The Quaker Scout

# The Quaker Scout: The Fugitives of Wyoming

This 1865 dime novel by Edward S. Ellis dramatizes the Battle of Wyoming (July 1778). The narrative opens with Gershom Smithson, a settler, fleeing on a captured Indian pony after colonial forces are routed by Butler's Rangers and their Indigenous allies. Smithson encounters panicked refugees—mothers, widows, children—streaming from the valley. He kills a pursuing Delaware warrior to save a wounded soldier, then returns home to his wife Jerusha, a sharp-tongued woman who criticizes his military performance. Despite her mockery, Smithson remains determined to assist other settlers. Jerusha rides toward Stroudsburg with their child while Smithson prepares to help the neighboring Abingdon family. The narrative emphasizes the chaos and terror of the massacre through eyewitness accounts of battle, burning buildings, and desperate flight. The text is incomplete; the final exchange with Jerusha breaks off mid-sentence.