Vast cranberry marshes spread out upon this high, rolling table-land, and supply the surrounding settlements with an abundance of that excellent fruit. Indeed, the whole region is almost a continuous morass, and the road, a large portion of the way, is a causeway made of logs. Here the gray eagle wheels undisturbed, the bear makes his lair, and the wild deer roam in abundance. These, with the flocks of pheasants, and the numerous rabbits that burrow upon this wild warren, invite the adventurous huntsman, willing to "camp out" in the wilderness. No settlements enliven the way; and the cabins and saw-mills of lumbermen, where the road intersects the streams, are the only evidences of a resident population, except three or four places where a few acres have been redeemed from the poverty of nature. This wilderness extends more than a hundred miles between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, and a death-like solitude broods over the region.
I kept my seat upon the driver's box all the way from the Wind-gap to Wilkesbarre, charmed by the romance of the scene, rendered still more wild and picturesque by the dark masses of cumulous clouds that overspread the heavens in the afternoon. The wind blew very cold from the northwest, and the driver assured me that, during the hottest weather in summer, the air is cool and bracing upon this lofty highway. Poor fellow, he was an emaciated, blue-lipped soldier, recently returned from the battle-fields of Mexico, where the vomito and ague had shattered a hitherto strong constitution, and opened his firm-knit system to the free entrance of diseases of every kind. He was at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. He lay sick a whole summer at Perote, and now had resumed the whip with the feeble hope of regaining lost health.
We crossed the upper waters of the Lehigh at Stoddartsville, in the midst of the great lumber country, and reached the brow of the Wilkesbarre Mountains just before sunset. There a scene of rare grandeur and beauty was revealed, heightened by contrast with the rugged and forbidding aspect of the region we had just traversed. The heavy clouds, like a thick curtain, were lifted in the west to the apparent height of a celestial degree, and allowed the last rays of the evening sun to flood the deep valley below us with their golden light. The natural beauties of the vale, reposing in shadow, were for a moment brought
A charming Landscape.—Arrival at Wilkesbarre.—Charles Minor, Esq.—His Picture of old Wyoming
out in bold outline; and from our point of view we gazed upon a picture such as the painter's art can not imitate. Like a thread of silver the Susquehanna appeared, in its winding course, among the lofty, overshadowing trees, upon its margin, and the villages, hamlets, green woodlands, rich bottoms, and fruitful intervales of Wyoming, twenty miles in extent, and the purple mountains on its western borders were all included in the range of our vision. The thought, impious though it may be, came into my mind, that if Satan, when he took Immanuel to the top of an "exceeding high mountain," exhibited a scene like this, the temptation was certainly great. Wilkesbarre, * apparently at our feet, was three miles distant, and it was dark when we reached the Phoenix Hotel, upon the bank of the river. It had been a fatiguing day's journey of sixty miles; but a supper of venison, warm biscuit, and honey, and a comfortable bed, made me feel perfectly vigorous in the morning, and prepared for a ramble over the historic portions of the valley.
September 16, 1848 After an early breakfast I rode to the residence of Charles Miner, Esq., about two miles from the village, expecting to rely chiefly upon his varied and extensive knowledge of the history of the valley for information concerning the localities of interest, but was disappointed. * He was suffering from a severe attack of an epidemic fever then prevailing in the valley, and was unable even to converse much, yet I have not forgotten the sincere regrets and kind wishes he expressed. He referred me to several gentlemen in the village, descendants of the first settlers in the valley, and to one of them (Mr. Lord Butler, a grandson of Colonel Zebulon Butler) I am indebted for many kind services while I remained there. He accompanied me to the several localities of interest in the valley, and furnished me with such facilities for acquiring information as only a stranger can appreciate. We visited Kingston, Forty Fort, the monument, the chief battle-ground, Fort Wintermoot, Monocasy Island, &c.; but a record of the day's ramble will be better understood after a consultation of the history, and we will, therefore, proceed to unclasp the old chronicle.
History and song have hallowed the Valley of Wyoming, and every thing appertaining to it seems to be wrapped in an atmosphere of romance. Its Indian history, too, long antecedent to the advent of the whites there, is full of the poetry which clusters around the progress of the aborigines. Mr. Miner gives a graphic picture of the physical aspect of the valley. "It is diversified," he says, "by hill and dale, upland and intervale. Its character of extreme richness is derived from the extensive flats, or river bottoms, which, in some places, extend from one to two miles from the stream, unrivaled in expansive beauty, unsurpassed in luxuriant fertility. Though now generally cleared and cultivated, to protect the soil from floods a fringe of trees is left along each bank of the river—the sycamore, the elm, and more especially the black walnut, while here and there, scattered through the fields, a huge shell-bark yields its summer shade to the weary laborers, and its autumn fruit to the black and gray squirrel, or the rival plow-boys. Pure streams of water come leaping from the mountains, imparting health and pleasure in their course; all of them abounding with the delicious trout. Along those brooks, and in the swales, scattered through the uplands, grow
* This name is compounded of two, and was given in honor of John Wilkes and Colonel Barre, two of the ablest advocates of America, through the press and on the floor of the British House of Commons, during the Revolution.
** Mr. Miner is the author of a "History of Wyoming," a valuable work of nearly six hundred pages, and possessing the rare merit of originality, for a large proportion of its contents is a record of information obtained by him from the lips of old residents whose lives and memories ran parallel with the Revolutionary history of the valley, and events immediately antecedent thereto. He folded up little books of blank paper, took pens and ink, and, accompanied by his daughter Sarah, who, though blind, was a cheerful and agreeable companion, and possessed a very retentive memory, visited thirty or forty of the old people who were in the valley at the time of the invasion in 1778. "We have come," he said to them, "to inquire about old Wyoming; pray tell us all you know. We wish an exact picture, such as the valley presented sixty years ago. Give us its lights and shadows, its joys and sorrows." At night, on returning home, he read over to his daughter what he had taken down, and carefully corrected, by the aid of her memory, "any error into which the pen had fallen." In this way Mr. Miner collected a great amount of local history, which must otherwise have perished with the source whence he derived it. I shall draw liberally upon his interesting volume for many of my historic facts concerning Wyoming.
Ancient Beauty and Fertility of Wyoming.—Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming."—Its Errors.—First Tribes in the Valley