Wyoming has been uniformly represented as
a terrestrial paradise; as a sort of Occidental Arcadia where the
simple-hearted pious people lived and served God after the manner of
patriarchal times. Stripped of the halo of romance which has been thrown
around it, Wyoming is merely a pleasant, fertile valley on the Susquehanna,
in the north-eastern part of the State of Pennsylvania. In the year 1765
it was purchased from the Delaware Indians by a company in Connecticut,
consisting of about forty families, who settled in the valley shortly after
completing their purchase. Upon their arrival they found the valley in
possession of a number of Pennsylvanian families, who disputed their rights
to the property, and between whom and themselves bickerings and contests
were long the order of the day. Their mode of life was as little Arcadian
as can well be imagined. Neither party was powerful enough to permanently
oust the other; and although their warlike operations were conducted upon a
small scale, they were carried on with a petty meanness, vindictiveness and
treachery that would have disgraced the Hurons themselves.
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