POUGHKEEPSIE, July 20. 

Since our last, many of the distressed Refugees from the Wyoming 
settlements on the Susquehanna, who escaped the general massacre, of the 
inhabitants, have passed this way, from whom we have collected the 
following account, viz.

[Previous to the narrative, it may be necessary to inform some of our 
readers, that this settlement was made by the people of Connecticut on a 
grant of lands purchased by the inhabitants of that colony, under the 
sanction of the government of the Indian proprietors; and that these lands 
falling within the limits of the Pennsylvania claim, a DISPUTE concerning 
the right has arisen, between the two governments, and proceeded to 
frequent acts of hostility. When it was at a height that threatened the 
disturbance of the other governments, Congress interposed, by whose 
recommendations and authority, the decision of the dispute was suspended, 
till that with Great Britain, equally interesting to every American State, 
was concluded, when there might be more leisure to attend to the other, 
and consider the justice of each claim.

On this footing the dispute has lain dormant for two or three years; the 
inhabitants lived happily and the settlements increased, consisting of 
eight townships, viz. Lackewana, Exeter, Kingston, Wilkesborough, 
Plymouth, Nanticoke, Huntington, and Salem, each containing five mile 
square. The six lower townships were pretty full of inhabitants, the two 
upper ones, had comparatively but few thinly scattered. The lands are 
exceedingly good, beautifully situated along both sides of the Susquehanna 
navigable for flat bottomed boats, and produced immense quantities of 
grain of all sorts, roots, fruits, hemp, flax, &c. and stock of all kinds 
in abundance. The settlement had lately supplied the Continental army with 
3000 bushels of grain, and the ground was loaded with the most promising 
crops of every kind. The settlement included upwards of a thousand 
families which had furnished our army with a thousand soldiers, besides 
the garrisons of four forts, in the township of Lockewany, Exeter, 
Kingston & Wilkesborough. One of these forts was garrisoned by upwards of 
400 soldiers, chiefly of the militia, the principal officers in which were 
Colonels Dennison and Zebulon Butler.

The Tories and Inhabitants had given some disturbances to these settlement 
last year, before Gen. Herkemer’s battle at Oneida Creek near Fort Stanwix 
and our skirmishes soon after with parties of the enemy at and near 
Schohary, when they were dispersed and the Tories concealed themselves 
among our different settlements; the people here remained undisturbed 
during the rest of the year.]

About this time the inhabitants having discovered that many of these 
villainous Tories who had stirred up the Indians, and been with them in 
fighting against us, were within the settlement, 27 of them were in 
January last, taken up and secured. Of these 18 were sent to Connecticut, 
the rest, after being detained some time, and examined, were for want of 
sufficient evidence set at liberty; they immediately joined the enemy, and 
became active in raising in the Indians, a spirit of hostility against us. 
This disposition soon after began to appear in the behaviour of the Tories 
and Indians, which gave the people apprehensions of danger, and occasioned 
some preparations for defence.

The people had some frequent intimations that the Indians had some 
mischievous designs against them but their fears were somewhat abated by 
the seeming solicitude of the Indians to preserve peace; they sent down at 
different times several parties with declarations of their peaceable 
disposition towards us, and to request the like on our part towards them. 
They were always dismissed with assurances that there was no design to 
disturb them. But one of those Indians getting drunk, said he and the 
other messengers, were only sent to amuse the people in the settlement but 
that the Indians intended as soon as they were in order to attack them. On 
this the Indian men were confined, and the women sent back with a flag. In 
March, appearances, became more alarming, and the scattered families 
settled for 30 miles up the river, were collected and brought into the 
more populous parts. In April and May, strolling parties of Indians and 
Tories, about 30 and under in a company, made frequent incursions into the 
settlements, robbing and plundering the inhabitants of provision, grain 
and livestock. In June, several persons being at work on a farm, from 
which the tory inhabitants had gone to the enemy, were attacked, and one 
man of them was killed; soon after, a woman (wife of one of the 27 tories 
before mentioned) was killed with her five children, by a party of these 
Tories and Indians, who plundered the house of everything they could take 
away and destroyed the rest. 

On the 1st instant (July) the whole body of the enemy consisting, it is 
supposed of near 1600 (about 300 of whom were thought to be Indians, under 
their own chiefs; the rest Tories, painted like them, except their 
officers, who were dressed like regulars) the whole under the command of 
Col. John Butler, (a Connecticut Tory, and cousin to Col. Z. Butler, the 
second in command in the settlement) came down near the upper fort, but 
concealed the greatest part of their number; here they had a skirmish with 
the inhabitants, who took and killed two Indians, and lost ten of their 
own men, three of whom they afterwards found killed, scalped, and mangled 
in the most inhuman manner.

Thursday, July 2. The enemy appeared on the mountains, back of Kingston, 
where the women and children then fled into the fort. Most of the garrison 
of Exeter fort were Tories, who treacherously gave it up to the enemy. The 
same night, after a little resistance, they took Lackewana fort, killed 
Squire Jenkins and his family, with several others, in a barbarous manner, 
and made prisoners of most of the women and children, a small number only 
escaped.

Friday, July 3. This morning Col. Zebulon Butler, leaving a small number 
to guard the fort, (Wilkesbury) crossed the river with about 400 men, and 
marched into Kingston fort. The enemy sent in a flag demanding the 
surrender of the fort in two hours. Col. Butler answered he should not 
surrender, but was ready to receive them. They sent in a second flag, 
demanding an immediate surrender, otherwise the fort should be stormed, 
plundered and burnt, with all its contents, in a few hours – and said that 
they had with them 300 men. Col. Z. Butler proposed a parley, which being 
agreed to, a place in Kingston was appointed for the meeting; to which 
Col. Z. Butler repaired with 400 men, well armed, but finding nobody 
there, he proceeded to the foot of the mountain, where at a distance he 
saw a flag, which as he advanced, retired as if afraid, 20 or 30 rods; he 
following, was led into an ambush, and partly surrounded by the enemy, who 
suddenly rose and fired upon them. Notwithstanding the great disproportion 
of 1600 to 400, he and his men bravely stood and return the fire for three 
quarters of an hour, with such briskness and resolution, that the enemy 
began to give way and were upon the point of retiring; when one of Col. Z. 
Butler’s men, either through treachery or cowardice, cried out that the 
Colonel ordered a retreat – This caused a cessation of their fire, threw 
them into confusion and a total rout ensued. The greatest part fled to the 
river, which they endeavored to pass to Fort Wilkesbury, the enemy pursued 
them with the fury of Devils, many were lost or killed in the river, and 
no more than about 70, some of whom were wounded, escaped to Wilkesbury.

Saturday morning, July 4. The enemy sent 196 scalps into Fort Kingston, 
which they invested on the land side, and kept up a continual fire upon 
it. 

This evening Col. Z. Butler with his family quitted the fort and went down 
the river.

Col. Nathan Denison went with a flag to Exeter fort, to know of Col. John 
Butler what terms he would grant on a surrender; Butler answered, THE 
HATCHET. Col. Dennison returned to Fort Kingston, which he defended till 
Sunday morning, when his men being nearly all killed or wounded, he could 
hold out no longer, and was obliged to surrender at discretion. The enemy 
took away some of the unhappy prisoners, and shutting up the rest in the 
houses, set fire to them, and they were all consumed together. These 
infernals then crossed the river to Fort Wilkesbury, which in a few 
minutes surrendered in discretion. About 70 of the men, who had listed in 
the Continental service to defend the frontiers, they inhumanly butchered, 
with every circumstance of horrid cruelty; and then shutting up the rest, 
with the women and children in the houses, they set fire to them, and they 
all perished together in the flames. 

After burning all the buildings in the fort they proceeded to the 
destruction of every building and improvement (except what belonged to 
some Tories) that came within their reach, on all these flourishing 
settlements, which they have rendered a scence of desolation and horror 
almost beyond description, parrallel or credibility; and were not the 
facts attested by numbers of the unhappy sufferers, from different 
quarters of the settlement, and unconnected with each other, it would be 
impossible to believe that human nature could be capable of such 
prodigious enormity. 

When these miscreants had destroyed the other improvements, they proceeded 
to destroy the crops on the ground, letting in the cattle and horses to 
the corn, and cutting up as much as they could of what was left; great 
numbers of the cattle they shot and destroyed; and cutting out the tongues 
of many others, left them to perish in misery.

The course of these truly diabolical proceedings, was marked by many 
particular acts of distinguished enormity, among which were the following, 
viz.

The Captains James Bedlock, Robert Durgee, and Samuel Ranson, being made 
prisoners by the enemy – they stripped Captain Bedlock, tied him to a tree 
and stuck him full of sharp splinters of pine knots, then piling a heap of 
pine knots round him they set all on fire, put Durkee and Ranson into the 
fire and held them down with pitch forks. 

Thomas Terry (whose father was killed by the Indians last war) with his 
own hands killed his own mother, his father-in-law, his sisters and 
families.

Partial Terry, the son of a man who bore a very respectable character, had 
several times sent his father word that he hoped to wash his hands in his 
heart’s blood. Agreeable to such a horrid declaration, the monster, with 
his own hand, murdered his father, mother, brothers and sisters, stripped 
off their scalps, and cut off his father’s head.

Col. Dennison was seen surrounded by the enemy, and was doubtless 
murdered. Col. Zebulon Butler is supposed to be the only officer escaped.

It is said he had several times written to the Congress and Gen. 
Washington, acquainting them with the danger the settlement were in, and 
requesting assistance; but that he received no answer, except that HE HAD 
NO CAUSE TO FEAR, SINCE THE INDIANS WERE ALL FOR PEACE AND QUITE ADVERSE 
TO WAR. However, he lately received a letter from Capt. Spaulding, 
acquainting him that neither the Congress nor Gen. Washington had received 
any of his letters, which had been intercepted by the Pennsylvania Tories, 
who in all probability acted in concert with these execrable miscreants 
against Wyoming: It is reported that these wretches, after compleating 
their horrid business at Wyoming, are going or gone to Cherry Valley, and 
the parts adjacent.

We hear that a party of infernals of the like kind, have within this week 
or two, infested the parts about Leghowegh, near Rochester, on the 
Minisink road to Philadelphia, where a party of them, about 40 in number, 
have plundered and burnt several houses, abused some people, and carried 
off 3 men. It is hoped speedy and effectual measures will be taken to 
punish and extirpate these monsters in human shape, from the face of the 
earth. 

The distresses of the surviving inhabitants of that late flourishing 
settlement are by their present circumstances, rendered such striking 
objects of charity, that withholding relief from them by those who are 
able to afford it, argues a criminal obduracy, which deserves, and may be 
punished by distresses of a similar kind.

We are told that of the 1000 men in the Continental army, who went from 
that settlement, their number is by sickness and the cruel usage of the 
prisons by the enemy, reduced to 400, who have now to lament the loss of 
their property, wives, children, and all that was dear to them in life! 
The helpless fugitives from the place, escaped with little more than their 
lives, they could bring nothing with them – hardly cloathes to cover them 
and nothing to eat, many were two or three days without sustenance, and 
pregnant women were delivered alone in the woods. This it is hoped will be 
the concluding scene of the tragedy acted by the British tyrant and his 
murderous, diabolical emissaries, in a part of his late kingdom, which he 
has justly forfeited, and which now forever departed from him.