USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Annals of Luzerne County; a record of interesting events, traditions, and anecdotes > Part 10
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" But oh alas! three hundred men ! Was much too small a band, To meet eight hundred men complete, And make a glorious stand."
The 3d of July, 1778, was a bloody day for Wyoming. Advancing, in good order, to a point near the present village of Wyoming, the Americans formed in line of battle. The right wing, commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler, aided by Major Garrett, pushed forward with steady step against the British Butler and his Rangers, while. the left, commanded by Colonel Nathan Denison, aided by Colonel George Dorrance, attacked the Indians in the swamp. The action commenced about three o'clock in the afternoon. Volley after volley rolled along the contending lines until they were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, while the flames from Fort Wintermoot, set on fire by order of the British commander, curled and flashed towards the sky, above the "war clouds rolling dun." The American right, steadily advancing and pouring showers of lead into the ranks of the Royal Greens and Rangers, was on the very threshold of victory, when the tide of battle turned. The left wing, contending against savages concealed in thick underbrush, stood its ground manfully until, unperceived, the red foe gained its rear. Then " rose from earth to sky" those appalling shouts and yells, which the fierce Indian gives when the pros- pect of victory is rising to his view. Five hundred Indians, armed with rifles, hatchets, and spears, in front and rear, now bore down on the one hundred and fifty men com-
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posing the American left. "Stand up to your work, sir," said Colonel Dorrance to a soldier who seemed to falter, and the next moment the colonel fell, pierced by more than one ball.
" The enemy have attacked our rear, shall we retreat. sir ?" said a lieutenant to Captain Hewitt ; " I'll be d -- d if I do ;" was the reply, and instantly fell at the head of his little band.
Colonel Denison now directed his men to fall back, with a view to regaining their lost position, and placing the enemy in front; but the command was mistaken for an order to retreat, and the flight soon became general.
" We are almost alone," said an officer named West- brook ; " shall we go ?" "I'll have one more shot," said Mr. Cooper. At this instant a muscular Indian rushed upon him.
" That moment was fearful, and mightier foe Had ne'er swung the battle-axe o'er him, When hope nerved his arm for a desperate blow, And the savage fell prostrate before him."
Some fled to the fort, while others, hard pressed by the barbarous Senecas and tories, rushed headlong into the river. Elijah Shoemaker, unable to swim, was wading in the water, when Windecker, a tory, called to him, "Come out, I will protect you." The confiding, generous- hearted man, whose hospitality Windecker had often shared, approached the shore, when this fiend in human shape, reaching with one hand as if to aid him, with the other dashed out his brains with a hatchet. The lifeless body of Shoemaker fell back into the water.
A patriot named Pencil reached Monockonock, the bloody island, and concealed himself in the underbrush, but being discovered by his tory brother, he came forth 9
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from his hiding-place, expecting mercy and protection. "Save my life, brother, and I will serve you all my days." " Ah ! save you ! You are a d-d rebel;" and, drawing his rifle to his shoulder, he fired and left his brother weltering in his blood .*
Captain Bidlack was captured, and was thrown, alive, and held down by a pitchfork upon the burning logs of Fort Wintermoot. Sixteen prisoners were placed in & circle around " the bloody rock" which stands between the village of Wyoming and the river. Each was held by stout Indians, while Queen Esther, who stood upon the rock, dashed out their brains one by one with a toma- hawk. Hammond and Elliott, making desperate efforts, escaped amidst a shower of balls. Nine others, in a like circle, on what is now the Fair Ground, met death, as did the fourteen under the blows of Queen Esther. " Among those thus murdered," says Mr. David Stafford, " was a lad by the name of William Buck-a school-mate
* The particulars of this shocking incident are thus given in an extract from the journal of a brigade chaplain in Sullivan's army, who made the entry, July 8th, 1779, at Wyoming :-
"On a small island in the Susquehanna, below the field of action, Giles Slocum, having reached thus far in safety, concealed himself in the bushes, where he was witness to the meeting of John and Henry Pencil-John, a tory, Henry, a whig. Henry, having lost his gun, upon seeing his brother, John, fell upon his knees and begged him to spare his life. Upon which John called him a d-d rebel. John then went deliberately to a log, got on the same, and began to load his piece, while Henry was upon his knees imploring him as a brother not to kill him. 'I will, I will,' said he, ' go with you and serve you as long as I live, if you will spare my life.' John loaded his gun. IIenry continued, " You won't kill your brother, will you ?' 'Yes,' replied the monster, 'I will as soon as look at you. You are a d-d rebel.' He then shot him, and afterwards went up and struck him four or five times with a tomahawk, and scalped him. Immediately after one of the enemy coming to him said, 'What have you been doing ? have you killed your bro- ther ?' ' Yes,' said he, ' for he is ad-d rebel.' The other replied, 'I have a great mind to serve you in the same manner.' They then went off together, and in the evening Slocum made his escape. Slocum is a man of reputation, and his word was never disputed in the neighborhood where he was known."
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of mine-a fine little fellow as ever lived, very neat and clean and tidy, who on account of his youth was not held down. This boy, when he saw what the queen was at, became frightened and sprang to his feet and ran. But a swift Indian soon overtook him and was leading him back, when another Indian stepped behind him and laid his head open with a tomahawk. They laid him in the circle."
" The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there, Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air."
Spectators, standing upon the opposite shore of the river, saw naked men forced around the burning stake with spears, and heard their heart-rending shrieks and dying groans. All night long there was a revel in blood, and in the fumes of burning human flesh. Not until the morning light did they cease their demoniac orgies for want of victims. The sun never shed his rays on a bloodier field. From Wintermoot's to Forty Fort, the broad plain was strewn with the dead and mangled bodies of one hundred and sixty-one brave men, who perished in a conflict which no resource of art and courage of soul on their part could render equal.
Among the interesting incidents of this bloody day, we will not omit to mention the case of Samuel Carey, a youth about nineteen years of age. He was in Captain Bidlack's company, and was one of the few prisoners taken at the massacre. He was captured by Captain Roland Montour, an Indian, who led him to a young war- rior, who had been wounded and was dying. He asked him if Carey should be slain, or if he should be conveyed to his father and mother to be adopted into their family in his stead. The young warrior, with expiring breath, requested that he should be received into his father's
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family in his place. Carey was then painted and received the dying Indian's name, Coconeunquo; and when he reached the Indian country, was taken and adopted as previously arranged. At times he suffered severely for want of food, and after a captivity of six years returned to Wyoming in safety.
After the battle, Forty Fort was occupied by Colonel Denison with a handful of weary, worn, and wounded men, together with the Kingston women and children. Colonel Z. Butler, being a soldier of the Continental army, and fifteen regulars-the remainder of Captain Hewitt's company-left the valley. Colonel Butler re- tired to Gnadenhutten ; and the soldiers to Fort Augusta, to avoid being made prisoners of war. The women and children of the Lackawanna valley fled towards the upper settlements on the Delaware; those of Pittston and Wilkesbarre toiled over mountains and through the great swamp to the lower settlements; while those of Hanover, Plymouth, and Newport, escaped to Fort Augusta. No pen can describe the sufferings of these men, women, and children, who, while they themselves were wandering, almost naked and faint with hunger, through a desolate wilderness, were tortured with the painful reflection that the bodies of their fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands, lay mutilated and unburied on the plains they were leaving behind them. When the fugitives reached the nearest settlements, sixty miles distant, and related the dreadful tale of Wyoming's overthrow, and their own terrible sufferings, a panic seized the inhabit- ants, who also joined in the retreat, with their personal goods, towards the more populous portions of the state. There were no troops to defend Fort Augusta, or the military posts on the Delaware; of course the whole frontier lay open to the ravages of the enemy. Captain
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Spaulding, who was advancing with his company to aid in defending the valley, met the flying fugitives on the mountains, and returned to Stroudsburg.
On the morning of the 4th of July, Colonel John But- ler, with his troops and Indians, surrounded Forty Fort, and demanded its surrender, which was to be uncondi- tional for Colonel Z. Butler and the soldiers of the Con- tinental army. As the prudent Butler and his regulars had retired from the valley, the demand had no force as to them ; but Colonel Denison made an honorable capitu- lation of the fort. "By the articles of capitulation," says Stone, " it was mutually agreed that the inhabitants of the settlement should lay down their arms, the fort be demolished, and the Continental stores be delivered up. The inhabitants of the settlement were to be permitted to occupy their farms, peaceably and without molestation of their persons. The loyalists were to be allowed to re- main in undisturbed possession of their farms, and to trade without interruption. Colonel Denison and the inhabit- ants stipulated not again to take up arms during the con- test ; and Colonel John Butler agreed to use his utmost influence to cause the private property of the inhabitants to be respected. But the last-mentioned stipulation was entirely unheeded by the Indians, who were not, and per- haps could not be, restrained from the work of rapine and plunder. The surrender had no sooner taken place, than they spread themselves through the valley. Every house not belonging to a loyalist was plundered and laid in ashes." Wilkesbarre was set on fire and consumed. The men and women in Forty Fort were stripped of every- thing, and some of them had even the clothing taken from their backs. Colonel Denison was not more respected than others ; for he was compelled to draw off his hunt- ing-shirt, and hand it to a ferocious savage.
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The wholesale murderess, and disgusting squaw, Queen Esther, rode away mounted on a stolen side-saddle, placed hind side before, on the back of a stolen horse, with half a dozen bonnets placed one within the other on her head. She carried in her hand a stick on which seventeen scalps were suspended, and which she held up to the gaze of the whites. Colonel Denison remonstrated against these outrageous violations of the articles of capitulation, but Butler answered it was not in his power to prevent them. The work of destruction and plunder being com- pleted, the invaders left Wyoming on the 7th of July, by the way of the Lackawanna Valley. During this march Butler wrote and dispatched to the British colonel, Bolton, a report of the infamous doings of himself and his band of murderers. The document is dated "Lackawanna, July 8th, 1778," and states his force to be five hundred men, whereas it was eight hundred; that he had one Indian and two rangers killed, and eight Indians wounded, whereas upwards of sixty were buried in the swamp, near the battle-field; that two hundred and twenty-seven scalps had been taken, whereas only one hundred and sixty-one Americans were killed; that five prisoners were taken and saved alive, whereas they were all put to death except two. " We have taken," says he, " eight palisades, six forts, burned one thousand dwelling-houses, and all their mills, &c .; and also killed and drove off one thousand head of horned cattle and sheep;" all of which is greatly exaggerated, especially the number of dwellings, which did not exceed three hundred and fifty in the whole valley. The report closes with an extravagant eulogium on the conduct of his officers and men !!
By order of General De Hass, a small company of men were sent to garrison Fort Augusta, in July, and on the 24th of the same month, one major, two captains, and
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eighty men were stationed at Briar Creek, below Berwick. On the 1st of August, Colonel Thomas Hartley, of the Pennsylvania line, a brave and most judicious officer, arrived at Fort Augusta with two hundred men. By his orders Captain Walker erected Fort Jenkins, five miles below Berwick, which fortification the marvellous Moses Van Campen says he built in the May preceding! Cap- tain Walker also erected Fort Muncy on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, which Van Campen, in his narrative, likewise claims was built by himself. Besides these, Walker built Fort Freedley, on the North Branch below Bloomsburg, and another on the Chillisquaque Creek.
On the 4th of August, Colonel Z. Butler returned to Wyoming with Captain Spaulding's company, consisting of twenty regulars and forty militiamen. They proceeded to erect Fort Wilkesbarre on the site of the old fort and court-house in the public square. A number of the male inhabitants of the valley now visited it, with the hope of gathering some remnants of the harvest, and to prepare for the return of their families, who were quartered among friends in Connecticut, and other secure settle- ments.
On the 7th of August, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, in an address to the Assembly, declare, among other things, as follows: "The late fatal catas- trophe which has befallen the Connecticut settlers on the river Susquehanna, deplorable as it is, recollects the dis- puted footing on which these sufferers stood. Compassion for them, as well as justice to this state, require that they be reminded of the precarious nature of their tenure before they re-establish themselves."
Soon after the arrival of Colonel Butler and Captain Spaulding, John Abbott and Isaac Williams were shot and scalped on Jacob's Plains, while working in a field.
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Isaac Tripp, Isaac Tripp, Jr., Messrs. Keys and Hocksey, were captured near what is now Scranton. On the road to Oquago, Keys and Hocksey were led aside by the savages and murdered.
On the 24th of August, Luke Swetland and Joseph Blanchard were captured at Nanticoke, and hurried away into captivity.
Colonel Hartley had projected an expedition into the Indian country, and with this view he assembled his forces at Fort Muncy. Here he was joined by Captain Spauld- ing and his few regulars. While these preparations were being made, the stealthy savages perpetrated several murders on the west branch of the Susquehanna, and almost under the guns of Fort Muncy. On the 21st of September, Colonel Hartley, having perfected his arrange- ments, at the head of two hundred men marched out from the fort. "In our route," says he, "we met with great rains, prodigious swamps, mountains, defiles, and rocks, impeding our march. We waded and swam the river Lycoming upwards of twenty times." They marched into the very heart of the enemy's country, destroyed Queen Esther's town, and put the savages to flight in several engagements. On his return march, Colonel Hartley was attacked below Wyalusing by two hundred Indians, whom he routed with the loss of fifteen killed and thirty wounded, while his own loss was four killed and ten wounded. Arriving at Wyoming, he found Colonel Butler with a small force in possession of the fort at Wilkesbarre. The day after his arrival, four soldiers crossed the river to dig potatoes, when they were fired upon by a party of Indians in ambush. Three of them were instantly killed and scalped. Colonel Hartley left one hundred men to reinforce Butler, and proceeding down the river, arrived at Fort Augusta on the 5th of October.
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A few days after his departure from the valley, on the 14th of October, William Jameson, who had been wounded in the battle, was waylaid by savages, two miles below Wilkesbarre, shot and scalped, but lived two days, though having lost a portion of his brains.
In his report Colonel Hartley mentioned in the highest terms the conduct of officers and men. In two weeks he had marched three hundred miles, laid waste the Queen's town, taken twenty-six canoes, and fifty-one head of horses and cattle, and defeated the Indians in numerous skirmishes.
On the 22d of October, nearly four months after the battle of Wyoming, the citizens, guarded by the soldiers, assem- bled on the bloody field to bury the remains of the dead.
" Their limbs unburied on the naked shore, Devouring wolves and hungry vultures tore."
A long deep trench was dug, in which were deposited all that remained of as brave a band of patriots as ever faced a foe.
On the 2d of November, three Indians stealthily approached the house of Jonathan Slocum, not more than one hundred rods from Fort Wilkesbarre. They shot and scalped a boy, Nathan Kingsley, who was at the door. Entering the house, one of them seized Ebenezer Slocum, and was about to carry him off, when Mrs. Slocum said, " He can do you no good, he is lame." Releasing the boy, he took up Frances, her daughter, a child about five years of age, and with the brother of the murdered Kingsley, accompanied by the other Indians and a black girl of Mrs. Slocum's, he took his departure. This colored girl was afterwards sold to Colonel John Butler, and kept in his family as a servant at Niagara.
In August, 1837, John W. Forney, Esq., was placed
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in possession of a letter, written by G. W. Ewing, of Logansport, Indiana, dated January 20th, 1835. This letter had been sent to Lancaster, Pa., for publication, but the person who received it died soon after, and being found by his widow among his papers, it was handed to Mr. Forney, who gave it publicity through the columns of his newspaper. The letter says: "There is now living near this place, among the Miami tribe of Indians, an aged white woman who, a few days ago, told me that she was taken away from her father's house, on or near the Susquehanna river, when she was very young. She
says her father's name was Slocum; that he was a Quaker, and wore a large-brimmed hat; that he lived about half a mile from a town where there was a fort. She has two daughters living. Her husband is dead. She is old and
feeble, and thinks she shall not live long. These con- siderations induced her to give the present history of herself, which she never would before, fearing her kindred would come and force her away. She has lived long and happy as an Indian; is very respectable and wealthy, sober and honest. Her name is without reproach." This letter, as a matter of course, awakened great interest, and her brothers, Joseph Slocum, Esq., late of Wilkesbarre, and Isaac Slocum, of Ohio, repaired to Logansport, where they fortunately met Mr. Ewing. The lost sister, receiv- ing notice of their arrival, came to Logansport on horse- back, accompanied by her two daughters, all dressed in fine Indian costume. Frances, before her captivity, had received a blow on her finger in the smithshop, which crushed the bone, and when the brothers saw the wounded hand they embraced her and burst into tears. She related the leading events of her life. She stated she had been adopted into an Indian family, and had been kindly treated. She said young Kingsley had died after a few
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years. When grown up she had married a chief, and her Indian name was MACONAQUAH, Young Bear. In subse- quent years she was again visited by her brothers, and by other members of the family. A life-size portrait of her was painted, and is now in possession of the family. Congress passed a resolution exempting her, her family, and several of her friends, from the obligation to remove from her old home, with the rest of the Indians, to the far west. She lived long and happily, and died in hope of a blessed immortality.
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November 7th, 1778, the Indians killed and scalped John Perkins in Plymouth. At Nanticoke they took Jackson and Lester prisoners, whence they led them to the mountains and put them to death.
November 9th, Captain Carr and Philip Goss were shot in a canoe, below Wapwallopen Creek, and about the same time Robert, Alexander, and Amos Parker were found dead, and scalped, in the lower part of the valley. In the same month Isaac Inman, who was hunting wild turkeys in Hanover, was shot and scalped, but his body was not found until the following spring. On the 19th of November a band of savages crossed the river, opposite Shickshinny, and murdered the whole Utley family. They set the house on fire, recrossed the river, and escaped through Huntington.
December 16th, William Slocum and Isaac Tripp were shot and scalped within sight of Fort Wilkesbarre, and with this ended the prolonged and horrible tragedies of 1778.
But the winter months had scarcely passed away, be- fore the savages resumed their depredatory visits to Wyo- ming. March 21st, 1779, Captain James Bidlack, father of the Captain Bidlack who was killed in the battle of July 3d of the previous year, was seized and carried away into captivity. He was taken at his residence in Ply- mouth. Same day a band of twenty-five Indians appeared on the Kingston flats, in sight of Fort Wilkesbarre. They were attacked by a party from the fort, when they began slowly to retreat, driving before them about sixty head of cattle. But the savages were defeated in their object to draw our people into an ambush. On the 23d of March they displayed their whole force, amounting to two hundred and fifty Indians and tories. They attacked Fort Wilkesbarre, when the old four-pounder was brought
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to bear upon them. It carried death and terror into their ranks. Among others their chief was slain, when the survivors betook themselves to inglorious flight. But as they fled they burned three houses and the same number of barns. During the same month Elihu Williams, Ste- phen Pettebone, Lieutenant Buck, and Frederick Follet were surrounded by twenty savages, on the Kingston plains. The first three were killed and scalped. Follet was pierced with a spear in no less than seven places, one wound letting out a portion of his entrails. He was also tomahawked and scalped. In this condition he was found and carried to the fort, where, under the skillful attend- ance of Dr. W. Hooker Smith, he finally recovered.
General Washington had determined to send a force into the Indian country, sufficient at one blow to break up the savage haunts where these barbarities were planned, and the depredators were harbored. To this end Colonel Broadhead, with seven hundred men, was sent into West- ern Pennsylvania, and effectually chastised the enemy. General Clinton, with one thousand men, was ordered to advance from the Hudson to Tioga. General Sullivan was ordered to rendezvous at Easton. From this poin he sent a German regiment of three hundred men tc reinforce Colonel Butler, and on the 19th of April Major Powell arrived at Wyoming, with an additional force of two hundred and fifty men. When Powell's advance arrived on the mountain, about four miles east of Fort Wilkesbarre, a considerable body of Indians, in ambush, fired a volley into their ranks, and instantly fled. Captain Davis, Lieutenant Jones, Corporal Butler, and three pri- vates were killed.
On the 18th of June, General Sullivan marched with the main body of his army from Easton, and on the 23d arrived at Wyoming, and encamped below Wilkesbarre.
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He cut a road over the mountains via Wind Gap, Pokono, Great Swamp, and Bear Creek. At the spot where Davis and Jones fell, two boards had been set up with their names inscribed upon them. As the army passed by, Colonel Proctor, from respect for the dead, ordered the bands to play the tune of Roslin Castle. During the encampment of the army in the valley, pre- paratory to their march for Tioga, the Indians were active in all directions. Two hundred and fifty attacked Fort Freedley, near Bloomsburg, where Captain Boon and others were slain. Brant, at the head of his warriors, attacked and laid the whole Minisink settlement in ruins. Others committed depredations along the Lehigh, and even within three miles of the army.
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