SURVIVORS’ ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF
WYOMING
Transcription by Michael J. Harding
The following is a transcription of an article that appeared
in The Connecticut Journal, 29 July
1778. Where possible original spellings
and syntax are maintained.
POUGHKEEPSIE, July 20.
Since our
last, many of the distressed Refugees from the Wyoming settlement on the
Susquehannah, who escaped the general massacre of the inhabitants have passed
this way, from whom we have collected the following account, viz.
[Previous to
the narrative, it may be necessary to inform some of our readers, that this
settlement was made by the people of Connecticut, on a grant of lands purchased
by the inhabitants of that colony under sanction of the government, of the
Indian proprietors; and that these lands falling within the limits of the
Pennsylvania claim, a dispute concerning the right, has arisen, between the two
governments, and proceeded to frequent acts of hostility. When it was at a height that threatened the disturbance
of the other governments, Congress interposed, by whose recommendation and
authority, the decision of the dispute was suspended, till that with Great Britain,
equally interesting to every American State, was concluded, when there might be
more leisure to attend to the other, and consider the justice of each claim.
On this
footing the dispute has lain dormant for two or three years; the inhabitants
lived happily and the settlements increased, consisting of eight townships,
viz. Lackewana, Exeter, Kingston, Wilksborough, Plymouth, Nanticoak, Huntington
and Salem, each containing five miles square.
The six lower townships, were pretty full of inhabitants, the two upper
ones, had comparatively but few, thinly scattered. The lands are exceeding good beautifully
situated along both sides of the Susquehannah, navigable for flat bottomed
boats, and produced immense quantities of grain of all sorts, roots, fruits,
hemp, flax etc. and stock of all kinds in abundance. The settlement had lately supplied the
Continental army with 3000 bushels of grain, and the ground was loaded with the
most promising crops of every kind. The
settlement included upwards of a thousand families, which had furnished our
army with a thousand soldiers, besides the garrisons of four forts, in the
township of Lockewany, Exeter, Kingston and Wilkesbury. One of these forts was garrisoned by upwards
of 400 soldiers, chiefly of the militia, the principal officers in which were
Cols. Dennison, and Zebulon Butler.
The Tories
and Indians, had given some disturbance
to these settlements last year, before Gen. Harkemer’s battle at Oneida Creek,
near Fort Stanwix, and our skirmishes soon after with parties of the enemy at
and near Schohary, when they were dispersed, and the Tories concealed
themselves among our different settlements; the people here remained
undisturbed during the rest of the year.]
About this
time the inhabitants having discovered that many of these villainous Tories who
had stirred up the Indians, and been with them in fighting against us, were
within the settlements, 27 of them were, in January last, taken up and
secured. Of these, 18 were sent to
Connecticut, the rest, after being detained some time, and examined, were for
want of sufficient evidence set at liberty; they immediately joined the enemy,
and became active in raising in the Indians, a spirit of hostility against
us. This disposition soon after began to
appear, in the behaviour of Tories and Indians, which gave the people apprehensions
of danger, and occasioned some preparations for defence.
The people
had frequent intimation that the Indians had some mischievous design against
them, but their fears were somewhat abated by the seeming solicitude of the
Indians to preserve peace; they sent down at different times, several parties
with declarations of their peaceable disposition towards us, and to request the
like on our part towards them. They were
always dismissed with assurances that there was no design to disturb them. But one of those Indians getting drunk, said
he and the other messengers, were only sent to amuse the people in the
settlement, but that the Indians intended as soon as they were in order, to
attack them. On this the Indian men were
confined, and the women sent back with a flagg.
In March, appearances became more alarming, and the scattered families
settled for 30 miles up the river, were collected and brought into the more
populous parts. In April and May,
strolling parties of Indians and Tories, about 30 and under in a company, made
frequent incursions into the settlement, robbing and plundering the
inhabitants, of provision, grain & live stock. In June, several persons being at work on a
farm, from which, the Tory inhabitants had gone to the enemy, were attacked,
and one man of them killed; soon after, a woman (Wife of one of the 27 Tories
before mentioned) was killed, with her five children, by a party of these
Tories and Indians, who plundered the house of every thing they could take
away, and destroyed the rest.
On the first
instant, (July) the whole body of the enemy, consisting, it is supposed of near
1600 (about 300 of whom were thought to be Indians, under their own chiefs, the
rest, Tories, painted like them, except their officers, who were dressed like
regulars) the whole under the command of Col. John Butler, (a Connecticut Tory,
and cousin to Col. Zebulon Butler, the second in command in the settlement)
came down near the upper fort, but concealed the greatest part of their number,
here they had a skirmish with the inhabitants, who took and killed two Indians,
and lost ten of their own men, three of whom they afterwards found, killed,
scalped and mangled in the most inhuman manner.
Thursday July 2. The enemy appeared on the mountains, back of
Kingston, where the women and children then fled into the fort. Most of the garrison of Exeter fort were
Tories, who treacherously gave it up to the enemy. The same night, after a little resistance,
they took Lackewana fort, killed Squire Jenkins and his family, with several
others, in a barbarous manner, and made prisoners of most of the women and
children; a small number only escaped.
Friday July 3. This morning Col. Zebulon Butler, leaving a
small number to guard the fort (Wilksbury) crossed the river with about 400
men, and marched into Kingston fort. The
enemy sent in a flag, demanding a surrender of the fort in two hours. Col. Butler answered he should not surrender,
but was ready to receive them. They sent
in a second flag demanding an immediate surrender, otherwise that the fort
should be stormed, plundered and burnt, with all its contents, in a few hours –
and said that they had with them 300 men.
Col. Z Butler proposed a parley, which being agreed to, a place in
Kingston was appointed for the meeting, to which Col. Z Butler repaired with
400 men, well armed, but finding no body there, he proceeded to the foot of the
mountain, where at a distance he saw a flag, which as he advanced, retired, as
if afraid, 20 or 30 rods; he following, was led into an ambush, and partly
surrounded by the enemy, who suddenly rose fired upon them. Not withstanding the great disproportion of
1600 to 400, he and his men bravely stood and returned the fire for three
quarters of an hour, with such briskness and resolution, that the enemy began
to give way and were upon the point of retiring - when one of Col. Z. Butler’s
men, either thro’ treachery or cowardice, cried out that the Colonel ordered a
retreat - This caused a cessation of their fire, threw them into confusion and
a total rout ensued. The greatest part
fled to the river, which they endeavoured to pass, to Fort Wilkesbury, the
enemy pursued them with the fury of Devils, many were lost or killed in the
river, and no more than about 70, some of whom were wounded escaped to Wilksbury.
Saturday
morning, July 4. The enemy sent 196
scalps into Fort Kingston, which they invested on the land side, and kept up a
continual fire upon it.
This evening
Col. Z. Butler with his family quitted the fort and went down the river.
Col. Nathan
Dennison, went with a flag, to Exeter fort, to know of Col. John Butler what
terms he would grant on a surrender.
Butler answered, the Hatchet. Col. Dennison returned to fort Kingston,
which he defended till Sunday morning, when his men being nearly all killed or
wounded, he could hold out no longer, and was obliged to surrender at
discretion. The enemy took away some of
the unhappy prisoners, and shutting up the rest in the houses, set fire to
them, and they were all consumed together.
These infernals then crossed the river to Fort Wilkesbury, which in a
few minutes surrendered at discretion.
About 70 of the men, who had listed in the Continental service to defend
the frontiers, they inhumanly butchered, with every circumstance of horrid
cruelty; and then shutting up the rest, with the women and children in the
houses, they set fire to them and they all perished together in the flames.
After
burning all the buildings in the fort, they proceeded to the destruction of
every building and improvement, (except what belonged to some Tories) that came
within their reach, on all these flourishing settlements which they had
rendered a scene of desolation and horror, almost beyond description, parallel,
or credibility; and were not the facts attested by numbers of the unhappy
sufferers, from different quarters of the settlement, and unconnected with each
other, it would be impossible to believe that human nature could be capable of
such prodigious enormity.
When these
miscreants had destroyed the other improvements, they proceeded to destroy the
crops on the ground, letting in the cattle and horses, to the corn, and cutting
up as much as they could of what was left.
Great numbers of the cattle they shot and destroyed; and cutting out the
tongues of many others, left them to perish in misery.
The course
of these truly diabolical proceedings, was marked by many particular acts of
distinguished enormity, among which were the following, viz.
The Captains
James Bedlock, Robert Durkee, and Samuel Ransom, being made prisoners by the
enemy. They stripped Capt. Bedlock, tied
him to a tree and stuck him full of sharp splinters of pine knots, then pileing
a heap of pine nuts round him, they set all on fire, put Durkee and Ransom into
the fire, and held them down with pitch forks.
Thomas Hill, (whose
father was killed by the Indians, last Indian war) with his own hands killed
his own mother, his father in law, his sisters and their families.
Partial Terry, the son of
a man who bore a very respectable character, had several times sent his father
word, that he hoped to wash his hands in his heart’s blood. Agreeable to such a horrid declaration, the
monster, with his own hand murdered his father, mother, brothers and sisters,
stripped off their scalps, and cut off his father’s head.
Col.
Dennison was seen surrounded by the enemy, and was doubtless murdered. Col. Zebulon Butler is supposed to be the
only officer who escaped.
It is said
he had several times written letters to the Congress and Gen. Washington,
acquainting them with the danger the settlement were in and requested
assistance; but that he received no answer, except that he had no cause to fear, since the Indians were all for peace, and
quite averse to war. However he
lately received a letter from Capt. Spaulding, acquainting him that neither
Congress nor Gen. Washington had received any of his letters, which had been
intercepted by the Pennsylvania Tories, who in all probability acted in concert
with these execrable miscreants, against Wyoming. It is reported that these wretches, after
completing their horrid business at Wyoming, are going or gone to Cherry
Valley, and the parts adjacent.
We hear that
a party of infernals of the like kind, have within this week or two, infested
the parts about Leghawegh, near Rochester, on the Minisink road to Philadelphia,
where a party of them, about 40 in number, have plundered and burnt several
houses, abused some people and carried off three men - It is hoped speedy and
effectual measures will be taken to punish and extirpate these monsters in
human shape, from the face of the earth.
The
distresses of the surviving inhabitants of that late flourishing settlement,
are by their present circumstances, rendered such striking objects of charity,
that withholding relief from them, by those who are able to afford it, argues a
criminal obduracy, which deserves, and may be punished by distresses of a
similar kind.
We are told
that of the 1000 men in the Continental army, who went from that settlement,
their number is by sickness and the cruel usage of the prisoners by the enemy,
reduced to 400, who have now to lament the loss of their property, wives,
children, and all that was dear to them in life! The helpless fugitives from the place,
escaped with little more than their lives, they could bring nothing with them –
hardly clothes to cover them, and nothing to eat, many were two or three days
without sustenance, and several pregnant women were delivered alone in the
woods. This it is hoped will be the
concluding score of the tragedy acted by the British tyrant and his murderous
diabolical emissaries, in a part of his late kingdom, which he has justly
forfeited, and which is now forever departed from him.
Sources:
"Poughkeepsie." The Connecticut Journal 29 July
1778: 563-1. America's Historical
Newspapers. Web.
7 Nov 2013.
"Poughkeepsie." The Connecticut Courant, and the Weekly Intelligencer 28 July 1778: 705-2. America's Historical Newspapers. Web.
16 Dec 2013.
Rae, Noel. "
Pennsylvania and the Frontier." The
Peoples War: Original Voices of the American Revolution (2012): 378-380.
Print.
"The Connecticut Journal." Eighteenth-Century American Newspapers in the Library of Congress. Print.
"The Connecticut Courant." Eighteenth-Century American Newspapers in the Library of Congress. Print.
MICHAEL J. HARDING is a descendant of many of the early Wyoming
Valley and Minisink Valley settlers including the Revolutionary War era families of Capt. Samuel Ransom and his wife Esther Lawrence, Michael and Mehitable Dunning, William and Elizabeth Quick Ennes, Philip and Margaretha Koenig Reasor, and Capt. Jan and Maritie Westfael Van Etten. Transcript corrections may be addressed to: gneissguy62
at yahoo.com
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