Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...Godcharles, Frederic Antes
History
Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...
Godcharles, Frederic Antes
Pennsylvania -- Biography; Pennsylvania -- History
Lewis, never having taken life, snapped his pistol in the air, but the
fire was returned in earnest, Lewis being shot in the right arm and
Connelly in the hip. The latter was found hiding in a tree top. Lewis
and Connelly were loaded in canoes and taken down the river to Great
Island, now Lock Haven, where three physicians attended them. Connelly
died that night. Lewis was removed, as soon as his wounds would permit
to Bellefonte jail, where he died a month later, July 13, 1820.
Thus a sad commentary in the life of Lewis, the Robber, that the only
jail from which he failed to escape was the Bellefonte bastile, and
while there his wounds were of such a nature he could not plan nor did
he desire to escape, but he often told his jailer he could easily get
away any hour he pleased.
----------
Bethlehem Hospital Base During Revolution,
Moved March 27, 1777
Bethlehem was the seat of a general hospital twice during the Revolution
and during the six years from 1775 to 1781, it was a thoroughfare for
Continental troops. Heavy baggage and munitions of war and General
Washington’s private baggage were stored in the town and guarded by 200
Continentals under command of Colonel William Polk, of North Carolina,
while many houses were occupied by American troops and British prisoners
of war. The Continental Congress found refuge there when on its flight
from Philadelphia.
The inhabitants of Bethlehem, therefore, witnessed not only the horrors
and experienced the discomforts of war, but also its “pomp and
circumstance,” for at times there were sojourning among them Generals
Washington, Lafayette, Greene, Knox, Sterling, Schuyler, Gates,
Sullivan, De Kalb, Steuben, Pulaski and Arnold, with members of their
staffs, and General Charles Lee’s division of the army in command of
General Sullivan was encamped opposite the town.
The population of Bethlehem in those stirring days was about 500 souls,
principally Moravians. The “Church Store,” on Market Street, was well
stocked and spacious; in its cellars were stored supplies for the
hospital and in the dwelling part sick and wounded soldiers found
desirable quarters.
The dwelling of Thomas Horsfield was nearby. He was a hero of the French
and Indian War, a colonel of the Provincial forces and a magistrate.
Many refugees from Philadelphia and New York were provided a temporary
home by the old veteran. Beyond, to the west, resided William Boehler,
where Captain Thomas Webb, the founder of Methodism in America, and a
British prisoner of war with his family of seven persons, were
comfortably accommodated.
On what is now Main Street, and north of the “Brethren House,” stood the
“Family House,” for married people, in which were confined more than 200
British prisoners, whose guard of 100 Continentals were quartered in the
water works building. When they marched for Reading and Lancaster, the
surgeons of the hospital occupied the building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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