A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909-1930
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I > Part 10

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* In an address on "Rare Books Relating to the American Indians," read before the Anthropological Society of the city of Washington in May, 1901, Ainsworth R. Spofford, of the Library of Congress, said that "books and pamphlets relating to the aborigines of both Americas and their islands amount to many thousands of volumes in many languages-Latin, Spanish, French. English, German, Dutch, Italian. Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and native Indian of many varying dialects."

What shall be known of the prehistoric race, or races, of America must be learned largely by means of their remains. It is true that in various parts of the country collections of these remains are being formed ; they are carefully preserved, and all the circumstances in rela- tion to them are as carefully ascertained and recorded. In the mean- time associations of learned men in many places are devoting their time and means, as previously hinted, in tracing through these objects the story of the people, or peoples, who left no other records. In this way the work in one locality supplements and advances the research in another, and what seems an unsolvable problem in one instance becomes, by reason of examination and comparison, a link in a chain of evidence tending to the corroboration or disproval of some theory or belief. If, therefore, there is any good in Amerian archaeology, these relics-the means of its study and elucidation-are of value; and the associations and individuals who intelligently gather them, and render them avail- able for reference and study, are doing a commendable work which is sure to be appreciated and acknowledged. But much more than is now being done along these lines could and should be done.

The time is not far distant when all that has been collected and preserved concerning the aboriginals of North America will be deemed not only interesting, but extremely valuable. Particularly will this be so in Wyoming Valley, whose early history is so intimately connected with the aboriginal inhabitant, whose literature commemorates so many deeds of heroism, trial and adventure growing out of that relation, and where have been found so many evidences of the Indian occupation.

Many and various have been the theories advanced by anthropolo- gists and historians as to the origin of the red men of North America. Assuming them to be non-indigenous, whence came they and how and when? William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in a letter to a Friend, dated at Philadelphia, August 16, 1683, said on this subject :

"For their original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish race ; I mean of the stock of the Ten Tribes, and that for the following reasons : First, they were to go to a 'land not planted or known,' which, to be sure, Asia and Africa were, if not Europe ; and He that intended that extraordinary judgment upon them might make the passage not uneasy to them, as it is not impossible in itself, from the eastermost parts of Asia to the westermost of America. In the next place, I find them of like countenance and their children of so lively resemblance, that a man would think himself in Duke's-place or Berry-street, in London, when he seeth them. But this is not all : they agree in Rites ; they reckon by Moons; they offer their First Fruits; they have a kind of Feast of Tabernacles ; they are said to lay their Attar upon Twelve Stones ; their Mourning a Year, Customs of Women, with many things that do not now occur."

Zinzendorf (mentioned on page 60), writing in 1742, stated that the savages of North America "are thought to be partly mixed Scythians, and partly Jews of the Ten Lost Tribes, which thro' ye great Tartarian wilderness wandered hither by way of hunting, and so they came farther and fartlier into ye country."* This theory of the Jewish origin of the red inen had been suggested by John Eliot, "the Apostle to the Indians," before Penn had ever seen an Indian and long before Zinzendorf was born ; and the same theory, or idea, was taken up later by many writers in the early days of the American Colonies. In recent years, men who have lived among the Apache Indians have noted social resemblances as well as customs, by which this old theory has been strengthened. How- ever, the "lost Ten Tribes of Israel" have been sought for in almost every quarter of the globe, and their descendants have made their

* See Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church, " I : 18.

appearance in various localities, according to many investigators-the latest of whom has bestowed the honor upon the Hawaiian Islands.

The traditions of the Lenni Lenâpés, as recorded by Heckewelder, and, in fact, the traditions of all those related tribes (including the Lenâpé) whom we now know by the name of Algonkins, were to the effect that their ancestors had come from the far West, beyond the Mississippi, and that their migrations eastward had occupied many years. On the other hand-according to the statements of many writers -the sacred legends of the Iroquois, or Five, later the Six, Nations, were the reverse. Their ancestors had sprung from the ground itself. In his "History of Wyoming" Charles Miner prints the following "Indian tradition concerning the origin of the Five Nations," as given by Canassatego* a noted Onondaga chief and orator, who, at the period of Zinzendorf's sojourn in this country, was active and prominent in the councils of the Six Nations.

"When our good Manittat raised Akanishionegyt out of the great waters, lie said to his bretliren, how fine a country is this ! I will make Red men, the best of inen, to enjoy it. Then with five handfuls of red seeds, like the eggs of flies, did he strow the fertile fields of Onondaga. Little worms came out of the seeds and penetrated the earth, when the spirits who had never yet seen the light, entered into and united with them. Manitta watered the earth with his rain, the sun warmed it, the worms, with the spirits in them, grew, putting forth little arms and legs, and moved the light earth that covered then. After nine moons they came forth, perfect boys and girls. Manitta covered them with his mantle of warm, purple cloud, and nourished them with milk from his fingers' ends. Nine Summers did he nurse them, and nine Summers more did he instruct them how to live. In the meantime he had made for their use trees, plants and animals of various kinds. Akanishionegy was covered with woods and filled with creatures.

"Then he assembled his children together and said : 'Ye are Five Nations, for ye sprang each from a different handful of the seed I sowed ; but ye are all brethren, and I am your father, for I made ye all. I have nursed and brought you up. Mohocks, I have made you bold and valiant ; and see, I give you corn for your food. Oneidas. I have made you patient of pain and of hunger ; the nuts and fruits of the trees are yours. Senekas, I have made you industrious and active ; beans do I give you for nourishment. Cayugas, I have made you strong, friendly and generous ; ground-nuts and every root shall refresh you. Onondagoes, I have made you wise, just and eloquent ; squashes and grapes have I given you to eat, and tobacco to smoke in Council. The beasts, birds and fishes have I given to you all in common. As I have loved and taken care of you all, so do you love and take care of one another. Communicate freely to each other the good things I have given you, and learn to imitate each other's virtues. I have made you the best people in the world, and I give you the best country. You will defend it from the invasions of other nations, from the children of other Manittas, and keep possession of it for yourselves, while the sun and moon give light and the waters run in the rivers. This you shall do if you observe my words.

"Spirits, I am now about to leave you. The bodies I have given you will in time grow old and wear out, so that you will be weary of them ; or from various accidents they may become unfit for your habitation, and you will leave them. I cannot remain here

* CANASSATEGO (whose name appears again in subsequent pages) was not only famous but remark- able as an Iroquois orator and counselor, and his counsels and memory were cherished by the Indians of the Six Nations for a long number of years. Schoolcraft says he was honored and admired by the Indians as an orator, "and, indeed, by tlie whole world," for his "simple and eloquent mode of express- ing aboriginal thought." According to the journal of Witham Marshe, of Maryland, relating to an int- portant Indian conference held at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, Canassatego, who was an active par- ticipant in the conference, was at that time "a tall, well-made man ; had a very full chest and brawny limbs and a manly countenance, mixed with a good-natured smile ; was very active and strong and had a surprising liveliness in his speech." He was about sixty years of age at that time.

For thirty years Canassatego was chief spokesman at many important treaties and conferences, and "was the last of the great Iroquois diplomats who yielded not to the allurements of the white man's strong drink ; who knew his people, and could hold the conflicting interests of the Six Nations in hand." He died at Onondaga, the Iroquois capital (the present Syracuse, New York). September 6, 1750. (See "Con- rad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania," pages 100, 206, 238 and 240.)

+ Manito, or Manitou, the name given among American Indians to a spirit, god or devil. Two spirits are especially spoken of by these names-one, the spirit of good and life ; the other, the spirit of evil and death.

# The Iroquois called themselves the "Ho-de-no-sau-nee" (the "People of the Long House"), and Mor- gan says that "among themselves they never had any other name." "Akanishionegy," given above, is a corrupted or twisted form of "Aquanuschioni," a name by which, says Stone ("Poetry and History of Wyoming," page 92), "the Six Nations have been frequently called by modern writers." "Aquinoshioni," "Acwinoshioni" and "Akquinashioni" are three other such forms, used by Schoolcraft, who says that this name, "under the figure of a long house, or council lodge, is indicative of their [the Iroquois, or Six Nations] confederate character." It is quite possible that all these forms are corruptions of the name "Hodenosaunee," made use of by interpreters and others ignorant of the true word.

always to give you new ones. I have great affairs to inind in distant places, and I can- not again attend so long to the nursing of children. I have enabled you, therefore, among yourselves to produce new bodies to supply the place of old ones, that every one of you, when he parts with his old habitation, may in due time find a new one, and never wander longer than he choose under the earth deprived of the light of the sun. Nourish and instruct your children, as I have nourished and instructed you. Be just to all men, and kind to strangers that come among you. So shall yon be happy and be loved by all, and I myself will sometimes visit and assist you.'

"Saying this, lie wrapped himself in a bright cloud and went like a swift arrow to the sun, where his brethren rejoiced at his return. From thence he often looked at Akanishionegy, and, pointing, showed with pleasure to his brothers the country he had formed and the nations he had produced to inhabit it."

The Rev. Jacob Johnson, A. M., a graduate of Yale College, and froin 1749 to 1772 pastor of the Congregational Church at Groton, New London County, Connecticut, and later, for a number of years, pastor of the Church in Wilkes-Barré (for a sketch of his life see Chapter XXX), spent considerable time as a missionary among certain of the Iroquois tribes prior to the year 1770. The following communication written by him was printed in the New London Gazette, Connecticut, October 20, 1769, and, so far as the present writer can learn, has never been repub- lished until now.

"OF THE DESCENT, TIME AND MANNER OF THE INDIANS COMING INTO AMERICA, ACCORDING TO AN OLD TRADITION OF THEIRS.

"Having more lately come out of the country of the Six Nations of Indians, where I resided some months as their instructor or minister, I had an opportunity to observe their genius, customs, traditions, &c. I shall only take notice of one ancient tradition they have among them, concerning the time and manner of their first coming into this land, which they say was in the days of Joshua the Robber, before whose face they fled, and kept on their way (as they were led ) till they came to a high mountain from whence they took a prospect and beheld a narrow sea. While they were consulting which way to go, and what to do, there was at length a voice spake unto them from the Great Spirit, saying : 'Look over that narrow sea, and behold a country for you and your children !' Whereupon they came down from the mountain and crossed the sea, and came into this country. This was the first company. Afterwards they were followed by a great many more companies, who came in the same path, till they had filled the country.

"From this brief tradition (which carries the appearance of truth with it) many things may be learned and remarks made, as: First. If the Indians came into this country so long ago as the days of Joshua (the Captain of the Jewish hosts) 'tis 110 wonder they have so little knowledge of their coming ; yea ! it is more to be wondered at that they have any, since they have no writing, that we can learn, among them.

"Again, if they fled before the face of Joshna it does not appear that they are of the seed of the Jews (at least not by the whole blood), but rather descendants from Abraham by Hagar, the Egyptian, and her son Ishmael, who dwelt in Mount Paran, the road Israel came into the Holy Land-of which so much notice is taken in Holy Writ. See and compare Genesis, XXI : 21 ; Deuteronomy, XXXIII : 2; Habakkuk, III : 3.

"But again, if they fled from the face of Joshna and came hither, then there is a way by land to come here (saving the narrow sea they speak of ), lying betwixt the north- eastern parts of Asia, or the north-western parts of Europe ; or it may be still nearer by Hudson's Bay.

"Once again, if they came at different times no wonder they are of different tribes and nations ; yea ! and languages, customs, &c., partly Jewish and partly Heathen. But I pass over many things worthy remark, by which it would appear that the Indians are the seed of Abraham by Ishmael, for whom that great father so earnestly prayed, and at length received an answer. See Genesis, XVII : 20.

"Let us persevere in our prayers, and endeavors to propagate tlie gospel among them, till the blessing descends from Heaven upon them, and all nations, both Jews and Gentiles, under the whole Heaven.

"The person, genius, life and whole character of the Indian, according to my obser- vation, does inost exactly agree to that of Ishmael's ; wherefore I must rather think they are descendants from him than from any other nation on earth."

According to this statement the tradition held by the Six Nations concerning their origin was quite similar to the belief of the Algonkins as to their own beginning, but very different from the tradition of the Six Nations as related by Canassatego. As a probable explanation of this it may be stated that, when Mr. Johnson began his ministerial work

in New London County, what is now Montville in that county contained within its limits certain "sequestered lands" occupied by a remnant of the Mohegan tribe of Indians (of the Algonkin family), with all their native and seigniorial rights. Here, for many years, had been the seat of the great sachem Uncas, the faithful ally of the English colonists. It is presumable, therefore, that Mr. Johnson was as familiar with many of the traditions and myths of the Mohegan and allied tribes as he was with those of the Iroquois, and that he chose to adopt the belief, or tradi- tion, of the Algonkins concerning their origin as one referring to the origin of all the North American Indians, irrespective of tribe or nation. Under any circumstances, however, the statement of Mr. Johnson given on the preceding page is interesting.

The Rev. Cotton Mather, the noted Boston minister and writer (1663-1728), who believed in witches, and seemed to have an intimate acquaintance with Lucifer, did some guessing as to the advent of the Indians on the American continent. He said-in one of the 382 books and pamphlets that he published :

"And though we know not when or how the Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may gness that probably the Devil decoyed these iniser- able salvages hither, in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over tlien.'

In regard to the creation of human and animal life in the world the Arapaho Indians, who are now located in Oklahoma and Wyoming, say (see "Indians in the United States at the Eleventh Census," page 628) :

"Long ago, before there were any animals, the earth was covered with water, witlı the exception of one mountain : and seated on this mountain was an Arapaho, crying and poor and in distress. The gods looked at him and pitied him, and they created three ducks and sent them to him. The Arapaho told the ducks to dive down in the waters and find some dirt. One went down in the deep waters and was gone a long time, but failed. The second went down and was gone a still longer time, and he also came up, having failed. The third then tried it ; he was gone a long time. The waters where he went down had become still and quiet, and the Arapaho believed him to be dead, wheni lie arose to the surface and had a little dirt in his mouth. Suddenly the waters subsided and disappeared, and left the Arapaho the sole possessor of the land. The water had gone so far that it could not be seen from the highest mountains, but it still surrounded the earth, and does so to this day.

"Then the Arapallo made the rivers and the woods, placing a great deal near tlie streams. The whites were made beyond the ocean. They were then all different people, the same as at the present day. Then the Arapalio created buffaloes, elks, deer, ante- lopes, wolves, foxes, all the animals that are on the earth, all the birds of the air, all the fishes in the streams, the grasses, fruit, trees, bushes, all that is grown by planting seeds in the ground. This Arapaho was a god. He had a pipe, and he gave it to the people. He showed them how to make bows and arrows, how to make fire by rubbing two sticks, how to talk with their hands-in fact, how to live. His head and his heart were good, and he told all the other people-all the surrounding tribes-to live at peace with the Arapahoes." * * *

Most American Indians have some faint tradition of the deluge-a general deluge, by which the races of men were destroyed .* The event itself is variously related by an Algonkin, an Iroquois, a Cherokee or a Chickasaw. An Iowa tribe gives a most intelligible account of it, while several Alaskan tribes say that the waters were hot. All coincide in the statement that there was a general cataclysm, and that a few persons were saved. George Catlin, t a native of Wilkes-Barré, spent many years among North American Indians studying and writing about their habits of life and their ancient beliefs and customs, and painting hundreds

* See Schoolcraft's "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," page 571.

+ See his portrait and biography in a subsequent chapter.

of portraits of individual Indians and pictures of their every-day life. Mr. Catlin says in his "Last Rambles Amongst the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes" (Chapter X) :

"Of 120 different tribes which I have visited in North, South and Central America, every tribe has related to me, more or less distinctly, their traditions of the deluge, in which one, or three, or eight persons were saved above the waters, on the top of a high mountain ; and also their peculiar and respective theories of the Creation. Some of these tribes, living at the base of the Rocky Mountains and in the plains of Venezuela and the Pampa del Sacramento in South America, make annual pilgrimages to the fancied sum- mits where the antediluvian species were saved in canoes or otherwise, and, under the mysterious regulations of their medicine (mystery) men, tender their prayers and sacra- fices to the Great Spirit, to insure their exemption from a similar catastrophe. One thing is certain-the Indian traditions everywhere point distinctly at least to one such event, and, amongst the Central and Southern tribes, they as distinctly point to two such catastrophes in which their race was chiefly destroyed ; and the rocks of their countries. bear evidence yet more conclusive of the same calamities, which probably swept off the populations in the plains and, as their traditions say, left scattered remnants on the sum- mits of the Andes and the Rocky Mountains.

"Indian traditions are generally conflicting, and soon run into fable ; but how strong is the unanimous tradition of the aboriginal races of a whole continent of such an event ! How strong a corroboration of the Mosaic account, and what an unanswerable proof that the American Indian is an antediluvian race !"

In 1841 Mr. Catlin first published his great work entitled "Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North Amer- ican Indians ; Written During Eight Years' (1832-'39) Travel among the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America." Of this book ten editions were published-the last one in 1866-and in it the author says :

"As to the probable origin of the North American Indians, which is one of the first questions that suggests itself to the inquiring mind, and will be perhaps the last to be settled, I shall have little to say in this place, for the reason that so abstruse a subject, and one so barren of positive proof, would require in its discussion too much circumstan- tial evidence for my allowed limits. * * * Very many people look upon the savages of this vast country as an anomaly in nature, and their existence and origin and locality things that needs must be at once accounted for. * *

* It seems natural to inquire at once who these people are and whence they came ; but this question is natural only because we are ont of nature. To an Indian such a question would seem absurd. * * * I never yet have been made to see the necessity of showing how these people- came here, or that they came here at all, which might easily have been done by the way of Behring's Strait from the north of Asia. * ** *

"For myself, I am quite satisfied with the fact-which is a thing certain and to be relied on-that this continent was found peopled in every part by savages, and so nearly every island in the South Sea, at a distance of several thousand miles from either continent. *% * The North American Indians, and all the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, speaking some two or three hundred different languages, entirely dissimilar, may have- all sprung from one stock. * I believe with many others, that the North Ameri- * * can Indians are a mixed people ; that they have Jewish blood in their veins-though I would not assert, as some have undertaken to prove, that they are Jews, or that they are the lost Ten Tribes of Israel. From the character and conformation of their heads I am compelled to look upon them as an amalgam race, but still savages ; and from many of their customs (which seem to me to be peculiarly Jewish ), as well as from the character of their heads, I am forced to believe that some part of those ancient tribes who have been dispersed by Christians, in so many ways and in so many different eras, have found their way to this country, where they have entered amongst the native stock and have lived and intermarried with the Indians until their identity has been swallowed up and lost in the greater numbers of their new acquaintance. * * I am compelled to believe that the continent of America, and each of the other continents, have had their aboriginal stocks, peculiar in color and in character, and that each of these native stocks has under- gone repeated mutations (at periods of which history has kept no records) by erratic colonies from abroad that have been engrafted upon them. By this process I believe that the North American Indians, even where we find them in their wildest condition, are several degrees removed from their original character, and that one of their principal alloys has been a part of those dispersed people, who have mingled their blood and their customs with them. * * *

"The first and most striking fact amongst the North American Indians that refers us to the Jews is that of their worshipping in all parts the Great Spirit, or Jehovah, as the Hebrews were ordered to do by divine precept, instead of a plurality of gods, as ancient

pagans and heathens did, and their idols of their own formation. The North American Indians are no where idolaters. They appeal at once to the Great Spirit, and know of no mediator, either personal or symbolical. * As the Jews had, they have their high priests and their prophets. Amongst the Indians, as amongst the ancient Hebrews, the women are not allowed to worship with the men, and in all cases also they eat separately. The Indians everywhere, like the Jews, believe that they are the favorite people of the Great Spirit, and they are certainly, like those ancient people, persecuted. In their marriages the Indians, as did the ancient Jews, uniformly buy their wives by giving presents. In their preparations for war, and in peace-making, they are strikingly similar. In their treatment of the sick, burial of the dead and mourning they are also similar. In their bathing and ablutions, at all seasons of the year, as a part of their religious observances-having separate places for men and women to perform these immersions- they resemble again. * * *

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A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 10

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray Publication date: 1909-1930 Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press Number of Pages: 734

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909-1930
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734