Item 112: Photostat and Notes Pertaining to Lands in Wyoming Valley, with Archivist Notes, (removed to legal size box #2), [1879]

Item — Box: 15, Folder: 167

Staff Only

Photostat and Notes Pertaining to Lands in Wyoming Valley, with Archivist Notes, (removed to legal size box #2), [1879]

Dates

Created: [1879]

Disclaimer for Name and Subject Authorities

Some of the name and subject authority tags have been assigned by educated guessing and estimation of persons and subjects by region, age, profession, and familial relationships. They have been thoroughly researched by using primary and secondary sources available digitally, and named in each description, or in some cases linked directly to the person tag.

Access:

All series and subseries within this collection are open for research, with the exception of a few files within the Academia series that are restricted. The Academia series contains financial and sensitive institutional records from Wilkes College, and financial report records from Princeton University that will remain restricted for 80 years upon creation.

Extent

1 items

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Type of Material:

Photostat/Publication

General Condition:

Good

Measurements:

in.

Description:

The following item depicts photocopied pages from a Brief of a title in the seventeen townships in the county of Luzerne: a syllabus of the controversy between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, published in 1879, and focusing on chapter VIII, which begins on page 94. These pages document the development of the 17 townships following the Yankee Pennamite Wars, particularly the Third Yankee Pennamite War in 1784. The Yankee Pennamite Wars were a three part war between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, as they attempted to resolve a dispute over the land in the upper regions of what is now Pennsylvania. King Charles II granted the land twice, once to Connecticut in 1662, and again to William Penn as he founded Pennsylvania in 1681. The Third Yankee Pennamite War was a military conflict following the Decree of Trenton decision to grant Pennsylvania ownership to the lands after decades of conflict between Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Assembly instructed Alexander Patterson, and other people in positions of power, to remove the Connecticut settlers from lands they had settled prior to the decision. Yet, while the Decree of Trenton gave Pennsylvania the right to soil, it did not give them the right to title. Pennsylvania, however, under the command of the Pennsylvania Assembly and Patterson, forcibly removed “one-hundred and fifty” Connecticut families from their homes under Patterson’s command. They forced the families to “find their way through the wilderness of the Lackawaxen to the Delaware Valley, a distance of about eighty miles,” without supplies or clothing to sustain them (Gnichtel, The Trenton Decree of 1782). The violence and brutality levied by Patterson’s troops was so severe that it drew attention from neighboring states, and condemnation on the governing bodies of Pennsylvania. That critique ultimately led the Pennsylvania Assembly to remove Patterson from his position within the valley around July 1784, replacing him with colonel John Armstrong. To remedy the conflicts, 17 townships were developed as a means to sow peace between the two settler groups. This designated that any Connecticut title within these 17 named townships could be brought before the state for a fair trial of reclaimation. Wilkes Eugene S. Farley Library archives has a more detailed historical blog on the conflict that can be found here, as well as an expansive subseries collection of manuscripts relating to the conflict, which can be found here.