Recently, the Luzerne County Historical Society's Facebook page began doing "Marker Mondays," in which they take a weekly look at one of the PHMC historical markers in their county. As I joked with my own Facebook followers, "A weekly look at PHMC markers? Why does that sound familiar?"
Well, I promised them that I would do a Luzerne County post in the relatively near future, and that's what we're doing today. Let's travel back to 1780, and learn about a tragedy which befell a company of militia from Northampton County.
Before I get started, I do want to clarify up front that a number of sources don't entirely agree with each other about names and other pieces of information. I've done the best I can to tell the basic story. All I try to do with each blog post is give my readers a fair understanding of the subject, and then if anyone wants to learn more, they're welcome to do their own research into the deeper lore. (This sometimes results in me coming back to correct a post later, when they share their findings with me, and I have no problem doing that! In fact, it happened recently with regards to my post about the Packer Mansion.) So if anything recorded here turns out to not be completely accurate, it's because of the conflicting details in the various sources.
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| The marker stands in Conyngham at the intersection of PA 93 and Hidden Creek Court |
As I've mentioned in a number of other blog posts, tensions between the European settlers and the Native Americans often led to brutal results. This was not even remotely helped by General Washington's response to the massacres in the Wyoming and Cherry Valleys, which I'll be describing in future posts; he commissioned a man called Sullivan to basically launch an all-out campaign against the Natives in retaliation. (Sullivan's March and Sullivan's Campaign have multiple markers across the state, and I'm genuinely not sure yet how I'm going to handle that series. First I have to find them all.) There were also, in those early days of the United States, a not-inconsiderable number of Loyalists in Pennsylvania who thought we should have remained a British colony. These Loyalists often teamed up with the Natives and pretty much nobody was happy at all.
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| The monument stands in Sugarloaf, on Walnut Avenue opposite Orchard Lane |
Meanwhile, during the first week of September, Fort Augusta and Fort Rice in Northumberland County were attacked by united forces of Loyalists and Natives. The soldiers in these forts successfully drove off their attackers, sending them running over the mountains. Some of the offensive forces, however, went to Fort Jenkins in present-day Bloomsburg, and burned it to the ground. From there, they made their way to the Lehigh Path and down into the Sugarloaf Valley. They happened upon Van Etten's men's camp, along the shores of the Little Nescopeck Creek, on September 11th - just in time for dinner.
By that, I mean that the militiamen had started eating when they were attacked.
We know this detail thanks to the account of one of the survivors (more on him shortly), who said that the Natives and Loyalists fired on them with muskets as they sat down to dinner. Most of the men assembled were able to escape, though many were seriously wounded. A small handful were taken captive; these included Lieutenant Moyer, who later escaped. A few days after the ambush, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Balliet led a contingent of men to visit the site and give the dead a proper burial. According to his report, there were ten deaths.
Up to this point, the sources generally agree with one another. But now we're coming to the part where we have conflicts. It was later recorded that the Natives scalped thirteen men. Van Etten, when writing an account of his men's fate after the fact, stated that fourteen were killed and gave their names. You would think that the man in charge of the overall militia unit would know for sure which of his enlisted men were dead. And you'd be wrong, because at least two of the men Van Etten claimed were killed - Peter Krum and George Shellhammer - were survivors. They somehow were recorded among the dead by their own commanding officer. When the monument was erected in 1933, the PHMC used Van Etten's account and included their names among the casualties. (Krum's name is misspelled as Croom.) There might be as many as four names on the monument of men who actually survived, but Peter Krum is the standout example because he later gave testimony about the event. In fact, his is the report that tells us they were attacked while eating dinner!
What's just as weird as this is the name of Captain Daniel Klader. Not only is his name first on the monument, indicating that he was the highest-ranked casualty of the ambush, but he even has his own small headstone nearby to indicate the approximate site where he fell. Thing is, there's an argument to be made that Daniel Klader may have not even existed at all. According to the article I've linked from Thomas Verenna, there is absolutely no other information about this man - no birth record, no service record, nothing. (He's also not named in Van Etten's report, but given the other mistakes he made, that's not exactly proof.) The unit did include an Abraham Klader who was killed, and this could account for some of the error, but Daniel Klader never appears in any report of the incident until a newspaper article written in the 1860s. So I agree with Verenna - it seems likely that the original stated death count of ten is the correct one.
It's also inscribed on the monument that the attack was led by Roland Montour. Montour was a member of the French and Native American family for whom Montour County was later named. He was married to the daughter of a Seneca chief, and he was known to have fought on the British side; he was part of the group who took captives in present-day Weissport near Fort Allen. Allegedly he died in New York a few weeks after the ambush at Sugarloaf, from wounds received during the altercation. But some sources claim that he was alive for several years afterward, and there's actually no concrete evidence that he was involved in the Sugarloaf massacre at all. He may have been, but it's impossible to know for sure.
There are questions about the Sugarloaf massacre that we may never completely answer. But we know for certain this much - several men, taken by surprise, lost their lives that evening. And a monument, albeit an erroneous one, reminds us of where they fell.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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