Lazarus Stewart
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Lazarus Stewart | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 July 1734 |
| Died | 3 July 1778 (aged 43) |
| Service years | 1755, 1770–1771, 1778 |
| Conflicts | |
Captain Lazarus Stewart (July 4, 1734 – July 3, 1778) was an American frontiersman and militia officer. He was a leader of the Paxton Boys, a group of Scots-Irish settlers who massacred a number of Susquehannock in 1763, and a prominent commander on the Connecticut side in the Pennamite–Yankee War. Stewart died during the Revolutionary War in battle with Loyalists and Haudenosaunee at the Battle of Wyoming.
Stewart was born on July 4, 1734, in Hanover Township, Lancaster (now Dauphin) County, Pennsylvania, and was of Scots-Irish descent. His parents, James Stewart and Martha Stewart, were cousins who married around 1731.[1][2] In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Stewart raised and commanded a party of volunteers for the Braddock Expedition. His company was later assigned to guard settlements on the Juniata River.[3]
Pontiac's War and Conestoga Massacre
In the summer of 1763, during Pontiac's War, frontier settlements of Pennsylvania were frequently attacked by the Lenape and Shawnee. The Pennsylvania Gazette claimed, "Carlisle was become the barrier not a single individual beyond it."[4]
In the crisis, the response of the Commonwealth government was sluggish. There had long been friction between the Presbyterian settlers of the frontier and the Quaker dominated government, and the damage done by the raids caused further resentment. In Lancaster County, John Elder, a Presbyterian minister, raised two companies of associators, known as the Paxton Boys, mainly from Paxton and neighboring townships, captained by Stewart and Asher Clayton.[4]
Several indigenous enclaves existed east of the frontier, including the Christian Lenape and Mohican settlements near the Moravian mission at Bethlehem, and the Susquehannock at Conestoga Town. Considerable anger was directed by the settlers against the Moravian Lenape and Mohican for their suspected part in abetting indigenous raids, so the Pennsylvanian government had them moved to Philadelphia in November 1763. In Lancaster County, feelings were very much aroused against the Susquehannock, the more so after the Moravian Lenape and Mohican were protected by the Commonwealth whose authority the frontiersmen doubtless felt should be exerted for their protection from "Indians" and not vice versa. Elder wrote to the government in September 1763, urging for the Susquehannock to be removed to Philadelphia as well, but the proposal was declined.[4]
In December 1763, Matthew Smith, one of the Paxton Boys, took a small scouting party to Conestoga Town to investigate the report of a "hostile Indian" being sheltered by the Susquehannock. Smith alleged that he saw "dozens of strange, armed Indians" and with Stewart began to assemble a more substantial force. Elder heard of the expedition, and sent a written message dissuading it, to no effect. On the morning of December 14, 1763, just before dawn, fifty armed and mounted men including Stewart descended upon Conestoga Town, killed and scalped the six Susquehannock they found there, and burned the settlement. While the Susquehannock were probably in communication with the Lenape and Shawnee on the frontier, the results of the Paxton Boys' attack were hardly in line with their supposed justification of harboring hostile warriors.[4]
Fourteen of the Susquehannock had been elsewhere when the massacre occurred, and were removed to the workhouse in Lancaster for protection. Stewart and Smith, asserting that one of those fourteen was a known murderer, assembled the Paxton Boys again. Ignoring Elder, who remonstrated with them in person, they descended upon Lancaster on December 27, 1763, and broke into the workhouse. Matthew Smith later claimed that the intent of the raid had been to carry off the murderer, but the Paxton Boys, butchered the fourteen unfortunate Susquehannock including women and children. These incidents became known as the Conestoga Massacre.[4]
The shocked government ordered the arrest of those who took part in the massacre, but to no avail. Even those who had opposed the massacres, such as Elder, refused to volunteer the names of the ringleaders to the government. In February 1764, the Paxton Boys marched on Philadelphia but were met at Germantown by a delegation led by Benjamin Franklin who agreed to submit their grievances to the Governor and Assembly. While the Paxton Boys obtained few concrete concessions, neither Stewart nor any of the other participants in the massacre were ever prosecuted for their deeds.[4]
