A painting by F.O.C. Darley in 1905 of the Wyoming Massacre. Library of Congress
A painting by F.O.C. Darley in 1905 of the Wyoming Massacre. Library of Congress
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Heavy rain threatened the July 3, 1902, 125th remembrance ceremony of the Battle and Massacre at Wyoming.
A crowd estimated to be 750 gathered in the shadows of the Wyoming Monument on Wyoming Avenue, Wyoming, to hear the featured speaker, Alfred Mathews, a historian from Philadelphia.
Mathews titled his speech, “Connecticut Character and Achievement.”
“Considering the unpropitious outlook, a heavy downpour having set in at 6:30 a.m. prevailing with unabating force until upwards of 9 o’clock,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported July 4, 1902.
Though the rain had stopped leaving a muddy mess, dark clouds lingered as far as the horizon, the Record reported.
As the rain stopped, the ceremony got underway with invocation by the Rev. C.E. Mogg, and remarks by Wyoming Monument Commemorative Association President Benjamin Dorrance.
“President Dorrance remarked that it was the first occasion of the kind when mother nature had refused to smile upon the efforts of the association and the descendants of those who participated in the historic event,” the Record reported, meaning the rain storm was the first to interrupt the annual ceremony since the first ceremony was held 1878.
After Dorrance ended his informal speech, Mathews took to the podium to reflect the history and charter of Connecticut and what became the expansion of Connecticut through the Susquehanna Company to the Wyoming Valley, which led to three conflicts with settlers of Pennsylvania known as the Pennamite-Yankee wars.
Mathews described the Wyoming Valley as the “Connecticut continental line,” but when the Battle of Wyoming occurred July 3, 1778, the native Pennsylvanians and Yankees from Connecticut bonded together to defend their terrorities from the British Rangers led by Col. John Butler, British Tories and Iroquois Indians.
Tensions were high throughout the undeveloped Wyoming Valley in the last week of June and the first week of July 1778.
The Harding brothers of Benjamin, Stukely and John left Jenkins Fort in today’s West Pittston to tend to their family’s farm along the Susquehanna River in Exeter Township on June 30, 1778.
The brothers were joined by four boys and two men.
Jenkins Fort constructed by the Connecticut settlers in 1776 joined the Pittstown stockages as the northernmost forms in the Wyoming Valley where the Lackawanna River meets the Susquehanna River.
As the day was coming to a close, British Tories on canoes in the river saw the Harding brothers at work in the field near Sutton’s Creek. About the same time, the Harding brothers were returning to Jenkins Fort but were attacked by the advance guard of Indians, killing Benjamin and Stukley, considered “First to Fall” in the lead up to the Battle of Wyoming days later on July 3, 1778.
British Col. Butler took control of Fort Wintermoot in Exeter without a shot being fired. Fire was set to Fort Wintermoot to give the impression to the American militia led by Col. Zebulon Butler and his officers, Col. Nathan Dennison and Lt. Col. George Dorrance who took refuge in nearby Forty Fort, that the raiding party had withdrawn.
“The American force consisted of only six organized companies and were joined as they marched out of Forty Fort at about two o’clock by such of the old and young in the Fort,” reported the Times Leader on July 4, 1878.
The battle, which was reflected upon by Mathews during the 1902 remembrance ceremony, erupted when the American force were ambushed by hiding British Rangers and Indians.
Despite many accounts reported in books, research papers and newspaper articles, it is widely accepted 14 survivors of the battle were taken prisoner, placed around a rock near today’s Susquehanna Avenue and Seventh Street, Wyoming, and murdered when scalped by a Native American woman known as Queen Esther.
Many famous people, notably U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878, have been the featured speaker during the annual Wyoming Commemorative Association’s ceremony.
This year’s event marking the 246th anniversary of the Battle of Wyoming takes place at 10 a.m., July 4, at the Wyoming Monument and will feature John T. Yudichak, incoming president of Luzerne County Community College as the principal speaker.