1778. - Morning of the Fourth – Consternation and Flight – Incidents of Suffering – Mr. Hollenback meets the starving Fugitives with bread – Pittston Forts surrender – Negotiations – Capitulation of Forty Fort - (*Note, Queen Esther) - (*Note, Brant) – Sergeant Boyd shot – Incidents – Col. John Butler withdraws from the Valley – His character – John Gardiner – The Indians that remain give up the Valley to fire, plunder and devastation – Murder of Hickman, wife and child – Murder of Leach and St. John – Murder of John Abbot and Isaac Williams – Murder of Keys and Hocksey – Swetland and Blanchard carried away prisoners – Col. Zebulon Butler returns with Capt. Spaulding's Company to the Valley – Col. Hartley joins Col. Butler – Expedition to the West Branch and Sheshequin – Remains of the slaughtered people buried – List of slain – Several interesting matters – Col. Hartley's Command withdrawn – Return of Savages – Indian murders – William Jameson – John Perkins – Wm. Jackson and Mr. Lester – Capt. Carr and Philip Goss – Robert Alexander and Amos Parker – The Utley family murdered – Isaac Inman murdered – Nathan Kingsley killed – Frances locum carried into captivity – Jonathan Slocum and Isaac Tripp murdered – The lost Sister – Thomas Neill, the generous Irishman – Terms of Capitulation, and official Papers, from British archives.

On the evening of the third of July, Capt. John Franklin arrived at Forty Fort, with the Huntington and Salem company, consisting of about thirty-five men; a most welcome reinforcement to Col. Denison, as they gave steadiness to the broken remnant of the army who had escaped.  A consultation was held, at which it was concluded to send to Wilkes-Barre for the cannon, to cause the whole settlement to concentrate at Forty Fort, the largest in the Valley, and defend themselves to the last extremity.  A messenger, dispatched on the morning of the fourth, hastily returned, and reported that the proposed measure was impracticable, for fugitives were flying in every direction to the wilderness, and all was confusion, consternation and horror.  The only hope of safety seemed to be in flight.  The several passages through the swamp were thronged.  Few having been thoughtful enough to take provisions, the greater part were destitute.  On the old warrior's path, there were in one company, about one hundred women and children, with but a single man.  Jonathan Fitch Esq., Sheriff of the county, to advise or aid them.  The way toward the Wind Gap and Stroudsburg, was equally crowded.  Sufferings from fatigue and hunger soon became extreme.  The brave George Cooper, who would “have shot one more,” with his companions, Westover and Stark, and their families, had made an effort to obtain provisions, but the Indians being discovered watching their dwellings, they were compelled to fly with scarce a morsel, though exhausted by the battle.

Of the little they had, neither of the men would partake, so that the children need not perish.  Tears gushed from the eyes of the aged widow of Cooper, when she related that her husband had lain on his face to lap up a little meal which a companion, in their flight, had spilt on the earth.  Children were born, and several perished in the “Dismal Swamp,” or “Shades of Death,” as it is called to this day.  Mrs. Treusdale was taken in labour; daring to delay but a few minutes, she was soon seen to her infant, moving onward – a sheet having been fixed on a horse, so as to carry them.  Jabez Fish, who was in the battle, escaped; but not being able to join his family, was supposed to have fallen; and Mrs. Fish hastened with her children through the wilderness.  Overcome with fatigue and want, her husband died.  Sitting down a moment, on a stone, to see it draw its last breath, she gazed in its face with unutterable anguish.  There was no way to dig a grave – and to leave it be devoured by wolves, seemed worse than death, so she took the dead  babe in here arms, and carried it twenty miles, when she came to a German settlement.  Though poor, they gave her food; made a box for the child, attended her to the graveyard, and decently buried it, kindly bidding her welcome, till she should be rested.  The uniform

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hospitality of the Germans is gratefully attested by the Wyoming people.

The wife of Ebenezer Marcy was taken in labour, in the wilderness.  Having no mode of conveyance, her sufferings were inexpressibly severe.  She was able to drag her fainting steps but about two miles that day.  The next, being overtaken by a neighbor with a horse, she rode, and in a week's time, was more than a hundred miles, with her infant, from the place of its birth.

Mrs. Rogers, from Plymouth, an aged woman, flying with her family, overcome by fatigue and sorrow, fainted in the wilderness, twenty miles from habitation.  She could take no nourishment, and soon died.  They made a grave in the best manner they could, and the next day, nearly exhausted, came to a settlement of Germans, who treated her with exceeding great kindness.  Mrs. Courtright relates that she, then a young girl, flying with her father's family, saw by the road side, a widow, who had learned [of] the death of her husband.  Six children were on the ground near her.  The group, the very image of despair, for they were without food.  Just at that moment, a man was seen riding rapidly towards them. From the settlements.  It was Mr. Hollenback.  Foreseeing the probable destitution, he had providently loaded his horse with bread, and was hastening back, like an angel of mercy, to their relief.  Cries of tears and gratitude and welcome went up to Heaven.  He imparted a morsel to each, and hastened on to the relief of others.

The widow of Anderson Dana, Esq., and her widowed daughter, Mrs. Whiten, did not learn, certainly, the deaths of their husbands, until they were at Bullock's, on the mountain, ten miles on their way.  Many then heard the fate of relations, and a messenger brought to Bullock, word, that both his sons were dead on the field.  Then there was mourning and lamentation, and the wringing of hands.  Mrs. Dana had been extraordinarily careful.  Not only had she provided food, but taken a pillow-case of valuable papers (the husband being much engaged in public business), the preservation of which has thrown much light on our paths of research.  Depending chiefly on charity, the family sought their ancient home, at Ashford, Windham County, Connecticut.  Those few instances selected from an hundred, will present some idea of the dreadful flight.

Early on the morning after the battle, Col. John Butler sent a detachment across the river to Pittston, when Capt. Blanchard surrendered Fort Brown, on terms of fair capitulation; and the Indians marked the prisoners with black paint on the face, telling them to keep it there, and if they went out, each should carry a white cloth on a stick, so that being known, they should not be hurt.* 

                        Author's note – Tom Turkey, Anthony Turkey, David Singsong, and Anthony Cornelius,   former residents in the Valley, and known to the inhabitants, were among the Indians.  Squaws followed, hideously smeared with brains and blood, bringing strings of scalps; of which, with more than a demon's malice, they would smell, and exultingly exclaim, “Yankee blood!”

Col. Butler also dispatched a messenger to Forty Fort, requesting Col. Denison to come up, and agree on terms of capitulation.  Taking with him Obadiah Gore, Esq., and aged man, and Dr. Gustin, Col. Denison immediately repaired to Head Quarters, near the ruins of Wintermoot's Fort.  In discussing the terms, it was insisted that Col. Zebulon Butler, and the remains of Hewett's company, being continental soldiers, should be surrendered prisoners of war.  Col. Denison desired time to consult with his officers, which was allowed.  Returning, he hastened to Wilkes-Barre, where, having an interview with Col. Z. Butler, it was judged expedient that he and the fourteen men remaining of Hewett's command should immediately retire from the Valley.  Ordering the men to Shamokin, Col. Butler threw a bed upon his horse, took Mrs. B. behind him, and that night tarried at the Nescopeck Valley, (now Conyngham,) twenty miles from Wilkes-Barre.  Having reported the fact to Col. John Butler, that all the continental men were beyond his command, negotiations were renewed – Zerah Beach, Esq., and the Rev. Jacob Johnson being present.  Terms were agreed upon, verbally; but there

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remaining no conveniences for writing, at Wintermoot's, they were to be committed to paper a four o'clock, in the afternoon, at Forty Fort, when the surrender was to take place.  It being known that among the stores there was a quantity of whiskey, Col. Butler desired it might be destroyed, for he feared, if the Indians became intoxicated, he could not restrain them.  Before the hour, the barrels were rolled to the bank, the heads knocked in, and the liquor emptied into the river.

The two gates of the Fort were now thrown open, and what arms could be found, including those of Franklin's men, were piled up in the centre.  So capacious was the fort, that notwithstanding the range of huts that lined the sides, there was ample room to drill a company of men.  At the appointed time, the victors approached with colours flying and music playing; a column of white men, four abreast, on the left.  On the right the Savages, also in four files; the whites, headed by Col. Butler – the Indians led by Queen Esther.*

                        *Authors note -  Col. Stone.  For the opinions of my estimable friend, I entertain unaffected regard;  but when compelled by proofs, his goodness will allow me to differ from him, without offense, He thinks it impossible that Queen Esther should have conducted [herself] like a demon, especially as represented at the Bloody Rock.  He may have misapprehended the person.  It seems she and Col. Denison were acquainted.  Col. Franklin, who also knew her, states the facts in respect to her conduct explicitly.  That she was a person of consideration, is manifest, from her leading the Indian column, but more especially at the Fatal Ring, from which Hammond escaped.  Remember the kindred atrocities perpetrated by women during the French Revolution.  It required the purity of angels corrupted, to make perfect devils.  One reason assigned for her intense malice, was, that one of the Indians slain, at Exeter, on the 2d, was her         son.

                        From a narrative recently published in Hill's New Hampshire Patriot, taken from a Journal of one of Sullivan's officers, we copy a paragraph.

                                   “August 10, [1779].  After advancing about a mile through a rich bottom  covered with strong and stately timber, which shut out the sun, and shed a cool and agreeable twilight, we unexpectedly were introduced into  a plain as large of that of                       Sheshukonah [Sheshequin,] called 'Queen Esther's Plantation.'  It was in the plains, near the banks of the Susquehanna, that Esther, queen of the Seneca tribe, dwelt in retirement and sullen majesty.  The ruins of her palace are still to be seen.  In what we supposed to be the chapel, was found an idol, which might well be worshiped, without violating the third commandment, on account of its likeness to “anything either in heaven or earth.”  About sunrise, the General gave orders for the town to be                                            illuminated, and accordingly we had a glorious bonfire, of upwards of thirty buildings at                      once.”

“You told me to bring more Indians, Col. Denison,” said the old Fury, drawling out his name, “See here, I have brought you all these.”  “Be silent,” said Col. Butler, “women should be seen, but not heard.”  The column of Rangers, Royal Greens, and Tories, marched in at the north.  Brant, or Gi-en-gwah-toh,*  with his followers at the south gate.  The suspicious look of the wary chief, glancing his flashing eye, now to the right, now to the left, as if apprehensive of treachery, was well remembered, and graphically described by the late Col. Dorrance.  Immediately on entering the fort, the Tories seized the arms.  An order from Col. Butler to replace them, was followed by an address to the Indians.  “See, a present the Yankees have made you!”  Seeming much pleased, they took them into possession.

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                         *Author's note – We had yielded rather to the confident opinion of Col. Stone, than to    the proofs adduced, that Brant was not in command at the invasion.  His own positive denial might well be received with hesitation and doubt;  for in Europe, at least, he had no inconsiderable reputation; and so much infamy had attached to the Indian cruelties at      Wyoming, that if guilty, he would gladly escape, even by the additional offense of falsehood.  Little regard should be paid to his mere assertion. How much more to the denial of his Indian friends?  Where was he?  Col. Butler with his Rangers!  Johnson with his Royal Greens!  Capt. Caldwell!  Six hundred Indians to be commanded!  Wyoming to be attacked!  Assuredly, Brant,     the great Iroquois leader, would not fail to be present! Such would be the reasoning.  Add to     this, the general, the universal belief, for forty years, during which time no other name was         mentioned as the Chief-in-command.  Gen. Ross, who lost two brothers in the battle, himself old enough to bear arms, having been in the array at Exeter, on the 2^nd, highly intelligent, would not listen to a doubt on the subject;  with such certainty, had half a century of unshaken belief, fixed the fact in his mind.  Recently, Eleazer Carey, Esq., a gentleman of great candour and intelligence, tells me, in a note dated July 24, 1843,

                                   “When a lad of fourteen years old, I resided in the Genesee country, and in 1803, became acquainted with the family of Kanchilak, eldest son of Blue Throat, or Talaguadeak.  He had sons and daughters, not differing much from my age; and he said the boys must teach me to talk Indian, and I, them, to speak Yankee.  We thus became                                   intimate.  Blue Throat could speak our language, understandingly.  He assured me, as                                    did Little Beard, who held the rank of captain in the battle, that Brant was not present.                             This statement was confirmed by Stuttering John, and Roland Montour, the latter a half               blood, who took my uncle, Samuel Carey, prisoner.”

                        If the concurrent assertions of Brant, and his Indian friends, are to be credited, he was not present.  Mr. Carey believes them.  The public will form their own judgment.

The terms of the capitulation were then reduced to writing, and signed (on a table still in possession of Mrs. Myers.)  (Those, with other documents of interest – indeed, all that could be obtained at the London War Office, relating to Wyoming, will be found together at the close of this letter.)

As Col. Butler stood in the gateway, he recognized Sergeant Boyd, the deserter of whom we have before spoken.  “Boyd,” said he sternly, “go to that tree.”  “I hope,” said Boyd imploringly, “your honour will consider me a prisoner of war.”  “Go to that tree, sir!”  And at a signal the Indians poured in a volley, and he fell dead.

Soon after signing the articles, Col. Butler observed, “That as Wyoming was a frontier, it was wrong for any part of the inhabitants to leave their own settlements, and enter into the Continental army abroad;  that such a number having done so, was the cause of the invasion, and it never would have been attempted, if the men had remained at home.  Col. Franklin, who heard the declaration, added, “I was of the same opinion.”

In a few hours after the fort was surrendered, the Indians began to plunder, entering the huts and breaking open trunks and boxes.  The town papers were scattered around, the surveys, and other valuable writings destroyed, and the Westmoreland Records, with difficulty preserved.  Col. Denison complained, saying he had capitulated relying on the honour of a British officer.  “I will put a stop to it, I will put a stop to it,” said Butler, and gave peremptory orders to the chief.  “These are your Indians, you must retrain them.”  Soon after, open and flagrant robberies were renewed, and Col. Denison again,

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and with spirit, remonstrated.  After another ineffectual effort, Col. Butler said: “I can do nothing with them, I can do nothing with them,” and added, that Indians after a successful battle, never could be controlled.  He professed to be, and probably was hurt, that such outrages should be committed, in violation of his plighted faith, and positive orders.  “Make out a list,” added he, “of the property lost, and I pledge my honour it shall be paid for.”

Every hour growing bolder and more insolent, the savages soon threw off all restraint, seized on Col. Denison, and taking the hat from his head, demanded also the linen frock he wore.  In the pocket were a few dollars, the whole military chest of the settlement, and he made some resistance, when they instantly lifting a tomahawk threatened his life.  Obliged to comply, he seeming to have some difficulty in slipping it over his heard, stepped backward to where sat a young woman of his family, who comprehending the maneuver, adroitly took out the purse, when he gave up the coveted garment to the spoiler.

So gross and widely circulated have been the errors, in respect to this capitulation, that it is time the truth of history should be vindicated.  Gordon, Ramsey, Marshall and Botta, adopting the Poughkeepsie account, have all stated, that on Col. Denison asking what terms would be granted to him, was answered “the hatchet;” and that thereupon surrendering, fire was set to the fort, and the prisoners, men, women and children, pitched in on the burning pile, and given up to the flames.  The facts, carefully collected by the labour of years, and now faithfully recorded, are sufficiently painful.  “Give the devil his due,” is an adage, just, as it is old.  In another page, this matter being regarded as important, is set forth more at large.  For the present it may be stated, that while in every other particular the terms were violated, no life was taken at Forty Fort, except that of Sergeant Boyd.

Col. Butler finding his commands disregarded, and his authority set at nought, by his own bands of enraged and licentious savages, flushed with victory and drunk with blood; apprehensive too, it is believed, of his own life being taken, if he attempted to enforce obedience, mustered all his force, whom discipline could control, and on Wednesday, the 8^th, withdrew from the plains.  He did not even indulge himself with a visit to Wilkes-Barre, or the lower part of the Valley.*

                        *Author's note -  Mr. Fitch, a prisoner liberated by the articles of capitulation, visiting     the field with the writer in 1838, stated “that Col. Butler received a letter from a messenger on the 5^th or 6^th, that he immediately assembled round him his officers and Indian chiefs, and read

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it to them.  That he addressed the latter very earnestly in their own tongue, and was understood, among other things, to enjoin it on them, not to kill women and children.  That when  he ceased            to speak, they raised a great shout, and he ordered preparations to be made for a retreat.  It was            supposed the letter hastened his march.  Such a letter may have been received, or it might have been a scheme devised to hasten the departure of the Indians.

                        Col. Butler did not lack sense.  All that duty, more than honour required, had been done. He must have been made insensible to interest, as well as character, to countenance further atrocities.  The Valley was in his absolute power.  He had meant to plunder and destroy the   whole, certainly he would not have entered into written articles, voluntarily stipulating the     reverse.  Mr. Finch also states, that the knot by which Col. Butler's handkerchief was tied, was shot through, so that it fell.

                        An anecdote, too good to be lost, may as well be told here.  Mr. Finch, and the writer, waited on Mrs. Jenkins, then more than eighty years of age, who lived near the field.  She instantly recognized him, although it was near a half a century since they had met.  She, it will be recollected, was a prisoner, having been taken on the 2d.  “O yes, Finch,” said the old lady with much archness and humour, in answer to his inquiry, “to be sure I remember you.  An old squaw took you, and brought you in – she found you in the bushes – and as she drove you along, patted you on the back, saying, my son, my son!”  Though certainly no reflection on his courage or manhood, he did not relish the story half so much as the bystanders, especially as he had previously been playing the hero in his account of the battle.  He very soon took leave of      the Valley.

His retirement indeed, bore the marks of accelerated retreat.  Fear of an attack from any probable force that could be brought to assail him, can hardly be imagined, and the anxiety to leave the ground can only be accounted for on the supposition that he was sickened by the tortures already committed, dreaded the further cruelties of the Indians, and desired by his absence, to escape the responsibility of their future conduct.

As we now part with this bold partisan leader forever, a page cannot be ill devoted in this history, which shall present a just sketch of his character.  He was descended, we have great confidence in expressing the belief, from some of the younger branches of the Duke of Ormond, whose name was Butler.  Our own opinion is, that the two Colonel Butlers were from the same original stock, and perhaps three generations back, their fathers hailed as near as cousins.

                        [editor's note - This, and the information in the following paragraph is Miner's foray into the unfortunately-typical 19^th-century practice of “connecting-a-family-to-royalty-if-the-         name-might-fit-in” (but probably doesn't).] 

Col. John Butler was a fat man, below the middle stature, yet active; through the rough visage of the warrior, showing a rather agreeable, than forbidding aspect.  Care sat on his brow.  Speaking quickly, he repeated his words when excited.  Decisions, firmness and courage, were undoubted characteristics of the man.  So detested is his name, associated with the atrocities perpetrated at Wyoming, that even now, it is not without some fear of offense, we draw of him, what we believe to be, a just outline.  An old agricultural work says: - In the town of Kilkenny, Ireland, and near the river side, stands an eminence, a fine gothic building belonging to the Butler family, which was erected in the reign of Queen Anne, by the famous Duke of Ormond.”  Sir Walter Scott, in his Legend of Montrose, makes Dalgetty say: “I e'en gave up my commission, and took service with Wallenstein in Walter Butler's Irish Regiment.”  Col. John Butler, had a son Walter, who fell on the Mohawk.  The ancestor of Col. Butler,

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as we have elsewhere hinted, probably came over as an Indian agent, (in Queen Anne's reign, when [James Butler, 2^nd Duke of] Ormond  was in great power [Editor's Note: and subsequently exiled in 1715 during the Jacobite Uprising. ]).  With the delegation of Kings from the Five Nations, on their return.

It is certain Col. Butler could have commanded much more severe conditions.  The settlement was wholly at his mercy.  No one can deny but the capitulation, on its face, was, under the circumstances, in a high degree of honourable, and favourable to Col. Denison.  Col. Franklin confirms the statement of Mrs. Myers, that Butler exerted himself to retrain the savages, seemed deeply hurt when he was unable to do so, and at once offered, if a list could be furnished of property lost, to make it good.  Finally, he withdrew his own men, proper, taking, so far as we can learn, no plunder.  His fault appears to us to have been in his position – his crime, in accepting command, lending his name, and associating with those blood-thirsty and unprincipled savages who were placed under his orders.  Their stains, neither time nor charity can remove.  But does it not attach with tenfold deeper crimson to the Government under whose administration such inhuman agents were directed to be employed?  We have some reason to believe that many years after the war, the Government of Great Britain having withheld from Butler some token of honour, or expected emolument, otherwise his due, on account of his alleged treachery and cruelty, he sent a confidential agent to Wyoming to obtain certificates of the true state of the facts; in which he succeeded.  That he was regarded as respectable, independent of his commission as a British officer, is shown from the fact, that the American commissioners appointed to treat with the Six Nations, under Washington's administration, (in 1795,) accepted an invitation from Col. Butler, crossed the line, and dined with him.*

                        *Author's note -  The deepest stain on the character of Butler, next to his taking command of such a horde of merciless and ungovernable wretches, arises out of the fact that but two prisoners were taken, and saved at the time of the battle.  With his own regiment of Rangers, and the detachment of Sir John Johnson's Greens [New York Royalists], not including            the Tories who joined his army, he must have had several hundred white men under his         command, no inconsiderable disciplined soldiers.  These, beyond all doubt, were the immediate servants of his will.  That they took no part in the pursuit of the fugitives, is not for a moment to   be imagined.  It would seem, of course, that they must have participated in the cruelties which    followed the flight;  the refusal to give quarter to a yielding foe, or the subsequent murder of prisoners who had surrendered!  Whatever may be said of the ungovernable character of the Indians, for the conduct of his own regularly enlisted and disciplined soldiers, he was      unquestionably responsible.

With Butler, a large portion of the Indians withdrew, and their march presented a picture at once melancholy and ludicrous.  Squaws to a considerable number, brought up the rear, a belt of scalps stretched on small hoops, around the waist for a girdle, having on, some four, some six, and even more, dresses of chintz or silk, one over the other; being mounted astride on horses, of course all stolen, and on their heads three, four, or five bonnets, one within another, worn wrong side before.

One prisoner taken at Exeter the 1^st of July, when the Hardings and Hadsels were massacred, as we leave the battle ground, demands or special notice.  Mr. John Gardiner was a husband and father, a highly respectable man, against whom, some unappeasable spirit of enmity is supposed to have existed.   On the morning of the 4^th his wife and children were permitted to see, and take leave of him.  Elisha Harding, Esq., then a boy, was present, and represents the scene as extremely affecting.  When the last adieu was exchanged, an Indian placed a grievous load on his shoulders, which he could scarcely raise, then put a halter round his neck, and led him off as he would a beast.  The farewell expressed this sentiment; “I go to return no more.”  Exhausted with fatigue before he arrived at his captor's home, he

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fell, crushed by the weight of his load, when he was handed over to the squaws, who tortured him to death by fire.  Daniel Carr, a fellow prisoner, saw the remains the following day, and represented it as a sight to awaken the deepest pity.

The savages remaining, now freed from the slight restraint the presence of their while allies imposed, gave themselves to the wildest disorder.  Separating in parties of from five to ten, they scattered through the Valley, marking their course as if in sheer wantonness, with fire.  After stripping a house of everything fancied, they would either leave, or set fire to it, as whim or caprice seemed to dictate.  Such was their joyous exultation, they hardly knew how to give it expression.  Constant Searle, Esq., the most aged man who went to the field, had fallen among the rest.  An Indian was seen on horseback, wearing his wig hind side before, while his companions would frighten the animal, or prick him with a spear, laughing to see him fall.

From the farm of an aged man by the name of Weeks, in Wilkes-Barre, originally from Fairfield county, seven persons had gone out to battle, (so imperious, so irresistible were demands for men, even to make up the three hundred.)  Philip, Jonathan, and Bartholomew Weeks, his sons – Silas, Benedict, who married a grand-daughter, Jabez Beers, and Josiah Carman, relatives, and Robert Bates, a boarder.  Horrible slaughter!  The whole seven lay dead on the field at night!  A band of Indians came to the house of Mr. Weeks, and bade him remove.  “How can I,” said he, “my whole family you have slain.”  Getting provisions, they feasted heartily, when one of the wheeled a large rocking chair into the road, took the hat from the old gentleman, and putting it on his own head, sat down, and rocked himself.  Allowing him to take a pair of oxen, they gave Mr. Weeks three days to prepare for his departure, when they set fire to the buildings, and destroyed all that was left.

The terms of capitulation being known, and regarded as favorable, the lives of the garrison having been spared, and the Savages thus far seeming satisfied with plunder and burning, hope of life dawned, for a moment, upon those that remained;  but almost immediately the cheering ray was extinguished in blood.

News came down from the Lackawanna [Creek/River, which empties into the Susquehanna and runs through what is now Scranton], that Mr. Hickman, his wife and child, were murdered at Capouse [part of Scranton].  The very next day two men, by the name of Leach and St. John, who were removing with their families, were shot six miles up the Lackawanna.  One of them had a child in his arms, which, with strange inconsistency, the Indian took up, and handed to the mother, all covered with the father's blood.  Leaving the women in the wagon unhurt, they took the scalps of their husbands, and departed.  Again, alarm arose to phrenzy.  Col. Denison, with all who had remained at Forty Fort, fled;  some down the river and some through the swamp.*

                        *Author's note – Through malice or misapprehension, blame was attempted to be cast    on Col. Denison and the people, for taking up arms again.  Surely they were released from every obligation of peace or neutrality, by the flagrant and wanton violation of all the     provisions of the capitulation.   

Except a few who gathered about the fort at Wilkes-Barre, the whole people abandoned the settlement.  Every house and barn, not spared by caprice, was burnt.  The Valley presented one wide scene of conflagration and ruin.

Col. Z. Butler, as soon as possible, wrote a hasty letter to General Washington, stating briefly the fate of the day, and soliciting succour, that if possible, a portion of the harvest might be preserved.

Joining Capt. Spaulding, early in August, he returned to Wyoming.*

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                        *Author's note -  Capt. Spaulding was at Shupe's, half way between the Pocono and Blue mountains, near fifty miles from Wyoming, on the day of the battle.  Marching early on the           4^th, he advanced thirteen miles to where the gate is now kept.  Here he met Mr. Hollenback and Mr. Hageman, the first fugitives, and learned the fate of the day.  Pushing forward, he came to     the Bear Swamp, within twelve miles of Wilkes-Barre, which he was anxious to reach.  Resting his company, who had marched thirty miles through intolerable roads, he sent two men forward to reconnoiter.  From the mountain, he saw the flames rising in all directions, confirming the statements of the retreating inhabitants, that the Valley was entirely in possession of the enemy.  Victory, with a single company, being hopeless, Capt. Spaulding returned, rendering all the aid in his power, to the distressed.  Taking up a position at Stroudsburg, he waited the orders of Col. Butler.

A new stockade was erected in Wilkes-Barre, and put in the best posture of defense.  So sustained, a number of persons, whose families had fled, returned in the hope to save a portion of the wasting harvest, which had escaped destruction.  John Abbott, who had been in the battle, and Isaac Williams, a young man, in attempting to harvest their wheat on Jacob's plains, were waylaid and both shot and scalped.  The widow of Mr. Abbott, who had fled to Catawissa, with nine children, (their house and barn having been burnt, and all their property destroyed,) set out on foot, a journey of near three hundred miles, and begged their way home to Hampton, in Wyndham County [Northeastern Connecticut].

About this time, three Indians took prisoners on the Lackawanna, Isaac Tripp, Esq., the elder; Isaac Tripp, his grandson, and two young men, by the names of Keys and Hocksey.  The old gentleman they painted and dismissed, but hurried the others into the forest, (now Abington,) above Leggett's Gap, on the warrior's path to Oquago.  Resting one night, they rose the next morning and traveled about two miles, when they stopped at a little stream of water.  The two young Indians then took Keys and Hocksey some distance from the path, and were absent half an hour, the old Indian looking anxiously the way they had gone.  Presently, the death-whoop was heard, and the Indians returned brandishing bloody tomahawks, and exhibiting the scalps of their victims.  Tripp's hat was taken from his head, and his scalp examined twice, the Savages speaking earnestly, when at length they told him to fear nothing, he should not be hurt, and carried him off as a prisoner.  Luke Swetland, and Joseph Blanchard were taken prisoners, near Nanticoke, on the 24^th of August, and carried away captives to the Indian country.

Surrounded by murderous parties, a very small portion of the grain could be preserved.  Col. Hartley, of the Pennsylvania line, was now ordered to join Col. Butler, and thus strengthened, active offensive measures were instantly adopted, to hunt out and repel the Indians.  Having pitched their lodges on the flats at Sheshequin, within Westmoreland town, an expedition was set on foot, to break up their settlement.  A detachment of one hundred and thirty men marched on the 8^th of September, to the West Branch, and thence to Sheshequin.  On the 29^th a battle ensued.  Several Indians were known to be killed, as their bodies were left on the field, and it was not doubted that a number more were slain.  Two or three of Col. Hartley's men were killed and several wounded.  The Indian settlement was broken up, and besides cattle and horses recovered, a considerable portion of plunder* was taken.

                        *So universally was the expression “plunder” used at that time, for property taken from   an enemy, that we adopt it.

Col. Hartley, in general orders, at camp Westmoreland, Oct. 3d, 1778, not only expresses his satisfaction, generally, with the troops, “during a tiresome and dangerous march, amidst hunger – the wading of rivers at midnight, where not a complaint was heard,” but adds, “In short, the whole

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detachment, with very few exceptions, have acquitted themselves with the highest reputation, and they have the satisfaction to know they have saved the lives of many, and served their country.”  The Colonel particularly compliments “Capt. Franklin, and the Wyoming volunteers.”  Sergeants Allison and Thornberry were raised to the rank of ensigns, in Col. Hartley's regiment, for their distinguished bravery in action.  On the same day, Lord Butler was officially announced as “Quarter-Master at this post – to be obeyed as such;”  a son, then a youth, of Col. Z. Butler.  His name will frequently occur in these annals.

The middle of October had come and passed, and the dead yet lay on the field, unburied.  Before the autumn frosts it had been impossible to perform the mournful duty.

                        “Camp Westmoreland, Oct. 21, 1778. - Ordered, That there be a party, consisting of a     lieutenant, two sergeants, two corporals, and twenty-five men, to parade to-morrow morning,           with arms, as a guard to those who will go to bury the remains of the men who were killed at the late battle, at and near the place called Wintermoot's Fort.”

On the 22d of October, therefore, the bodies were collected – a large hole dug, in which they were thrown, constant alarm from the enemy preventing a more ceremonious or respectful inhumation.

A few could be recognized.  Two brothers of the Ross family had fallen – Lieut. Perrin, aged thirty-one, and Jeremiah, nineteen.  The former was known by a ring he wore.  Reserving for a chapter of personal narrative; a more particular account of many who fell, we may here observe, to give the reader an impression of the sacrifices families were obliged to make – that there were more than twenty who lost two in battle; in several instances father and son.  The slaughter in Mr. Weeks' family, of seven, we have recorded, - Anderson Dana and Mr. Whiton, his newly married son-in-law; old Mr. Searle, and Capt. Hewitt, his son-in-law, and two of Mr. Bullock's sons, have been mentioned.  Of the Inman family, three lost their lives, (and one was subsequently murdered).  Three of the Coreys fell.  The Gores suffered most pitiably, Seven – five sons, and two sons-in-law, of Obadiah Gore, Esq., were in the battle, namely: - Daniel, Samuel, Asa, George, and Silas. - The sons-in-law were Timothy Pierce and John Murfee.  At night, three of the sons, and the two sons-in-law lay on the field.  Samuel escaped unhurt, Daniel with his left arm shattered.  Another son, Lieut. Obadiah Gore, was then away with the main line of the army.

The following is a list of the killed, so far as the persons could be recollected.  Probably there might have been twenty or thirty more whose names were not remembered.

                                                           FIELD OFFICERS.

                        Lieut. Col. George Dorrance,                                    Major John Garrett.

                                                                  CAPTAINS.

                        Robert Durkee,                                              James Bidlack, Jr.,

                        Dethick Hewitt,                                             Asaph Whittlesey,

                        Aholiab Buck,                                                           Rezin Geer,

                        Wm. McKarrican,                                          Lazarus Stewart,

                        Samuel Ranson.

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                                                               LIEUTENANTS.

                        James Welles,                                                 Perrin Ross,

                        Timothy Pierce,                                              Asa Stephens,

                        Flavius Waterman,                                         Elijah Shoemaker,

                        Aaron Gaylord,                                             Stoddard Bowen,

                        Lazarus Stewart, Jr.,                                      A. Atherton.

                                                                   ENSIGNS.

                        Asa Gore,                                                      Jeremiah Bigford,

                        William White,                                               Titus Hinman,

                        Silas Gore.

                                                                  PRIVATES.      

                        Christopher Avery,                                         Kingsley Comstock,

                        Jabez Atherton,                                              Joseph Crocker,

                        ______ Acke,                                                Samuel Crooker,

                        A. Benedict,                                                  Anderson Dana,

                        Jabez Beers,                                                   ______ Dutcher,

                        Elisha Bigby,                                                 Jabez Darling,

                        Thomas Brown,                                             William Dunn,

                        Amos Bullock,                                               D. Denton,

                        Asa Bullock,                                                  Levi Dunn,

                        John Brown,                                                  James Divine,

                        David Bigsbee,                                              George Downing,

                        John Boyd,                                                    Conrad Davenport,

                        Joseph Budd,                                                 Thomas Fuller,

                        William Buck,                                                Stephen Fuller,

                        Samuel Bigford,                                            Elisha Fish,

                        Henry Bush,                                                  Eliphalet Folet,

                        Samuel Carey,                                                Benjamin Finch,

                        Joel Church,                                                   Daniel Finch,

                        James Coffrin,                                                           John Finch,

                        William Coffrin,                                            Cornelius Fitchet,

                        Samuel Cole,                                                 Thomas Foxen,

                        Anson Corey,                                                 John Franklin,

                        Jenks Corey,                                                  George Gore,

                        Joseph Corey,                                                Silas Gore,

                        Rufus Corey                                                  Samuel Hutchinson,

                        Christopher Cortwright,                                James Hopkins,

                        John Cortwright,                                           Silas Harvey,

                        John Caldwell,                                               William Hammer,

                        Josiah Cameron,                                            Levi Hicks,

                        Isaac Campbell,                                             John Hutchins,

                        Robert Comstock,                                         Cyprean Hibbard,

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                        Nathaniel Howard,                                        James Stevenson,

                        Benjamin Hatch,                                            James Spencer,

                        Elijah Inman,                                                 Levi Spencer,

                        Robert McIntire,                                            Eleazer Sprague,

                        Samuel Jackson,                                            Josiah Spencer,

                        Robert Jameson,                                            Able Seeley,

                        Joseph Jennings,                                            Ichabod Tuttle,

                        Henry Johnson,                                              John Vanvee,

                        Francis Lepard,                                              Abram Vangorder,

                        Daniel Lawrence,                                          James Wigton,

                        Josh. Landon,                                                Peter Wheeler,

                        Conrad Lowe,                                                           Jonathan Weeks,

                        Jacob Lowe,                                                  Peter Weeks,

                        James Lock,                                                   Bartholomew Weeks,

                        William Lawrence,                                         Rufus Williams,

                        A. Meeleman,                                                Elihu Williams, Jr.,

                        C.  McCartee,                                                Parker Wilson,

                        Job Marshall,                                                 Azibah Williams,

                        Nicholas Manvil,                                           John Wilson,

                        John Murphy,                                                 John Ward,

                        Nero Matthewson,                                         Esen Wilcox,

                        Andrew Millard,                                            Stephen Whiton,

                        Thomas Neil,                                                 Elihu Waters,

                        Joseph Ogden,                                                           John Williams,

                        J. Otis,                                                           Wm. Woodward,

                        Abel Palmer,                                                  Ozias Yale.

                        William Parker,

                        Noah Pettibone, Jr.,

                        John Pierce,

                        Silas Parke,

                        Henry Pensil,

                        Elias Roberts,

                        Elisha Richards,

                        Timothy Rose,

                        Christopher Reynolds,

                        Enos Rockway,

                        Jeremiah Ross,

                        Joseph Staples,

                        Aaron Stark,

                        Daniel Stark,

                        Darius Spafford,

                        Joseph Shaw,

                        Abram Shaw,

                        Rufus Stevens,

                        Constant Searles,

                        Nailer Swede,

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From the records at Hartford, was obtained the following List of Officers in the Militia, whose commissions were “established” by the Assembly, in October 1775.  At the time of the battle, most of them held different commissions.  How dreadful the slaughter must have been, may be inferred from the heavy loss among the officers.  The company that lost none, was not present in the battle.

Those marked with an asterisk [*] were killed; so that of fifteen, eleven were slain.

                              October 1775. - 24^th Regiment of Connecticut Militia.

                        1^st Company.                                                           4^th Company.

Capt. Stephen Fuller,                                                 Capt. Solomon Strong,

Lieut. John Garrett,*                                                 Lieut. Jonathan Parker,

Ensign Christopher Avery.*                                      Ensign Timothy Keys.

                        2^d  Company.                                                             5^th Company.

Capt. Nathaniel Landon,                                           Capt. Wm. McKarrican,*

Lieut. George Dorrance,*                                         Lieut. Lazarus Stewart,*

Ensign Asahel Buck.*                                                           Ensign Silas Gore.*

                        3^d Company.                                                              6^th Company.

Capt. Samuel Ransom,*                                            Capt. Rezin Geer,*

Lieut. Perris Ross,*                                                   Lieut. Daniel Gore, (wounded)

Ensign Asaph Whittlesey.*                                       Ensign Matthias Hollenback.

All the early historians, who have related the massacre, stated that the houses of Tories left, looked like islands in a sea of fire, an error too important to remain uncontradicted.  Below Wintermoot's, near the head of the Valley, it is not known that there was a single tory house or family.  Individuals, labouring men, or hunters, there were a few, probably mingling with the inhabitants from policy.  Above Wintermoot's, extending to Wyalusing, the tory families were scattered, their settlements being recent, holding but a partial intercourse, no sympathy existing between them and the Connecticut inhabitants.  On a careful examination of a list found among the papers of Col. Butler, containing sixty-one names, three only are from New England.  The names are of a different people.  Wintermoots, Larraways, Van Alstines, Secords, etc., from the Mohawk, Kinderhook, Minnisink, and West Chester, New York.  There is good reason to believe, on the breaking out of hostilities with Great Britain, that her comprehensive policy, which, while with gigantic grasp it embraced great interests, yet allowing nothing, however comparatively trivial or minute, to escape attention, foreseeing the necessity of shutting off all friendly communications between the zealous Whig people of Wyoming and the Indians, and with views to ulterior measures, caused these tory families to remove, and take up the position they held.  Gordon says: “An unusual number of strangers had come among them under various pretenses.”  Certainly there was no disposition of the same number of most devoted partisans, that could have enabled them to render so much service.  But this matter has been averted to before.

Soon after Col. Hartley's return from the successful expedition just related, he was recalled from Wyoming, and a garrison left of about an hundred men, including Captain Spaulding, and Captain Morrison's Companies, and Captain Franklin's Wyoming Volunteers, consisting of all the militia, who had returned to the Valley.  Armed parties laboured in the fields, the necessity of sowing, though late, as much grain as possible, being apparent.*

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                        *Author's note – Fifteen years after the battle, a number of Indians, among whom were several chiefs of distinction, passed through Wyoming, on their way to Philadelphia, on   business with the government.  Apprehending danger, they sent word to Wilkes-Barre, and an escort of respectable citizens turned out to accompany them into the town.  In the evening a      council was held, in the Court Room, where mutually pacific assurances were given.  It is not surprising, considering their cruel conduct during the war, that the Indians entertained fears f       or their safety.  On their return, passing on the opposite side of the river from the battle ground, the old braves showed much excitement, talking and gesticulating, with great emphasis and spirit, as they seemed to be pointing out to the younger savages the position, and incidents of     the conflict.  I met Red Jacket at Washington in 1827 or 8, and strove to lead him to talk of   Wyoming, but on that subject his lips were hermetically sealed.

Following almost immediately on the footsteps of Hartley's men, bands of marauding Indians again made their appearance.  Surrounded as Wyoming is by mountains, whereon broken ledges of rocks afford innumerable places of shelter, parties would lie concealed, reconnoiter, and suddenly striking a blow, retire to their hiding places, where it was impossible to trace them.

On the 2d of October, four of Captain Morrison's men were attacked on the west side of the river, three of whom were killed, and one escaped.  Monotonous and melancholy, as the record may appear, duty bids us to follow it out.  Oct. 14^th . - William Jameson, returning home from Wilkes-Barre, was shot near where the canal crosses the road below Careytown.  Being wounded he fell from the horse, and attempted to gain the woods, but was pursued, tomahawked and scalped.  A valuable young man in the prime of life, being twenty-six years of age.  He had been in the battle, and escaped, and his scalp was therefore a doubly valuable prize to the Indians.

November 7. - Mr. John Perkins was killed in Plymouth; a victim also, most gratifying to the revengeful savage, as Mr. Perkins had a son in Spaulding's Independent Company.  William Jackson, and Mr. Lester, taken from the mill at Nanticoke, were marched three miles up into Hanover, and then shot down.  An aged man, spoken of as “old Mr. Hageman,” a prisoner, escaped with six wounds, and survived, although the food he too oozed from a spear wound in his side.  November 9^th. - Captain Carr and Philip Goss, in attempting to fly in a canoe, were shot below Wapwallopen, and left;  the latter dead, the other dying on the shore.  Robert Alexander and Amos Parker, were about the same time found murdered in the lower part of the Valley.

Late in the fall, Isaac Inman was murdered in Hanover.  We have stated the gallant array of determined men that family presented on the day of battle; and the shot of Israel, laying an Indian dead, thereby saving the life of a neighbor closely pursued, and nearly exhausted.  The sweet hour of revenge had now come.  Isaac said he was sure he heard wild-turkeys; he would take his rifle, and try to get one.  This was in the afternoon.  Not long after a gun was heard, but Isaac did not return.  A heavy snow fell that night, and lay till Spring, when his body was found, shot, scalped, and a war club by his side, its marks indicating that had done the deed.

Even a more distressing tragedy than we have recorded, was enacted near Nescopeck, on the 19^th.  A whole family were butchered – John Utley, and Diah Utley, were attacked.  The two first were shot down, and soon dispatched.  Diah, the youngest, fled to the river, and swam over to the west side, (near Beach Grove,) but an Indian had crossed before him in a canoe, and struck him with a tomahawk as he reached the shore.  He plead for his life, but there was no mercy shown.  The savages then entered the house, and having murdered and scalped the aged mother, placing her as in sport, in a chair, and so left her.  The Utley family were from the east side of the Connecticut river, in Hartford county.  An eye witness of the scene that was presented the next morning, represents the remains of the slaughtered sons, and the ghastly appearance of the mother, as enough to awaken horror and pity in a breast of marble.

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Jonathan Slocum, a man with a large family, a member of Friend's Society, had always been with characteristic benevolence, kind to the Indians.  At first the Indians left him unmolested, but probably learning that his son Giles was in the battle, the family were marked for vengeance.  A respectable neighbor, Nathan Kingsley, had been made prisoner, and taken into 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, 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 up 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 an hundred rods of the Wilkes-Barre fort.  An alarm was instantly given, but the Indians eluded pursuit, and no traces of their retreat could be found.

                        *Author's note – The coloured girl was afterwards seen by prisoners, in the family of Col. John Butler, at Niagara, who had purchased her of the Indian.   

The cup of vengeance was not yet full.  December 16^th, (or about forty days, allowing time for the war party to go to the Indian country with their prisoners, recruit themselves, and return,)  Mr. Slocum, and Isaac Tripp, Esq., his father-in-law, an aged man, with William Slocum, a youth of nineteen, or twenty, were foddering cattle from a stack in the meadow, in sight of the fort, when they were fired upon by Indians.  Mr. Slocum was shot dead;  Mr. Tripp wounded, speared, and tomahawked; both were scalped.  William, wounded by a spent ball in the heel, escaped, and gave the alarm, but the alert and wily foe had retreated to their hiding place in the mountain.  This deed, bold as it was cruel, was perpetrated within the town plot, in the centre of which the fort was located.  Thus in little more than a month, Mrs. Slocum had lost a beloved child, carried into captivity; the doorway had been drenched in blood by the murder of an inmate of the family; two others of the household had been taken away prisoners; and now, her husband and father were both stricken down to the grave, murdered and mangled by merciless Indians!  Verily the annals of Indian atrocities, written in blood, record few instances of desolation and woe to equal this.

I shall make no apology for anticipating more than half a century in my narrative, to give a brief account of the lost sister, the little captive, Frances Slocum, so that the whole may be presented in one connected chain.  The widowed mother heard nothing from her child.  Peace came, and prisoners returned, but no one had seen, or could tell aught respecting her.  As to those whom she knew were dead, they were at rest; the lamp of hope, as to them, had ceased to burn; and she bowed, as years passed away, in melancholy, but calm resignation, for those who could not return.  But not so as to Frances; she might survive.  She did live the cherished object of intensest love in the imagination of her fond mother, rendering ten-fold dearer by the blighted sorrows that crushed her house, when they were parted.  Her first waking thought in the morning was for her lost one; her last, on retiring to rest, was for her child, he lost child.  After the conclusion of peace, and intercourse with Canada was opened, two of her brothers, then amongst the most intelligent and enterprising young men in the Valley, led by their own sense of propriety and affection, and urged by a mother's tears, determined, if living, to find Frances, and restore her to home and friends.  Connecting business with their search, they traversed the Indian settlements, and went as far as Niagara, making careful inquiries for Frances.  The Indians, whom they saw, and inquired of in great numbers, did not know, or more probably would not reveal,

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the place of her location.  High rewards, sufficient to tempt Indian cupidity, were offered in vain, and the brothers came to the conclusion that she must be dead, probably slain by her merciless captors; or, surely she would have been heard of; someone must have seen her!

           Still, still, the fond mother saw in her dreams the cherished object of her love.  Playful – smiling, as in infancy, she appeared before her.  Frances was not in the grave; she knew she was not.  Her afflicted soul clung to the idea of recovering her daughter, as the great and engrossing object of life.  At length news came.  A woman answering to the description was found, and claimed to be the child of Mrs. Slocum.  About the proper age, she had been taken away captive when very young; knew not her parents, nor her own name, but had been carried off from the Susquehanna river.  Mrs. Slocum took her home, and treated her with all possible tenderness and care.  But soul did not answer to soul; the spirit did not respond to spirit; that secret and mysterious sympathy which exists between a mother and her offspring, did not draw them together.  It might be her daughter, Mrs. Slocum said, but it did not seem so to her.  “Yet the woman should be ever welcome.”  The unfortunate person, no imposter, an orphan indeed, simple and upright I intention, felt a persuasion in her own mind that these were not her relations, and taking presents, voluntarily returned to her Indian friends.  At length time obliterated the last ray of hope, and Mrs. Slocum, at an advanced age, descended to the grave.

In August, 1837, fifty-nine years after the capture, a letter appeared in the Lancaster Intelligencer, written by G.W. Ewing, of Logansport, Indiana, dated January 20, 1835, a year and a half previous, stating: -

                        “There is now living near this place, among the Miami tribe of Indians, an aged white     woman, who, a few days ago told me that she was taken away from her father's house, on, or near, the Susquehanna river, when she was very young.  She says her father's name was Slocum; that he was a Quaker, and wore a large brimmed hat; that he lived about half a mile from a town where there was a fort,  She has two daughters living.  Her husband is dead – she   is old and feeble, and thinks she shall not live long.  These considerations induced her to give the present history of herself – which she never would before, fearing her kindred would come and force her away.  She has lived long, and happy as an Indian – is very respectable, and wealthy, sober, and honest – Her name is without reproach.”

The sensation produced by this letter throughout Wyoming, can scarcely be imagined.  “ Is it Frances?  Can she be alive?  How wonderful!”  Not an idle hour was lost.  Her brother, Joseph Slocum, though near a thousand mile intervened, moved by affection, a sense of duty – and the know wished of a beloved parent, made immediate preparations for a journey.  Uniting with his younger brother, Isaac, who resides in Ohio, they hastened to Logansport, where they had the good fortune to meet Mr. Ewing.  Frances, who resides about a dozen miles from that place, was soon apprised of their coming.  While hope predominated, doubt and uncertainty, amounting almost to jealousy or suspicion, occupied her mind.  She came into the village riding a high-spirited horse, her two daughters, tastefully dressed in Indian costume, accompanying her, with the husband of one of them, the elite among Indian beaux.  Her manners were grave, he bearing reserved;  she listened, through an interpreter, to what they had to say.  But night approached.  Cautious and prudent, she rode back to her home, promising to return the coming morning.  At the appointed hour she alighted from her steed, and met them with something more of frankness, but still seemed desirous of  further explanation.  It was evident on all sides they were almost prepared for the recognition.  Mr. Joseph Slocum at length said, what he had so far purposely kept back, that their sister, at play in their father's smith-shop with the children, had received a blow on the middle finger of the left hand, by a hammer on the anvil, which crushed the bone, and the mother always said that would be a test which could not be mistaken.  Her whole countenance was

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instantly lighted up with smiles, while tears ran down her cheeks, as she held out the wounded hand.   Every lingering doubt was dispelled.  Hope was merged into confidence.  The tender embrace, the welcome recognition, the sacred, the exulting glow of brotherly and sisterly affection, filled every heart present to overflowing.  Her father!  Her dear, dear mother!  Did she yet live?  But they must long since, in the course of nature, have been gathered to their native dust.  Her brothers and sisters?  The slumbering affections awakened to life, broke forth in earnest inquiries for all whom she should love.

She then related the leading events of her life.  Her memory, extremely tenacious, enabled her to tell, that, on being taken, her captors hastened to a rocky cave on the mountain, where blankets and a bed of dry leaves, showed that they had slept.  On the journey to the Indian country she was kindly treated, the Indian carrying her, when she was weary, in his arms.  She was immediately adopted into an Indian family, and brought up as their daughter, but with more than common tenderness.  Young Kingsley, who was located near them, in a few years died.  About the time she had grown up to womanhood, both her Indian parents, whom she loved and mourned, were taken away, and not long afterwards, she married a young Chief of the Nation, and removed to the waters of the Ohio.  Treated with respect and confidence, few of the burdens women in the savage state are compelled to bear, were imposed upon her; and she was so happy in her family and connections, that the ideas of being found, and returned to live with the white people, was dreaded as the greatest evil that could befall her.  On the death of her Chief, she married her last husband, but has been a widow for many years.  After stating, through with much minuteness, the principal events of her life, with great solemnity she raised her hand, and looking up said: - “All this is true as that there is a God (or Great Spirit), in the Heavens.” 

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It is evident from her wealth, the extreme attachment to her people, and mode of life, connected with the strength of mid and memory displayed, that Frances Slocum must have been a Queen among them. Doubtless her superior understanding gave great influence, and led to a flattering deference to her opinions everywhere, in savage or civilized society, so agreeable.  All possible pains had therefore been taken to render life pleasant to her; and doubtless to imbue her mind with fear and dislike of the whites, so that she would not make known her name, and earnestly desired, when prisoners were inquired for, that she might not be betrayed, deeming a return, not a blessing to be desired, but a calamity to be deplored.  Undoubtedly too, her strong sense told her, not by any process of reasoning, but be intuitive perception, that however much a mother's heart might yearn for the lost child, that child could only return so changed as to render living with the white people difficult, and embarrassing, if not impossible.  Time and education had made her of another race, and the truest wisdom dictated acquiescence in her lot.

The next day the brothers, with the Interpreter, rode out to visit their sister.  Everything bore the appearance, not only of plenty, but of rude abundance.  Numerous cattle grazed in the meadows – fifty horses pranced proudly over the fields.  The house was half way between the Indian wigwam, and the more finished mansion of a farmer. [above ca.1880]  An oven, well baked cakes of flour, venison nicely prepared, and honey, afforded an excellent repast.  But the absence of milk and butter, so easily commanded in profusion, told of savage life.  As a token of entire confidence being established, Frances placed a piece of venison under a snow white cloth, when one of the brothers lifted it up, and this was regarded as a formal covenant of recognition and affection.  An agreeable visit of several days was passed, and has since been repeated by another branch of the family.

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                        The Indian name of the lost sister was  Ma-con-a-quah – a young bear.

                        Eldest daughter,  Kich-ke-ne-che-qua – cut finger; probably in allusion to the

                                   mother's wounded hand.

                        Youngest daughter,  O-saw-she-qua – yellow leaf. 

                        Grandchildren, 

                                   Kip-pe-no-qua – corn tassel.

                                   Wap-pa-no-se-a – blue corn.

                                   Kim-on-sah-quah – young panther.

Congress recently passed a resolution exempting Frances (the lost sister) from the necessity of removing with her family from their present location.  Several other Indian names, more remotely allied to her, are therein mentioned.

Mrs. Bennett, daughter of Joseph Slocum, and lady of the Hon. Ziba Bennett, with the most praiseworthy disregard of toil and danger, accompanied her father on his second visit to Indiana.  Her account of the interview with her aunt, is of a most interesting and pleasing character.  It is to be hoped she may be induced to give her journal and notes the form of letters, or a pamphlet, for there are few so capable of sketching a lively and correct narrative, or of presenting a picture, of itself so full of interest, in a form more neat and attractive.*

                        * Editor's note – There are several books related to the life of Frances Slocum.  Frances Slocum; The Lost Sister of Wyoming (1916), by Martha Bennett Phelps is still (2015) in print.

Their not comprehending each other's language, was of course a serious bar to social enjoyment, and that unreserved and affectionate intercourse, which, without the intervention of an interpreter, they would have indulged in.  We regard this as one of the most remarkable series of events Providence, in its unsearchable wisdom, has ever permitted to be developed.  It may gratify the distant reader to know, as it is a pleasure to record, that the encrimsoned night of bloodshed and woe, which seemed in 1778 to have settled forever on the family of Slocum, has long since broken away.  Sunshine, and gladness, and prosperity have arisen, and shed their cheering rays over them in an especial manner, during the last forty years.  A number of the sons, highly enterprising, have fulfilled their duties on the stage of action, with exemplary propriety.  One was High Sheriff of the county; another for many years a magistrate.  Others might have shared the honours of office, if they would have given up their time to public concerns, to the neglect of their own.  And now (1843) if they eye of the departed grandsire could look down on the Borough, he would see in the position of his descendants, sufficient to fill his heart to overflowing with pride and joy.  Forgetting his own sufferings, his spirit would bless the day that he established his family -

                        “On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming.”

Resuming our narrative, a paragraph of praise is specially due to Thomas Neil, an Irishman, of middle age, the most learned man in the Valley.  A Catholic, a high-mason, fond of dress – remarkable for his fine flow of spirits and pleasing manners; a bachelor, and a schoolmaster, he was a favorite.  With characteristic bravery, his Irish spirit broke out as the danger became pressing.  “The Yankees are the weakest party – the odds are against them – though I have no special interest in the fight, so help me Heaven!  I'll take a turn with them.”  Marching out in Capt. McKarrican's company, he fell.

Nor should the generous spirit of Wm. Jones of Virginia, be forgotten.  A young man, quite accomplished, he taught school in the Valley, and, like Neil, volunteered his services on the day of the

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battles.  He went to return no more.  The names of these two victims to those pure and chivalric sentiments that ennoble our nature, I owe to the memory of the late Mrs. Youngs.     

                                                                       * * *

Copies and Extracts of Documents relative to the Expedition against Wyoming, in 1778, now in a volume in Her Majesty's State Paper Office, London, entitled “MILITARY, 1778 – No. 122.”

Extract of a Letter from Sir Henry Clinton, to Lord George Germain, dated New York, August 12, 1778.

                        …  “Reports, which seem to be credited, say the a body of Indians, assembled under the command of a Col. Butler, have destroyed a number of settlements upon the frontiers of Pennsylvania, and repulsed what troops the rebels had collected to oppose them.  When I receive certain intelligence of their proceedings, I shall take the earliest opportunity to acquaint your Lordship therewith.”...

                                        [Editor's Note: at the time Commander-in-Chief of British forces]

Extract of a letter from Sir Henry Clinton to Lord George Germain, dated New York, September 15^th, 1778.

                        …  “I have at the same time, my Lord, the honor to transmit to you, a copy of a letter from Major Butler to Lieutenant Colonel Bolton, which I received from General Haldimand, a            few days since, giving an account of the proceedings of the former upon the frontiers of Pennsylvania.”

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                                                            Lord George Sackville-Germain

                                                 [British Cabinet Secretary for North America]

[Enclosures in the above.]

                                                                   [1^st  Enclosure]

Copy of a Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Bolton to Captain Le Maistre, dated Niagara, July 14^th, 1778.

                        “Sir, - I have the pleasure of acquainting you with the single success of the Rangers and   Indians, with Col. Butler, over the rebels at Wyoming, where they had no less than ten stockaded forts, and were defeated;  enclosed, I send you the particulars, which I request you will lay before His Excellency.  I received them this moment, by Lieut. Hare, of the Rangers.  The Caldwell being ready to sail, I have only time to assure you that I am, with esteem, Sir, your         most obedient humble servant.

                        “[Signed,]                                                                                         MASON BOLTON

                        “I request you’ll inform Capt. Butler of the Colonel's success.

                        “Captain Le Maistre.”          

                                                                    [2^nd Enclosure]               

          Copy of a Letter from Major John Butler to Lieut. Col. Bolton, dated Lackuwanack, 8^th July 1778.

                                                 [Disallowed at the Foreign Office]

         Note by Mr. Brodhead. - “This is the Report. It is about four foolscap pages long. J.R.B.”

                                                                    [3^rd Enclosure]

                    Copy of the Article of Capitulation, for Wintermoot's Fort, July 1, 1778.

                        ART. 1^st.  That Lieut. Elisha Scovell surrender the Fort, with all the stores, arms and                   ammunition, that are in said fort, as well public as private, to Major John Butler.

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                        2^nd.  That the garrison shall not bear arms during the present contest;  and Major Butler promises that the men, women and children shall not be hurt, either by Indians or                        Rangers.

                                                                                                          Fort Jenkins' Fort, July 1^st, 1778.

                        Between Major John Butler, on behalf of His Majesty King George the Third, and John                Jenkins.

                        ART. 1^st.  That the Fort, with all the stores, arms and ammunition, be delivered up immediately.

                        2^nd.  That Major John Butler shall reserve to them, entire, the lives of the men, women and children.

                                  Articles of Capitulation for three Forts at Lacuwanack, 4^th July, 1778.

                        ART. 1^st.  That the different Commanders of the said Forts, do immediately deliver them              up, with all the arms, ammunition and stores, in the said forts.

                        2^nd.  Major Butler promises the lives of the men, women and children be preserved entire.

                                                                                                          Westmoreland, July 4^th, 1778.

                        Capitulation made and completed between Major John Butler, on behalf of His Majesty               King George the Third, and Col. Nathan Dennison, of the 'United States of America.'                  

                        ART. 1^st.   That the inhabitants of the settlement lay down their arms, and the garrisons               be demolished.

                        2^nd.  That the inhabitants are to occupy their farms peaceably, and the lives of the                       inhabitants preserved entire and unhurt.

                        3^rd.  That the continental stores be delivered up.

                        4^th.  That Major Butler will use his utmost influence that the private property of the                    inhabitants shall be preserved entire to them.

                        5^th.  That the prisoners, in Forty Fort, be delivered up, and that Samuel Finch, now in                 Major Butler's possession, be delivered up also.

                        6^th.  That the property taken from the people called 'Tories,' up the river, be made good;              and they to remain in peaceable possession of their farms, unmolested in a free trade, in                         and throughout this State, as far as lies in my power.

                        7^th.  That the inhabitants, that Col. Dennison now capitulates for, together with himself,                         do not take up arms during the present contest.

                        [Signed,]                                                                    NATHAN DENNISTON,

                                                                                                          JOHN BUTLER.

                        Zarah Beech,              Samuel Gustin,

                        John Johnston,Wm. Caldwell.

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           Extract of a Letter from Lord George Germain to Sir Henry Clinton, dated Whitehall, 4^th of November, 1778.

                        … “The success of Lieutenant-Colonel Butler, is distinguished for the few lives that have been lost among the Rangers and Indians he commanded;  for his humanity in making those only his object, who were in arms;  And it is much to the credit of the officers and Rangers of his detachment, that they seem to partake of the spirit and perseverance which is common to all the British officers and soldiers.”...

        [Copied from the originals in the State Paper Office, London, 11^th April, 1843.]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          J.R. BRODHEAD

                                                                           * * *

                              MATERIAL ADDED BY AUTHOR FOLLOWING THIS LETTER

Some matters of interest will be found in this note.  The letter of Judge Marshall, dated February 15, 1831, is curious in this respect.  It acknowledges in simple style, the receipt of a letter written 'twenty-five years before,' as if it had been a thing of day before yesterday.  It may well be doubted, whether the records of correspondence, from remotest time, exhibit a similar instance.

                                                             Chief Justice John Marshall

                                                                                                          Washington, Feb'y 15^th, 1831.

                        Sir – I am much indebted to you for a letter received in April, 1806, correcting some errors into which our history has fallen, in its relation of the destruction of the Wyoming settlement, during the war of out revolution.  The readiness you express in that letter, to give you a true statement of that memorable tragedy, encourages me to make some further inquiries on the subject.

                        Your account of the battle is full, and I understand it perfectly;  but you have entered         into no detail of subsequent events, and I am not sure whether you contradict or agree with

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Gordon or Ramsey. Respecting these events.  They say that the two principal forts were Kingston and Wilkes-Barre.  That after the defeat, the men, women and children were collected in these forts, and after their surrender, were consumed by fire, in their houses.  Is this          representation correct?  I should conjecture, from your letter, that the country was abandoned   immediately after the defeat;  but it seems impossible that all the circumstances relative to the   surrender of the forts, and the horrors perpetrated afterwards, can be mere fable.  You do not say from what place Colonels Dennison and Butler marched to the battle.

May I tax your goodness so far as to ask a statement of the occurrences which followed    the battle, unless that made by Gordon and Ramsay, may be considered as perfectly correct?

                        I shall remain at this place until the middle of March, when I purpose to return to Richmond.  With every great respect, I am your obliged and obedient servant,

                                                                                                                      J. MARSHALL.

                                                                                                          Richmond, June 9^th, 1831

                        Dear Sir, -  I am greatly indebted to you for your letter of 5^th of May, and its enclosures,    which reached this place, while I was in North Carolina.  I have been closely occupied with the business of the court since my return; but should certainly have acknowledged its receipt immediately, had I not conjectured from the place of its date (Wilkes-Barre,) that a letter written immediately, would not find you at home.

                        It is certainly desirable that historical narrative should be correct, and I shall avail myself of the information you have been so obliging as to furnish, so far at least as to omit the   massacre and the charge of Toryism on the inhabitants.

                        Mr. Ramsay, I presume, copied his statement from Mr. Gordon, and I relied upon both, as I knew Mr. Gordon made personal inquiries into most of the events of the war, and that Mr.    Ramsay was in Congress, and consequently had access to all the letters on the subject.  It is surprising that they should have so readily given themselves up to the newspapers of the day.

                        It was certainly our policy during the war to excite the utmost possible irritation against   our enemy, and it is not surprising that we should not always have been very mindful of the    verity of our publications; but when we come to the insertion of facts in serious history, truth      ought never to be disregarded.  Mr. Gordon and Mr. Ramsay ought to have sought for it.

                        I must complain of your paying the postage on your letter.*  It is my habit, when I write    to a gentleman about my own affairs, not to charge him with my letter;  but when a gentleman writes to me on my business, the case is entirely altered.  I am pained at his incurring any expense on my account.

                                   *{I had commenced the correspondence in 1806, as a Wyoming man, to                                                   vindicate our own people, and thought the payment proper.}

                        I repeat my thanks for your valuable communications, and my assurances that I am with respectful esteem, your obliged and obedient servant,

                                                                                                                      J. MARSHALL.                                                                                

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[William] Gordon's (the Revolutionary historian) account of the massacre, we copy to show what has passed heretofore, for history; and what half the world seem still resolved to regard as such.  A recent publication in a respectable city paper, retains the whole mass of early errors, and a letter to the author from a learned gentleman, whose wife's father was in Forty Fort, when it surrendered, written expressly to convey information for our annals, repeats the story of “the hatchet,” and the instant massacre of all who were in the fort, although his father-in-law and wife, both prisoners, escaped to relate to him the event.  The pages of Botts, are yet more fanciful. 

But to Gordon's account: -

                        “At length, in the beginning of July, the enemy suddenly appeared in full force on the Susquehanna, headed by Col. John Butler, a Connecticut tory, and cousin to Col. Zebulon Butler, the second in command to the settlement.  He was assisted by most of those leaders, who had rendered themselves terrible in the present frontier war.  Their force was about 1600 men, near a fourth Indians, led by their own chiefs; the others were so disguised and painted as not to be distinguished from the Indians, excepting their officers, who being dressed in regimentals, carried the appearance of regulars.  One of the smaller forts, garrisoned chiefly by Tories, was   given up, or rather betrayed.  Another was taken by storm, and all but the women and children, massacred in the most inhuman manner.

                        JULY 3. - Col. Zebulon Butler, leaving a small number to guard Fort Wilkesborough, crossed the river with about 400 men, and marched into Kingston Fort, whither the women,   children, and defenseless of all sorts, crowded for protection.  He suffered himself to be enticed    by his cousin to abandon the fortress.  He agreed to march out, and hold a conference with the   enemy in the open field, (at so great a distance from the fort, as to shut out all possibility of    protection from it) upon their withdrawing according to their own proposal, in order to the holding of a parley for the conclusion of a treaty.  He at about the same time marched out about 400 men well armed, being nearly he whole length of the garrison, to guard his person to the place of parley, such was his distrust of the enemy's designs.  On his arrival, he found nobody to treat with him, and yet advanced toward the foot of the mountain, where at a distance he saw a flag, the holders of which, seemingly afraid of treachery on his side, retired as he advanced; whilst he, endeavoring to remove this pretended ill impression, pursued the flag, til his party    was thoroughly enclosed, when he was suddenly freed from his delusion, by finding it attacked     at once on every side.  He and his men, notwithstanding the surprise and danger, fought with resolution and bravery, and kept up so continual and heavy a fire for three quarters of an hour, that they seemed to gain a marked superiority.  In this critical moment, a soldier, through a sudden impulse of fear, or premeditated treachery, cried out aloud, “the Colonel has ordered a retreat.”  The fate of the party was now at once determined.  In the state of confusion that ensued, an unresisted slaughter commenced, while the enemy broke in on all sides without obstruction.  Col. Zebulon Butler, and about seventy of his men, escaped; the latter got across the river to Fort Wilkesborough, the Colonel made his way to Fort Kingston, which was involved the next day (July 4,) on the land side.  The enemy, to sadden the drooping spirits of the weak remaining garrison, sent in for their contemplation the bloody scalps of one hundred and ninety-six of their late friends and comrades.  They kept up a continual fire upon the fort the whole day.  In the evening, the Colonel quitted the fort, and went down the river with his       family.  He is thought to be the only officer that escaped.

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                        JULY 5, - Col. Nathan Denison, who succeeded to the command, seeing the impossibility of an effectual defense, went with a flag to Col. John Butler, to know what terms he would grant on a surrender, to which application Butler answered with more than savage phlegm, In two short words – 'the hatchet.'   Denison having defended the fort till most of the garrison were killed or disabled, was compelled to surrender at discretion.  Some of the unhappy persons in the fort were carried away alive, but the barbarous conquerors, to save the trouble of murder in detail, shut up the rest promiscuously in the houses and barracks, which having set on fire, they enjoyed the savage pleasure of beholding the whole consumed in one      general blaze.

                        They then crossed the river to the only remaining fort, Wilkesborough, which, in hopes of mercy, surrendered without demanding any conditions.  They found about seventy continental soldiers, who had been engaged merely for the defense of the frontiers, whom they butchered with every circumstance of horrid cruelty.  The remained of the men, with the women and children, were shut up as before in the houses, which being set on fire, they perished altogether in the flames.

                        A general sense of devastation was now spread through all the townships.  Fire, sword, and the other different instruments of destruction, alternately triumphed.  The settlements of the Tories alone generally escaped, and appeared as islands in the midst of the surrounding ruin.  The merciless ravagers, having destroyed the main objects of their cruelty, directed their animosity to every part of living nature belonging to them; shot and destroyed some of their cattle, and cut out the tongues of others, leaving them still alive to prolong their agonies.

                        The following are a few of the more singular circumstances of the barbarity practiced in   the attack upon Wyoming.  Capt. Bidlack, who had been taken prisoner, being stripped naked, had his body stuck full of splinters of pine knots, and then a heap of pine knots piled around him; the whole was then set on fire, and his two companions, Captains Ransom and Durkee, thrown alive into the flames, and held down with pitchforks.  The returned Tories, who had at   different times abandoned the settlement, in order to join those savage expeditions, were the most distinguished for their cruelty; in this they resembled the Tories that joined the British          forces.  One of these Wyoming Tories, whose mother had married a second husband, butchered with his own hands, both her, his father-in-law, his own sisters, and their infant children.  Another, who during his absence had sent home several threats against the life of his father,   now not only realized them in person, but was himself with his own hands, the exterminator of     his whole family, mother, brothers and sisters, and mingled their blood in one common carnage, with that of the ancient husband and father.”*

                        *Which particularly related facts, we believe, from careful inquiry, to be without the shadow of foundation.