ANNALS OF THE DEAR UNKNOWN - PART FOUR, CHPTER TWO

Wil's Word

Wilmot Munson loved Wyoming Valley.
But one more war with Pennymites, two floods,
and twenty years of drawn-out legal wrangling
went by before the courts would recognize
the early settlers’ private right of soil
and compensate for losses they’d sustained.
Westmoreland, once a town, was history.
And as the eighteenth century neared its end,
Wilmot bought a farm and apple orchard
near Toby Creek in Trucksville, Luzerne County.

Wil learned, to his dismay, about the flood
of ’84, and how the Susquehanna,
swollen by unseasonable rain
and choked with massive floes of melting ice,
had swept away all houses, livestock, fences,
hay and grain, and even burial grounds—
including Rachel’s—lying along its banks.
He felt as if he’d let his mother down;
yet one more promise he had made to Diah
and to himself remained to keep: Benoni. 

He spent the winters visiting the farms
of all the elder settlers in the townships
for clues, however insignificant,
but came up empty-handed. Everyone
for miles around knew Wil was on a quest—
a wild-goose chase, to some. The word got out.
It traveled over roads and forest trails;
it rode on merchants’ arks and timber rafts
downstream and back again. But it was Wil
who found Benoni, quite by accident. 

 

COMING SOON - PART FOUR, CHAPTER THREE