History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 15

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438

USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 15
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 15
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 15

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).

Daniel Brodhead, Jr., son of Colonel Daniel, was commissioned a first lieutenant in Colonel John Shea's battalion January 6, 1776 ; was captured November 16th, of the same year; exchanged August 26th, 1778, and died shortly after. (He is the one alluded to in Daniel Brodhead's letter to Nicholas Depui, heretofore given.)

In Captain Abraham Miller's company of Colonel William Thompson's regiment were,-

Sergeant .- Luke Brodhead (afterwards captain of Sixth Pennsylvania).

Privates .- Benjamin Decker, Bernhard Kline, John McFerren, Robert Marshall, Jacob Miller, Jolin Moe- ser, Jacob Moyer.

In Captain Thomas Craig's company of Colonel Arthur St. Clair's Second Pennsylva- nia Battalion, January 5 to November 25, 1776, were,-

First Lieutenant .- Andrew Kechlein.

Sergeant .- Johu McMichael.

Privates .- John McMichael, Felty Yiesly.

In Captain Walter Stewart's company of the Third Battalion were,-

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

Privates .-- James Rosenkrantz, William Schoon- over, Abraham Van Gorden, Cornelius Westbrook.

In Captain Henry Shadc's company of Col- onel Samuel Miles' rifle regiment were,-

Privates .- Jacob Edinger, Jacob Frederick, Michael Kelchner, Adam Kerchner, Henry Miller, Michael Mosteller, Nicholas Mosteller.

In Captain John Arndt's company of Bax- ter's battalion, which joined Washington's army on Long Island, there were,-

Privates .- Benjamin Depui, Isaac Shocmaker.

Nearly the whole of Captain Johannes Van Etten's company must have been from the region now in Monroe and Pike Counties. That the company was in the battle of the Brandywine, September 11, 1777, is evident from the number of casualties indicated on that date. The survivors were on duty as rangers in Upper Northampton in 1781-82. Follow- ing is the roll as it appeared in 1781, when on the duty specified, together with the killed of September 11, 1777 :

Captain .- Johannes Van Etten.

First Lieutenant .-- John Fish. Second Lieutenant .- John Myer. First Ensign .- Henry Bush.

Second Ensign .- James Scoby (taken prisoner the 11th of September).

Sergeants .- Thomas Johnson, Samuel Hillet, James Scoby (advanced to ensign September 1st), Frederick Everhart, Joseph Gable, George Price.

Corporals .-- Lewis Holmes, Thomas Gay, Samuel Bond (killed September 11th), Adam Hicker.

Privates .-- Samuel Van Dermark, Daniel McDole, John Morhart, John Ronts (killed September 11th), Rudolph Smith, Abram Clider (killed September 11th), Daniel Smith, George Gangware, John Mycr, Peter Apler, John Weaver (killed September 11th), Daniel France, Lawrence Miller, George Pigg, John Roben- holt, Leonard Pack, John Sack, Job Strout, George Ripsher, Peter Snyder, Peter Losher, Jacob Cryder, C. Kowler, John Nap Snyder, Adam Teel, Valentine Nichols, George Hickman, John Smith, John Weth- erstone, Christian Haller, Jacob Horner, Peter Siner, Peter Corms (taken prisoner September 11th), Philip G. Shilhamer, B. Snyder (killed September 11th), Philip Betten, George P. Rinehart (killed September 11th), Andrew Myer, Joseph Gable (advanced to ser- geant August 30th), Peter Croom (killed September 11th), Johannes Snyder, Andrew Maurer, Adam Lung, George Shelhamer (killed September 11th), Paul Neely (killed September 11th), Abraham Smith (killed September 11th), John Lyn (sick, absent),

Jacob Arndt (killed September 11th), Samuel Sum- meny, Jacob Collins, Henry Davis, Philip George (killed September 11th), Peter McCoy, John Hann, Abraham Weisner, Uria Tippy, Paul Reeser, B. Weaver, George Heaton, John Smith, Jr., Christian Wood, John Morgan, Henry France, Bond Hewe, John Hain, Michael Yerty, Adam Brunthaven, An- thony Bishop, John Snyder, Peter Daniel, Peter Simonton, John Dahly, Henry Van Gorden, Abra- ham Westfall, Cornelius Devoor, Casper Clutter, Peter Quick, Thomas Van Sickle, Samuel Van Gor- den, Solomon Huff, Thomas Howe, James McGraw (killed September 11th), Jacob Rowe (killed Sep- tember 11th).

"I do solemnly Swear that the within Muster Roll is a true State of the Company, without fraud to the United States or any Individual, to the best of my knowledge.

"JOHANNES VAN ETTEN, Captain. "JACOB STROUD, Lieutenant- Colonel."

" Mustered at Fort Penn, January the 15th, 1781, in the absence of the muster-master.

"JACOB STROUD, Lieutenant-Colonel."

In 1777 a return of persons in Northampton County, north of the mountains, who had taken the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth, was made by Nicholas Depui. It contained the following names :

(Lower) Smithfield .- James Brooks, Moses Cool- baugh, Thomas Plant, William Smith, Cornelius Brooks, John Chambers, John Irish, Benjamin Van Campen, Samuel Stover, Noah Lee, William Tush, James Dalson, Joseph Van Namen, John Van Campen, John White, Daniel Haines, Samuel Mon- day, James Johnston, Solomon Bunnell, Joseph Sharp, Scurmorn Travis, John Lamberman.

Delaware .- Thomas Swartwout.

Smithfield .- William Jayne, Elias Hementon, Philip Sailer, John Vaney, Rodolphus Schoonoven, William Burley, David Johnston.

Fort Penn was built on the site of Strouds- burg early in the Revolution, probably in 1776 or 1777. It was not a formidable fort and of course was intended merely as a protection against the Indians in case they made incursions in such strength as to drive the scattered in- habitants from their homes. It was, in fact, a simple stockade around the house of Col. Jacob Stroud, and was probably built by him and entirely at his own expense, for no mention of it is found in the official records of the time. Its location was on or back of the site of the "Fort Penn Hotel," which was a flourishing

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THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

hostelry until a few years since, and it can be best described at present by saying that the site was back of the Wintermute property, on ground bounded by Main or Elizabeth Street, Chestnut Street and Quaker Alley. The doughty commander of Fort Penn (if indeed it is entitled to be called a fort) was Col. Jacob Stroud, who figured quite prominently during the period of war in local affairs.

While Lower Northampton was engaged in raising troops to meet the British in the field, the people of the great northern frontier region, above the Blue Mountains, in the territory now included in Monroe, Pike and Wayne Counties, experienced the most terrible effects of war in their own homes, for the whole region from Cushutunk down to the Blue Mountains was repeatedly ravaged by the Indians in the em- ploy of the British, and was the scene of frequent battles, murders, burnings, pillagings and general consternation and distress, as it was in the memorable years from 1755 to 1764. The little settlement of Cushutunk (in Damascus township, Wayne County), its sister colony on the Wallenpaupack, known as "Lackawa " or "Lackawack," the few people located along the Delaware in what is now Pike County, together with the inhabitants of contiguous regions in New York and New Jersey, and the scattered farmers of Old Smithfield (surrounding Fort Penn and the site of Stroudsburg) alike felt the fury of a savage enemy, incited by British craft and British gold.

Cushutunk was a peculiarly exposed locality during the war, for it lay farthest north of all the settlements, upon the path down which the Indians came to strike the Minisink region, and in addition to this it suffered from internal dis- sensions between patriots and Tories and between the holders of lands under opposing titles. A brief sketch of occurrences there and in the neighborhood must suffice.

In the spring of 1777 the wife of Robert Land, an Englishman who held a commission as justice of the peace under the colonial govern- ment, learning of the approach of a party of Indians, took her infant, and, in company with her eldest son, nineteen years of age, drove their cattle back into the woods. The Indians did

make their appearance early the next morning and some of them entered the house of Land, where four children were sleeping wholly un- suspicious of danger, and one of them going to the bed where Rebecca and Phoebe slept, awak- ened them by tiekling their feet with a spear. It seems that a certain chief of the Tuscaroras, Captain John, had frequently been at the house and was very friendly. Rebecca awaking, supposed the Indian to be the captain and ex- tending her hand said, " How do you do, Captain John." The Indian told her that he was not Captain John, but he appears to have spared them because she was acquainted with that savage dignitary. He told her that they were Mohawks and had come to drive the whites from the valley, but that she and her sister might dress and leave unharmed. They lost no time in doing so, and erossing the Delaware in a canoe, went first to Brant Kane's, where they found that all of the family had been murdered except a little girl, who, however, had been scalped and was nearly dead from loss of blood and fright. Rebecca then ran up the river to Nathan Mitchell's and gave the alarm and then returned home, where she found that the In- dians had bound her brother Abel, aged about seventeen, and taken him with them, without doing any other harm. The retreating party went up Calkin's Creek and met a small band of Cushutunk Indians, who were friendly to the whites, and the latter, after vainly endeavoring to induce them to release Abel Land hur- ried to the river to alarm the settlers. About the time that they got there Mrs. Land and her son John returned from the woods, where they had been all night, and the latter, with these Indians and the few whites who could be as- sembled, then set out after the marauders. They overtook the Mohawks a few miles away and persuaded them to release Abel after they had made him run the gauntlet.

The murder of Brant Kane and his family struck terror into the settlement, and the people fled to the more thickly-settled parts of Orange County. Among them were Nathan Skinner and his son, Garret Smith and wife, the wife and child of Nathaniel Evans and others. Some, how- ever, remained and went on with their farming.

WAYNE. PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

In the fall of the same year another maraud- ing party, composed of about as many murderous and thieving whites as Indians, made a second descent on ill-fated Cushutunk, shot a man named Handa, took Nathan Mitchell prisoner, burnt down Daniel Skinner's house and de- stroyed the crops. There appears something strange and unaccountable in this affair, as there does something improbable in the Land narra- tive. The latter, however, is well attested, and of the second foray, Nathan Skinner, in his manuscript, asserts that the leading and chiefly active persons in it were of those in the neigh- borhood who professed to be actuated by pure patriotism. If this .was so, then Skinner, Mitchell, Handa and the others who were made the victims of their attacks must have been regarded as Tories. Skinner, however, says in another place in his manuscript that. the marauders were in reality moved by a desire to drive the owners of the best farms and crops and cattle out of the country, that they might in this high-handed way confiscate their property. Of the second raid Skinner says,-

" This party came up the Delaware on the east side, and from Ten-Mile River upward plundered all that came in their way without opposition until they came in sight of Big Island, where they discovered a party retreat- ing before them, who continued their retreat to the upper end of Ross's, where the settlers made a stand and sent word to their pursuers that they, the whites and friendly Indians, should retreat no further. The marauders came to a stand at Nathan Skinner's new house, which they plundered and burnt, and then retrcated down the river, on their way treacherously capturing John Land and a man named Davis. Land was shamefully maltreated by his captors, and he and Davis were shackled and handcuffed and thrown into prison to answer to the charge of disloyalty, of which charge they were after- wards acquitted." Nathan Mitchell escaped, but how, is not known.

In his "History of Sullivan County N. Y.," Quinlan, apropos of these affairs, says : " Some of the Whigs left without harvesting their crops and after leaving their families in places where they would be safe, returned to gather what

they had cultivated with anxious forebodings. They were driven from the neighborhood or found that their property had been appropriated or destroyed by their enemies. The Tories appropriated the abandoned property of their former Whig neighbors." Such seems to have been the case. An almost constant local war prevailed between the two parties and intermixed with its asperities were occasional Indian murders.

At the Wallenpaupack settlement, too, there was trouble made both by Indians and Tories in 1777. The former were not of the Six Nations, but some renegade savages, outcasts from all tribes, and the latter were not of the better class of Tories, but a parcel of vagabonds who took advantage of the general state of hostility to plunder whoever they could. Some time during the year mentioned a party of men were discovered lurking in the "great swamp," as the bottom land along the Wallen- paupack was called, and Lieutenant Jonathan Haskell, the military commander of the colony, collecting as many men as he could, succeeded in capturing the whole party, eighteen in number. They proved to be Tories who had deserted from the American army. Lieutenant Haskell conducted them to Hartford, where they were imprisoned.1

The Tories who usually harassed the set- tlement came from the Delaware at and below Cushutunk.

The settlements along the Delaware in what is now Pike County were occasionally disturbed during this year, but no serious incursions were made until a year or so later. These people, however, had built " forts," as they were called, but in reality their preparations for defense consisted in simple stockades around several of the stronger dwelling-houses. One of these was at Dingman's ; one at Captain Johannes Van Etten's, three or four miles above Dingman's ; another, " Fort Decker," about three miles below Dingman's, on Hornbeck Creek; and still anotlrer was " Fort Brink," where John and Garret

1 It must have been, says Miner, about this time that Connecticut began to exercise control over the Wallenpau pack settlement.

THE WYOMING MASSACRE.

Brink lived, two or three miles above the Bushkill. Emmanuel Gunsalus (Gonzales) lived at the Bushkill, and his house, too, was placed in as good a condition for defense as was possible. There were forts also upon the Jersey side of the river, one of the principal ones being at Wallpack, while others, mere block-houses and stockades, were to be found along the shore from Port Jervis down nearly to the Water Gap.

Although a condition of comparative peace had thus far prevailcd, there were portentous signs of dire events to come.

On the 3d of July, 1778, occurred the world- famous massacre of Wyoming. The confeder- ated Six Nations, who had been induced by the British in 1777 to take the war-path against the Americans, committed great ravages in New York during that year, and in the follow- ing they determined to make a murderous foray into Pennsylvania, with the especial object of striking the settlements on the two branches of the Susquehanna, which were left in an almost defenceless condition through the departure of their patriotic men for the army.

The Wyoming settlement was very naturally the object of the Englishmen's cspeeial hatred, because of the devotion its people had shown to the cause of liberty ; and it was easily accessible by the North Branch of the Susquehanna. Late in June there descended that stream, under command of Colonel John Butler, a force of eleven hundred men, four hundred of whom were Tory rangers and regular soldiers of Sir John Johnson's Royal Greens, with seven hun- dred Indians, chiefly Senecas. Jenkins' Fort capitulated, and Wintermoot's (which, as was afterwards learned, was built to aid the incur- sions of the Tories) at once opened its gates to the invading host. At Wyoming were several so-called forts, mere stockades, in no one of which was there a cannon or an adequate garrison, the arms-bearing men nearly all being absent, as has heretofore been stated. Colonel Zebulon Butler, who happened to be at Wyoming, took command by invitation of the people, and the lit- tle band, consisting chicfly of old men and boys, with a handful of undisciplined militia, against whom cleven hundred warriors had marched, made as heroic a stand as the world ever saw.

And so upon that fatal 3d of July they marched out to meet and fight the enemy, for a safe retreat with their families was impossible, and surrender seems never to have been thought of. It is beyond our province in this work to describe the uneven battle and the slaughter which ensued. Suffice it to say that the brave defenders, about four hundred in number, were defeated by the assailing force, outnumbering them by nearly three to one. Then followed the horrible massacre-a carnival of murder and torture performed by fiends. But who is there who knows not Wyoming? Who that does not shudder at the recall of that name ? Of four hundred men who went into battle, but sixty escaped the fury of the Indians. That bloody day made one hundred and fifty widows and six hundred orphans in the valley.

And now the Wyoming Valley is a scene of pastoral quict and loveliness, as if, in recompense for the dark decds done, the Creator had breathed upon the bosom of nature there the benison of eternal peace.

The massacre of Wyoming thrilled the world with horror. What, then, must have been the feelings of those people who had reason to think they might at any hour mect with the same fate which had extinguished the lives of the four hundred settlers in the beautiful valley ? The whole border was filled with the wildest alarm, and a fever of fear took possession of the people even as far down the country as Bethlehem and Easton.

Flight was the only recourse for the few terror- stricken survivors. Vain efforts were made to concentrate the settlement at Forty Fort, but the tide of panic had already set in, and by night of the day of battle fugitives were flying in every direction to the wilderness. It was a wild, chaotic, precipitate hegira. All was con- fusion, consternation, horror. The poor, terri- fied people, men, women and children, scarcely thinking or caring whither their trembling footsteps led, if they could only escape the sav- age enemy and crucl death, fled onward into the wilderness and night. The general direction pursued was towards the Delaware and the Stroudsburg settlement. Every passage into the forest was thronged. On the old Warrior's

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

Path tlicre were, says Miner, in one company, nearly a hundred women and children, with but one man, Jonathan Fitch, to advise or aid them. The forlorn flight led into and through the " Dismal Swamp" or " Shades of Death," as it was then, and is sometimes even to this day, called. This was the wet, marshy plateau of the Pocono and Broad Mountains, an area included now in Monroe, Carbon and Pike Counties, surrounding the headwaters of the Lehigh. Over the greater part of this singularly wet table-land there was a dense growth of pines and a tangled, almost impenetrable undergrowth, the whole interspersed here and there with ex- panses of dark, murky water, swarming with creeping things, even as the matted forest abounded with wild beasts.

It was through this desolate, seemingly inter- minable swamp that the fugitives from Wyo- ming, by day and night, made their toilsome way to Stroudsburg, and some by way of the Wind Gap to the lower settlements.

Children were born and children died in that terrible forced march through the "Shades of Death." One infant that came into the world in this scene of terror and travail was carried alive to the settlements. At least one which died was left upon the ground to be devoured by wolves, while the agonized mother went on. There was not time, nor were there means, for making even a shallow grave. One woman bore her dead babe in her arms for twenty miles, rather than abandon its body to the beasts, and it finally found sepulchre in a Ger- man settlement which she reached. The flight had been so precipitate that few had an oppor- tunity to secure provisions from their homes, and for two or three days the greater number lived upon whortleberries, which fortunately grew in abundance that season-the manna of that wilderness. Some wandered from the path and were lost, some died from their wounds, some from exhaustion, but the ma- jority of that distressed, straggling band of refugees reached the Stroudsburg settlement after traveling sixty miles, and were tenderly cared for until they could go to their old homcs or find new ones. Many made their way to their native Connecticut.

One band, consisting of a single man and twelve women and children, were cared for by Colonel Stroud, and given a passport by him, recommending them to all whom they might meet in journeying destitute toward their homes. The document, of which a copy has been pre- served, read as follows :

"Permit the bearer, Sergeant William Searle, with twelve women and children in company with him, to pass unmolested to some part of the State of Connec- ticut, where they may be able, by their industry, to obtain an honest living, they being part of the un- happy people drove off from Wyoming by the Tories and Indians, and are truly stript and distressed, and their circumstances call for the charity of all Chris- tian people; and are especially recommended by me to all persons in authority, civil and military, and to all Continental officers and commissaries, to issue provisions and other necessaries for their relief on the road.

"Given under my hand at Fort Penn, July 14, 1778. "JACOB STROUD, Colonel." 1

Upon the evening of the very day that the butchery occurred at Wyoming-July 3, 1778 -Wallenpanpack had a narrow escape. The officer in command, to try the temper of liis troops, caused a false alarm of danger to be made. Movables were hurriedly carried into the fort, the whole force of the settlement was collected and the arms prepared for use. Just as the noise and clamor caused by the alarm was at its height, a body of sixty Indians and Torics from the neighborhood of Cochecton approached from the direction of Wilsonville to within half a mile of the fort. They told some prisoners afterwards captured that their object was to drive away the cattle belonging to the settlers. The noise and confusion at the fort, however, induced them to believe that the New York Indians under Brant had attacked the settlement, and as Brant had given them dis- tinct orders not to interfere with Wallenpau- pack, they withdrew, burning, however, as they retreated, a grist-mill, at what is now Wilson- ville, owned by Joseph Washburn.

The reception, on July 4th, of the news of the Wyoming massacre caused a stampcde from this settlement. When the tidings were re- ceived Captain Zebulon Parrislı, his son Jas-

1 Appendix, Miner's Wyoming, p. 45.

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THE WYOMING MASSACRE.

per and Stephen Kimble went down to the Lackawaxen, a short distance above the mouth of the Wallenpaupack, for the purpose of giv- ing the alarm to Benjamin Haynes, David Ford and James Hough, who lived there with their families; but these three men on this errand of mercy fell into the hands of the same body of Indians and Tories who had been hovering about the fort. They were carried to the State of New York and retained as prisoners until the close of the war. Stephen Parrish and Reuben Jones were also taken prisoners about this time. Both were subsequently returned and Jones lived many years in Wayne County.

In the mean time all had been activity at the settlements. The people prepared as rapidly as possible for flight, and before sunset on the night of that 4th of July the poor people were on their way to the Delaware. A number of the women and children who were sick were transported in carts. They were put on beds on the bottoms of the carts and thus moved comfortably. The men walked or rode horse- back, driving their eattle before them, and car- rying as many of their portable goods as pos- sible, and thus the strange and mournful caval- cade moved away from their homes, scarcely knowing whither they were going, but direct- ing their steps towards safety. They traveled the whole night and the greater part of the next day, and found themselves at a point about three miles from the site of Milford, upon the old Wyoming road. They intended to pass the night here, but becoming fearful that they were followed by the Indians, re- sumed their weary march, and did not again halt until they had reached the eastern side of the Delaware. From here some went to Con- necticut, and some located on the Delaware, the majority, however, going to Orange County, New York, where they remained until after the war.

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 15

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 1438

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438