History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 16

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections > Part 16

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Fight .- A battle with the redskins in Luzerne (now Bradford county) took place at the Frenchtown mountain, opposite Asylum, April 10, 1782. A band of marauders had captured Roswell Franklin's family of Hanover. For some unknown cause this family was the especial object of attack of the Indians. A year before they had captured Franklin's son, Roswell, and his nephew, Arnold Franklin, whose father had been killed in the Wyoming battle, and they had burned his grain and driven off his stock. April 7, while Roswell Franklin was away, a band of eight savages rushed into the cabin and captured Mrs. Franklin and her chil- dren: Olive, aged thirteen; Susanna; Stephen, aged four, and Ichabod, aged eighteen months, and hurried away with them, going north toward Tioga. The second day they were joined by five other Indians, making thirteen. In a few hours after they had gone, Franklin returned, and divining the affair hastened to Wilkes- Barre and the alarm guns were fired. The captives heard the gun and knew what it meant. Soon a party was in pursuit under Sergt. Thomas Baldwin, seconded by Joseph Elliott. The others of this party were: John Swift (afterward a general, and killed on the Niagara frontier, 1812), Oliver Bennett, Watson Baldwin, Gideon Dudley, Mr. Cook and a Mr. Taylor-eight men. The pursuers struck straight across the country to Wyalusing and reached that point ahead of the Indians, but, for the purpose of a more eligible place for a stand, they passed on to the French- town mountain, and erected a kind of defence works by felling some trees and placing brush in front of them. The Indians had proceeded so slowly that they awaited them two days and when on the point of concluding that they had gone by some other route they finally appeared and halted, and began to peer about with great caution. Mrs. Franklin thought they were looking for deer, as they were out of provision. As soon as one of the bucks came in range he was fired upon, and then a regular battle commenced. The women and children were compelled to lie flat on the ground, as they were between the combatants and the bullets whistling close above them. A savage fell at Dudley's first shot, but when loading Dudley was wounded in the arm. A desperate fight now raged-each party behind trees. The next execution was Taylor's shot that killed their medicine man; he rushed up to scalp him and broke his knife, when two Indians started for him, but he cut off the Indian's head and ran with it and escaped. The fight raged several hours. Mrs. Franklin, anxious to know whether her husband was in the rescuing party, raised on her elbow to look; her daughter, Susanna, seeing an Indian approach, urged her to lie down; the next moment the Indian fired and killed Mrs. Franklin. Joseph Elliott saw the murder of the woman from his place, and creeping along the trunk of a fallen tree got an opportunity and shot the Indian dead. The children, now supposing all were to be murdered, jumped up and ran. They heard some one shout to them, and thought at first it was an Indian pursuing to murder them. Again they heard the voice saying: "Run, you dear souls, run!" And the poor, frightened children rushed into the arms of Elliott. The Indians now fled in terror. The whites remained behind their ambush until near sunset, lest it was a trap to get them out and murder them all. Mr. Swift had joined the party about the close of the fight and was hardly on the ground when he was favored by the opportunity and shot an Indian dead. Mrs. Franklin was buried near where killed, and years after the daughter, Olive, wrote the following: "Our friends having found the tomahawks of the Indian along with their packs, cut dry poles to make a raft on which to float, and we dropped silently down the river, and at the dawn came to Wyalusing island. It was just a week since we were taken prisoners. Here we lay a whole day, fearing to go forward lest we should be discovered by the enemy, probably lurking near the shore, and could single us out and shoot us down at their

132

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

leisure. We were sixty miles from safety, and starving, and our friends gave the one remaining biscuit to the children, and fears were entertained that the little ones would die of hunger. The party reached Wilkes- Barre the Wednesday following. The youngest child of Mrs. Franklin was caught up by an Indian at the moment they fled, and carried off, and was never again heard of."

In March, 1778, as soon as the ice was clear of the river, Lieut. - Col. Dorrance with 150 men made his second trip up the river for the purpose of aiding the remain- ing whites to get out of the country. A raft was made of the old Moravian church, at Wyalusing, and the people and some of their effects loaded thereon; among others the families of York, Kinsley, Benjamin Eaton, Fitzgerald, Jonathan Terry and Christopher Hurlbut.

Old man Van Valkenberg and three daughters and his two sons-in-law's families and the Strope family had not been molested, but had been assured by the Indians of their continued friendship and protection. But in time they became alarmed and Strope set out for Wyoming for aid to take his family down the river. Hardly had he left his family, May 20, when thirteen Indians rushed in and captured the inmates, burned the house and drove off the stock. The men captured at this time were sent to Niagara, but the women and children were kept until the war ended. Thus piece- meal the settlement was swept away. Seven in the Van Valkenburg family were captured; seven were killed by the enemy; one died in captivity, and another soon after his release; the total property of these people was destroyed, the cabins all burned, and the gloom and desolation brooded over the fair and once happy land, as if the angel of destruction had spread its wings and covered it in the shadow of death and utter ruin.

C. F. Hill writes of the noted Indians: "Joseph Nutimus was a Delaware Indian and chief of the tribe known as the Fork Indians, and later in life was known as Old King Nutimus, who for many years was at the mouth of the Nescopeck creek, where the town of Nescopeck now stands. The term of his occupation of Nescopeck was between the years of 1742 and 1763. The earliest reference to him is made by James Logan, Esq., in a letter bearing date, Stenton, August 4, 1733, to Thomas Penn, Esq., in which he speaks of an unexpected visit from Nutimus and his company, with a present, and apprehends trouble, and closes by stating, "that they left a bag of bulletts last year." In a later letter, August 22, 1733, Logan acknowledges that Nutimus had lands in the forks of the Delaware and Lehigh river above Durham. The Lehigh river at that time was also known as the western branch of the Delaware river, and the tribes located on the lands between these two streams and where Easton now stands, were known as the Fork Indians.

This was the original dominion of King Nutimus, where he held undisputed sway, subject only to such allegiance as he owed to the Six Nations, until the famous walking purchase took place in 1837, the history of which is too long for the purposes of this notice, and which, contrary to the expectations of the Fork Indians, extended far beyond their meaning of a day and a half walk and included the fork lands. Edward Marshall, a trained pedestrian, did the walking. Nutimus and his people were disappointed, chagrined and angry and were ready for retaliation. Settlers at once flocked in upon his lands and settled among his people, while they obstinately and with much insolence held their ground.

After five years of unhappy dispute as to who should occupy these lands, com- plaint was made by the people of Pennsylvania to the Six Nations, which resulted in a council being called at Philadelphia July 12, 1842, at which Cannassatego, a sachem of the Six Nations, delivered his famous speech to the complaining Delawares, and cites to them deeds made by their fathers more than fifty years ago for these same lands and later deeds and releases made by themselves, several of which, in fact, were signed by Nutimus himself. Cannassatego was thoroughly disgusted with their action and told them they "should be taken by the hair of their heads and

133

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

shaken until they have some sense; that their cause is bad and their hearts far from being upright, and that the land they claim has been sold and gone down their throats, and that now like children they want it again," and closed by delivering a peremptory order to leave at once and go to the Susquehanna.

No doubt Nutimus was both reluctant and slow to obey; but in due time we find him and his people located at Nescopeck, which place, if he took the most convenient route, he reached by the path which led from the Lehigh gap, in the Blue mountain, across the Mauch Chunk mountain, crossing the Quakake valley and the Buck mountain west from Hazleton, near Audenried, passing near the famous Sugar-loaf in Conyngham valley, to the mouth of the Nescopeck creek, where he settled on the present site of the town of Nescopeck, on a level fertile soil, the forest being of such a character as to yield readily to the Indian method of clearing land, by removing the small trees, and girdling the larger.

Nothing occurred to bring Nutimus and his people to notice in their new home until the breaking out of the French and Indian war. A spirit of unrest and disquiet now came over the Delaware Indians on the Susquehanna. [It was now important to cultivate the friendship of the Delawares. Accordingly Gov. Hamilton sent Conrad Weiser among them with conciliatory messages, who writes May, 1754:

"On April 30 I arrived at Shamokin, and sent my son Samuel and James Logan, Shikellimy's son, up the north branch with the message to Nutimus at Nescopeck. Upon their return they report old Nutimus was from home; but the rest of the Indians received the message very kindly, and said they would lay it before Nutimus and the rest of the Indians after they should come home."] Gen. Braddock was defeated by the French and Indians, July 9, 1757, on the Monon- gahela. Reports were numerous that the French were coming from Fort Duquesne to Shamokin, now Sunbury, to erect a large fort, and to carry the war into Penn- sylvania.

Later Weiser writes that the author of the numerous murders of the people of Pennsylvania is Onionto [the French], and that they have prevailed upon the Delawares at Nescopeck, who had given their town as a place of rendezvous for the French, and had undertaken to join and guide them on the way to the English.

About this time Weiser sent two spies-Silver Heels, and David, a Mohawk . Indian -from John Harris' (now Harrisburg), to Nescopeck, to learn what was going on there. Upon their return they reported that they saw 140 warriors dancing the war dance, and expressed great bitterness against the English; and that they were preparing an expedition against them, and thought they would go to the eastward. At a council of the Delawares on the West Branch, and held at Shamokin, it was decided, in order to avoid an invading army from the French, to go to Nescopeck for safety. Tacknedorus, alias John Shikellimy, says:

"I went with them to Nescopeck and took my family with me. After awhile I found the Nescopeck Indians were in the French interest. I, with my brethren and others, then began to feel afraid, and returned to Shamokin."

In November, 1755, occurred the burning and plundering of Gnadenhutten, now Weissport, and the slaughter of the Moravian missionaries, and the long list of murders that immediately followed, in this former home of King Nutimus, taken in connection with the circumstances given, and the close proximity of Nescopeck to Gnadenhutten, and the direct path betwixt the two places, forces the conclusion that Nutimus was largely, if not entirely, responsible for them.

Edward Marshall, who accomplished the great walk on which the walking purchase was based, lived at this time at or near the present village of Slate- ford. Marshall was not to blame for the walk, for he did it as a hired man, though he never received the 500 acres of land promised him. Still, the Indians remem- bered the part he had taken upon himself, and they determined to retaliate. They

134

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

surrounded his house when he was not at home, and shot his daughter as she was trying to escape, the ball entering her right shoulder and coming out below the left breast. Yet she got away from them and recovered! They took Marshall's wife, who was not in a condition to make rapid flight, some miles with them and killed her. In a former attack on his house they had killed one of his sons. Though thirsting for Marshall's blood for many years, yet they seemed to have always feared him, and usually undertook their bloody work when he was from home. He eventually died a natural death after attaining a good old age.

In 1755 Fort Augusta (now Sunbury), one of the largest, if not the largest fort in the State, was erected; and in June, 1757, we find old Nutimus with his wife and sons and daughters making visits to Shamokin. He frequently came to the fort as a friend, having no doubt in the few preceding years abundantly revenged himself and people for the loss of the Fork lands. At one of his visits to Fort Augusta he complained bitterly to his old friend and long-time acquaint- ance, Capt. Jacob Orndt, formerly from Easton, and who was now in command at Fort Augusta, that the soldiers at the fort on a previous visit had debauched his wife and daughter by giving them whisky, and declaring that if such things were allowed that it would not be safe for a man to bring his wife and daughters to the fort again. His visits to Fort Augusta were made with the canoe. It is believed that he left Nescopeck with his family about 1763, and went to the Great Island, on the West Branch, and thence joined the Delawares on the Ohio. He had a son, Isaac Nutimus, who lived at Tioga, and was a warm friend of the English, and at last accounts, in 1759, was about joining an expedition against the French at Pittsburg.

This is the brief history of old King Nutimus and the Nescopeck Indians, many of whose bones lie buried, and which the crumbling banks of the Susque- hanna have for many years exposed to view, and unearthed many curious and valuable Indian relics. W. H. Smith, attorney, at Berwick, has many curiosities gathered from the field once occupied by Nutimus and his people. It is said that near the town of Nescopeck, in the surface of a large boulder, is a mortar worked out, in which the Indians with a pestle ground their corn, and which now remains as the last vestige of old King Nutimus and his people.

CHAPTER VI.

YANKEE AND QUAKER.

THE SEVENTEEN TOWNSHIPS *- LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT-ADDRESS OF GOV. HOYT- TITLES OF CONNECTICUT AND PENNSYLVANIA-PURITAN AND QUAKER-JURISDICTION AND SOIL CONSIDERED-A LONG AND BITTER CONTROVERSY-BOTH WERE RIGHT-ETC.

TN a preceding chapter is some account of the part taken by the people of this county in the wars, marauds and massacres, commencing before the Revolution, continuing through that bloody seven years, and yet followed by Indian ambush when the lives of none were spared if the skulking savage dared to risk his own cowardly carcass in a near approach.

"*The Seventeen Townships" were the purchases of the Susquehanna Company. and were so designated in the ancient Pennsylvania proceedings, being the townships acquired by Connecticut claimants before the decree of Trenton, as follows: "Huntington, Salem, Plymouth, Kingston, Newport, Hanover. Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Providence, Exeter, Bedford, Northumberland, Putnam or Tunkhannock, Braintrim, Springfield, Claverack and Ulster."

137

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

The cruel circumstances of war were here doubly intensified by the fierce dispute among the whites over the possession of the soil. Luzerne county was the very heart of that bitter dispute; and upon the devoted heads of the Connecticut settlers came the double thunderbolt of the Indians and an invading foe, as well as the direct inflictions from the Pennsylvania authorities-a contention that was as bitter as it was long, where the people, miserably deserted by the Connecticut authorities, with ouly their naked hands and a courage and resolution sublime, stood every man to his post; and as though fate, too, had marked the fire-tried people, they in the end lost, and with the loss of everything except honor in the fierce contest, lost the world's sympathy in their cause -the fate of all people where they contend against legal authority and are finally overpowered.

Had the Connecticut people succeeded, Pennsylvania would have presented a very different face on the maps to what it does now. The boundaries of that possi- ble State would have been: "Beginning ten miles east of the east branch of the Susquehanna river, on the one-and-fortieth degree of north, thence with a north- ward line ten miles distaut from the said river to the end of the forty-second degree and to extend westward throughout the whole breadth thereof, through two degrees of longitude, 120 miles." This includes all of Bradford county except a little wedge of the northeast corner, as the east line bows to conform to the general bend of the river. The other three boundary lines are straight, the north line being the State line, and the south line being the south line of forty-one degrees. The other entire counties and parts of counties, as now formed, included in this described boundary, are as follows: Part of Susquehanna, Wyoming, Luzerne, Columbia, Montour, Northumberland, Union, Centre, Clinton, Clearfield, Elk, Cameron and Mckean, and the whole of Potter, Tioga, Lycoming and Sullivan. What a solid little State this would have made-about the size of Connecticut! This would have been Connecticut's first-born territory, and eventually a State.

What we may now regard as a close of this tremendous controversy, in its civic aspects, is the address of Ex-Gov. Henry M. Hoyt, delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, November 10, 1879. We have given previously the con- tentions, the broils, battles and sieges as they occurred in the field. Gov. Hoyt was then in office; in his law practice he had been drawn into a careful study of the legal questions involved, and fortunately the society requested him to make an address on the subject. To the data he had professionally accumulated, he added such materials as the records and history gave, and delivered his able and eloquent address, and it may be now accepted as a full, complete and final summing up of the points involved, and dramatic as was that chapter in our country's history, the governor's "Syllabus," as he terms it, of the "Seventeen Townships," reads like the learned and impartial decision of the upright judge.

The English discovered and possessed North America from latitude thirty-four degrees to forty-eight degrees, and called the provinces South Virginia, and North Virginia, or New England. James I., April 10, 1606, granted the London Com- pany the right to plant a colony anywhere between thirty-four degrees and forty-one degrees north latitude. Out of this grant came Virginia and the southern States. The same year the king granted similar right to Thomas Hanhaw, et al., between thirty-eight degrees and forty-five degrees. All these rights or grants extended

entirely across the continent. America at that time was a kind of king's grab-bag.

November 3, 1620, the king incorporated the council of Plymouth "for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England," and giving to their care from forty degrees to forty-eight degrees, "Provided any portion herein named be not actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince, or State."

March 19, 1628, the council of Plymouth granted to Sir Henry Roswell, et al., all that part of New England between the Merrimac river and Charles river on Massachusetts bay. The southern boundary of this grant, as all of them in that 8

138

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

day, was "from ocean to ocean," and it ran along the forty-two degrees two minutes latitude. [The north line of Pennsylvania runs on forty-two degrees. ] This was conferred by King Charles, March 4, 1629.

March 19, 1631, the council of Plymouth granted to Lord Say et al., "All that part of New England which lies and extends, itself, from the Narragansett river, the space of forty leagues upon a straight line near the shore, toward the south- west, west and by south of west, as the coast lieth, toward Virginia, accounting three English miles to the league." As usual it ran west to the sea.

Upon the wording of this grant arose the most of the controversy. President Clap describes it thus: "All that part of New England which lies west from Narra- gansett river 120 miles on the sea coast; thence in latitude and breadth aforesaid to the South sea. This grant extends from Point Judith to New York; thence west to the South sea; and if we take Narragansett river in its whole length this tract will extend as far north as Worcester. It comprehends the whole colony of Connec- ticut and much more." The grantees appointed John Winthrop their agent, who planted a colony at the mouth of the Connecticut river, and named it "Saybrook."

April 20, 1662, Charles II. incorporated the Connecticut colony, and by letters patent made practically a new grant, the material or descriptive part of which is as follows: East by Narragansett river, commonly called Narragansett bay where the said river falleth into the sea; and on the north by the line of Massachusetts, as usual running "from sea to sea." In 1635, the Plymouth colony came to an end.

The import of this charter has not escaped the great American historian, Ban- croft, who says, Vol. II, pp. 51, 54, 55:

"It would be a serious blunder to belittle this charter by viewing it simply as a link in this chain of title. Under John Winthrop it became 'the beginning of the great things' on this continent. 'They had purchased their lands of the assigns of the Earl of Warwick, and from Uncas they had bought the territory of the Mohe- gans; and the news of the restoration awakened a desire for a patent. But the little colony proceeded warily; they draughted among themselves the instruments which they desired the king to ratify; and they could plead for their possessions, their rights by purchase, by conquest from the Pequods, and by their own labor which had redeemed the wilderness.

" The courtiers of King Charles, who themselves had an eye to possessions in America, suggested no limitations; and perhaps it was believed, that Connecticut would serve to balance the power of Massachusetts.

"The charter, disregarding the hesitancy of New Haven, the rights of the colony of New Belgium, and the claims of Spain on the Pacific, connected New Haven with Hartford in one colony, of which the limits were extended from the Narragan- sett river to the Pacific ocean. How strange is the connection of events! Winthrop not only secured to his State a peaceful century of colonial existence, but prepared the claim for western lands.

" With regard to powers of government, the charter was still more extraordinary. It conferred on the colonists unqualified power to govern themselves.

"Connecticut was independent, except in name. Charles II. and Clarendon thought they had created a close corporation, and they had really sanctioned a democracy."

July 11, 1754, an interval of nearly 100 years, the next line in the Connecticut chain of title, was the purchase of the eighteen chiefs, or sachems, of the five nations, for £2,000, by the Susquehanna company, of the lands described above as the "seven- teen townships."

In May, 1755, the assembly of Connecticut, after stating that these lands were within the limits of their charter, resolved, that "we are of the opinion that the peaceable and orderly erecting and carrying on some new and well regulated colony or plantation on the lands above mentioned would greatly tend to fix and secure

139

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

said Indian nations in allegiance to his majesty, and accordingly hereby manifest their ready acquiescence therein."

Miss Larned, in her valuable history of Windham county, Conn., says: "The marvelous richness and beauty of the Susquehanna valley were already celebrated, and now it was proposed to plant a colony in this beautiful region, and thus incor- porate it into the jurisdiction of Connecticut."

In the colonial records is found a petition to the assembly of Connecticut, dated March 29, 1753, describing these lands, and " as we suppose lying within the charter of Connecticut," and among other matters they say that they desire per- mission to possess "a quantity sixteen miles square to lie on both sides of the Susquehauna river," to which they would purchase the Indian right honorably," etc.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with biographical selections, Part 16

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.) Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1532

Author: Bradsby, H. C. (Henry C.)
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago : S. B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1532