Wyoming Valley is a region of northeastern Pennsylvania. As a metropolitan area, it is also known as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, after its principal cities, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
The valley is a crescent-shaped depression, a part of the ridge-and-valley or folded Appalachians. The Susquehanna River occupies the southern part of the valley, which is notable for its deposits of anthracite which have been extensively mined. Deep mining has declined, however, following the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster when the roof of the Knox Coal Company's mine under the river collapsed. The river filled the corridors of the mine, killing 12 of the men in the mine.
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The Scranton–Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area covers Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wyoming counties.[1] It had a combined population of 563,936 in 2011, according to TrueKnowledge.com. The area also has the highest percentage of non-Hispanic whites of any U.S. metropolitan area with a population over 500,000, with 96.2% of the population stating their race as white alone and not claiming Hispanic ethnicity.[2]
The name Wyoming derives from the Munsee name xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat."[3]
According to the Jesuit Relation of 1635, the Wyoming Valley was inhabited by the Scahentoarrhonon people; it was then known as the Scahentowanen Valley. By 1744 it was inhabited by Lenape, Mahican, Shawnee and others.
Pennsylvania's and Connecticut's conflicting claims to the territory — King Charles II of England had granted the land to Connecticut in 1662, and also to William Penn in 1681 — led to military skirmishes known as the Pennamite Wars. After Yankee settlers from Connecticut founded the town of Wilkes-Barre in 1769, armed bands of Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) tried without success to expel them in 1769-70, and again in 1775.
The area saw the American Revolution Battle of Wyoming on July 3, 1778, in which more than three hundred Revolutionaries died at the hands of Loyalist and their Iroquois allies. The incident was famously depicted by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell in his 1809 poem Gertrude of Wyoming. At the time, it was widely believed that the attack was led by Joseph Brant; in the poem, Brant is described as the "Monster Brant" because of the atrocities committed, although it was later determined that Brant had not actually been present. The popularity of the poem may have led to the state of Wyoming being named after the valley.
The following printed resources are in the collection of the Connecticut State Library (CSL)
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