vely spot in which to build a home, for it was the famed
Wyoming Valley, in Western Pennsylvania.

Now, since some of my young friends may not be acquainted with this
place, you will allow me to tell you that the Wyoming Valley lies
between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains, and that the
beautiful Susquehanna River runs through it.

The valley runs northeast and southwest, and is twenty-one miles long,
with an average breadth of three miles. The bottom lands--that is, those
in the lowest portion--are sometimes overflowed when there is an unusual
quantity of water in the river. In some places the plains are level, and
in others, rolling. The soil is very fertile.

Two mountain ranges hem in the valley. The one on the east has an
average height of a thousand feet, and the other two hundred feet less.
The eastern range is steep, mostly barren, and abounds with caverns,
clefts, ravines, and forests. The western is not nearly so wild, and is
mostly cultivated.

The meaning of the Indian word for Wyoming is "Large Plains," which,
like most of the Indian names, fits very well indeed.

The first white man who visited Wyoming was a good Moravian missionary,
Count Zinzendorf--in 1742. He toiled among the Delaware Indians who
lived there, and those of his faith who followed him were the means of
the conversion of a great many red men.

The fierce warriors became humble Christians, who set the best example
to wild brethren, and often to the wicked white men.

More than twenty years before the Revolution settlers began making their
way into the Wyoming Valley. You would think their only trouble would
be with the Indians, who always look with anger upon intruders of that
kind, but really their chief difficulty was with white people.

Most of these pioneers came from Connecticut. The successors of William
Penn, who had bought Pennsylvania from his king, and then again from
the Indians, did not fancy having settlers from other colonies take
possession of one of the garden spots of his grant.

I cannot tell you about the quarrels between the settlers from
Connecticut and those that were already living in Pennsylvania. Forty of
the invaders, as they may be called, put up a fort, which was named on
that account Forty Fort. This was in the winter of 1769, and two hundred
more pioneers followed them in the spring. The fort stood on the western
bank of the river.

The Pennsylvanians, however, had prepared for them, and th