USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 3
USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > Susquehanna > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 3
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
The proprietaries had, as a consequence, no ' sympathy in common with those who chose to emigrate from other States, with the intention of locating upon the soil claiming under rights of fee-simple.
Governor Hamiltou, in his official capacity, was determined to hold the lands above the Del- aware, which included the disputed region of Wyoming. In 1754 he wrote to Governor Wol- cott, of Connecticut, urging the latter to restrain the action of the Susquehanna Company, and assured him that he would lend his aid in secur- ing for emigrants lands "in the western part of the province," or he would render what official influence he possessed in procuring the privilege to settle in Virginia.
Governor Wolcott's answer to this official communication, was characteristic of both the man and the time in which he lived. After stat- ing, that wherever settlers took possession of lands in Pennsylvania, they would be considered as freeholders, he continued, by urging, that in the event of a war with the French, which at that time was pending farther west, the settlers would sacrifice more for the sake of their own lands than for territory which they merely occu- pied as tenants.
It is of some importance then, that the adverse title be considered, and an examination be had of the source from which the Susquehanna Compa- ny claimed power to enter upon the lands, which in good faith they had purchased of the Six Na- tions, and the proprietors who happened to occu- py the territory for agricultural purposes at the time.
The carly settlers of New England, after hav- ing become numerous enough to establish the
usages and customs of govermental society, sought at the fountain head-England, authority under seal by which the laws necessary to be enforced, could be administered. With the granting of the request, by the crown, a charter was given by James I. to "The Plymouth Com- pany" which defined the boundaries, "from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of north latitude, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean."
The charter under the great seal of England, was granted in 1620 to the various persons named therein, and their associates, "for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England, in America."
The charter of Connecticut was derived from the Plymouth Company in 1621. It defined the territory intended to be conveyed, as cover- ing all of the country west of Connecticut, "to the extent of its breadth, being about one degree of latitude "from sea to sea." The only reserva- tions were included in a general limitation, which excepted such portions of territory as were "then possessed or inhabited by any other Chris- tian prince or State." New York, then "The New Netherlands," being a Dutch possession, did not pass with the tract defined.
By the terms of this charter, the New England people were rigid in the belief that Connecticut owned the Wyoming district, as it was fairly within the latitude mentioned, and being just west of the New Netherlands.
The charter granted to William Penn, dates fifty years after the charter granted by the Ply- mouth Company to Connecticut.
The issue growing out of these adverse claims, was the cause of the first feuds between the New England settlers in the valley, and the native Pennsylvanians. A case was made up and trans- mitted to England, on which Mr. Pratt, the At- torney General, (afterward Lord Camden,) gave an opinion in favor of the successors of Penn. Connecticut likewise sent over a case and on her part obtained a like favorable opinion.
The dark clouds which threatened the smiling valley, bore indications of a sure and certain struggle. and Wyoming was to be the battle ground upon which the issue was to be settled by many a grim horror, and bloody deed of ven- geance.
-
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF WYOMING VALLEY-A SECOND EDEN, A THEATRE OF STRIFE, DISCORD, AND "HELL-BORN HATE."
"Yet,-yet-one brief relapse, like the last beam Of dying flames, the stainless air around Hung silent and serene. - A blood-red gleam " Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground The globed smoke .- I heard the mighty sound Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean." The Revolt of Islam.
The constant agitation among the Indians of Wyoming, during the period in which the two States were disputing coneerning titles, was oc- casioned by the French Indian war, which raged with some fury in the western part of the State.
Braddock's defeat in 1775, caused mueh uneas- iness among the white settlers, as the news from the border conflicts only tended to beget in the Indians a troublesome and restless spirit. The rewards offered by the French for scalps, was by no means a matter of ordinary moment, while petty jealousies among the tribes themselves, in the eastern part of the province, rendered the case an almost hopeless one for the white settlers already located, and much more so for the prospeet- ive colony that was expected from Connecticut.
The Delawares, then in the ascendaney along the Susquehanna for some distance above Wy- oming, and certainly as far north as their hunting grounds would permit them to roam without infringing upon the rights of the Iroquois, and the smaller tribes who owed allegiance to them, had become uneasy, and complaints were fre- quently entered against them.
This tribe had many sad memories to recall, and who that has ever studied Indian history does not lend his warmest sympathies to the Del- awares-famed for all that was grand in their bearing, until adversity threw them into the clutches of a more fortunate enemy.
Teedyuscung, ealled by some historians, Tade- uskand, who was at this eventful time at the head of the Delawares, had ever been the friend of the colonists, and had embraced the Christian religion, as taught by the Moravians; he was baptized by the missionaries, but is reported to have been wavering and inconstant. He had given umbrage to the Six Nations by making himself instrumental in concluding peace between the whites and several small tribes, in 1758. Teedyuseung, therefore, the friend of the whites, was by no means willing to cultivate feelings of harmony with the New Englanders, whose very object was to deprive his tribe of their fertile ard easy yielding grounds. Assurances from the provincial council made him contented, and al- though chafing under the Connectieut emigration, he bore it without bloodshed.
The Susquehanna Company had already sent their advance guard into the valley, numbering sóme two hundred persons, who located on the flats, below where the beautiful city of Wilkes- Barre now stands, at a place called Mill Creek. They commenced improvements, in the way of constructing cabins, and sowing winter wheat, besides felling trees for cleared ground, when they returned to Connecticut for the winter: Upon the return of spring, with their families, farming utensils, and a supply of provisions, they sought the valley again, unconscious of the dark
.
14
THE WYOMING VALLEY.
and threatening storm which was so soon to burst upon them. Miner in detailing the event says:
"The season had been favorable ; their various erops on those fertile plains had proved abundant, and they were looking forward with hope to scenes of prosperity and happiness ; but suddenly, without the least warning, on the 15th of October, a large party of savages raised the war-whoop, and attacked them with fury. Unprepared for resistance, about twenty men fell and were scalped; the residue, men, women, and children, fled in wild disorder to the mountains. Language ean- not describe the sufferings of the fugitives as they traversed the wilderness, destitute of food or clothing, on their way to their former homes."
The occasion of this unexpected attack was the result of the death of Teedyuseung, the noted Del- aware chief. It appears that the Six Nations, had dispatched emmissaries to his village, under the guise of friendship, in April, 1763, who gave without stint to the old chicf, liquor, of which he was passionately fond, and when slumbering un- der its influence, he was killed in his dwelling, and the structure sct fire to, together with the whole village, numbering about twenty village structures. The murder of the chief was laid at the door of the Connecticut settlement, and deep and dire were the threats breathed against inno- cent people by the clans of the forest. . And be- cause of this unwarranted charge against the peaceful settlers, the whole valley was emptied of every white soul that had occupied it ; those not already killed were fast plunging their way through an almost impassable wilderness, chased by the tomahawk and scalping knife, day and night, flanked on every hand by ravenous beasts, with hunger and thirst within, and almost faint- ing for want of rest.
This overt act appealed to the eonsciences of the Indians, as a deed which would be met by retaliation. They expected that the provincial government of Pennsylvania would redress the wrongs thus inflicted upon the white race, and acting upon a speedy execution of their supposi- tions, they left the valley, the more warlike and troublesome portion ascending the river to Tioga, the remainder, whose sympathies drew them toward the Moravians, repairing to a town of the latter, called Gnadenhutten.
Following the depopulation of Wyoming by this cruel stroke, were measures to adjust the pending dispute of title, which seemed no ncarer a pacific settlement than when the issue was first raised. In 1768, an Indian council assembled at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, in the state of New York, at which the matter in question was brought up for deliberation.
Notwithstanding that the sale effected at Al- bany to the Susquehanna Company was made in good faith upon the part of the Six Nations, by the intrigue of the designing whites who wished to circumvent each other in proeuring a revoca- tion of that act, a deputation of four chiefs from the same power, in 1763 had been sent to Hart- ford, to diselaim the sale, and the repudiation was effeeted by their orator expressing that the Six Nations were utterly ignorant of any such trans- fer ever having been made.
This bold assertion was rcenforced by the re- mark, "what little we have left we intend to keep for oursel ves."
The land had been sold by them, five years before, to the Susquehanna Company, and at this council, white men of official position were pres- ent, lobbying the measure of repudiation on the part of the unskilled representatives of the forest. The untutored warrior, indeed, needs a glanee of pity upon every page of aboriginal history.
While it may be true that the Indians were reported to have been ready to sell as often as they could find purehasers, still, this ground is an unsafe one, and conclusively untenable, when taking into consideration the fact that the whites, by diplomacy, were ever ready to open a legal way in which to convey titles, that in spirit, were as blind to the Indian, as was the code of Jus- tinian.
The proprietarics of Pennsylvania, knowing of the determination of the Connecticut people to send out another colony, undertook to forestall this action, by leasing the valley to Charles Stuart, Amos Ogden, and John Jennings, conditioning in the indenturc, that trading houses, for the accommodation of the Indians, should be estab- lished, and that the country occupied by them Le fortified sufficiently to guard themselves and their lessees from danger. Carrying out the intent of their contract, they crccted a block-house at Wy-
15
THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF THE VALLEY.
oming, and stored it with the necessaries of life, for a siege, as well as laying in a quantity of am- munition. They were in possession of the struc- ture, and of the valley, when forty men from New England arrived, six years after the lamentable butchery of the first settlement.
And here commenced a series of battles, and a continuous campaign between the factions, which for lack of chivalry, and contemptible methods of destruction and bloodshed, would equal anything in the line of carnage, which the savages had exhibited to that time. A detailed narrative, of the events as they occurred, would make a com- piled volume of bloodthirsty deeds, which would eause a village of Delawares to blush.
The lessees of the valley, intent upon obeying the instructions which had been given to thein, arrested a few of the number by decoying them into the block-house. They were sent off to a distant prison, and were treated by their enemies in a manner, which does not heighten the pride of a Pennsylvanian when he reads the history of his forefathers.
Reenforcements, coming on from Connecticut, seemed to inspire those already located, and in turn, structures of defense were erected by them.
In 1769, the Governor of Pennsylvania made preparations to dispossess the intruders, as they were considered, by force ; and a detachment of armed men was sent to accomplish the work. The colonists, being unable to stand a siege, capit- ulated, and agreed to return to their homes in the cast, on condition that they might leave a few families to secure the erops. No sooner had the mass departed, than Ogden, one of the parties who controlled the valley, plundered the whole colony, destroying the fields of grain, killing their eattle, and laying the settlement in ruins ; so that the families that remained were obliged to fice to escape starvation.
In the spring following, the Connecticut colo- nists mustered courage afresh and returned to Wyoming, led by a man named Lazarus Stewart. They came in force sufficient to hold their own, and taking advantage of Ogden's abseenee, cap- tured his block-house, and his only piece of artil- lery. Skirmishing, and partisan warfare ensued for weeks, in which the Connecticut men were mostly masters of the field, when finally Ogden
was obliged to sue for terms, which were granted after the manner of the year before, viz : that Ogden might leave six men to take care of the property belonging to his side ; but the scenes of devastation of the year before could not be forgotten, and the Couneeticut people in turn became the torch bearers, lighting up the valley with the flames of consuming property.
Ogden, in September, had arisen to the rank of Captain, and boldly marched to the scene of bloodshed again. He took the settlement by surprise, while the men were at work in the fields. The women and children were in the fort, and but few men reached it before the assault com- menced. It was carried in the night by Ogden's men, and, as Colonel Stone expresses it,-"the women and children were barbarously trampled under foot-and the whole settlement plundered and destroyed the following day, with more than Indian rapacity. The colonists were made pris- oners and sent off to distant goals."
Again, the hardy Yankees were deprived of their homes, and families broken up, many to meet again no more. The fort was stormed by the Yankees in December; Stewart, a few allies from Lancaster, and many of the forces were obliged to take to the woods in a nude state, with those who were able to escape, while the remain- der, by far the greater portion, were taken priso- ners, and after being deprived of their property, were driven from the valley.
"The parties to these controversies, which could not but engender all the bitterest passions in the nature of man-rendering what might have been a second Eden, a theatre of strife, dis- cord, and hell-born hate,-fought, of course, as they pretended, under the jurisdiction of the re- spective States to which they assumed to belong." -Stone's Life of Brant.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania then took hold of the matter, and writs were issued for the arrest of certain named parties, and much ado was made by local officers, but the strife grew the more bitter, nor did it abate as to numbers. The Sheriff's posse was fired upon, and one of the Ogdens killed. Three hundred pounds reward was offered by the Governor of Pennsylvania, for the arrest of Captain Stewart. Measures were adopted to rid the valley of the Yankees by the
16
THE WYOMING VALLEY.
summoning of a larger force, and on the other hand, Colonel Zebulon Butler came into the val- ley at the head of seventy men, and united his force with Stewart's spare numbers. The contest now became warmer ; recruits were constantly arriving from Connecticut, which enabled the Yankees to carry on the war on a more extended scale. Fortifications were erected, and manned by a competent force.
Ogden, in this strait, seeing himself about to be vanquished, performed one of the boldest indi- vidual feats on record. Leaving his garrison at night, he fastened a rope to his person, which was attached on the other end to a large bundle. Throwing himself into the river, he struck boldly out, the bundle following iu his wake. Knowing that if any object was perceived from the shore, it would be an enigma to the parties beholding it, and acting upon his knowledge of human na- ture, that the largest of the two moving sub- stances would be fired upon, he sailed on with defiance through the waters of the Susquehanna. The design met his expectations, and the bullets flew at the bale, many of them coming in close proximity to his body, as it is reported, that his hat and clothes were "riddled !" He escaped to Philadelphia.
His report of the condition of affairs caused the government to order additional forces under Colonel Asher Clayton. This command was to separate in two columns of attack, one under Clayton, the other under Captain Dick. Butler's forces ambuscaded the approach, capturing a few men, as well as pack mules and provisions.
Clayton finally, after a long siege, capitulated, agreeing with Ogden to leave the valley.
The Connecticut people now looked to their State for recognition and protection, and the Pennsylvanians retired for a time from the contest. Quiet once more reigned, and the colony flour- ished, and was prosperous in the way of being treated with respect by surrounding settlements. The two States kept up a legal war, however, and mutterings were occasionally heard in halls of State.
The Revolutionary war had just commenced at Lexington, between the British troops and the Colonies, when old feuds broke out afresh, which was the occasion for additional outrages.
At this time the settlements consisted of eight townships, viz : Lackawanna, Exeter, Kingston, Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth, Nanticoke, Huntington, and Salem ; each containing five miles square. The six townships, according to Almon's Remem- brancer for 1778, "were pretty full of inhabi- tants ; the two upper ones had comparatively few, thinly scattered."
Congress now began to interpose its authority by way of mediatorial resolutions, for the cloud which hung over the entire country at the out- break of the American revolution, required that every arm should be nerved for the common cause of the people. This was to no purpose, and the Pennsylvanians sent into Wyoming, seven hundred men, under Colonel Plunkett. The reception given to this expedition is best described by Stone :
"In ascending the west bank of the Susque- hanna, on coming to a narrow defile, naturally defended by a rocky buttress, their march was suddenly arrested by a volley of musketry. An instant afterward, the invaders discovered that the rocky parapets were covered with men brist- ling in arms-prepared for a Tyrolese defense of tumbling rocks down upon the foe, should their fire-arms prove insufficient to repel him. Takeu thus suddenly and effectively by surprise, Plun- kett retreated with his forces, behind a point of rocks, for consultation. He next attempted to cross the river, and resume his march on the other side. But here, too, the people of Wyom- ing had been too quick for him. The invaders were so hotly received by a detachment in am- buscade on the other side, that they were con- strained to retreat, nor did they attempt to rally again."
This was the last military demonstration on the part of Pennsylvania, to drive from the val- ley the Connecticut settlers.
The revolutionary war attracted the notice of the government to graver matters, and the Wy- oming settlements, now numbering five thousand souls, set about to assist the national cause. The Connecticut people, had formed themselves into a corporation, and owed allegiance to their State alone, hence the territory populated by them was named Westmoreland, and a county named Litch- field, in remembrance of former happy homes.
THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF THE VALLEY.
17
The call for arms to defend the Continental cause, deprived the settlement of the most availa- ble men which could be mustered, and the annals show that from this locality alone, three compa- nies of regular troops were eulisted, besides more than a quota for so small a district, of supplies, and provisions for field, camp, and hospital. Three thousand bushels of grain, as one item, were sent to the army during the first spring of the war, which attests the industry and prolific results of the valley.
Besides the regular troops which had been sent away, there remained a creditable force of militia for garrison and outpost duty, which was essential in those days, when scouting parties of Indians were ever prowling on the outskirts of the settlements. The valley was withal, fortified at the points best calculated for defense, and the necessary material to keep these upon a war and
defensive footing, was readily supplied from the fertile garden of the Susquehanna. Agriculture controlled the commercial interest of the plains, and nothing save the uncertainties of the Ameri- can-British war seemed to loom up to annoy or make afraid. The Tory element occasioned some uneasiness, but if any real alarm was anticipated from this faction, it was from those not of their owu settlement, for the records betray fear to but the "lurking ones," who were seen at intervals in their towns. A more peaceful and quiet popu- lation could not be found in America than the settlement as it then stood in Wyoming, and well and faithfully has Campbell portrayed the serene loveliness which dwelt in the happy skies of "fair Wyoming" before the fire-brand and hatchet had lain low both peasant and cot, through the length and breadth of that classic vale.
2
CHAPTER IV.
THE APPEARANCE OF NEW ENEMIES-THE INVASION BY COLONEL JOHN BUTLER AND THE INDIANS.
"As when a flame the winding valley fills, And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills, Then oe'r the stubble, up the mountain flies, - Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies, This way and that, the spreading torment roars. * . * *
+ * * * The pale inhabitants, some fall. some fly, And the red vapors purple all the sky ."
Illiad, XXI. 605
Of all the events connected with the Indian wars, and American border conflicts, wherein horror superseded horror, until the pages of his- tory became but a human slaughter-pen record, no one fragment of the congealed compilation stands out in bolder relief, than the melancholy story of Wyoming, and the bloody scenes attend- ing it, on the third of July, 1778. From the day when the lovliest of American valleys was transformed into a Golgotha,-a "vale of skulls," and a mammoth butcher yard, -the ground upon which the gory deeds were enacted, has been consecrated by picture, bust, and song. The tourist dwells upon it until all of the detailed re- ality stands out afresh in its cruel aspect; the pencil of the artist gathers inspiration at every touch, and the delineation betrays the kecn sym- pathy with which the master hand has been guided ; the bard is lcd captive by the thrilling emotions which are begotten of the mournful tale, and his numbers die away in enrapturing melo- odies, over the beauty of the former scene, and the dirge of the muse for innocence slain, and hearthstones beclotted; rings echo to his numbers, immortal as plaintive,-real as terrible.
The earliest tokens of the approaching storm, which was to annihilate the contented habitations of Wyoming, were manifested in the winter of 1778, in the month of January. During the year
previous, St. Leger had been beseiging Fort Schuyler, in New York, miles above the sccludel retreat on the Susquehanna, yet, notwithstanding the distance, it must be taken into consideration, that in a war of magnitude, such as the American Revolution was at that time to all of the inhabi- tants, it was deemed necessary to patrol the en- tire wilderness by scouting parties, made up from the Tory and Indian forces, in order to acquaint the British with the exact measures which were being adopted at all points. It was from such parties that Wyoming first felt the sting of war, and although few in numbers and easily dispersed, still the information which they communicated, as to the manufacture and disposition of powder on the part of the settlers, was sufficient to draw towards them, attention. During the beginning of this year, twenty-seven inhabitants were ar- rested on suspicion of being implicated in carry- ing much of the information which was being transmitted to the enemy, eighteen of whom were found guilty and sent to Hartford, in Connecticut, where they were imprisoned to await trial. Nine of the number were discharged for the want of sufficient evidence to detain them, but no sooner were they free from the clutches of the local gov- ernment, than they tied to Connecticut, where they were joined by a number of those recently imprisoned, who had been set at large.
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.