978 



WYNEMAC WYOMING 



[B. A. E. 



gathering in 1675; possibly identical with 

 Wiatiac. 



Wayattano.— Doc. of 1676 in N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., 

 XIII, 496, 1881. Wayattanoc— Heading, ibid. 

 Wyantanuck. — Leete (1675) in Mass. Hist. Soc. 

 Coll., 4th s., VII, 675, 1865. Wyantenuck.— Wads- 

 worth (1694), ibid., 1, 108, 1852. 



Wynemac. See Winamac. 



Wyoming (Delaware: M' cheuivdmink, 

 'upon the great plain.' The native name, 

 variously corrupted to Chiwaumuc, Wia- 

 wamic, Wayomic, Waiomink, etc., finally 

 reached the more euphonious form of 

 Wyoming, a word which was long sup- 

 posed to signify 'field of blood.' The 

 name was made widely known by the 

 poet Campbell in his "Gertrude of Wyo- 

 ming" (1809), an imaginary tale the 

 scenes and incidents of which are con- 

 nected with the massacre of the settlers 

 on July 3, 1778, by British soldiers, To- 

 ries, and Indians in the above-named 

 picturesque valley. It is not known who 

 suggested the name of the state (which 

 had been proposed as that of a territory 

 as early aa 1865), but it was probably 

 some emigrant or emigrants from one of 

 the dozen or more places so called in the 

 different parts of the Union. — Gerard). 

 A settlement, before 1744, of Shawnee 

 and Mahican, after which time and until 

 1756 it was made up of Shawnee, Ma- 

 hican, Iroquois, Munsee, and Nanticoke. 

 After the latter date it was a Delaware 

 and Munsee village, the headquarters of 

 Tedyuskung, the leading chief of the 

 Delawares. The principal settlement 

 was at the site of the present Wilkes- 

 Barre, Luzerne co.. Pa. The name was 

 applied to the lands in the Wyoming 

 valley, in which there were a number of 

 Indian villages, and then to the chief 

 town of the region. The location is first 

 mentioned in the records of Pennsyl- 

 vania, at the council of Philadelphia, 

 June, 1728. At the council at Conestoga 

 (May 1728), Tawenna, chief of the Con- 

 estoga, said that the attack upon John 

 Burt's house the year before had not 

 been made by the Conestoga, Delawares, 

 Shawnee, or Conoy, but by the Minisink 

 (Col. Rec. Pa., iv, 314, 1851). At the 

 council at Philadelphia in June follow- 

 ing, Alluinapees stated that the "Meny- 

 sineks" lived "at the Forks of Sasque- 

 hannah above Meehayomy, & that their 

 Kings name is Kindarsowa" (ibid., iii, 

 326, 1852). When the Delaware chiefs 

 signed the famous deed of 1737 (the so- 

 called "Walking Purchase"), they did 

 so with the understanding that those 

 living in the Minisinks would not be 

 obliged to abandon their lands, but would 

 live there in friendship with the English 

 (Walton, Conrad Weiser, 66, 1900; Arch. 

 Pa., I, 541, 1852). At the council at Phil- 

 adelphia in 1742, when Canassatego or- 

 dered the Delawares to leave at once for 



Shamokin or Wyoming, he was in igno- 

 rance of any such understanding on the 

 part of the Delawares. Weiser, if he had 

 nothing to do with this speech, at least 

 permitted its statements to pass unre- 

 buked. The Delawares went away from 

 this council thoroughly humiliated. 

 Some of them moved to Shamokin, some 

 to Wyoming, but the great majority of 

 them went w. to the Ohio and joined the 

 Shawnee in their effort to throw off the 

 Iroquois yoke. When Zinzendorf and his 

 party of Moravian missionaries visited 

 Wyoming in the fall of 1742, he found it 

 occupied chiefly by the Shawnee, who 

 were in no mood to listen to him, as they 

 feared that he had come to buy their 

 lands (Zinzendorf's Jour, in Mem. Mora- 

 vian Church, 71, 1870). At this time the 

 flats w. of the Susquehanna were occu- 

 pied by the Shawnee, while the Mahican 

 had a large village at the n. end of the 

 valley, on the same side of the river. 

 In 1751 the Nanticoke had a settlement 

 at the lower end of the valley on the e. 

 side of the river. At the treaty of Albany, 

 in 1754, when the Iroquois disposed of 

 the lands drained by the Juniata, they 

 reserved these lands at Wyoming as a 

 hunting ground, and as a place of refuge 

 from the French, should they be driven 

 to seek an asylum (Col. Rec. Pa., vi, 

 119, 1851). They then appointed John 

 Shikellimy, son of Shikellimy, to look 

 after these lands for them. At the 

 council at Easton, 1757, Tedyuskung 

 said: "We intend to settle at Wyo- 

 ming, and we want to have certain boun- 

 daries fixed between you and us, and 

 a certain tract of land fixed, which 

 it shall not be lawful for us or our 

 children ever to sell, or for you or any of 

 your children ever to buy" (ibid., vii, 

 678, 1851). When it was discovered that 

 this land had been sold by the Mohawk 

 at Albany in 1754 to Lydius, the agent of 

 the Connecticut Company, Conrad Weiser 

 declared that the deed was fraudulent 

 and that unless the settlement was pre- 

 vented an Indian war would result. 

 Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, summoned 

 to Philadelphia, stated that the deed had 

 been obtained by fraud. The extended 

 discussion between Pennsylvania and 

 Connecticut and the fearful slaughter at 

 Wyoming were the results of this transac- 

 tion. (For details relating to this subject, 

 consult Arch. Pa., ii, 120 et seq., 1852; 

 Walton, Conrad Weiser, 193 et seq., 1900. ) 

 In 1755 the Mohawk refused to accept 

 the second instalment of the money for 

 the purchase of the lands, although Hen- 

 drick had advised them to do so. In 

 July of that year came Braddock's de- 

 feat, and then all the discontented In- 

 dians sought vengeance for the many 

 grievances they had against Pennsyl- 



