Connecticut's Heritage Gateway

The Susquehannah Company

One of the most bizarre episodes in Connecticut's history is the colony's--later, the state's--effort to make good on the sea-to-sea boundaries granted in the Charter of 1662. Private individuals in Connecticut, organized as the Susquehannah Company, persuaded the government to support efforts to settle the northern third of the land constituting the colony of Pennsylvania. In 1774 this area was organized as a county of Connecticut, and bloody battles for it occurred before, during, and after the Revolution. The land was finally awarded to Pennsylvania in 1784, and Connecticut was bought off by the Congress under the Articles of Confederation with a grant of territory just beyond the accepted bounds of Pennsylvania--Connecticut's Western Reserve.

This episode has been studied extensively by some excellent historians. In particular, virtually every paper relating to the Susquehannah Affair has been collected and edited in eleven volumes in Julian P. Boyd and Robert J. Taylor, The Susquehannah Company Papers (Wilkes-Barre and Ithaca, 1936-1971). Julian Boyd summed up the story in Tercentenary pamphlet XXXIV (1935), The Susquehannah Company; Connecticut's Experiment in Expansion, published earlier as an article of the same title in the Journal of Economic and Business History 4 (1931):36-69. The fullest and most recent treatment is a University of Connecticut dissertation (1972) by Richard Thomas Warfle, "Connecticut's Critical Period: The Response to the Susquehannah Affair, 1769-1774." For five years, from 1769 to 1774, the Susquehannah Affair was the most important issue in Connecticut politics. This dissertation traces the internal political jockeying that led to the triumph of the pro-Susquehannah faction and to the very significant victory of Jonathan Trumbull on the eve of the break with England. Warfle condensed his dissertation for publication as Bicentennial pamphlet XXXII (1979), probably the most convenient, lively, and authoritative account.

The story from Wilkes-Barre, the area of heaviest Susquehannah settlement, is told in Oscar Jewel Harvey's mammoth History of Wilkes-Barre (Wilkes-Barre: Readers Press, 1909-1930), 6 vols. The Pennsylvania perspective is developed in Jacob E. Cooke, Tench Cox and the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979). Two dissertations also describe and analyze the Pennsylvania phase of the affair.

Brady, James Edward. "Wyoming: A Study of John Franklin and the Connecticut Settlement in Pennsylvania" (Syracuse University, 1973). "Franklin and the Connecticut settlers are of particular interest because of their social and political attitudes. Although Wyoming was an isolated frontier settlement, it did not lack social discipline. The Yankees who settled there consciously attempted to create a transplanted Connecticut. From the earliest beginning the familiar institutions of church, school, and town meeting were present. Rather than the unrestrained individualism frequently associated with the frontier, the Connecticut migrants to the Wyoming Valley were social conservatives who were trying to establish a structured and ordered society. In this endeavor John Franklin was their military leader and political spokesman." (from the abstract)

Moyer, Paul Benjamin. "Wild Yankees: Settlement, Conflict, and Localism Along Pennsylvania's Northeast Frontier, 1760-1820." Dissertation. William & Mary, 1999. A very close analysis of the settlement, factional disputes, and internal workings of the Susquehannah lands in Pennsylvania, this study describes the radical agrarian and commercial speculations that combined to assert Connecticut claims, especially after the Trention decision of 1786.

Price, William E. "A Study of a Frontier Community in Transition: The History, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1750-1800" (Kent State University, 1979). Wilkes-Barre was the principal Connecticut settlement. This is an excellent companion piece to Brady.

Useful articles:

Baldwin, Simeon E. "Connecticut in Pennsylvania." Papers of the NHCHS 8 (1914):1-19. An early account with useful citations.

Deans, J. B. "The Migration of the Connecticut Yankees to the West Branch of the Susquehannah River." Proceedings of the Northumberland County Historical Society 20 (1954). A short piece based on standard histories by Boyd, Harvey, etc.; useful in that Deans identifies Connecticut settlers in each of the Susquehannah towns.

Krumbhaar, Anna Conyngham Stevens. "Colonel Zebulon Butler and the Wyoming Valley." Connecticut Magazine 6 (Mar-Apr, 1900) 2:143-52. Butler (1731-1795) was a major political and military figure in the Wyoming Valley. He preceded Franklin as the leader and was the principal founder of Wilkes-Barre, where he died. This is mostly a narrative of the Yankee-Pennamite War.

Ousterhout, Anne M. "Frontier Vengeance: Connecticut Yankees vs. Pennamites in the Wyoming Valley," Pennsylvania History 62 (Summer, 1995) 330-63.

Powell, Walter L., and Powell, Walter V. "The Lost Colony of Connecticut: Westmoreland." New England Galaxy 15 (1974):40-45.

Taylor, Robert J. "Trial at Trenton." William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series 26 (0ctober, 1969) 4:502-47. The Susquehannah land claim was settled in a court established under the Articles of Confederation--the single instance of the implementation of this mechanism for the settlement of interstate differences. Connecticut lost the whole bag. Taylor tells the story.

Williamson, James R. "Connecticut's Bloodiest Battle of the Revolution." CHS Bulletin 46 (July, 1981) 3:86-96. The Wyoming Massacre and the Battle of Groton Heights are perhaps the two worst massacres of the war. A retired army major portrays the military aspects of the Wyoming story here.

--"A Connecticut Settlement in Northeastern Pennsylvania: The Yankee-Pennamite Wars." CHS Bulletin 45 (January, 1980) 1:22-32. Provides the background for the piece listed above.