of the Shawanese and Delawares, the Nanticokes built their town at the lower end of the valley, on the east bank of the river, just above the mouth of a small creek still called Nanticoke Creek. EARLY ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENTS OF WYOMING BY THE WHITES. Although Count Zinzendorf was the first white man that ever visited Wyoming, and some of the religious body with which he was connected, and of which he was the head, doubtless followed him to the valley shortly after, it does not appear that the Moravians made any attempt to remain permanently there; they only visited it as missionaries, and in their efforts to Christianize the Indians they met with a measure of success. The permanent abode of the Brethren had been established at Bethlehem, on the Lehigh, which has been retained by them to the present time. THE CONNECTICUT COMPANY. In the summer of 1755, a company procured the consent of the colony of Connecticut for the establishment of a settlement within the limits of a purchase which had been made from the authorities of that colony. This company sent out a number of persons to Wyoming, with their surveyors and agents, to commence a settlement. The conflicting claims of the authorities of Connecticut and Pennsylvania to this region produced strife, and tumults, and even wars, which continued during many years after the possession of the valley had been confirmed to the whites. $ The following is a brief account of these conflicting claims:-Connecticut based her claim upon the grant which was derived from the Plymouth Company, of which the Earl of Warwick was president. This grant was made in March, 1631, to Viscount Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and their associates. It was made in the most ample form, and also covered the country west of Connecticut, to the extent of its breadth, thus comprising about one degree of latitude from the Atlantic to the Pacific.* New York, or, to speak more correctly in reference to that period, New Netherlands, being then a Dutch possession, could not be claimed as a portion of these munificent grants; if for no other reason, for the very good and substantial *"It seems natural to suppose by the terms of these grants, extending to the Western Ocean, that in early times the continent was conceived to be of comparatively little breadth."-PICKERING. one, that in the grants to the Plymouth Company an exception was made of all such portions of the territory as were "then actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or state." The claim of Pennsylvania was based upon the charter granted by King Charles the Second, in 1681, to William Penn, the proprietor and governor of Pennsylvania, his heirs and assigns. Under each of these grants it was necessary that the Indian title to the lands included in them should be extinguished by purchase or otherwise, and this was effectually accomplished-by purchase, treaty, entreaty, or otherwise. It is not designed in this compilation to set forth the condition of affairs growing out of conflicting claims to jurisdiction on the part of Pennsylvania and Connecticut; nor is it at all necessary to argue the question which was in the right. Time has set the matter at rest, for Wyoming may now claim to be the keystone in the arch of the Keystone State. At the date of the first attempts at settlement by the whites (1755), the valley was occupied by portions of three tribes of Indians, viz. :—the Nanticokes, at the foot of the valley upon the eastern side of the river; the Delawares, above and on the same side; the Shawanese, upon the western side, as has already been stated, occupying what are now known as the Shawanese Flats, where their principal village existed.. During the summer of 1755 the Nanticokes, having been induced to unite with other tribes of Indians in a war with the English Colonies, left the valley. A short period after this the Shawanese were driven out of the valley by their more powerful neighbors, the Delawares, and the conflict which resulted in their leaving it grew out of, or was precipitated by, a very trifling incident. While the warriors of the Delawares were engaged upon the mountains in a hunting expedition, a number of squaws or female Indians from Maughwauwame were gathering wild fruits along the margin of the river below the town, where they found a number of Shawanese squaws and their children, who had crossed the river in their canoes upon the same business. A child belonging to the Shawanese having taken a large grasshopper, a quarrel arose among the children for the possession of it, in which their mothers soon took a part; and as the Delaware squaws contended that the Shawanese had no privileges upon that side of the river, the quarrel became general; but the Delawares, being the most numerous, soon drove the Shawanese to their canoes and to their own banks, a few having been killed on both sides. Upon the return of the warriors both tribes prepared for battle, to revenge the wrongs which they considered their wives had sustained. The Shawanese, upon crossing the river, found the Delawares ready to receive them, and, upon their landing, a dreadful conflict took place between the Shawanese in their canoes and the Delawares on the bank. At length, after great numbers had been killed, the Shawanese effected a landing, and a battle, took place about a mile below Maughwauwame, in which many hundred warriors are said to have been killed on both sides; but the Shawanese were so much weakened by landing that they were not able to sustain the conflict, and after the loss of about half their tribe, the remainder were forced to flee to their own side of the river, shortly after which they abandoned their town and removed to the Ohio. THE DELAWARES The Delawares were now TRIUMPHANT. masters of Wyoming Valley, and the fame of their triumph, which was supposed to have driven the Shawanese to the west, tended very much to increase their numbers, by calling to their settlement many of those unfriendly Indians near the Delaware who remained on good terms with their Christian neighbors. We have now reached the period when the white man began to assert his supremacy; when he began to increase, and the red man to |