First Massacre in Wyoming Launched During Pontiac’s War by Captain Bull, October 15, 1763

The conspiracy fomented by Pontiac, the Ottawa chieftain, was unmasked at Detroit on May 6, 1763, and then began the war which continued until late in the summer of 1764.

Fort Sandusky was captured by the Indians May 16, 1763; Fort Ouatanon (now Lafayette, Ind.), May 31; Fort Presqu’ Isle (now Erie County, Pa.), June 17; Fort Le Boeuf (in Erie County), June 18; Fort Venango (in Venango County, Pa.), June 18 and the military posts at Carlisle and Bedford, Pa., on the same day.

On June 22 a large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire on all sides, but were easily repulsed. The Seneca were the only Indians of the Six Nations in alliance with Pontiac.

The report which reached Philadelphia the second week in July, 1763, revealed a most alarming situation on the frontier.

Through the efforts of the Reverend John Elder the able-bodied men of the Paxtang region in Lancaster County were soon organized into a mounted military battalion of several companies, under the name of the “Paxtang Rangers” or “Paxtang Boys,” with Elder as colonel in command.

“Swift on foot, excellent horsemen, good shots, skillful in pursuit or escape, dexterous as scouts and expert in maneuvering,” the “Paxtang Boys” became the terror of the Indians. And yet, during the summer and early autumn of that year numerous depredations and murders were committed by Indians in the counties of Lancaster and Northampton.

On Sunday, August 7, Captain Andrew Montour arrived at Fort Augusta from up the West Branch and informed Colonel James Burd that Forts Pitt and Ligonier had been captured by the Indians. Later this news was learned to be false, but the loss of Presqu’ Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango was a fact.

Colonel John Elder wrote Governor Hamilton, requesting that his command be allowed “to destroy the immense quantity of corn left by the New England men at Wyoming which, if not consumed, will be a considerable magazine to the enemy and enable them with more ease to distress the inhabitants, etc.” The Governor in his reply stated that he had no objection to their scouting as far as Wyoming.

On October 13 Major Asher Clayton, with a force of eighty soldiers from Lancaster County, arrived at Fort Augusta, en route to Wyoming. There he was joined by Lieutenant Samuel Hunter and 719twenty-four men of the garrison, and the combined force departed Saturday the 15th for Wyoming.

Two companies of the Reverend Elder’s command set out from Fort Hunter on the 11th destined for the same place, and “to intercept the murdering party on their return to Northampton.”

This “murdering party” referred to by Colonel Elder was a band of hostile Delaware led by Tedyuskung’s son, Captain Bull, and concerning whose depredations Governor Hamilton sent a message to the Provincial Assembly on October 15, in these words:

“Within a few days past I have received well-attested accounts of many barbarous and shocking murders and other depredations having been committed by Indians on inhabitants of Northampton County, in consequence whereof great numbers of those who escaped the rage of the enemy have already deserted, and are daily deserting their habitations; so that, unless some effectual aid can be speedily granted them, to induce them to stand their ground, it is difficult to say where these desertions will stop, or to how small a distance from the capital our frontier may be reduced.”

Captain Bull, who headed this war party of Western Delaware in these incursions, had spent ten years among these Indians west of the Ohio River. He was thoroughly familiar with their sentiments toward the English.

The first intimation of the presence of hostile Indians was on October 8, 1763, when before daybreak, Captain Bull attacked the house of John Stenton, on the road from Bethlehem to Fort Allen, where Captain Wetherhold and a squad of soldiers were lodging for the night. Wetherhold and several others of the whites were wounded and three were killed.

A day or two later Yost’s mill, about eleven miles from Bethlehem, was destroyed, and the people there cut off. Altogether twenty-three persons were killed and many wounded, and these depredations committed within a few miles of Captain Bull’s ancestral home.

On Saturday, October 15, the self-same day that Major Clayton’s expedition set out from Fort Augusta for Wyoming, the settlers of Mill Creek, in Wyoming Valley, were busily engaged in their various occupations at different places unaware of danger and unprepared for disaster.

Captain Bull and his warriors to the number of 135 swooped down on the settlers and death, desperation and destruction quickly followed. Eighteen or more were killed, including many persons of importance. The scene was terrible.

The settlers who heard the gun shots and war whoops of the Indians fled in great haste to the mountains. At night time the torch was applied and soon the homes of the settlers were masses of ruins.

720The settlers who escaped death tramped back to Connecticut, and Wyoming was, in very truth, deserted and forsaken.

Major Clayton arrived soon after this massacre, but did not remain, and returned to Fort Augusta. An extract from a letter written by a soldier says:

“Our party under Major Asher Clayton is returned from Wyoming, where we met with no Indians, but found the New Englanders who had been killed and scalped a day or two before we got there. We buried the dead—nine men and a woman—who had been most cruelly butchered.

“The woman was roasted, and had two hinges in her hands—supposed to be put in red hot—and several of the men had awls thrust in their eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, etc., sticking in their bodies.

“They (Clayton’s troops) burnt what houses the Indians had left, and destroyed a quantity of Indian corn. The enemy’s tracks were up the river toward Wyalusing.”

Many writers have expressed different opinions about this massacre. Some thought it to have been done by the Delaware who believed the Connecticut settlers killed their king Tedyuskung; some believe it to have been done by Six Nations, who thought the whites had assassinated the Delaware king; but others believe there is not sufficient ground for supposing it to have been done by friends of Tedyuskung, even though the hostile party was led by his son, Captain Bull.

Whoever was to blame, or whoever committed the bloodthirsty deed, matters not, but the fact remains that the Delaware Indians were treacherous and none of them more so than King Tedyuskung and his sons, especially Captain Bull, the perpetrator of this horrible massacre.