Preface:
The following sketches of history were written by Rev. David Craft, a Presbyterian minister, who lived in the borough of Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. (Wyalusing is 82 miles from Cortland--less, as the crow flies. It is a scenic drive along US Route 6 at any time of the year.) Nearby Camptown was made famous by Stephen Foster's minstrel song
Camptown Races. Craft described tumultuous events along the Susquehanna river frontier, which separated Iroquois territory from European-American settlements prior to and during the Revolutionary War. (Keep in mind that the place called Wyoming is located near present day Wilkes-Barre.) Neighbors fought neighbors in a bitter territorial war. Take your time and read all of it. You won't be disappointed. These sketches and more can be found in Craft's book:
History of Bradford County 1770-1878, Settlements, Chapter 3. Visit Tri-Counties Genealogy:
http://www.joycetice.com/craft/crafttoc.htm
Jeff Paine
The quiet and prudent among the settlers had hoped that peaceable measures
would prevail among them. They were exposed to immediate danger in case the war
should be transferred from the coast to the interior. They were just on the
confines of the Indian country, and must necessarily suffer the horrors and
cruelties incident to border warfare if the savages violated their pledge of
neutrality. They were about equally divided in sentiment among themselves, as
many being favorable to the Crown as were in sympathy with Congress.
Every
consideration of prudence would seem to counsel mutual forbearance with each
other and peace with their dusky neighbors. In the summer of 1777, British
emissaries came among the Indians, persuading them to violate their pledge of
neutrality, and among these settlements, stirring up the disaffected and
endeavoring to muster recruits for St. Leger, who was then investing Fort
Schuyler. This same year some deserters from the American army sought refuge in
the settlements. Diversity of sentiment began to develop itself. The old land
quarrel was renewed. The terms Yankee and Pennamite were dropped, and those of
Whig and Tory took their place. The peace once disturbed, a thousand things
contributed to foment the quarrel.
During the latter part of this year the Indians began to assume a more
threatening attitude towards the Susquehanna settlements, and before the close
of the year acts of undisguised hostility began to be perpetrated, and many of
the Whigs were plundered of their property, and the men carried into captivity.
Those who escaped sought refuge at Wyoming, then esteemed a place of comparative
security. Those who sympathized with the British interest removed their families
within the British lines, and the men joined Johnson’s Royal Greens. The whole
county was swept clean of white settlers—both Tory, Whig, and neutral—by the
various hostile expeditions which passed through it, and from 1779 to 1783 was
probably without an inhabitant, either white man or Indian.
To aid the commissioners, appointed under the act of 1799, in confirming
titles to the Connecticut claimants, Nathan Kingsley, Esq., and Justus Gaylord,
Jr., made out a list of the early settlers in Springfield; Jacob Bowman and
Henry Strope a like list for Claverack, which will be referred to as the
Springfield and Claverack lists, and will be found in full at the close of this
chapter.
To preserve the record of these early settlers, such sketches and facts as
can now be obtained will be given.
Leonard Lott settled on the farm now owned by Joseph Gamble, in Wilmot
township. He was married on Long Island to a Frenchwoman named Letitia Flander.
Removed to Stillwater, N. Y., where he was living in 1773. In the summer of 1777
he was at Wilmot, from whence he removed to Plymouth in the early part of the
winter, and lived there with Ira Manville from the 10th of December, 1777, until
the 1st of June, 1778. He was at the Forty fort at the time of the battle. After
the war he returned to the Gamble place, remained there two or three years, when
he moved to Meshoppen, thence to the Mehoopany creek, where he died. His
descendants still reside in Wyoming county.
Philip Painter lived farther up the river, on the farm subsequently purchased
by James Quick. He was probably a lessee of Philip Weeks, the Connecticut
claimant, but of his history I have been unable to learn nothing more, except
that after the war it is probable that he settled in Northumberland county.
Edward Hicks, from Dutchess Co., N. Y., made a possession at the mouth of
Sugar Run, as early as 1775, and remained there about a year, and left. He
embraced loyalist sentiments, and was taken by the Westmoreland militia,
December, 1777, from which time his name disappears from our local records.
Prince Bryant, of Providence, R. I., a tanner by trade, occupied this farm in
1776. By deed dated April 21, 1777, he sold the property to Benjamin Eaton, for
£200, and described it as “a certain lot or parcel of land in Westmoreland,
being the lot that I bought of Amaziah Close, containing three hundred acres,
lying in a district that was laid out by Jeremiah Ross and Lieut. Wells; said
lot is situated on the south side of the Susquehanna river, opposite Wialuchin.”
About this time he was engaged for nine months as post-rider between Hartford,
Conn., and Wyoming, making the round trip each fortnight. In January, 1781, he
was living in Goshen, Orange Co., N. Y., to which he removed about the time of
the battle of Wyoming. He subsequently settled above Athens, near the mouth of
Cayuta creek, where, in 1788, he owned six hundred acres of land, on which were
two dwelling-houses, a grist-mill, and a saw-mill, which in January of that year
he sold to Nathaniel Shaw and John Shepard.
Benjamin Eaton, who purchased of Prince Bryant, was from Kent, Litchfield
Co., Ct. He remained on this property until the spring of 1778, when re removed
to Wyoming for safety. Near by him was settled Calvin Eaton, probably a
relative. In 1787, Mr. Eaton was living in the “Mohawk district, Montgomery Co.,
N. Y.,” when he sold his land in Bradford County to Isaac Benjamin. In Erwin’s
History of Painted Post it is said that, “in 1795, Benjamin Eaton opened the
first store in the town, if not in the county, for the benefit of civilization.”
I have failed to learn anything further of his history there. A note from Prof.
D. C. Eaton, of Yale college, gives the following facts: Benjamin, fifth son of
Thomas and Elizabeth (Parker) Eaton, was born at Tolland, Conn., Feb. 1, 1732.
Thomas was the oldest son of Thomas and Lydia (Gay), who was the son of John,
oldest son of John, who emigrated from London to Massachusetts Bay in 1635.
It may be added, that Isaac Benjamin sold the farm to Jonas Ingham, Sept. 4,
1789, whose great-grandson now occupies it.
It will be remembered that Henry Pauling, of Montgomery Co., Pa., purchased
of Job Chillaway the site of the Mission village, in May, 1775. Soon after he
sent up Isaac Hancock, to take possession of his lands and cultivate them. Here,
on the 10th of September, 1777, Mrs. Hancock gave birth to a daughter, Betsy,
who became the wife of Jesse Ross. Mr. Hancock returned to his home, near
Philadelphia, late in the fall of the same year. His subsequent residence in the
county will be noticed in the township annals.
In order to make his title secure, Mr. Pauling purchased four rights in the
Susquehanna company, and his three sons, Benjamin, William, and Jesse, came upon
the property in the year 1776 or ’77. The wealth and social standing of the
family gave the young men great influence among the settlers. Generous of their
means, fond of the hunt and the rough sports of the times, they soon became the
leading spirits in the community, and lived on terms of great friendship with
their neighbors until the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, when their
ardent zeal for their Pennsylvania title, the suspicions and possibly unwise
eagerness of the prominent Whigs to crush out all loyalty to the crown of
England, led them, in common with many other prominent men in the colonies,
although greatly to the mortification and chagrin of their father, who espoused
heartily the cause of the colonists, to join the loyalists, and identify
themselves with the interests of the mother government. The prominence of the
family made the course of the young men the subject of much correspondence among
the leading men of this valley, a few extracts from which are appended.
In a letter written by Judge Gore, he says, “The circumstance of Mr. Pauling
is this: when he had purchased of Job Chillaway, he then sent his son, John
Pauling, to Wyoming to purchase a number of Connecticut rights to cover the
tract he had purchased of the Indian. Those Connecticut rights were laid in a
different direction from the former, so as to cover about one-half of the bottom
land, while the Indian right took no other. Afterwards he settled three sons, to
wit: Benjamin, Jesse, and the other name don’t occur. However, they lived there
several years in good agreement, so far as I know, until the Indians made war
against the United States, when these young men went off and joined the enemy.
One [William] was appointed a captain in Butler’s rangers, one a lieutenant, and
the third a quartermaster. They were all personally down against the settlement
at Wyoming, with the savages, and exercised great severities upon the prisoners.
They are yet at Niagara, one a justice of the peace.”
In 1802, Col. John Jenkins writes to Joseph Kingsbury as follows: “The three
Paulings who left our settlement the year before the battle in 1778, went and
joined Col. John Butler. They were commissioned as officers in his rangers. They
afterwards returned home in the winter, and made arrangements for their friends,
returned again, and joined Col. Butler early in the spring of 1778.”
Living in the immediate neighborhood of the Paulings were two families, one
named Page, and the other Richmond Berry. They were tenants of the Paulings, and
were loyalists. Berry was taken by the militia in 1777, and his family were
removed to Wyoming in the following spring.
James Wells lived next above the Paulings. His house stood in a grove of
white oaks, about sixty rods above the Stalford line, and twenty rods west of
the State road. He was a native of Colchester, Connecticut, from which place he
emigrated to Wyoming in 1771, and removed to Wyalusing in 1774. In company with
Jeremiah Ross he laid out the town in that year. He probably had two children
born in Wyalusing, viz., Alice, born in 1774, the first white child born in the
township, and Mary, born in 1776. Mr. Miner says (Hazleton Travelers, p. 57),
“The family were the earliest settlers in Springfield, on the Wyalusing, from
which, on danger becoming imminent from the savages, they removed to the more
densely settled part of the country, in the valley.” He and his oldest son,
James, enlisted in the First Independent Company, of Wyoming, under command of
Captain Robert Durkee. In this company Mr. Wells was first lieutenant. He, with
others, on learning the great danger to which Wyoming was exposed from the
savages, resigned his commission, left his company in New Jersey, and hastened
home to participate in the ill-starred battle of Wyoming. In this battle he
probably served as a private in Captain Bidlack’s (lower Wilkes-Barre) company,
which was on the right wing of the patriot army. Here he was surrounded and
slain. There is a tradition, which comes pretty well authenticated, that he was
wounded in the leg so that he could not run, and the Indians attempted to
capture him. Being a man of stalwart frame and giant strength he hurled off his
enemies, when one sunk a tomahawk into his skull, which ended his life. He was
forty-six years of age.
After the battle, the mother with her ten children fled with the other
fugitives to their friends in Connecticut, where they remained until 1787, when
they returned to Wyalusing, where the family will be again mentioned. James,
Jr., served in Captain Spalding’s company until the close of the war, when he
removed to the State of New York. James and Amos Wells were appointed in 1773 to
settle the line in dispute between the towns of Kingston and Plymouth, and
reported in November of that year. He was a proprietor of Charlestown, one of
the Susquehanna company’s townships, laid out on the West Branch, and sacked by
Plunket, September, 1775, but there is no evidence that he ever lived there.
Little else can be found in the meager records of these early times, but these
scraps show that he had the confidence of the early settlers in this part of the
country.
Nathan Kingsley, Esq., lived on the northern half of the farm now owned by
George H. Welles, at Wyalusing. The old house in which he lived is still
standing about thirty rods north of the railroad depot. He was the oldest son of
Salmon Kingsley, and was born in Scotland, Windham Co., Connecticut, January 23,
1743, and married Roccelana (Wareham?), of Windsor, Connecticut. (Prof. James L.
Kingsley, of Yale College, was a nephew of Nathan.) He came to Wyoming about
1772 or ’73 and was one of the original proprietors of Springfield. August 8,
1775, he was appointed one of the committee of inspection for the county of
Westmoreland. He purchased by deed bearing date January 8, 1776, of Elijah
Brown, for £60, one-half of a saw-mill “standing on a creek called by ye name of
Moughshopping, together with one-half of ye stream, tools, and timber belonging
thereto,” etc. He sold the same to Thomas Wigton on the 8th of March following.
The precise date of Mr. Kingsley’s settlement at Wyalusing cannot now be fixed.
He was there previous to the survey of the township of Springfield in October,
1777, and had set off to him lots numbered 34 and 35, and it appeared that
subsequently, in his absence, the township committee changed his corners.
About the latter part of this year he was captured by the Indians, and
remained in captivity nearly a year. While in captivity he secured the
friendship and confidence of the Indians by his skill in doctoring their horses.
He was, in consequence, allowed considerable liberty, and permitted to go into
the woods to gather herbs and roots for his medicines. Seizing a favorable
opportunity, he made his escape, and reached Wyoming in safety. During his
captivity his family found a home with Jonathan Slocum, a member of the Friends’
society. Here Nathan, Jr., was killed, and another son carried into captivity by
the Indians. Mr. Miner gives the account as follows: “A respectable neighbor,
Nathan Kingsley, had been made prisoner, and taken into the Indian country,
leaving his wife and two sons to the charity of the neighbors. Taking them home,
Mr. Slocum bade them welcome until Mr. Kingsley should be liberated, or some
other mode of subsistence present. On the 2d of November (1778), the two boys
being engaged grinding a knife, a rifle-shot and cry of distress brought Mrs.
Slocum to the door, where she beheld an Indian scalping Nathan, the eldest lad,
fifteen years of age, with the knife he had been sharpening. Waving her back
with his hand, he entered the house, and took up Ebenezer Slocum, a little boy.
The mother stepped to the savage, and, reaching for the child, said, ‘He can do
you no good; see, he is lame.’ With a grim smile, giving up the boy, he took
Frances, her daughter, aged about five years, gently in his arms, and, seizing
the younger Kingsley by the hand, hurried away to the mountains; two savages,
who were with him, taking a black girl seventeen years old. This was within one
hundred rods of Wilkes-Barre fort. An alarm was instantly given, but the Indians
eluded pursuit, and no trace of their retreat could be found.”
July 12, 1780, Lieutenant Kingsley was appointed on a court-martial, but
when, where, or in what company he received his military title is not known.
At the close of the war he returned to his old home in Wyalusing. His wife
and one son, Wareham, had survived the perils of the war, and now he enjoyed a
few years of quiet and comfort. On the organization of Luzerne county, Mr.
Kingsley, Matthias Hollenback, William Hooker Smith, Benjamin Carpenter, James
Nesbit, and Obadiah Gore were commissioned, May 11, 1787, judges of the common
pleas and justices of the peace, and constituted the first court held in the
county. Under date of Jan. 14, 1790, Mr. Kingsley sent the following letter to
the president of the supreme executive council, resigning his commission:
“Nathan Kingsley, of the county of Luzerne, commissioned one of the judges of
the courts of quarter sessions and common pleas for the county aforesaid,
finding it impracticable many times, by reason of high water, to attend courts,
and living sixty miles from the county town, joined to the smallness of the fees
allowed him in this behalf, is obliged, from necessity, to inform council that
he cannot in future serve in his aforementioned capacity. Were his abode nearer
than what it is at present to the county town, he would think of resigning his
office, but would continue in it with pleasure and satisfaction. The fall and
spring sessions happen at a time when the waters are high, and of consequence
make his traveling not only expensive, but very difficult and dangerous. The
time of attending, coming to, and returning from courts takes up so considerable
a part of the seasons of summer and fall that he is obliged to neglect his
agricultural pursuits, to the singular injury of his interest. From these
considerations, he desires council to accept his resignation, and take such
other order in directing the choice of another judge in his district as to them
shall seem meet.
“NATHAN KINGSLEY.”
His resignation was accepted on the 1st of the following February, and
Lawrence Myers was appointed to fill the vacancy. About 1787 or 1788 he built a
distillery on the creek, near the stone quarry, which was probably the first in
the township. His wife died, and is buried in the cemetery at Wyalusing, but the
precise date is not known. Mr. Kingsley is described as a large, tall man, of
more than ordinary intelligence, deeply interested in the prosperity of the
community and the development of the country. He fell a victim to the habits of
the times, lost his property, and in his old age was supported at the public
charge. He died in the State of Ohio in 1822, at the age of eighty.
Amos York lived next neighbor above Mr. Kingsley, on what has more recently
been known as the John Hollenbeck place. He came from Voluntown, Conn. At what
period I am unable to ascertain. He purchased a farm opposite the mouth of
Meshoppen creek, in Wyoming county, and there made a settlement. From the
Mehoopany creek up, on the west side of the river, several families were settled
prior to 1776. In Joseph Biles’ field-notes of the survey of the Susquehanna
river, under date of March 30, 1796, he notes “Eight pitches by article of
agreement, dated June 14, 1776, “which were to contain 1200 acres, of which
Elijah Phelps had three lots, numbered 4, 5, and 8; Thomas Millard, No. 2; Amos
York, No. 7; Ichabod Phelps, No. 3; Benjamin Kilbourn, No. 6; and Thomas
Millard, Jr., No. 1. From the records of the commissioners, under the act of
1799:
“Thomas Wigton, sworn in support of the first claim entered by Mrs. York [for
about 300 acres], saith that the said Amos York erected a house on, and inclosed
a considerable part of, the said tract of land opposite and above the mouth of
the Meshopping; that after he had removed to Wyalusing he, the said deceased,
went down and wrought on this land before the Indian battle in 1778, and that
Elijah Phelps being entered upon the said land, the deceased informed the said
deponent, some time prior to the said battle, that he was going over the river
to warn off the said Phelps, and on his return said he had warned him off.”
Mr. York moved to Wyalusing about 1774. His daughter, Sarah, in her
narrative, says about four years previous to 1778, although she may have
included in this the time they lived at Meshoppen. Manasseh Miner, the father of
Mrs. York, was one of the original proprietors in the Susquehanna company, and
conveyed this right to his daughter, and Mr. York made the pitch on which the
right was to be located at Wyalusing, on some of the Indian clearings. Here he
had carried on his improvements with considerable success. He had erected a good
log house, a log barn, and had a considerable stock of horses, cattle, sheep,
and hogs, and raised sufficient quantities of grain for their support.
On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he was known as an active and
ardent Whig, which arrayed against him the enmity of his Tory neighbors.
Apprehending trouble from the Indians, in the fall of 1777 he went down to
Wyoming to seek the advice of friends, and make arrangements for the removal of
his family. It was there thought there would be no danger from the savages in
the winter, and if in the spring they continued to favor the interests of the
British, there would be ample time to seek the protection of the lower
settlements. The capture of some of his neighbors occasioned new alarm, but
there seemed to be no alternative but run the risk of being undisturbed until
spring. To move his family sixty miles through a pathless wilderness, in the
depth of winter, could not be thought of.
On Feb. 12 and 13, 1778, there occurred a severe snowstorm. Each evening a
negro from the old Indian town came to Mr. York’s, on a trifling excuse, and
remained until late in the evening. On the 14th the storm ceased, and Mr. York
determined to find out the reason for the negro’s strange conduct. Immediately
after breakfast he set out on horseback on an errand to Mr. Pauling’s. As to
what followed will be nearly in the words of his daughter Sarah, who at the time
was fourteen years of age. She says, “The snow was two feet deep. In the
afternoon, Miner, his little son, ran in and said the Indians were coming. The
family looked out and saw Indians and white men, quite a company,* and the
children said they were not afraid, for father was with them. Parshall Terry
came in first, Tom Green next, and father next. Father took his seat on the bed
and drew his hat over his eyes. I went to him and said, ‘Father, what is the
matter?” He made no answer, but the tears were running down his cheeks. Terry
used to boat on the river, and often stopped at our house. When he came in,
mother said, ‘How do you do, Terry?’ He replied, ‘Mrs. York, I am sorry to see
you.’ Mother said, ‘Why, have you taken my husband prisoner?’ He answered, ‘Ask
Tom Green.’ Mother said, ‘Tom, have you taken my husband prisoner?’ He said,
‘Yes,’ but added, that he should not be hurt, only that he must take an oath
that he will be true to King George. My mother appealed to him and Terry by the
many acts of kindness they had done, represented to them the peaceable,
generous, and obliging disposition of her husband, and deplored the wretched
condition of the family.
*There were forty or fifty in the whole company, of whom only fourteen went
to Mr. York’s house.
“After a while Terry lit his pipe and said to Green, ‘It is late, and we must
be going.’ They then drove the cattle into the road, stripped the house of
everything of value they could carry away, broke open the chests, tied up the
plunder in sheets and blankets, and put the bundles on the backs of the men.
Father had to take a pack of his own goods. When they got prepared to start, my
father asked permission to speak to his wife,----he took her by the hand, but
did not speak. When the company started, my father was compelled to walk, carry
a bundle, and assist in driving his cattle, while his favorite riding-mare
carried Terry.”
The journey was a tedious, toilsome one for the captive. He was held a
prisoner for about nine months, during which time he was subject to exposure and
want, and endured all manner of hardship and suffering, not the least of which
was the constant anxiety for the welfare of his family, who were left destitute
in the midst of winter, and far from friends on whom they could call for aid in
their distress.
The narrative continues: “After the company had gone, and no more was to be
seen of father, my mother and sister, Wealthy, started down to the town of
Wyalusing, to see what had been done there. When they came to the village they
found only two women, the wives of Page and Berry, and some children, whose I do
not recollect. My mother stayed there a while and then came back…..That night we
expected every moment when the Indians would come and kill us, or take us
prisoners. We sat up and waited for the Indians all night. Next morning my
mother and the older children concluded to move the family down to Wyalusing. We
had eight fat hogs in the pen and a crib of corn. The bottom of the crib was
opened and the hogs let out, so they could get what corn they wanted, and we all
started for the village, taking what we could of necessaries. My oldest sisters
went every day and brought some things out of our house. We lived in this
village, in one of the cabins, about three weeks. One night, a man came to our
cabin and handed my mother a letter from my father. His name was Secoy (John
Secord), a Tory. While he was in the house, my brother Miner came in and said
there were three men coming. Secoy said, ‘Mrs. York, for God’s sake, hide me!’
She threw some bedding over him on the floor, and then went and stood in the
door. The men came up. They were Captain Aholiab Buck, her son-in-law, Miner
Robbins, my mother’s sister’s son, and a Mr. Phelps. My mother told them not to
come in, but to cross the river and stay at Eaton’s that night; that Eaton was
the only man left in the settlement; that early in the morning she and the
children would be ready to go with them. They crossed over as my mother advised.
She then told Secoy he might get up. He said he was hungry, and mother gave him
something to eat. He said she had saved him, and he would save her; that his son
was at the head of a body of Indians close by, and he was sent as a spy to see
if there was any armed men there.
“Next morning Captain Buck came over, and we all started on foot and traveled
ten miles towards Wyoming, with no track except what the three men made coming
and going. The first house we came to was Mr. Van der Lippe’s. My mother and two
of the older sisters went on next day with Captain Buck, the rest of the
children stayed at Van der Lippe’s,* until spring, when Mr. Phelps took us away
in a canoe to his house. Afterwards Miner Robbins took us in a canoe to Wyoming
fort, where mother was.”
* Mr. Fitzgerald and probably some others from up the river were staying in
this neighborhood.
As affording some idea of the value of Mr. York’s improvements at Wyalusing,
Mrs. Carr (Sarah York) says the Indians took off one yoke of oxen, one yoke of
four years’ old steers, one horse, eleven good cows, a number of young cattle.
There were besides eight fat hogs, store hogs, sheep, fowls, etc.; that he had
sufficient hay for his stock, three hundred bushels of corn in the crib, besides
other grain. When it is remembered that this was on hand the latter part of
February, we may infer that his crops were quite abundant. Including clothing
and bedding taken off by the enemy, she estimates the loss to the family at
$1395.
While living at Wyalusing, Mrs. York gave birth to two sons: one named Amos,
born July, 1775, and died April 27, 1776, probably the first death in the
township; the other born June 27, 1777, consequently about six months old at the
time of his father’s capture.
Mrs. York and her family took refuge in the Forty fort, where she maintained
herself by cooking for the garrison stationed there. Here she remained until
after the battle in which Capt. Buck fell, in the twenty-seventh year of his
age, leaving an infant daughter, born March 25, 1778, and who afterwards became
the wife of Major Taylor, of Wyalusing. Speaking of the evening of the battle,
Mrs. Carr, whose narrative I have quoted, says, “Some crawled in on their hands
and knees, covered with blood, during the night. The scenes of that night cannot
be described,----women and children screaming and calling, ‘Oh my husband! My
brother! My father!’ etc.
“Next morning after the battle this Parshall Terry* came with a flag and
written terms from Tory Butler to Col. Denison. He told Denison if he
surrendered peaceably not a soul should be hurt, but if he refused the whole
fort should be put to the tomahawk. My mother went to Col. Denison and told him
that this was the man who had deprived her of a husband and her children of a
father, and she could not bear to see him come into the fort; that she had no
confidence in his promises, and if he was allowed to come in she would go out.
Denison said she must not go out. She declared she would, called her children to
her, went to the gate and demanded a passage out. The sentry presented his
bayonet to her breast and asked Col. Denison if he should let her pass. The
colonel said no. He then pushed the bayonet through her clothes so that it drew
blood. She said to Col. Denison, ‘I will go out with my children, or I will die
here at the door.’ The colonel said, ‘Let her pass.’ We went down along the bank
of the river. We could see burning houses on both sides of the river, which the
Indians had set fire to. We went on until we got opposite Wilkes-Barre. We saw a
woman on the other side of the river, and mother called to her to bring a boat
over. The woman was a Mrs. Lock, a Dutchwoman. We all got into it, and Mrs. Lock
pushed it down the river with all her might. We run all day, and at night we
stopped at a house near the bank. Not long after we had been in the house a boy
informed us that Lieut. Forsman was on the bank with a boat-load of wounded men.
We all got into our canoe again, and Forsman took a man [Richard Fitzgerald]
from his boat to manage the canoe for us, and we run all night. We went down to
Paxton, where we stayed until October. At Paxton my mother buried her youngest
child, a son of thirteen months. He died at the house of Col. Elder.
* Col. Butler, in his report, says he sent Lieut. Therry with a flag. A
different spelling.
“After a time mother received letters from Wyoming stating that she might
return with safety. In October we went up to Wyoming in company with a Dutch
family. Capt. Buck’s widow was with us. We stayed about two weeks at
Wilkesbarre; but, as there was frequent murdering in the neighborhood, mother
would not stay. There were three men going through the big swamp; mother and her
family accompanied them on foot, resolved to make her way to her father’s in
Voluntown, Conn. One of the men was Asahel, brother of Capt. Buck. We lay one
night in the swamp. When we got through it the men left us. We traveled on foot
to New Milford, Conn., where mother was taken sick, and it was a fortnight
before she was able to travel.
“When we were at the North river, where Gen. Washington lay, an officer
informed him that there was a woman in distress. Gen. Washington ordered her to
be brought to his tent. She told him her story, and Washington gave her fifty
dollars. But we did not need money to bear traveling expenses, for the people on
the road treated us with great sympathy and kindness.
“At New Milford my sister, Buck, was among her husband’s relatives. She and
sister Esther remained there all winter. From New Milford we were carried in a
wagon a hundred miles to Windham, from there we traveled on foot a day and a
half to Voluntown. When within a mile of her father’s, a man met her and said,
‘How do you do, Mrs. York?’ Mother said she did not recollect him. He told us
who he was, and said, ‘Have you heard about your husband?’ She said she had not.
Said he, ‘I will tell you. He is dead and buried.’ Mother looked around on her
children, but did not speak. Not another word was spoken by her until she got to
her father’s. This was the first intelligence we had of father from the time he
was taken, except the letter Secoy brought. He was detained a prisoner at
different places nine months, and was exchanged at New York. After his release
he went to Mr. Miner’s to make inquiries after his family, but could get no
intelligence from them. He declared that he would start in two days, and would
find his family if living; but was taken sick, and died eleven days before his
family arrived. We all visited his grave that night.”
The following is a copy of Col. Butler’s pass to Mrs. York, the original of
which is still in existence:
“Permit the Bairor, Mrs. York & family consisting of Nine to pass from
this to Stonington in Connecticut. And I do also Recommend to all Authority both
Sivil and military to Assist the above family as they are of the Distressed
[inhabitants] which were drove from this Town by Indians and tories, and her
husband has been a prisoner with the enemy for eight months.----“ZEBN. BUTLER,
Lt. Col. Comdg.
“WESTMORELAND, Oct. 13, 1778.”
I have given the narrative thus full because it presents a vivid picture of
the fortitude and heroism of the women of this period of our country’s history.
Mrs. York was only one of thousands, especially on the border, who endured
similar sufferings, and were compelled to exhibit like firmness and
self-reliance in the hour of danger or of necessity.
