them to let me have my cows, which they utterly Refus'd. I ask'd Phineas Stephens & William Jones how they Expected to hold the Lands. They said no other way than by the Point of the Sword. Before I cross'd the River I saw William Smith, one Brown & Ishmael Bennet Plunder & carry off my meal, &c. I then Crossed the River and came to the fort for my further Safety."
Charles Manrow, aged thirty-five years, deposed:
"That on July 22, 1784, about 100 of the New England party, among whom were John Franklin, Giles Slocum, John Hollenback, John Ryon, one Burnham and Abraham Westbrook came to the house of this deponent, living in Stoke Township, near Nanticoke, in said County of Northumberland, all with arms. That John Franklin, when he came up to this deponent's house, spoke to him and ordered him to march; upon which the deponent replied that it was just night, and that he could not get his creatures so that he could get away. Giles Slocum immediate- ly says: 'March away with your family up to the fort!' The deponent still desired to remain until morning, and go down the river, but Giles Slocum insisted that if he did not go that night, and should remain there till morning, he would make a corpse of him-and afterwards went away towards the fort. That this deponent, not thinking himself safe to stay in his house, left it and his family in it, and returned to his family about a week after."
Hannah Schoonover deposed as follows:
"On July 22nd, about sunrise, I saw Waterman Baldwin, Doctor [George] Minard, and a number of others belonging to the Connecticut party, coming towards my house. I stepped out of the door and ordered my sister-in-law to stay in the house and bar the door with an iron bar which was used for that purpose, and by no means to open the door for them. When they came up Waterman Baldwin asked me if there were any men in the house or about it. I told him there were not. He then asked me to open the door. I told him I would not. He then said he would soon find a way to open it, and he broke it open. Said Baldwin then asked me to open the chests, and I told him I would open none for him nor no other person. He then broke open the chests and plundered them of all the most valuable effects.
"Baldwin with his party then went off, and in about an hour after returned with a number more; then ordered me to take my effects and march off to the fort, or through the Swamp. I refused to do either; upon which they took and threw all my goods out of the house, and went off. Immediately afterwards one Inman came with three or four others, and ordered me to go with them to Shawnee Garrison. I refused, and they told me that if I did not I should fare worse. When I saw there was no help for me I went with them down to the Garrison, where I saw John Franklin with about forty men. Said Franklin commanded the party, and told me to march through the Swamp or to the fort. If I did not, I would be abused."
William Hartman deposed as follows:
"About July 22d Josiah Pell, three of the Inmans, one William Jones, and a number of others of the Connecticut claimants, came to the house of the deponent with John Franklin their com- mander, who ordered him to move off immediately. The deponent heard numbers of the party say they intended to drive all the inhabitants into the fort, and after they had done that they intended to storm the fort and kill every man, woman and child. The deponent further heard Elijah Harris say that a number of them lay in ambush to shoot the Pennsylvanians who were coming up that way, and would have killed them all, but were discovered by a dog, which caused them to fire sooner than they would have done; and that their party had the first fire, and shot down but two-Wilhelmus Van Gorden and Henry Brink."
In the morning of Friday, July 23, 1784, Colonel Franklin and his command marched into the village of Wilkes-Barré and prepared to lay siege to Fort Dickinson. Franklin, in one of his "Plain Truth" articles and in his "Brief," previously mentioned, states: That when the Yankees entered the village the Pennamites fired upon them several times with the field-pieces in the fort, but they received no injury; that the fort was equipped with two 4-pounder cannon (field-pieces) two swivel-guns and one wall-piece; that four small block-houses on the River Common, occupied as outposts, formed part of the defenses of the fort; that these outposts and the fort contained in the aggregate about 100 men.
The only firearms possessed by the Yankees were muskets, rifles and pistols, but nevertheless they surrounded the fort and its outposts. The same day they took possession of a grist-mill, about a mile from the fort, at Mill Creek, and the only one then in the valley that was in condition to be operated. They also took possession of several houses in the village, at no great distance from the fort, which they occupied as places of defense. In order to dislodge the Yankees
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from these houses, the Pennamites made a sortie from Fort Dickinson on July 24th, and, setting fire to one or two houses adjacent to those occupied by the Yankees, a general conflagration took place, in which twenty-three houses were burnt to the ground.
Franklin says: "This did not intimidate, but exasperated, the Yankees, and on the same day, July 24th, Capt. John Swift was detached with twenty-six Yankees to take post on the west of the garrison to annoy the enemy in their block-houses on that quarter, when he attacked two of the block-houses near the bank of the river, thirty-five rods from the garrison, guarded by ten men in each. The enemy were compelled to retire to the garrison, when Swift took possession of their posts. We surrounded them on every quarter, and we en- trenched so near their garrison that we silenced their field-pieces and compelled them to block up their port-holes. By this time the wheels of Government began to move!"
On Sunday, July 25th, William Smith, a son of William and Margery (Kellogg) Smith (early Connecticut settlers in Wyoming Valley), and one of the Yankees in the detachment commanded by Captain Swift, was killed by a shot from Fort Dickinson.'
The investment of Fort Dickinson by the Yankees was still effective on July 27th, when a letter was sent to the occupants of the fort, reading as followst :
"Wyoming, July 27th, 1784.
"Gentlemen,
In the name and behalf of the Inhabitants of this place, who held their Lands under the Connecticut Claim, and were lately, without Law, or even the Colour of Law, drove off from their Possessions and Property in a hostile and unconstitutional manner-we, therefore, in the name of those injur'd and ineens'd Inhabitants, demand an immediate Surrender of your Garrison into our hands, together with our Possessions and Property; which, if Compli'd with, you shall be treated with Humanity and Commiseration; otherwise the Consequences will prove fatal and bloody to every person found in the Garrison. We give you two Hours for a decisive answer, and will receive the same at Mr. Bailey's .;
[Signed] "JOHN FRANKLIN, in behalf of the injured." "To the Officers at the Garrison in Wyoming. By the hands of M. Hollenback."
Referring once more to the affidavits mentioned, we learn that at Philadel- phia, under the date of July 28, 1784, Capt. John Armstrong, who had just returned from Wilkes-Barré, deposed before Chief Justice McKean as follows:
"The party from Connecticut fired upon the fort, where some of the settlers under Penn- sylvania, whose lives had been threatened, were assembled for safety. That on Thursday last, the twenty-second day of this present month, a number of men, women and children flew into the Fort for protection, who reported that they were expelled their houses by an armed force, plundered of every species of property, and that their lives were threatened by the settlers under the State of Connecticut and a party lately from Vermont. That on the twenty-third of this month a large party appeared embodied near Fort Dickinson, and soon after fired upon the inhabitants, who had fled there for safety.
"This deponent further saith, that refleeting on the unhappy situation of the women and children who lived near to the Fort, in being exposed to the fire of both parties, he begged of a widow, that had two sons with the aforesaid party, to desire that they would cease firing, until she and some more in a similar situation could be removed to a place of safety, which she accord- ingly did; and thereupon they sent her word that there should be no firing for two hours. He
*His remains were interred the same day in the old grave-yard on East Market Street, Wilkes-Barré, and a gre y flagstone bearing the following inscription was subsequently erected at his grave: "1784 | HERE lies the BODY of | WILLIAM SMITH | Mortals attend he was | call'd forthwith | He left the world at- | twenty-five | A warning to all | that's yet alive | His zeal for justice tho | hard to relate | It caus'd his flight from | his mortal state."
Ahout 1867 the remains of William Smith, and the old gravestone above mentioned, were transferred to the new Wilkes-Barre cemetery-now known as the "City Cemetery"-on North River Street, where, twenty-five or thirty years ago, the present writer copied from the original stone-which was then standing there, and may be still-the inscription as herein printed.
Miner states in his "History of Wyoming", page 360, that William Smith (known as "Big William") was shot through the hody while attempting to obtain water from the river, during the investment of Fort Dickinson hy the Yankees in the latter part of September, 1784 Undoubtedly Mr Miner fell into an error in stating that September was the month in which the death of this man occurred, inasmuch as Colonel Franklin recorded the incident in his journal at the time it took place-vis., July 25, 1784.
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