23 March 2015

Phineas Lyman And The Lyman Colony





After the war Lyman, a major general..."was one of the first of the Anglo Saxon race who attempted a settlement in the present limits of Mississippi."  "He visited England as the agent for an association, called the "Military Adventurers," whose design was the colonization of a tract of country upon the Mississippi." [Source]

"...Phineas Lyman (1716-1775) [was] a brave officer of provincial troops during the French and Indian war. "He concentrated between five and six thousand troops on the upper waters of the Hudson, built Fort Edward [originally Fort Lyman], and there awaited the arrival of his commander-in-chief, General William Johnson, who was to lead the provincials against the French on Lake Champlain." "In the severe battle...General Lyman bore the most conspicuous part, and yet Johnson, jealous of his merits, withheld praise."

"He [Phineas Lyman] returned [from England] in 1774, and at about that time, a tract of land having been granted, in the Mississippi and Yazoo country, he went thither, with his eldest son. Both died in "West Florida," in 1775, and the following year, his wife [Eleanor Dwight Lyman] and all her family, except her second son, went thither. She soon died; and a few years afterward, difficulties with the Spaniards caused the whole company of settlers, near Natchez, to fly for their safety across the country, a thousand miles, to Savannah." 

"The history of General Lyman's family is a melancholy one.  He died at the age of fifty-nine years, a victim of ingratitude and injustice."  [Source]



No comments: