"Prevent[ing] . . . restless Spirits from exciting Disturbances": Benjamin Franklin and the Wyoming Valley

The controversy over the lands in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania has been the stuff of legend (in stories of the Battle of Wyoming) and the historical record. Scholars in recent years have presented the history of the region as a contest between empires, between monied classes and common people seeking to eke out a living in a border region, and between individuals unsure of the political implications of democratic institutions. Left out of the narratives of the 1780s Wyoming controversy is a key figure who assisted in resolving the dispute: Benjamin Franklin. Biographers of Franklin have omitted discussion of his important intervention in the Wyoming events. Yet Franklin had a significant role to play as the controversy reached its resolution in the formation of the county of Luzerne.