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 County. 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: