USA > Pennsylvania > The making of Pennsylvania; an analysis of the elements of the population and the formative influences that created one of the greatest of the American states > Part 18
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The Susquehanna Company, when it found that Penn- sylvania resisted its encroachments in the Wyoming Valley, acted on the same principle, and petitioned the
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Connecticut legislature for leave to apply to the Crown for a fresh grant of Wyoming, which would erect it into a separate colony, and wipe out the title of Pennsylvania.
The case of North Carolina is another instance. Charles I. had given it in 1629 to his attorney-general, Sir Robert Heath. Thirty-four years afterwards, in 1663, his son, Charles II., gave it to the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, and others. Claimants under the old Heath grant started up; the matter was brought, not before the courts, but before the king in council, who simply declared the Heath grant void, reaffirmed his last grant, and the question was settled.
The right of the king in granting land was just the reverse of the right of a private individual. In the case of a private individual, it is the first grant which is valid and all the subsequent grants are void. The first grant exhausts the whole title of the giver. But with the king it was the last grant which was valid, and all the pre- ceding grants void. The title of the king, as sovereign of the land, was never exhausted.
This accounts for the great confusion and overlapping of nearly all the colonial grants and charters. The last grant was always the valid one, and in the race for new territory by individuals and colonies this last grant was eagerly sought. The grants were used to correct the situation and give the best advantage up to date. Every future difficulty or want was to be remedied by a new grant. If we consider the history of the American colonies as a whole up to the time of the Revolution, we shall find that the grants to individuals and communities were rearranged and reapportioned over and over again to meet new emergencies. If we are guided by the
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principle that all of these grants were invalid except the first, the situation will be ridiculous, and there will be scarcely a single valid title to land east of the Alle- ghanies.
The system of having the last grant valid was the lesser evil, but it was bad enough. It gave the colonists endless trouble and formed the basis of one of their complaints in the Declaration of Independence. They wanted something more orderly and regular. But bad as this system was, it was perfectly legal, and troubled the colonists all the more because it was legal. It was the abuse of a legal power.
That it was the rule acted upon in preparing the charter for Pennsylvania is very evident. It has some- times been supposed that the overlapping on Connecticut was an accidental mistake, the result of defective maps and ignorance of geography. But this supposition is quickly disposed of by a glance at the maps that Penn and the officers of the Crown must have used.
The great authorities for American geography were the two maps of Captain John Smith, one of New Eng- land and the other of Virginia. Vessels were sailed by them, and all other maps of America were either copies or compilations of them. Considering that Smith made them by his own unaided observations with inferior instruments and without a trained corps of assistants, they are remarkably accurate. The degrees of latitude are in some instances very close to their present locations, and the worst cases of error are only a few miles out of the way. Any one looking at these two maps with the charters of Pennsylvania and Connec- ticut before him would see at once that the two colonies
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overlapped; so the Crown and the Crown officers must have known that Pennsylvania would cut off the westward course of Connecticut.
But there was another authority in existence which shows this still more clearly. Ogilby's " America" was published in 1671. It was a complete description of the whole continent, and was so well and carefully written that it can still be read with the greatest interest and its accuracy recognized. It is full of maps and fine old engravings. One of the maps includes the territory now covered by New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and is evidently made up from Smith's two maps of New England and Virginia, with new places added. Any one who will take the trouble to get down this old volume and look at this map will see at once that no one at that time could possibly have been unaware that Pennsylvania would overlap Connecticut. For here is one of the maps which, in all probability, the eyes of Penn and Charles II. and their legal advisers gazed upon, and there is the end of the forty-second degree, the northern boundary of Pennsylvania, as they had fixed it, passing through New England above the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut.
But there is still better evidence than this. Royal charters passed through the hands of several Crown offi- cers, who criticised them before they were signed, and the Pennsylvania charter was very carefully considered, to see whether it conflicted with the Duke of York, the Maryland, and other grants. The attorney-general at that time was Sir William Jones, and he reported, that " The tract of land desired by Mr. Penn seems to be undisposed of by his majesty, except the imaginary lines of New
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England patents, which are bounded westerly by the main ocean, should give them a real though impracti- cal right to all those vast territories."
The attorney-general rightly used the words New England patents in the plural. For looking at the maps of that time, it would seem as if the Pennsylvania grant would cut into Massachusetts as well as into Connecti- cut. As a matter of fact, when measured by the most accurate instruments of modern times, the northern boundary of Pennsylvania fell short by only two or three miles of cutting into Massachusetts.
This statement by the attorney-general, the highest law officer of the Crown, may be fairly taken as showing the general opinion as to these royal grants. He de- scribes the westward lines of the New England colonies as imaginary and impractical. What does he mean by that ? Evidently that those lines were extended west- ward for a purpose proper enough at the time. That purpose was to claim as much land as possible for the king of England as against his rivals, France and Spain. But, clearly, the attorney general thinks that there can be no objection to cutting off those lines for the practi- cal purpose of settling a new colony. Connecticut or Massachusetts may have a "real right" westward, he says, but it is an "impractical" one. The king can again grant away that part of the land.
If he had thought that those westward lines gave an absolute right, and that the king could not grant away for the second time the land covered by them, he would have said so and stopped the grant. But he did not stop it. He merely called the attention of the privy council to the situation, and the grant was freely passed with the
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consent of the king, the lords commissioners of trade, who were a sort of committee of the privy council, and all the Crown officers.
The meetings which the lords commissioners of trade held to consider the question are described in full at the beginning of the first volume of the " Votes of the Penn- sylvania Assembly." No one can read that account without being struck by two things. First, the care that was taken, the numerous adjournments, considerations, and reconsiderations. Secondly, that in all their discus- sions the lords commissioners do not seem to have the slightest doubt as to the legal right of the king to make the grant without regard to whose territory it would overlap. That question is not even raised. The sole question seems to be a mere matter of policy as to the wisdom of making the grant, and for that purpose they consulted with the neighboring owners, the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore. As to the wisdom of over- lapping Connecticut, the attorney-general disposed of that by saying that her claim westward was "imaginary and impractical."
Among the lords commissioners of trade were some of the greatest lawyers of the age. To Lord Chief Justice North was assigned the duty of drawing the boundaries of Pennsylvania and reporting on them. He saw noth- ing improper in them, nor did any one else for the next seventy years. Connecticut herself did not object in that time. Not a word was heard from her until the middle of the next century, when she had taken a fancy to the fertile and romantic Wyoming.
The common-sense view of the situation was the same as the law. Connecticut should have abandoned her
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claim which she supposed was her right. There was no need and no convenience in jumping over New York and New Jersey and exercising jurisdiction on an isolated patch of another colony. If she wanted to settle some of her superabundant population on that spot, they could have lived as happily and prosperously under the laws of Pennsylvania as under the laws of Connecticut. It was wrong that, for the mere glory of acquisition and ownership, and in the teeth of the law, she should force upon a sister colony a civil war of thirty years, and cause loss of life, loss of property, and untold suffering. She knew that her western lines were what Sir William Jones aptly called them, imaginary and impractical, and she should have acquiesced in the lawful grant to Wil- liam Penn of land which she could not conveniently : govern.
But it suited her to take a different view of the situa- tion, and as soon as she saw that the Penns had suc- ceeded in getting the Indians to disclaim the Albany deed and give a new one in its place, she knew that Wyoming must be taken by force, and she prepared to do it.
In February, 1769, the Susquehanna Company sent forty men into the valley, to be followed shortly by two hundred more. They were given land and two hundred pounds, Connecticut currency, to provide themselves with farming tools and weapons, on condition that they would stay in the valley and defend it against Pennsyl- vania.
They built a block-house called, from their numbers, Forty Fort, and the site of it is still preserved. Their leader was Colonel Zebulon Butler, who had served in the French and Indian wars, and at the taking
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of Havana in 1762. He was a brave, skilful, partisan commander, accustomed to the wilderness, and of a manner and address that won the instant devotion of frontiersmen.
When the forty reached the valley, clothed in the stillness of death and its shroud of winter snow, they were surprised to find that the proprietors of Pennsyl- vania had forestalled them. In fact, the Penns had adopted very much the same tactics as Connecticut. They had leased a hundred acres of the valley for seven years to Charles Stuart, Amos Ogden, and John Jen- nings, on condition that they would establish an Indian trading house there and defend against all intruders. This was the beginning of what are known as the Pen- namite Wars.
Of the three men entrusted by the Penns with the defence of Wyoming, Amos Ogden was chief and captain. He was an Indian trader from New Jersey, and proved himself a most accomplished warrior of the woods. Miner, one of the historians of Wyoming, assures us that he was also a valiant trencherman, who, after each one of his various triumphs, retired to Philadelphia, where he enjoyed the banquets and festivities awarded him by the followers of the Penns. Charles Stuart was a surveyor, and John Jennings was the sheriff of North- ampton County, within which district Wyoming lay, if it was a part of Pennsylvania.
All the military proceedings were conducted in the name of the sheriff. All the attempts to drive the Con- necticut people out of Wyoming were put forth as the action of a sheriff's posse to keep the peace, and eject intruders and trespassers from private land. As time
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passed on and new sheriffs succeeded to the office held by Jennings, the Pennamite Wars were put under the charge of each successive sheriff.
It must be borne in mind, in order to understand the Wyoming situation, that this charming valley was not the property of Pennsylvania, or of the people of Pennsyl- vania, or of the civil authority of the province as repre- sented in the general assembly, but of the sons of William Penn, who owned all the land of the province, and of whom the inhabitants were merely the tenants paying quit-rents. The dispute was really between Connecticut and the Penn heirs. The people of Pennsylvania had little interest in it, and took no part except as they were hired or persuaded to assist the proprietary family. The governor of the province was the deputy and appointee of the Penns, and directed the movements of the sheriff and his military agent, Captain Ogden.
Ogde' had with him only ten men that could bear arms. He fortified himself as best he could in the block- house and huts which had survived the Indian attack of 1763, and stood about a mile above the present town of Wilkesbarre. When the forty Connecticut people arrived they besieged him and prevented his men from shooting deer for food and cutting wood for their fires. Being outnumbered and surrounded, Ogden suggested a discussion, and the invaders, thinking they could easily convince him of the justice of their claim, sent three of their principal men to the block-house to argue. They were instantly arrested by Sheriff Jennings, and carried to jail at Easton, quietly followed by the remaining thirty-seven of the forty. On arriving at Easton, the three who had been arrested were almost immediately
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released on bail, joined the thirty-seven, and the forty all returned to Wyoming.
Jennings immediately summoned the posse of North- ampton County, marched after them, surrounded their quarters in the valley, and this time captured and arrested them all. They were all taken to the jail at Easton, whereupon, as before, they were immediately released on bail, and, with true Yankee persistence, returned to their paradise. Within three months they had been twice taken all the way to Easton on the Delaware, a distance of sixty miles. Going and returning they had walked through the snow in those two excursions about two hundred and forty miles. And yet they still thought Wyoming the loveliest spot on earth, and had a quiet intention of remaining there.
As spring opened, additional settlers from Connecticut arrived, and by the middle of May their numbers were increased to two hundred and seventy. They secured themselves in a new block-house, which they called Fort Durkee. In this position they were found by Ogden and Jennings, who, with a fresh posse, entered the valley during the last days of May. The Connecticut position was too strong to be attacked. Jennings marched his forces back again, and reported to the governor that it was impossible to raise a sufficient posse in Northampton County to oust the enemy.
This difficulty of raising a sufficient force and the ease with which bail was obtained seem to show that the Pennsylvania people were not much interested in assisting the proprietors to recover the valley.
Meanwhile, settlers were pouring into Wyoming, and the Susquehanna Company, to gain time, sent Eliphalet
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Dyer and Jedediah Elderkin, goodly Puritan names, . to negotiate with the Penns. They were received with much courtesy by Benjamin Chew, who promptly re- jected all their suggestions, and Ogden was ordered to prepare a force to protect the valley.
By September he had collected two hundred armed men. They took with them an iron four-pound cannon, which figured conspicuously in the subsequent history of Wyoming, becoming a sort of heirloom, and passing with the valley to its different possessors. Jennings took command of the main body. Ogden preceded him with fifty men, arrived suddenly in the valley, and by a skilful movement captured Captain Durkee, at that time in charge of the Connecticut force. He was sent in irons to Philadelphia, and as soon as Jennings arrived the enemy surrendered. Three or four of the leaders were detained as prisoners ; seventeen of the people were allowed to remain to harvest the crops, and the rest were started on their way back to Connecticut.
As soon as they had gone all property was destroyed and the cattle driven off to the Delaware. The seventeen who had been allowed to remain, having nothing to eat, were obliged to follow their companions. Not a life was lost, not a drop of blood was shed. Ogden and Jennings were victorious, and the valley belonged to the Penns.
Ogden, leaving behind him a garrison of ten men, returned to Philadelphia, and all difficulties were sup- posed to be ended. But he had scarcely entered upon that course of festivity of which Miner accuses him, when he was told that his garrison had been surprised and expelled. This time the trouble was caused by Pennsylvanians. About forty settlers from Lancaster
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County, under the lead of Captain Lazarus Stewart, having associated with themselves ten Connecticut people, had been given a township by the Susquehanna Company, and inspired by this they had marched to the valley and compelled Ogden's garrison to surrender. Fort Durkee was theirs and also the little four-pounder. Captain Durkee himself, though sent to Philadelphia in irons, was at large and back among his people.
Ogden again undertook to restore Wyoming. He could usually outwit the enemy, but he never equalled them in numbers, and he lacked their persistence and steadiness. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the influences behind him, being merely the efforts of a private family, lacked the strength of purpose which marked the movements of Connecticut. On this occa- sion he led his men to the old fort he had formerly occupied a mile above the present site of Wilkesbarre, and kept very quiet, affecting timidity and caution.
He was soon rewarded, for after Stewart and his party had restored Wyoming to the Susquehanna Company, the Connecticut settlers again poured into their beloved land. A party of them marched straight up to Ogden's fort, believing it to be their own, were received with the most profuse affection, and then arrested.
Meanwhile, Durkee and the others had decided to attack Ogden while he seemed to be weak and waiting for reinforcements. They marched out with the Con- necticut flag flying, stepping to the time of fife and drum, and evidently intended to enjoy themselves with a glorious victory. They were performing a movement to which Ogden appeared to have no great objection, for no sooner were they drawn up in martial array before his
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fort than he rushed out with all his men and seized them. A short struggle followed, in which the Connec- ticut people lost one man killed and several wounded.
The enemy now decided to surround Ogden's fort, keeping at a respectful distance, and starve him out. They had no desire for any more close encounters. They had the little four-pounder, which they mounted so that the river was between it and Ogden. Day after day it woke the echoes of the forest with its tiny roar. But Ogden seemed to be unaware that they were firing at him, and the little piece of ordnance was removed to the other side of the river, so as to be nearer, and Durkee's forces gradually approached the fort by throwing up breastworks. They got so near that they set fire to Ogden's store-house and burnt all his supplies.
Matters were, indeed, becoming serious for him. He sent a runner to Philadelphia to urge on the governor the importance of sending reinforcements. The governor at that time was one of the Penn family, and it has been suggested that his failure to send troops was caused by the first movements of the Revolution, which had then begun, and his desire to avoid taking any decided and prominent action in favor of his family. But it is more probable that the old cause was at work. He found it difficult to persuade or hire men for an expedi- tion which they knew was to enforce nothing but a private land claim. He, however, wrote to General Gage, who commanded the British forces then in the country, asking him to put down the lawless invasion from Connecticut.
Gage's reply shows how a disinterested person re- garded the situation. He declined to interfere, saying,
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" The affair in question seems to be a dispute concerning property, in which I cannot but think it would be highly improper for the king's troops to interfere." He prob- ably meant that it was a dispute between the Penn family and the Susquehanna Company about the private owner- ship of land,-a matter to be settled by the king in council, and not a fit subject for the action of an army.
Ogden had to surrender. He retired from the valley, and as soon as he was gone the Connecticut commander destroyed all property left behind and levelled the fort to the ground. Wyoming was at peace for five months. New settlers came in; Zebulon Butler returned; the surveyors were busy assigning lots and farms; and we are assured that the people that spring enjoyed with a quickened zest the shad which swarmed up the Susquehanna.
But at least one more effort must be made, and again Captain Ogden was sent. With his usual skill he took a path on which he would be least expected, and on the night of the 21st of September, 1770, encamped within the valley, kindling no fire and giving no alarm. The next morning, the settlers being scattered on their farms and meadows, Ogden divided his one hundred and forty men into parties of ten, and directed them to go to each farm- house and capture all the men. Within a few hours he had in his possession a large part of the population, which he sent to the jail at Easton. The rest fled to Fort Durkee, and Ogden himself returned to his camp of the preceding evening.
The people in Fort Durkee, not knowing either the numbers or the position of Ogden, decided to send four men to a small Connecticut settlement on the Delaware,
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called Coshutank, for assistance. They directed them to go by the road least likely to be watched. But this, of course, was the very road on which Ogden was bivouacked. The four men walked straight into his camp, and before they could recover from their surprise they had confessed the demoralized condition of their people in Fort Durkee.
Ogden instantly summoned his men, started for the fort, and so sudden was his onset that the first intimation the garrison had of his coming was when the leader of the advance leaped in among them. The struggle was fierce but short. Several of the Connecticut men were killed and several wounded. The rest were taken prisoners and sent to jail. As usual, all property was destroyed, and for the fourth time the Connecticut settlement was wiped off the map of Pennsylvania.
Ogden and Governor Penn drew long breaths and felt ' persuaded that there was no race of men on the continent who would again return into a snowy wilderness after such defeats. But they made the mistake of leaving a garrison of only twenty men. Within three months, in the middle of December, the garrison was awakened one morning to find Captain Lazarus Stewart at the door with his followers. The usual eviction followed.
A warrant was now out for that troublesome Pennsyl- vanian, the abettor of Connecticut trespassers, Captain Stewart, and a large bounty was offered for his capture. Need we add that the dismal round began again, and that Ogden again left the pleasures of the city for the i warfare of the woods?
Within a month after the expulsion of his garrison he was in the valley with a hundred men. He went
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to work openly and built a fort within less than four hundred yards of Fort Durkee, calling it Wyoming. After several times demanding the surrender of the Connecticut people, he attacked them on the 20th of January, 1771, but was repulsed with the loss of his brother killed and three men wounded. Stewart, how- ever, was unwilling to risk another attack, and during the night escaped with most of his followers to the mountains. The few that remained were captured next morning and sent to jail as usual. This made the fifth destruction of the Connecticut settlement.
Ogden had now apparently decided to remain in Wyoming, and he spent the next two months in strength- ening his position. But in April the Connecticut people came upon him, one hundred and fifty strong, and began a regular siege, throwing up approaches and redoubts. Heretofore their leaders had been men of rather inferior military skill, but now they were again under the com- mand of Zebulon Butler, a soldier of experience, and in every way a match for Ogden.
So closely did Butler draw his lines, that not a single runner could escape to Philadelphia to call for aid. Ogden decided to attempt it himself. Taking off his clothes, and tying them in a bundle, with his hat on top, he 'stepped into the river at midnight, and, towing the bundle by a string, swam on his back, with only his face exposed. The current, and his own efforts, carried him rapidly down stream. If he had been dealing with less skilful riflemen he might have been in danger of receiving a random shot in the head. But he was perfectly safe. Every ball from the Connecticut sentinels passed into his hat or clothes. When beyond danger
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