Kathleen Fox

IN SEARCHING FOR YOUR ROOTS, be prepared for some surprises. After four decades of looking for the parents of my ancestor JOHN EARL, born in 1795 in Geneva, NY, I found he was related to three young men involved in the kidnapping of Timothy Pickering in Pennsylvania in 1788. As I looked more closely, I discovered that some pretty dicey things were going on in the Pennsylvania Wyoming Valley in the late 1700s. In short, King Charles’ misguided understanding of geography led to his granting the same piece of land to both Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The resulting book, “An Early History of the Wyoming Valley – The Yankee Pennamite Wars and Timothy Pickering,” tells a truly astonishing story that involves not only Pennsylvania 'Pennamites' and Connecticut 'Yankees' but the mighty Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, who laid claim to that same piece of land long before Charles was King of England. The book follows the timeline and events from the first survey of the valley by Connecticut settlers in 1754, through the American Revolution and Sullivan’s march to destroy the Haudenosaunee, to the kidnapping and the subsequent escape of several kidnappers to upstate New York to avoid prosecution. The book includes several historical engravings from the late 1800s and early 1900s.