The Phillips DNA Project News

01/20/2012: Massacre of Phillips' Rangers, Saxton, Pennsylvania


The fate of Phillips' Rangers didn't change the course of the Revolutionary War or cause any political tidal waves. What it does is spotlight the fact that the European settlers and the Native Americans mistrusted and hated each other with a passion. The children and grandchildren of the settlers who lived or died in this long, violent struggle later continued the great western migration and took those attitudes with them. It's fair to say that some of the seeds of the Little Bighorn, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee were planted in the valleys of Pennsylvania a century earlier.

We now have a descendant of Capt. William Phillips, leader of the doomed Rangers, in our Phillips DNA Project and it looks like he is going to match Group 43.  Click here to read more about the massacre of the Phillips' Rangers in 1780.

Phillips DNA Blog