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 21
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He gave prominence to the story that at the time of the massacre the three hundred defenders of the valley were drunk.
A flood which swept down the Susquehanna and obliterated landmarks greatly assisted his designs. He resurveyed the country on Pennsylvania lines and boasted that he had restored to what he called his " constituents" the "chief part of all the lands." Again Wyoming was wiped off the map, and for the seventh time.
The indignation of the better element in Pennsylvania was aroused. The troops were recalled and a sheriff sent to restore order. Messengers were sent after the dispersed settlers. They needed only a slight excuse, and many of them began to return. Under the pretence of a flag of truce and permission to revisit their property in Wilkesbarre, Patterson captured several of them, whom he tied up and whipped with iron ramrods. But the others kept returning in still greater numbers, and under the leadership of John Franklin swept up and down both sides of the river, dispossessing every Penn- sylvanian. They drove them with Patterson into a fort, where a sharp fight took place, with loss on both sides.
Some magistrates were sent in obedience to the better feeling in the State to open negotiations and quiet both parties. An attempt was made to persuade both sides to surrender. The Connecticut party were willing, but as Patterson and his men refused, the Yankees were allowed to keep their arms. Meanwhile, Colonel Arm- strong, another Scotch-Irishman, was marching to the assistance of the situation with four hundred militia.
He was supposed to be sent for the purpose of dis-
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arming everybody and compelling peace, but in reality he was in the service of the jobbers. He was that same Armstrong who in the Revolution wrote the "Newburg Letters," which almost brought on a mutiny in Wash- ington's army on the Hudson. He was undoubtedly a man of talents, very skilful with his pen, and afterwards achieved political prominence as a senator, Secretary of War, and Minister to France. He was the son of a much better man, General Armstrong, famous in the Revo- lution and in the Indian fight at Kittanning in the French Wars.
An irregular company, under a mulatto named Logan, also appears to have marched at this time, taking the "rebel route " by way of Easton, that route over which prisoners had passed and repassed so many times. A popular ditty of the day throws some light on the affair, and doubtless represented the feeling of many people.
" The twentieth of September, We marched the rebel route, From Easton to Wyoming, To drive the Yankees out. The wary dogs and savage beasts Would rather steal than show their face.ยป
" We halted all at Romig's, Our forces to review ; Our chief commander Logan Encouraged thus his crew,- ' Brave lads,' he cried, . who steals the most, He shall obtain the highest post.' "
Armstrong pledged to the settlers his faith as a soldier, and his honor as a gentleman, that if they would sur- render, the Patterson party should also be disarmed, but
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as soon as their weapons were stacked he had them all seized as prisoners. Not a gun was taken from Patterson. The jobbers were again in power, with their feet on the settler's neck. The prisoners were coupled, two and two, in irons, and marched, some to Sunbury and the rest to Easton.
This disgraceful business was denounced by a large part of the people of the State, as well as by the Council of Censors, a body existing at that time for the purpose of keeping inviolate the Constitution. John Dickinson, President of the State, opposed it with all his power, but he was unsupported by the Supreme Executive Council, of which he was the head, and by the majority of the legislature. Armstrong and Patterson still went on with their work, and were upheld and encouraged in it by the government.
But they could raise no militia. Armstrong himself confessed that he was everywhere met with the objection " that it was a quarrel of a set of land-jobbers." With less than a hundred men he attempted to attack the fast- rallying Yankees. His prisoners had nearly all escaped. Some were released on bail, and the rest had knocked down their keepers and fled. Desultory fighting, siege and counter-siege, and the sharp-shooting of hunters followed for several months. Seven or eight lives were lost, wounds given, and prisoners taken. Each party seemed to hold its own. But in the end Patterson and Armstrong were recalled.
A new difficulty was rapidly appearing. As there seemed to be no hope of justice from Pennsylvania, New England and a large part of New York began to take sides with Wyoming. The idea, so often suggested, of
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making the valley a new State of the Union, began to take definite shape. John Franklin urged it with vehe- mence upon Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the Susque- hanna Company. Some of the ablest men in Pennsylvania believed that he would succeed. They feared that, unless the insane course of Pennsylvania was checked, there would either be a new State, or a civil war, involving the New England with the Middle States, which would wreck the Confederation, and destroy every hope of a permanent union.
Fortunately, Pennsylvania saw her folly, and began to retract. She passed acts to restore the settlers to pos- session, to pardon all past offences, and she repealed the acts remodelling the government of Wyoming. Other acts were passed organizing the country, and giving the settlers representation in council and assembly.
It was none too soon, for all the time the Susquehanna Company was working at its project of a new State. Some of the most prominent men in New England had been engaged as commissioners with power to determine when an independent government should be established. The services of Ethan Allen were obtained. He was fresh from his creation of the new State of Vermont and his triumph over New York, and he was stimulated by a gift from the Susquehanna Company of a few thousand acres of land. He appeared at Wyoming in his regi- mentals, followed by " Green Mountain boys," and " half- share men," as the new subscribers to the Susquehanna Company were called.
Luckily the old settlers did not altogether sympathize with this project. They were perfectly willing to live under the Pennsylvania constitution, provided their land
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was secure. Still the pressure to join the new State movement was strong, and it might have succeeded had it not been for the exertions of Timothy Pickering, sec- onded by that brave and judicious soul, Zebulon Butler.
Pickering appeared representing Pennsylvania and the sober, second thought of her decent people. He had at one time been quartermaster-general of the Continental army. He was a native of Massachusetts, and had been selected for that reason, as likely to have influence with men of New England origin. In after years he became very prominent in national politics as an extreme Feder- alist, was Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and a member of the Senate.
He was an altogether different man from Patterson. With patience and discretion, and no ulterior purpose, he labored for the just settlement of the unfortunate prob- lem. He bought land on the Connecticut title, identified himself with the people, went up and down among them for a month, and by the most strenuous exertions turned the tide, but only on the express condition that the possession of their land should be confirmed.
And now began the legal war. The legislature passed an act which became familiar to a whole genera- tion as "The Confirming Act of 1787." On its face it appeared somewhat fair and likely to succeed. Every Connecticut claimant, who was an actual settler and owner of land before the Trenton Decree, had his title confirmed. The Pennsylvania claimants were disposed of by giving each of them other lands of equal value in the unseated territory of the State.
The chief defect in this act was that it was largely unconstitutional. It provided for taking away the prop-
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erty of the Pennsylvania claimants and indemnifying them with other land. But when private property is taken by the government the indemnification must be in money. Again, the act provided that the amount of other land to be given as indemnification should be determined by the board of property. That was unconstitutional, because the amount of indemnification in such cases can be deter- mined in only one of three ways,-by agreement of the parties, by agreement of persons specially appointed by them for the purpose, or by the verdict of a jury.
In one respect, however, the act was perfectly valid. A large part of the land in dispute was now owned by the State. This had happened in two ways. The part of the land which the Penns had not sold had, of course, after the Revolution, become the property of the State. Some of the land sold by the Penns had not been paid for, and this also had come into the possession of the State.
As to the surrender of this State land to the Connecti- cut claimants, the act was, of course, perfectly constitu- tional. No Pennsylvania citizen was being deprived of his property. The State had a right to do what she pleased with her own, and the act was a contract which could not afterwards be rescinded without violating that clause of the Constitution of the United States which says that no State shall pass an act impairing the obli- gation of a contract. As regards this State land, the opinion of the best lawyers has always been that the confirming act of 1787 gave it out and out to the claim- ants beyond any power of revocation.
That the land-jobbing section of the legislature knew that they were passing an act largely unconstitutional, and did so purposely, is not at all unlikely. Other diffi-
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culties which interfered with its execution crept out from time to time, disclosing the secret purpose of its framers.
The act required the Connecticut people to present their claims within eight months, and required the con- missioners who were to examine those claims to meet within two months. Of course, these provisions were not complied with, and could not in the nature of things be accurately complied with. In the confusion of the last ten years, title papers had been scattered or lost, and the means of communication were slow. The commissioners who were appointed kept resigning, and the two months soon passed. The land-jobbers took advantage of this, and said the act had not been complied with. It was a failure, as a large part of the legislature intended that it should be, and they now had a good excuse for re- pealing it.
But, nevertheless, the actual effect of this insincere legislation was valuable. It had on its face so much appearance of justice that it stopped the new State move- ment at the time of its most rapid growth. Just before its passage, Oliver Wolcott, one of the New England commissioners, had drawn up a constitution for the new State. William Judd, of Connecticut, was to be gover- nor, and John Franklin lieutenant-governor. Prepara- tions had been made, so soon as the decisive moment should arrive, to pour an enormous New England popu- lation into the valley, and every new settler was to be given two hundred acres of land.
The passage of the act brought on a crisis. The Wyoming settlers met in a mass meeting. Should they accept or reject the act ? Franklin still clung to the new State movement and was pitted against Pickering. The
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speeches were earnest, but the intense feeling was re- strained, until one of the majority aimed a blow at Franklin while he was speaking. Instantly the wild passions of the frontiersmen broke forth. Each party rushed to the nearest wood, cut. sticks, and turned on each other with savage blows.
The contest deserves mention for other reasons than the mere fact of its occurrence. It is another instance of the honorable way in which the rough type of colo- nial Americans fought among themselves. They all possessed firearms, were trained to their daily use, and had no hesitation in using them on enemies in lawful warfare. But in their private quarrels they invariably laid aside both the rifle and the knife, and took the Saxon method of fists and sticks. They had no love for murder, and they had none of that modern instinct of shooting and killing for every petty difficulty which for the last sixty years has disgraced our American civil- ization.
On this particular occasion, when their fight was over, they settled down to business and passed a vote. They were warned that Pennsylvania had always dealt treach-' erously and would repeal the act. The prophecy was true. But, nevertheless, these sturdy men voted for. acceptance. Of all their remarkable qualities, their courage, their persistence, their fairness, and their intelli- gence, nothing is more remarkable than their patient, abiding faith that justice would be done them in the end, and that that justice would come from Pennsylvania.
Most of the settlers having voted against the new State movement, John Franklin was arrested on the charge of high treason, and his project troubled the
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people no more. A step had been gained, and an im- portant one. In spite of the repeal of the act, the better element of the State argued that it had had effects which could not be done away.
Perhaps this feeling was nowhere so well expressed as in the dissenting votes of William Rawle and William Lewis, members of the legislature from Philadelphia. They were then comparatively young men. Rawle was thirty-one and Lewis forty. But they were both rapidly rising to that position in which, with Sergeant, Ingersoll, Binney, and others, they made the name of the Philadel- phia bar a synonyme for ability and integrity throughout the whole Union. Their dissenting votes are strong with the flavor of the old school; that unmistakable touch of the gentleman and the scholar which so long distinguished the Philadelphia lawyers.
Lewis's statement is longer than Rawle's, and forms almost a complete history of the subject. He rather delicately insinuates the suspicion that the former legis- lature passed the confirming law merely to stop the new State movement, and with the full intention, when that object was accomplished, of repealing the law and pro- ceeding with the land-jobbing projects. Both he and Rawle argue that the confirming law while in force con- veyed to the Connecticut settlers vested rights which could not be revoked. But beyond all matters of mere technicality the confirming law was an act" of justice, a solemn pledge of the public faith and honor, to be regarded in the light of a covenant, and a treaty which could never be broken without disgrace.
Nevertheless, on the Ist of April, 1790, the repeal was passed by the overwhelming vote of forty-two to four-
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teen. The preamble declared the confirming law to have been unjust and oppressive, because it deprived Pennsylvania citizens of their land without their consent, which deprivation was unconstitutional, and that it had been passed hastily and without proper information. The repealers then proceeded to reverse all judgments which had been obtained by default against Connecticut claimants, and provided that new suits might be begun. This seemed to recognize to a certain extent the justness of the Connecticut position. It cleared the ground and left everything to be begun again anew.
The effect of the repeal was to turn the whole matter over to the civil courts to be settled by ordinary law- suits. But the Connecticut settlers continued to occupy the land and were undisturbed. Within the next eight years, although many suits of ejectment were begun, only one was tried : so true was the argument of Rawle and Lewis that the confirming act had done its work in spite of the repeal.
The case which was tried was the famous one of Van Horn vs. Dorrance, brought in the United States Circuit Court. On one side or the other were nearly all the leaders of the Philadelphia bar. Jared Ingersoll, Ser- geant, and Tilghman were for the plaintiff, who was a Pennsylvania claimant. Rawle, Lewis, and Thomas were for the Connecticut defendant. Charters, Indian deeds, and everything relating to the subject were put in evidence, and witnesses described every step in the sad history of Wyoming. of historians were added.
When these failed the works Such a case, involving his- tory, romance, adventure, and constitutional law, had seldom, if ever, been tried.
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The Connecticut defendant attempted to protect his title first by the Connecticut charter, and second by the confirming act. As to the Connecticut charter, the judge decided that it did not cover Wyoming. Unfor- tunately, he followed the example of the court at Trenton and refrained from giving his reasons. He was justified in silently following the higher authority of the Trenton commissioners, but it would have been more interesting if he had given us an argument. As to the confirming act, he held it to be unconstitutional and void, and on this point he gave his reasons in a very clear and con- vincing manner. The title of the Connecticut defendant failing on both points, a verdict was rendered against him, and apparently he had lost his land.
But the learned judge might have spared his breath. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it slept the sleep of the dead, and was never heard from again. The decision had no more effect than if it had never been rendered. The justice of Wyoming's cause had been so wrought into the sense of the community that her rights were beyond the reach of legislatures, courts, and land-jobbers. The settlers con- tinued on that land, which was theirs by devotion, cour- age, blood, and right, and in 1799 that astute and re- markable body, which called itself the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, passed what became known as the "Compromise Act."
This act was rendered necessary by the position of the Pennsylvania claimants. They were entirely out in the cold. They were not getting the land they wanted by suits at law, and all legislation giving them compen- sation had been repealed. By the new compromise act
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all claimants, both of Pennsylvania and of Connecticut, were required to give up their titles to the common- wealth ; that being done, the Pennsylvanians were to be paid for theirs in money, and the Connecticut claimants, who were actual settlers and owners before the decree at Trenton, were to have their land given back to them by the State, but they were required to make a small pay- ment, ranging from two dollars an acre for the best land down to eight and a third cents for the worst.
The Connecticut settlers, with the events of the last ten years fresh in their minds, were at first a little slow about giving up their titles to the State ; but finally, with that confidence they always showed, they came forward in large numbers and released. The Pennsylvania specu- lators would not release at all, and another act had to be passed in 1802, which allowed the commissioners to give title to the releasing Yankees without regard to whether there was a release from the land-jobbers or not. The jobbers were told that they might go before a jury and prove their right to compensation against the State, but that their right to sue the Connecticut claimant was gone. After ten years of dishonor a gleam of justice had at last penetrated the legislative mind.
The impulse once given, that mind moved on. In 1807 an act was passed by which Connecticut claimants were not obliged to have been occupiers before the decree of Trenton, and Pennsylvania claimants could release and be paid in money if they had acquired title any time before the confirming act of 1787. Thus, after a shameful waste of life, property, and money, the legisla- ture was compelled to do what it could have done just as well fifteen years before.
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Seventeen hundred and forty-five certificates were issued to the Connecticut settlers. The land included was about three hundred thousand acres, pretty much the whole of the seventeen townships, and the troubles of Wyoming were ended forever.
What shall be said of such a history ? If ever there was a quarrel unnecessary, wasteful, and foolish, it was this dispute about Wyoming. Yet no part of Penn- sylvania history has attracted more attention. No part of Pennsylvania history has been so thoroughly investi- gated and so carefully written. Besides the elaborate and learned works of Miner and Hoyt, there are histories by Chapman, Peck, Stone, Hollister, and others, together with pamphlets and documents innumerable. Many of these histories have passed through several editions, and some of the most inferior have had large sales. During the first half of the present century there was great in- terest in the subject both here and in England, but since the Civil War, and the more rapid development of recent years, other topics have occupied the public mind, and Wyoming has been forgotten.
This interest of the outside world was purely an interest in romance and heroism, for there was nothing else in the story. For fifty years, so far as material development was concerned, Wyoming was a failure. It was the paradise of the hunter, the adventurer, and the poet, but the despair of the thrifty colonist.
If Wyoming had been peaceful from the beginning, if the strong, keen, enthusiastic New Englanders had been willing to settle it under Pennsylvania laws, and had not fought for what did not belong to them, they could have developed the valley at their ease, and we might have
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something very different to record. We might have had remarkable men appearing from the valley,-statesmen, men of literature, more vigorous, striking, and original than even the Scotch-Irish.
But between the successive annihilations of their settle- ments these unfortunate people were scarcely given time to draw their breath, still less to become great. They were not firmly established until about the year 1810. Soon after that began the influx of foreign emigrants from every nation of Europe, and the original elements of the population were overwhelmed.
The discovery of the enormous coal deposits of the valley, bringing wealth at last to the struggling settler, made the inpouring of the foreigner more mixed and numerous than ever. Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, and Italians now fill and have for years filled the haunts of Gertrude and Waldegrave, and made them the seat of the most mixed and various population in mixed and various Pennsylvania. All chance of a homogeneous development was destroyed, and destroyed for hundreds of years to come. The lonely hills are stripped naked of their forests, the ravines and cascades are dry, the trout, the deer, the elk are gone, and the diligent miner has transformed the earth beyond all recognition of the heroes of old.
One characteristic, however, those heroes succeeded in impressing on the land. That was the New England school system. One of their first acts, amid their pov- erty and misfortunes, was to make provision for public schools. All through their ancient records we find en- tries to maintain this institution, without which the New- Englander is not of New England. When, in the second
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quarter of the present century, the State adopted that system, it was simply extending to the whole common- wealth what had been in force in the valley for nearly a hundred years.
But, after all, there may be something in this record of misfortune which cannot be weighed in the scales of science and exactness. There is a moral grandeur about the men of Wyoming, a fearless directness of purpose, a sublime confidence in justice, which is perhaps more valuable to humanity than any material development. Let us hope so. Let us hope that something besides cruelty, devastation, and wrong resulted from that mis- taken persistence of Connecticut,-a persistence which attempted to grasp a western empire which the lawful decrees of the British Crown had given to another com- monwealth.
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CHAPTER XI.
THE BOUNDARY DISPUTES WITH MARYLAND AND VIR-
GINIA.
THERE were three points of boundary dispute with Maryland: one in relation to the lines between Maryland and the present State of Delaware, which had been given to Penn by the Duke of York, and was a part of Penn- sylvania, sometimes known as The Territories or The Three Lower Counties ; another in relation to the north- ern boundary of Delaware on Pennsylvania, that curious half-circle as now marked on the map; and a third about the line which this circle was supposed to cut, and which would start westward from the circle, and form the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, now long known in history as Mason and Dixon's line.
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