History: Local: PART II - Luzerne County, PA; Lackawanna County, PA; Wyoming County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jean Vineyard: vineyard@ohiou.edu

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URL of html Table of Contents.

Also available in html at the Luzerne County page.

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                         HOLLISTER'S  HISTORY OF

                         THE  LACKAWANNA  VALLEY

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Transcriber's notes:  I have transcribed this book as written and spelled,
with the exception of footnotes and italics which cannot be saved as ASCII
Text.   The author H. Hollister makes reference to and footnotes several
author's and books and to name a few they are:  Smith's "History of New York;
American Antiquities;" Charles Miner's "History of Wyoming;" "Colonial
Records," "Pennsylvania Archives;" "Westmoreland Records" and Chapman's
"History of Wyoming."  Any footnote important to the meaning of the passage
has been inserted within the text.

I have also noted the original page number in the book as "page x" so that
the reader can use their browser to "find" the page  referenced in the "Index
to History of the Lackawanna Valley" already transcribed.



page 9 through 15 

                                  TABLE OF CONTENTS                    ON-LINE 
                                                                      FILE NAME

    INDIAN HISTORY OF WYOMING                              17 -  29  lackv001.txt
    INDIAN VILLAGE OF CAPOOSE                              29 -  39       "
    LACKAWANNA RIVER AND VALLEY                            40 -  43       "
    WAS WYOMING ONCE A VAST LAKE?                          43 -  49       "
    WAR-PATHS                                              49 -  50       "
    INDIAN SPRING UPON THE MOOSIC MOUNTAIN                 50 -  51       "
    INDIAN RELICS AND FORTIFICATIONS                       51 -  59       "
    INDIAN APPLE-TREE                                      59 -  61       "
    BEACON FIRES                                           61 -  63  lackv002.txt
    SILVER MINE ON THE LACKAWANNA                          63 -  64       "
    GOLD MINE                                              64 -  67       "
    SALT SPRINGS                                           67 -  68       "
    LEAD MINE                                              68 -  70       "
    GENERAL HISTORY                                        70 - 105       "
    GENERAL HISTORY (continued)                           105 - 121       "
    ISAAC TRIPP                                           121 - 130  lackv003.txt
    WESTMORELAND                                          130 - 132       "
    WILLENPAUPACK SETTLEMENT                              132 - 134       "
    JAMES LEGGETT                                         134 - 137       "
    FIRST WAGON ROAD FROM PITTSTON TO THE DELAWARE        137 - 139       "
    MILITARY ORGANIZATION                                 139 - 141       "
    RELIGION, MORALITY AND STILL-HOUSES                   141 - 148       "
    MILLS UPON THE LACKAWANNA                             148 - 149       "
    DR. JOSEPH SPRAUGE                                    150 - 151       "
    DR. WILLIAM HOOKER SMITH-OLD FORGE                    151 - 154       "
    THE SIGNAL TREE                                       154 - 154       "
    THE WYOMING MASSACRE                                  155 - 177       "
    GENERAL HISTORY (resumed)                             177 - 186  lackv004.txt
    PROVIDENCE TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE                       186 - 205       "
    DUNMORE                                               206 - 211       "
    HISTORY OF SCRANTON                                   211 - 268  lackv005.txt
    BLAKELEY                                              269 - 273       "
    YANKEE WAY OF PULLING A TOOTH                         274        lackv006.txt
    THOMAS SMITH                                          275             "
    SETTLEMENT OF ABINGTON                                275 - 282       "
    THE GREAT HUNTER, ELIAS SCOTT                         282 - 284       "
    "DRINKER'S BEECH" - (Now Covington)                   284 - 288       "
    SETTLEMENT OF JEFFERSON                               288 - 291       "
    CHASED BY A PANTHER                                   291 - 293       "
    DUNNING                                               293 - 295       "
    CARBONDALE                                            295 - 300       "
    LACKAWANNA VALLEY IN 1804                             300 - 310       "
    FORMATION OF TOWNSHIPS; PRIMITIVE MINISTERS           310 - 314       "
    PROPRIETORS' SCHOOL FUND AND PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS        314 - 316       "
    PATHS AND ROADS                                       317 - 322       "
    THE RISE OF METHODISM IN THE VALLEY                   322 - 326       "
    SMELLING HELL                                         326 - 328       "
    FORMATION OF ANTHRACITE COAL                          328 - 329  lackv007.txt
    ORGANIC REMAINS FOUND IN THE COAL STRATA              329 - 331       "
    MINERALS AND MINING                                   331 - 332       "
    COAL LANDS FIFTY YEARS AGO                            332 - 333       "
    THE DISCOVERY AND INTRODUCTION INTO USE OF
              ANTHRACITE COAL                             333 - 343       "
    WILLIAM AND MAURICE WURTS                             343 - 363       "
    FALLING IN OF THE CARBONDALE MINES                    363 - 367       "
    EARLIEST MAIL ROUTE THROUGH THE VALLEY                367 - 369       "
    THE PENNSYLVANIAL COAL COMPANY                        369 - 372       "
    FROM PITTSTON TO HAWLEY                               372 - 379       "
    DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA, AND WESTERN RAILROAD            379 - 393  lackv008.txt
    LACKAWANNA AND BLOOMSBURG RAILROAD                    393 - 396       "
    SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE LEHIGH AND
                  SUSQUEHANNA RAILROAD                    396 - 403       "
    HON. GEORGE W. SCRANTON                               403 - 410       "
    LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD                                410 - 417       "
    APPENDIX                                              419 - 442       "

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page 61 (cont.)


                      BEACON-FIRES AND INDIAN LEGEND.

     Every gorge or up-shooting point in the range diversifying the valley is
enriched with its tradition and story.  In the Indian wars, the Moosic or Cobb
Mountain,

page 62

affording as it did an admirable view of the entire valley, and a wide scope
of country toward the Wallenpaupack and Delaware, was long used by the forest
men for the location of their beacon fires.  Campbell's Ledge, from its sharp
altitude, so located as to overlook both valleys as far as inhabited by them,
was held in corresponding importance from this fact.
     So well were these evening lights understood by them that the warriors
could be collected to any given point with rare speed and certainty.  Should
any thing on their part demand hasty action, fire after fire would spring up
with wonderful rapidity on every height and plateau, at intervals of a few
miles, upon the mountain-tops; and as they successively gleamed their lurid
light to the sky, they conveyed a meaning to the savage mind well known as if
their native guttural had told it in the valley.  Once lighted, these
beacon-fires, around which the warriors danced and sang in their wild joy, or
prepared meals after the march of the day, could be seen for a great
distance.  No language was more silent or expressive to the inhabitant of the
forest; none awoke greater danger to the pioneer than their appearance.
     No matter how sudden or swift the pursuit, when the fireplace was
reached the red chieftains had vanished, leaving nothing behind them but
expiring brands.  Along many of the higher peaks of the mountain, generally
upon the eastern border of the Lackawanna, can yet be seen faint traces of
these ancient beacons.  Huge, gray stones, partially cracked by the heat of
the fire whose location it marked, have been visited by the writer, upon an
eminence distinguished at Spring Brook, near the residence of our hospitable
and humorous friend, Edward Dolph.  This peak is one of the prominent ones,
where this primitive manner of telegraphing carried dismay or hope to many a
watching woodsman down in the valley.  These places faced the valley, and
this one, unlike the others visited, appears not to have been disturbed in its

page 63

solitude since the brand of the sachem expired a century ago.
     Few portions of country afford a broader scope for legendary research
than that along the Susquehanna and Lackawanna.  Here, immured in the forest,
marked only by paths and streams, and surrounded by every element of
simplicity and beauty, the river clans smoked the peace-pipe or danced the
war-dance, with whoops and halloos, and went forth with paint and sharpened
weapon to gather the scalps of the spoilers of their threshold.


                   SILVER MINE ON THE LACKAWANNA

     Of the value of precious metals the Indians knew little or nothing until
taught it by the whites, and then, learning to their dismay how fatal to their
narrowing hunting-grounds were the aggressions of the expanding settlements,
they practiced every possible caution in concealing all knowledge of mines
and minerals in every portion of the wilderness.  The Indian who, in
thoughtless or drunken mood, betrayed the secret of their location, paid the
penalty of his guilt by sudden death or lingering torture.  Yet about one
hundred years ago the whites learned by treachery, and lost by misfortune,
knowledge of a silver mine located about two miles up the Lackawanna from its
mouth.
     In 1766 the Six Nations complained to the Proprietary Government at
Philadelphia of white persons who had dug into a silver mine, twelve miles
above the Delaware town of Wy- wa-mick, and carried away in canoes three
loads of ore.  An Indian trader named Anderson, who had brought a few goods
up the river, was suspected of being the transgressor.
     John Teal, a German, who died some years ago at an advanced age, threw
some additional light upon the location of this hidden silver mine.  He had
lived long enough with the wild tribes to understand their dialect,

page 64

and enjoy the confidence of an aged chief of the Oneidas, residing in western
New York, who had assisted to efface every outward and visible evidence of the
existence of this mine.  When the chieftain saw that his days were few, he
called his friend Teal to his wigwam, to intrust him with secrets of no
longer consequence to the Indian.  He informed him that there were three salt
springs, one silver, one gold, and one lead mine in the vicinity of Wyoming,
and all used by them while in possession of the country.  The silver mine,
long known to the scattered tribes, was on the northeast side of the
Lackawanna, above a high ledge or mountain, half an hour's walk from the
River Susquehanna, twelve miles above Wyoming.  After the first Wyoming
massacre, in 1763, the dwellers in wigwams, hoping to retain occupancy
forever of the rich plains, coveted by triple parties, used this mine to
their advantage; but when the intruders again made their appearance in such
formidable numbers as to annihilate the long-cherished hope, the mine was so
artfully concealed from the whites that none yet have found the spot yielding
the precious metal.
     Traditions, treasured up by old settlers half a century ago, tell of an
excavation in the bank of the Lackawanna, between Old Forge and the Barnum
farm, similar to that described in the Pennsylvania Archives of 1766.
     That a silver mine was known and worked by the aborigines in this
vicinity, is unquestionably proved by the fact that official complaint was
made by them of the depredations of Anderson, but its precise location
remains at present in great doubt.


                              GOLD MINE

     The chief described the gold mine as being under a ledge of rocks, a few
miles above Wyoming Valley, at a point where a rock of the height of an Indian
covered a spring.

page 65

     (page contains an engraving:  Top of Bald Mount)

     Five miles westward from Scranton, in a direct line, on the western side
of the mountain forming the boundary between the townships of Providence and
Newton, rises a long ledge of rock known as Bald Mount, which, from its
altitude, offers, when the day is clear, so wide a view of field, forest, and
lake, that, in spite of the steep, zigzag way of approaching it, has become
during the summer hours, a popular resort for parties loving the romance of
mountain life.  At its very base lies the village of Milwaukie, watered by a
stream turned to good mill account before it enters the Susquehanna, five
miles below.  Eight or ten villages can be seen from the mount, which, shorn
of its larger trees by the force of the wind sometimes sweeping over it with
great fury, is left comparatively bald, and thus given it a name.  One large
rock, prominent in position, is perforated with numerous holes of the
capacity of from a quart to a gallon, as shown by the preceding illustration
of Bald Mount.  These were probably used by the Indian women for pounding
their 

page 66

corn into samp.  The large number of stone pestles found near it many years
ago favor this theory.
     Under this precipice can be seen one large conglomerate rock, evidently
removed some distance down the mountain by the natives to conceal the real
origin of the spring.  In the removal of this rock the trees, bent at the
time, grew up with a very perceptible inclination toward it.  From beneath
its honest features emerges a spring, surpassed in the purity of its waters
by no other in the world, where many metallurgists and others have supposed
the gold mine was located.  Explorations hitherto made upon every side of
Bald Mount have failed to satisfy expectations naturally awakened by these
traditions.
     In 1778, a young man who had been captured by the savages in Wyoming
Valley, was carried to the top of a mountain where the Wilkes Barre
settlement could be seen in the distance.  Here they built their camp-fire. 
A transaction took place at this time which, from its novel character,
excited the surprise and ever afterward impressed the mind of the young,
unharmed captive.  A venerable chief, to whom the young man owed his safety,
and subsequently his release, removed a large flat stone covering the
spring.  The waters of this were so conveyed by a subterranean conduit,
constructed for the purpose, as to deceive the men strolling through the
wilderness in regard to the real source of the spring.  At its mouth a roll
of bark, forming a spout, was placed in such a manner as to direct the
current into a handkerchief held under it by two of the Indians.  For some
moments the chief, reverently attended by the warriors, arrayed with bow and
arrow, and forming a circle around him, stirred up the spring with a
conscious knowledge of its gainful results.  After an hour had elapsed, every
stone previously disturbed was restored to its former condition; earth and
leaves were left as if never touched, and no one, without ocular knowledge,
would suspect the existence of  page 67

a water-course.  The handkerchief, covered with yellow sediment, was now
lifted from the spout.  The glittering product thus gathered by the chief was
placed in a stone vessel with great care.  After the fire was extinguished,
and certain incantations performed with ceremonial exactness, the Indians
left the spot in charge of the wild rock surrounding it, and resumed their
march toward their land of maize among the lakes.
     Six days' walk led the party to Kingston, New York, where the treasures
of the mountain, thus artfully obtained, were exchanged with the whites, for
such articles as want or caprice suggested to the occupants of the forest.
     In after years the returned hero often related the incident to his
family and friends, some of whom thoroughly traversed every portion of Bald
Mount and Campbell's Ledge without discovering the secret channel or the
golden spring.


                             SALT SPRINGS
     
     The three salt springs were respectively located, one at Martin's Creek,
one in the mountain gap between Providence and Abington, the other on the
Nay-aug, about five miles from the junction of this stream with the
Lackawanna at Capoose.  The last-named one, manipulated by the Indians to
come out of the bed of the brook, was considered by the wild tribes as the
richest, as it yielded the largest quantity of salt with the least labor. 
When a knowledge of this spring first came to the white man, deer came hither
in herds.  Sometimes there were hundreds in a drove around these salt licks;
and it was rare during the spring or summer months not to find the buck or
fawn cropping the wild grass growing luxuriantly around these briny places. 
In the upper part of Leggett's Gap, in the mountain west of Providence, there
was a salt spring strongly impregnated with saline

Page 68

properties.  When the white adventurer first sought the valley for his home,
and found no luxury but steak from the bear or haunch from the deer, and
heard no voice but that issuing from the throat of the rifle, the waters of
this spring were often sought to obtain the scarce and necessary salt.  The
warriors' path from Oquago salt spring to Capoose passed by its waters.  Much
of the salt for the earliest settlers of the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys
was granulated here.
     Mr. Blackman, who was taken captive from Wyoming, relates of the
Indians, that when salt became scarce, they went up the Lackawanna and
returned the next day, loaded with the desired article, which was sometimes
warm.  From a knowledge of this spring, advantage was early taken by the
hunter and trapper, for in such numbers deer frequented this fountain to lap
its waters, that they easily and often fell a trophy to the woodsman's gun.
     A hunter of seventy winters tells the writer that, in his younger days,
deer were so tame in the vicinity of this spring, that he has killed and
dressed during his lifetime one hundred and forty-seven deer at this place
alone!
     That the natives frequented this place for the purpose of killing deer
and curing venison, is satisfactorily proven by the quantity of warlike and
domestic Indian relics found immediately around it at an early day.


                              LEAD MINE

     Tuscarora Creek, a wild, clear, rapid stream, retaining its original
Indian name, and lying between Meshoppen and Wyalusing, puts into the east
side of the Susquehanna, about thirty miles above the Lackawanna.  Half a
mile from its mouth, under a cliff leaning gloomily over a sharp bend of the
stream, where the rocks go down

page 69

into the waters here deeper than at any other point, a lead mine was worked
by the Indians for making bullets, after they had been taught the use of the
rifle by the English and the French.  The Oneida chief informed Mr. Teal,
that not only were the Wyoming Indians supplied with lead from this Tuscarora
mine, but the French, while in harmony with the Iroquois, drew largely upon it.
     The Indian, in his wild dream of future hope, imposed silence so
effectually upon the rock along the Tuscarora, that although several
companies have exhausted large sums of money in attempting to discover the
lost mine, no knowledge of its location is had other than that coming from
Indian tradition.
     Tuscarora Creek has a scrap of history of its own.  The great war-path
from Tioga down to Wyoming, crossed the mouth of this stream.  It was in the
certified township of Braintrim and county of Westmoreland.  In 1779, Gen.
Sullivan, with his army, crossed the Tuscarora at this point.  When his
rear-guard had reached the south bank, where a large mountain, covered with
oak, with little or no underbrush intervening to obstruct the view for a
great distance, comes down to the very stream, a body of savages were seen
stealing down its side for the purpose of securing a few prisoners.  Familiar
with the mode of Indian warfare, the guards leaped behind the trees, affording
them partial shelter.  The Indians, more skilled in the art and advantage of
woodside encounter, as quickly betook themselves to the oak, which concealed
even their presence, when the skirmish began.
     Soldiers fell, wounded or dead, without knowing from what particular
quarter bullets issued.  At length Mr. Eleazer Carey, who saw his
fellow-soldiers fall one after another, simultaneously with the crack of the
rifle near by where he was standing, espied the dusky form of a warrior
cautiously peering out from behind a tree not fifty yards from where he was
standing, with his well-aimed gun in his

page 70

hand, bring down a soldier at each discharge of his weapon.  After the Indian
had reloaded, Carey, who had resolved to kill him if possible when he should
attempt to shoot again, watched with intense solicitude the warrior's rifle
as it was again brought beside the tree.  No sooner had the slight projecting
cheek and eye of the Indian come out so as to be discerned by Carey, when the
avenging bullet was sent forthwith into his brain.  He gave one high leap,
uttered one deep yell, and fell to rise no more  The Indians ran, caught up
his body, and fled into the forest.
     So much for mines and springs, which some day may possibly have more
interest than that given them by rumors and vague recollections of tradition.


                             GENERAL HISTORY

     The earliest history of the Lackawanna Valley is so interwoven with that
of Wyoming, that, to present a faithful picture of one, material must be
largely drawn upon the other.  In fact, while Wyoming in its limited
signification now gives a name to a valley unsurpassed for the beauty of its
scenery or the romance of its history, it was formerly used in a more
enlarged sense to designate all the country purchased by the New England men
of the Indians in 1754, lying in what is now known as Luzerne, Wyoming,
Susquehanna, and Wayne counties.  Thus the inhabitants of Providence, Salem,
and Huntington, all comparatively remote from Wyoming Valley, were designated
as "Wyoming Settlers" and came under the disputed jurisdiction of Connecticut.
     In 1752, the cabin of no white man had broken the Wyoming forest.  After
a casual reconnaissance along its eastern border by the hunter, made with
indefinite knowledge of the character of the plain occupied by Teedyuscung
and Backsinosa, a Monsey chief at Capoose,

page 71

and reported with glowing exaggeration to adventurous men living in Hartford
desiring to develop the western portion of their possessions, "a number of
persons, principally inhabitants of Connecticut, formed themselves into a
company for the purpose of purchasing the Susquehanna lands of the Indians,
and forming a settlement at Wyoming.  This association was called the
"Susquehanna Company, and during the same year, 1753, they sent out
commissioners to explore the contemplated territory, and to establish a
friendly intercourse with such Indian tribes as should be found in possession
of it."  These facts, carried to Philadelphia by Indian scouts and
interpreters, alarmed the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania, which also
claimed this wild tract yet unlocked by any Indian treaty, grant or title to
any party.  Daniel Broadhead and William Parsons, two justices of the peace
in Lower Smithfield Township, Northampton County, on the war-path from
Connecticut to Wyoming, were instructed by Pennsylvania to watch all persons
and parties going hither either to explore or begin a settlement.
     In fact no inland point within the province was watched with greater
solicitude or devotion through many years of strange vicissitude than was
Wyoming.  The deep, broad Susquehanna coming down through the magnificent
highlands and mountains from the wood- rimmed lakes of New York, carrying its
flood sometimes rudely over its banks where the cabin- dwellers roamed in no
doubtful security, gave to a valley naturally beautiful all the needed charms
to captivate the Indian or allure the eye of the white man.  Alive with moose,
bear, and deer, fluttering with the wild turkey or the more gentle quail, the
woods expanded into forest far extending in every direction of the compass,
while water-fowl, and fish of every hue and variety--especially the
shad--animated the river and all its winding tributaries.

page 72

     Its possession was a prize as earnestly sought after by one party as it
was sternly resisted by the other.  Although no actual settlement had been
instituted here by the New England people, yet it did not prevent the
provincial authorities of Pennsylvania from exhibiting extraordinary
vigilance and exertion to prevent even a purchase or survey of a valley so
rich in agricultural prospects.  James Hamilton, "Governor of Pennsylvania
under the Proprietaries, having been informed of the intentions of the
Susquehanna Company, considered it proper that immediate measures should be
taken to defeat those intentions, and to purchase the land for the use of the
Proprietaries of Pennsylvania", as the Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, to
whom it had been referred, had decided "that this tract of Land (Wyoming) had
not yet been purchased of the Six Nations (Indians), but has hitherto been
reserved, and is now used by them for their hunting-grounds."  Sir William
Johnson, his Magesty's Indian agent for the colony, residing at Albany, in a
letter dated March 20, 1754, was informed of the contemplated purchase, and
requested to see "that nothing may be done with the Indians by the
Connecticut agents, or any other in their behalf, to the injury of the
Proprietaries of this Province."
     It should be understood by the general reader, that all lands claimed by
the English in America were sold or granted to one or more persons with an
understanding that the right, or rather the necessity still existed of
repurchasing the same territory of the Indian tribes having ownership, before
it could safely be occupied by the whites.  Thus a portion of the land granted
to William Penn by King Charles II, March 11, 1681, was repurchased by him of
the native tribes in a manner so explicit and satisfactory to them that ever
afterward his

page 73

intercourse with all the aborigines was marked by a constant and unvarying
friendship unknown in modern times.  To thus purchase Wyoming lands,
(Footnote:  When Wyoming is spoken of in relation to lands, Adjouqua or
Lackawanna Valley is of course included within its meaning.) as well as to
conciliate the good-will of the Indians, already excited by the bloody drama
alternately played by the English or the French, "orders were received from
England directing the colonies to hold a general treaty with the Indians at
Albany in 1754, and to form, if possible, such an alliance with them as would
insure their friendship and the safety of his Majesty's possessions in
America."  By runners and messengers, young, swift, and ambitious, the wish
of his Majesty's Government was announced to the various tribes interested
and remote, and all assembled at Fort Stanwix (now Rome), in July, 1754.
     As there was no known printed copy of any charter in America, the real
boundaries of the royal grant was understood by few or none, yet the
authorities of Pennsylvania, believing at this time that Wyoming was within
her territorial limits, anticipated and resisted the efforts of the
Connecticut people, or the Yankees as they were termed, by every art of
diplomacy and every mode of warfare.
     John and Richard Penn, Isaac Norris, and Benjamin Franklin, were
appointed by Pennsylvania as Commissioners to represent the interests of the
Province, and true to their instructions from Governor Hamilton, these
eminent gentlemen held private conferences with the Six Nations, with a view
of securing Wyoming lands, in which they failed.
     July 11, 1754, for a considertion of two thousand pounds, New York
currency, the "chiefs, sachems, and heads of the Five Nations of Indians,
called the Iroquois, and the native proprietors of a large tract of land on,
about, and adjacent to the River Susquehannah, and

page 74

being within the limits and bounds of the charter, and grant of his late
Majesty, King Charles 2nd, to the Colonys of Connecticutt" sold to the
Susquehanna Company Wyoming lands bounded as follows:  "Beginning from the
one and fortieth degree of north latitude, at ten miles east of the river to
the end of the forty-second or beginnng of the forty-third degree of north
latitude, and so to extend west two degrees of longitude one hundred and
twenty miles, and from thence south to the beginning of the forty-second
degree, and from thence east to the aforementioned boundrie, which is ten
miles east of Suskahanna River, together with all and every the mines,
minerals, or ore, &c."  All the territory lying between this line ten miles
east of the Susquehanna and the Delaware River, was purchased by the Delaware
Company, so that the lands of the Lackawanna Valley were embraced respectively
in the purchases of the two companies.  The townships of Pittson, Lackawanna,
Providence, Newton, and a portion of Abington, were thus embraced within the
Susquehanna purchase; while Covington, Springbrook, Madison, Jefferson,
Scott, and Blakeley, with their vast array of thrifty villages, and the
neighboring counties of Wayne and Pike, Susquehanna, and a portion of Monroe,
were alike included by the Delaware Indian purchase.
     The Proprietary Government, astonished and chagrined at a purchase it
failed by the ingenious persuasions of her ablest representatives to thwart,
began to suggest measures of practical severity to rid the valley of the
Yankee intruders, should they venture upon their new purchase.  It was not
enough that the wolf crouched along the pathway to Wyoming, or that the
savage, homeless and enraged, crossed the westward path where the French and
Indian wars had strewen the dead to appall the adventurer.

page 75

     Early in February, 1754, a few months previous to this sale, Wm.
Parsons, of Lower Smithfield, notified Governor Hamilton that "some of his
near neighbors had accompanied three gentleman-like men to Wyomink, who
produced a writing under a large seal, empowering them to treat and agree
with such persons as were disposed to take any of these lands to them."  He
also informed the Governor "that it may be the means of occasioning very
great disorder and disturbances in the back parts of the province."  Persons
living in Lower Smithfield Township, near Stroudsburg, holding lands under
the Proprietary direction and authority, looked so favorably on the proposed
settlement of Wyoming lands, that Daniel Broadhead, Esq., then prominent in
the history of Northampton County, as the name is yet in that section of
country, wrote to Governor Hamilton, February 24, 1754, that "there has been
and is, great disquietude amongst the people of these parts, occasioned by
some New England gentlemen, to such a degree that they are all, or the
majority of them, going to quit and sell their lands for trifles, and to my
certain knowledge, many of them have advanced money on such occasions, in
order that they might secure rights from the New England Proprietaries, which
right I suppose is intended to be on Sasquehannah at a place called Wyomink."
     The Provincial Council of Pennsylvania recommended Governor Hamilton to
write to the Governor of Connecticut, "to stop the departure of their people
on a dangerous enterprise as this," and "forthwith dispatch Conrad Weiser to
the Six Nations and those at Wyoming, to put them upon their guard against
those proceedings."  Governor Fitch replied that he "knew nothing of any
thing being done by the Government to countenance such a proceeding as you
intimate, and

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as I conclude, is going on among some of our people."  Mr. Armstrong reported
to the Government, "that the people of Connecticut are most earnestly and
seriously determined to make a settlement on the Susquehanna, within the
latitude of the province, relying on the words of their grants, which extend
to the South Sea, provided that they can succeed in a purchase of these lands
from the Six Nations, which they are now attempting by the means of Colonel
Johnson and Mr. Lydias of Albany, having subscribed a thousand pieces of
eight for that purpose, each giving four dollars for what they call a Right."
     Under date of December 2, 1754, five months after the successful
negotiations for Wyoming, James Alexander wrote to Governor Morris that he
believed that "more vigorous measures will be wanting to nip this affair in
the bud, than writing to governors and magistrates, or employing a few
rangers, as I before proposed.  I question if less will do, than a superior
number to the Connecticut men, women, and children, that come, and bring them
to Philadelphia; the women and children to ship off to Governor Fitch, the men
to imprison till bailed or list for Ohio. (Footnote:  A very humane way to
dispose of peaceful settlers, to have them enlist in the French and Indian
war on the Ohio!), this done twice or thrice will terrify others from coming;
and one or two thousand pounds laid now out in this service, may save scores
of thousands that it may afterwards cost.  I doubt not, Connecticut will
amuse and give good words till a great number be settled, and then bid
defiance."
     Every movement in Hartford, where the interests of these two companies
were discussed publicly and freely was watched by persons employed by
Pennsylvania to do so, who, in December, 1754, reported the prospects and
development of the organization to Governor Morris thus:

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    "There was a great meeting about a fortnight ago in Hartford, of the
people concerned in the design'd.  The original shares are six hundred.  The
scheme stood thus.  They made a purse, each man paying four dollars toward
the purchase, &c., but since that they have [been] obliged to pay five more,
so that the original shares of the purchase 'tis nine dollars a man.  These
sharers engaged to go themselves, or to procure on to go in their stead to
the Sasquehannah, and there to make a settlement, build a building, clear so
much land, &c., on their respective lots in a given time.  The grand
emigration does not propose to go forth till all be quietly settled, but in
the mean time, 'tis said there will be some individuals going."
     In spite of talks and treaties, Wyoming, full of natives reluctant to
yield possession of their  plain to the spoiler of their heritage, remained
unpeopled and untouched by the whites.  Even some of the Cayuga Indians,
seduced into French interests, inimical to the English, hearing that "a lot
of people from New England had formed themselves into a body to settle the
lands on Susquehanna, and especially Sea-hau-towano (Wyoming) threatened, if
they done so, to first kill all their creatures, and then if they did not
desist, they themselves would all be killed, without distinction, let the
consequences be what it would."  This threat of "Tachnechdorus, the chief of
Smamockin, of the Cayinker", was carried into execution at Wyoming a few
years later, when the first settlement there was destroyed, the emigrants
shot and scalped by the same band that murdered Teedyuscung in his
Susquehanna wigwam.
     The colony of Connecticut, aware of the extent of their original grant,
and conscious of the integrity of the Indian purchase of Wyoming by the
Susquehanna Company,

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gave consent to establish a settlement here.  In the summer of 1755 the
company "sent out a number of persons to Wyoming, accompanied by their
surveyors and agents, to commence a settlement.  On their arrival they found
the Indians in a state of war with the English colonies; and the news of the
defeat of General Braddock having been received at Wyoming, produced such an
animating effect upon the Nanticoke tribe of Indians that the members of the
new colony would probably have been retained as prisoners had it not been for
the interference of some of the principal chieftains of the Delaware Indians,
and particularly of Tedeuscund, who retained their attachment to their
Christian brethren of the Moravian church, and their friendship in some degree
for the English.  The members of the colony, consequently returned to
Connecticut, and the attempt to form a settlement at Wyoming was abandoned
until a more favorable opportunity."
     The efforts of the Moravian missionaries from Gandenhutten and
Bethlehem, to introduce Christian influences along the foliage of the Indian
forest, were not altogether in vain.  At Machwihilusing (Wyalusing) a
settlement had been made by these zealous and determined German brethren,
under the pastorship of the Rev. David Zeisberger, which flourished through
all the intermediate Indian wars and massacres up until 1770, when, as the
territory occupied by them had been sold to the Connecticut people, the
Moravians removed to Ohio, to whither the Delawares had preceded them. 
Living on the great canoe-route and war-path from Onondaga to Wyoming, these
heroic missionaries, who had sacrificed every social comfort for the stern
incidents of border life, with an ambition but the good and welfare of the
race they sought to elevate, were left unharmed by the warriors desolating
the country around them.

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     The Colonial Records give an account of a council held July 11, 1760,
with a large number of Minisinks, Nanticokes, and Delawares, "from an Indian
town called Michalloasen or Wighalooscon, about fifty or sixty miles above
Wyomink, on the Susquehannah, "but while it was visited by these
missionaries, previous to this it was not chosen by them for a permanent
abode until May 9, 1765.  "Having fixed on a convenient spot for a
settlement, they immediately began to erect a town, which, when completed,
consisted of thirteen Indian huts, and upward of forty houses built of wood,
in the European manner, besides a dwelling for the missionaries.  In the
middle of the street, which was eighty feet broad, stood a large and neat
chapel.  The adjoining lands were laid out into neat gardens; and between the
town and the river, about two hundred and fifty acres were divided into
regular plantations of Indian corn.  The burying-ground was situated at some
distance back of the buildings.  Each family had its own boat.  To this place
they gave the name of Friedenshuetten (Huts of Peace).  This new settlement
soon assumed a very flourishing appearance."
     The Wyalusing Indians exhibited toward the whites with whom they came in
contact a conciliatory and Christian disposition.  At a council held at the
State House in Philadelphia, September 17, 1763, John Curtis spoke for the
Wyalusing Indians as follows:--
     "Brothers:--After the treaty, two years ago, as the Indians were
returning home, a Delaware was killed.  As soon as the news reached the
Indian country, some of his relations were so exasperated, that four of them
immediately set off and came down with an intention to kill some of the white
folks.  On their way they called at Wighalousin and stopt there.  When they
informed us of their design, the Indians of Wighalousin, men, women, and
children, did all in their power to dissuade them from it.

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and joined in a collection of wampum [see footnote] and delivered to them to
pacify them, on which they returned home.
     Nor was the Lackawanna part of Wyoming without spiritual advisers as
early as October 26,1755.  At the request of the friendly Indians living on
the Susquehanna and Lee- kaugh-hunt (Lackawanna), the Moravian missionaries
of Bethlehem visited Wyoming at this time (to use the Indian's own phrase),
"to speak words to them of their God and Creator as often as they desire it."
     They remained six days at "Waioming, the Shawanese town, and at
Leckaweke, the Minising town."  They preached twice at Leckaweke, where they
found the natives enjoying their yearly thanksgiving harvest-feast with song
and dance, interpolating their songs with an occasional yell or war-whoop,
secure in their corn-fields and "well affected toward the English," to whom
they gave every outward assurance of friendship.  Twenty-eight days after
this, Gnadenhutten was devastated, and no white settlement in Pennsylvania,
above Bethlehem, escaped wholly from the uplifted tomahawk.  The Indian town
of Nescopiken (Nescopick), one day's journey from Wyoming, became the
head-quarters of the French and Indians.  Not a single white person lived in
either of the valleys of Wyoming or Lackawanna.  The Indians, won over by the
shrewdness of the French, bent on conquest and carnage, went even below the
Blue Mountains to the Tulpehocking, within thirty miles of Philadelphia,
unresisted.

Footnote:  Wampum or Wampon, called also Wampampeag; a kind of money in use
among the Indians.  It was a kind of bead made of shells of the great conch
muscle, &c., and curiously wrought and polished, with a hole through them. 
They were of different colors, as black, blue, red and white, and purple; the
last of which were wrought by the Five Nations.  Six of the white, and three
of the black or blue passed for a penny --Trumbull's U.S., vol. 1, p.23  In
1667, Wampon was made a tender by law for the payment of debts, "not
exceeding 40 shillings, at 8 white or 4 black for a penny; this was repealed
in 1671."--Douglas, vol i., p 437.

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Along the Delaware, from Easton to Broadhead's, the country was absolutely
deserted.  Broadhead's place was attacked, and bravely defended by the
courageous inmates.  In fact, Lower Smithfield, where Broadhead's clearing
was located, was so constantly threatened by the arrowed warriors, that
Benjamin Franklin, in July, 1756, ordered a company of foot to be raised "of
fifty able men to protect the inhabitants while they thresh out and secure
their corn", and scout from time to time for one month, and "for pay, to
receive six dollars per month, and one dollar extra for use of gun and
blanket."  The men were notified that if they should kill any Indians while
thus ranging, "forty dollars will be allowed and paid by the Government for
each scalp of an Indian so killed."  This is the first recorded instance
where a premium was offered for scalps in the vicinity of Wyoming.  No
fortunes, however, where made by scalp gatherers.
     After Braddock's memorable defeat in July, 1755, the whole frontier of
Pennsylvania was left so destitute of protection, that several friendly Indian
chiefs of the Susquehanna tribes visited Philadelphia, and urged upon the
Government the importance of building such places of defense, which if they
failed to do all the tribes now peaceably inclined, would raise the hatchet
as auxiliaries of the exultant French.  This prudent advice, however, was not
taken until after the Lehigh village of Gnadenhutten had been obliterated by
the torch, when a chain of simple forts or block-houses were erected along
the Susquehanna and Delaware.  It is impossible at the present day, to
ascertain the exact location of these forts.  "Those west-ward of the
Sasquehana", the Pennsylvania Archives inform us, "are about twenty miles
asunder, and those between Sasquehana and Delaware about

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ten."  The fort at Shamokin was built in July, 1755, from logs huge and
hewn.  Fort Allen, at Gnadenhutten, was built in January, 1756.  The fort at
Wyoming and the one asked for at Adjouquay by the Iroquois chiefs were
erected the same year. These forts were strongly built, stockaded, and of
ample capacity to accommodate the sparsely settled places around them in any
exigency.  From twenty to fifty men were stationed in these protecting
outposts, until after the treaty of 1758 fulfilled the expectations of peace,
when many of them were abandoned.  The warriors at Tioga and Wyoming and
Lackawanna were estimated at this time at seven hundred, fifty of whom were
Monseys, at Capoose.
     Cushietunck (Cochecton), on the upper Delaware, was settled by the
Delaware Company in 1757, which place, in spite of colonial feuds, or
Pennymite resistance, prospered in its aspirations and development. 
Cochecton, like Wyoming, was claimed by Pennsylvania as "lying in the upper
part of Northampton County, opposite the Jersey Station Point", and the same
vexatious measures employed in one place were also used in the other to expel
the New England comers.
     A mere glimpse of this section of country as it appeared to Charles
Thomson, and Christian Frederic Post, who journeyed toward Wyoming and
Lee-haw-hanna in 1758, by order of the Governor of Pennsylvania, and at the
request of the Indians, is interesting in an historical light, as reflecting
the shadows of one hundred and ten years ago.  These Indian civilizers left
Philadelphia, June 7, 1758, and in two days reached Fort Allen, on the
Lehigh, where they engaged Moses Tetamy and Isaac Still, and three other
Indians, to accompany them.
     "On Sunday morning we set forward pretty early, and by 12 o'clock
reached the Nescopekun Mountain, within fourteen or fifteen miles of
Wyoming.  Here we met nine 

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Indians traveling down to Bethlehem.  They had left Wyoming the day before,
and had been six days from Chenango, a Town of the Nanticokes on Susquehanna,
about half way between Owegey and Ossewingo.  There was one Nanticoke, one
Monsey Captain, one Delaware, four Mawhiccons, and two Squaws.  Upon meeting
them, we stopped and inquired the news, and from several questions asked, we
learned that Teedyuscung was well and at Wyoming, that all was quiet among
the Nanticokes, that their principal men were at the Council at Onondaga,
which was not yet broke up; that Backsinosa was at Lee-haugh-hunt
(Lackawanna), but that he was preparing to go somewhere, he said to his own
Country.  Being informed of our going to Wyoming with good news to all the
Indians, they told us that they thought it was by no means safe for us to
proceed; that strange Indians were thick in the woods about Wyoming; that a
party was seen but four days ago whose Language none of the Delawares there
understood, nor did they know of what Nation they were.  This alarmed our
Indians, they pressed us to turn back with this Company, and make all haste
for Fort Allen, and two of them would go and invite Teedyuscung to come to us
there.  This we objected to, on account of losing time, so we proposed to go
forward to the Wyoming Hills, and there wait till two of our Company went
forward and informed Teedyuscung of our coming, and know of him whether it
would be safe to go to the Town.  The Indians we met thought it dangerous to
proceed any farther, as they had seen fresh Tracks crossing the Path in two
or three places between this and Wyoming, and at one place not half a mile
from where we then were.  Upon this it was proposed, and agreed upon, to go
back to the east side of the Hills, and there lodge to-night, till two of our
Indians went and invited Teedyuscung to come to us.  Next day Teedyuscung came
to us."  After a long talk and dinner with

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Teedyuscung and other chiefs, from the valley, they were made familiar with
all the news, rumors, and complaints of the Indians, and sent back, as
Teedyuscung assured them that it was absolutely unsafe for them to venture
farther.  They also reported that "Backsinosa, with about one hundred men,
lives yet at Lee-haugh-hunt" (Lackawanna), at Assarughney, a place of so much
importance that a friendly Indian who passed there a few days previous, "saw
four Canoes made of bark, and two Floats there hid in the bushes" which he
learned had just been used by a party coming from Broadhead's, by the way of
Lee-haugh-hunt and Capoose.
     After the purchase of Wyoming lands in 1754 by the Connecticut
Susquehanna Company, Pennsylvania awakened to the importance of cultivating
more intimate relations with the Indians.  Teedyuscung was informed by the
Provincial Council, that "his continuance at Wioming is of great service". 
The natives being too lazy or too little skilled in agricultural affairs to
supply their wigwams with vegetable food, brought it in canoes from Fort
Augusta, sixty miles below, thus often exhausting the supply around Sunbury
and Northumberland.  In May, 1755, the Indians on the Susquehanna were
reported starving because of the scarcity of deer.  To obviate this, as well
as to carry out the policy instituted by Pennsylvania, "fifty or sixty
Carpenters, Masons, and Laborers, were sent to Wyoming to build and plant for
the Indians.  After a very fatiguing march they arrived at Wyoming on the 22d
May, 1758, and put the hands to work the next day.  As the Battoes did not
arrive from Fort Augusta at the time appointed, we were brought to very short
allowance in provisions, &c.  For several days we had no bread at all, which
created no little uneasiness among the men.  We kept working until the 27th,
when Joseph

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Croker, one of our masons, was killed and scalped by six of the enemy
Indians; this misfortune made our men uneasy.  The next day, the Battoes
arrived with provisions, which enabled us to carry on the work and finish ten
houses.  We also plowed some ground for them to plant in, and split some rails
to fence it; after which they thought it proper to let us know that it was
late in the season, and the grass grown very high, so that the ground when
plowed was not fit for planting but in a few places, such as old Towns and
the like, we might return until a more favorable time, which we complied with
on Friday, the 2d June, and got safe Tuesday evening following."
     On the same day that this party returned to Fort Augusta, Moses Tetamy
and Isaac Still, both Indian interpreters, left Philadelphia to visit the
Monseys at Minisinks, for the Government.  The fourth day's journey by the
way of the warriors' path over the Lehigh Mountain, brought them to Wyomng,
where they were welcomed and treated with great consideration as public
messengers.  After staying all night at Wyoming, they left early in the
morning on horseback, and at night "came to Tenkghanake (Tunkhannock), about
as far above Wyoming as from Wyoming to Fort Allen.  This is an old Town,
nobody lives there, but over the river we saw some Minisink Indians, Hunters,
who called to us, and when we went over treated us kindly, and gave us some
Bear meat and venison.  The road from Wyoming to Tenghanaoke is broken and
hilly."
     The Western Indians held a great council over the Ohio in June, 1760. 
Frederic Post and John Hays attempted to accompany Teedyuscung thither, but
the two interpreters were denied passage through the Seneca country.  A
description of their journey through Wyoming, as given in the words of their
journal, can not fail to interest very many:--
     "Saturday, May 10.-- Heassie wether:  Sett off from

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fort Allen at Eight o'Clock, and traveled till it was Late through a vast
Desert; Lodged in the Woods.
     "Sunday, 11th.--Set to the way Early and Arived in Wioming in the
Evening, where we were Informed that Teedyuscung was Set off on his Journey
this Morning, but they sent for him Imediately on our coming
     "Monday, 12th.--Wrought at Makeing Belts and Strings of our Wampum, was
used very Kindly, and talked of Going Next Day.
     "Wed'y, 14th.--Very Rainy Wether, so that we Could not set out, So we
followed our old Business of Belt making.
     "Thursday, 15th.--Wether the Same:  Made Belts.
     "Friday, 16th.--Designed Going, but Teedyuscung would not Go until he
had a field of Corn planted first, and we all asisted him and planted it this
Day.
     "Saturday, 17th.--Set of Early and traveled smartly, Crossed a Large
Creek about one o'Clock, called Ah-la-hon-ie (Lackawanna?), and so followed
Our Course up the East Side of the Sisquhana River till Night, and Set up our
tents in an Old Indian Town called Quelootama, Being fourteen in Number in all.
     "Sunday, 18th.--Wet Weather, Nevertheless we traveled Smartly Cross a
very Large Creek called Wash-co-king (Meshoppen), Lodged on the Banks of
Sisquhana, and had a very Wet Night of it.
     "Monday, 19th.--Set off Early, tho wet, and Arived at a town called
Qui-ha-loo-sing (Wyalusing), the Governours Name Wampoonham, a very Religious
Civilized man in his own way, and Shewd us a great Deal of Kindness, and we
held a Conference with him this Evening, and when over, Mr. Post Gave us a
Sermon, at their Request.
     "Tuesday, 20th.-- They Called us to Council, and

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seemed to be very friendly, and Delivered to Teedyuscung three prisoners By a
string and promised to bring them Soon down; this town is Situated on
Sisquhana, East side, about twenty Houses full of People, Very Good Land, and
Good Indian Buildings, all New; had Sermon this Evining again.
     "Wednesday, 21st.--They told us there was another prisnor in this town,
but the man that had hir would not Consent to Give hir Up yet, but if he Did
not he Should Leave their town; We Set off about Eleven o'Clock, and Crossed
Qui-ha-loo-sing Creek about a mile above the town; We traveled Through
Swamps, Rocks, and Mountains about 15 Miles, then came to the River, and took
up Lodging on the Bank."
     Thursday and Friday they visited Diohaga, Snake Hole, and Asinsan.  At
the last- named place "the Indians Began to Sacrifice to their God, and Spent
the Day in a very Odd manner, Howling and Danceing, Raveling Like Wolves, and
Painted frightfull as Divels.
     "Monday, 26th.--The Indians, Haveing Got Rum, Got Drunk, all in General,
Except some old men; and Teedyuscung Behaved well on this Occasion, for when
his Sone brought in the Kegg of Rum, he would not taste it; we were very much
Abused and Scolded by the Indians, and thretened Often to Rost us.  They Bid
us Welcome to this town, but if we came any farther they would Rost us in the
fire.
     "There was a great Sacrifice of a hogg, which gathered a Great Number of
them together, and after their Sacrificial Rites were over, they Encouraged us
to Go on, But we could not See it Clear, for the old father Mingo always Sent
us word not Go, but that Teedyuscung and his Indians Might Go, but that we
should not Go, nor any White man Should pas through their Country."
     After visiting various Indian towns, witnessing deer sacrifices, and
holding councils with the Delawares, Wonamies, and Monseys, they concluded to
return home, as

page 88

the old Indian "agreement was that no white man Should pas throw their
Country, for fear of Spyes to see their Land."
     The fertile meadows now extending at certain intervals along the river
from Binghamton to Tunkhannock, they describe as "an Ordinary Country,
Nothing but Mountains and Rocks and pine timber, save the Small Low lands the
Indians plant their Corn on."
     On the ninth day of the homeward journey, interlined by many vexations
and delays, and lodging in the woods where "the Knates Bit so hard", they
approached Wyoming.  "About Eleven o'Clock we came to a narrow pass where the
horses, with Hight of the River, was obliged to Swime a considerable way, and
had to all get in the Canoo, then took our horses again and had to Swim
another Large Creek and Climbe many a hill, but at Lenth we Got to Weoming,
thank God.
     "Saturday, 28th.--Set of from Weoming and traveled Over the Mountains,
and Lodged in the Woods, and had very wet Weather", &c., &c.
     In April, 1761, before the snow-drifts had melted from the cold gorges
of the mountain, the route had been surveyed by a party which "marked trees
for twenty miles from the Delaware in the way toward Susquehannah, and laid
out lots for a town at a place called Leighwackson, or Lackervak, about eight
miles westward from Casheitunck."  Teedyuscung himself visited Philadelphia
during this month, to express to the Governor his uneasiness about this
settlement, which he reported was so unsafe for his pale brother "that they
(the Connecticut men) kept continual watch for fear the Indians would shoot
them."
     In August, 1762, the adventurous spirit of New England emigration began
to move toward Wyoming with greater success than every before.  A few miles
below the village

page 89

of Assarughney, and a mile or two above the Indian town at Wyoming, runs into
the Susquehanna a short, sluggish creek, celebrated afar by the name of Mill
Creek. 
     Two hundred persons from the colony of Connecticut began a settlement on
the shaded margin of this stream at this time.  "They found the valley covered
with woods, except a few acres in the immediate vicinity of the Shawanese and
Wyoming towns, which had been improved by the Indians in the cultivation of
their corn, and which was still in part occupied by them."  A few acres of
land was cleared and sown with wheat and rye, after which the emigrants
concealed their agricultural implements in the ground and returned to
Connecticut to winter, returning in the spring.
     Teedyuscung, jealous of his plains yielding with the simple tillage of
the squaws, again visited Philadelphia, Nov. 19, 1762, and sought a private
interview with the Governor, to complain of the settlement upon Lec-ha-wanock
Creek.  The Governor desired Teedyuscung to speak nothing but the honest
truth, which he promised to do, and then addressed him as follows:--
"Brother:  You may remember that some time ago I told you that I should be
obliged to remove from Wyomink on account of the New England people, and I
now acquaint you that soon after I returned to Wyomink from Lancaster, there
came 150 of those people, furnished with all sorts of Tools, as well for
building as Husbandry, and declared that they had bought those Lands from the
Six Nations, and would settle them, and were actually going to build
themselves Houses, and settle upon a creek called Leckawanock, about seven or
eight miles above Wyomink.  I threatened them hard, and declared I would carry
them to the Governor at Philadelphia; and when they heard me threaten them in
this manner, they said they would go away and consult their own Governor; for
if they were carried to

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Philadelphia, they might be detained there Seven Years, and they said
further, that since the Indians were uneasy at this purchase, if they would
give them back the money it had cost them, which was one or two Bushels of
Dollars, they would give them their Lands again.  Ten days after these were
gone, there came other fourteen men, and made us the same speeches, declaring
that they expected above three thousand would come and settle the Wyomink
Lands in the Spring, and they had with them a Saw and Saw-Mill Tools,
proposing to go directly and build a Saw-Mill about a mile above where I
live, but upon my threatening those in the same manner I did the former
Company, they went away, and, as I was told, buried their tools somewhere in
the Woods.  These people desired me to assist them in surveying the Lands,
and told me they would reward me handsomely for my trouble, but I refused to
have any thing to do with them.  Brother:  Six days after these were gone
there came eight other white men and a mulatto, and said the very same things
to me that the others had said, and immediately I got together my Council, and
as soon as we had finished our Consultations, I told these people that I
actually would confine them and carry them to Philadelphia and deliver them to
the Governor there, upon which they went away, saying they would go to their
own Governor, and come again with great numbers in the Spring.  Some of these
people stole my Horse that I bought at Easton, but they gave me another Horse
and five pounds in money, in satisfaction for my Horse.  Brother:  Tho'  I
threatened these people hard, that I would confine them and carry them down
to you, yet I did not mean actually to do it, remembering that you charged me
not to strike any White Man, tho'  they should come, but to send you the
earliest notice of their coming that was in my power.  Brother:  Before I got
up to  Wyomink from Lancaster, there had come a great Body of these New
England People with intent actually to settle the Land, but the Six Nations

page 91

passing by at that time from Lancaster, sent to let them know that they
should not be permitted to settle any of these Lands, and on their expressing
great resentment against them, and threatening them if they persisted, they
went away.  This I was told by Thomas King, who was left behind at Wyomink by
the Six Nations, to tell me that they intended to lay this whole matter before
the great Council at Onondagoe, and that they would send for me and my Indians
to come to Albany in the Spring, where they are to have a meeting with the New
England people, and desired that I would be quiet till I should receive their
Message, and then come to Albany.  On this speech of Thomas King's we met
together in Council, and agreed not to give him any promise to come to
Albany, but to advise the Governor of Pennsylvania of this, and take his
advice what to do, and if he will go with us and advise us to go, we will go
in case we are sent for in the Spring.  Brother:  Surely as you have a
general of the King's Armies here, he might hinder these people from coming
and disturbing us in our possessions.  Brother:  About six days after I left
Wyomink I received a Belt, which was brought me by the Indian man Compass; it
came first to Nutimus, and from him to me.  By that Belt, Beaver desired that
I and the Delawares, the Wapings, and Mohickons, settled at Wyomink, would
remove thence and come and live at Allegheny.  Brother:  I have one thing
more to say, and I shall have finished all I have to say at this time. 
Brother:  You may remember that at the Treaty at Easton we were promised that
a Schoolmaster and Ministers should be sent to instruct us in religion, and to
teach us to read and write.  As none have yet been provided for us, I desire
to know what you intnd to do in this matter.  I have now done."
     The Governor, in reply, informed Teedyuscung, that as Wyoming lands had
never yet been purchased from the

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Six Nations, he had sent a messenger to warn the Connecticut people away from
Lechawanock Creek, who met them returning because of the rough manner spoken
to by the Indians.  After commending Teedyuscung for his fidelity and good
behavior, the Governor said, "Brother:  You know that your Uncles, the Six
Nations, have kindled a fire for you at Wyomink, and desired you would stay
there and watch, and give them notice if any White people should come to take
away the Lands from them, and that you would not suffer them to do it.  Be
assured that this winter, measures will be taken to prevent these troublesome
people from coming to disturb you.  On these considerations I desire you to
remain quiet where you are, and not move away, as you seem to have no
inclinations to go away only on account of these New England disturbers.  The
times have been so unsettled, that there has been no opportunity of sending
Ministers and Schoolmasters among you.  Now there is a likelihood of a
general peace being soon established, if you determine still to continue at
Wyomink, I shall consider of this matter and send you an answer at a proper
time."
     The complaints of Teedyuscung, nor the threats of Lieutenant-Governor
Hamiltion, were hardly necessary, as the next year (1763) witnessed the
murder of the king of the Delawares, in his simple cabin by the river side,
and the flight or massacre of the defenseless yeomanry at Wyoming.  When
Teedyuscung sank the tomahawk into the skull of the offending Iroquois
warrior on his way to Easton, in 1758, unavenged and apparently unnoticed at
the time, he wrote his own death-warrent in the blood of the fallen chief. 
Indian revenge slumbers only to increase its intensity.  Under the garb of
friendship, he was visited at his village by some warriors of the Six Nations
from the upper branches of the Susquehanna, plied bountifully

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with liquor, of which he was passionately fond, and while thus inebriated in
his wigwam, helpless, asleep, and alone, the celebrated and venerable
chieftain perished in the flames, on the night of april 19, 1763.  His own
dwelling, and twenty others surrounding it, had been set on fire
simultaneously, by these emissaries from the Six Nations, who thus sought and
found revenge upon the unforgotten and unresisiting offender.
     Some four months previous to this the Yankees had returned to the valley
with their families, bringing along cattle, sheep, hogs, and grain sufficient
to last them until the coming harvest.  Traffic and fur-trading had sprung up
with the surrounding tribes, with whom the most friendly and harmonious
relations had hitherto supposed to have existed, when suddenly, on the
afternoon of the fifteenth of October, while the farmers were hard at work in
the field, unsuspicious of approaching danger, they were surrounded by "a party
of Indians, who massacred about twenty persons (see Footnote) , took several
prisoners, and having seized upon the live stock, drove it toward their
town.  Those who escaped, hastened to their dwellings, gave the alarm to the
families of those who were killed, and the remainder of the colonists--men,
women, and children--fled precipitately to the mountains, from whence they
beheld the smoke arising from their late habitations, and the savages
feasting on the remains of their little property.  They had taken no
provisions with them, except what they had hastily seized in their flight,
and must pass through a wilderness sixty miles in extent before they could
reach the Delaware River.  They had left brothers, husbands, and sons to the
mercy of the savages; they had no means of defense, in case they should

(Footnote:  The following persons were among the killed:-- "Rev. Wm. Marsh,
Thos. Marsh, Timothy Hollister, Timothy Hollister, Jr, Isaac Hollister,
Nathan Terry, Wright Smith, Daniel Baldwin and wife, Isaac Wiggins, Zeruah
Whitney.  Mr. Shepherd, and a son of Daniel Baldwin, were taken
prisoners"--Annals of Luzerne)

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be attacked, and found themselves exposed to the cold winds of autumn without
sufficient raiment.  With these melancholy recollections and cheerless
prospects did the fugitives commence a journey of two hundred and fifty miles
on foot."
     Thus, by one stroke, seldom surpassed in suddenness or atrocity, by the
same savages that slew Teedyuscung and then attempted to fix the ignominious
crime upon the New England men, having no knowledge of its inception or no
part in its execution, every living white person was swept from Wyoming in an
hour, and the valley again left in the sole occupancy of the Indian.  Their
removal or destruction at this time, if more vindictive and cruel, was no
more certain than that vouchsafed them by the Provincial Government, had a few
more days of quiet husbandry have been allowed them by the Indians.  On the
Tuesday before the first massacre, October 17, 1763, Major Clayton marched to
Wyoming to carry out the instructions of the Provincial Government, already
anticipated by the firebrand and hatchet.  He "met with no Indians, but found
the New Englanders who had been killed and scalped a day or two before they
got there.  They buried the dead, nine men and one woman, who had been most
cruelly butchered; the woman was roasted and had two hinges in her hands,
supposed to have been put in red hot, and several of the men had awls thrust
into their eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, &c., sticking in their
bodies.  They burnt what houses the Indians had left, and destroyed a
quantity of Indian corn.  The enemy's tracks were up the river toward
Wighaloesing."
     On the 20th October, Governor Hamilton ordered Colonel James Bard to
Wyoming as a commisioner, not to look after the warriors thus arrayed for
murder and 

page 95

mischief, but "to require and command the Inhabitants, in His Majesty's Name,
forthwith to desist from their said undertaking, and to depart and remove from
thence", &c..
     It is hardly possible that news of the massacre carried by the slow
canoe-route, or narrow foot-path, could have reached Philadelphia at this
time, as no allusion is made to it until October 25, 1763, when the Rev. John
Elder, of Paxton, captain of two Lancaster companies, wrote as follows to
Governor Hamilton:  "Sir, In a Lett'r I writ to your Hon'r the 17th Inst., I
acquainted you that it then was impossible to suspend the Wyoming
Expedition.  The party is now returned, and I shall not trouble your Hon'r
with my account of their proceedings, as Major Clayton informs me that he has
transmitted to you, from Fort Augusta, a particular journal of their
transactions from their leaving Hunters till they returned to Augusta. (see
footnote)  The mangled Carcases of these unhappy people presented to our
Troops a melancholy Scene, which had been acted not above two days before
their arrival; and by the way the Savages came into the Town, it appears they
were the same party that committed the Ravages in Northampton County, and as
they set off from Wyoming up the same Branch of the River, towards
Wihilusing, and from several other Circumstances, it's evident, that till
that Branch is cleared of the enemy, the frontier settlem'ts will be in no
safety."
     Nothing whatever was done by the authorities of Pennsylvania toward
punishing, or even rebuking, the authors of this preconcerted destruction fo
life and property, made more atrocious by the fact that settlers living
Northampton County uttered no complaint, and interposed neither inquiry nor
remonstrance at this or any other time.

(Footnote:  No such Report appears either in the Pennsylvania Archives or
Records.)

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     In fact so great and so apparent was this stoic indifference exhibited
toward the welfare of a feeble but energetic colony, struggling alike with
starvation and savage treachery, that Governor Amherst of New York wrote to
Governor Hamilton that "I can not help repeating my surprise at the
infatuation of the people in your Province, who tamely look on while their
brethren are butchered by the Savages, when, without doubt, it is in their
power, by exerting a proper spirit, not only to protct the settlements, but
to punish any Indians that are hardy enough to disturb them."
     While there seems to have been no complicity, either charged or
suspected, between the provincial authorities of Pennsylvania and the
disaffected portion of the Six Nations in regard to the annihilation of the
young settlement at Wyoming, no one can peruse the Pennsylvania Archives or
the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, embracing as they do, the earliest
written history of Wyoming, without reflections not flattering to the
magnanimity either of the Province or the State.
     In the earlier history of the valley, barbarities were sometimes
practiced, both by the red and the white man, upon the weaker party.  Conrad
Weiser, after visiting Wyoming, in 1755, describes the capture of an Indian,
who "begged his life, but (shocking to me) they shot him in the midst of
them, scalped him, and threw his body into the river."  Two months after the
Connecticut settlers were slaughtered and first expelled form Wyoming the
Conestogae Indians,--the ramains of a tribe of the Six Nations--were
massacred in Lancaster by the whites.  On the 14th of December, 1763, these
Moravian Indians, who had lived under the faith of the Government for sixty
years, were shot and clubbed in cold blood, and every indignity practiced
upon the women and children, whose age and sex plead alike in vain to the
avenging hand of

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the Paxton men.  "They surrounded the small village of Indian huts, and just
at break of day broke in upon them all at once.  Only three men, two women,
and a young boy, were found at home.  These poor, defenseless creatures were
immediately fired upon, stabbed, and hatcheted to death!  The good Shehaes,
who was very old, having assisted at the second treaty held with Mr. Penn, in
1701, was, among the rest, cut to pieces in his bed!  The Magistrates of
Lancaster sent out and collected the remaining Indians, promised them
protection, and put them in the work-house, a strong building, as a place of
greatest safety.  On the 27th of December, these cruel men, armed as before,
broke open the door, and entered with the utmost fury in their
countenances.  When the fourteen poor wretches saw no possible protection nor
escape, and being without the least weapon of defense, they divided their
little families, and children clinging to their parents; they fell on their
faces, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and
that in their whole lives they had never done them injury; and in this
position they all received the hatchet!  Men, women, and children were every
one inhumanly murdered in cold blood."
     This ferocious transaction, the authors of which, although well known in
the community, ever remained unpunished, created among the Indian tribes
throughout the country a profound sensation, and for months awakened no
little solicitude in the head of the Government of Pennsylvania.  Governor
Penn, justly indignant, and conscious of the great wrong inflicted upon the
Indians, whom the official men of the province had sworn to protect, fearing
its deplorable effect upon the usually stoical but ever-vindictive savage,
promptly and boldly denounced the guilty party as "villainous and murderous",
and issued warrants for their arrest, and yet,

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although they were living within the county, they were never reprimanded,
arrested, nor punished.
     The property of these tomahawked natives, consisting of "three horses,
two belts of wampum", a number of deeds, treaties, and documents, written on
parchment, and signed by Wm. Penn, in 1701, and Logan and others, were
subsequently returned to their relatives in the Indian country.
     This wanton and wicked breach of faith on the part of citizens of
Lancaster and Paxton, contributed to influence the Moravian Indians at
Wyalusing and elsewhere along the Susquehanna to remove westward, and had
very much to do henceforth toward inspiring a spirit of warfare and revenge
along the border, as well as to palliate and excuse the treatment of their
captives taken from the whites.
     In a message to Gov. Penn from the Assembly, in Feb., 1768, a portion of
these outrages are thus enumerated:  "In the year 1763, the cruel Massacre of
Twenty Indians, chiefly of the Six Nations, were perpetrated at Conestago and
Lancaster.  In the same year a Delaware Chief meet with the same fate between
Sherman's Valley and Juniata.  In 1765, a Chief of the Six Nations was
murdered near Bedford.  In the year 1766, a principal warrior of the
Delawares was killed between Red Stone creek and Cheat river; and three
Delaware Chiefs were robbed and murdered near Fort Pitt, by two inhabitants
of this Province.  An Indian was lately murdered in Northampton County;
besides the late barbarity committed by Frederic Stump and his servant on ten
Indians at Middle Creek.  And not one of those murderers have been brought to
punishment."  England and France having concluded a definite peace in 1763,
hostilities ceased throughout the colonial settlements.
     In September, 1766, an adventurous trader, named John Anderson, 

page 99

had a store of goods at Wyoming, for traffic with the red men, and was
complained of by the Nanticoke, Conoys, and Mohickons, from the Council Fires
at Chenango, in the following manner to John Penn:--"Brother:  As we came down
from our Country we stopped at Wyoming, where we had a Mine in two places, and
we discovered that some white People had been at work in the Mine, and had
filled three Canoes with the Ore; and we saw their Tools with which they had
dug it out of the ground, were they had made a hole at least forty feet long,
and five or six feet deept.  it happened, formerly, that some white People did
now and then take only a small bit, and carried it away, but these People have
been working at the Mine, and have filled their canoes.  We desire you will
tell us whether you know any thing of this matter, or if it be done by your
Consent.  We are informed that there is one John Anderson, a Trader, now
living at Wyoming, and we suspect that either he or somebody employed by him
has robbed our mine.  This Man has a Store of Goods there, and it may happen,
when the Indians see their Mine robbed, they will come and take away his
Goods."
     Governor Penn replied that he knew nothing of the mine or Anderson, who
had settled in the Indian country without his knowledge or wish.  "But you
know", addressing the chief, "that notwithstanding all our Care, as it is
such a Distance, People may go there and we know nothing of it."  The
knowledge of this silver mine perished with the race that knew it.
     For six years, aside from the intrusion of these explorers and traders,
Wyoming was left in its native solitude, and as the intervening years make no
history for the valley then in dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, a
brief synopsis of the different charters and grants relating to the disputed
territory claimed

page 100

by the respective parties, and a mere outline of the claim and controversy
arising from the same, will not only be expected by the intelligent reader,
but it is indispensable to a proper appreciation of the history of the
Lackawanna Valley, then within the contested limit.  In fact, the earliest
history of the valley, could not be complete nor understood without such a
general exposition of grants and charters, running along down into the
Connecticut claim, from the first grant of land in America, in 1606, by the
English Government.
     As early as 1606, King James of England, jealous of the ambitious
French, advancing to traffic on the Indian shore of the western continent,
divided that part of North America, lying between the 34th and 45th degrees
of latitude, into two portions.  The northern part he granted by patent to
Thomas Hanham and others, who associated themselves for the purpose of
opening a trade with the Indians for skins, furs, and tobacco.  Forty
noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, were incorporated, March 3, 1620, by King
James, into a company known as "The Councils established at Plymouth, in the
county of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, and Governing of New England, in
America", to whom and their assigns were granted all "That part of America,
lying and being in breadth from the forty degrees of the said Northerly
latitude from the Equinoctial line, to forty-eight degrees of said Northerly
latitude, inclusively, and in length of and within all the breadth aforesaid,
throughout the mainland from sea to sea", &c.  While the governing powers and
privileges of this Plymouth corporation were being exercised in England, the
laws and regulations of the body were to extend over New England, which thus
derived its name from this grant.  Originally embracing all of New England,
portions of this vast territory were divided and subdivided, as to
subsequently form the New England

page 101

States.  Each sale and division of property thus effected, had to be ratified
by the legislative power in England to make it valid and binding.
     A portion of the territory of the Plymouth Company was sold in 1628, and
subsequently became the Sate of Massachusetts.  Another portion, now forming
the State of Connecticut, was transferred to the Earl of Warwick in 1630,
who, in March, 1631, sold the same territory to Lord Gay and fifteen
others.  It embraced "all that part of New England, in America, which lies
and extends itself from a river, there called Narrangansett river, the space
of forty leauges upon a straight line near the shore, towards the southwest,
west and by south, or west as the coast lieth, towards Virginia, accounting
three English miles to the leauge; and, also, all and singular the lands and
hereditaments whatsoever, lying and being within the lands aforesaid, north
and south in latitude and breadth, and in length and longitude, of and within
all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the main lands there, from the western
ocean to the south sea."
     By virtue of this royal grant, a small band of energetic men made the
first settlement on the bank of the Connecticut River, in 1633.  The
last-named grant was sold in 1662 to the Free Planters of the Colony of
Connecticut for 16,000 pounds sterling.  King Charles the Second confirmed
the charter to the Connecticut colony, of "all that part of our dominin in
New England, in America, bounded on the East by Naragansett Bay, where the
said river falleth into the Sea, and on the North by the line of the
Massachusetts plantation, on the south by the sea, and in longitude as the
line of Massachusetts Colony running from East to West (that is to say) from
the Naragansett Bay on the East, to the South sea on the West part."
     These several instruments, taken as a whole, open a full view of the
ancient territorial limits of Connecticut.

Page 102

     Forty leagues (120 miles) along the coast from Narragansett Bay toward
Virginia, would terminate very nearly on the fortieth degree of north
latitude, fixed as a boundary in the original grant to the Plymouth Company
and would embrace the comparative little territory of both Wyoming and
Lackawanna valleys.
     The original charter of William Penn, which granted to him so many of
the coal and iron-clad valleys and mountains of Pennsylvania, and which
subsequently developed the Pennymite war in Wyoming, dates back to March 4,
1681.  "Out of a commendable desire to enlarge our English Empire", &c.,
Charles the Second granted to William Penn, "all that tract or parte of land
in America, with all the Islands therein conteyned, as the same is bounded on
the East by the Delaware river from twelve miles distance, Northwarde of New
Castle Towne unto the three and fortieth degree of Northern latitude, if the
said River shall not extend soe farre Northward than by the said River soe
farre as it doth extend, and from the head of the said River the Eastern
bounds are to bee determined by a meridian line, to bee drawn from the head
of the said River unto the three and fortieth degree, the said land to extend
Westwards, five degrees in longitude, to bee computed from the Easterne
Bounds, and the said lands to bee bounded on the North by the beginning of
the three and fortieth degree of Northern latitude", &c.
     The opposing claims of Pennsylvania, as set forth by its agents, Messrs.
Bradford, Read, Wilson, and Sargeant, before the Court of Commission assembled
at Trenton, New Jersey, in November, 1782, to finally determine the
controversy between Pennsylvania and Connecticut regarding Wyoming, will be
found in ample detail in the Pennsylvania Archives, 1782-3. They claimed Wyoming 

page 103

by virtue of the royal purchase of Mr. Penn, who with succeeding
proprietaries had negotiated with the Indians for the full and absolute right
of pre-emption for all the lands in dispute.  They also claimed "that the
Northern bounds have always been deemed to extend to the end of the
forty-second Degree, where the figures 428 are so marked on the map; the
River Delaware being found to extend so far North and farther; the said
River, pursuing the East or main Branch thereof, above the Forks at Easton,
hath been ever deemed to be one Boundary of Pennsylvania from twelve miles
above New Castle, on the said River", &c.
     The northern part of the territory granted to William Penn, spread over
a part of th western lands before granted to the colony of Connecticut, equal
to one degree of latitude through the whole breadth of said grant.
     The collisions, running through thirteen years of crimson austerities
between Pennsylvania and Connecticut for jurisdiction and right of soil in
Wyoming, originated either in great want of knowledge of the topography of
America by the English Government, or an unpardonable careless exercise of it
in regard to this charter to William Penn, which thus interfered with and
overlapped lands already sold to Connecticut.  Of this interference, Mr. Penn
had notice at the time of his taking out his patent for those lands.
     The Indian title to the wilderness overshadowing the Schuylkill and
"Lechhaiy Hills" (Lehigh) had been extinguished as early as 1732; and the
land about the mouth of the creek called Lechawachsein (Lackawaxen) was
purchased of the Indians by the Provincial Government of Pennsylvania in
October, 1756; but Wyoming, more isolated in its sylvan solitude, had been
reserved by the tribes controlling it, for hunting-grounds or a retreating
place long after their intercourse began with the whites.

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It was first sold by them, July 11, 1754, as before related, to the
Connecticut Susquehanna Company.
     It will be readily seen that the charter of Connecticut, embracing
Wyoming, was given nineteen years anterior to that of Pennsylvania, possessed
and settled by Connecticut with her strong and sturdy sons, and yet, after a
deliberation of over five weeks in 1783, the adjusticating commissioners at
Trenton, gave an opinion in the matter as follows, that astonished the
citizens of both States with its brevity and its bias:--"We are unanimously
of Opinion that the State of Connecticut has no Right to the Lands in
Controversy.  We are also unanimously of Opinion that the Jurisdiction and
Pre-emption of all the Territory lying within the Charter Boundary of
Pennsylvania, and now claimed by the State of Connecticut, do of Right belong
to the State of Pennsylvania."  This decision, known as the "Trenton Decree",
from which there was no possible appeal or redress, while it decided the
question of jurisdiction only, indicated the selfish and illiberal spirit
that would and that did ultimately inspire a judicial opinion in regard to
the right of soil already held by Connecticut by every essential condition
giving validity to a title, viz:  grant from the king--purchase of the soil
from the Indian owners, and actual occupancy of the same.
     Generations have been born and buried since our hillsides and villages,
now exulting and expanding in their thrift, knew no tranquility but that
given for an hour by the stronger wielded bayonet of one rival party or the
other, struggling for mastery of the valley; and even while the Indian wars
smote down a father or a son with no shroud but the gloom of the forest, and
no grave but some friendly rock yet full of the farewell whispers of the
dead; or even when the Revolution came with its burden borne cheerfully and
valiantly even here, the Connecticut settlers

page 105

had hardly a moment's respite from officious sheriffs, and their often brutal
posses, sent out by Pennsylvania to annoy, imprison, or expel the naturally
quiet people of Wyoming.
     The Connecticut controversy and the Pennymite contention for Wyoming,
which had all the grand features of an epic poem, has long ceased to occupy
the public mind as it did prominently for a half a century, because less
occasion for its existence was known after the final compromising law of 1799
established kind and harmonious relations between the contending parties; but
no one can peruse the able works of Peck, Miner, Chapman, or Pearce, or wade
through the voluminous official papers of the State, giving such vast variety
and abundance of documentary evidence pertaining to this matter, without
feeling that the early emigrants from Connecticut who sought out and settled
the lands of the Susquehanna and Delaware companies at Wyoming and
Wlllenpaupack in the best faith, were shamefully robbed and wronged by
unprincipled persons acting by and with the authority of Pennsylvania.  The
bad spirit evinced by either party, as far as it relates to the history of
the Lackawanna Valley, will be briefly noticed in a future page.


                     GENERAL HISTORY -- CONTINUED

     To obviate trouble with a portion of the Indians rendered dissatisfied
with the sale of Wyoming lands by the representations of the Penn interests
inimical to the sale, the English Government, through its agents in America,
held a treaty at Fort Stanwix, near Oneida Lake, in the fall of 1768, with
the Six Nations; at which time and place the most friendly assurances were
given and received by both parties, and the lands on the Susquehanna were
ceded to the English.  At the same general treaty, some of the chiefs of the
Six Nations, willing to sell their lands

page 106

to as many parties and as many times as pay would be forcoming, gave the
Proprietaries of Pennsylvania a deed of Wyoming lands which had been sold
nineteen years previous to the Susquehanna Company.
     Immediately after the close of this Indian Congress, the Susquehanna
Company held a meeting at Hartford, and voted to settle Wyoming at once.  It
was also "voted that forty Persons, upwards of the age of twenty-one years,
Proprietors in said Purchase, proceed to take possession of said land by the
first day of February next, and that two hundred more of the age aforesaid
join the said forty as early in the Spring as may be."  For the purpose of
encouraging the self-reliant men who were expected to encounter many a
repelling wave as they went into this Indian land, the sum of two hundred
pounds was appropriated to purchase "proper materials, sustenance, and
Provisions for said forty."  Five townships, each five miles square, were to
be laid out for "the said forty and the said two hundred persons, reserving
and appropriating three whole Rights or Shares in each Township for the
Public use of a Gospel Minister and Schools in each of said Towns, and also
reserving for the use of said Company all Beds, Mines, Iron Ore, and
Coals."  John Jenkins, Isaac tripp, Benj. Follett, Wm. Burk, and Benj
Shoemaker, were appointed a committee to exercise a general superintendence
over the affairs of the forty settlers, and to lay out and prepare a road
through the wilderness to Susquehanna River.  Fifty pounds, Connecticut
currency ($167) was voted this committee to build this, the first road opened
from the East to Wyoming.  This trail or public road followed the warriors'
path, and unbridged for swamps and streams sometimes formidable indeed, was
simply widened for the saddled horse.
     A road had been opened to Teedyuscung's village from

page 107

Shamokin in 1759.  Wyoming, which lay in serene grandeur amid her mountain
shades, had been watched by Governor Penn with an extraordinary appreciation
of its importance and relations to his own Province.  Not only this, but the
fear of a new Colony or Province, distinct from that of Pennsylvania or
Connecticut, and comparatively independent of either, to embrace Wyoming and
Lackawanna valleys, Wallenpaupack, and Cochecton within its boundary,
contributed much toward inspiring the unyielding opposition of Penn to any
movement of men aiming to develop the backwoods of Wyoming.  After the
Proprietaries' purchase of these lands in November, 1768, Governor Penn
proceeded forthwith to lease one hundred acres for seven years to Messrs.
Ogden, Jenkins, and Stewart, ostensibly to establish an Indian trading post,
but really to baffle the efforts of the Susquehanna Company to colonize and
settle the territory, and to retain possession himself.  "These lessees",
says Chapman, "with several other adventurers, removed to Wyoming in January,
1769, and took possession of the improvements made by the Connecticut people,
from which they had been driven by the Indians in 1763."  The forty persons
sent out by the Susquehanna Company from Hartford, arrived on the ground,
February 8, 1769.  "On their arrival at the place where they had built a log
house in 1763, they found Captain Amos Ogden, an Indian Trader, and others
with him, had entered into their s'd house.  Our Settlers, not willing to use
any force to regain the s'd house from him or them, set themselves to build a
number of Log Houses, or rather Huts, for their shelter, and went quietly
about their lawful business in the peace of God and the King."  The forty
settlers at Mill Creek were taken prisoners by the Ogden party, carried to
Easton jail, seventy miles away, promptly released on bail, and as promptly
sought their Wyoming cabins.

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     In the month of March following, being joined by some one hundred and
fifty others from Connecticut and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who,
finding their comrades at Mill Creek under bonds to appear at Easton Court
during this month, stopped at the mouth of the Lackawanack, where they
erected some rude log structures for dwellings and defense.  When the first
party of New England men were on their way to Wyoming in January, 1769, Thos,
Bennett, of Goshen, New York, was induced to accompany the party hither. 
Immediately after the capture and partial dispersion of the settlers at Mill
Creek, he went with some "New England men to a place called Lamawanak, and
there built a Blockhouse", for the purpose of resisting the aggressions both
of the Pennymites and the hostility of the surrounding Indians.  After
Bennett's arrest by the Pennsylvania authorities, he endeavored to exculpate
himself from censure by affirming "that the only reason of his ever appearing
in arms at the Fort was to keep Centry somtimes in his turn, when they were
under apprehensions of being attacked by the Indians, a number of them beging
then there, who appeared very angry and painted, and threatening to roast a
Hog in the Fort and have a dance; and that the said Indians carried off a
Hog."
     "Nothing", says Bancroft, (see footnote) "could restrain the Americans
from peopling the wilderness.  To be a freeholder was the ruling passion of
the New England man.  Marriages were early and fruitful.  The sons as they
grew up, skilled in the use of the ax and the rifle, would, one after
another, move from the old homestead, and with a wife, a yoke of oxen, a cow,
and a few husbandry tools, build a small hut in some new plantation, and by
tasking every faculty of mind and body, win for themselves plenty and
independence.  Such were they who began to dwell among the untenanted forests
that rose between the

(Footnote:   Bancroft's History United States, vol. v, p. 165

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Penobscot and the Sainte Croix, or in the New Hampshire grants, on each side
of the Green Mountains, or in the exquisitely beautiful Valley of Wyoming,
where, on the banks of the Susquehanna, the wide and rich meadows, shut in by
walls of wooded mountains, attracted emigrants from Connecticut, though their
claim of right under the charter of their native colony was in conflict with
the territorial jurisdiction of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania."
     Of the forty adventurers plunging into the forest thus disputed, to be
greeted only with writs and arrests by the Pennymites, apprised of their
coming by swift-footed couriers from the Delaware, none chose to stop and
settle at Capoose, yet watched with bow and battle-ax.  Hunters and trappers
had achieved rare sport along its borders, trodden by game easily secured,
but the emigrant, hopeful and heroic as he came from his home, passed by the
wigwams, and went with the main body down to the mouth of the stream.
     The names of the five original townships laid out here, were Wilkes
Barre, Hanover, Plymouth, Kings-town, and Pitts-town; Providence, or "Sixth
Town of ye Capoose Meadows", being laid out and added in 1770.  Lackawannock
was then applied to the country in the immediate vicinity of the mouth of the
stream, embracing the village of Asserughney, occupied by the swarthy
aborigines.  It was in the new laid-out township of Pitts-town, and as its
banks were clear of wood for five miles, it promised economy of labor in
cultivation, and was chosen for a settlement partly for this reason, and
partly because of the unfriendly occupancy of the Mill Creek clearing, a few
miles below it, by the Pennymites.
     Although all persons from the "Colony of Connecticut attempting to
settle upon a Large Tract of Land, within the Limits of this Province, lying
at and between Wyoming, on

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the River Susquehanna, and Cushietunk, on the River Delaware", were notified
at this time by Governor Penn, whose eye was sleepless upon the distant
valley, to leave the settlements forthwith, the solitude of the Lackawanna,
interrupted only by the low babbling of brooks, or the dull sounds from the
Indian clearings, began to attract the emigrant who came hither with all the
industrious qualifications belonging to the New England character.  In fact,
civilization was never carried westward into the wilderness by a more gallant
and deserving body of men, than those who formed the vanguard of this frontier
settlement.  Descending from the same stock of determined pioneers, that
wrought out a colony amid the vales and hills of Connecticut, they entered
with equal zeal into this new acquisition, hoping to achieve greater
conquests with the plow and hard-swung ax, and, if need be, lay the
foundation for a grand commonwealth, as other provinces had been laid out
before.
     In May, 1769, Charles Stewart, Esq., writes from "Manor of Stoke" (see
footnote), that he had but twenty-four men to oppose the New England men, of
whom "one hundred and forty-six, chiefly on horseback, passed by our houses
this afternoon (May 16, 1769), about three o'clock and are now encamped on
the East side of the River.  From the view I had of those Gentry, in their
procession by our Houses, they appear to be at least an equal number of them
of the very lowest class, but are almost all armed and fit for mischief."
     Such was the language, and such the bitterness of the reception meted
out to the new- comers from Paxton, entering the valley.
     It was thus amidst king's writs, posses, and arrests, as will be seen,
and all the exacting severities incident to

 (Footnote:  In 1769, Wyoming was laid out into two vast manors by
Pennsylvania surveyors, viz: "Manor of Stoke", embracing the east side of the
Susquehanna, and "Manor of Sunbury" extending over the west side.)

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the backwoodsman's life a century ago, that the Paxton boy forgot his
fruitful intervale, and the Yankee forsook his stone-clad homestead in
Connecticut, for this inhospitable plains of Wyoming.
     Thirty-five of the persons thus described by Mr. Stewart, located near
Pittston.  Their names were:--
 
"Benj Shoemaker          William Leonard          Azariah Dean 
John McDowell            John Leonard             John Wheat 
Samuel Weyburn           Samuel Marvin            John Wharburt 
John Lee                 ____ Marvin              Jacob Welch 
Joseph Lee               Rheuben Hulburt          Jabez Cook 
Thomas Bennett           Samuel Clark             Ebenezer Nultrip 
Benj. Follett            John Gardner             _____Chambers 
_____Cornstack           John De Long             _____Gore 
Daniel Hains             John Smith, Esq., & his  _____Babcock 
John McDowell, jr.       two sons _____ Smith     _____Wright 
Benj. Shoemaker, Jr.           and _____Smith     Asher Harrod
                         Joseph Moss

     Although many of these men subsequently settled in the more central or
lower townships, they at this time located on the belt of ground running in
such exquisite beauty from Campbell's Ledge down to the outlet of the
Lackawanna.
     This so aroused the indignation of John Jenkins, Esq., sheriff of
Northampton County, to whom was intrusted a general supervision of the
Proprietaries' interest at Wyoming, that he assembled a posse to arrest or
drive away the settlers into the cold hospitality of the woods.  He "Went to
Lacknawanak, near Wyoming, on Susquehanna, in the County of Northampton,
where the intruders had built their two houses, One of which was a Strong Log
house built for Defense; that the said Intruders betook themselves to their
said Houses, and declared they would not give up the Possession of said
Lands, but would maintain the same as their own, and put to Death any persons
that attempted to dispossess them; that the said Justices, after long and
fruitless expostulation, recorded the forcible Detainer, and this Deponent,
by their

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Orders, prepared to take the said Intruders, and received two Blows from some
of them, but having forcd into one of the houses, and taken those that were
therein, the rest surrendered, and the whole thirty taken into Custody", and
carried over the mountain to Easton jail,  with the exception of those who
escaped from the sheriff while on the way.
     This was in 1769.  Having friends in Pennsylvania, they readily obtained
bail, and immediately returned to Lacknawanak.
     The summer of this year, now agitated and then pacified by the
alternation of strength of the respective parties, left the Pennymites in the
possession of the valley.  During the year 1770 the intestine feud, from which
the inhabitants had hoped to be exempt, resulted in the temporary expulsion of
the Yankees.  The following is "a list of Lackawany who drew in 1770", and
were thus expelled:--

     Topez Williams, by            Silas Parks
          P. Williams              Prime Alden

     In 1771 the following persons "drew lands in Lackawanny":--

     Jacob Anguish       David Brown         Ebenezer West
     Peter Daman         Martin Weilson      Samuel Stubbs, by
     John Osborn         Elipolet Stevens         Austin Hunt
     John Depeiw         Dan'l St. John      Ebenezer Marcy, by
     Levi Green          Elizar Fillsbury         Isaac Allen
     Peter Mathews       Stephen Wilkox      Caleb Bates, by
     James Hesdale       Richard Woodward         Wm. Hopkins
     David Sanford, by   Sam'l Slaughter
          Jenks Corey

     In the Westmoreland Records, from whose musty pages the foregoing list of names is
taken, is the following entry:--
     "N.B. On the north side of Lackawan, drawd lots, 1772.

     Jeremiah Blanchard       Samuel Slater       Joseph Fish
     Abram Harden             John Corey          Ebenezer Bachus
     Richard West             Daniel Haller

     "Lotts on the South side of the Lackawan river.

     Johnathan Corey          Stephen Harding     Capt. Bates
     Ebenezer West            Ebenezer Marcy      David Brown
     David Sanford            Augustin Hunt       James Fledget"
     Abraham Utter

     Blood having been shed in the winter of 1771, and both parties having
fresh accessions, the contest was renewed with redoubled violence.  Men were
raised by Captain Ogden "to reduce the Rebels at Wioming".  In August, 1771,
he "moved on to the forks of Lahawanak and Wyoming paths".  He captured the
fort by stratagem, sent the Yankees to Easton jail, plundered the cabins,
devastated the ungathered crops, and intimidated and suppressed every
sentiment friendly to the Connecticut people thus stigmatized as rebels.
     In a spirit of vague Christianity he sent "a party of six men to lay on
the Sheholey road from Wioming to Delaware to prevent expresses going that
way to N. England" after relief.
     Dr. Ledlie, under date of August 16, 1771, writes to Governor Hamilton,
that "we were just sending off Flour by way of Lackawanack, and that we shall
keep the Shehole and Miniskink Paths Guarded to prevent more People &c.,
coming to them."  This Shehole path was the warriors' trail up the Lackawanna
to Paupack and the Delaware.
     When the Yankees again returned from jail, they made a temporary
camp-place above Pittston.  Here a spy, "named Jas. Bertrong, was taken
prisoner by a party

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of Men at Lachnwanack" who reported that fifty or sixty men under Lazarus
Stewart and Zebulon Butler, were then defying the authorities of Pennsylvania.
     While this strife sacrificed much of the social relations, and retarded
the industrious tendency of the settlement, it was not wholly fatal to its
growth.
     The immediate head or seat of the democratic colony, originally claimed
and disputed for by the settlers at Kings-Town, was finally located in Wilkes
Barre, where, in or around the fort, the people gathered at stated intervals
and held council together; discussed its affairs generally and settled
abstract principles of public right and good relating to the interests of
Wyoming, with a fairness and freedom that harmonized well with the liberal
character of the settlers from Connecticut.  The proceedings of these
meetings, kept through all the years of peace and war, until Connecticut lost
jurisdiction over Westmoreland, were recorded in a written book called the
Westmoreland Records. (See footnote)
     Settlers were permitted "to make a pitch" or settle in none of the up or
down river territory only by the consent or vote of the inhabitants at these
meetings; and even then only upon certain stipulated conditions.
     "At a meeting of ye Inhabitants of ye townships at Wyoming, in
Wilksbury, legally warned and held, Dec. 7, 1771, Capt. Zebulon Butler was
chosen moderator

(Footnote:  These old records, which once occupied a musty coop in Wilkes
Barre, could not be found a few months ago, when the writer sought for them
through a clever and prominent official, are the most curious literary
fragments of antiquity yet remaining amongst us.  These meetings, which gave
birth to these Records, were called "Ye meeting of ye proprietors", where all
had an equal voice in the deliberations.  A "moderator", and "clerk" were
chosen at each meeting.  This book recorded all deeds of land, &c., and was
commenced in 1770, and terminated only with the expulsion of Connecticut
jurisdiction at Wyoming, in 1782.  We know of no other ancient manuscript,
whose publication would link together and afford more insight into ancient
times than the three or four volumes of Westmoreland Records, if they can be
exhumed.  The Historical Society of Wilkes Barre, if not able or disposed to
print, ought to be their custodian.)

page 115 

for ye day", it was voted "that this Company is to take in Settlers
on ye following Considerations:  that those that take up a Settling Right in
Lockaworna, shall pay to this Company Forty dollars, and those that take a
Right in Wilksbury or Plymouth, shall pay Fifty Dollars; and those that take
a Right in Kingstown, shall pay Sixty Dollors, all for ye use of this
Company, etc."  A committee was also appointed to take bonds from those who
should be admitted as settlers.
     Lackawanna, or Lockaworna as then designated, being more remote from the
main settlement, protected by block-houses or forts, and from its very
isolation, up in the narrow valley, more exposed to wild beasts and Indians,
than either Wilkes Barre or Kingston, although enjoying the same federative
government, was offered to persons whose courage overreached their means,
upon terms apparently more advantageous and easy.  Of the original number of
two hundred and forty, who emigrated to Wyoming in 1769--all of whom were
male--only thirty-five were located along the Lackawanna.  In regard to
these, who lived within reach of the block-house at Pittston, it was voted,
April 25, 1772, by the Susquehanna Company, "that those 35 men that is now in
ye township of Lockoworna, shall be entitled to all ye Companyes Right to sd.
township."
     With a view of imparting to the colony a healthy moral stamina, a
committee of five persons were appointed at the same meeting, "to admit
settlers into ye six mile township.  But for no one of the committee to admit
in settlers unless ye major part of said Committee be present to admit", and
then to allow only "such as good, wholsom inhabitants" to settle.
     December 17, 1771, "this meeting is opened and held by adjournment,
voted, that Joseph David Sanford, Barnabas Cary, Elezer Cary, jun., Arter
French, John Frazier

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Timothy Reine, jun., Stephen Harden, and Caleb Bates, have each one a
Settling Right in ye township."
     Not only had morality its defenders and advocates among the early
settlers, but industry was considered such an essential qualification to the
prosperity of the new settlement, that at a meeting of the inhabitants held
in Wilkes Barre Fort, in December, 1771, it was voted "that Frank Phillips be
admitted to Purchoys a settling Right in Lockaworna, Provided he puts an Able
Bodyed man on sd. Right, and Due Duty Equal to ye Rest of ye Settlers".
     April 29, 1772, voted "that Samuel Slougher is admitted in as a Settler,
in Room of Mortin Nelson, in ye township of Lockoworna", and in January 13,
1772, voted "that David Carr is admitted in as a Settler in Lockaworna, and
hes Given His Bond for Forty Dollors."
     By the old roadside in Pittston township, on the right as you descend
the valley, about three miles up from Pittston, could be seen a few years
since the debris of a chimney of one of the earliest cabins of the white man
erected in the valley in 1770.  It was built by Zebulon Marcy, who emigrated
from Connecticut in the spring of this year, in the twenty-sixth year of his
age.  He was brother of Ebenezer, who came into possession of this rustic
dwelling some time afterward.
     Choosing this spot for his residence, upon the warriors' path, from its
inviting soil and convenient location, his hut, formed from logs in the stern
simplicity of the times, subsequently became famous for its genial hospitality.
     At the time of the Wyoming massacre, eight years after locating here,
Ebenezer Marcy was engaged with his comrades below in the defense of Wyoming
from the ravages of the merciless Indians, Tories, and British, when the news
that the brave defenders had retreated before the pursuing and mongrel horde,
flew through the settlement with astounding effect and rapidity.  Hurriedly
snatching

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her children from the house, and securing a loaf of bread for the supperless
fugitives, she fled from the valley on the evening of July 3, 1778, across
the mountain to Stroudsburg, in company with all her neighbors thus left
feeble and defenseless.  "She was", says Miner, "taken in labor in the
wilderness.  Having no mode of conveyance, her sufferings were inexpressibly
severe.  She was able to drag her fainting footsteps but about two miles that
day.  The next day, being overtaken by a neighbor with a horse, she rode, and
in a week's time was more than 100 miles with her infant from the place of
its birth."  The child born at this time, and subsequently married twice,
died a short time since in Wyoming County.
     Marcy himself was a man of some local prominence in his day, and was
chosen the first constable of Pittston, in January, 1772.     
     Barnabas Carey, whose right to settle in the township was voted in 1771,
pitched farther up the valley, where, from the fallen tree and the
fresh-peeled bark, he fashioned a cabin to afford him protection from the
storms and the wolves.  This was the first one erected by the white man above
the Falls of the Lackawanna, and the honor of the achievement belongs to
Carey.  The next year he sold his claim to "the eight meadow Lott in ye
Township Lockaworna to Jeremiah Blanchard for thirteen pounds and four
shillings."
     Constant Searles and John Phillips were among the Yankee emigrants who
located in the valley in 1771.  Frank Phillips, who was voted a settling
right in "Lockaworna" in December, 1771, was the father of John, only
fourteen years of age, and settled in the "gore", or wedged- like shape of
land lying between Pittston and Providence.
     Six year later, Phillips' farm was sold to his son,

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John, for thirty pounds, current money.  Among the five commissioners chosen
to purchase land, whereon to erect the necessary public buildings, at the
time of the formation of Luzerne County, in 1786, was John Phillips.
     After the Trenton Decree authorized a re-survey of the prolonged
disputed lands in the seventeen old certified townships, Pennsylvania sent to
Wyoming "200 flints and 2 Boxes of cartridges", because the inhabitants were
reported "wrangling".  At this time the Pennsylvania soldiers, excited and
brutal with rum, and under the command of Captains Shrawder and Christie,
began to lay open fields of grain for common pasturage, destroying every
thing belonging to the Yankee settlers, while establishing the boundaries of
Pennsylvania, regardless of those of Connecticut.
     Phillips and his family were among those driven from their farms in
1784, in a manner so graphically described by Hon. Charles Miner in his
History of Wyoming:--  "On the 13th and 14th of May the soldiers were sent
forth, and at the point of the bayonet, with the most high- handed arrogance,
dispossessed one hundred and fifty families; in  many instances set fire to
their dwellings, avowing the intention utterly to expel them from the
country.  Unable to make any effectual resistance, the people implored for
leave to remove either up or down the river, as with their wives and
children, in the state of the roads, it would be impossible to travel.  A
stern refusal met this seemingly reasonable request, and they were directed
to take the Lackawaxen road, as leading most directly to Connecticut.  But
this way consisted of sixty miles of wilderness, with scare a house; the
roads were wholly neglected during the war, and they then begged leave to
take the Easton or Stroudsburg route, where bridges spanned the larger
streams, still swollen by recent rains.  All importunities were in vain, and
the

page 119

people fled toward the Delaware, objects of destitution and pity that should
have moved a heart of marble.  About five hundred men, women, and children,
with scarce provisions to sustain life, plodded their weary way, mostly on
foot, the roads being impassable for wagons, mothers carrying their infants,
and pregnant women literally wading the streams, the water reaching to their
armpits, and at night slept on the naked earth, the heavens their canopy, and
scarce clothes to cover them.  A Mr. John Gardener and John Jenkins, both aged
men and lame, sought their way on crutches.  Little children, tired with
traveling, crying to their mothers for bread, which they had not to give
them, sunk from exhaustion into stillness and slumber, while the mothers
could only shed tears of sorrow and compassion, till in sleep they forrgot
their greifs and cares.  Several of the unfortunate sufferers died in the
wilderness, others were taken sick from excessive fatigue, and expired soon
after reaching the settlements.  A widow, with a numerous family of children,
whose husband had been slain in the war, endured inexpressible hardships.  One
child died, and she buried it as she could beneath a hemlock log, probably to
be disinterred from its shallow covering, and be devoured by wolves."
     A small mound, sheltered by a friendly hemlock, lies by the roadside in
Wayne County where the little one was buried.
     "One shocking instance of suffering is related by a survivor of this
scene of death; it is the case of a mother, whose infant having died, roasted
it by piecemeal for the daily subsistence of her suffering children."
     Elisha Harding, who formed one of this party, says that "the first night
we encamped at the Capouse, the second at Cobbs, the third at Little Meadows
(Salem), cold, hungry, and drenched with rain--the poor women and 

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children suffering much.  The fourth night at Lackawaxen, fifth at
Bloomington, sixth at Shehola, and seventh on the Delaware, where the people
disbanded--some going up and some down the river."
     Pennsylvania repudiated this ferocious conduct of the soldiers, and at
once indignantly dismissed the respective companies engaged in proceedings so
infamous.
     After the Compromising laws had pacified the valley, Phillips returned
and took possession of his former farm.
     Timothy Keys, Andrew Hickman, and Mr. Hocksy settled in Providence
Township in 1771.  Keys was chosen constable of Providence, June 30, 1772. 
Among the first five women coming to Wyoming was the wife of Hickman.
     The Westmoreland Records inform us that "Augustine Hunt, one of ye
Proprietors in ye Susquehanna Purchois has made a pitch of about one hundred
and fifty acres of Land in Lockaworna township in 1772."
     John Taylor, with no companions but his ax, his rifle, and his faithful
dog, early made a pitch in Providence on the elevation below Hyde Park,
affording such views of village and valley, and known throughout the valley
as the "uncle Jo. Griffin farm."  Mr. Taylor subsequently became a man of
more than ordinary usefullness in the colony.  He was a prominent member of a
number of committees, which received their existence with the expansion of the
settlement, and he took an active part in the social and political
organizations of the day.
     Pitts-town, which was named in honor of the distinguished advocate and
defender of American interest, Wm. Pitt, as was Wilkes-Barre from the united
names of two bold and eloquent champions of American rights in the British
Parliament, was one of the original townships laid out by the Proprietors of
the Susquehanna Company, and extended from Wilkes Barre to Providence.
     

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     Among the early families here, were the Browns, Bennetts, Benedicts,
Blanchards, Careys, St. Johns, Marcys, Sawyers, and Silbeys.  One of the
Pittston forts being erected on the farm of Brown, was named in honor of him,
and was at the time of the Wyoming massacre occupied by a small company of men
commanded by Captain Blanchard.
     This block-house was built in 1772.  At a meeting of the proprietors and
settlers held in Wilkes Barre, May 20, 1772, it was voted "that ye Proprietors
Belonging to ye town of Pittston Have ye Liberty to Go into their town, and
there to fortyfie and Keep in a Body Near together and Gourd by themselves
until further notice from this Committee."
     Samuel Harden was chosen collector for Pittston, and Solomon Johnson
"for ye town of Providence", in December, 1772.
     Meadow lot, No. 13, in Lockawarna, was sold to Jeremiah Blanchard, in
May, 1772, by Dr. Joseph Sprauge, one of the proprietors of the town, and the
first physician who practiced medicine in the valley.
     John Stevens was a proprietor in "ye township called ye Capouse
Meadow."  In May, 1772, he conveyed to John Youngs a settling right at
Capouse Meadow, merely for the "consideration of ye Love, Good will and
affections I have and Do Bare towards my Loving Son in Law, John youngs, son
to my wife Mary."