THE PENNAMITE WAR.
A word now in relation to the feuds and wars of the white man for the possession of Wyoming. On the 3d of November, 1620, James I. of England granted to the " Plymouth Company" all the territory lying between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The charter of the State of Connecticut was derived from this Plymouth Company. It covered all the land west or Connecticut, one degree in breadth, from "sea to sea," and consequently included a large portion of Pennsylvania, and particularly the Wyoming Valley.
About fifty years after this event, the British crown granted to William Penn the province of Pennsylvania, and, singularly enough, one degree of latitude from the second east to the fourth degree west longitude, or an area of one degree of latitude and six of longitude, lay within the Con necticut or Plymouth grant.
Both parties subsequently bought the land from the aborigines,—Wil liam Penn from the Delawares, who were in possession by sufferance from their conquerors, the Six Nations, and the "Susquehanna Company," formed for the purpose of settling the Wyoming Valley, from the Six Nations themselves.. Penn afterwards bought it again from the Six Nations.
As early as 1750 a few daring adventurers from New England had pene trated the then western wilds as far as the mountains of the Susquehanna, and saw for the first time the lovely Valley of Wyoming, the most beauti ful landscape the eye can behold.
When the adventurers returned to the rocky hills of Connecticut, they told the most wonderful tales of a "paradise" which lay among the Western mountains. Others, doubting, went to behold the scene for themselves, and came back with excited imaginations and glowing descriptions, which more than confirmed the reports of the first.
"The Susquehanna Company" was then formed in New England for the settlement of the land in Wyoming ; the land was bought from . the Indians, and in 1762 about two hundred of the company removed to the valley ; but late in the same year they were surprised by the Indians, and about 20 of their number massacred ; the remainder fled, naked and hungry, through the inhospitable mountains to their former homes.
A few of the more daring and hardy settlers returned to the valley; but not until 1769 did any of the company return. By this time the valley had been taken possession of by the proprietors of Pennsylvania, and now ensued a long series of petty wars between the " Yankees" and the " Penn amites." Each laid claim to the valley, and both parties struggled for its
possession with equal determination. From this period until the com mencement of the Revolutionary War this civil strife raged, with varied success, but with much suffering, bloodshed, and intrigue. Three times were the Yankees dispossessed, and driven, destitute, over the mountains, back to New England ; but as often did they return to repossess the fields which they valued so highly, and the vale which had so many charms and claims on their affections.
This strife between the "freeholders" of Connecticut and the great Penn sylvania land-monopoly, which was unpopular even in Pennsylvania, because they tried to inaugurate a "tenantry" or feudal system similar to the English, was not a mere question of titles or boundaries, or a simple case of ejectment between landlord and tenant. Wyoming was the battle field where the question was settled that the people of Pennsylvania should be freeholders, instead of mere serfs. or tenants; and in this strife, which was fought between the "Yankees," as they were called, and the landed proprietors, the former had all the sympathy of the Pennsylvania tenantry, while the latter became hated and were forced to abandon the tenantry system, and sell their lands to freeholders in fee-simple, instead of pursuing a system of leasage or life-rents.* The Revolutionary War for a time suspended hostilities between the freeholders and the proprietaries; but before it was fairly over the proprie taries returned to the attack, and the hardships and sufferings of the settlers were less endurable under their remorseless avarice than under the barbarous cruelty of the tories and Indians during the dark hours of the War of Independence. We cannot follow the events ; but at last the indignation of the people of Pennsylvania was aroused against the pro prietors and their treatment of the Wyoming settlers, who had so manfully fought side by side with themselves for liberty, while oppressed by a monopoly which threatened their lands and homes ; and the result was that the legislative Assembly of Pennsylvania, in 1784, "ordered that the settlers be restored to their possessions."