Wyoming Monument National Register of Historic Places Listing

It marks a slaughter. On July 3, 1778, a force of British Loyalists and Seneca warriors swept down the Susquehanna River and decimated a disorganized band of local defenders. Hardly anyone escaped. Out of roughly 360 militia members who marched out of Forty Fort, over 300 died in the chaos of the rout, many hunted down in the nearby swamps. We still have the physical proof of this brutality. The bones of the slain, finally gathered from the fields months later, showed deep, unmistakable hatchet marks. One infamous story claims Queen Esther, a leader of Seneca heritage, personally bashed in the skulls of sixteen prisoners atop a flat rock.

But the horror didn't stay local. Sensationalized accounts of the "Wyoming Massacre" quickly crossed the Atlantic, fueling American propaganda and directly provoking George Washington to order the devastating Sullivan Expedition of 1779. That campaign shattered the Iroquois Confederacy. Decades later, in the 1830s, Luzerne County residents decided they needed a permanent marker, so they dug up the mass grave and laid the remains in a vault. Construction on the 62-foot obelisk dragged on for years. They ran out of money. The local Ladies' Monumental Association eventually saved the project, completing the dark stone tower in 1843. A heavy monument for a heavy history.