[Illustration: Mary leaped upon a rock and protected the missionary from
the Indians.]
MARY DERWENT
A Tale of Wyoming and Mohawk Valleys in 1778
BY
ANN S. STEPHENS
PUBLISHED BY
FOWLER, DICK & WALKER
THE BOSTON STORE BOOK SHOP
WILKES-BARRE, PA.
THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE VALLEY OF WYOMING 1
II. THE CRUEL ENLIGHTENMENT 7
III. THE FOREST WALK 15
IV. THE ISLAND COVE 21
V. THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPEST 33
VI. THE MISSIONARY’S CABIN 46
VII. MY FATHER’S WARD 58
VIII. STRUGGLES AND PENALTIES 69
IX. THE LOST YEAR 79
X. QUEEN ESTHER 92
XI. THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT 102
XII. THE CHERRY-TREE SPRING 124
XIII. THE MERITED LESSON 133
XIV. AUNT POLLY CARTER 148
XV. THE SERPENT BRACELET 164
XVI. THE OLD JOHNSON HOUSE 174
XVII. THE LAKE BY STARLIGHT 207
XVIII. WALTER BUTLER’S CAPTURE 215
XIX. THE WIFE’S STRUGGLE 227
XX. HOUSEHOLD TALK 236
XXI. THE JAIL AT ALBANY 248
XXII. THE GATHERING STORM 258
XXIII. THE FIRST SKIRMISH 273
XXIV. THE CHIEF’S BURIAL 288
XXV. THE WHITE QUEEN’S GIFT 302
XXVI. THE BATTLE-FIELD 315
XXVII. THE WARNING AND FLIGHT 333
XXVIII. THE ISLAND GRAVE 345
XXIX. THE DOUBLE WEDDING 352
XXX. THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER 366
XXXI. THE INHERITANCE 379
XXXII. THE ASHES OF POWER 387
[Illustration: A Map Showing the location of the early settlements in
the Wyoming and Mohawk River Valleys, which were the Scene of this drama
of early pioneer life.—Mary Derwent.]
WYOMING
On Susquehanna’s side, fair Wyoming!
Although the wild flower on the ruined wall,
And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall,
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all,
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.
Sweet land! May I thy lost delights recall,
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,
Whose Beauty was the love of Pennsylvania’s Shore.
Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do,
But feed their flocks on green declivities
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn till Evening’s sweeter pastime grew,
With Timbrel, when beneath the Forest Brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew,
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down,
Would echo flagelet from some romantic town.
Then, where of Indian Hills the daybreak takes,
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes—
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree:
And every sound of life was full of glee,
From merry Mock-bird’s song, or hum of men;
While heark’ning, fearing nought their revelry,
The wild deer arched his neck from glades and then,
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again.
_Thomas
Campbell._
FOREWORD
In issuing a new edition of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens’ historic novel, Mary
Derwent, Dial Rock Chapter, Daughters American Revolution of West
Pittston, in the upper end of Wyoming Valley, deems it well to state,
for a new generation of readers, the circumstances that led to its being
written. In the early 50’s of the last century, this brilliant and
versatile author, then editor of _Peterson’s Magazine_, Philadelphia,
spent several successive summers in West Pittston, at the beautiful and
hospitable home of Mr. Samuel Benedict, whose young son, Frank Lee
Benedict, was then winning his first recognition as an author, and had
already become associated with the magazine under her editorship. During
those summers, Mrs. Stephens became deeply interested in the history and
traditions of Wyoming, studied every original source of its history
within reach; listened to the story of the events of 1778 and the years
preceding the tragedy of that memorable year, from the lips of men and
women whose parents had escaped with their lives at that terrible time.
A lover of scenery, a close observer alike of its broader aspects and
its minute details, and happily gifted with remarkable clearness of
vision “that,” as one biographer writes, “enabled her to be very
realistic in the transcription of natural scenery”—this, added to her
qualifications for writing the one standard historic novel that has ever
appeared based upon Wyoming’s history, theme, incidents, characters and
setting of the story were ready when the call came for “A Story of
American Life in the Olden Times,” by one of the periodicals of the day,
which offered a $400 prize for the one judged the best. “Mary Derwent”
was the winner of that prize. Its first edition carries this Dedication:
TO MY DEAR FRIEND,
Mrs. Samuel Benedict, of Wyoming Valley, in which the principal
historic events of my story transpired, this book is affectionately
dedicated.
ANNA S. STEPHENS.
_New York, June 1, 1858._
The book has gone through various editions; its latest issue being in
the uniform edition of her works, in 23 volumes, published in 1886, the
year of the author’s death. It was also republished serially in the
Pittston _Gazette_ in 1878, at the time of the Centennial “In Memoriam”
gatherings around the Wyoming Monument. But it has been for some years
out of print and its historic value, its accurate transcription of
Wyoming’s beautiful scenery and its vivid delineations, both of
character and events, has led to this new edition in behalf of Dial Rock
Chapter, Daughters of American Revolution.
SUSAN E. DICKINSON.
_Scranton, Pa., March 10, 1908._
MARY DERWENT
A Tale of the Wyoming Valley in 1778
CHAPTER I
THE VALLEY OF WYOMING
Monockonok Island lies in the stream of the Susquehanna, where the
Valley of Wyoming presents its greenest fields and most level banks to
the sunshine. It is a quiet little spot, lying dreamily in the river,
which breaks and sparkles around it with a silvery tumult. The Indians
have gathered up the music of these waters in a name that will live
forever—Monockonok—rapid or broken waters. You scarcely notice the
island amid the luxuriant scenery of Wyoming, it seems so insignificant
in its prettiness. Hedges of black alder, hazel branches, and sedgy
rushes stand in thickets, or droop in garlands along its shores.
A few miles below Monockonok, between a curve of the river and a
picturesque sweep of the mountains, lies the town of Wilkesbarre, a gem
among villages set in a haven of loveliness.
Two or three miles higher up may be seen the town of Pittston, with its
mines, its forges, its mills, and its modern dwelling-houses, crowding
close up to the heart of the valley, in which the Lackawanna and the
Susquehanna unite among exhaustless coal beds and the eternal beat of
human industry.
For twenty miles below the Lackawanna gap, the valley, though under
partial cultivation for nearly a quarter of a century, seemed scarcely
more than an unbroken forest. The beautiful river in its bosom was
almost hidden beneath the huge black walnuts, the elms and sycamores
that crowded to its banks.
But with all this beautiful wildness, the strife of disputed
civilization had already been felt in the valley. Indian forages were
frequent, and the Connecticut settlers had been twice driven from their
humble dwellings by the Pennsylvanians, who were restive at the
introduction of pioneers from the neighboring States into this fertile
region.
The blackened ruins of a dwelling here and there left evidence of this
unnatural contest, while stockades and block-houses of recent erection,
scattered along the valley, gave picturesque proofs of continued anxiety
and peril.
From twenty to thirty houses occupied the spot where Wilkesbarre now
stands, while log-cabins were grouped near the forts, each with its
clearing, its young fruit-orchard, and its patch of wheat or corn.
A single log-cabin, sheltered by a huge old elm with a slope of grass
descending to the water in front, and a garden in the rear, enriched
with variously tinted vegetables, and made cheerful by a few hollyhocks,
marigolds, and sunflowers, stood like a mammoth bird’s nest on
Monockonok Island.
Two immense black walnuts, with their mastlike trunks naked thirty feet
high, stood back from the house. The shore was broken up with clumps of
sycamores, oaks, maples, and groups of drooping willows, while an
undergrowth of dogwood, mountain-ash and tamarisk trees chained into
huge garlands by frost grape-vines and wild clematis, were seen in
picturesque leafiness along the banks.
This log-cabin had been built years before, by a young man who came with
his mother and his two little orphan girls to seek a home, and hide the
deep grief occasioned by the loss of his wife in the wilderness. Derwent
took up his residence in Wyoming with the New England settlers on their
second return to the valley, when it was almost as much inhabited by the
Indians as the whites.
Derwent struggled manfully in his new enterprise, but it was with a
broken spirit and by stern moral force alone. His health, always
delicate, sunk beneath the labor of establishing a new home, and though
he worked on, month by month, it was as a Pilgrim toils toward a shrine,
patiently and with endurance rather than hope.
Two little girls formed the sunshine of this humble family, and the
fairy island was made brighter by their pleasant voices and graceful
ways, as it was by the wild birds that haunted it with music. In the
great indulgence of the invalid father, and the active love of that dear
old grandmother, they had early lost all sense of orphanage, and were
happy as the wild birds, free as the striped squirrels that peeped at
them from the branches of the black walnut trees where they loved to
play.
Very different were these two children from infancy up. Jane, the
youngest, was a bright, happy little creature, full of fun, eager for a
frolic, and heedless of everything else; endowed with commonplace
goodness and a pleasant temper, she was simply a bright, lovable child.
But Mary, who seemed younger by half than her robust sister, was so
fragile, so delicate, that you dreaded to see the very winds of heaven
blow upon her, even when they left the spring blossoms unhurt. Her large
wistful eyes were full of earnestness. She was so fair, so fragile,
swaying as she walked, like a flower too heavy for its stem, and with
that look of unutterable sweetness forever about the little mouth.
With Derwent Little Mary was an object of singular tenderness, while the
force and life of his warmer affections went to the younger child. He
was their only teacher, and during the years that he lived it was a
pleasant recreation to give them such instruction as his own rather
superior attainments afforded.
Thus in primitive happiness the little family lived till Mary passed
gently out of her childhood. There was little visiting among the
pioneers, and a stranger seldom made way to Monockonok. An Indian
sometimes touched the island with his canoe in his progress down the
river; but this was always a happy event to the children, who received
the savages with childish admiration, as if they had been orioles or
golden robins. At the sight of a canoe, Jane would run gleefully to the
river, waving kisses to the savage with her hand, and flaunting out her
apron as a signal to win him shoreward. It was a singular fact, but the
Indians seldom obeyed these signals unless Mary was by her side. A
single gleam of her golden hair—a glimpse of her bent form—would prove
more effectual than all her sister’s pretty wiles.
Why did these savages come so readily at her look? What was the meaning
of the strange homage with which they approached her? Why did they never
touch her dress, or smooth her hair, or give her any of those wild marks
of liking which Jane received so cheerfully? Why did they lay eagles’
plumes and the skins of flame-colored birds at her feet, with so much
humility? Mary could never comprehend this, but it filled her with vague
awe, while the savages went away thoughtfully, like men filled with a
spirit of worship.
One other person sometimes visited the island, who had a powerful
influence over these children. This man was an Indian missionary, who,
following the path of Zinzendorf, had made his home in the wilderness,
about the time that Derwent entered the valley. He was evidently a man
of birth and education, for even the wild habits of the woods had been
insufficient to disguise the natural refinement of mind and manners
which made the humility of his character so touchingly beautiful.
This man came often to the island. Sometimes he remained all night in
the cabin. Sometimes he lingered days with the family, teaching the
little girls those higher branches which their father could not control,
and planting a thousand holy thoughts in the young minds, that lifted
themselves to his knowledge, as the flower opens its cup for the night
dew.
Under these beautiful and almost holy influences the children lived in
their island home, each taking from the elements around her such
nutriment as her nature craved, till Derwent, who had been ill since
their first remembrance, sunk slowly to his deathbed.
The last attack came suddenly, while the missionary was absent among the
Shawnees, far down the valley; but scarcely had the little family felt
the need of his presence, when he appeared quietly and kindly. All one
night he remained with the sick man; their conversation could be heard
in broken fragments in the next room, where the old mother sat weeping
over her grandchildren, holding Jane fondly in her lap, while Mary sat
upon the floor, so chilled with grief that she did not feel the tender
sorrow lavished upon her sister, as neglect of herself. Like a pure
white lily broken at the stem, she sat wistfully gazing in the distance,
wondering what death was, vaguely and in dreamy desolation. They were
called at last, and with a dying effort Jane was drawn to her father’s
bed, the last breath, the last blessing fell upon her. Mary had no time;
the father’s life was exhausted in that one benediction.
The missionary led her forth into the open air. He said but little, and
his voice fell dreamily on the senses of the child; but its first low
cadence filled her soul with infinite resignation. From that time Mary
could never realize that her father had died, leaving no blessing for
her. It seemed as if the missionary had inhaled the life from his
departing soul, and turned it all to love. The child recognized a double
presence in this holy man. Not even her grandmother was permitted to
kiss the forehead which his lips had touched. Her brow became sacred
from that time, and she would shrink back with a cry of absolute pain if
any one attempted to disturb the kiss which was to her the place of a
lost blessing.
The missionary had many duties to perform, and his intercourse with the
island was sometimes interrupted for months; but the little heart that
clung to him could live upon a remembrance of his teachings, even when
his presence was withheld. It was a wonderful influence, that which his
strong, pure soul had obtained over the child. While these feelings were
taking root in the nature of one sister, the other was working out her
own life, and the grandmother took up the duties imposed by her
bereavement with great resolution.