Lazarus Stewart Captain Lazarus Stewart ( July 4 , 1734 – July 3 , 1778 ) was an 18th - century Pennsylvanian frontiersman and leader of the Paxton Boys . He achieved notoriety by leading the massacre of the Susquehannock s in 1763 , and was a prominent military commander — on the Yankee ( i . e . Connecticut ) side — in the Pennamite Wars . He met his death in battle with the Loyalist s and Iroquois at the Wyoming Massacre , in an attack precipitated by his own rashness . Early life . Stewart was born in East Hanover Township , Dauphin County , Pennsylvania . He was well - educated for the time and place , and was raised as a farmer . Pontiac ' s War and massacre . During the summer of 1763 , Indian raids fell heavily upon the western settlements of Pennsylvania . " Carlisle was become the barrier not a single Individual beyond it . " In the crisis , the response of the State government was singularly dilatory . There had long been friction between the Presbyterian settlers of the frontier and the Quaker - dominated government , and the damage done by the Indians rankled . Colonel Rev . John Elder raised two companies of militia , known as the Paxton Boys , in Paxton Township , captained by Stewart and Asher Clayton . Several enclaves of Indians existed to the east of the frontier , among the Moravians near Bethlehem and elsewhere . The nearest of these were the Susquehannock tribe at Conestoga Town . To the north , such anger was directed by the settlers against the Moravian Indians , for their suspected part in abetting Indian raids , that the Moravians were sent to be kept in protective custody in Philadelphia . In Lancaster County , feelings were very much aroused against the Susquehannocks , the more so after the Moravians were protected by the Commonwealth — whose authority the frontiersmen doubtless felt should be exerted for their protection against Indians and not " vice versa " . Col . Elder wrote to the government in September 1763 , urging for the Susquehannocks to be removed to Philadelphia as well , but the proposal was declined . In December 1763 , Matthew Smith , one of the Paxton Boys , took a small scouting party to Conestoga Town to investigate reports of a hostile Indian being sheltered there . The party returned with tales of dozens of strange Indians occupying the town , and began to assemble a more substantial force . Col . Elder heard of the expedition , and sent a written message dissuading it , to no effect . On the morning of December 14 , 1763 , just before dawn , fifty armed and mounted Paxton Boys descended upon Conestoga Town , killed the six Indians they found there , and burned the town . While the Susquehannocks were probably in communication with hostile Indians on the frontier , the results of the Rangers ' attack are hardly consonant with their supposed justification of harboring numerous hostile Indians . Fourteen of the Susquehannocks had been elsewhere when the massacre occurred , and were removed to the workhouse in Lancaster for protection . Lazarus Stewart and Smith , asserting that one of those fourteen was known as a murderer , assembled the Paxton Boys again . Ignoring Col . Elder , who now remonstrated with them in person , they descended upon Lancaster on December 27 , 1763 and broke into the workhouse . Matthew Smith later claimed that the intent of the raid had been to carry off the single murderous Indian , but the Paxton Boys , in short order , butchered the fourteen unfortunate Susquehannocks . These incidents became known as the Conestoga Massacre . The shocked government ordered the arrest of those who took part in the massacre , but to no avail . Even those who had opposed the massacres , such as Col . Elder ( who was removed from his command and replaced by Maj . Asher Clayton ) , did not volunteer the names of the ringleaders to the government . The Paxton Boys capped their efforts with a march to Philadelphia ( whence the remaining Indians in the state had been removed ) in January 1764 . While they obtained few concrete concessions , neither Stewart nor any of the other participants in the massacre were prosecuted for their deeds . Yankee - Pennamite War . Stewart had no love for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , and in January 1770 , he led thirty - nine militiamen from Lancaster County to the Wyoming Valley . At the time , settlers from Connecticut were contesting the possession of the area with the Pennsylvanians , in a struggle that became the first of the Pennamite Wars . Captain Zebulon Butler was able to recruit Stewart and his men for the Connecticut , or Yankee , side , encouraging them with the promise of land in Hanover Township . Stewart ' s band , reinforced by ten Yankees , recaptured Fort Durkee from the Pennamites on February 12 , 1770 . One of his soldiers , Baltzer Stage or Stagard , was the first man to be killed in the conflict , when the Pennamites under Captain Ogden unsuccessfully attempted to retake the fort in March . On September 24 , 1770 , a surprise assault by the Pennamites retook Fort Durkee , but Stewart escaped and fled southward . He was arrested two weeks later in York , Pennsylvania , but escaped at night . He returned to Lancaster County and assembled twenty - five of the Paxton Boys , who retook Fort Durkee by ambush on December 18 , 1770 . On January 21 , 1771 , a Pennamite force led by Ogden returned to construct Fort Wyoming and besiege Fort Durkee , but their demand that Fort Durkee be surrendered was met with gunfire . There was one casualty , Ogden ' s brother Nathaniel . Fearing arrest for murder , and outnumbered by the Pennamites , Stewart and his troops slipped away in the night and fled to Connecticut . The victorious Pennamites destroyed Fort Durkee and took possession of the area . In July 1771 , one hundred men under Captains Butler and Stewart returned to the Wyoming Valley to lay siege to Fort Wyoming . Captain Ogden slipped through the lines at night to raise a relief column in Philadelphia . The relief force was ambushed by the Yankees and lost their baggage and supplies . After a month - long siege , Fort Wyoming capitulated on August 15 , 1771 , and there would be peace in the Wyoming Valley for the next four years , in which Stewart and his militiamen could enjoy the cultivation of the lands granted them for their military services . He and his wife , Martha Espy raised a family of seven children here . The war resumed in August 1775 , when a strong Pennsylvania force of seven hundred men under Colonel William Plunkett was dispatched to the area . They defeated the outnumbered Yankees in September , and drove out the settlers on the west bank of the Susquehanna River . Connecticut was able to raise four hundred men , under Zebulon Butler ( now a colonel ) , and the confrontation took place at Christmas in conditions of heavy snow . Captain Stewart , with twenty men , ambushed the Pennsylvania column at Rampart Rocks on December 24 , 1775 and caused them to flee back to their camp . The next day , he and his company attacked the Pennamites as they attempted to cross the river into Wilkes - Barre under cover of darkness , and broke up their attack . After an unsuccessful attack by the Pennamites on the Yankee positions at Rampart Rocks , Plunkett ' s column withdrew . By now , the attention of both parties was fixed upon a greater theater of war , the American Revolution . Revolutionary War . In July 1778 , a strong force of Loyalist troops and Iroquois under Colonel John Butler approached the Wyoming Valley . Colonel Zebulon Butler , home on leave from the Continental Army at the time , was chosen to lead the militia which assembled at Forty Fort . Colonel Butler favored delay , as reinforcements might be expected from Philadelphia and other local forts . However , Captain Stewart ( who commanded the company of men from Hanover Township ) and others argued that they should immediately attack and drive off the enemy before they could be besieged in Forty Fort . Their counsel carried the day , and the militia marched out on July 3 , 1778 . They encountered the Loyalist and Indian forces a few miles away . Getting into bad order as they attacked the Loyalists , an onset by the Iroquois panicked the militia as they attempted to dress their lines , and utterly routed them . Captain Stewart and his cousin , Lieutenant Lazarus Stewart , Jr . were both killed in the fight . The troops wounded and taken prisoner were tortured and killed in what became known as the Wyoming Valley massacre . After hearing of the defeat , Stewart ' s wife and children fled down the Susquehanna , and remained in Lancaster County until the close of the war .