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 44
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"DEPOSITION OF CAPTAIN SHOEMAKER.
"Before me, John Seely, Esq., one of the Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Northumberland, appeared Henry Shoemaker, Esq., and being duly sworn doth depose and say:
*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 674, 675.
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That about two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, the 28th inst., came to the house where the fort was a number of people known by the name of Connecticut Claimants, and after giving a number of Indian yells they, the said enemies, began a very heavy fire on the house with rifles and musquetry. The deponent and the other gentlemen were in bed. Mr. Samuel Read*, as he was rising from his bed, received a mortal wound through the back and in the guts. Mr. Andrew Henderson*, striving to gain another house, was wounded in five different places, one of which, in the breast, is supposed to be mortal. The enemy, during the fire, made several attempts to fire the dwelling-house and burn up alive all that was in it. They continued firing about two hours, broke open the public store-house, carried off some arms and a quantity of ammunition."
[Signed]
"HENRY SHOEMAKER."
"Sworn to and subscribed before me at Wyoming, September 28, 1784.
[Signed] "JOHN SEELY."
"At the same time appeared Alexander Patterson, and being duly sworn declares that the within deposition is just and true.
"At the same time appeared Dr. Francis Smith, and being duly sworn declares that the within deposition is just and true."
[Signed]
"JOHN SEELY."
The foregoing letter of Captain Patterson and the larger part of the report of the Wyoming Commissioners to the Council, were published early in October in The Pennsylvania Packet, Philadelphia, and were reprinted in The Connect- icut Courant (Hartford) of October 13, 1784, and in the Boston Gazette of October 25, 1784, as well as in certain New York papers.
Colonel Franklin, referring in his "Brief" to this night attack upon the Pennamites, states that it was made by "a small party of the Connecticut people," the greater number of whom were the men who had escaped from the Easton jail some days previously. They were under the command of Capt. John Swift, who, in the course of the conflict, received a severe wound in his throat. Lient. Samuel Read, one of the Pennamites who was wounded, died a day or two later.
During the assault the Yankees broke into one of the store-houses and secured a quantity of ammunition and some of the rifles which had been taken from them in the preceding August. With this addition to their stock of munitions, the besiegers were enabled to arm other settlers and thus increase their force. The garrison was now closely invested, the Yankees occupying two houses from which the Pennamites had been driven. The siege lasted for two or three days, when Captain Franklin and two or three others of their party having been wounded, and two having been killed, the Yankees retired to Fort Defence, in Kingston Township.
At Philadelphia, October 1, 1784, Colonel Armstrong, as Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council, and by direction of the Council, addressed to Francis Murray, Esq., Lieutenant of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the following communicationt :
"It is the direction of Council that Fifty Men, properly arm'd, accontred & Officered, be immediately drawn forth from the Battalion of Bucks County Militia, & mov'd with all possible expedition to George Kline's; in Lower Milford Township.
"You will be pleased to accompany them thither, & remain with them untill the farther Orders of Council; & As the emergency upon which this detachment is called out will admit of no delay, it is expected that you will take some means to furnish them with provisions for a day or two after they reach the place above-mentioned, when some other mode of supply will be adopted. All possible Care is to be taken that the troops come out properly prepar'd for the most active service; & it is the express order of Government that you call upon the whole Regt. until you get the aforesaid Number so prepar'd.
"Ammunition shall meet them at the place of rendezvous."
On the same day, Secretary Armstrong wrote a letter similar to the fore- going, to Valentine Eckert, Esq., Lieutenant of Berks County; and also wrote
*See (1) note, page 1347.
*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X : 345.
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to John Weitzel, Esq., "State Contractor for Provisions in Northumberland County", as follows *:
"It is the desire of Council that you will procure and transport a quantity of provisions, viz .: flour, beef, salt and rum, as immediately as possible to Wyoming, there to be deposited under the care of such person as you may appoint to receive it. You may calculate upon 100 men for a fortnight. The emergency, which makes this business so extremely interesting to Coun- cil and important to the State, will not admit of a moment's delay, and makes it necessary again to engage your industry and management in the service of the public."
On the same day, the Secretary wrote to the magistrates of Northumberland County, as follows:
"The late Violations of the Peace at Wyoming & abuse of the Commissioners sent thither to promote the designs of the Legislature will call for every exertion in your power. A spirit so alarming to the honour of the State & the Tranquility of its Inhabitants will deserve the most exemplary punishment. The orders of Council will be found more explicitly declared in their letter to the Sheriff of your Co., & point out the immediate necessity for your personal attendance on this business."
The letter to Henry Antes, Esq., Sheriff of Northumberland County, re- ferred to in the foregoing letter, read as followst :
"You are hereby directed to proceed immediately upon the receipt of this to raise the Posse Commitatus of the Co. of Northumberland and with them proceed under the direction of the Magistracy to apprehend & secure the persons concerned in the late Violation of the Peace at Wyoming, & more particularly the persons whose names are hereafter mentioned :- John Swift, John Franklin, Ebenezer Johnson, Phineas Peirce, Elisha Satterlee, Joel Abbot, Waterman Baldwin, Phineas Stevens, William Jacques, Ishmael Bennet, jr., Benjn. Sill, Wm. McClure, Daniel Gore, Abraham Westbrook, Abraham Pike, Wm. Ross, Gideon Church & Richard Halstead."
Also, on October 1st, Secretary Armstrong wrote to Maj. Robert Traill (a member of the Supreme Executive Council, residing at Easton), saying ;:
"It is the sense of Council that the utmost vigilance be exerted in securing the remaining part of the prisoners in Easton Gaol, as there is some reason to believe that some early attempt will be made to rescue them from their present situation. To effect this it is thought absolutely necessary that none but people whom you know and can trust be permitted to communicate with them on any pretence whatever."
At a meeting of the Council held on Saturday, October 2, 1784, it was "ordered that John Armstrong, Jr., Esq., Secretary of the Council, be appointed and commissioned to be Adjutant General of the militia of this State, in the room of James Wilkinson§, Esq., who has gone from the State." It was also ordered that a detachment of fifty men, properly officered and equipped, "be immediately drawn forth from the militia of the county of Bucks," and a like
*See ' Pennsylvania Archives" X : 343.
+See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 344.
#See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X1: 446.
§JAMES WILKINSON was born at Benedict, Maryland, iu 1757, and died in Mexico December 28, 1825. He was studying medicine in Philadelphia in 1775, and in September of that year joined the American army before Boston and was appointed by Washington a volunteer subaltero in Col. William Thompson's Battalion of Pennsylvania Riflemen. Early in 1776 he was promoted Captain, and in May, 1776, was in service at LaChine, twelve miles from Montreal. In 1777 (being then only twenty years of age) he served, with the rank of Colonel, as Adjutant General on the staff of General Gates, in the army of the Northern Department. He served with some distinction through the Saratoga campaign (see note, page 1426), and was brevetted Brig. General in November, 1777.
From January to March, 1778, he was Secretary to the Board of War, and then was appointed Major of "Hartley's Regiment" of the Continental Line, mentioned at length in a note on page 1108, Vol. II . of this work. Soon thereafter he was promoted Lieut, Colonel of the same regiment. In July, 1779, he was made Clothier General of the Continental Army, holding the position until some time in 1781, when he resigned. Shortly afterwards he was appointed by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania Adjutant General of the militia of the State, and May 23, 1782, was elected and commissioned a Brigadier General by the Council. In September, 1784, he emigrated to Kentucky, which led to the appointment of Colonel Armstrong to succeed him as Adjutant General of Pennsylvania. It was not until early in November, however, that Wilkinson formally resigned his commissions as Brigadier General and Adjutant General in the State militia. (See "Pennsylvania Archives", Old Series, X: 610.)
From that period onward, for many years-as stated in the principal .. American encyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries-General Wilkinsons "career was marked by a degree of perfidy and double-dealing almost unparalleled in American history." Throughout the "Burr Conspiracy", a period marked by threatened hostilities with Spain, "his conduct was marked by the utmost duplicity", although at the time he was the commanding general of the United States Army In 1811 he was tried by court-martial ou a charge of treason, hut was acquitted. In 1812, at the break- ing out of the war with Great Britain, he was the senior Brigadier General of the army, but in March, 1813, he became a Major General, and from August, 1813, to March, 1814, held the chief command of the United States forces in the Northern Department, hut was inefficient, and was declared to be "the most infamous person wearing the uniform of the United States." Early in 1815 he was tried by court-martial on a charge of drunkenness and conduct unbecom- ing an officer. but was acquitted. He was honorably discharged from the army in June, 1815, and subsequently, until his death, resided in Mexico. In 1816 he wrote and published, in three volumes, "Memoirs of My Own Times", referred to by some reviewers as "a tedious, disgusting, but necessary book, for its author was one of the leading generals; probably the most investigated and court-martialed of them all."
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number from the county of Berks, "to be sent to Wyoming for quieting the dis- turbances and supporting the civil authority in that district."
At a meeting of the Council, held on October 4th, when Vice President James Ewing presided, and there were only five members present-two of whom were Capt. John Boyd and Col. Stephen Balliet-the matter of "the appointment of a person to take the direction of the troops provided by the resolution of Saturday" was taken into consideration, upon which Adjutant General Arm- strong was appointed. It was also ordered that £60 be paid John Weitzel, to be applied to the purchase of provisions for the militia to be sent to Wyoming. £50 was voted to Armstrong towards defraying his expenses to Wyoming, and an order was drawn for £20 in favor of John Okley, Esq., "in full for his wages and expenses as a Commissioner to Wyoming." The next day (October 5th) the Council resolved that Adjutant General Armstrong "shall take rank as a Brigadier General of the militia of this Commonwealth."
Owing to illness, President Dickinson was unable to attend the meetings of the Council, held on October 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th, but at the meeting held on the last-mentioned date, the following communication* from him was read.
"Gentlemen: Being still much indisposed, and unable to attend in Council to-day, I think it my duty, nothwithstanding what has been already offered, to request that you will be pleased further to consider the propriety of calling a body of militia into actual service, on the intelligence yet received, and in the manner proposed. The objects suitable for the operations of militia do not appear. Heinous offences, it is true, have been lately committed, whether by many or few is not ascertained, but it cannot be expected that the militia should apprehend the crim- inals. Exertion by the magistracy of the county, with the aid of the posse comitatus, would be the proper remedy.
"No advice is come of such an attack upon the Pennsylvania Claimants as required the late call; and I believe that one reason why Council ordered the fort [Dickinson] to be leveled was that the peace of the State might not be disturbed by another siege. The present call will unnecessarily expose the lives of our fellow-citizens. If the militia is to act for the protection of the inhabitants in general, and can be collected and brought into the neighborhood, it is highly improbable that they can be kept there for any length of time. A rotation of service will be exceedingly inconvenient and expensive, and I presume no person thinks of expelling the settlers in order to prevent the rotation.
"If the intention is that the militia should assist the Pennsylvania claimants in securing the corn planted on the lands from which the settlers were expelled last Spring, such a procedure will drive those settlers into absolute despair. They will have no alternative but to fight for the corn, or suffer, perhaps to perish, for want of it in the coming Winter. They will regard this step as the commencement of a war against them; and perhaps others-whose sentiments are of vastly more importance-may be of the same opinion.
"I am perfectly convinced of the uncommon merit of Colonel Armstrong, but the appoint- ment of an Adjutant General upon this occasion, and bestowing that appointment on the Sec- retary of the Council when it is well known that the settlers view him in the light of an enemy are circumstances that may promote unfavorable constructions of the conduct of Government. The public bodiest which have lately assembled in this city have fully testified their disapproba- tion of hostilities on account of the disputes at Wyoming; and upon the whole there is too much reason to be persuaded that the plan now meditated will, if carried into execution, produce very unhappy consequences.
"Knowing the uprightness of your intentions, Gentlemen, I feel great pain in dissenting from your judgment; and if the measure is pursued, from esteem for you and affection for the Commonwealth I have only to wish, as I most heartily do, that I may be proved by the event to have been mistaken."
Referring to the foregoing communication, and to the troublous and parlous conditions which for some time then had prevailed in the Wyoming region, Charles J. Stillé, LL. D., in his "Life and Times of John Dickinson," states:
"The year 1784 is marked in the annals of Pennsylvania by the disgraceful and iniquitous proceedings of parties professing to act under the authority of the State in their attempt to dis- possess by force the claimants of lands which were held in the Wyoming Valley under Connecti- cut title. *
* To reconcile the sovereignty of Pennsylvania in the Valley of Wyoming with an equitable treatment of the actual settlers, who suddenly found that they had bought a bad title and made costly improvements on the lands in good faith, was a task which required
*See "Pennsylvania Archives", Fourth Series, III: 973.
+The Council of Censors and the General Assembly.
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the exercise of the utmost skill, patience, comprehension of view and humane consideration on the part of the authorities of Pennsylvania. The task was all the more difficult because the executive department of the State could not agree upon any plan of settling the question.
"The President, in this matter, stood alone, the Supreme Executive Council which shared his powers, and the Assembly, which had all the legislative authority, being united against him. Hence his voice of remonstrance, joined to that of another governmental body called the Council of Censors, was utterly unheeded by the agents of the Pennsylvania landholders, who set to work to drive away from this region the Connecticut settlers as intruders. The whole controversy is perhaps best explained in the report of these Censors, from which it will appear how difficult it must have been to act justly and at the same time to deal mercifully with the actual *
settlers. * * This humane remonstrance of the Council of Censors* produced no effect whatever upon the Supreme Executive Council or upon the Assembly, and they both seem to have been wholly under the influence of the Pennsylvania land-claimants.
"President Dickinson, whose humanity had been shown on a previous occasion by his efforts to supply the wretched inhabitants of the valley with food when they had suffered the loss of everything by an ice-flood, and whose sense of justice and ideas of policy were both shocked by the violence committed on these people, now interposed once more for their relief. He sent a message to the Council on October 5 [1784]. * * This impressive protest, like that * which preceded it, produced no change in the legislation of the State or in the action of the militia who were sent to Wyoming. But the prophecies of Mr. Dickinson as to the result of this policy were all fulfilled, and there was no peace at Wyoming until justice, as urged by him, was done to the settlers."
The Council received, and listened to the reading, of the letter from President Dickinson, and then resolved "that the measures adopted on the 2d inst. be pursued." The same day, the Council adopted and issued a proclamation, reading in part as followst:
"Whereas, It hath always been the intention of this State to treat with equity, humanity and generosity the persons settled at or near Wyoming, though not claiming under Pennsyl- vania; and, Influenced by these sentiments, the General Assembly did, immediately after the Decree of Trenton, appoint William Montgomery, Moses McClean and Joseph Montgomery Commissioners to make full inquiries,; etc. *
* * The settlers not claiming under Penn- sylvania assembled in arms and acted in a riotous and tumultuous manner, and on the 20th day of last July, lying in ambush in the town of Shawana, fired upon some claimants under Penn- sylvania and grievously wounded Henry Brink and Wilhelmus Van Gorden; and proceeding in their outrages drove the claimants under Pennsylvania from their habitations into the fort, and, besieging them therein, reduced them to great distress, and into imminent danger of their lives.
"And Whereas, We being informed of these aggressions, *
* and having called * into service a body of militia from the County of Northampton, the said settlers, in open defiance of the authority of this State, and to prevent their being interrupted in the vengeance designed by them against the besieged, marched from the County of Northumberland-in which the said Fort [Dickinson] is situate-into the County of Northampton, and, at Locust Hill, in the same County, on the 2d day of August last, attacked a party of the militia then sleeping and resting, wounding several and killing and murdering Jacob Everett, one of the party.
[Reference is here made in the proclamation to the appointment of Messrs. Boyd, Armstrong, Read and Okely as Commissioners, and the fact that they had proceeded to Wyoming.]
"On the night of Sunday, September 28, the settlers aforesaid attacked the houses in which the said Commissioners were lodged, firing several balls into the same, whereby the said Commis- sioners were in great danger of being killed; and for the preservation of their lives were obliged the next day to leave the place without being able to perform the trust committed to them for the immediate benefit of the said settlers. And in the next succeeding night the said settlers again attacked one of the said houses, when the people therein were asleep, and wounded Cap- tains Samuel Read and Andrew Henderson, late officers of the Pennsylvania Line.
"And Whereas, It is of the utmost importance to the lives and welfare of the good people of this State that the perpetrators of such atrocious offenses should be brought to condign and exemplary punishment, we have thought proper to issue this Proclamation, hereby engaging that the public reward of £25 in specie shall be paid to any person or persons who shall discover and apprehend the offenders, or any of them, who wounded the said Henry Brink and Wilhelmus Van Gorden, or who fired into the houses in which the Commissioners of this State were lodged at Wyoming as aforesaid; and that the public reward of £50 in specie shall be paid to any person or persons who shall apprehend and secure JOHN SWIFT, ELISHA SATTERLEE, ISHMAEL BENNET, JR., JOEL ABBOTT and WATERMAN BALDWIN; and that the public reward of £25 in specie shall be paid to any person or persons who shall apprehend and secure WILLIAM ROSS, MOSES SILL, WILLIAM MCCLURE, GEORGE MINOR, ABRAHAM NESBITT, ELIJAH HARRIS, JOHN GORE, JUSTUS GAYLORD, THOMAS STODDERT, ELISHA HARDING, GIDEON CHURCH, WILLIAM JACKSON, RICHARD HALSTEAD, PHINEAS STEPHENS, DANIEL SULLIVAN, ABRAHAM PIKE, *See pages 1430 and 1431, for this remonstrance.
See "Pennsylvania Archives", Fourth Series, III: 975. An original broadside copy of this proclamation is now preserved in the Tioga Point Museum, Athens, Pa.
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NATHANIEL WALKER, and WILLIAM JENKINS, or any of them-who are charged with being the murderers of the said Jacob Everett-or who shall discover the offenders, or any of them, who were guilty of wounding the said Samuel Read or Andrew Henderson." * * *
Returning now to Wyoming, we find gathered at Fort Defence, near Brock- ays's, a considerable number of Yankees-chiefly unmarried men and menw whose families were sojourning in New England or elsewhere, because of the unsettled conditions in Wyoming. John Franklin was the leader and trusted commander of this company, and on October 5th, he, Ebenezer Johnson and Phineas Peirce, in behalf of the Yankee settlers assembled at Fort Defence, wrote and signed a lengthy communication*, which, together with the remon- strance that had been prepared on September 25th for presentation to Commis- sioners Read and Okely, was immediately forwarded to Philadelphia by an express.
In concluding this communication, the three petitioners voiced sentiments of the settlers in no uncertain tones :-
"The report is that the Commissioners said their mission was to find out the objects of Charity, and then make them Liberal Donations. It is Protection and the Benefits of Law we have been long asking for. The Restoration of our Property and our just Rights is what we have been pleading for. It is our most invaluable privileges we are contending for, and not for Charitable Donations!
"Our Petitions, Remonstrances and addresses have been Repeated to your Honourable Body and the House of Assembly until our Patience is worn out, and no Relief is granted us. We have asked for Justice, and we Declare to God-who knows our hearts-that Justice is all we wish for. Our Prayers and Intreaties appear finally to be Rejected and Contemn'd, and we have reason to believe that there is no good Designed for us from this State.
"Wishing your Honourable Body to be under the Guidance and Benediction of Almighty God, we say Amen!"
At Philadelphia, under the date of October 6, 1784, President Dickinson issued the following circular, addressed to John Buyers, Christian Gettig, Andrew Culberson, John Seely and David Mead, Esquires, Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Northumberland.
"In pursuance of the Actt of which a copy is enclosed, it becomes my duty immediately to direct that some two or more of the Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Northum- berland proceed forthwith in executing the laws relating to forcible Entries & Detainers, in order that the several persons who in the month of May last were violently dispossessed of their Mes- suages, Lands and Tenements at or near Wioming, which they then occupied, may be restored to the Possession of the same. Confiding in your Zeal for Justice, Peace & good order, I desire that you will proceed accordingly."
This document was given by President Dickinson into the hands of General, formerly Colonel, Armstrong (who was then in Philadelphia), to be by him delivered to the Northumberland Magistrate. Colonel Franklin, referring to the matter in his "Brief," states: "Council sent the orders by Armstrong, directed to David Mead and John Seely, Esquires, who were at the same time holding large possessions themselves [Wyoming], that had been taken by force. Arm- strong delivered the orders to Esquire Mead on October 19th, and Mead re- paired immediately to Sunbury without giving notice to us of his orders from the Government. It appears that they were determined to expel us all from the country, instead of reinstating us."
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