6000BC –1500AD
| Native Americans. |
| There is
archaeological evidence of human habitation in the Tunkhannock Creek
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watershed area from 4000 to 700 years ago. It is generally agreed that Native American ”Indian” tribes
used the Tunkhannock Creek watershed area as a hunting preserve, shared by
more than one tribe. There is
evidence of Indian activity, and artifacts are many and varied from all
over the 413 square miles of the watershed.
But it seems not to have been the long-term traditional village
location for any particular tribe.
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1609
The Dutch claimed the Pennsylvania region when
Henrik Hudson anchored his ship Half Moon in Delaware Bay.
The Dutch established trading posts, but Swedes and Finns made the
first permanent settlements and ownership of the region changed hands
frequently.
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| 1662
King Charles II granted Connecticut the lands in a 73- mile wide
strip from Narragansett Bay to the Pacific Ocean
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1681
King Charles II owed $80,000 to Admiral Sir William Penn who had lent
to money to him to restore the Stuarts to the throne of England in 1660.
To settle this debt the king granted to Sir William’s son,
William Penn, land in the New World between 40 and 43 degrees north
latitude and extending west for 5 degrees.
This land included a part of that already granted to Connecticut.
These overlapping grants, based on an insufficient understanding of
the geography of the New World, led to boundary disputes and eventually,
to the Yankee-Pennamite Wars in the years between 1769 and 1784.
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1753
Susquehanna Company organized in Windham, Connecticut, and in 1754
their representatives purchased the land from the Indians.
In 1762 the company sent the first settlers into the Wyoming
Valley, to be followed by one hundred and nineteen families. |
1769-1783
Yankee
Pennamite Wars - Settlers coming west from Connecticut, Massachusetts
and Rhode Island clashed in the northeast Pennsylvania counties with those
coming up from the settled areas around Philadelphia.
Properties and crops were burned, local Indian tribes were drawn
into the fray, and the conflict reached a climax at the Wyoming Massacre,
at present day Forty Fort, in 1778.
In 1779 the colonial forces sent General Sullivan on a
punitive mission up the north branch of the Susquehanna River to find and
destroy Indian settlements. The
conflict between the Yankees and the Pennsylvanians was not ended until
after the Revolutionary War in 1783. (See 1783 Trenton Decision) |
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1774 |
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First
survey of northeast Pennsylvania by William
Grey; paper titles
acquired by George Clymer, |
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signer of the Declaration of Independence and first Attorney General of
Pennsylvania, Samuel Meredith, first Treasurer of the United States, and
Henry Drinker, first Surveyor General of Pennsylvania. These lands
were resurveyed and warrants were sold to early settlers in the northern
tier. |
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August 3, 1779
William
Rogers, D.D., a chaplain traveling with General Sullivan’s forces,
on the punitive expedition to destroy Indian settlements after the Wyoming
Massacre, entered the following in his
journal:
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1781
Articles of Confederation adopted by the American colonies. |
1783
Trenton
Decision settled the competing claims of the Pennsylvania and
Connecticut colonists to northeastern Pennsylvania.
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here to continue. |
1784
Eliphalet Stephens, the first permanent resident of Nicholson,
established the Stephens Settlement in the northeast region of
Northumberland County. |
1786
Luzerne County set off from Northumberland County. |
1786
The Pumpkin Flood on October 5 and 6 brought widespread high
water and damage to homesteads in the region. |
1787
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Constitutional Convention
convened in Philadelphia; constitution |
| written;
ratification by states from November 1787 through
June
1788. |
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1790
Nine partners left Attleboro, Massachusetts, which had become more
crowded than they liked. Looking
for land to buy and settle on, they reached Cherry Valley, New York. This
area was already well settled, but here they met a land agent who told
them about land in northeast Pennsylvania.
He provided a boat to carry them down the Susquehanna River to
Great Bend where they disembarked and started walking
south. |
