History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 3

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170

USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3
USA > New Jersey > Hunterdon County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3

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by the English. The language spoken by both these people was the Algonquin, but differed materially in dialect. The nation to which the whites gave the name of Delawares was known in the Indian tongue as the Lenni Lenapè, or simply the Lenape; the Iroquois were in the same tongue called the Mengwe, which name became corrupted by the more ignorant white men into Mingoes, which last term was adopted to some extent by the Delawares in its contemptuous application to their Mengwe neighbors, between whom and themselves feelings of detestation and hatred existed to no small degree.

The Mengwe or Iroquois inhabited the territory ex- tending from the shores of Lake Erie to those of Champlain and the Hudson River, and from the head- waters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Allegany Rivers northward to Lake Ontario, and they even oe- cupied a large scope of country north of the St. Law- rence, thus holding not only the whole of the State of New York, but a part of Canada, which vast territory they figuratively styled their "long council-house," within which the place of kindling the grand council- fire was Onondaga, not far from the present city of Syra- cuse, and at that place, upon occasion, representatives of all the Mengwe tribes met together in solemn de- liberative council. These tribes consisted of the Mo- hawks, Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Oneidas, who collectively formed an offensive and defensive confederation, which has usually been known in Eng- lish annals as that of the Five Nations.#

The Mohawks occupied the country nearest the Hudson River, and held the post of honor as the guardians of the eastern entrance of the "long house." The Senecas, who were the most numerous, energetie, and warlike of the five tribes, defended the western portal of the "house," while the Cayugas were the guardians of the southern border of the Iroquois domain,-the frontier of the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys. The Oneida tribe was located along the shores of Lake Ontario, and the Onondagas, occupying a large territory in the central portion of the present State of New York, kept watch and ward over the council-place and fire of the banded Mengwe.

The league of the Iroquois nations had been formed -at a date which no Indian chronology could satis- factorily establish-for the purpose of mutual defense against the Lenape and other tribes contiguous to them; and by means of this confederation, which they kept up in good faith and in perfect mutual ac- cord, they were not only enabled successfully to repel all encroachments upon their own territory, but after a time to invade that of other nations, and to carry the terror of their arms southward to the Cape Fear

$ At a later period-soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century-the Tuscaroras, having been almost entirely subjugated and driven away from their hunting-grounds in the Carolinns, migrated northward and were received juto the Iroquois confederacy, which from that time became known as the Six Nations.

it Is doubted that his authority was ever established over the few la- habitants that thon dwelt within the limits of his domain, excepting those who may have come over with him. There was, however, some emigratlon to " New Albion" as Into as 1650,- Whitehead's Enst Jersey under the Proprietary Governments, pp. 8, 9. [The grant here referred to is given at length in " Hazard's Collection of State Papers," vol. 1. p. 160.] * Illet. Coll. Now Jor., 1844, p. 11.

+ Barber's list. Coll. of N. J.

HUNTERDON AND SOMERSET COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

and Tennessee Rivers, westward beyond Lake Michi- gan, and eastward to the shores of the Connecticut.

The Delawares-the Indian people with which this history has principally to deal-occupied a domain extending along the sea-shore from the Chesapeake to the country bordering Long Island Sound. Back from the coast it reached beyond the Susquehanna valley to the foot of the Allegheny Mountains, and on the north it joined the southern frontier of their domi- neering neighbors, the hated and dreaded Mengwe or Iroquois. This domain, of course, included not only the counties of Somerset and Hunterdon, but all of the State of New Jersey.

The principal tribes composing the Lenni Lenapè or Delaware nation were those of the Unamis or Turtle, the Unalachtgo or Turkey, and the Minsi or Wolf. The latter, which was by far the most powerful and warlike of all these tribes, occupied the most northerly portion of the country of the Lenape and kept guard along the Iroquois border, from whence their domain extended southward to the Musconetcong* Mountains, about the northern boundary of the present county of Hunterdon. The Unamis and Unalachtgo branches of the Lenape or Delaware nation (comprising the tribes of Assanpinks, Matas, Shackamaxons, Chiche- quaas, Raritans, Nanticokes, Tuteloes, and many others) inhabited the conntry between that of the Minsi and the sea-coast, embracing the present coun- ties of Hunterdon and Somerset and all that part of the State of New Jersey south of their northern boundaries. The tribes who occupied and roamed over these counties, then, were those of the Turtle and Turkey branches of the Lenni Lenape nations, but the possessions and boundaries of each cannot be clearly defined.

The Indian name of the Delaware nation, Lenni Lenapè, signifies, in their tongue, "the original peo- ple,"-a title which they had adopted under the claim that they were descended from the most ancient of all Indian ancestry. This claim was admitted by the Wyandots, Miamis, and more than twenty other aboriginal nations, who accorded to the Lenape the title of grandfathers, or a people whose ancestry ante- dated their own. The Rev. John Heckewelder, in his

* " The Wolf, commonly called the Minsi, which we have corrupted into Monseys, had chosen to live back of the other two tribes, and formed a kind of bulwark for their protection, watching the motions of the Meng- we and being at hand to afford aid in case of a rupture with them. The Minsi were considered the most warlike and netive branch of the Lenape. They extended their settlements from the Minisink, a place named after then, where they had their council-seat and fire, quite up to the Hudson on the cast, and to the west and south far beyond the Susquehanna. Their northern boundaries were supposed originally to be the heads of the great rivers Susquehanna and Delaware, and their southern that ridge of hills known in New Jersey by the name of Muskanecum, and in Pennsylvania hy those of Lehigh. Conewngo, etc. Within this boundary were their principal settlements; and even ne late as the yeur 1742 they hud a town with a peach-orchard on the tract of land where Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, has since been built, unother on the Lehigh, and others beyond the Blue Ridge, besides many family settlements here and there scattered."-History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Na- tions who once inhabited Pennsylvania," by Hev, John Heckewelder.

"History of the Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations," says of the Delaware nation,-

"They will not admit that the whites are superior beings. They say that the hair of their heads, their features, and the various colors of their eyes evince that they are not, like themselves, Lenni Lenupr,-an original people,-a race of men that has existed nnchanged from the be- ginning of time ; but that they are a mixed race, and therefore a trouble- some one. Wherever they may be, the Great Spirit, knowing the wick- edness of their disposition, found it necessary to give them a Great Book, and tanght them how to read it that they might know and ob- eerve what He wished them to do and what to abstain from. But they- the Indians-have no need of any such book to let them know the will of their Maker : they find it engraved on their own hearts; they have had sufficient discernment given to them to distinguish good from evil, and by following that guide they are sure not to err."

Concerning the origin of the Lenape, numerous and essentially differing traditions were current among the various tribes. One of these traditions is men- tioned by Loskiel in his "History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the North American In- dians," as follows :

" Among the Delawares, those of the Minsi or Wolf tribe say that in the beginning they dwelt in the earth under a lake, and were fortu- nately extricated from this unpleasant abode by the diecovery which one of their men made of a hole, through which he ascended to the surface ; on which, as he was walking, he found a deer, which he carried back with him into his subterraneous habitation ; that the deer was eaten, and he and his companions found the meat so good that they unani- monsly determined to leave their dark abode and remove to a place where they could enjoy the light of heaven and have euch excellent game in abundance.

"The two other tribes, the Unamis or Tortoise, and the Unalachtgos or Turkey,t have much similar notions, but reject the story of the lake, which seems peculiar to the Minsi tribe."

There was another leading tradition current among the nations of the Lenape, which was to the effect that, ages before, their ancestors had lived in a far-off country to the west, beyond great rivers and moun- tains, and that, in the belief that there existed, away towards the rising sun, a red man's paradise,-a land of deer and beaver and salmon,-they had left their western home and traveled eastward for many moons, until they stood on the western shore of the Namisi Sipu (Mississippi), and there they met a numerous nation, migrating like themselves. They were a stran- ger tribe, of whose very existence the Lenape had been ignorant. They were none other than the Meng- we; and this was the first meeting of those two peo- ples, who afterwards became rivals and enemies, and continued such for centuries. Both were now trav- elers and bound on the same errand, But they found a lion in their path, for beyond the great river lay the domain of a nation called Allegewi, who were not only strong in numbers and brave, but more skilled than themselves in the art of war, who had reared great defenses of earth inclosing their villages and strongholds. In the true spirit of military strategy, they permitted a part of the emigrants to cross the river, and then, having divided their antagonists, fell upon them with great fury to annihilate them. But when the Lenape saw this they at once formed an al-

t The tribes to which belonged the hands which inhabited the counties of Somerset and Hunterdon.

INDIAN OCCUPATION .- THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE.

liance, offensive and defensive, with the Mengwe. The main body crossed the river and attacked the Al- legewi with such desperate energy that they defeated and afterwards drove them into the interior, where they fought from stronghold to stronghold, till finally, after a long and bloody war, the Allegewi were not only humiliated, but exterminated, and their country was occupied by the vietors. After this both nations ranged castward, the Mengwe taking the northern and the Lenape still keeping the more southern route, until, after long journeyings, the former reached the Mohicanittuck (Hudson River) and the latter rested upon the banks of the Lenape Wihittuck,-the beau- tiful river now known as the Delaware,-and here they found that Indian elysium of which they had dreamed before they left their old homes in the land of the setting sun.

These, and other similar Indian traditions may or may not have some degree of foundation in fact. There are to-day many enthusiastic searchers through the realms of aboriginal lore who accept them as au- thentic, and who believe that the combined Lenape and Mengwe did destroy a great and comparatively civilized people, and that the unfortunate AHegewi who were thus extinguished were none others than the mysterious Mound-Builders of the Mississippi valley. This, however, is but one of the many profit- less conjectures which have been indulged in with reference to that unknown people, and is in no way pertinent to this history. All Indian tribes were fond of narrating the long journeys and great deeds of their forefathers, and of tracing their ancestry back for centuries, some of them claiming descent from the great Manitou himself. Missionaries and travelers among them who were, or professed to be, familiar with their language and customs have spoken with apparent sincerity of Indian chronology running back to a period before the Christian era, and some of the old enthusiasts claimed that these aborigines were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel .* But all the traditions of the Indians were so clouded and involved in improbability and so interwoven with superstition, and the speculations of antiquarian writers have almost uniformly been so baseless and chimerical, that the

* In a small, qualut, and now very rare volume entitled " An Historical Description of the Province and Country of West New Jersey in America Nover ninde Publiek till now, by Gabriel Thomas, London, 169"," and dedicated " To the Right Honorable Sir John Moor, Sir Thomas Lane, Knights und Aldermen of the City of London, and to the rest of the Worthy Members of the West Jersey Proprietors," is found the following, in reference to the aborigines of this region : " The first Tuhabitants of this Countroy wore the Indiana, being supposed to be part of the Ten dis- person Tribes of Israel, for Indeed they are very like the Jose In their Persons, and something in their Practices and Worship; for they can the Pensilvania Indians) observe the Neie Moons with great devotion nul Roverence : And their first Fruits they offer, with their Corn and Hunt- Ing-Game they get in the whole year, to a False Deity or sham God whom they must please, else (as they fancy) many misfortunes will be- fall them, and great injuries will be done them. When they bury their Dend, they put into the Ground with them some Hanse l'tensils and some Money (as tokens of their Love and Affection), with other Things, expecting they shall have Occasion for them in the other World."

whole subject of Indian origin may be dismissed as profitless.

The Indians, from the earliest times, considered themselves in a manner connected with certain ani- mals, as is evident from various customs preserved among them, and from the fact that, both collectively and individually, they assumed the names of such animals. Loskiel says,-

"It might indeed be supposed that those animals' names which they have given to their several tribes were mere bulges of distinction, or "cuate-of-arms.' as Pyrmuens calls them; It if we pay attention to the reasons which they give for those denominations, the iden of a supposed family connection is easily discernible. The Tortoue-or, as they are commonly calledl, the Turtle-tribe, anding the Lenape, claims a supe- riority and ascendancy over the others, because their relation, the great Tortoise, a fahled monster, the Atlas of their mythology, bears, according to their traditions, this great island on his Imek,t and also because he is amphibious and can live both on lund and in the water, which neither of the heads of the other tribes con lo. The merits of the Turkey, which gives its name to the second tribe, are thint he is stationary and always remains with or about them. As to the Wolf, after which the third tribe is named, he is u rambler by nature, running from one place to another in quest of his prey ; yet they consider him as their benefactor, as it was by his means that the Indians gut ont of the Interior of the earth. It was he, they believe, who by the appointment of the Great Spirit killed the deer which the Monsey found who first discovered the way to the surface of the earth, and which allured them to come out of their damp and dark residence. For that reason the wolf is to be honored and his name to be preserved forever among them.

" These animals' unmes, it is true, they all use as national Inulges, in onler to distinguish their tribes from each other at home and abroad. In this point of view Mr. Pyrlaus was right in considering thein as ' conts- of-arms.' The Turtle warrior draws, either with a coul or with paint, here and there on the trees along the war-path, the whole aufinal. car- rying a gun with the muzzle projecting forward ; and if he leaves a mark at the place where he has made a stroke on his enemy, it will be the picture of a Tortoise. Those of the Turkey tribe paint only one foot of a turkey, and the Wolf tribe sometimes a wolf ut large with one foot and leg ruised up to serve as o hand, in which the animal also carries a gun with the muzzle forward. They, however, do not generally use the word 'wolf' when speaking of their tribe, but call themselves P duk -it, which menns round foot, that animal having a round foot, like a dog."

It does not appear that the Indians inhabiting the interior portions of New Jersey were very numerous. In an okl publication entitled " A Description of New Albion," and dated A.D. 1648, it is found stated that the native people in this section were governed by about twenty kings; but the insignificance of the power of those " kings" may be inferred by the accom- panying statement that there were " twelve hundred [Indians] under the two Raritan kings on the north side, next to Hudson's River, and those came down to the ocean about little Egg-bay and Sandy Barne- gatte ; and about the South Cape two small kings of forty men apiece, and a third, reduced to fourteen men, at Roymont." From which it appears evident that the so-called " kings" were no more than ordi- mary chiefs, and that some of these scarcely had a following. Whitehead, in his "East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments," concludes, from the above-quoted statement, "that there were probably

+ And they believed that sometimes the grandfather tortoise locame weary and shook himself er changed his position, and that this was the cause of earthquakes.

HUNTERDON AND SOMERSET COUNTIES, NEW JERSEY.

not more than two thousand [Indians] within the province while it was under the domination of the Dutch." And in a publication* bearing date fifty years later (1698) the statement is made that "the Dutch and Swedes inform us that they [the Indians] are greatly decreased in numbers to what they were when they came first into this country. And the In- dians themselves say that two of them die to every one Christian that comes in here."

There is found, however, in the ancient workt be- fore extracted from, an extravagant account of the (imaginary) state of "the Raritan king,"¿ whose seat is represented to have been at a place called by the English Mount Ployden, "twenty miles from Sandhay Sea, and ninety from the ocean, next to Amara hill, the retired paradise of the children of the Ethiopian emperor,-a wonder, for it is a square rock, two miles' compass, one hundred and fifty feet high ; a wall-like precipice, a strait entrance, easily made invincible, where he keeps two hundred for his guards, and under is a flat valley, all plain to plant and sow." But there is no place known answering the above description, though the Rev. G. C. Schenck, in a paper read be- fore the New Jersey Historical Society, suggests that what is known as the Round Valley (north of Round Mountain, in the township of Clinton, in Hunterdon County) corresponds in general with Plantagenet's topographical description¿ of the kingly seat. To con- cede this, however, requires a considerable stretch of imagination ; and it is hard to resist the conviction that it was in the author's imagination, and there alone, that the impregnable "mount," the "retired paradise of the children of the Ethiopian emperor," and the royal guard of two hundred men had their existence.

Before the European explorers had penetrated to the territories of the Lenape the power and prowess of the Iroquois had reduced the former nation to the condition of vassals. The attitude of the Iroquois, however, was not wholly that of conquerors over the Delawares, for they mingled, to some extent, the character of protectors with that of masters. It has been said of them that " the humiliation of tributary nations was to them [the Iroquois] tempered with a paternal regard for their interests in all negotiations

with the whites, and care was taken that no tres- passes should be committed on their rights, and that they should be justly dealt with." This means, simply, that the Mengwe would, so far as lay in their power, see that none others than themselves should be permitted to despoil the Lenape. They exacted from them an annual tribute, an acknowledgment of their state of vassalage, and on this condition they were permitted to occupy their former hunting- grounds. Bands of the Five Nations, however, were interspersed among the Delawares|| probably more as a sort of police, and for the purpose of keeping a watchful eye upon them, than for any other purpose.

The Delawares regarded their conquerors with feel- ings of inextinguishable hatred (through these were held in abeyance by fear), and they also pretended to a feeling of superiority on account of their more an- cient lineage and their further removal from original barbarism, which latter claim was perhaps well grounded. On the part of the Iroquois, they main- tained a feeling of haughty superiority towards their vassals, whom they spoke of as no longer men and warriors, but as women. There is no recorded instance in which unmeasured insult and stinging contempt were more wantonly and publicly heaped on a cowed and humiliated people than on the occasion of a treaty held in Philadelphia in 1742, when Connossa- tego, an old Iroquois chief, having been requested by the Governor to attend (really for the purpose of forcing the Delawares to yield up the rich lands of the Minisink), arose in the council, where whites and Delawares and Iroquois were convened, and in the name of all the deputies of his confederacy said to the Governor that the Delawares had been an unruly people and were altogether in the wrong, and that they should be removed from their lands; and then, turning superciliously towards the abashed Delawares, said to them, "You deserve to be taken by the hair of your heads and shaken until you recover your senses and become sober. We have seen a deed, signed by nine of your chiefs over fifty years ago, for this very land. But how came you to take it upon yourselves to sell lands at all? We conquered you ; we made women of you ! You know you are women and can no more sell lands than women. Nor is it fit that you should have power to sell lands, since you would abuse it. You have had clothes, meat, and drink, by the goods paid you for it, and now you want it again, like children, as you are. What makes you sell lands in the dark ? Did you ever tell us you had sold this land ? Did we ever receive any part, even to the value of a pipe-shank, from you for it ? This is acting in the dark,-very differently from the conduct which our Six Nations observe in the

" Gabriel Thomas' " Historical Description of the Province and Coun- try of West New Jersey in America."

+ Plantagenet's Description of New Albion.

# " The Indians of New Jersey were divided among about twenty petty kings, of whom the king of the Raritans was the greatest."- Riker, p. 37. ¿ " The seat of the Raritan kings was upon an inland mountain (proh- ably the Neshanic Mountain, which answers approximately to the de- scription)."-Rev. E. T. Corwin's Historical Discourse, 1866, p. 9.

The Rev. Abraham Messier, D.D., In his " Centennial History of Som- orset County," says: " If we were inclined to favor such romanee, we should claim that no place so well answers the description [of the "seat of the Raritan king"] as the bluff in the gorge of Chimney Rock, north of the little bridge, on the west and east sides of which the two rivulets flow and meet a few yards southward in the main gorge. But we are not disposed to practice on the credulity of our readers, as the Indians evidently did on Beauchamp Plantagenet, Esq."

| The same policy was pursued by the Five Nations towards the Sha- wanese, who had been expelled from the far Southwest by stronger tribes, and a portion of whom, traveling eastward as far as the country adjoining the Delawares, had been permitted to erect their lodges there, but were, like the Lenape, held in a state of subjection by the Iroquois.

INDIAN OCCUPATION .- THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE.

sales of land. But we find you are none of our blood ; you act a dishonest part in this as in other matters. Your ears are ever open to slanderous reports about your brethren. For all these reasons we charge you to remove instantly ! We do not give you liberty to think about it. You are women ! Take the advice of a wise man, and remove instantly ! You may return to the other side of the river, where you came from, but we do not know whether, considering how you have demeaned yourselves, you will be permitted to live there, or whether you have not already swallowed that land down your throats, as well as the land on this side. You may go either to Wyoming or Shamo- kin, and then we shall have you under our eye and ean see how you behave. Don't deliberate, but go, and take this belt of wampum." He then forbade them ever again to interfere in any matters between white man and Indian, or ever, under any pretext, to pretend to sell lands ; and as they (the Iroquois), he ! said, had some business of importance to transact with the Englishmen, he commanded them to immediately leave the council, like children and women, as they werc.

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History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 3

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1170

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170