The Yankee-Pennamite War

In the 1700's, the Yankee settlers of Connecticut and the Pennamite settlers of William Penn's Pennsylvania fought bitterly over the Connecticut and Pennsylvania boundaries. Connecticut settlers arrived in the Wilkes-Barre area (now in Luzerne Co., PA) in 1762, and claimed all the land between the 41st and 42nd parallels by right of a charter in 1662 which Charles II granted to Connecticut. The Pennamites claimed this same land by a charter also granted by Charles II to William Penn's family in 1681.

During this time, land claims in the Wyoming Valley overlapped and were called Westmoreland County by the Connecticut settlers and Northumberland County by the Pennsylvania Pennamites.

Serious and fatal skirmishes occurred many times and included everybody men, women, children and the elderly. For one accounting of these fights, see "A Yankee Celebration at Wyoming in Ye Olden Time" by Steuben JENKINS, Esq., available at the Wyoming Valley Historical Society, Tunkhannock, Wyoming County, PA, and on Family Tree Maker's GenealogyLibrary.com.

The American Congress decided at Trenton on December 30, 1782, that Pennsylvania had the right to this land. However, the original Connecticut settlers were, in 1805, allowed to retain the lands they had settled.

Forty-One Degrees North begins at about the village of Espy on the Susquehanna River, near the town of Bloomsburg. The disputed land ran up to Forty-Two Degrees North, or the present-day Pennsylvania-New York border, near the town of Sayre.

You can still see hints of this dispute today. The Harveyville Cemetery of Luzerne County, not far east of the present-day Columbia/Luzerne County line, contains many stones proudly proclaiming their owners to be "Connecticut Yankees."