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Powder horn of African-American killed in 1778 battle on display at Wyoming site.

Stored-up history

BILL O ’ BOYLE boboyle@timesleader.com

The inscription on Gershom Prince’s powder horn tells a lot.

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Dennis

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Tony Brooks, executive director of the Luzerne County Historical Society, holds a powder horn belonging to Gershom Prince, who fought and died at the Battle of Wyoming in 1778.

S. JOHN WILKIN/THE TIMES LEADER

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Battle of Wyoming ceremony

When: Saturday, 10 a.m.

Where: On the grounds of the Wyoming Monument, Wyoming Avenue, Wyoming, near the Midway Shopping Center.

Speaker: Denise Dennis, descendant of Gershom Prince, likely the only African-American killed in the Battle of Wyoming in 1778.

The powder horn: Will be on display at the Swetland Homestead on Wyoming Avenue near where the ceremony will take place.

The Swetland Homestead will be open following the ceremony until 1:30 p.m. Admission is free; donations are welcome.

The Wyoming Monument: On the Centennial of the Battle of Wyoming, a monument was erected on the site of the battlefield for those who lost their lives and are buried there. The inscription on the front of the monument reads:

“Near this spot was fought, on the afternoon of Friday, the third day of July 1778, The Battle of Wyoming, in which a small body of patriotic Americans, chiefly the undisciplined, the youthful and the aged … led by Col. Zebulon Butler and Col. Nathan Denison, with a courage that deserved success, boldly met and bravely fought a combined British, Tory and Indian force of thrice their number. Numerical superiority alone gave success to the invader, and widespread havoc, desolation and ruin, marked his savage and bloody footsteps through the Valley.”

The inscription on the right and left side of the monument begins, “Dulce and Decorum est Patri Mori,” and lists the names of the slain by rank. The last name listed under the rank “Privates” is “Gershom Prince, colored.”

The powder horn – one of the few historical items remaining from the 1778 Battle of Wyoming – is kept at the Luzerne County Historical Society on South Franklin Street in Wilkes-Barre, but Saturday it will be on display at the Swetland Homestead following the annual memorial service at the Wyoming Monument. The program begins at 10 a.m.

Denise Dennis, a descendant of Gershom Prince, will be the featured speaker – returning home to the area where she grew up to tell the story of her ancestor, likely the only African-American killed in the bloody massacre of July 3, 1778.

The powder horn is a magnificent historic artifact – a cow’s horn that served to store gun powder for Prince as he went to battle. Tony Brooks, executive director of the historical society, and Frank Conyngham, board member, aren’t sure who did the carvings on the horn that include buildings and words. Prince’s first name is misspelled, possibly an indication that Prince had someone do the carvings for him.

The inscription reads: “Prince Negro his horn, Garshom Prince, his horn at Crown Point (Crown Point is in New York, a site of the French and Indian War); Sept.Ye 3rd day of 1761; Steal not this horn.”

Brooks said the horn was found next to Prince’s body in the aftermath of the battle, by Fisher Gay, who owned a large farm near the area of battle. The horn later became the possession of Denise’s great-aunt, Edith A. Dennis.

Denise Dennis said Prince left behind a treasure – his powder horn - that was removed from his lifeless body after the battle and preserved. When he served in the French and Indian War, Prince carved his name on the powder horn he wore around his neck. Prince was 45 when he was killed.

“My great-aunt told me about the powder horn and that, years before, she’d given it to the local historical society,” Denise Dennis said.

Dennis said she first saw the powder horn in April 1996.

“I put white gloves on and held the powder horn in my hands,” she said. “Although I’d known that he’d carved his name on it, I was deeply moved to see that he had also carved exquisite artwork, beautifully detailed images of trees, forts and scenes from everyday life on the white bone of the horn. I’d never doubted what my father and aunt told me about our family relative, but it was thrilling to hold the concrete evidence in my hands.”

Dennis represents the seventh generation of her family and she will only reveal that she is “in her 50s.” She grew up in Wilkes-Barre, attended Lafayette Elementary School and graduated from Meyers High School. She now lives in Philadelphia and spends a lot of time in Paris.

“Gershom Prince was the uncle of my great-great-great-great-grandfather Prince Perkins,” Dennis said.

Today, in addition to being an author and journalist, Dennis heads the Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust, a historic and conservation trust founded in 2001 to preserve the 153-acre farm in Susquehanna County where her ancestors – documented, free African-Americans who came to Pennsylvania from Connecticut in 1793 – settled. The property, including the family cemetery where Gershom Prince is buried, has been nominated and declared eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Dennis readily admits it wasn’t always easy being a “bright African-American girl” in Wilkes-Barre.

“Anyone who was in my history or world culture classes at Meyers knows I was outspoken about race and the social barriers it imposed on me,” she said. “Knowing that my family had been here for many generations gave me the courage and confidence to speak. I knew I belonged here.”

According to the historical records on the Battle of Wyoming:

“On July 3, 1778, 360 Americans under command of Colonel Zebulon Butler faced an attack by a combined 900 enemy combatants that included 400 British and Loyalists and 500 Iroquois warriors, all under command of British Colonel John Butler. More than 227 Americans were horrifically killed, compared to only one killed and two wounded on the British side. Two-hundred Wyoming Valley Americans were scalped, others were thrown on beds of coal, and others burned alive when the fort was set ablaze.

Gershom Prince, Robert Durkee and Samuel Ransom, who had traveled from Valley Forge to defend their homes, were among those killed.”

Dennis said when she was growing up, African-Americans were less than 1 percent of the population of Wyoming Valley and the surrounding counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“Often, people have asked me how our family came to live there,” she said. “My reply was, and is, that we were there before Wilkes-Barre (founded in 1805) was even a town. So, in spite of being in a minority position numerically, I grew up with an unshakable sense of belonging, so much so that I took it for granted. I didn’t feel like a ‘minority’ at all.”

Bill O’Boyle, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7218.

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