viah Whitney. Among those who were taken prisoners were Isaac Hollister, Benjamin Sheppard, Daniel Baldwin and Jane, his wife, Abraham Baldwin (said to have been a son of Daniel and Jane), John Hower and Emanuel Hower.

When the savages reached the settlement Timothy Hollister, Sr., and his son Isaac were at work near the river. The father was instantly killed and Isaac was seized and bound; while, at almost the same moment, Timothy Hollister, Jr., who was at work about half a mile distant, was shot down and scalped. The brothers John and Emanuel Hower were at work upon a chimney, being built in a house on the flats, when they were made prisoners by the marauders, who had already another captive with them. The three men were marched off by their captors (six or eight in number), and, as they went up the hill near where the village of Plains is now located, they met, coming down, at man carrying a small bundle in his hand, perfectly thoughtless of danger. The Indians immediately surrounded him, and with their spears thrust him through and through. Then they scalped him and passed on. Parshall and Nathaniel Terry were on their way to their cabin for dinner. Nathaniel, seeing an Indian just ready to shoot at his brother, cried out: "Parshall, the Indians! the Indians!" savage immediately fired at Nathaniel and killed him, but Parshall, who was unarmed, dropped down in the tall grass. The Indian searched for him a long time, frequently coming within a few feet of him, but did not find him.

The

The settlers who were at the mill, the block-house and the cabins were alarmed by the gunshots and war-whoops of the Indians on the flats near the river, and, without waiting to gather up any of their belongings, fled in haste through the woods to the mountains on the east. "As they turned back, during their ascent, to steal an occasional glance at the beautiful valley below, they beheld the savages driving their cattle away and plundering their houses of the goods that had been left. At nightfall the torch was applied, and the darkness that hung over the vale was illuminated by the lurid flames of their own dwellings -the abodes of happiness and peace in the morning. Hapless indeed was the condition of the fugitives. The chilly winds of Autumn were howling with melancholy wail among the mountain pines, through which, over rivers and glens and fearful morasses, they were to thread their way sixty miles to the nearest settlement on the Delaware, and thence back to their friends in Connecticut—a total distance of nearly 250 miles. Notwithstanding the hardships they were compelled to encounter, and the deprivations under which they labored, many of them accomplished the journey in safety, while others, lost in the mazes of the swamps, were never heard of more.”

Those fleeing settlers who managed to survive the hardships of their long and difficult journey through an unbroken wilderness, reached the question in the affirmative, from a consideration of necessity, and accordingly William Marsh was baptized by Elkanah Fuller, and then Mr. Fuller by Mr. Marsh. This was in the Winter of 1752, for 'it is remembered,' says the author of the History of Sussex County, 'that the ice was broken, for the purpose, in the form of a grave! Next year there were baptized by Mr. Marsh: Joshua Cole, Captain Roe, Daniel Roberts, Hezekiah Smith and his wife and Rodolphus Fuller. These eight persons were, November 14, 1756, formed into a Baptist Church by a new covenant, which is still extant. William Marsh's name appears in the minutes of the Philadelphia (Baptist) Association for the years 176!, '62 and '63, and then disappears."

It will be observed that Elkanah and Rodolphus Fuller, mentioned in the foregoing account, were, as well as William Marsh, among the original settlers at Mill Creek in 1762. One of the routes from Connecticut, and Orange County, New York, to Wyoming Valley, traveled by many of the first settlers in coming to the valley, or in returning home, lay through Sussex County, New Jersey; and in later years a number of inhabitants of that county immigrated here.

the Minisink settlements* about the 21st of October. There they found gathered a large number of refugees from the upper settlements of Northampton County, and, joining these, the Wyoming settlers remained in that locality for some days in order to regain their strength and acquire new vigor before setting out for New England. The following letter, printed in The New London Gazette (New London, Connecticut) November 18, 1763, was written on the 6th of that month by Capt. Lemuel Bowers of Hanover, New Jersey, "at headquarters twelve miles above Colonel Van Camp's,† on the River Delaware, on the frontiers of New Jersey."

*

*

*

"I arrived here with my detachment of ninety men, by order of his Excellency William Franklin, where I found 150 persons, men, women and children, who were driven to this station by the cruel savages of the wilderness. Of these [refugees] fifty at least lodge every night in one small room, in a very uncomfortable and confused manner. In the morning they throw what beds and covering they have out of doors in one heap. These poor people (if ever there can be such), it seems, are the most proper objects of our commiseration, for they have been compelled to quit their little all-their provisions, their corn and, in short, their whole dependence-to be devoured and consumed without any hope of security. What can ever animate a Christian to unsheathe the sword and bathe the same in blood, if the distress of his brethren, by reason of the inhuman cruelty of savages, will not? Every time I see these piteous objects and hear their lamentations methinks I feel something within that makes me uneasy, without revenge." Wyoming was now, in very truth, deserted and forsaken! But neither that fact, nor any information concerning the massacre that had taken place here, had yet been communicated to the authorities at Philadelphia on the 20th of October, 1763; for on that day Governor Hamilton (pursuant to His Majesty's instructions, under his sign manual, dated at the palace of St. James June 15, 1763) issued a commission to Col. James Burd (previously mentioned), appointing him to act as a Commissioner on the part of Pennsylvania, jointly with a Commissioner to be appointed by the Governor of Connecticut, in communicating His Majesty's strict commands to the Connecticut settlers at Wyoming. The commission to Colonel Burd read in part as follows§:

"His Majesty signified it to be his will and pleasure that I should forthwith, by commission, constitute and appoint a person to be a Commissioner on the part of Pennsylvania to act in concert with a Commissioner in like manner to be appointed by the Governor of Connecticut. And I am directed and required to instruct said Commissioner with all convenient speed to proceed with the said Connecticut Commissioner to the settlement at Wyoming, and there to cause his commission to be read and published; and then to require and command the inhabitants, in His Majesty's name, forthwith to desist from their said undertaking."

This commission was sent by a special messenger to Colonel Burd at Fort Augusta, but, in the evening of the very day that the commission had been issued, Major Clayton and his troops returned to Fort Augusta from their expedition to Wyoming and reported the condition. of affairs here; so that, when his commission reached his hands, Colonel Burd knew that the New Englanders had already been most effectually estopped "from their said undertaking.” The following is an extract from a letter written at Paxtang, in Lancaster County, October 23, 1763, and published in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia) on the 27th of the same month:

"Our party under Captain [sic] Clayton is returned from Wyoming, where they met with no Indians, but found the New Englanders who had been killed and scalped a * See note, page 189.

+Col. JOHN VAN CAMPEN is here referred to. He lived and, as early at least as 1758, owned a flour-mill at the Minisinks, in what is now Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, not far from Delaware Water Gap.

Governor Franklin of New Jersey, a natural son of Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia.

§ See "Pennsylvania Archives," Fourth Series, III: 218.

day or two before they got there. They buried the dead-nine men and a woman-who had been most cruelly butchered. The woman was roasted, and had two hinges in her hands-supposed to be put in red hot-and several of the men had awls thrust into their eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, etc., sticking in their bodies. They [Clayton's troops] burnt what houses the Indians had left, and destroyed a quantity of Indian corn. The enemy's tracks were up the river towards Wighaloasing [Wyalusing].”

It is not probable that Major Clayton's party found and buried the bodies of all who had been massacred on the 15th of October. The recorded testimony of those witnesses most familiar with the facts is that there were from eighteen to twenty persons killed on that day at different points within a mile of the block-house at Mill Creek. The soldiers were not in the valley longer than one day, or one day and a-half, having received, soon after their arrival, a message from Fort Augusta to return there without delay; therefore they did not have time in which to make a thorough search for the dead. In addition to the corn and other property at Mill Creek which the soldiers destroyed, they also burned down the few houses still standing on the site of the town formerly occupied by Teedyuscung.

On the 25th of October, at Paxtang, the Rev. John Elder wrote to Governor Hamilton as follows*:

"I acquainted your Honour the 17th instant that it was impossible to suspend the Wyoming expedition. The party is now returned, and I shall not trouble your Honour with any account of their proceedings, as Major Clayton informs me that he transmitted to you, from Fort Augusta, a particular account of all their transactions from their setting out from Hunter's till they returned to Augusta. The mangled carcasses of those unhappy creatures, who had settled there, presented to our troops a most melancholy scene, which had been acted not above two days before their arrival; and by the way the savages came into the town [Wyoming], it appears they were the same party that committed the ravages in Northampton County."

At almost the same time that Governor Hamilton received the royal mandate concerning affairs at Wyoming, a similar rescript was received by Governor Fitch of Connecticut, who thereupon appointed Maj. David Baldwin a Commissioner to represent the Colony of Connecticut in the proceedings to oust the proprietors of The Susquehanna Company from their possession of Wyoming. Major Baldwin immediately set out for Philadelphia, by way of the city of New York, in order to interview Governor Hamilton as to the status in quo of the case-so far as Pennsylvania was concerned-before he should proceed to Wyoming. From Governor Hamilton he learned of the massacre and dispersal of the settlers; whereupon he mounted his horse, rode back to Hartford, made his report to the Governor and presented an account against the Colony for £57, 14s. 2d.-"for expenses on a commission for removing settlers at Wyoming"-which account was duly paid.†

Up to the present time various opinions have been expressed by the different writers of Wyoming history with respect to the Indians who perpetrated the massacre of 1763. Who were they? Whence came they? Stone has answered these queries by stating that certain Six Nation warriors, who were visiting the Delawares at Wyoming, charged the assassination of Teedyuscung upon the Connecticut settlers, "and had the address to inspire the Delawares with such a belief. Stimulated to revenge by the representations of their false and insidious visitors, the Delawares rose upon the settlement" and exterminated it.

* See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, Vol. IV.

* * *

† See MS. "7" in volume of MSS. entitled "Susquehannah Settlers, 1755-1796, Vol. I"-mentioned on page 29, ante. Major Baldwin was a resident of Milford, New Haven County, Connecticut.

I See "The Poetry and History of Wyoming," pages 146 and 147.

It is clear, from his language, that Stone believed that the bloody work of that October day was done by members of Teedyuscung's former band who were still dwelling in the village of Wyoming. We have shown, however, by good evidence, that not only that village but the other Indian villages in the valley had been deserted at least three or four months prior to the massacre.

*

Charles Miner states (in his "History of Wyoming," page 58) that, in view of certain facts which he mentions, "it is plain that the mischief was perpetrated, not by the Delawares, but by the Six Nations." Stewart Pearce, in his "Annals of Luzerne County" (page 103), says: "There is no sufficient ground for supposing that the massacre in the Autumn of 1763 was done by the friends of Teedyuscung. All the presumptions are in favor of the opinion that the murderers of Teedyuscung, as well as of the New England settlers, belonged to the Six Nations." Dr. H. Hollister, referring to the destruction of the first Wyoming settlement (in his "History of the Lackawanna Valley," Fifth Edition, page 77) says: "The emigrants were shot and scalped by the same band that murdered Teedyuscung in his Susquehanna wigwam.' The late Dr. William H. Egle (author of a "History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," and of other historical writings), in an address delivered before the Wyoming Commemorative Association July 3, 1889, said-in reference to the massacre of 1763: "The infamous transaction was conceived, planned and carried out by those infernal red savages from New York-the Cayugas and Oneidas! The Delawares and Shawanese-especially the latter-with all their intrigue, treachery and blood-thirstiness, would gladly have been the willing instruments in this indiscriminate slaughter, if but 'the sign' had been given."

There can be no doubt, in the light thrown on this subject by certain authentic documents-extended extracts from which are printed in the succeeding chapter-that the settlers at Mill Creek were massacred and dispersed in October, 1763, by a band of hostile Delawares led by Teedyuscung's son, "Captain Bull"-as we have previously stated.

THE CLOSING DAYS OF PONTIAC'S WAR-INDIAN COUNCIL AND TREATY AT FORT STANWIX-INDIAN SALE OF LANDS TO THE PENNSYLVANIA PROPRIETARIES-SURVEYS AND SET

"Let the Past perish! Let darkness shroud it! Let it sleep forever over the crumbling temples and desolate tombs of its forgotten sons-if it cannot afford us, from its disburied secrets, a guide for the Present and the Future!"

-Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in “Rienzi.”

Within a few weeks after the Wyoming massacre, described in the last chapter, Papoonhank and twenty of his followers-Moravian Christian Indians, who refused to respond to the solicitations of "Captain Bull" and other hostile Delawares to take part in the war against the English-betook themselves from Wyalusing to Province Island, in the Delaware River, below Philadelphia. There (with a number of Moravian Indians who had been removed thither from near Bethlehem by the Provincial Government) they were maintained in barracks by the Government until after the war. By the beginning of 1764, therefore, there were no Indians in Pennsylvania east of the North Branch of the Susquehanna save those who were hostile to the whites. The same conditions seem to have prevailed at that time in the Colony of New York, as is partly shown by the following extract from a letter* written early in January, 1764, by Gov. Cadwallader Colden (mentioned on page 32, ante) of New York to the Hon. John Penn (mentioned on page 262), who, in November, 1763, had succeeded the Hon. James Hamilton as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

"The Indians on the east side of the Susquehanna are the most obnoxious to the people of this Province of any, having done the most mischief. They consist of a number of rogues and thieves-runaways from the other nations-and, for that reason, not to be trusted. * * * The minds of the people are so generally irritated against the Indians living on the north-east branches of the Susquehanna that a number of volunteers were proposed to me to go out against them to punish them for their cruelties and perfidy."

Finally the conditions became so serious that, in the latter part of January, 1764, Sir William Johnson determined to send out an expedition under orders to capture all hostile Indians found on the Susque

* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IX: 120.