Jasper Parrish And The Terror At Civilization’s Edge

Captain Zebulon Parish saw the man hurry out of the dense woods into the field. The smell of burning wood wafted through the air around him. In the distance, black smoke rose above the treetops. He thought he heard muffled screams, but it might have been the wind whipping through the forest.

His eyebrow furled as the curious settlers assembled. He was the captain. They looked to him for guidance.

Zebulon recognized the man. It was Lebbeus Hammond.¹ He didn’t look too good. Out of breath, he huffed and puffed, “We’ve been attacked!”

This is bad, was Zebulon’s immediate conclusion.

His mind raced. They’re probably coming for us next. How long do we have? And should we prepare for defense or run?

“We need to get out of here,” he ordered his family and neighbors. “We need to get out of here right now.”

As everyone raced to get whatever they could, Zebulon motioned to the young boys near him. “Not you two,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

Zebulon’s wife turned abruptly. “But they’re just boys.”

“Yes, I know,” said Zebulon, “but we’ve got to warn Mr. Haynes, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Hough down in Lechawaxen.”

“The Pennsylvanians?” she asked in disbelief.

“Boys, get on the horses,” was all Zebulon said. Any eleven-year-old on the frontier knew how to handle horses. Zebulon could only hope they knew how to handle the frontier. That was something he couldn’t do for them.

The three rode off with an additional horse toward the mouth of the Wallenpaupack. It was only a short distance away. They left behind the distant sounds of the fleeing settlers.

Moving cautiously and quietly, their horses whinny nervously. They’re almost at the mouth of the Wallenpaupack when Zebulon’s ears perk up with the rustling leaves and cracking twigs. Then the very familiar click of a gun being cocked.

“Halt!” yells the lead soldier as he bounds out of the thicket. The rest of his squad appears immediately following him.

Visibly surprised, the three civilians hesitate.

The Tory then announced, “The Susquehanna have captured your settlement. Cross the creed and surrender yourselves.”

Zebulon’s eyes glared at the guns pointed towards them. He had no choice.

The three surrendered. Two years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The story of the Wyoming valley is as complex as it is violent. It served as the southern battlefront in the Iroquois’ never-ending war with the Algonquin-speaking tribes (in this case, the Lenni-Lenape, more commonly known as the Delaware). In 1754, Delaware chiefs sold—or believed they had sold—the land to the Susquehannah Company of Windham, Connecticut.²

The so-called “Connecticut Yankees” moved to settle land they believed belonged to their colony. Pennsylvania disagreed. So did the Indians, for that matter. After a series of raids escalated into a miniature civil war—the first of three Pennamite-Yankee Wars—the Royal Crown intervened, decreeing “that no Connecticut settlements could be made until the royal pleasure was known.”³

In 1773, a legal interpretation from England sided with Connecticut (since such intervention worked so well a decade earlier in settling the New York/New Hampshire border dispute). Connecticut Governor John Trumbull hoped this would pave the way to achieve a peaceful settlement.⁴ Instead, migration from Windham to Wyoming resumed.

That’s where the Parish/Parrish family enters the picture. (Somewhere between father and son, the extra “r” got added.) Just in time for the Second Pennamite War. By then, the Pennsylvanians had begun settling right alongside Connecticut Yankees. The result was predictable. The two simply were not inclined toward compromise.

Conditions in northeastern Pennsylvania deteriorated so badly that Thomas Paine cited them as yet another reason America should break from England. In his 1776 masterpiece Common Sense, he says:

The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shows the insignificance of a British government, and fully proves, that nothing but continental authority can regulate continental matters.”⁵

Zebulon Parish took that sentiment to heart. When General George Washington came calling, Zebulon and most of the able-bodied men from the Wyoming Valley took up arms and marched off with the future Father of Our Country. That’s how he came to be known as “Captain” Zebulon Parish.

When word arrived that Tory forces and their allies were marching on Wyoming, the Continental Army released the men to return home and defend their settlements. We therefore find Captain Parish at home with his family in the Town of Westmoreland when the attack occurred. He was one of the Connecticut Yankees to first hear the story of the slaughter from Lebbeus Hammond who had just escaped certain death on what is today known as Queen Esther’s Rock.⁶

On the evening of June 30, 1778, Colonel John Butler brought 400 British regulars to the edge of Wyoming Valley and the Connecticut Yankees’ settlement. Along with him came 500 Iroquois (mostly Seneca) warriors⁷, led by Sakayenguaraghton, a.k.a. the “Old King” of the Seneca tribe.⁸

In the dawn of July 3^rd, the settlers, aware of the approaching enemy, congregated in the Forty fort, which was the main fort of the area. The defenders could count 368 men among them. Little did they know until later that morning that the Tory sympathizers manning nearby Wintermoot fort willingly gave up their charge to the British. After discovering this, the men had a heated debate: should they retain their defensive posture or should they attack?⁹

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, they chose to attack,¹⁰ but against a force more than twice their size, they soon fell back. Many settlers, including women and children fled to the Pocono mountains and the Delaware River. Those that feared the long trek sought refuge in Wyoming fort. The next day (ironically, July 4^th), the British and Iroquois partners forced the fort to surrender.

After agreeing to peaceful terms, the Tories promptly reneged. They burned the 23 homes in the village of Wilkesbarre. They separated the men from their families. They forced the remainder on a 60-mile hike through the swamps with little food or clothing.

The survivors called this trek through the wilderness “The Shades of Death.” In all, the settlers suffered more than 300 casualties—nearly all the men.¹¹

Those who delayed their leave watched in horror as the warriors tortured their prisoners to gruesome death. One historian says, “that between the 3^rd of July and the morning of the 4^th of July, there was a massacre of the male settlers, and of the Americans engaged in the conflict of the 3^rd of July, equalling anything of the kind in Indian history for cruelty and atrocity!”¹² Only two men would escape, Lebbeus Hammond and Joseph Elliot.¹³

John Butler paid $10 for each scalp brought to him, and by the end of the 4^th, he had already collected 227.¹⁴ Ishmael Benn, who was at the fort when it surrendered, later testified “on the night after the battle, seeing fires under some large oaks near the river, he with his father, Squire Whitaker and old Captain Blanchard, went down to the river side, they could see naked white men running around the fire, could hear the cries of agony, could see the savages following them with their spears, it was a dreadful sight.”¹⁵

But there was a fate worse than death. It was one that befell Major Roswell Franklin and his sister. After fighting alongside his father, he watched in horror as his mother and his other sister were killed right in front of him. Then he and his surviving sister were taken prisoner, Franklin for three years, his sister for eleven (which would be six years after the war had ended). Franklin, by the way, was the last living person who saw action in the Wyoming Massacre. He became the first settler of Aurora, New York in 1787 and died there in 1843.¹⁶

Zebulon Parish, rather than make a quick escape with the rest of his family, took his son Jasper and Stephen Kimble to warn the neighboring settlement. Alas, on the way the three were captured and taken prisoner.¹⁷

As a boy, Jasper had been captured by Indians in the immediate aftermath of the Wyoming Massacre in 1778, sold as a slave among various tribes, beaten mercilessly, nearly killed for a guinea when the British put a bounty on Yankee scalps.¹⁸

Incidentally, Stephen Parrish, Zebulon’s third son, along with Reuben Jones, was also kidnapped while escaping in the aftermath of the Wyoming Massacre.¹⁹

All these moving parts.

It might sound like chaos.

It was more than that. Much more.

It’s what happens when authority crumbles. When everyone plays by their own rules. When no one is truly in charge.

And in colonial America, that collapse began long before the shooting.

On parchment, not battlefields.

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¹ The Historical Record of Wyoming Valley, The Wilkes-Barre Record, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1897, p. 169.
² Connecticut, by Alfred Van Dusen, Random House, New York, 1961, p. 124.
³ Ibid., p. 124.
⁴ Ibid., p. 129.
⁵ Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776, 1859 reprint by Honyoake and Co., London, p. 33.
⁶ The Historical Record of Wyoming Valley, p. 169.
⁷ History of Wyoming: In a Series of Letters, from Charles Miner, to His Son William Penn Miner, L. Crissy, Publisher, Philadelphia, 1845, Appendix, p. 79.
⁸ The Massacre of Wyoming, Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden, Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1895, p. xi.
⁹ Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Vol. II, by John F. Waston, 1850, pp. 123-125.
¹⁰ The Massacre of Wyoming, p. xiii.
¹¹ Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Vol. II, p. 125
¹² The Massacre of Wyoming, p. xiv.
¹³ History of Wyoming, p. 226.
¹⁴ The Massacre of Wyoming, p. xiv.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. xvi
¹⁶ Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Vol. II, p. 127.
¹⁷ The Historical Record of Wyoming Valley, p. 169.
¹⁸ Democrat and Chronicle, Thursday, Dec. 26, 1901, p. 4.
¹⁹ History of Wyoming, p. 471.