Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

The fifth town, called Salem, was erected on the North Branch, May, 1773, below the mouth of Shickshinny Creek.

Northumberland County was erected March 21, 1772, and its territory, which embraced 462 square miles, included the entire Wyoming Valley, which was placed in the seventh and last township, called Wyoming.

During that summer a number of settlers arrived in Turbot Township from the State of New Jersey, among whom were John, Cornelius and Peter Vincent and their families. John and Peter were brothers and Cornelius was the son of John. They settled on a plantation one mile below the mouth of Warrior Run, which is two miles north of the present borough of Milton.

John immediately became the leader of this pioneer settlement and dominant factor and partisan of the Connecticut interest. In May, 1775, the Governor of Connecticut appointed him a justice of the peace for Litchfield County. Accompanied by his son and several others, he went to Wyoming in August and requested a number of people to go to the West Branch and make settlements.

Major William Judd, Joseph Sluman, Esq., and about eighty others arrived at Vincent’s September 23, and two days later Judd and Sluman wrote a jointly signed letter to Judge William Plunket, in which they acknowledged they had come with a view of settling, and stated that as this might be a “matter of much conversation among the inhabitants, we are willing to acquaint you with the principles on which we are come. In the first place, we intend no hostilities; we will not disturb, molest or endeavor to dispossess any person of his property, or in any ways abuse his person by threats or any action that shall tend thereto. And, as we are commissioners of the peace from the Colony of Connecticut, we mean to be governed by the laws of that colony, and shall not refuse the exercise of the law to those of the inhabitants that are now dwellers here on their request, as the Colony of Connecticut extended last May their jurisdiction over the land. Finally, as we are determined to govern ourselves as above mentioned, we expect that those who think the title of this land is not in this colony will give us no uneasiness or disturbance in our proposed settlement.”

If Major Judd and his party really supposed that their movements would meet with no opposition, they were egregiously mistaken. It is also quite evident they prepared for defense.

According to the deposition of Peter Smith, one detachment was on guard at a schoolhouse at Freeland’s Mills, three miles above the mouth of Warrior Run, and another at John Vincent’s house.

The report reached the county seat at Sunbury that the settlers had brought along entrenching tools, also swivels to be used in the entrenchments.

A petition was immediately prepared and sent to Governor John Penn, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Province of Pennsylvania, which was signed by William Cooke, Sheriff; James Murray, Coroner; William Plunket, President Judge; Samuel Hunter, County Lieutenant and Justice; Benjamin Alison, Robert Moodie, Michael Troy, Ellis Hughes and William Maclay, Associate Justices.

The petitioners set forth that their utmost efforts had failed to halt the “ambitious designs and enterprises of the intruders from the Colony of Connecticut. That they had been re-enforced with fresh numbers: Officers, civil and military. Swarms of emissaries are seducing the ignorant, frightening the timorous, and denouncing the utmost vengeance against any who may be hardy enough to oppose them—In fine, to such a situation we are already reduced as to be under the hard necessity of keeping constant guards, not only to prevent the destruction of our jail, but for the security of our houses and persons, all of which are violently threatened.”