Lazarus Stewart

Captain Lazarus Stewart (4 July 1734 – July 3, 1778) was an American frontiersman and militia officer. He was a leader of the Paxton Boys, a group of Scots-Irish settlers who massacred a number of Susquehannock in 1763, and a prominent commander on the Connecticut side in the Pennamite–Yankee War. Stewart died during the Revolutionary War in battle with Loyalists and Haudenosaunee at the Battle of Wyoming.

Early life Stewart was born on 4 July 1734, in Hanover Township, Lancaster (now Dauphin) County, Pennsylvania, and was of Scots-Irish descent. His parents, James Stewart and Martha Stewart, were cousins who married around 1731. In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Stewart raised and commanded a party of volunteers for the Braddock Expedition. His company was later assigned to guard settlements on the Juniata River.

Pontiac's War and Conestoga Massacre 1841 lithograph of the Paxton Boys' massacre of the Susquehannock at Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1763. In the summer of 1763, during Pontiac's War, frontier settlements of Pennsylvania were frequently attacked by the Lenape and Shawnee. The Pennsylvania Gazette claimed, "Carlisle was become the barrier not a single individual beyond it."

In the crisis, the response of the Commonwealth government was sluggish. There had long been friction between the Presbyterian settlers of the frontier and the Quaker dominated government, and the damage done by the raids caused further resentment. In Lancaster County, John Elder, a Presbyterian minister, raised two companies of associators, known as the Paxton Boys, mainly from Paxton and neighboring townships, captained by Stewart and Asher Clayton.

Stewart was arrested in September 1770 in Lancaster County but quickly escaped custody. Governor John Penn offered a reward of £50, and Stewart was recaptured in October. Once again he was able to escape, still in handcuffs and without his shoes.

After learning of the defeat, Stewart's wife and children fled down the Susquehanna River to their former home, and remained in Lancaster County until the close of the war.