Author and artist Kathleen Earle Fox’s new book, “An Early History of the Wyoming Valley: The Yankee-Pennamite Wars & Timothy Pickering” published by Arcadia Publishing, will be available April 18.

When Connecticut Yankees began to settle the Wyoming Valley in the 1760s, both the local Pennsylvanians and the powerful native Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) strenuously objected. The Connecticut Colony and William Penn had been granted the same land by King Charles II of England, resulting in the instigation of the Yankee-Pennamite Wars. In 1788, during ongoing conflict, a band of young Yankee ruffians abducted Pennsylvania official Timothy Pickering, holding him hostage for 19 days. Some kidnappers were prosecuted, and several fled to New York’s Finger Lakes as the political incident motivated state leaders to resolve the fighting. Bloody skirmishes, the American Revolution and the Sullivan campaign to destroy the Iroquois all formed the backdrop to the territorial dispute. 

Kathleen Earle Fox lives in St. George, Maine with her husband, Stan Fox. She is a native New Yorker whose ancestral roots go back to Pennsylvania. She is an author, artist, former professor and former director of research at the National Indian Child Welfare Association in Portland, Oregon. She attended Cornell University and the Rockefeller College of the State University of New York–Albany, where she received a Ph.D in 1996. She has written and illustrated several award-winning children’s books and many peer-reviewed articles in the areas of mental health and child abuse. For several years, she taught at the University College Center in Rockland.

The author will be at the Jackson Memorial Library in Tenants Harbor April 29 at 5 p.m. Discussion on how finding your roots is not always what you expected.

For more about Fox, visit http://www.kathleenafox.com.