* Colonel Dyer, and Jedediah Elderkin, of Windham, Connecticut.
** John Durkee was a native of that portion of Norwich, Connecticut, called Bean Hill, and was generally called the "bold Bean Hiller." He left Wyoming and returned to Connecticut. When the Revolution broke out, he entered into the contest zealously. He was at Bunker Hill, and was commissioned a colonel in the Connecticut line. He was in the battle on Long Island, at Germantown, and other engagements. He died at his residence at Bean Hill in 1782, aged fifty-four years, and was buried with military honors.
*** This civil commotion is usually termed the Pennymite and Yankee war. The former name was derived from John Penn, governor of Pennsylvania when hostilities commenced.
Treatment of Ogden.—Another Attack on the Yankees.—Capture of Fort Durkoe.—Pennymites Expelled.—New Fortifications.
draw himself and all his men from the valley, except six, who were to remain and guard his property. But the Yankees, imitating Ogden's bad faith with them, seized his property and burned his house as soon as he was gone. Warrants were afterward issued by the Governor of Pennsylvania against Lazarus Stewart, Zebulon Butler, and Lazarus Young, for the crime of arson, but they were never harmed.
Governor Penn, fearing political outbreaks in his capital at that time, and unwilling to send any of the few troops away from Philadelphia, called upon General Gage, then in command at New York, for a detachment of his majesty's troops to restore order at Wyoming. Gage refused compliance, and the Pennsylvanians were obliged to rely upon their own resources. It was autumn before another attempt was made against the Yankees. Ogden, with only one hundred and forty men, marched by the Lehigh route, to take the settlers by surprise. From the tops of the mountains he saw the people at work in groups in their fields, and, separating his force into parties equal in numbers to the unsuspecting farmers below, they rushed down upon them, made several prisoners, and sent them to Easton. Ogden lay concealed in the mountains, awaiting another opportunity to assail the Yankees. The latter sent messengers to solicit aid from their friends on the Delaware. These fell into Ogden's hands, and, learning from them the exact position of Fort Durkee, he made a night attack upon it. It was filled with women and children, and the garrison, too weak to defend it, surrendered unconditionally. The fort and the houses of the settlement were plundered, and many of the principal inhabitants were sent prisoners to Easton and Philadelphia.
A small garrison was left by Ogden in Fort Durkee. The Yankees having left the valley, they were not very vigilant. On the night of the 18th of December, between twenty and thirty men, under Lazarus Stewart, reached the fort by stealth, and captured it, shouting, "Huzza for King George!" The Pennymites were now, in turn, driven from the valley. Stewart held possession of the fort until the middle of January following, when the sheriff of Northampton county, with a considerable force, arrived before it. Captain Ogden and his brother Nathan accompanied the expedition. A skirmish ensued at the fort, and Nathan Ogden was killed. * Stewart perceived that he could not long hold out, January 1771 on the night of the 20th withdrew from the valley, leaving twelve men in the fort. These were made prisoners and sent to Easton, and quiet again prevailed at Wyoming.
For six months the Pennymites were undisturbed in the possession of the valley, and the number of the settlers of Ogden's party had increased to about eighty. But their repose was suddenly broken by the descent from the mountains, on the 6 th of July, of seventy armed men from Connecticut, under Captain Zebulon Butler, and a party under Lazarus Stewart, who had joined him. Ogden had built another and a stronger fort, whieh he called Fort Wyoming. ** The invaders were almost daily re-enforced, and commenced several military works with a view of besieging Ogden and his party in the forts. The besieged were well supplied with provisions, and, their works being strong, they defied the assailants. Ogden, in the mean while, escaped from the fort by stratagem, *** proceeded to Philadelphia, and succeeded in inducing the acting governor (Hamilton) to send a detachment of one hundred men to Wyoming. The expedition was unsuccessful. After prosecuting the siege until the 11th of August, Captain Butler sent to the garrison a formal summons to surrender. The gar-
* A settler named William Speddy was recognized as the man who discharged the musket that killed Ogden, and in November he was tried for murder, at the Supreme Court held in Philadelphia. He was acquitted.
** This fort stood upon the ground now occupied by the court-house in Wilkesbarre. There was another fort on the bank of the river, a little below the Phoenix Hotel. Traces of the ditches were visible when I visited the spot in 1848.