FOREWORD

It was the good fortune of the writer, a short time ago, to find in manuscript form a story—perhaps a diary would be more nearly correct—of that which the boys of Wyoming Valley did during the year 1778, while their fathers were fighting the battles of the Revolution elsewhere.

It is not necessary to explain how that manuscript came into my possession, nor to speak of the doubts which I had concerning the accuracy of the information given, because in the last case every statement made by the lad Jonathan Ogden has been verified by the works of such historians as Fiske, Lossing, and Bancroft.

It is essential, however, to a thorough understanding of the conditions existing in that portion of what is now the State of Pennsylvania, known as Wyoming Valley, to state as briefly as may be the troubles and trials which fell to the lot of the settlers there prior to the opening of the War of the Revolution.

Every fellow finds fault, and with good cause, at being forced to stop in the midst of a narrative to read historical matters which are of no very great interest, even though they may serve to enlighten him as to the reason of the movements of the several characters; therefore, as the editor, rather than the author, I propose to give a synopsis of the story of the settlement of Wyoming Valley, as set down by Lossing in his “Field Book of the Revolution.”

In 1753 an association was formed in Connecticut, called the Susquehanna Company, the object of which was to plant a colony in Wyoming Valley. At that time Connecticut claimed, by virtue of its old charter, the northeastern portion of the State of Pennsylvania. In order to strengthen its title to the land, the association purchased from the Six Nations the entire valley of Wyoming and the country westward to the Allegheny River.

Shortly afterward another Connecticut association, called the Delaware Company, purchased from the Indians land upon the Delaware River at a place called Cushetunk, and began a settlement there in 1757, but, owing to the French and Indian War, little was done until 1762, when two hundred colonists began building and planting near the mouth of Mill Creek, a little above the present site of Wilkesbarre.

The reader must remember that at this time the people of Pennsylvania looked upon both these companies as intruders, and proceeded to serve writs of ejectment upon them, but without any very satisfactory results.

Then came the massacre of 1763, when the Connecticut settlers were killed or driven away by the Delawares.

Now, Governor Penn, claiming that this valley of Wyoming belonged to him by virtue of his original grant, and desirous of avoiding legal complications, bargained with the Six Nations for this same land which they had sold to the Connecticut associations, and received from them a deed to the same.

Thus it was that in 1769 the State of Pennsylvania claimed the Wyoming Valley by virtue of its original grant and the purchase just effected; the State of Connecticut claimed the same territory through its ancient grant; the Susquehanna Company laid claims to it because of the permission granted by the State of Connecticut and the purchase from the Six Nations, while the Delaware Company believed it had equal rights with the others.

Therefore were there four claimants, each of whom was trying to establish a colony, and at the same time drive away those whom it was claimed were intruders.

It can be understood what confusion necessarily arose under such conditions, and it is needless to attempt to give here all the disputes and quarrels which ensued.

Each claimant built a fort or blockhouse where was the headquarters of his particular faction, and from which they sallied out in absolute warfare against the other dwellers in the valley. In 1770 members of the Susquehanna Company, called by the people of Pennsylvania “the Yankees,” fought a pitched battle with the “Pennymites,” in which several men were killed, and no less than six times, between that date and the opening of the War of the Revolution, was the valley the scene of hotly contested, bloody engagements.

All the claimants appealed to the Congress at Philadelphia for such an act as would finally settle the disputes, but the Revolution was begun, and little attention paid to those colonists who were squabbling for the ownership of a small territory when there was so much land on every hand to be had almost for the asking.

When the war broke out, the Assembly of Connecticut forbade further immigration into Wyoming Valley, but yet settlers went there, as if believing only in that one spot could a refuge be found from the wrath of the king and the bloodthirsty savages. In addition to that, people came from the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, who had no sympathy with either of the parties in what was then known as the Pennymite war, and nearly all of them were avowed Tories.

“In the meanwhile two companies of regular troops, of eighty-two men each, had been raised in the valley, under the resolution of Congress, commanded by Captains Ransom and Durkee, and were attached to the Connecticut line. The Wintermoots, who had purchased land toward the head of the valley and upon the old banks of the Susquehanna, at a place where bubbled forth a large and living spring of pure water, erected a strong fortification known as Wintermoot’s fort.”

Because these Wintermoots were avowed Tories, those of the settlers who had espoused the American Cause, met in town meeting and resolved that it had “become necessary for the inhabitants of the town to erect suitable forts as a defence against the common enemy.”

The original settlers, as the people of Pennsylvania called themselves, were, to a man, in favor of the Revolution, and this declaration as to fortifications was the first step taken in Wyoming to further and strengthen the cause of liberty.

Lossing says: “A fort was accordingly built, about two miles above Wintermoot’s, under the supervision of the families of Jenkins and Harding, called Fort Jenkins. Forty Fort (so called from the first forty Yankees, pioneers of the Susquehanna settlers in Wyoming), then little more than a weak blockhouse, was strengthened and enlarged, and sites for other forts were fixed on at Pittstown, Wilkesbarre, and Hanover. It was agreed in town meeting that these several fortifications should be built by the people ‘without either fee or reward from the town.’”

Such, in brief, was the condition of affairs in Wyoming Valley in 1776. And now, with one more extract from the records of the past, these dry, but necessary, matters of history shall come to an end, save when Jonathan Ogden refers to them in the story which he himself wrote.

On the tenth of March, 1777, the following resolutions were adopted at a town meeting held at Wilkesbarre:

“Voted, That the first man that shall make fifty weight of good saltpetre in this town shall be entitled to a bounty of ten pounds lawful money, to be paid out of the town treasury.

“Voted, That the selectmen be directed to dispose of the grain in the hands of the treasurer or collector in such a way as to obtain powder and lead to the value of forty pounds lawful money, if they can do the same.”

James Otis.