Expectation of veto aided GOP’s legislative wins, some say

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Luzerne County Reentry Service Center helps offenders stay on right path

<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Members of the 1st. Battalion, 109th Field Artillery present the Colors during the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning at the Wyoming Monument. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon11.jpg</photo0><caption0>Members of the 1st. Battalion, 109th Field Artillery present the Colors during the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning at the Wyoming Monument. </caption0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon21.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">William Lewis III of Pittston places floral tributes around the Wyoming Monument at the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon21.jpg</photo1><caption1>William Lewis III of Pittston places floral tributes around the Wyoming Monument at the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </caption1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon31.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Members of the 24th Connecticut Militia gather in their &#8216;camp&#8217; before the start of the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon31.jpg</photo2><caption2>Members of the 24th Connecticut Militia gather in their &#8216;camp&#8217; before the start of the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </caption2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon41.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Keynote speaker Michael Lewis, Ph.D., of Williams College and a 1975 graduate of Wyoming Valley West High School, spoke on &#8216;The Witness of Bones&#8217; during the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_WyoMon41.jpg</photo3><caption3>Keynote speaker Michael Lewis, Ph.D., of Williams College and a 1975 graduate of Wyoming Valley West High School, spoke on &#8216;The Witness of Bones&#8217; during the 137th annual commemorative service of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming on Saturday morning. </caption3></div></div>
<p>WYOMING &#8212; To the history of the Wyoming Monument, Michael Lewis added his voice as he stood near the stone structure with an audience of several hundred in rapt attention.</p><p>Lewis, an architecture critic and historian, professor with a Ph.D. and a 1975 graduate of Wyoming Valley West High School, returned home from Williams College to deliver the address at the 237th anniversary of the Battle and Massacre of Wyoming that&#8217;s been commemorated for 137 consecutive years.</p><p>The location of the monument was accidental, two miles south of the battlefield, he said. But its design was stark and dignified in memory of the lives lost on July 3, 1778, as colonists fought for their independence from tyranny in the birth of a nation.</p><p>Native Americans joined the British troops headed by Col. John Butler in the battle against the patriot soldiers and militia made up of Connecticut settlers living in the Wyoming Valley. A surrender was signed at the Forty Fort stockade on July 4, the day after the fight and the settlers were allowed to return to Connecticut. But the bodies, most of them scalped, were left in place for four months and scattered over a two-mile area between the monument and the battlefield.</p><p>The history of the massacre is filled with inaccuracies and exaggerations, untruths and unanswered questions. There are 178 names inscribed on the monument. To this day it&#8217;s unknown how many patriots died, Lewis said.</p><p>&#8220;Is there nothing in this story that is fixed and definitive? Well this monument is here and the bones below it are there . So let&#8217;s look at how they came to be here,&#8221; he said to the crowd seated on wooden chairs under a huge tent as a steady rain drummed upon the roof.</p><p>A burial detail led by Capt. John Jenkins left Fort Wilkes-Barre and crossed the Susquehanna River to the east of the monument site, Lewis said. On high ground a mass grave was dug for the bodies that were returned to the site in wagons.</p><p>&#8220;Had they crossed the river upriver this monument would have been there at the battlefield site,&#8221; Lewis said. &#8220;So it&#8217;s plainly a coincidence that it&#8217;s here. But this is where it should be. Because this tells us about that horrific day where these two miles were charged with blood, duty and sacrifice.&#8221;</p><p>From an architectural perspective, monuments by design should say one thing, he added. But the combination of two different shapes, a cube of gray granite at the base and a 40-foot obelisk above it, works, Lewis said.</p><p>&#8220;And that is why this monument is exactly right in the shape, in the mournful dignity of that shape, a tomb for the bones, a proud spire saying. &#8216;Here is what happened. Here is where it happened,&#8217;&#8221; he said as if lecturing one of his classes.</p><p>&#8220;The shape and its location combine to make it the most inexpressively eloquent thing. So it&#8217;s not the site of Forty Fort where the surrender was signed. It&#8217;s not the site of the battlefield that is two miles north. But this is the place where the bones were found, and this we remember today.&#8221;</p><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott</shirttailMeta></div>

Art historian with local roots adds to the history of the Wyoming Monument