1763, Oct.] MASSACRE OF WYOMING. 101 



fatigued, half famished, and quarrelling among 

 themselves.^ 



Scarcely were they returned, when another expe- 

 dition was set on foot, in which a portion of them 

 were persuaded to take part. During the previous 

 year, a body of settlers from Connecticut had pos- 

 sessed themselves of the valley of Wyoming, on 

 the east branch of the Susquehanna, in defiance of 

 the government of Pennsylvania, and to the great 

 displeasure of the Indians. The object of the 

 expedition was to remove these settlers, and destroy 

 their corn and provisions, which might otherwise 

 fall into the hands of the enemy. The party, com- 

 posed chiefly of volunteers from Lancaster County, 

 set out from Harris's Ferry, under the command of 

 Major Clayton, and reached Wyoming on the seven- 

 teenth of October. They were too late. Two days 

 before their arrival, a massacre had been perpe- 

 trated, the fitting precursor of that subsequent 

 scene of blood which, embalmed in the poetic 

 romance of Campbell, has made the name of Wy- 

 oming a household word. The settlement was a 

 pile of ashes and cinders, and the bodies of its 

 miserable inhabitants offered frightful proof of the 

 cruelties inflicted upon them.^ A large war-party 

 had fallen upon the place, killed and carried off 

 more thaii twenty of the people, and driven the rest, 



1 Penn. Gaz. Nos. 1816-1818 MS. Letter — Graydon to Bird, Octo- 

 ber 12. 



'■2 Extract from a MS. Letter — Paxton, October 23 : — 

 " The woman was roasted, and had two hinges in her hands, supposed 

 to be put in red hot, and several of the men had awls thrust into their 

 eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, etc., sticking in their bodies." 



