CHAPTER XVI. WYOMING AND THE SUSQUEHANNA COMPANY. in the year 1754 a company was formed in Connecticut for the purpose of purchasing a large tract of land lying west of the province of New York, on the Susquehanna river, and belonging to the Six Nations. This tract extended about seventy miles north and south, and from about ten miles east of the river Susquehanna westward two degrees of longitude. This territory was admitted, by the best lawyers of the nation, to belong to Connecticut by virtue of her charter. It had been conveyed away by King James I. in the most ample manner possible, by letters patent under the great seal of England, bearing date November 3, 1620, to the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Buckingham, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, with divers other persons, by the name of the council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England in America. This patent describes the bounds of Connecticut as extending "throughout the main lands," "front the western ocean to the south sea." This would include the whole of New York, and the principal part if not the whole of Pennsylvania.
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The Susquehanna company consisted at first of eight hundred and forty persons, and included a number of the inhabitants of Wallingford. The project of establishing a colony in Wyoming had been started by sundry individuals in Connecticut in 1753; and in the following-year, after the Susquehanna company was formed, a number of agents were commisioned to proceed thither, explore the country and conciliate the good will of the Indians. A purchase was made which included the whole valley of Wyoming and the country westward to the sources of the Alleghany.
Here was nature in unconcealed loveliness. The magnificent forests, the luxuriant fertility of the soil and the climate gave promise of golden harvests and pleasant homes as the rewards of industry and enterprise. Game of every sort was abundant. The quail whistled in the meadow; the pheasant rustled in its leafy covert; the wild duck reared her brood and bent the reed in every inlet; the red deer fed upon the hills; while in the deep forests, within a few hours' walk, was found the stately elk. Standing upon "Prospect Rock" on the Pokono mountain range, and looking westwardly, the entire valley can be surveyed at a single view, forming one of the richest and most beautiful landscapes upon which the eye of man ever rested. Through the center of the valley flows the Susquehanna, the winding course of which can be traced the whole distance. Several green islands slumber sweetly in its embrace, while the sight revels amidst the garniture of fields and woodlands; and to complete the picture, low in the distance may be dimly seen the borough of Wilkesbarre.1
1 The greatest effort of Campbell's genius was undoubtedly his "Gertrude of Wyoming," a poem in the old style of English pathos and poetry,
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When the agents returned with such glowing accounts, no wonder that every town in the colony was ready to furnish emigrants to this paradise; but the Indian war for several years prevented their settlement. In 1763 a number of emigrants from Connecticut visited the valley, cleared up some land, sowed their grain, and returned home. During the following spring they went back to Wyoming with their families, with the determination of making a permanent, settlement; taking with them their stock, farming utensils and household furniture. Their crops had proved abundant, they were delighted with their new homes, and they began to anticipate a life of peace and plenty. If we may believe Campbell,
"The happy shepherd swains had nought to do But feed their flocks on green declivities, Or skim perchance the lake with light canoe, From morn till evening's sweeter pastime grew."
But on the 15th of October they were suddenly startled by the sound of the warwhoop, which was followed by a fierce attack from a large party of savages. The settlers were entirely unprepared for such an assault, and about twenty men were killed and scalped. The remainder of the men, women and children fled to the mountains, and ultimately found their way back to Connecticut.
In 1768 the Susquehanna company determined to renew the attempt to settle the lands at Wyoming. Two hundred pounds Connecticut currency ($667,00), was
founded upon the desolation of Wyoming by the Indians in 1778. The Wyoming of Campbell is and will be a creation lovely to the heart and imagination of mankind. But the poet has given to the world a creation that is only imaginary. The "lakes," the "flamingo," and the "mock bird" are all strangers to Wyoming, and the historical allusions in the poem are not correct.
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appropriated to provide implements of husbandry, provisions, arms and ammunition, for those who might require assistance, and forty persons were to set out forthwith, and two hundred others were to follow the succeeding spring. At a meeting held at Hartford it was resolved that five townships, each five miles square, should be surveyed and granted each to forty settlers, on condition that those settlers should remain upon the ground, "man their rights," and defend themselves and each other from the incursions of all rival claimants. By the tenth of April two hundred and seventy able bodied men had left their homes in Connecticut for Wyoming.
In January, 1773, the General Assembly determined to extend their jurisdiction to the settlers, and incorporate them into a town by the name of Westmoreland, with the same privileges as other towns in the colony enjoyed. As the Susquehanna company had its opposers, and as many imagined that the claim of the colony was unfounded, the measures which the Assembly adopted, produced considerable excitement in the colony. A meeting was called at Middletown to take the subject into consideration. At a town meeting held at Walling-ford, March 21, 1744, the selectmen presented the petition of a great number of the inhabitants, requesting a legal town meeting for the purpose of consulting-proper measures relative to the affairs of the Susquehanna lands, "so far as they Judge Conducive to the Interest of this Colony."
"It was thereupon, motioned by a Propr of said Purchase so Called that a peice printed and Published at New London addressed to the candid Publick should be read to said Meeting and said Motion was opposed, and that a peice Published at New Haven in the Connecticutt Gazette, Signed
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many, Should be first read which proposed a Convention at Middletown of the respective Towns in this Colony by their agents or Committee to Consult Salutary Measures touching the Matters aforesaid, and the same was agreed to be read accordingly, then the first mentioned peice was read purporting an answer to the Same, and followed with peices Published in the New Haven Gazette with the State of the Case of said Claim with the opinion of the attorney General &c., and others Councel Learned in the Law, also Several Manuscripts were offered and read; particularly the Speach of Govr Fitch on the Subject matter to the Deputies of the Six Nations in General assembly of this Colony may 1763, the List of the Colony and the Proceeding and Votes of the Susquehanah Company at Windham on the 9th Instant, and after a full Debate and Consultation thereon,"
The question was put whether they would nominate and choose a committee to represent the town of Wall-" ingford at Middletown on the last Wednesday of March. It was voted in the affirmative, and Col. Elihu Hall, Benjamin Hall and Capt. Thaddeus Cook, "were Nominated and Chosen a Committee in behalf of said Town to attend upon and Join s'd Convention." At this convention twenty-three towns were represented, and a petition and remonstrance were ordered to be printed and dispersed through all the towns in the colony, that the general sense of the public might be had thereupon. This petition called in question the right of the Assembly to extend its jurisdiction to lands west of the province of New York:
"Measures which your remonstrants conceive to be of a very dangerous tendency, and pregnant with the greatest mischief to them and their posterity, and highly derogatory to the honour and interest, and destructive to the peace of the colony, and a great grievance."
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They claimed that the proprietors of the Susquehanna company were members of the last General Assembly, and deeply interested in the questions discussed, and did sit and act in the Assembly in the very matters in which they were deeply interested. The Assembly were requested to suspend the Wyoming settlers from interfering in the voting, being represented or otherwise transacting in the affair of government.
This party and their memorials met with very little countenance by the people in general; by many they were made a subject of banter and ridicule. At a town-meeting of the inhabitants of Wallingford, held April 11, 1774, the committee who were appointed to attend the Middletown Convention, presented the "Remonstance," which being read, a stormy debate arose, and papers and pamphlets were produced on both sides of the question, and it was put to vote whether they should be read in the meeting; it was decided in the negative, and after sundry debates the question was put whether the town would accept the "Doings or the Remonstrance agreed upon by the Middletown Convention."
"The Town Voted that the Moderator of said Meeting ordered the Vote to be recorded that they Excepted the Doings of said Committee at the Middletown Convention."
In 1775, the Wyoming colony had become so numerous that it was taken under the protection of the government of Connecticut, and organized into a township as a part of Litchfield county, by the name of Westmoreland. The spirit that had roused the people of the colonies to resist the oppressive acts of the mother country, met with a cordial response from the settlers of Wyoming. In the year 1776 the militia of the township
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were formed into the 24th regiment of Connecticut militia, and they furnished the continental army with nearly three hundred officers and soldiers to fight the battles of the country, which left the settlement at Wyoming weak and unguarded.
Wyoming was a part of Connecticut. Her sons were there with their good English names, shrewd sense, unostentatious homebred tastes, habits of economy, schools, religion, laws, industry and valor. Let us suppose that we too are there, and that it is early January of the eventful year 1778. Hill and glade smile as the morning sun glances over the mountain, to woo and melt at last the cold unsullied snow. The hale cattle and the dainty sheep nipping the hay that lies in heaps around the stack in the open meadow, while the farmer who has just fed them stands with his hands in his pockets, regarding their growth with a complacent smile that is the outward sign of the promise that his heart has made to itself of thrift for his sons, and marriage portions for his daughters, are additional features in the picture. Should he ask you to accompany him home and breakfast with him, you need not excuse yourself or hesitate lest his busy wife and pretty daughters, whose complexions show that they once belonged to New Haven county, should blush at the scantiness of the repast. They will set before you buckwheat cakes and venison, or it may be salt fish and the nice fragments of the wild turkey that flanked the loin of beef for yesterday's dinner.1
But this quiet state of things was not to last long. It
1 Hollister's Hist., II. 340. Miner's Hist. Wyoming, 208-9. Chapman's Hist. Wyoming. Stone's Hist. Wyoming.
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began to be rumored abroad that the Indians meditated an attack on the settlement. The settlers began to guard themselves with increased vigilance. Regular garrison duty was performed in the several fortifications by classes of the militia in successive order. Message after message was sent to their absent husbands in the continental army by the now thoroughly frightened women, begging them as they loved them and their tender babes, to come home. But Congress refused to let them go until every commissioned officer from Wyoming except two, had resigned; and many privates had deserted. But they reached their loved ones too late. A combined British, tory and Indian force had spread devastation and waste on every side. A terrible battle was fought ; and a massacre, awful in its details, commenced. About one hundred and sixty of the Connecticut people were slain, or more than half of the able men in the valley. The valley was deserted, and nearly every house and barn were burnt. The entire region presented a scene of devastation and ruin.
"On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming! Although the wild flower on thy ruined wall, And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring Of what thy gentle people did befall; Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore."
The remainder of the people endeavored to seek safety in flight. The dense forests and swamps that surrounded the valley of the Wyoming were teeming with the widowed women and fatherless children of the pioneers, who were wending their way back towards Connecticut with blighted hopes and broken hearts. Wyoming was a home to them no longer,
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"Waste were those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean."
The bodies of the slain lay unburied until the 22d of October, when a military guard of twenty-five men, under the direction of a lieutenant, collected their remains, dug a large hole and buried them.
The New England spirit of enterprise and love of adventure were soon manifested in new settlements in the Wyoming valley; a fort was built, and the few families who returned to the scene of their troubles proceeded to cultivate the fields. But by the unjust decree of Trenton, in 1782, the settlement was torn from Connecticut, and subjected to the authority of Pennsylvania, contrary to the wishes, and without the consent of the inhabitants. By this unrighteous act, Connecticut, which had held rank in the confederacy of 1775, as a colony of the first magnitude, and bad been literally the keystone State of the confederacy during the revolutionary struggle, had met every crisis with the greatest promptitude and vigor, and had made such great sacrifices to establish the cause of liberty and independence, underwent the mortification of seeing the integrity of her territory violated, her size diminished, her laws solemnly enacted nullified without her consent, and her rank in the Union reduced.1 But compromising and confirming laws were passed by the legislature of Pennsylvania, under which the Connecticut settlers were allowed to retain their farms.
3 Hinman's Connecticut in the Revolution, 17.