** Mr. Miner, in a letter to the late William L. Stone, mentions the fact that among the papers of Colonel Zebulon Butler he found a list of Tories who joined the Indians. The list contained sixty-one names, of which only three were those of New England men. Most of them were transient persons, who had gone to Wyoming as hunters and trappers. Six of them were of one family (the Wintermoots), from Minisink. Nine were from the Mohawk Valley, doubtless in the interest of the Johnsons, four from Kinderhook, and six from West Chester, New York. There were not ten Tory families who had resided two years in Wyoming.—See Stone's History of Wyoming, p. 181.
The Wintcrmoots.—Erection of a Fort—Counteraction of the old Settlers.—Affair on the Millstone River.
Durkee, and were attached to the Connecticut line. * The Wintcrmoots, who had purchased land toward the head of the valley, and upon the old banks of the Susquehanna, ** at a place where bubbled forth a large and living spring of pure water, erected a strong fortification known as Wintermoot's Fort. The town meeting alluded to, suspicious of the design of the Wintermoots, who had hitherto acted so discreetly that a charge of actual hostility to Congress could not properly be made against them, thought it best to counteract their apparent belligerence, and resolved that it had "become necessary for the inhabitants of the town to erect suitable forts as a defense against the common enemy."
August 24, 1776 A fort was accordingly built, about two miles above Wintermoot's, under the supervision of the families of Jenkins and Harding, and called Fort Jenkins.' Forty Fort (so called from the first forty Yankees, the pioneers of the Susquehanna settlers in Wyoming), then little more than a weak block-house, was strengthened and enlarged, and sites for other forts were fixed on, at Pittstown, Wilkesbarre, and Hanover. It was agreed in town meeting that these several fortifications should be built by the people, "without either fee or reward from the town."
As we have observed in a former chapter, the tribes of the Six Nations which had receded from their solemn agreement of neutrality were not brought actively into the service of the king until the summer of 1777. It was then that the people of Wyoming perceived, and fully appreciated, the perils attendant upon their isolation, and the attention of the Continental Congress was often called to their exposed situation. While St. Leger was investing Fort Stanwix, some straggling parties of savages hung about and menaced Wyoming; but, after the siege was raised, the people were not disturbed again during the remainder of the year and the following spring. But early in the summer of 1778 the movements of Brant and his warriors, and the Johnsons and Butlers and their Tory legions, upon the upper waters of the Susquehanna, together with the actions of the Tories in the Valley of Wyoming, who were greatly exasperated on account of the harsh treatment of some of their number by the
* These two companies served with distinction at the skirmish on Millstone River, in New Jersey, on the 20th of January, 1777. This occurred while the main army of the Americans were suffering from the smallpox at Morristown. A line of forts had been established along the Millstone River, in the direction of Princeton. One of these, at Somerset Court-house, was occupied by General Dickinson with these two regular companies and about three hundred militia. A mill on the opposite bank of the stream contained considerable flour. Cornwallis, then lying at New Brunswick, dispatched a foraging party to capture it. The party consisted of about four hundred men, with more than forty wagons. The British arrived at the mill early in the morning, and, having loaded their wagons with flour, were about to return, when General Dickinson, leading a portion of his force through the river, middle deep, attacked them with so much spirit, that they fled in haste, leaving the whole of their plunder, with their wagons, behind them.
** Along the western side of the Susquehanna, a largo part of the way from the head of the valley to the village of Kingston, opposite Wilkesbarre, are traces of a more ancient shore than the present, when the river was broader and perhaps deeper than now. The plain extending from the ancient shore to the foot of the mountain is a uniform level, several feet above the alluvial bottom between it and the present bank of the river.