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Patmos Rhodes

The Discovery of Harveys Lake (Abridged)

  • William Romanowski
  • Sep 26, 2024
  • 6 min read

October 1, 2024

(6-minute read)

Keywords: Wyoming Valley; Harveys Lake; Benjamin Harvey; Zebulon Butler; Sons of Liberty



In opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765, one of the nation’s founding fathers, Samuel Adams, started a secret alliance, the Sons of Liberty, whose famed motto was, “no taxation without representation.” The clandestine group waged a campaign against the British Parliament’s imposition of taxes on the American colonies, the most famous incident being the iconic Boston Tea Party to protest the Tea Act in 1773.

 

Among the secret association’s most celebrated members were merchant and statesman, John Hancock, and silversmith and midnight rider, Paul Revere. Of lesser renown, belonging to the Connecticut chapter, were Colonel Zebulon Butler and his close friend, Benjamin Harvey.

 

When his wife and their son died within weeks of each other, Benjamin, a brawny 6 foot 3, decided to be with his old friends and neighbors, including Colonel Butler, who had moved and were farming and raising stock in Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania.

 

Ben was nearly fifty years old in May 1772 when he purchased land and sent word to his five children: Come on down! Hardworking and enterprising, Ben built two houses, a grain and sawmill on a creek soon to be known as Harvey’s Creek, and opened a store managed by his oldest son and namesake, who died in the winter of 1777 fighting in the Revolutionary War. Ben’s other son, Silas, was killed on the battlefield during the Wyoming Massacre in 1778.

 

December 6, 1780

 

The weather outside was frightful, but the large fireplace inside Ben’s home on Main Street in what is now the borough of Plymouth, was so delightful. Harvey was hosting a party, the occasion, cheerfulness. Come frost, the spread of disease ceased. Food supplies were plentiful. The extreme cold, blustery winds, and heavy drifting snow made them feel safe and relaxed. Ben’s only remaining son, Elisha, and daughters, Lucy and Lois, were drinking draughts of the hardest cider and mingling with the invited guests, a Continental Army soldier and some local militiamen.

 

There was a gentle rapping on the door with a ringing sound – not the familiar knuckles of a closed fist. An unexpected guest? Looks of misgiving crisscrossed the room, like a chilling wind. quieting their merriment. Shh. Then, in the stillness—

 

BANG! BANG! BANG!

 

When Ben unbarred the door, five Iroquois burst inside. Through the doorway, Ben could see his home was surrounded by a band of British Rangers. Several of them entered with Lieutenant John Turney, Sr., who demanded food and drink for his detachment and declared Ben and his guests prisoners of war.


A graphical representation of a typical Butler's Rangers (1777–1784). 

The captives were bound, the men loaded down like packhorses with as much plunder as could be secured. Reaching the top of the snow-covered Shawanese Mountain, the womenfolk were treated to an Iroquois face painting and sent back as a sharp warning to Colonel Zebulon Butler, commander of the Wilkes-Barre garrison.

 

To escape pursuit, their British and Iroquois (Seneca) captors drove them hard all night and the next day. Trudging over rugged, snow-covered ground through the darkened forest was exhausting, especially for Ben who was almost sixty. But despite stumbling, gasping for air, and on the verge of collapse, he not only kept going, but cursed and insulted his kidnappers. Ben upbraided the British officer for his stone-hearted cruelty and railed against the Seneca and their ilk, all the way to Mehoopany, just north of Tunkhannock, where the intruders had left their canoes.

 

Irritated by the unrelenting tongue lashing, and the odds against him completing the trip, Lieutenant Turney decided to leave Ben’s fate to the Seneca. The next morning, they strapped him to a tree. The sachem (chief) measured off a distance, handed three young braves a tomahawk, and pointed at Ben’s head. The first tomahawk came whizzing through the air and stuck in the tree inches above his hairline. Whew. The next two braves also missed. The young braves endured some ridicule from their elders, but when an angry argument broke out among the warriors, the old chief decided the only explanation was that Great Spirit must have intervened to save the life of their pain-in-the-ass prisoner.


Fort Niagara, New York.

The week before Christmas, the hostage-taking party arrived at Fort Niagara, British headquarters, on Lake Ontario, 260 miles as the crow flies from Wyoming Valley. The captives were housed in barracks outside the walls of the fort with other prisoners. Springtime they were forced to work the farmlands of British Loyalists.

 

Since he was so old, the British Rangers did not consider Ben much of a threat (and he was not much use as a prisoner anyway). In late May 1781, they set him free. It pained him to leave Elisha behind, but with no other choice, Ben set off on foot with the clothes on his back, a knife, a piece of flint (something every man carried to spark a fire), a morsel of food, and the pet he had acquired while in captivity – a dog with no name.

 

On the First Part of the Journey…

 

Ben made his way southeasterly through western-central New York to the Chemung River. Paddling downriver in an abandoned canoe, he merged into the Susquehanna just past Tioga Point, and cruised through the Endless Mountains. Seeing signs of Iroquois encampments near Tunkhannock, he started on foot through the woods, trying to pick up the trail they used to take him to Fort Niagara.

 

Well, he got lost. For days. Then, one glorious morning, he stood on a ridge, and he saw a glistening body of water surrounded by hills. The Susquehanna!


Harveys Lake from the north.

Not so fast. Turns out, Ben happened upon a lake with no name. And not just any lake. Shy of a square mile, this was the second largest lake by surface area in Pennsylvania – and he had to walk all the way around it! Eventually, he found an outflow, and followed a stream he hoped would empty into the Susquehanna.

 

Sure enough, things started looking familiar until … what d’ya know? Ole Ben had been hiking along Harvey’s Creek. After journeying five long weeks, weakened, half-starving, and disoriented, Benjamin Harvey came trudging down Plymouth’s Main Street – no kidding – on the celebrated Fourth of July. What? A parade? For me?

 

What Happened to Elisha?


Elisha Harvey.

In the meantime, the Seneca sold Elisha to a Scotsman for half a barrel of rum. (In a trade, a woman was typically worth one gun, a horse ten.)

 

With the help of General George Washington, Elisha was returned to his family in a prisoner exchange about a year before the end of the Revolutionary War. They were all living happily ever after until 1783, when the Continental Congress awarded jurisdiction over Wyoming Valley to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, and not the Connecticut Assembly that had a competing land claim (a whole other story).

 

Afterward, ignoring the court’s proclamation, a partisan judge ordered the arrest of prominent Connecticut settlers: Colonel Zebulon Butler for treason (speaking out against the Pennsylvanians’ unfair treatment of the Connecticut party), Colonel John Franklin for farming his land, and Ben Harvey, for, uh, residing in Plymouth. Insurgents, disrupters of the peace, one and all, off they went to prison. All were eventually released in 1784, the year of the Susquehanna River’s first flood of record in Wyoming Valley.

 

Postscript

Even though Indigenous tribes inhabited the area for centuries, and Benjamin Harvey never owned land there, the glacial lake he stumbled upon came to bear his name: Harvey’s Lake (the apostrophe was dropped in 1949 in line with a new federal policy).



Take a Moment to Watch:

  • “A Short History of Harveys Lake,” Via Short Takes, November 29, 2023 (6 minutes, 8 seconds).

 

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)


William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.

 

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