When Pennsylvania Was At War With Connecticut

 

The Yankee Pennamite Wars , 1769-1799

When two states that don't even share a border, fought three wars over control of the area of Wilkes-Barre

The Pennamite Wars, also known as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars, were a series of conflicts between Connecticut settlers (Yankees) and Pennsylvania settlers (Pennamites) over land in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania from 1769 to..  well, some say through 1784, some say through 1799.  The last of the Wars was 1784, but tensions did not fully ease until the Connecticut Yankees were granted titles to their land and made Pennsylvania citizens.

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 The conflict between the “Connecticut Yankees” and the William Penn "Pennamite" colonists was the result of two conflicting charters issued by King Charles II  - giving the land to both groups.  This was  complicated by the fact that in 1754 the English had secretly purchased the land from the Mohawks (the easternmost Iroquois Nation) not from the main inhabitants - the Delawares. 

Pennsylvania sold the tract of land to various settlers, as did Connecticut -  the land had two different sets of legal owners, at the same time. 

Connecticut established a "Susquehanna Company" to survey the land for a new settlement, and when the company arrived, they found that the Pennsylvania settlers, known as the Pennamites, had already established communities there.

Also already in the area were Indians, including Chief Teedyuscung who had settled in Wyoming Valley around 1754.  

The Connecticut settlers [Yankees] began to establish towns such as Wilkes Barre, and built Fort Durkee and Forty Fort along the Susquehanna River. [40 Connecticut Yankees built "Forty Fort"] 

The Pennsylvania settlers [Pennamites] built Fort Wyoming and Fort Ogden.

1771

The two groups fought continuously, but with very little bloodshed.  At first.

On April 19, 1763 Teedyuscung's cabin and the village of Wyolutimunk was burned to the ground by arsonists. Teedyuscung was asleep in his cabin at the time and perished in the blaze. The residents of Wyolutimunk fled and settlers from the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut soon took their place. 

Chief Captain Bull, son of Teedyuscung, blamed the Connecticut settlers [Yankees] for his fathers murder.  He lead a raiding party of Delaware Indians to burn down houses and kill more than two dozen settlers.  

The Yankees blamed the Pennamites for "instigating" this raid, and over the next thirty plus years, the two groups burned down each others homes, evicted one another, and even killed one another.  

There was at this time, no federal government to settle the land dispute, although that was about to change, as the war for Independence from Britain began.

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Just to recap [very roughly]:

Various Indian Tribes are fighting against each other [as they always had]

Some Indians are living among the English settlers.

Some Indians are massacring English settlers

English settlers are fighting each other over land.

Some English settlers are fighting Indians.

And now the English settlers are about to split into two more groups - those who are loyal to Britain [Tories], and those who want to be free and independent [Patriots]. Indian tribes also split loyalties, some fighting with the British, other with the Patriots.

Oh, and Britain sends Hessians [German hired soldiers] to fight too. Some of the Hessians then decided to stay and be Americans

Side Note - History books tell us that the "famed Indian fighter and hero of the colonial wars and the Revolution" was killed in ambush by Indians on April 11, 1779. Years later, documents would prove that Samuel Wallis, land king of Muncy, was a traitor working with Benedict Arnold, and then a case was made that quite possibly, it was Wallis who had Brady killed. With all of this fighting, between so many different factions, it certainly wouldn't be difficult to blame a murder on someone else.

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The Wyoming Massacre, a painting by Alonzo Chappel (1858)

The Battle Of Wyoming took place on July 3rd 1778.  Although this is listed as a  battle between the loyalists and the patriots in the American Revolution, this "attack at Forty Fort was the unleashing of decades-old hatred and built-up resentment " between the Connecticut Yankees and the Pennsylvania Pennamites.

The details of the massacre are too graphic for me to type here.  It was brutal.  I've heard historians speak about this event, and what I remember most is that this was a new style of attack.  Battles were typically more along the line of a big team duel, with specific rules of conduct.  This battle was groundbreaking because the Indians fighting with the British had no compunction to follow the gentlemen's code of war - they were out to win, and were not afraid to use  savage methods to do so. 

In the days that followed, houses and barns throughout the Wyoming Valley were looted and burned. Mills were destroyed and livestock was driven off. The inhabitants of the valley fled, either east through the Great Swamp and the Pocono Mountains to Fort Penn at Stroudsburg or Easton, or by rafting down the Susquehanna to Fort Augusta at Sunbury.

As news of the massacre spread, settlers from all across the frontier, everyone above the West Branch, and all above Nescopeck Falls, began to flee down river, in what would be known as the Great Runaway.  

The massacre at Wyoming, and the stories carried by the survivors, spurred the Great Runaway. 

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-great-runaway.html

The Battle of Wyoming lead to the  massacre at Cherry Valley, which lead to the Sullivan Expedition. 

 General Sullivan's campaign, involved burning all the homes and food of the Indians in the area in an effort to chase them out - following the example set by the Indians, who had used the same tactics on each other, and on the new English settlers.  

Again, all  of this is technically part of the Revolutionary War.  But...  none of it was really, completely,  about Independence from Britain.  It was, for the most part, a land dispute that was occurring at the same time as the split from Britain.   A British officer capitalized on the dispute.

As a result, the patriots were spurred into action, shocked by the brutality at Wyoming, and more determined than ever to win their independence from Britain.  

 All because Connecticut and Pennsylvania were fighting over Wilkes Barre...  Ok, maybe not ALL of it, but you do have to wonder how much of this could have been avoided had the two groups worked out their boundary dispute before they chose sides in the war for independence.

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This map from 1774 shows Pennsylvania and illustrates a little-known land dispute between the Pennsylvania and Connecticut colonies that led to the Pennamite-Yankee wars. The hand-drawn map had belonged to the Independence Seaport Museum, which auctioned it off earlier in December. The Pennamite-Yankee wars took place around Wilkes-Barre in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a city founded by Connecticut settlers seeking to expand that colony's territory campaign not to kill the Indians, but rather to burn their villages and food supplies, to force them out of the area.  [A campaign the Indians had used 

After winning the Revolution, a new government was formed for America.  In 1782,  congress voted to rescind George III's ultimatum  ruling that the  land belonged to  Pennsylvania. This was the only interstate conflict resolved by congress under the Articles of Confederation, which governed the union until the constitution was signed in 1788.

You would think that after going through that gruesome massacre at Wyoming the Yankees and Pannamites would have found a way to live peacefully together. Their numbers were certainly less. But after the Revolutionary War ended, the Yankee Pennamite War continued.

In 1784, the third Yankee-Pennamite war consisted of Pennamites attempting to evict the Yankees after the 1782 ruling by congress.   The end of this war is the date some use as the end of the Pennamite wars.

Eventually the land was made part of Pennsylvania, and the Connecticut Yankees were given land to settle on, but as Pennsylvania residents. As many have said, the conflict just sort of fizzled out by 1799. The last "War" had been in 1784, the conflict had "fizzled out by" 1799 - which is why we have two different dates for the end of the Yankee Pennamite Wars.

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Other Pennsylvania State Land Disputes

Maryland claimed it's northern border extended much further north.  In 1767, the Mason-Dixon Line was surveyed to resolve the dispute.

Virginia claimed the area around Pittsburg until 1780.

Pennsylvania claimed "an enormous piece of New York, extending from Syracuse to Buffalo" into the 1780s.

Pennsylvania controlled Delaware until 1776.

Pennsylvania bought much of Erie County from New York in 1792.

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A Time Line

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• 1768: The Iroquois Confederacy sells land to the Penns that they had previously sold to Connecticut's Susquehanna Company
• 1769: Connecticut settlers establish Wilkes-Barre, and armed Pennamites try to expel them without success
• 1770: Pennamites recapture Fort Durkee and build Fort Wyoming, demolishing Fort Durkee in the process
• 1771 - King George III affirmed Connecticut's Claim
• 1771: Connecticut settlers retake Fort Wyoming, gaining control of the valley
• 1773 - More Connecticut Settlers Came
• 1775: The Second Pennamite War takes place,  Yankees successfully defending their land claims.
• 1778: The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, occurs when British and Indian forces kill 360 settlers at Forty Fort
• 1782 - New American Congress votes to rescind George III's ruling, returning the land to Pennsylvania
• 1784: The Third Pennamite War breaks out after the American Revolutionary War as the Pennamites try to evict the Connecticut Yankees.
• 1788: During ongoing conflict, a group of Yankee ruffians kidnap Pennsylvania official Timothy Pickering and hold him hostage for 19 days
  

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Land Titles

From an address given by Charles Tubbs at the 1895 Lycoming Centennial

 "It  would  seem  at.  this  time  that  the  country  was  ripe for  settlement.  The  forests  had  been  explored,  the  Indians disposed  of.  What  was  the  difficulty  now?  The difficulty  now  was  to  know,  after  the  extinction  of  the Indian  title,  what  white  men  had  the  right  to  govern  the territory  and  dispose  of  the  lands.  No  considerable number  of  intended  settlers  will  remove  into  a  new country  to  build  up  homes,  if  there  is  any  question  as to  the  title  of  the  lands.  In  this  case  there  was  a  controversy.     Two  sets  of  white  men  claimed  the  lands.

 This  controversy  between  these  two  sets  of  men  was  an ancient  one  and  during  a  period  of  forty  years  the  issue was  fought  out  on  the  battle  field,  in  the  courts,  in  the Legislature  and  before  a  commission  appointed  by  Congress. In  the  phrase  of  McMaster — "Heads  were bruised,  bones  broken,  crops  destroyed,  settlements plundered  and  even  lives  lost  and  the  peace  of  the  Susquehanna Valley  was  destroyed  by  a  feud  worthy  of the  middle  ages."

 As  this  controversy  retarded  the  settlement  and  development of  our  section  of  ancient  Lycoming  for  several years,  we  will  briefly  state  the  grounds  of  it:  In 1620  King  James  the  First  of  England  granted  a  charter  to  the  Plymouth  Company  for  the  ruling  and governing  of  New  England  in  America.  This  charter covered  North  America  from  the  fortieth  to  the  forty sixth  degree  of  north  latitude  and  from  the  Atlantic to  the  Pacific  oceans.  The  Plymouth  Company  proceeded to  sub-divide  its  territory.  In  1631  it  granted  a charter  to  the  Connecticut  colony  which  practically covered  the  space  between  the  forty-first  and  forty-second parallels  of  north  latitude  and  extended  west  to  the Pacific  Ocean.  In  its  westward  reach  this  grant  included ancient  Lycoming.  In  1662  King  Charles  the Second  gave  a  new  charter  to  Connecticut,  confirming the  act  of  the  Plymouth  Company.  

Nineteen  years later,  in  1681,  this  same  monarch,  in  the  grant  of  Pennsylvania to  William  Penn,  included  a  portion  of  the same  territory  already  given  to  Connecticut.  It  also contained  our  original  county  of  Lycoming.  The Connecticut  claimants  mapped  out  what  is  now  the  counties  of Tioga,  Potter  and  McKean  as  far  west  as  the  Tuna  Valley, in  connection  with  vast  tracts  of  land  south  of  them, into  townships  five  miles  square,  designated  each  by  a name,  opened  a  land  office  and  offered  them  for  sale  at  a  low  price.  Many  of  these  townships  were  located  and surveyed  by  the  purchasers  and  some  of  them  occupied.

 My  own  ancestors  purchased  land  in  Tioga  County  under a  Connecticut  title.  The  place  where  I  reside was   called  "Exchange" [*Now  known  as  the  pretty  little  village  of  Osceola.]  on  the  Connecticut  map.  The  Connecticut claimants  had  extinguished  the  Indian  title to  these  lands,  as  they  maintained,  by  a  treaty  made with  the  Six  Nations  at  Albany  in  1754.  They  were active  in  selling  their  lands  from  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary war  until  1802.

 At  the  same  time  owners  of  Pennsylvania  titles  were active  in  locating  land  warrants  upon  the  same  lands and  having  their  titles  recorded  in  the  land  office  at Philadelphia.  The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  was, that  Pennsylvania  enacted  a  law,  April  6th,  1802,  of the  most  severe  and  drastic  character  and  enforced  it with  great  rigor.  By  it  she  cut  up  by  the  roots  the  title of  Connecticut  claimants  in  this  section  of  the  state.

 Rev.  David  Craft,  in  discussing  this  subject  in  his history  of  Bradford  County,  says:  "Want  of  support, the  increasing  number  who  were  securing  Pennsylvania titles,  defection  in  their  own  ranks  and  the  growing power  of  the  state,  finally  induced  the  Connecticut claimants  either  to  submit  to  the  laws  regulating  titles or  leave  the  state."  Thus  this  question  was  disposed  of and  out  of  the  way.  During  its  pendency  nearly  all  of the  lands  in  the  counties  formed  from  Lycoming  were purchased  largely  by  Philadelphia  capitalists  and  speculators  from  all  quarters.  Some  of  these  capitalists and  speculators  were:  James  Strawbridge,  William  Bingham,  John  Keating,  Jacob  Ridgway,  Samuel  Fox, James  Trimble,  B.  B.  Cooper,  The  Holland  Company, The  United  States  Land  Company  and  others.     

 Now that  they  owned  these  lands,  and  that  their  titles  were confirmed,  they  wished  to  dispose  of  them  at  a  profit.  They  wished  to  induce  large  and  extensive  settlements.  In  order  to  do  this  it  was  necessary  that  the  Indian trails  through  the  forests,  and  the  paths  of  the  scout, the  hunter  and  the  trapper,  should  be  replaced  by  some sort  of  roads."

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The land had been given the Yankee Connecticut settlers, but it had, in some sort of mapping mistake, also been given to the Pennamites [Pennsylvania residents].  Both groups had a legitimate legal claim, and rather than seek legal recourse  [not an easy thing to do, especially when the two countries involved were at war....  ] to fix the mistake, both groups just fought each other over it, building homes and forts, then burning down the other sides homes and forts and building new homes and forts...   

The land they were fighting over had been purchased from the Indians, but sort of from the wrong Indians [I'm trying to make this less confusing and keep it short - but keep in mind that the Indians had their own territorial disputes, in addition to their dealings and disputes with the new settlers..] so the Iroquois happily joined the fight, on the British side.

This was a Revolutionary War battle, technically, and one of the bloodiest, but it was really more about a long festering argument between the Iroquois & Delawares, the Connecticut Yankees, and the Pennamites,  over the land of the Wyoming Valley.    Everyone was already fighting, and the British used that to their advantage.