Colonel Pickering agreed to endeavor to obtain their pardon, if they would name their “great men,” who had deceived them in planning his abduction. This they would not do.
After an imprisonment of nineteen days, during ten of which he had worn the chain, and sleeping night after night in the woods, with stones for pillows, living on scanty rations of salt pork, venison, corn bread and wintergreen tea, and without change of clothing, the Colonel was released on his own terms—which were merely that he would write a petition for them to the Executive Council, take it in person to Wilkes-Barre, and send it to Philadelphia.
In 1787 Colonel Pickering represented Luzerne County in the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the Federal constitution, but did not sign the ratification. At that period he was prothonotary, for that county, and was subsequently a member of the convention called to revise the Constitution of 1776.
President Washington appointed him Postmaster General November 7, 1791, which he held until January 2, 1795, when on the resignation of General Knox he was appointed Secretary of War. December 10, 1795, Washington made him Secretary of State, which position he held until May 12, 1800.
He was poor on leaving office, and, building a log house for his family upon some wild land that he owned in Pennsylvania, he commenced clearing it for cultivation, until discovered by some friends who enabled him to return to Salem, Mass., in 1801. He became Judge in 1802, and United States Senator from 1803 to 1811, when he was made a member of the Council. During the War of 1812 he was a member of Board of War, and then served as a member of Congress from 1815 to 1817. He died at Salem, Mass., January 29, 1829.
Ewell’s Force of Rebels Made Raid on
Carlisle June 27, 1863
General A. G. Jenkins, of the Southern Confederacy, with nearly 1000 cavalry, entered Chambersburg June 16, 1863. On June 23 his advance force re-entered the town when the Union troops fell back. On June 27 this advance force moved eastward toward Carlisle.
General Knipe, commanding the Union troops, abandoned Carlisle on the approach of the enemy, considering it a folly to offer resistance to so formidable an invader. Accordingly, the rebels were met by Colonel W. M. Penrose and Robert Allison, assistant burgess, and informed that the town was without troops and that no resistance would be made. The cavalrymen entered the town from the west about 10 o’clock Saturday morning, June 27, and rode their horses at a walk, but with their carbines in position to be used at a moment’s warning.