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 42
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James Read was a merchant in the South Ward of Philadelphia in 1774, and hecame City Lieutenant of Philadel- pbia April 10, 1777. The same year he became Captain of the "South Ward" Company in Col. William Bradford's battalion of Philadelphia militia, and in July, 1777, was promoted Major of this battalion. August 2, 1777, he was transferred as Major, to Col. Jonathan Bayard Smith's battalion. He took part in the battles of Trentoo, Princeton, Brandywine aud Germantown. He was appointed hy Congress, November 4, 1778, one of the three Commissioners of the Navy for the middle States, and on January 11, 1781, was invested by the same body with sole power to conduct the affairs of the Navy Board. Early in 1780 he was Lieutenant Colonel commanding the First Battalion, Philadel- phia Militia, but later in the year was transferred to the command of the Second Battalion. He was appointed to the office of flour inspector in Philadelphia, April 22, 1785, and by successive reappointments held this office until 1796, or later. (For au interesting account of his duties and responsibilities as Flour Inspector, see "Pennsylvania Archives". Old Series, XI: 755.) Colonel Read died in Philadelphia, December 31, 1822. His grandson, the Rev. James Read Eckard, D. D. (born in Philadelphia. November 22, 1805), was Professor of Rhetoric at Lafayette College during the present writer's student days there.
#JOHN OKELV was born in Bradford, England, March 22, 1721. He sailed Irom London. March 15, 1742, as a member of the "Sea Congregation", mentioned in the note on page 216, Vol. I. This colony of Moravian Brethren arrived in Philadelphia June 7, 1742, and after some days spent there proceeded to Bethlehem, where they arrived June 21st. John Okely helped to found the Moravian Church there, and also the girls' college. Bishop Spangenberg (see page 217, Vol. I, and other pages) regarded him with great affection, and spoke of him as his sou.
For many years Okley was scrivener and laud agent of the Moravian estates in Pennsylvania, but when the troubles between the American Colonies and the mother country hegan he left the Brethren and joined the Episcopal Church. In 1774 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace by Gov. John Peun, and in 1775 was a member of the Committee of Correspondence of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, composed of six citizens chosen by the electors of the County. He was also a member of the Committee of Safety of the County, and with three other men represented the County in the Provincial Congress which convened at Philadelphia, January 23, 1775. He is on record as having, on May 6. 1775, in conjunction with his fellow members of the Committee of Safety, directed the formation of militia companies in Northampton County, and advising that each man "be provided with one good fire-lock, one pound of powder, four pounds of lead, a sufficient number of flints, and a cartridge-box." At Bethlehem he had charge of the prisoners wbo were held there by the Continental authorities, and as a Deputy Quartermaster in the Continental service he had charge of the procuring and purchasing of supplies of food for the prisoners as well as for the troops.
In 1788 Mr. Okely removed from Bethlehem to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in farming. He was married (Ist) in Philadelphia, March 9, 1743, to Johanna Robbins, who died March 3, 1745 On the 7th of the following October he was married (2d) to Elizabeth Horne, a Moravian. She died at Bethlehem December 23, 1775, and on February 8, 1780, Mr. Okely was married (3d) to Margaret, daughter of George Moore of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She died April 3, 1789, leaving two children: (i) Elisabeth, horn in 1782, and (ii) John M., horn in 1785. Mr. Okely died on his farm May 15, 1792.
*The first Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, adopted in September, 1776 (see page 881 , Vol. II), provided that a COUNCIL OF CENSORS, consisting of two persons from each city and county, was to be elected in 1783 and in every seventh year thereafter, wbose duty it would he to make inquiry as to whether the Constitution had been pre- served inviolate during the last septenary, and whether the executive and legislative branches of the Government had performed their duties as guardians of the people, of had assumed to themselves, or exercised, other or greater powers than they were entitled to hy the Constitution. For these purposes the Council was empowered to send for persons, papers and records, and was authorized to pass public censures, order impeachments and recommend to the Legislature the repeal of such laws as appeared to have been enacted contrary to the principles of the Constitution.
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the charges contained in a petition from a number of the inhabitants of Wyoming, and the papers and affidavits accompanying the same; and the letter from Zebulon Butler and others of Wyoming, read in the Supreme Executive Council May 28, 1784, and which was by them transmitted to the House.
"Signed by order of the Council of Censors, now sitting in the State House, in the city of Philadelphia, on this 10th day of September, A. D. 1784.
[Signed] "FREDERICK A. MUHLENBERG,
"Attest: SAMUEL BRYAN, Secretary. "President of the Council of Censors."
The General Assembly cooly and deliberately disregarded and ignored these demands of the Censors, whereupon the latter, on September 11th, delivered the following solemn and scathing denunciation of the measures pursued against the Wyoming settlers, and ordered that the same "be printed* by Francis Bailey, with the report concerning the deviations of the Legislative branch of the Government."
"It is the opinion of this Council that the decision made at Trenton early in 1783 [Decr., 1782], between the State of Connecticut and this Commonwealth, concerning the territorial rights of both, was favorable for Pennsylvania. It likewise promised the happiest consequences to the Confederacy, as an example was thereby set of two contending sovereignties adjusting their differences in a Court of Justice, instead of involving themselves, and perhaps their con- federates, in war and bloodshed.
"It is much to be regretted that this happy event was not improved on the part of this State, as it might have been; that the persons claiming the lands at and near Wyoming, occupied by emigrants from Connecticut, now become subjects of Pennsylvania, were not left to prosecute their claims in the proper course, without the intervention of the Legislature; that a body of troops was enlisted (after the Indian war had ceased and the civil government had been establish- ed) and stationed at Wyoming for no other apparent purpose than that of promoting the interests of the claimants under the former grants of Pennsylvania; that these troops were kept up and continued there without the license of Congress, in violation of the Confederation; that they were suffered without restraint to injure and oppress the neighboring inhabitants during the course of the last Winter; that the injuries done to these people excited the compassion and interposition of the State of Connecticut, which thereupon demanded of Congress another hearing and inquiry in order to investigate the private claims of the settlers at Wyoming (formerly inhabitants of New England), wbo, from this instance of partiality in our rulers, might have been led to distrust the justice of the State, when, in the meantime, numbers of these soldiers and other disorderly persons, in a most riotous and inhuman manner, expelled the New England settlers before men- tioned from their habitations, & drove them towards the Delaware, through unsettled and almost impassable ways, leaving these unhappy outcasts to suffer every species of distress; that this armed force, stationed as aforesaid at Wyoming (as far as we can see without any public advantage in view), has cost the Commonwealth the sum of £4,460 and upwards for the bare levying, pro- viding and paying of them, besides other expenditures of public money; that the authority for embodying these troops was given privately, and unknown to the good people of Pennsylvania. the same being directed by a mere Resolve of the late House of Assembly, brought in and read the first time on Monday, 22d September, 1783, when, on motion and by special order, the same was read the second time and adopted; that the putting of this Resolve on the secret journal of the House, and concealing it from the people, after the war with the savages had ceased and the inhabitants of Wyoming had submitted to the government of the State, sufficiently marks and fixes the clandestine and partial intent of the armament-no such cantion having been thought necessary in the defence of the Northern and Western frontiers during the late war; and lastly, we regret the fatal example which this transaction has set, of private persons, at least
The powers of the Council were to continue one year, and included the right to call a convention to meet within two years, if deemed absolutely necessary, for amending any Article of the Constitution that might appear defective, or for adding such Articles as might appear necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people.
At the general election in October, 1783, members of the Council of Censors were chosen conformably with the Constitution, as follows: From the city of Philadelphia, George Bryan and Thomas Fitzsimons; Philadelphia County, Frederick A. Muhlenberg and Gen. Arthur St. Clair; Bucks County, Joseph Hart and Samuel Smith; Bedford County, Daniel Espy and Samuel Davidson; Chester County, Gen. Anthony Wayne and James Moore; Lancaster County, John Whitehill and Stephen Chambers; York County, Col. Thomas Hartley and Richard McAllister; Westmoreland County, John Smilie and William Findley; Cumberland County, James McLene and Geo. William Irvine; Berks County, James Read and Baltzer Gehr; Northampton County, Capt. Joho Arndt and Simon Driesbach; Washington County. James Edgar and John McDowell; Northumberland County, Col. William Montgomery and Col. Samuel Hunter (who, dying April 10, 1784, was succeeded on July 7th by Gen. James Potter).
The Council of Censors met at Philadelphia at various times during the year 1784, adjourning finally on September 25th, at which time it issued a lengthy address to the freemen of the Commonwealth, which was published in full in The Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia), October 7, 1784, and read in part as follows: "Having finished the period of our appointment, and having completed, as far as we are able, the new and important business assigned to us by the terms of the Constitution and the choice of the people, we are about to return to our private employments. * * * If with heart and hand united we will all combine to support the Constitution, and apply its injunctions to the best use of society, we shall find it a source of the richest blessings. We would earnestly recommend this to you. Give it a fair and honest trial, and if, after all, at the end of another seven years, it shall be found necessary or proper to introduce any changes, they may then be brought in and established upon a full conviction of their usefulness, with harmony and good temper and without noise, tumult or violence."
*It was published in full in The Pennsylvania Packet, Philadelphia, September 24, 1784. 5,000 copies of the docu- ment were also printed in the form of a broadside, for free dissemination among the people of the Commonwealth.
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equally able with their opponents to maintain their own cause, procuring the influence of the Commonwealth in their behalf, and the aid of the public treasury.
"We deplore the opprobrium which from hence has resulted to this State, and the disaffection and prospect of dissension now existing with one of our sister States. We deplore the violation of the Confederation, and the injury thereby done to such of the Pennsylvania claimants of lands at Wyoming, occupied as aforesaid, as have given no countenance to, but on the contrary have disavowed, these extravagant proceedings. In short, we lament that our Government have in this business manifested little wisdom and foresight; nor have acted as the guardians of the rights of the people committed to their case.
"Impressed with the multiplied evils which have sprung from the imprudent management of this business, we hold it up to censure, to prevent, if possible, further instances of bad govern- ment, which might convulse and distract our new-formed Nation!"
At a meeting held at the State House September 21, 1784, the Censors gave further formal expression of their sentiments with respect to the General Assembly, and a minute of the action then taken (which was ordered to be entered in full on the records of the Council) was published in The Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia) of September 28, 1784. It read in part, as follows:
"One of the principal duties of the Council of Censors being to enquire into and investigate the acts and proceedings of the legislative and executive branches of Government, in order to ascertain whether they have performed their duty as guardians of the people; and a glaring abuse of great magnitude having presented itself to our view, viz .: The proceedings of the Legis- lative body with respect to the settlers from New England at Wyoming. * * *
"In the course of this enquiry, and in order to ascertain the truth of the high-toned com- plaints of these people to Congress, we requested the present General Assembly to transmit to this Council certain specified documents, particularly divers affidavits taken at Wyoming last Winter by a committee of their own body, in consequence of a petition presented to the House December 8, 1783, by Zebulon Butler and others, setting forth the injuries and oppressions they had suffered; to which request no answer being received by this Council at noon the next day, we thereupon, in proper and firm terms, in writing, signed by our President, demanded of the General Assembly the papers which had been the day before requested of the House. The General Assembly by vote refused the same; and as to the peremptory demand, they did not suffer it to lie on their table.
"This Council is not so ignorant of human nature as not to suggest to itself why a person accused should be backward to furnish evidence against himself; but that the Representatives of the State in Assembly should thus keep back from the Council of Censors, fully authorized by the Constitution 'to send for persons, papers and records', public documents in their possession, is a conduct that their constituents must hear with surprise and indignation. But suppression of evidence has not availed in this case. This unwarrantable concealment by the wrongdoers themselves has but the more decidedly convinced this Council of the truth of the complaints of the settlers at Wyoming, and of the utter neglect of the Government to protect the oppressed settlers. * * *
"We hold up to the censure of the community at large this obstruction against the pro- ceedings of this Council, as tending to render the Council of Censors not only useless but con- temptible, and as tending to conceal from their constituents public abuses, however enormous or wasteful of the public treasure and dishonorable to the Commonwealth."
On the same day that the foregoing accusation was published, the General Assembly broke up without adjournment. The unconstitutional introduction of a bill for enfranchising non-jurors was carried by the Speakers vote, and led about twenty of the members (among whom were Col. Frederick Antes, of North- umberland County and Col. Jacob Stroud and Robert Brown of Northampton County) to rise, break up the session and deliver to the Speaker a written dissent with respect to the action of the House. On the 12th of the ensuing October, a general election took place in the State, and, on October 25th, according to the terms of the Constitution, the new Assembly met and organized, John Bayard being elected Speaker.
We will here state that on September 15th, the Assembly passed an "Act for the more speedy restoring the possession of certain messuages, lands and tenements in Northumberland County to the persons who lately held the same." The principal provisions of the Act were as follows:
"Whereas s eral persons at or near Wyoming, in the County of Northumberland, were, in the month of May last, violently dispossessed of the messuages, lands and tenements which they then occupied, and which are still detained from them by force; and the peculiar
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circumstances of these cases require that the possession of the premises, so forcibly entered and detained, should be without delay restored to the persons who occupied them as aforesaid; Be it therefore enacted * that it shall and may be lawful for the President and the Supreme * Executive Council to direct the Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Northumberland to proceed forthwith in executing the laws relating to forcible entries and detainers; and that their proceedings therein *
* * shall not be in any manner whatever superceded, impeded or delayed by writ of certiorari or other writ issued by the Supreme Court, or any Judge thereof, or by any other Court whatever. That this Act shall continue in force until the end of the next session of the General Assembly (beginning in October, 1784), and no longer."
Returning now to Wilkes-Barré, we find that Col. John Armstrong, Jr., left here on Saturday, September 11, 1784, for Easton, where, on September 14th, he wrote to President Dickinson, as follows :*
"Before your Excellency's last letter reached Wyoming I had taken some measures for dispersing such part of the insurgents as remained in arms about the mouth of Tunkhannock Creekt; and though my intentions were far from being fulfilled, yet I have every reason to believe that a discovery of them has not been without its effect, as they have since removed themselves much higher up the river. Colonel Moore will have the honour to inform your Excellency of the steps which were taken to bring about this purpose.
"The fears which I expressed in a former letter to Council (and which had grown entirely out of the Sheriff's conduct at Sunbury) have been in some degree justified by the conduct of the people then released. They have in some instances taken up their arms and retired into the neigh- boring hills; in others, they have threatened the civil officers and refused to submit to the laws. But in no instance has any real violence been committed, excepting one-the offender in which case was brought to immediate justice. In this situation I left the settlement on Saturday last, and proposed to have returned immediately to Philadelphia, but meeting Captain Boyd at this place I have at least suspended my intentions for a day or two. * *
* I have forwarded some depositions upon the affair of Locust Ridge to the Chief Justice."
Being now in Easton, let us look in on the twenty-seven Wyoming Yankees imprisoned in the old stone jail. We find them still in irons and confined to two small second-story rooms; and we learn that, early in September, chafing under the restraints and burdens imposed upon them, they addressed to the Supreme Executive Council the following communication:
"Gentlemen: Suffer us, your humble Petitioners, to lay before your Honourable Body our distress'd Situation; on account of our Confinement, in this sultry season of the year, about thirty of us confined in two small Rooms, in Irons, aud nothing to live upon but one pound of bread a Day, which has impair'd our health to that degree that we are able just to walk our Room at present. But one week more such cruel Treatment will most certainly reduce us to the shades of Death, and land us in the world of Spirits. This, Gentlemen, is no chimera, but God's Truth; for our animal spirits, together with our flesh, are almost exhausted by the severities which we undergo in our imprisonment, and no one to administer any consolation to us.
"If we have done anything worthy of Bonds, Imprisonment or Death, we refuse neither; but to be confined here in this dismal place and not suffered to have the fresh air which God has made free for all His creation-and not only deprived of this great and inconceivable blessing, but denied the necessaries of life, as tho it was the determination of those who put us here to destroy us by a lingering Death, and make that as ghastly and formidable as possible.
"We cannot possibly think but that we have stood up for the Honor and Dignity of this State in what we have done, and that the allegation laid to our charge originated in malice and revenge; and we are not alone in our judgment. Therefore, we your bumble and injured petitioners would most humbly pray that your honorable Body would exert yourselves to do us Justice, and consequently emancipate us from this intolerable and, as we think, unjust confinement, or we must soon be beyond your help or any finite being's. And if your Honorable Body can see fit in your wisdom & goodness to grant our humble prayer, we will, as in duty bound, ever pray, &c.
"Joseph Corey William Slocum
Gideon Church Nathaniel Walker
Nathaniel Cook Thomas Read
Benjamin Jenkins Elisha Harding
William Jenkins Walter Spencer
Abraham Pike
John Gore
Lord Butler Jonathan Burwell
John Hurlbut Jeremiah White
Daniel Sullivan
Prince Alden, Jr.
William Jackson
Thomas Stoddard
Richard Hallstead Elisha Harris
Edward Inman Justus Gaylord
Thomas Heath, Jr.
Jobn Platner
Abram Nesbitt."
*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 658.
+Tunkhannock Creek empties into the Susquehanna almost opposite the mouth of Bowman's Creek.
+See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X:690.
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Some time having elapsed after the transmission of this petition to the Council, and the treatment of the prisoners not being changed for the better, they determined to resort to desperate measures. They pursued a course of "watchful waiting," and finally there came to them an opportunity for accom- plishing something-something requiring quick and vigorous action.
About four o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, September 17, 1784, Frederick Barthold, the assistant jailer, unlocked the doors of the rooms in which the Wyoming prisoners were confined, in order to allow two from each room, according to custom, to go down stairs to fetch a supply of bread and water for the party. Immediately Edward Inman*, a man of great strength and personal courage, pounced upon Barthold, choked him, and, wrenching from his hand the bunch of keys which he carried, beat him over his head with them until he became senseless. Inman then unlocked the doors of the two rooms occupied by the Wyoming men, and the iron gate at the foot of the stairway, and the whole party hurried down stairs and through the gate, where they were met by Peter Ealer, the jailer (who in November, 1784, became Sheriff · of Northampton County), and his wife. Ealer attempted to shut the gate, at the same time calling to his wife to shut and lock the front, or street door of the jail. Failing in his efforts to close the gate, Ealer himself ran to the front door, but he could not fasten it, as the key was not in the lock.
The escaping prisoners swarmed into the lobby, or main corridor, where, from a pile of fire-wood, many of them secured stout billets for weapons of defense. Thrusting Ealer aside, in no gentle manner, the whole party, including Edward Inman, still holding on to the jail keys, escaped from the building, scooted down an adjoining alley, and then scattered in various directions. A citizen living opposite the jail, who witnessed this somewhat informal general jail delivery ran into the street, alarmed the inhabitants of the neighborhood and called them to arms, "but as it was a rainy day they did not come timely to assistance."t However, a hot pursuit was soon begun, and before nightfall the pursuing party had retaken and returned to the jail eleven of the fugitives, as follows: Edward Inman, Benjamin Jenkins, Lord Butler, John Hurlbut, William Slocum, Thomas Read, Walter Spencer, Jonathan Burwell, Jeremiah White, Prince Alden, Jr., and John Platner.
The sixteen other fugitives made their way with great difficulty to Wyoming, where they joined Captain Swift and his party, who, about that time, had left their retreat at the mouth of Bowman's Creek and taken possession of the four log houses known as Fort Defence, near Brockway's, in Kingston Township. (See page 1394.)
Colonel Armstrong and Captain Boyd, two of the Wyoming Commissioners, were in Easton when the Wyoming Yankees broke jail, and the next day they were joined there by the other two Commissioners-Colonel Read and John Okely, Esq. On the same day the four set out for Wilkes-Barré, where they arrived in the morning of Monday, September 20th.
Some hours after their arrival, three of the Commissioners were subjected to an unpleasant experience on Northampton Street, while returning to the inn of John Hollenback from a visit to Fort Dickinson. From depositions;
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