Area History: WYOMING  AND  ITS  MASSACRE - Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857

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                      WYOMING  AND  ITS  MASSACRE

  Among the claims set up by the state of Connecticut was the following --
that by their charter they owned all lands lying between those parallels of
latitude forming the northern and southern boundary of their state, and
extending west to the Pacific ocean.  This claim, it will readily be
perceived, would cover a large portion of the southern part of New York, and
of the northern parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio.  In prosecution of this
claim, a colony from Windham, in Connecticut, obtained a state grant for a
large tract of land, lying along the Susquehanna, in the state of
Pennsylvania, whither they removed.  The valley they occupied was called
Wyoming, said to mean "field of blood" so called on account of a bloody
battle fought in the neighbourhood of the settlement by the Indians, at a
period anterior to the removal of the whites.
  The following account of the battle and massacre is taken from an
interesting history of Wyoming, written by Isaac Chapman, Esq., late of
Wilkesbarre.  Judge Chapman lived upon the spot, and could hardly have
failed to collect accurate materials, and to give a correct narrative of the
events which transpired there during the revolutionary war.  The inhabitants
had collected in Forty fort -- the principal fort in the valley.  The number
of men in the fort was three hundred and sixty-eight.
  On the morning of the 3d of July, 1778, the officers of the garrison at
Forty fort held a council to determine on the propriety of marching from the
fort, and attacking the enemy wherever found.  The debates in this council
of war are said to have been conducted with much warmth and animation.  The
ultimate determination was one on which depended the lives of the garrison
and safety of the settlement.  On one side it was contended that their
enemies were daily increasing in numbers; that they would plunder the
settlement of all kinds of property, and would accumulate the means of
carrying on the war, while they themselves would become weaker; that the
harvest would soon be ripe, and would be gathered or destroyed by their
enemies, and all their means of sustenance during the succeeding winter
would fail; that probably all their messengers were killed, and as there had
been more than sufficient time, and no assistance arrived, they would
probably receive none, and consequently now was the proper time to make the
attack.  On the other side it was argued, that probably some or all the
messengers may have arrived at head quarters, but that the absence of the
commander-in-chief may have produced delay; that one or two weeks more may
bring the desired assistance, and that to attack the enemy, superior as they
were in number, out of the limits of their own fort, would produce almost
certain destruction to the settlement and themselves, and captivity, and
slavery, perhaps torture, to their wives and children.  While these debates
were progressing, five men belonging to Wyoming, but who at that time held
commissions in the continental  army, arrived at the fort; they had received
information that a force from Niagara had marched to destroy the settlements
on the Susquehanna, and being unable to bring with them any reinforcement,
they resigned their appointments, and hastened immediately to the protection
of their families; they had heard nothing of the messengers, neither could
they give any certain information as to the probability of relief.
  The prospect of receiving assistance became now extremely uncertain.  The
advocates for the attack prevailed in the council, and at dawn of day, on
the morning of the 3d of July, the garrison left the fort, and began their
march up the river, under the command of Colonel Zebulon Butler.  Having
proceeded about two miles, the troops halted for the purpose of detaching a
reconnoitring party, to ascertain the situation of the enemy.
  The scout found the enemy in possession of fort Wintermoot, and occupying
huts immediately around it, carousing in supposed security; but on their
return to the advancing column, they met two strolling Indians, by whom they
were fired upon, and upon whom they immediately returned the fire without
effect.  The settlers hastened their march for the attack, but the Indians
had given the alarm, and the advancing troops found the enemy already formed
in order of battle, a small distance from their fort, with their right flank
covered by a swamp, and their left resting upon the bank of a river.  The
settlers immediately displayed their column and formed in corresponding
order; but as the enemy was much superior in numbers, their line was much
more extensive.  Pine woods and bushes covered the battle ground, in
consequence of which, the movements of the troops could not be so quickly
discovered, not so well ascertained.  Colonel Zebulon Butler had command of
the right, and was opposed by Colonel John Butler, at the head of the
British troops, on the left; Colonel Nathan Denison commanded the left,
opposed by Brant at the head of his Indians on the enemy's right.  The
battle commenced at about forty rods distant, and continued about fifteen
minutes, through the woods and brush, without much execution.  At this time
Brant with his Indians having penetrated the swamp, turned the left flank of
the settlers' line, and with a terrible warwhoop and savage yell, made a
desperate charge upon the troops composing that wing, which fell very fast,
and were immediately cut to pieces with the tomahawk.  Colonel Denison
having ascertained that the savages were gaining the rear of the left, gave
orders for that wing to fall back.  At the same time Colonel John Butler,
finding that the line of the settlers did not extend as far toward the river
as his own, doubled that end of his line which was protected by a thick
growth of brushwood, and having brought a party of his British regulars to
act in column upon that wing, threw Colonel Zebulon Butler's troops into
some confusion. The orders of Colonel Denison for his troops to fall back,
having been understood by many men to mean a retreat, the troops began to
retire in much disorder.  The savages considered this a flight, and
commencing a most hideous yell, rushed forward with their rifles and
tomahawks, and cut the retiring line to pieces.  In this situation it was
found impossible to rally and form the troops, and the rout became general
throughout the line.  The settlers fled in every direction, and were
instantly followed by the savages, who killed or took prisoners whoever came
within their reach.  Some succeeded in reaching the river, and escaped by
swimming across, others fled to the mountains, and the savages, too much
occupied with plunder, gave up the pursuit.  When the first intelligence was
received in the village of Wilkes-barre that the battle was lost, the women
fled with their children to the mountains, on their way to the settlements
on the Delaware, where  many of them at length arrived, after suffering
extreme  hardships.  Many of the men who escaped the battle, together with
their women and children who were unable to travel on foot, took refuge in
Wyoming fort, and on the following day (July the 4th) Butler and Brant, at
the head of their combined forces, appeared before the fort, and demanded
its surrender.  The garrison being without any efficient means of defence,
surrendered the fort on articles of capitulation, by which the settlers, upon
giving up the fortifications, prisoners, and military stores, were to remain
in the country unmolested, provided they did not again take up arms.
  In this battle about three hundred of the settlers were killed or missing,
and from a great part of whom no intelligence was ever afterward received.
  The conditions of the capitulation were entirely disregarded by the
British and savage forces, and after the fort was delivered up, all kinds of
barbarities were committed by them.  The village of Wilkesbarre, consisting
of twenty-three houses, was burnt; men and their wives were separated from
each other, and carried into captivity; their property was plundered, and
the settlement laid waste.  The remainder of the inhabitants were driven
from the valley, and compelled to proceed on foot sixty miles through the
great swamp, almost without food or clothing.  A number perished in the
journey, principally women and children; some died of their wounds; others
wandered from the path in search of food, and were lost, and those who
survived called the wilderness through which they passed "THE SHADES OF
DEATH", an appellation which it has since retained.
  Catrine Montour, who might well be termed a fury, acted a conspicuous part
in this tragedy.  She followed in the train of the victorious army;
ransacking the heaps of the slain, and with her arms covered with gore,
barbarously murdering the wounded, who in vain supplicated for their lives.
She lived and died in New York state.
  Halleck, in allusion to the massacre of Wyoming, has the following
interesting lines :
          "There is a woman, widow'd, gray and old,
           Who tells you where the foot of battle stept
           Upon their day of massacre.   She told
           Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept,
           Whereon her father and five brothers slept
           Shroudless, the bright dream'd slumbers of the brave,
           When all the land a funeral mourning kept,
           And there, wild laurels planted on the grave
           By nature's hand, in air their pale red blossoms wave."

  We find, in a Connecticut paper of 1831, an account of the recent decease
of Mrs. Esther Skinner of Torringford, in the one hundredth year of her age.
Mrs. S. lost a husband, a brother, and two sons, in the war of the American
revolution.  She, with her family, was a resident of Wyoming, at the
massacre of its inhabitants by the British, and the Indians and the tories.
Her two sons fell beneath the tomahawk, but the mother, almost by miracle,
escaped with six of her children.  Her son-in-law was the only man that
escaped out of twenty, who threw themselves in the river, and attempted to
hide themselves beneath the foliage that overhung the banks.  All the others
were successively massacred as they hung by the branches in the river.  He
alone was undiscovered.  The mother travelled back to Torringford, where she
has led a useful life ever since -- often cheerful, though the cloud of
pensiveness, brought on by her sorrows, was never entirely dissipated.  But
one of her children survives her.
  It would seem that Campbell, the poet, did not deem himself justified by
the facts in the case, to picture so severely as he did, the doings of the
chieftain Brant in the tragic massacre.  In January, 1822, he addressed a
letter to John Brant, Esq., of the Grand river, son of the Indian chief,
wherein he makes his apologies for sundry severities upon the memory of the
father; upon the ground, that he had been misinformed in following the usual
printed stories of the fight; and conceding to the son, that he, the son,
had convinced him of sundry misrepresentations.  The truth is, that Brant
the chief, was extremely desirous of retaining the character of a humane
man, and inculcated the avowal in his family, that he never did any thing
savage and cruel personally; and also restrained and checked his adherents,
when he could.  The son declares that his father was not present at the
scene of the massacre at all; but was in the rear at some distance.
  When Brant was in England after the peace of 1783, the most distinguished
individuals of all parties and professions treated him with the utmost
kindness and attention.  In Canada the memorials of his moral character
represent him as naturally ingenuous and generous; and from the premises,
Campbell concludes with the assurance, that "he deems them sufficient to
induce him to believe that he often strove to mitigate the cruelty of Indian
warfare, and that therefore, his opinion about him is changed".
  Brant was a full-blooded Mohawk, born on the Mohawk river, and educated at
an Indian school in New England.
  John Butler, also, often endeavoured to exculpate himself individually
from the imputation of barbarity, and it was admitted by those who knew him
before the war, in Sir John Johnson's neighbourhood, that he bore the
character of a gentle man, and that his son, an officer under him, who was
killed at the crossing of Wood creek, was far more cruel than his father.
  The Delaware chief, Tedyuscung, was settled at Wyoming in 1758, at the
public expense, intending thereby to place him and his people as a frontier
defence.  They sent on a force of fifty men, as carpenters, masons and
labourers, who erected ten or twelve houses, of fourteen by twenty feet, and
one for himself, of sixteen by twenty-four feet.  He was an artful, wily
chief, of more than common selfishness and intrigue for an Indian, and
withal was intemperate and aspiring.
  As early as 1742, Count Zinzendorf visited the Shawnee, then settled at
Wyoming, with a missionary's wife as his interpreter.  He remained among
them twenty days, and while there sitting by a fire, and writing in his
temporary hut, his leg was crossed by a rattlesnake, seeking to warm itself
by the fire.
  Wyoming, the name given by the Delaware Indians, expressed the `Large
plains', and is a corruption of the original name of Maughwau-wame.  The Six
Nations called it Sgahontowano, the large flats, `wano' meaning a large
ground without trees.  It came to be called Wanwaumia, Wiomic, and then
Wyoming.  The Susquehanna, on which it rests, was so called to express muddy
or riley river, the word `hanna' meaning a stream of water.
  The last survivor of those who were in the action of the Wyoming massacre,
was Major Roswell Franklin, who after having become the first settler of
Aurora, New York, in 1787, died there in 1843.  He had fought at that battle
along side of his father, and had seen his mother and sister butchered near
him, and then himself and his other sister were taken off prisoners, himself
for a service of three years, and his sister for eleven years.

End