John Jacob Wetherhold was commissioned lieutenant in Major Parson's town guard on Dec. 21, 1755. and in April, 1756, was stationed at Dietz Blockhouse. On Sept. 21, 1756, he was commissioned captain, and on Sept. 2, 1757, was paid £88 6s. 6d. for enlisting fifty-three men in the provincial service. He was a man of undaunted courage and believed that he was invulnerable to bullets. He remained in the provincial service and on Oct. 7, 1763 left Bethlehem with Lieut. Jonathan Dodge, Sergeant Laurence McGuire, and a small party of soldiers on the way to Fort Allen. The party stopped for the night at the tavern of John Stenton, about a mile north of Howertown, in the Irish settlement. Early next morning. October 8th, Captain Wetherhold ordered one of the men to get his horse ready and as he opened the door he was shot and instantly killed by a party of Indians who had surrounded the tavern. Captain Wetherhold then went to the door and was mortally wounded. The sergeant then attempted to pull in the captain and shut the door, but was dangerously wounded. The lieutenant succeeded in closing the door, but meanwhile other Indians shot Stenton, the landlord, through a window, who ran a mile and then dropped dead. Captain Wetherhold crawled to a window and shot an Indian dead, who was about to set fire to the house. The other Indians then took their comrade's body and left, going toward the Lehigh. On the way they killed several persons and crossing the river into Whitehall township, killed and wounded fifteen or twenty persons, a full account of which is given in the chapter on the massacre of 1763. A few hours later the news reached Bethlehem and a small armed force was sent to bring the wounded men for surgical treatment. Captain Wetherhold died the next day, Oct. 9, 1763, at the Crown Inn and was buried on the tenth in the graveyard that was located near Second and Ottawa streets. South Bethlehem. Captain Wetherhold resided in Lynn township, where his widow. Susanna, and his three children. Jacob. Susanna and Catharine, resided in 1764, on tract of 150 acres, which he owned. In 1766 his widow married Michael Kent