In the Summer of 1769, the Governor of Pennsylvania made preparations to dispossess the intruders, as they considered the Connecticut people, by force; and a detachment of armed men, to the number of two hundred, was sent into the territory. The Colonists prepared for a siege; but one of their leaders having been taken prisoner, and sent to gaol in Philadelphia, after a show of resistance, and having no weapons of defence but small arms, they capitulated, and agreed to leave the territory, with the exception of seventeen families, who were to remain and secure the crops. But no sooner had the Colonists departed, than the Pennsylvanians, led by Ogden, plundered the whole colony, destroying their fields of grain, killing their cattle, and laying the whole settlement in ruin; so that the seventeen families were compelled to fly from starvation.
In the month of February, 1770, the Connecticut Colonists rallied, and marched upon Wyoming, under a man named Lazarus Stewart. They took Ogden's house and his piece of artillery, during his absence. But on his return he collected his friends, and hostilities ensued between the two parties, which were prosecuted with varying success for several weeks. During this time, an engagement occurred, in which several were killed and wounded on both sides. Ogden's house, which had been fortified, was besieged, and finally taken—after several days' cannonading, and the destruction of one of his blockhouses, containing his supplies, by fire. In the terms of capitulation the Connecticut party allowed Ogden to leave six men in charge of his remaining property. But the conduct of Ogden the preceding year had not been forgotten, and the lex talionis was rigidly and speedily executed.
In September following, a force of one hundred and fifty men was sent against the Connecticut settlers, under the command of Captain Ogden, as he was now called. He took the settlement entirely by surprise, while the laborers were in the fields at work, and the women and children in the fort. Many of the men, nevertheless, reached the fort, and prepared to defend it; but it was carried by assault in the night—the women and children were barbarously trampled under foot—and the whole settlement plundered and destroyed the following day, with more than Indian rapacity. The Colonists were made prisoners, and sent off to distant gaols. Thus was the settlement again broken up. But the triumph of Ogden was brief. In December the fort was again surprised and carried by Captain Stewart, at the head of some Lancastrians united with the late Colonists. A few of the men fled naked to the woods; but the greater portion, together with the women and children, residing for security in houses built within the ramparts, were taken prisoners. Those, having been deprived of their property, were driven from the valley.
The parties to these controversies, which could not but engender all the bitterest passions in the nature of man—rendering what might have been a second Eden, a theatre of strife, discord, and "hell-born hate,"—fought, of course, as they pretended, under the jurisdiction of the respective States to which they assumed to belong. The civil authorities of Pennsylvania frequently interposed; and after the burning of Ogden's block-house, attempts were made to arrest several of the Connecticut party for arson. Stewart was apprehended, but was soon afterward rescued.
After the capture of the fort in December, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania once more issued a writ for his arrest, and the sheriff was sent with the posse at his heels; but the garrison would not admit him. The fort was fired upon by the posse, under the direction of the sheriff, and in returning the fire, one of the Ogdens (Nathan) was killed. The sheriff thereupon drew off his forces for the night. But it was no sooner dark, than Stewart and forty of his men withdrew from the fortress, leaving a garrison of only twelve persons, who capitulated on the following morning. Three hundred pounds reward was offered by the Governor of Pennsylvania for the arrest of Stewart. The fort was left in charge of Amos Ogden, who induced most of his former associates to return with him.
In July following, this important post was again doomed to change hands. The Colony was invaded by Captain Zebulon Butler, with upward of seventy men. These being joined by Stewart and his party, they immediately took possession of the lands, while Ogden with his people, to the number of eighty-two, retired into the new fort of Wyoming, which they had just built, and prepared for resistance. The contest was now assuming greater importance than ever. Butler and Stewart at once invested the fortress, and recruits arriving from Connecticut, they were enabled to throw up redoubts, and open entrenchments for a regular siege. This new fort was planted directly upon the bank of the river. Perceiving himself thus completely shut in, Ogden formed the bold enterprise of leaving his garrison in the night, and floating down the river, past the works and the sentinels of the enemy, in order to repair to Philadelphia for succors. For the purpose of better securing his escape, by means of a cord he caused a bundle to be floated along in the river following him, which, being the most perceptible object, would naturally attract the attention and receive the fire of the enemy, if discovered. The ruse de guerre was completely successful. The deceptive object did attract the attention of the besiegers and received their fire; although Ogden himself was in immediate peril, since his hat and clothes were riddled with bullets. He nevertheless escaped to Philadelphia, and is entitled to the credit of performing one of the boldest and most difficult individual exploits on record.
In consequence of these tidings, the government ordered a force of one hundred men to be sent to the relief of Fort Wyoming, commanded by Colonel Asher Clayton. These were to be separated into two divisions, and marched to the fort from different directions. Captain Dick, with one division, proceeded toward the fort with pack-horses of provisions for one hundred men. When in its neighborhood, however, he was ambuscaded by the troops of Butler and Stewart, and thrown into confusion by the fire. Twenty-two of the party succeeded in getting into the fort, and the remainder, with four pack-horses of provisions, fell into the hands of Butler. The siege continued, and was prosecuted with great vigor until the 14th of August, when, his supplies being exhausted, Colonel Clayton, the assailant, capitulated—stipulating that his troops, together with Ogden and his party, should withdraw from Wyoming. Ogden was wounded during the siege, and a second shot killed another officer, named William Ridyard, upon whom the former was leaning, being faint from loss of blood.
The president of the Pennsylvania proprietaries complained of the conduct of the Connecticut people in these hostilities, and Governor Trumbull disclaimed any connexion with the affairs of Wyoming on the part of the State over which he presided. But as the Connecticut people continued to pour reinforcements into the settlement, the Pennsylvanians withdrew their forces, and for a season made no farther attempts upon the territory.
The settlers now claimed the protection of Connecticut, the government of which attempted a mediation between the people of Wyoming and the government of Pennsylvania—but without success. Meantime the people of the Colony proceeded to organize a government, and to exercise almost all the attributes of sovereignty. The general laws of Connecticut were declared to be in force; but for their local legislation, they organized a pure democracy—the people of all their towns and settlements meeting in a body, as in Athens of old, and making their laws for themselves. The legislature of Connecticut extended its broad aegis over them, framed a new county called Westmoreland, and attached it to the county of Litchfield in the parent State. Zebulon Butler and Nathan Denniston were appointed justices of the peace, and the people sent one representative to the Legislature of Connecticut. The governments of Connecticut and Pennsylvania kept up a war of proclamations and edicts upon the subject, while the settlement advanced in population and extent with unexampled rapidity.
Thus matters proceeded until the year 1775, when, just after hostilities had been commenced between the Colonies and the British troops at Lexington, the old feuds between the settlers of the rival companies suddenly broke forth again. A new settlement of the one was attacked by the militia of the other, one man was killed, several were wounded, and others made prisoners, and carried off to a distant jail. Other outrages were committed elsewhere, and of course all the angry passions—all the bitter feelings of hatred and revenge between the rival parties claiming the soil and the jurisdiction—broke out afresh. The settlements of each had become extended during the five years of peace, which of course had multiplied the parties to the contest; so that, as the men of Wyoming flew to arms, a more formidable civil war than ever was in prospect, at the moment when every arm should have been nerved in the common cause of the whole country. [FN]