The Bloody Rock
Wyoming, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On the night of July 3, 1778, after the Battle of Wyoming, fourteen or more captive American soldiers were murdered here by a maul wielded by a revengeful Indian woman, traditionally but not certainly identified as "Queen Esther."
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On the night of July 3, 1778, the day after the Battle of Wyoming, this rock became the scene of one of the Revolution's grim atrocities. Fourteen or more captured American soldiers were killed here, according to tradition by a woman remembered as "Queen Esther," though her identity has never been certain. The battle and its aftermath spread terror through the Susquehanna frontier and hardened the war on the Pennsylvania borderlands.
Why it matters
The bloodshed at Wyoming shows how the Revolution on the frontier became a brutal war of raids and reprisals that entangled settlers and Native nations far from the main armies.
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Related people
- · Queen Esther
Related events
- · Battle of Wyoming
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Battle of Wyoming
Wyoming, PA · est. 1952
On July 3, 1778, the Revolution reached the Susquehanna frontier in one of its bloodiest backcountry episodes. A small force of about 300 patriots under Colonel Zebulon Butler marched out to meet a much larger column of British, Loyalists, and allied Iroquois led by Major John Butler. The patriots were routed, many captives were killed, and terrified survivors fled to the refuge of Forty Fort.
Sullivan's March
Exeter Township, PA · est. 1947
During the Revolution's Sullivan Expedition of 1779, General John Sullivan's Continental army moved north up the Susquehanna from Fort Wyoming at Wilkes-Barre toward Tioga. On August 1–2 the troops encamped on the lowland across the river here — the second stop on a grueling march through frontier country. The campaign was Washington's answer to raids on the frontier, aimed at the Iroquois Confederacy allied with the British.
Shawnee Fort
Plymouth, PA · est. 2003
As the Revolution began, the Continental Congress ordered a chain of frontier forts to shield settlers in the contested Wyoming Valley, and Shawnee Fort was one of them. It guarded Connecticut-backed Yankee settlers — both from British-allied raiders and from Pennsylvanians who claimed the same lands — and served as the garrison of Capt. Samuel Ransom's company, which fought under Washington. Burned after the bloody Battle of Wyoming in 1778 and rebuilt, it was finally swept away by a flood in 1784.
Sullivan's March
Tunkhannock, PA · est. 1947
In the summer of 1779, General John Sullivan led thousands of Continental soldiers up the Susquehanna Valley in a scorched-earth campaign ordered by George Washington against the Iroquois Confederacy, allies of the British. On August 3, that army made its third camp above Fort Wyoming here by the river as it pushed north toward Tioga. The march devastated Iroquois towns and croplands, breaking the power of the Six Nations on the New York–Pennsylvania frontier.