History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. from a period preceding its settlement to recent times, including the annals and geography of each townshipAlso a sketch of woman's work in the county for the United States sanitary commission, and a list of the soldiers of the national army furnished by many of the townships, Part 2

Author: Blackman, Emily C
Publication date: 1873
Publisher: Philadelphia, Claxton, Remsen, & Haffelfinger
Number of Pages: 768

USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. from a period preceding its settlement to recent times, including the annals and geography of each townshipAlso a sketch of woman's work in the county for the United States sanitary commission, and a list of the soldiers of the national army furnished by many of the townships > Part 2

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).

! See Miner's History of Wyoming.

2 Chapman.

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

Titles to land west of the Delaware included in the 42º of north latitude, and extending from that river to a north and south line 110 miles west of the Susquehanna River :--

CONNECTICUT.

PENNSYLVANIA.

1662. Charter from Charles II.

1681. Charter from Charles II.

1754. Purchase from the Indians.

1768. Purchase from the Indians.

1762. Settlement at Wyoming.

1769. Settlement at Wyoming.

There is no dispute as to the above facts and figures; and, to the casual reader, nothing more would seem necessary to make clear the validity of the Connecticut claim. To explain how Pennsylvania claimed to prove her right to the land above the Blue Mountains, a few more dates must be given :-

CONNECTICUT CLAIMS.

1662. Pre-emption rights with char- ter, the grant extending "from the Narragansett River to the South Sea."

1753. Formation of the "Connec- ticut Susquehanna Company" (and, soon after, of the Connecticut Dela- ware Company), with a view to pur- chase the Indian title.

1755. The Assembly of Connec- ticut "manifest their ready acquies- cence" in the purchase made by the Susquehanna Company, and "gave their consent for an application to His Majesty to erect them into a new colony." Surveyors sent out, but obliged to return because the Indians were at war with the French against the English.

1769. Second settlement at Wyo- ming, by people of Connecticut, which, after varying success, at last became permanent.

1782. The Decree of Trenton had reference solely to jurisdiction, and not to right of soil, which had passed from the government of Connecticut to the Susquehanna and Delaware Companies.

PENNSYLVANIA CLAIMS.

1681. Charter to William Penn not given until "the eastern bounds of New York had been decided to be the western bounds of Connecticut, which restored the land beyond those settlements westward, to the Crown, and laid them open to a new grant."!

1736. Deed of the Indians which conveyed to Thomas and Richard Penn, the then proprietaries of Penn- sylvania, the right of pre-emption of and in all the lands not before sold by them to the said proprietaries within the limits of their charter. "Said lands bounded on the north by the beginning of the 43º of north latitude," or where the figures 42 are marked on the map.

1779. By an act of Legislature, the right of soil and estate of the late Proprietaries of Pennsylvania was vested in the Commonwealth.

1782. The Decree of Trenton in favor of Pennsylvania.

The student in history is perhaps in nothing more puzzled than in the attempt to reconcile the successive grants of differ- ent kings ; and, worse, those of the same king. An example of the former is seen by the patent from Charles I. to Lord Baltimore in 1632, which granted him the country from the Potomac to the 40th degree of north latitude ; thus, by a mere act of the crown (the rights and privileges of the London

1 Argument of Mr. Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden), Attorney General to the Crown, in reply to a query of the Pennsylvania proprietaries.

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

Company having been returned to it), what had long before been given to Virginia, was taken away; as a part of what was granted to Lord Baltimore was subsequently given to William Penn. But of this the latter might well believe him- self innocent, since, when he petitioned for his charter, it was referred to the Attorney-General, Sir William Jones, who re- ported that it did not appear to intrench upon the boundaries of Lord Baltimore's province nor those of the Duke of York, "so that the tract of land desired by Mr. Penn seems to be undisposed of by His Majesty ; except the imaginary lines of New England patents, which are bounded westwardly by the main ocean, should give them a real, though impracticable, right to all those vast territories."

Thus, in 1681, Charles II. granted to William Penn a charter of lands having the end of the 42d degree of north latitude for a northern boundary, thus overlapping by one degree the grant to Connecticut made nineteen years before by the same monarch.

An answer to the claim of Pennsylvania under this date (1681) has been already given; but Pennsylvania further argued that, in 1761, one of the Connecticut governors, in reply to an inquiry of the king, stated: "The colony is bounded on the west by New York." This, however, was not the wording of the reply as adopted by the Assembly, which stated that the colony was bounded by their charter. The change had been made by the governor, without authority, and resulted in his political decapitation, though it is possible he answered with the idea that the king meant to inquire for the boundary of the occupied portion of the grant.

Mr. Miner, in the 'History of Wyoming,' sums up other objections made by able writers in behalf of the Pennsylvania claims, as follows :--

Objection first. That the Susquehanna Company never had a formal grant from the colony of Connecticut.

Second. That the colony of Connecticut received nothing from the Com- pany as a consideration for those lands.

Third. That the Company made their purchase from the Indians, contrary to the laws of Connecticut.

Fourth. That the king, in 1763, forbade the settlement of territory.

A remark taken from 'Day's Historical Collections' may be in place here.

"The different principles involved in the charter of the Connecticut colony and the province of Pennsylvania, necessarily produced an essential difference in the manner of acquiring the Indian title to the lands. In the colony, the right of pre-emption was vested in the people; and the different towns in Connecticut were settled at successive periods, by different bands of adventurers, who separately acquired the Indian title either by purchase or by conquest, and, in many instances, without the aid or the interference

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

of the Commonwealth. In the province, the pre-emption right was vested in William Penn, who made no grants of lands until the Indian title had been extinguished, and, consequently, the whole title was derived through the proprietaries."

Mr. Miner continues :-

"In reply to the first three objections, it may be said, also, to be a matter between the Susquehanna Company and the Colony or State ; the whole pro- ceedings of the Company having again and again received the most full and explicit recognition and confirmation from the Connecticut Government.

" In reply to the fourth, it may be asked, After the king had granted the lands by charter, what authority had he reserved to forbid the settlement ?

" The authority to constitute a new power, or government, was reserved, and could not be communicated by the colony of Connecticut, although the latter might govern the new settlement as a part of itself while still a subject of Great Britain.

" Again, Connecticut asserted that 'the Pennsylvania agents did not set forth a conveyance of the land from the natives ; but a deed of pre-emption, or a promise to convey at some future time.'"

In December, 1773, commissioners on behalf of Connecti- cut wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania thus :-

"It were easy to observe that the purchases from the Indians by the pro- prietaries, and the sales by them made, were they even more ancient than they are, could add no strength to the proprietary title, since the right of pre-emption of the natives was by the royal grant exclusively vested in the colony of Connecticut, and, consequently, those purchases and sales were equally without legal foundation."

No purchase affecting the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania had been made by the proprietaries prior to the treaty at Fort Stanwix (Rome, N. Y.), in 1768. The Indians had already received two thousand pounds sterling from the Connecticut Susquehanna Company for the lands which they then resold to Pennsylvania.

The Rev. Jacob Johnson, then a missionary to the Oneidas, and afterwards the first minister in Wilkes-Barre, testified, that the Indians agreed to give Gov. Penn a deed, "because Sir William Johnson had told them that their former conveyance to the New England people was unlawful," and "because the commissioners urged that the Connecticut people had done wrong in coming over the line of Pennsylvania to buy land of the Indians."

But we never hear of the return of the two thousand pounds. The sale had been made at Albany, in 1754, in open council, and at a time when delegates from Pennsylvania made efforts to induce the chiefs to sell them the Wyoming lands-one hundred and twenty by seventy miles, the Susquehanna Com- pany purchase-to which they steadily refused to accede. Beloved as William Penn had been by the natives, the pro- prietaries were by no means favorites with the Six Nations (admitted by all to be the original owners of the land), and,

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

for the reason that they had declined to recognize the Delawares as the subjects of the Six Nations, but had persisted in regard- ing them as an independent people; and, as such, making treaties and purchasing land of them. (See Miner.) They owed them a grudge, too, on account of the "Walking Pur- chase," of 1737, with which every student of Pennsylvania history is supposed to be familiar.

But the Commissioners of Pennsylvania, after their return to Philadelphia at that time, reported having held a private treaty, and having purchased lands between the Blue Moun- tains and the forks of the Susquehanna (Fort Augusta, or Sunbury), which was, of course, below the tract sold to the Connecticut people.

CHAPTER II.

INDIANS.

IN Susquehanna County, except along the river in Harmony, Oakland, and Great Bend, traces of the original proprietors of the soil are not very frequent. The reader is referred to the annals of those townships for details respecting them. In the vicinity of Apolacon and Tuscarora Creeks, numerous arrow- heads have been found, and, in other localities, other imple- ments of the Indians. (See Apolacon, Auburn, Silver Lake, Herrick, etc.) A stone pestle with the head of a squirrel carved on it, now in possession of Rev. H. A. Riley, was found on the farm of the late Judge Lathrop, in Bridgewater.

It is stated, in 'Eaton's Geography of Pennsylvania,' that the Tuscarora Indians, on their emigration northward, made this region their residence for a number of years; it is known they had a village near Lanesboro.

The Delawares, who inhabited the country about Deposit, derived their supply of salt from this county. (See Mineral Resources.)

It appears that the two most noted salt springs in our county had been worked by Indians; and, respecting the one near Silver Creek, a legend is preserved that lends a charm to the spot, now rifled of its pristine wildness and beauty by the hand of modern enterprise. Many of our citizens will recall the scenery described in 1832, by a writer in the 'Montrose Vol- unteer' :-

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

SALT SPRING LEGEND.

"Previous to the massacre of Wyoming, this whole extent of country was overrun by Indians, along the course of the Susquehanna. A roving band had succeeded in capturing a white man, named Rosbach, after he had killed two or three of them ; his wife and children escaped, but he, though wounded and bleeding on the threshold, was doomed to perish at the stake. They were compelled to make a march to elude pursuit from the whites, and at length reached and followed up the course of a stream, to avoid leaving a track ; and in their progress passed close beside the mineral spring. What the appearance of the spot was then, it is not difficult to conceive at present, since a clearing of a few acres, an old log-house, and the tottering frame used for boring for salt water, is all that remains to tell that the hand of man has been here. The view in the clearing is not uncommon-a stream of silvery flow and murmur, a high hill and the forest-but, by following up the western creek that here meets one from the north, a wild glen opens un- surpassed among our hills.

" It was night when the Indians and their captive reached this hidden valley, but they passed on, after drinking of the spring, to the greater concealment of the ravine beyond. Conceive them as they enter-the party of a dozen half-naked savages, leading, threatening, and at times supporting the droop- ing form of the white hunter as he toils through the water tinged with his blood. On either side, the beetling rocks hang a hundred feet overhead, crowned with high columns of the old forest trees. The water, though not abundant, yet produces a series of beautiful cascades, leaping over irregular ledges of rock, and gathering at intervals in basins, clear as the purest crys- tal. As the leafy dome above closes heavy and compact in the darkness, the party reach the first cascade; they clamber over the rock and find another basin, deeper, darker, and more secluded than the first. Here they pause.

" At a safe distance the hunter's wife has dogged their path, and now watches from the cliff above. In the recess on the right they light their fire. A little apart, the white man is bound to a sapling ; the captors are seated ; the pipe is passed; they are fed, and the hour of vengeance is nigh. At this moment an owl, startled by the fire, shrieks so discordantly, that even the warriors quiver at the sound. Succeeding this horrid scream, a voice of exquisite clearness chanted, in the native language, a war-song of the Oneidas :-

'The northern eagle scents his prey, His beak with blood shall drip to-day, The Oneida's foot is on thy track His spoils are won ere he turns back.'

"Before the verse was completed, the Indians had extinguished their fire, and at its conclusion they yelled back the war-whoop of defiance, for the Oneidas were in coalition with the whites. A huge rock came thundering down the precipice-then another, and another-vexing the air; and amid the echo and gloom, a hand rested on the shoulder of Rosbach, and in his ear was whispered, 'Robert, do you hear me?' 'Emmeline ! my wife ! Oh, God !'

"In a moment she cut the withe that bound him, and, as the surprised party had left the bed of the stream, she led him down to where the spring issued from its side. His strength is exhausted, his head sinks upon her bosom, and he is a corpse.

" After concealing his body among the rocks, she resumed her journey toward the river, and at length reached friends, whose joy upon her return was changed to sadness, as she bade them seek the remains of her husband beneath the shadow of the mountain that overhangs the mineral spring."

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

CHAPTER III.

WESTMORELAND AND THE PENNAMITE WARS.

ALTHOUGH the section now embraced in Susquehanna Coun- ty was without a settlement until the close of the Pennamite wars of Wyoming, and until the "town and county of West- moreland" had ceased to exist, our history is still closely con- nected with them. The events of the period to which they belong are given in detail by Chapman, Miner, and others, from whose works a synopsis is given here, prefaced by the following remark from Dr. Hollister's "History of the Lacka- wanna Valley " :-

" While Wyoming, in its limited signification, now gives name to a valley (about twenty miles in length and three or four in width) unsurpassed for the beauty of its scenery or the romance of its history, it was formerly used in a more enlarged sense to designate all the country purchased of the Indians by the New England men, in 1754, lying in what is now known as Luzerne, Wyoming, Susquehanna, and Wayne Counties." (A large part of Bradford should also be included in this statement.)

The territory of Susquehanna County was included in the Connecticut Delaware Company's purchase, which extended from the Delaware River within the 42d degree of north lati- tude, west to the line of the Susquehanna Company's purchase ; or to within ten miles of the Susquehanna River after it enters the State the second time. In 1755, the Delaware Company began a settlement at Coshetunk.

The greater portion of the purchases made by the two com- panies was included in the county named by Pennsylvania, Northumberland, then comprising a vast area, from Northamp- ton County (now Wayne and Pike Counties) to the Alleghany River. Luzerne, Mifflin, Lycoming, Centre, Columbia, and Union Counties, in their original extent, with the present area of Northumberland, comprised the Northumberland, which was separated from Berks and Bedford in 1772.

The Pennamite wars comprised the struggles of Connecticut settlers to retain possession of the Wyoming lands which they had purchased from the Susquehanna Company; but which were claimed also by the proprietaries of Pennsylvania, who were bent upon securing either the recognition of their own claim, or the ejection of the settlers. Between one and two hundred persons came from Connecticut, August, 1762, and began a settlement in Wyoming, a little above the Indian

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

village of this name, but the massacre of twenty of them by the Delawares, the following year, and the expulsion of the remainder, discouraged any further. effort for nearly seven years.

At no period until 1772, were there more than three hun- dred Connecticut men on the ground at one time.

It must not be supposed that peaceful measures were not first resorted to by settlers, before pitting themselves against a superior force. In May, 1769, Col. Dyer and Major Elderkin went to Philadelphia and submitted to Benj. Chew, agent for the proprietaries-a proposition to have the matter in dispute between the Susquehanna Company and the proprietaries, referred either to a court of law or to referees to be mutually chosen by the parties, and in either case the decision to be conclusive. But Pennsylvania would in no wise recognize the Connecticut claim. Thirteen years later such a court was convened; but, had the first proposition been acted upon, how much bloodshed and misery would have been avoided !

The first Pennamite war extended over a period of three years-from February, 1769, to September, 1771 ; during which the "Yankees" had been expelled five times, but as often re- newed the contest, and with ultimate victory. The close of 1771 found the Susquehanna Company in full possession. In 1772, Wilkes-Barre1 was laid out near Fort Wyoming, which the settlers had taken under Col. Durkee, who had command in 1769.

In 1773, the government of Connecticut, which, up to this time, had left the Susquehanna and Delaware companies to manage their own affairs, now decided to make its claim to all the lands within the charter, west of the province of New York, and in a legal manner to support the same. Com- missioners appointed by the assembly proceeded to Philadel- phia "to negotiate a mode of bringing the controversy to an amicable conclusion." But every proposition offered by them was declined by the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, who saw no way to prevent a repetition of the troubles in Wyoming, except by the settlers evacuating the lands until a legal decision could be obtained.

In the mean time the people had accepted articles, framed by the Susquehanna Company, at Hartford, Conn., June 2, 1773, for the government of the settlement, and acknowledged them to be of force until the colony of Connecticut should annex

1 The name Wilkes-Barre, commonly written with but one capital, was given in honor of the celebrated John Wilkes and Col. Barre, both members of the British Parliament, and both of whom took a decided part in favor of America, against the measures of the British ministry.

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

village of this name, but the massacre of twenty of them by the Delawares, the following year, and the expulsion of the remainder, discouraged any further. effort for nearly seven years.

At no period until 1772, were there more than three hun- dred Connecticut men on the ground at one time.

The first Pennamite war extended over a period of three years-from February, 1769, to September, 1771; during which the "Yankees" had been expelled five times, but as often re- newed the contest, and with ultimate victory. The close of 1771 found the Susquehanna Company in full possession. In 1772, Wilkes-Barre1 was laid out near Fort Wyoming, which the settlers had taken under Col. Durkee, who had command in 1769.

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

them to one of its counties, or make them a distinct county ; or until they should obtain, either from the colony, or from " His Gracious Majesty, King George the Third," a more permanent or established mode of government. " But his majesty soon had weightier matters to decide with his American subjects, which were settled by his acknowledgment of their Independence."

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Author: Blackman, Emily C Publication date: 1873 Publisher: Philadelphia, Claxton, Remsen, & Haffelfinger Number of Pages: 768

Author: Blackman, Emily C
Publication date: 1873
Publisher: Philadelphia, Claxton, Remsen, & Haffelfinger
Number of Pages: 768