First Members of Susquehanna Company Settle in Wyoming, February 8, 1769

The Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, determined to hold possession of lands in the Wyoming Valley, which were claimed by the Connecticut settlers, sent Captain Amos Ogden, John Anderson, Charles Stewart, Alexander Patterson, John Jennings and several other Pennsylvanians and New Jerseymen into that section with the intention of becoming lessees or purchasers of the proprietary lands at Wyoming.

They established themselves on Mill Creek, December, 1768, where they erected a small fort or blockhouse, this settlement being within the Manor of Stoke, which had been located and surveyed for the Proprietaries December 9 of that year.

The Susquehanna Company, which had been organized at Windham, Conn., July 18, 1753, determined to take possession formally of the lands located at Wyoming, purchased by them from the Indians at Albany. The first forty settlers under this company arrived at Wyoming February 8, 1769. A large body, led by Major John Durkee, with authority from the Susquehanna Company, arrived at Wyoming from Connecticut and New York May 12, 1769. They immediately began the erection of about twenty substantial and commodious one-story log cabins. A few days later 150 additional settlers arrived.

The Connecticut settlers finished the erection of their first twenty-five cabins by May 20 and a week later began the erection of the stockade to surround them, which, when completed, they named “Fort Durkee,” in honor of their leader, Major John Durkee.

Governor John Penn was immediately advised of the arrival of the Connecticut settlers, and he at once planned to discourage their permanent location and directed letters to Colonel Turbutt Francis, then in command of the small garrison of provincial troops stationed at Fort Augusta, and to John Jennings, of Bethlehem, Sheriff of Northampton 103County. These letters urged them to discourage unlawful settlements, but to use force, if necessary, to drive them off.

May 24 Sheriff Jennings arrived at Wyoming and read the Governor’s proclamation to the “intruders.”

An exciting occurrence took place when “Colonel Turbut Francis, commanding a fine company from the city (Philadelphia), in full military array, with colors streaming and martial music, descended into the plain and sat down before Fort Durkee about the 20th of June, but finding the Yankees too strongly fortified, returned to await re-enforcements below the mountains.”

Another version of the affair is: “June 22 Colonel Francis, with sixty men, in a hostile manner demanded a surrender of our houses and possessions. He embodied his forces within thirty or forty rods of their (the settlers) dwelling, threatened to fire their houses and kill our people unless they surrendered and quitted their possessions, which they refused to do; and after many terrible threatenings by him he withdrew.”

Soon as Major Durkee, who had been in Easton on court business, returned to Wyoming and learned of the hostile demonstration of Colonel Francis and his small force he set about to strengthen the defenses of Fort Durkee. It was at this time, July 1, 1769, that the major compounded and originated the almost unique name “Wilkes-Barre” and bestowed it upon the settlement and territory at and immediately adjacent to Fort Durkee.

Governor Penn was fully aware that the Yankees were determined to keep possession of the lands upon which they were settled, and on August 24, 1769, wrote to Colonel Francis at Fort Augusta, directing him to raise an expedition to assist the Sheriff of Northampton County in executing the King’s writ, and concluded as follows: “It is hoped you will be able to procure the people to go without pay, as they have already manifested a very good disposition to bring the intruders to justice.”

The attempt to serve these writs in September, 1769, precipitated the first of the so-called Pennamite-Yankee Wars. The Sheriff approached a number of the settlers at work, and they were attacked by men of his posse under the command of Amos and Nathan Ogden, and “several of the settlers were beat and wounded.” This action and its results may be understood from a letter written to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut:

“In September Amos and Nathan Ogden, with twenty-six others armed with pistols and clubs, assaulted and wounded sundry of our people, whereby their lives were endangered. The same month thirteen of our people in three canoes loaded with wheat and flour, about sixty miles below Wyoming, were met and robbed of their canoes and loading by thirty armed men who came from Fort Augusta, about one-half mile away.

104“In the same month came the trial of many of our men at Easton; the charge against them was riot. * * * In the course of the trial challenge was made to a juryman for having some time before expressed an opinion openly against our people; but neither that nor any other exception would prevail. The jury were treated with wine by the King’s attorney before verdict, which verdict was brought in against the prisoners, and they condemned them to pay a fine of £10 each, with large costs, in which was included the cost of the wine the jury were treated with.”

Some paid the fine, others were imprisoned. These later escaped from jail at Easton September 24, and a reward of £60 was offered by the sheriff for their apprehension. None of the twelve was captured, for they all fled to Connecticut.

Another skirmish took place in November, 1769, between the Yankee settlers at Fort Durkee and a small party of Pennsylvanians under the command of the Ogdens.

On the afternoon of November 11 Captain Ogden, apprised of the approach of Sheriff Jennings and his “posse comitatus,” gathered together his whole force of Pennamites, numbering about forty, and dashed rapidly and unexpectedly on a small party of Yankees, among whom was Major Durkee, and captured them.

Captain Ogden, also a justice of the peace, prepared legal papers for the commitment of Major Durkee in the city jail at Philadelphia, shackled him with irons and sent him under heavy escort to Philadelphia, where he was imprisoned. Emboldened by their success, Ogden and his men that night surrounded Fort Durkee and fired upon the men within.

Sheriff Jennings and his posse arrived upon the scene the next morning (Sunday) and paraded the whole body of Pennamites, about 200 in number, before Fort Durkee. While Jennings was carrying on a parley with the Yankee garrison, Ogden and a party drove off all the horses and cattle belonging to the Yankees.

The following day the Pennamites assembled in front of Fort Durkee, where they threw up breastworks, upon which they mounted a four-pounder brought from Fort Augusta. They demanded the surrender of the fort, or its destruction. Deprived of their commander and having nothing but rifles, the Yankees agreed to sign articles of capitulation.

By the terms of this agreement all but fourteen of the settlers were to leave the region within three days; the others were allowed to remain and live at Fort Durkee until His Majesty’s decree should determine who had proper title to the lands at Wyoming.

Ogden and his men, however, starved out the fourteen settlers who remained, and in a short time they were compelled to follow their companions in exile.

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