of Wyoming," I have read Colonel Stone's _Life of Joseph
Brant, Thayendanegea, including the Border Wars of the American
Revolution_, and have carefully examined his account of the "Massacre of
Wyoming." Colonel Stone visited the place (1838), and obtained all the
information which the oldest inhabitants and family letters could give,
and examined all the papers in the State Paper Office, and obtained much
information from correspondence and personal interviews with aged and
distinguished inhabitants, well acquainted with all the particulars of
the alleged "Massacre." The result of his researches was to justify the
hopes of the British Annual Register, quoted on previous page, which,
after having republished the American accounts of the "Massacre," says:
"Happy should we deem it, for the honour of humanity, that the whole
account were demonstrated to be a fable."

This has been done by Colonel Stone after the lapse of more than half a
century. In the fifteenth chapter of the first volume of his eloquent
and exhaustive work he gives a history of the settlement, and of the
many years' wars between the rival claimants of Connecticut and
Pennsylvania--the former styled "the Susquehanna Company," and the
latter "the Delaware Company." The question was also complicated by
Indian claims, as the land had been once acquired by the Six Nations,
and alleged to have been sold to both companies. Many of the Mohawks and
other Indians resided in and near the settlement. On the breaking out of
the war, politics largely entered into the disputes, and armed conflicts
ensued, and no less than ten forts were erected in the settlement.

According to Colonel Stone, the "Massacre" was not the result of
surprise, nor did it involve the indiscriminate massacre of women and
children, but was the result of a pitched battle between the Loyalists
and Continentals, in which the latter were the assailants and were
defeated, and whatever "massacre" there was followed the battle.[90]

Colonel Stone, after having given an account of the battle, as stated
in previous note, and having corrected several erroneous statements,
makes the following correction of what had been often written and
generally believed respecting the famous Chief Brant:

"There is another important correction to be made in reference to every
written history of this battle extant, not even excepting the revised
edition of the Life of Washington, by Chief Justice Marshall. This
cor