Luzerne County, Pennsylvania: History
The Luzerne County Historical Society maintains the storehouse for the collective memory of Luzerne County and its environs. It records and interprets the history, traditions, events, people, and cultures that have directed and molded life within the region.
Long an area occupied by indigenous peoples, by the 1700s the Wyoming Valley was inhabited by several Native American tribes including the Susquehannock, who spoke an Iroquoian language, and the Delaware (Lenape), who spoke an Algonquian language. In the mid-18th century, Connecticut settlers of primarily English ancestry ventured into the valley. These were the first recorded Europeans in the region. Some came as missionaries to the Native American peoples, while others came to farm the fertile land near the Susquehanna River. Ultimately, the violence of the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France) drove these Connecticut settlers away.
The British colonies of Pennsylvania and Connecticut both claimed the Wyoming Valley as their own. King Charles II of England had granted the land to the Connecticut Colony in 1662, but also to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in 1681. In 1769, Yankee settlers from Connecticut returned to the valley and founded the town of Wilkes-Barre. However, they were not alone. Pennsylvanian settlers (Pennamites) were also in the region.
Armed bands of Pennamites harassed the Connecticut settlers in what is known as the Pennamite-Yankee Wars. While the land dispute continued, a much larger conflict began. In 1775, the Thirteen Colonies began a war of independence against Great Britain. Residents of both Pennsylvania and Connecticut were largely loyal to the Patriot cause, which supported the American Revolution and independence.
On June 30, 1778, Loyalist forces, under the command of Major John Butler, arrived in the Wyoming Valley to attack the rebel American settlements. On July 1, Fort Wintermoot at the north end of the valley surrendered without a shot being fired. The next morning the smaller Fort Jenkins surrendered. Both forts were later burned to the ground.
The Patriot militia assembled at Forty Fort. On July 3, a column of roughly 360 men, including a company of soldiers from the Continental Army, marched from the fort under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Zebulon Butler and Colonel Nathan Denison. Butler's Rangers, with the assistance of about 500 Native American allies, mostly Seneca, ambushed the approaching Americans. In the end, 302 American soldiers were killed during the Battle of Wyoming. Today, in the Borough of Wyoming, a monument marks the gravesite of the victims from the battle.
The next day, Colonel Denison surrendered Forty Fort along with several other posts. Widespread looting and burning of buildings occurred throughout the Wyoming Valley subsequent to this capitulation, but non-combatants were not harmed. Most of the inhabitants, however, fled across the Pocono Mountains to Stroudsburg and Easton, or down the Susquehanna River to Sunbury.
In September 1778, American Colonel Thomas Hartley took partial revenge for the Wyoming defeat. He and his 200 soldiers burned a number of villages in Delaware along the Susquehanna River. …