Keyser Creek
Taylor, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
At this point was established the first white settlement in Lackawanna County. In 1769, Timothy Keys, Solomon Hocksey, Andrew Hickman built homes here. In July, 1778, Keys and others were slain by Indians. The Creek is named for Keys.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1769, three families led by Timothy Keys, Solomon Hocksey, and Andrew Hickman built the first European homes in what became Lackawanna County, settling along the creek that now bears Keys's name. The frontier peace did not hold: in July 1778, amid the violence of the Revolutionary borderlands, Keys and others were killed in an Indian raid. Their brief settlement marks the earliest European foothold in the valley.
Why it matters
Keyser Creek captures both the reach of frontier settlement and the deadly conflicts between settlers and Native peoples that shaped the Revolutionary-era backcountry.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Timothy Keys
- · Solomon Hocksey
- · Andrew Hickman
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Connecticut Settlement
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1762 settlers from Connecticut planted their first community here on the Susquehanna Purchase, a tract the colony claimed under its sea-to-sea charter deep in what Pennsylvania considered its own territory. The fragile settlement was destroyed in an Indian attack on October 15, 1763, and the valley lay unsettled by the newcomers until they returned in 1769. The episode opened one of colonial America's most contested land struggles in the Wyoming Valley.
George Catlin
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1796 the boy who would become America's great chronicler of Native peoples was born in this corner of the Wyoming Valley, of Connecticut stock. George Catlin trained and practiced law here before abandoning the bar around 1823 for the paintbrush, and within a few years he set out to record the faces and lives of Indian nations across the young republic. His hundreds of portraits and scenes remain among the fullest visual records of Native America before it was transformed.
Monroe County
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1983
Monroe County was formed in 1836 from Northampton and Pike counties and named for President James Monroe. The land had earlier been a frontier battleground, marked by Indian raids between 1755 and 1782 and crossed by part of General Sullivan's 1779 march against the Iroquois. In later generations its Pocono Mountains blossomed into one of the Northeast's most famous resort regions.
Cushetunk
Damascus Township, PA · est. 1947
In 1755, settlers from Connecticut led by Moses Thomas and Daniel Skinner planted the first colony on the upper Delaware, on lands the Native peoples called Cushetunk. Their arrival reflected Connecticut's sweeping and contested claims to lands stretching west across Pennsylvania. During the Revolution the little settlement was overrun — seized in 1778 by a force of Indians and Loyalist Tories — a casualty of the brutal frontier warfare that swept the Delaware and Susquehanna valleys.