A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 24

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 24

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The great flood of 1865 washed away all traces both of the spring and the earthwork.

Į See page 50.

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Miner gives the following account in his "History of Wyoming" (men- tioned on page 19, ante), written in 1843 or '44.

"Its situation is the highest part of the low grounds, so that only in extraordinary floods is the spot covered with water. Looking over the flats in ordinarily high freshes the site of the fort presents to the eye an island in the vast sea of waters. The eastern extremity is near the line dividing the farms of Mr. John Searle and Mr. James Hancock, where, from its safety from inundation, a fence has long since been placed ; and to this circumstance is to be attributed the preservation of the embankment and ditch. In the open field, so entirely is the work leveled, that the eye cannot trace it ; but the extent west is known, 'for it reached through the meadow lot of Captain Gore,' said Cornelius Courtright, Esq., to me when visiting the ground several years ago, 'and came on to my lot one or two rods.' The lot of Captain Gore was seventeen perches in width. Taking, then, these 280 feet, add the distance it extended eastwardly on the Searle lot, and the extension westerly on the lot of Esquire Courtright, we have the length of that measured by Mr. Chapman, so very nearly, as to render the inference almost certain that both were of the same size and dimensions.

"Huge trees were growing out of the embankment when the white people began to clear the flats for cultivation. This, too, in Wilkesbarre, is oval, as is still manifest from the segment exhibited on the upper part, formed by the remaining rampart and fosse- the chord of the arc being the division fence. A circle is easily made : the elliptical form

SITE OF OLD INDIAN EARTHWORK IN DORRANCETON. From a photograph by the author in October, 1903.

much more difficult for an untutored inind to trace. Trifling as these circumstances may appear, the exact coincidence in size and shape, and that shape difficult to form, they appeared to me worthy of a distinct notice. The Wilkesbarre fortification is about eighty rods from the river, towards which a gate opened, and the ancient people concur in stat- ing that a well existed in the interior, near the southern line.

"On the bank of the river there is an Indian burying-place ; not a barrow or hill, suchi as is described by Mr. Jefferson, but where graves have been dug and the deceased laid horizontally in regular rows. In excavating the canal [about the year 1833], cutting through the bank that borders the flats-perhaps thirty rods south from the fort-another burying-place was disclosed, evidently more ancient, for the bones almost immediately crumbled to dust on exposure to the air, and the deposits were far more numerous than in that near the river. By the representation of James Stark, Esq., the skeletons were countless, and the deceased had been buried in a sitting posture. In this place of deposit 10 beads were found, while they were common in that near the river.

VIEW OF PLAINS, PORT BOWKLEY, ETC. From a photograph taken in 1901 near the site of Forty Fort.

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In 1815 I visited this fortification in company with the present Chief Justice Gibson and Jacob Cist, Esq .* The whole line, although it had been ploughed for more than thirty years, was then distinctly traceable by the eye. Fortime was unexpectedly pro- pitious to our search, for we found a medal bearing on one side the impress of King George I, dated 1714 (the year he commenced his reign) ; on the other, an Indian chief. t It was awarded to Mr. Cist, and by him was deposited with the Philadelphia Historical Society."

In 1842 the Hon. Eli K. Price of West Chester, Pennsylvania, visited the site of the earthiwork on Jacob's Plains and wrote concern- ing it : "Situated on an elevated and beautiful plain, it commands an excellent prospect up and down the river, and must have been admirably adapted for its purpose. Few traces are left of its existence-a few heaps of stone and rubbish, and a moat that surrounded it, which is yet distinctly visible." What the early settlers supposed to have been a well-as noted by Mr. Miner-was without doubt a pit, or cache, used or the storage of corn or other provisions. Mr. Charles M. Williams of Plainsville has informed the writer that when he was farming "the meadow lot of Captain Gore"-previously mentioned in the extract from Miner's "Wyoming"-he ploughed up great quantities of mussel shells, and some fragments of Indian pottery. This was in 1858.

All traces of this earthiwork have long since disappeared, and within the last thirty years such very marked changes have been made along the flats in Plains Township-by the filling in of the canal-bed, the building of railways, the erection of coal-breakers and the dumping 011 the flats of thousands of tons of culm-that it is now impossible to pro- cure a satisfactory picture of the old site. It lies north-east of the Dorranceton site previously described-two and a-half miles in a bee- line-and is almost directly opposite the mouth of Abraham's Creek (see

page 52) on the opposite bank of the river. In the illustration facing this page the Henry (now the Horton) coal-breaker dimly seen in the middle-distance, near the left side of the picture, stands a few rods south- west, or to the right, of the site of the old earthwork.

In the year 1710 Col. Peter Schuyler of New York conducted a deputation of five Indian "kings" to England, where marked interest was shown them. They became the lions of social and public life, and at Court were received with unusual distinction. Steele wrote an account of their visit for the Tattler of May 13, 1710, and Addison one for the Spectator. In all the early printed accounts of this visit two of the "kings" or chiefs were referred to as "River Indians." Mr. Miner gives his reasons at length ("History of Wyoming," pages 28 and 29) for inclining "strongly to the opinion" that the earthiworks on Jacob's Plains and in Dorranceton had been occupied respectively by Seneca and Oneida Indians ; and that the two "kings" of the "River Indians" who were in London in 1710 had at that time, or later, their respective headquarters at the Wyoming Valley earthworks or fortifications, where they were chiefs of the tribes mentioned.

For this opinion there is 110 substantial foundation, for it is now well ascertained that the only tribe referred to or known as "River

* See page 98.

+ There are now in existence, in various numismatical collections in this country, several medals which either exactly or very nearly resemble the one here described. Not one of them, however, bears a date, and Mr. Miner erred, without doubt, in stating that the medal found on Jacob's Plains, and now in the collections of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, bore a date. Relative to some of these medals see "Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society," II : 217.

A copper medal, similar to the one described above, was found on the Upper Kingston Flats, near Forty Fort, in 1859, and passed into the possession of Squire Woodhouse. See The Record of the Times, (Wilkes-Barré), April 25, 1860.

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Indians" at the period mentioned was the Mahikan, or Mohegan (men- tioned on page 101), and it is known that two "kings" of the delegation of five were Mohegans. Further, there is nothing in tradition or history to show that any of the Five Nations established their habitations in the valley of the Susquehanna-at least within the present limits of Penn- sylvania-after they had dispossessed the Andastés or Susquehannocks, as previously described. Over all this territory the Five Nations exer- cised jurisdiction-claiming proprietorship by right of conquest-and they came here to hunt, but never to reside. Pearce (see page 20), writing some years later than Miner, fell into the same error as the latter in assuming that the two chiefs of the "River Indians" who visited London were from Wyoming. Commenting further upon Miner's statements Pearce says ("Annals," pages 19 and 364) :

"The one [chief], he [Miner] supposes, occupied the fortification at Kingston, and the other that on the Jacob Plains. But this conclusion is most probably incorrect. The indications are decidedly in favor of the supposition that these fortifications were once occupied by a people very different from the Indians. The growth of large trees on the ramparts and within the enclosure show that they must have been abandoned hundreds of years before the period when the deputation from the Five Nations visited England. The two populous graveyards, the different modes of burial, a large copper spear-head recently found on the site of the fortification at Kingston, point to two distinct peoples, who at different periods occupied these lands. The Indians never dug wells, erected forts or used any other implements of warfare or husbandry than stone, wood and clay, until after they became known to the whites."

Squier (see pages 93 and 96), writing about the year 184S and later of the earthworks of New York, held that the weight of evidence was in favor of the conclusion that those earthworks had been erected by the Iroquois, or their western neighbors, and did not go back to a very high antiquity. He also observed that "above Wilkes-Barré, still farther to the northwest, near the borders of New York and forming an unbroken chain with the works of that State, are found other remains." He leaves the reader to presume that he considers these "other remains" to be of the same character, and to have been erected by the same people, as the New York earthworks. The western, as well as the southern, neighbors of the Iroquois belonged to the Huron-Iroquois family, as we have previously shown. We have also noted (on page 96) Dr. Beau- champ's agreement with Squier's opinion as to the age and the probable builders of the New York earthworks. In a letter to the present writer, written in 1897, Dr. Beauchamp stated that "the old work at Jacob's Plains was of the Huron-Iroquois family type of defence." Taking this testimony into consideration in connection with that adduced on page 39, and that of Dr. Craft on page 171, the conclusion is inevitable that the Wyoming Valley earthworks, or fortifications, which we have described were erected, or at least occupied, by the Susquehannock, or Andasté, Indians, who were without doubt the original inhabitants of the valley of the Susquehanna. In the occupancy of these fortifica- tions they continued until about the year 1675, when they were com- pletely overthrown by the Iroquois and required to confine themselves to two villages on the Susquehanna, as mentioned on page 40. It is quite probable that thenceforward for a number of years Wyoming Valley remained uninhabited, and was only visited or traversed front time to time by Iroquois hunters from New York in pursuit of game, or warriors from the same tribes and region who were going to or returning from their battles with the different southern tribes.

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Halsey says ("Old New York Frontier," page 34) that in 1683 commissioners at Albany obtained for Governor Dougan of New York an account of the valley of the Susquehanna River and its relations to the Indian settlements-their information coming from white men as well as from Indians. "The commissioners recommended that regular traders be sent out to form camps or settlements along the valley. It was argued that these places would be much nearer the Indians than Albany was, 'and consequently the Indians more inclinable to go there.' The recommendation in part sprang from a desire to thwart certain efforts made by Penn to increase his trade, and in part from a desire to accede to the requests of Indians, but in the main Penn's ambition was the moving cause." In 1686 Dongan requested the Indians to see that "neither French nor English go and live at the Susquehanna River, nor hunt nor trade amongst the brethren without my [his] pass and seal." In the following year the Governor desired to secure royal authority for erecting "a campagne fort" upon the Susquehanna, "where his Majesty shall think fit Mr. Penn's bounds shall terminate." As to this point, the Governor favored Wyalusing, mentioned on page 171. (Mr. Halsey says that according to Dr. Beauchamp the meaning of the name Wya- lusing is "Home of the Old Warrior.") The "campagne fort" desired by Governor Dongan was evidently not erected-at least at Wyalusing.

In 1701 or '02 a small band of Shawanese Indians established themselves in Wyoming Valley by invitation of the Five Nations. The Shawanese, or Sha-wa-noes (the Chaouanons of the French), now the Shawnees, were an erratic tribe of bold, roving and adventurous spirit. "Their eccentric wanderings, their sudden appearances and disappear- ances, perplex the antiquary and defy research," says Parkman. "There is not a tribe on the continent," wrote Catlin, "whose history is more interesting than that of the Shawánoes, nor any that has produced more extraordinary men." Gen. Lewis Cass,* in his work on the history and languages of the Indians in the United States (published in 1823) states relative to the Shawanese :

"Their history is involved in much obscurity. Their language is Algonquin, and closely allied to the Kickapoo and other dialects spoken by tribes who have lived for ages north of the Ohio. But they are known to have recently emigrated from the South, where they were surrounded by a family of tribes-Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, etc .- with whose language their own had no affinity. Their traditions assign to them a foreign origin, and a wild story has come down to them of a solemn procession, in the midst of the ocean, and of a miraculous passage through the great deep. That they were closely connected with the Kickapoos, the actual identity of language furnishes irrefrag- able proof, and the incidents of the separation yet live in the oral history of each tribe.

"We are strongly inclined to believe that, not long before the arrival of the French upon these great lakes, the Shawanese and Kickapoos composed the tribe known as the Erie-living on the eastern shore of the lake to which they have given their name. It is said that this tribe was exterminatedt by the victorious Iroquois ; but it is more probable that a series of disasters divided them into two parties, one of which, under the name of Kickapoos, sought refuge from their enemies in the immense prairies between the Illinois and Mississippi, and the other, under the name of Shawanese, fled into the Cherokee country, and thence farther south. Father Segard, in 1632, called the Eries the 'Nation du Chat,' or the 'Raccoon,' on account of the magnitude of these animals in their country ; and that is the soubriquet which, to this day, is applied by the Canadians to the Shawanese."

M. F. Force, in "Some Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio" (published in 1879), states that among the conjectures as to the early

* LEWIS CASS (born in New Hampshire in 1782, and died in Michigan in 1866) served in the United States Army during the second war with Great Britain and rose to the rank of General. For eighteen years following the close of the war he served as Governor of the Territory of Michigan. From 1831 to 1836 he was Secretary of War, and from 1836 to 1842 United States Minister to France.

ISee pages 107 and 112, ante.

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history of the Shawanese "the greatest probability lies for the present with the earliest account-the account given by Perrot, and apparently obtained by him from the Shawánoes themselves about the year 1680- that they formerly lived by the lower lakes, and were driven thence by the Five Nations." Other writers of more recent date than those here quoted from have assumed that the Shawanese were identical with the Eries, or "Cat Nation;" their habitat extending within the north-western corner of Pennsylvania.

W. C. Bryant, a recent writer and an authority on the aboriginals of New York, writes :

"Along the south-eastern shores of Lake Erie, and stretching as far east as the Genesee River, lay the country of the Eries, or, as they were denominated by the Jesuits, 'La Nation Chat,' or 'Cat Nation,' who were also a member of the Huron-Iroquois family. The name of the beautiful lake on whose margin our city [Buffalo] was cradled, is their most enduring monument, as Lake Huron is that of the generic stock. They were called the 'Cat Nation' either because that interesting but mischievous animal, the raccoon- which the holy fathers erroneously classed in the feline gens-was the totem of their leading clan, or sept, or in consequence of the abundance of that mammal within their territory."

It will be noticed that General Cass refers to the Shawanese (or Eries) as of the Algonkian family, while Mr. Bryant places the Eries in the Huron-Iroquoian family. Authorities seem to differ with regard to this matter, but by the majority of them the Eries are classed as a branch of the Huron-Iroquois. Therefore, in referring on page 107 to the Eries as "kinsmen of the Iroquois," we have followed in the steps of the majority. Dr. Brinton, and I think most other writers on the subject, regard the Shawanese as certainly Algonkian.

According to some authorities the Eries were a large tribe, "were fierce warriors, who used poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois." Having been overthrown by the latter ini 1654, as previously mentioned, those of the nation who were not adopted into the Iroquois Confederacy "became noted for a kind of gipsy life, and roamed in fragmentary bands over the greater part of the country, dot- ting the land with the names of Shawanese towns and rivers." Many of these wanderers emigrated southward and, according to Force (previ- ously mentioned), are first found "in actual history about the year 1660, and living along the Cumberland River, or the Cumberland and Tennes- see." It is quite certain that about this time some of the Shawanese tribe separated from the main body in Tennessee and pushed their way down to the Savannah River in South Carolina, where, known as "Savannahs," they carried on in a manner true to their native instincts destructive wars with the tribes claiming that territory .* A band, or more, of these "Savannah" Shawanese pushed their way into Florida, then in possession of the Spaniards.

About 1681 or '82 a band of Shawanese from either the Cumber- land or the Tennessee migrated northward-Brinton says, by invitation of their "friends and relatives" the Mohegans. If so, it seems strange that they did not take up their residence with the latter, who were then settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, mainly in the valley of the Housatonic-as mentioned on page 101. Instead, these Shawanese located in Pennsylvania among the Delawares on the Delaware River, at a place then or later known as Pechoquealin, in Bucks County, near where the Durliam Iron Works were subsequently erected. The Delawares

* See Larned's "History for Ready Reference," I : 78, 102.

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received the Shawanese kindly and, as they expressed it, "in their arms." Schoolcraft relates* that according to the account of Metoxon, a Mohegan chief, the Shawanese were originally connected with the Delawares, but, being a restless and quarrelsome people, had involved themselves in inextricable troubles while in the South and had, in the chief's language, "returned to sit again between the feet of their grand- fathers." Dr. Egle states ("History of Pennsylvania," page 23) that at the celebrated "Great Treaty" of 1683 these "Shawanese were a party to that covenant ; and they must have been considered a very prominent band, from the fact of their having preserved the treaty in their own possession or keeping, as we are informed that, at a conference hield many years after, that nation produced this treaty to the Governor of the Province."

In 1698 some sixty or seventy families of the "Savannah" Shaw- anese, having been expelled from South Carolina and Florida by the Spaniards, made their way to Pennsylvania under the leadership of their principal chief Opessah, or Wo-path-thia. They applied to the Susque- hannocks, or Conestogas, for permission to settle among them, which was granted, with the approval of the Five Nations and the knowledge and consent of the Proprietary Government-the latter holding the Conestogas responsible for the good behavior of their southern brethren. These latter facts are mainly established by the following records: In July, 1739, a council, or conference, was held at Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania authorities with certain Shawanese chiefs from the Ohio. The Hon. James Logan, t then President of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, was present and said to these chiefs: "Some of your older men may remember that about forty years ago a considerable number of families of your nation thought fit to remove from the great river [the Savannah] that bears your name. And they then applied to the Indians of Sasquehannah to be admitted to settle among them ; who consenting thereto," etc. In February, 1751, the Hon. James Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, wrote to the Board of Trade, London : "The Shawanese in olden times lived near the Spaniards, and were always at war with them ; and having from an uneasiness in their situation signified their desire to remove and live under the protection of the English and the Five Nations, were by treaty received into this Province and placed on the Susquehanna."}

The Shawanese thus referred to belonged to the Piqua, or Pikowen, band or clan of the tribe, and they made their settlement in 1698 on the banks of a stream in what is now Lancaster County, and to which their name (changed in its spelling) became in time attached-Pequea Creek. In the course of a short time these were joined by other families of the clan, whereupon some of them removed to Paxtang and others to Cono- dogwinet Creek, in what is now Cumberland County.

April 23, 1701, William Penn, Proprietary of the Province, held a conference at Philadelphia with "Canoodagtoli, king of the Indians in- habiting upon and about the River Sasquehannah, in said Province," and "Wo-path-tha, King, and Lemoytungh and Pemoyajoongh, chiefs, of * "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," Part VI, page 277.

+JAMES LOGAN was born in Ireland, of Scottish parents, in 1674, and died at his country seat near Philadelphia in 1751. He came to Philadelphia in December, 1699, as William Penn's secretary. He was an able, scholarly man, and held various important offices-including that of Chief Justice-in the Province.

Į See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 337 ; "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, I : 228, and ibid., II : 61.

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the nations of the Shawannah Indians," together with certain other Indians, named, "inhabiting in and about the north part of the River Potomac." Canoodagtoh was chief of the Conestogas, and resided at Conestoga. At this conference "articles of agreement" were signed, whereby, among other matters, it was stipulated "That the said kings and chiefs and their successors and people shall not suffer any strange nation of Indians to settle or plant on the further side of Sasquehannah or about Potomock River, but such as are there already seated."*

It was not long after the signing of this treaty that the small band of Shawanese removed from Pequehant to Wyoming Valley, as previ- ously noted (on page 177), being invited thither, says Reichel in his "Memorials of the Moravian Church" (page 104), by the Five Nations, "who were confident that they could place no custodians more reliable than the ferocious Shawanese in charge of that lovely valley among the hills, which they designed to keep for themselves and their children for- ever." Loskiel, in speaking of the visit of Count Zinzendorf to Wyo- ming Valley in 1742, says}: "This place was then inhabited by the Shawanose, a very depraved and cruel people, always at enmity with the Europeans, and invited thither by the Iroquois with a view to pro- tect the silver mines said to be in the neighborhood, from the white people."§

These Shawanese established their village on the right, or north, bank of the river, at the sharp bend about a mile and a quarter west of the lower extremity of Richards Island, mentioned on page 52. This location was at the eastern or upper end of the "Large, Level Bottom- Land" indicated on the facsimile of "A Plot of the Manor of Sunbury" shown in Chapter VII. At that point there was then, and for many years later, quite a knoll which was known subsequently to 1775 or '6 as "Garrison Hill," from the fact that there the early white inhabitants of Plymouth erected and occupied a wooden stockade or fort. With respect to present-day landmarks the site of this first Shawanese Indian village in Wyoming Valley may be described as lying within the present limits of the borough of Plymouth, near the junction of Coal Street and the "Old Flats Road," at the eastern end of "Shawnee" Flats. Ran- soin's Creek-at one time quite a sizable stream-flows down from Shawanese Mountain, crosses the easternmost extremity of the Flats and empties into the river. Formerly (before its course was deflected by

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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 24

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