The railroads cross the height of land between the sources of the
Lehigh and the affluents of the Susquehanna, through the Sugar Notch,
at about eighteen hundred feet elevation. When the train moves out to
the western verge of Nescopec Mountain there suddenly bursts upon the
gladdened sight the finest scenic view in Pennsylvania--over the fair
Vale of Wyoming, with all its gorgeous beauties of towns and villages,
forests and farms, under the bright sunlight, and having laid across
it the distant silver streak of the glinting Susquehanna River, all
spread out in a magnificent picture seen from an elevation of twelve
hundred feet above the river level. For nearly twenty miles the
Susquehanna can be traced through the long, trough-like valley, from
where it breaks in through the Lackawannock Gap in the North Mountain,
under Campbell's Ledge, far to the northward, away down south to where
it passes out the narrow gorge at Nanticoke Gap. The long ridges of
the Nescopec and Moosic Mountains enclose the valley on one side, and
over on the other are the great North Mountain or Shawnee range, and
the higher ridge of the main Allegheny range behind. In the distant
northeast the view is prolonged up the Lackawanna Valley. In this
splendid Wyoming Vale, spread out like a map, is a landscape of rich
agriculture, dotted over with towns and villages, coal-breakers and
huge culm-piles, the long snake-like streaks of railways crossing the
scene bearing their little puffing engines. It looks much like what
one sees out of a balloon. Here is the village of Nanticoke, then
Plymouth, then the spreading city of Wilkesbarre, and, far beyond, the
foliage-hidden houses of Pittston, near the gorge where the river
flows in. Between them all are clusters of villages and black coal
heaps, with myriads of the little green and brown fields, making
distant farms. The river reaches sparkle in the light as the long
shadows are cast from the mountains, and the train runs rapidly down
the mountain side and across the valley to its chief city,
Wilkesbarre.
When the broad and shallow and rock-strewn river Susquehanna, on its
way down from Otsego Lake in New York to the Chesapeake, breaks
through the North Mountain, its valley expands to three or four miles
in width, making a fertile region between the high enclosing ridges
which the Indians called Maughwauwama, or the "extensive flat plains."
This sonorous name underwent many changes, finally becoming known as
Wyoming. Luzerne County is the lower and Lackawanna County the upper
portion of this noted valley, which is the greatest anthracite
coal-field in the world. These Wyoming coal measures underlie
seventy-seven square miles, having veins averaging eighty feet in
thickness, and about eighty thousand tons to the acre, the aggregate
deposit of coal being estimated to exceed two thousand millions of
tons. The large population and enormous production have caused all the
railways to send in branches to tap its lucrative traffic, so that it
is the best-served region in Pennsylvania. It has two large
cities--Wilkesbarre, in Luzerne, and Scranton, in Lackawanna.
Wilkesbarre is on the eastern Susquehanna river bank, a town of forty
thousand people, named after the two English champions of American
Colonial rights. It covers much surface in the centre of the valley,
with suburbs spreading far up the mountain sides. But from almost
every point of view in the city the outlook is over black culm-heaps
or coal-breakers or at rows of coal cars, so that there is a monotony
in the steady reminder of the source of their riches, the omnipresent
anthracite. About twelve miles northwest of Wilkesbarre, up in the
North Mountain range, is the largest lake in Pennsylvania--Harvey's
Lake--elevated nearly thirteen hundred feet and covering about two
square miles. It is named after one of the early pioneers from
Connecticut, and its outflow comes down to the Susquehanna near
Nanticoke Gap. Its pleasant shores are a favorite resort of the
Wilkesbarre people. The flourishing city of Scranton is about nineteen
miles north of Wilkesbarre, in the Lackawanna Valley. It has grown to
a population of a hundred thousand people, and is picturesquely
situated among the coal mines, with a higher elevation than
Wilkesbarre, being nearly eleven hundred feet above tide, at the
confluence of the Roaring Brook with the Lackawanna River; and it has
extensive iron industries, being the chief city of northeastern
Pennsylvania. The Wyoming and Lackawanna coal pits, while the greatest
anthracite producers, are not generally so deep as those of the Lehigh
or Schuylkill regions. The deepest Pennsylvania shaft goes down
seventeen hundred feet near Pottsville. Some of the Wyoming galleries
run a mile and a half underground from the shaft, following the coal
veins underneath and far beyond the Susquehanna.
This noted Wyoming Vale, in the early history of the Pennsylvania
frontier, was bought from the Iroquois Indians, the "Six Nations," by
an association of pioneer settlers from Connecticut. Good management,
due largely to the judicious methods of the early missionaries, kept
them at peace with the Indians. Count Zinzendorf, with a companion,
came up from Bethlehem in 1742, before the Connecticut purchase, and
founded a Moravian mission among the Shawnees in the valley. It is
said that they were suspicious of European rapacity and plotted his
assassination, and the historian relates that the Count was alone in
his tent, reclining upon a bundle of dry weeds, destined for his bed,
and engaged in writing or in devout meditation, when the assassins
crept stealthily up. A blanket-curtain formed the door, and, gently
raising the corner, the Indians had a full view of the patriarch, with
the calmness of a saint upon his benignant features. They were struck
with awe. But this was not all. The night was cool, and he had kindled
a small fire. The historian continues: "Warmed by the flame, a large
rattlesnake had crept from its covert, and, approaching the fire for
its greater enjoyment, glided harmlessly over one of the legs of the
holy man, whose thoughts at the moment were not occupied upon the
grovelling things of earth. He perceived not the serpent, but the
Indians, with breathless attention, had observed the whole movement of
the poisonous reptile; and as they gazed upon the aspect and attitude
of the Count, their enmity was immediately changed to reverence; and
in the belief that their intended victim enjoyed the special
protection of the Great Spirit, they desisted from their bloody
purpose and retired. Thenceforward the Count was regarded by the
Indians with the most profound veneration."
When the Revolution came, the settlement was a thriving agricultural
colony of about two thousand people, scattered over the valley, with a
village on the river shore just above the present site of Wilkesbarre.
In June, 1778, a force of British troops, Tories and Indians entered
the valley and attacked them, and on July 3d the terrible Wyoming
massacre followed, in which the British officers were unable to set
any bounds to the atrocious butchery by their savage allies, who
killed about three hundred men, women and children. The poet Campbell
has painted the previous pastoral scene of happiness and content in
"Gertrude of Wyoming," and told the tale of atrocity perpetrated by
the savages, which is one of the most horrible tragedies of that great
war. This poem tells of
"A stoic of the woods--a man without a tear."
Beside the river below Pittston and near the village of Wyoming,
having the great North Mountain for a background, was Fort Forty, the
scene of the chief atrocities of the massacre, the site being now
marked by a granite obelisk. Here is the burial-place of the remains
of the slaughtered. "Queen Esther's Rock" is pointed out, where the
half-breed Queen of the Senecas, to avenge the death of her son, is
said to have herself tomahawked fourteen defenceless prisoners. Most
of the survivors fled after this horror, and they did not return to
the valley until long after peace was restored, when the infant
settlement was renewed in the founding of Wilkesbarre. Far up on the
side of the grand peak guarding the northern portal of the
Lackawannock Gap is the broad shelf of rock which embalms in
"Campbell's Ledge" the memory of the great English poet who has so
graphically told the harrowing tale.