A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I, Part 29

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 29

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December 2, 174], Count Zinzendorf landed at New York on a visit to this country to inspect the Moravian establishments in general here, and, especially, to acquaint himself with the fruits of the Brethren's labors among the Indians. December 31 he appeared for the first time in an American pulpit, preaching to a large congregation in the German Reformed Church at Germantown, near Philadelphia. A few months later the Hon. James Logan (see page 179) wrote to a friend concerning Zinzendorf as follows: "He speaks Latin and French, is aged I suppose between forty and fifty years, wears his own hair and is in all other respects very plain as making the propagation of the Gospel his whole purpose and business."

Zinzendorf's stay in this country was a period of varied and strenuous activity. Few men could have accomplished in the same time what he did. Dr. Gill, in his "Life of Zinzendorf." says that the Count gave the Indians-among whom he went on his several missionary tours -- "a practicable insight into the religion he came to teach, by simply leading a Christian life among them ; and when favorable impres- sions had thus been made and inquiry was excited, he preached the leading truths of the Gospel-taking care not to put more things into their heads than their hearts could lay hold of. His mode of approach- ing them was carefully adapted to their distinctive peculiarities."

January 20, 1743, Zinzendorf set sail from New York for Dover, England, and never returned to this country. He died at Herrnhut May 9, 1760. He was the author of many sermons, hymns and catechisms and a number of controversial and devotional works.

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The members of the Bethlehem community agreed to work for the Church, and the Church gave each one a support; at the same time, however, each person retained his or her own private property. For a number of years the settlement, or community, was known as "The Bethlehem Economy," and it was described as "a certain religious Society intended for the furtherance of the Gospel, as well among the heathen as the Christians."* The system of community of labor, or "economy" as it was called, was abolished in 1762, but Bethlehemn con- tinued to be practically a Moravian town until 1843, when the exclusive inethods were abrogated by the voluntary act of the Church.

From Bethlehem and other Moravian mission-stations the Brethren went out among the Indians, inaking converts and establishing new inissions. The Indian wars had hardened the hearts of the New England Puritans against the aborigines, and it was left to the Moravians to preach a gentler creed and a sweeter faith to the Indians. Charles Miner, writing about 1842, said :

"The Moravians who had established themselves at Bethlehem were indefatigable in their labor of love to christianize the Indians. Neither the heats of Summer, Winter's storms, the dangers of the entangled forests nor the toil in ascending precipitous moun- tains could check the holy enthusiasm of the missionaries. Eight or ten made themselves masters of the Indian languages, with their kindred dialects, that they might be under- stood. * * " So that in Wyoming the earliest European accents that were heard were accents of peace and love, breathing of grace and redolent of mercy. It is now [1842] about an hundred years since these pious missionaries penetrated to this then remote valley and, for thirty years afterward, uncultivated wilderness."

"To follow in the footsteps of the Moravian missionaries as they went to or through Wyoming, is more than a mere local study. It is a part of the thrilling history of the American Colonies, with the French and Indian wars as a central idea"-says Dr. F. C. Johnson in "Count Zinzendorf and the Moravian and Indian Occupancy of the Wyoming Valley," an admirable paper read by him before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society May 19, 1894, and published in Volume VIII of the Society's proceedings.

August 3, 1742, Count Zinzendorf visited Conrad Weiser at his home in Tulpehocken, and there inet the chief deputies of the Six Nations and some other Indians who had been at the Philadelphia con- ference and on their way home were paying Weiser a visit. Among them were Canassatego and Shikellimy. With these chiefs the Count ratified a covenant of friendship in behalf of the Brethren, stipulating for permission for the latter to pass to and from, and sojourn within, the domains of the Iroquois Confederacy ; not as strangers, but as friends and without suspicion, until such time as they should have "mutually learned each other's peculiarities." In reply to the speech made by Zinzendorf Canassatego said : "Brother, you have journeyed a long way from beyond the sea, in order to preach to the white people and the Indians. You did not know that we were here [at Tulpehocken]; we had no knowledge of your coming. The Great Spirit has brought us together. Come to our people, you shall be welcome. Take this fathom of wampum, it is a token that our words are true."t This "fathom," or string, of wampum was composed of 186 white beads. It was pre- served by the Brethren for a long time, and was often used in conferences with Indians.

* See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, III : 70.

f See Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church." I : 32, 65 and 123; and Walton's "Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania," page 53.

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Early in September, 1742, Zinzendorf determined (as he wrote in his "Narrative") to make a journey to "Skehandowana [Wyoming], the seat of the nation of the Shiawanese, who are confederates of the Iroquois, and a people wholly ignorant of and adverse to Christians and Christianity. Here there are also villages inhabited exclusively by Mohicans, besides a mixed population of Indians."* Zinzendorf pur- posed remaining at Wyoming "about three weeks," his object being "to see and learn the condition of the Indians there, and to try what could be done" for them without exposing himself rashly to dangers. Desir- ing to have Conrad Weiser go with him, he journeyed to Weiser's home in Tulpehocken, and thence the two set out on horseback for Shamokin, accompanied by Anna Nitschmann (one of the Moravian "Sisters," a native of Moravia and at that time aged twenty-seven years).

The little company spent a couple of days with Shikellimy at Shamokin, and then proceeded along the West Branch of the Susque- hanna to Oststonwakin, or French Town (now Montoursville), at the inouth of Ostwagu (now Loyalsock) Creek, t which they reached October 2d. Weiser then returned to Shamokin, and on October 5th the mission- ary John Martin Mack (mentioned on page 202) accompanied by his wife Jeannettet (to whom he had been married only about two weeks previously) arrived at French Town from Shamokin, escorted by Shikel- limy and one of his grandsons. Zinzendorf states in his "Narrative" that he found at French Town "a promiscuous population of French Indians, who yet are under the protection of the English." The chief personage among them, at this time was the well-known "Madame" Montour, § who burst into a flood of tears when she saw Zinzendorf, and

* These references are to the village of Asserughney and to the Mohegan village, referred to on pages 187, 193 and 194.

+ See map on page 191 ; also "Map of a Part of Pennsylvania," in Chapter XI.

# She was a native of "The Oblong," New York, and possessed a good knowledge of the Mohawk and Delaware languages.

{ As to the ancestry and antecedents of "MADAME" MONTOUR there is some mystery and considerable uncertainty. That she was of French descent, and that her Christian name was Catharine, there can be very little doubt. In official Pennsylvania records of April, 1728 (see Colonial Records, III : 295), she is referred to as "Mrs. Montour, a french woman," then living on the Susquehanna River in southern Pennsylvania. Conrad Weiser-who knew her well and often came in contact with her at her home and elsewhere-writing in his journal in 1737, described her as "a French woman by birth, of good family, but now in mode of life a complete Indian." Zinzendorf, writing in September, 1742 (see Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church," I : 68), referred to her as "an Indianized French woman front Quebec."

Augustus C. Buell, in his "Sir William Johnson" (page 68), published in 1903, says that "Catharine Montour was a daughter of the Count de Frontenac by a Huron woman. She was born at Fort Frontenac ahout 1692, and her name figures in a curious old document called 'Accusation against Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac,' in which, among other things, he is charged with 'debasing the morals of the Colony by propagating more than sixty half-breeds.'" Catharine Montour must have been born earlier than 1692, however, because she was considerably more than fifty years of age in 1742. Besides, if she was the daughter of Governor de Frontenac it is probable that her birth occurred prior to 1683-say 1681 or '82 -as he was recalled to France in 1682, and did not again return to Canada until 1689, when he was sixty- nine years of age.

W. Max Reid, in his "The Mohawk Valley-Its Legends and Its History" (published in 1901). states ( page 214) : "Catharine Montour, the elder, is an interesting character in Indian history. According to tradition and her own story, her father was a Governor of Canada, probably Frontenac, and her mother a Huron woman. Until about ten years of age she had been carefully reared and educated. During the war between the Six Nations and the French and Hurons she was captured and adopted by the Senecas." Mr. Reid then goes on to state that under date of August 20, 1708, Lord Cornbury, in a communication to the Board of Trade, London, wrote : "There is come to Albany [New York] one Montour, who is a son of a French gentleman who came about forty years ago to settle in Canada. He had to do with an Indian woman, by whom he had a son and two daughters. The man I mention [as having come to Albany] is the son. He had lived all along like an Indian. Some time ago the elder Montour had left the French, and had lived among the far Indians (Senecas), and it is chiefly by his means that I have prevailed with those far nations to come to Albany."

It is very probable that "Madame" Montour was one of the "two daughters" referred to in Lord Cornbury's letter, and that. by reason of the fact that her father lived among the Senecas, she was cou- sidered a member of the tribe : or, it is possible that she may have been formally adopted into the tribe. Whatever may have been the reason for it. it is a fact that she was regarded and treated as a Seneca.

James Le Tort, an Indian trader "from Chenastry, on the upper parts of the Susquehanna," informed the Provincial Council at Philadelphia in April, 1728, that, intending in the previous Autumn "to take a journey as far as the Miami Indians, or Twightwees, called also the Naked Indians, settled at the western end of Lake Erie within the French claims, to trade with them, he had consulted Mrs. Montour, a French woman, wife to Carandowana, about his journey thither : who, having lived amongst and having a sister

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married to one of that nation, he believed might be a proper persou to advise him." * * ("Pennsylvania Colonial Records," III : 295.)

As early as 1702 Catharine Montour had been married to an Oneida chief, Carandowana, or "Robert Hunter" (a name derived from that of an early Governor of New York), and prior to 1727 they had settled at or near Otstonwakin on the Susquehanna. In the year last mentioned she acted as interpreter for the Province at a conference held with Six Nation Indians in Philadelphia ; and in October, 1728, she per- formed similar services at the conference mentioned on page 190-for which services the Board "agreed that £5 in Bills of Credit should be given to Mistress Montour and her husband." As early as 1711 she had served as interpreter at a conference held in Albany, New York. In April, 1728, Governor Gordon of Pennsylvania instructed James Le Tort, previously mentioned, to deliver a stroud (a piece of coarse, warm cloth made for the Indian trade) to "Madame" Montour, and "give my service to her and tell her that I desire her on the faith of a Christian, and the profession of fidelity to this Government which she made to me, to be industrious in procuring all the certain intelligence she can of all affairs transacted amongst the Indians that relate to ye peace of this Province." In the following September the Governor sent a inessenger to the Indians on the West Branch, and among other directions gave him this : "Give my love also to Carandowana and his wife. Let him know I expect of him, as he is a great Captain, he will take care that all the people about him shall show themselves good men and true-hearted, as he is himself."

In April, 1729, certain South Carolina Indians made a raid on the upper Potomac River region, and Carandowana, with a band of forty warriors from Conestoga and other Susquehanna River towns, joined in pursuit of the raiders. Carandowana was captured by the latter and taken back to their country, where he was put to death. August 18, 1729, Governor Gordon wrote to Shikellimy : "Our souls are afflicted for the loss of our dear, good friend Carandowana. We loved Carandowana as our own brother." (See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, I: 211, 228, 239-241.) In 1734, while attending an Indian con- ference in Philadelphia, the Proprietaries-John and Thomas Penn-condoled publicly with "Madame" Montour over the loss of her husband. "We had great esteem," said the Proprietaries to the Indians present, "for our good friend your chief, Carandowana, and were much grieved to hear of his death." Under date of October 15, 1734, a minute of the Provincial Council, after censuring "Madame" Montour for duplicity at the last treaty, states that "her old age only protects her from being punished for such falsehoods." Stone, in his "Life of Sir William Johnson," refers to "Madame" Montour, and describes her as she appeared at an important Indian conference held at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744.

Madame Catharine Montour died at French Town, or Otstonwakin, in 1752, and it is said that before her death she had become blind and very decrepit. She was the mother of four sons and one daughter. at least ; and, according to the Indian law relating to pedigrees, family nanies, etc., these children all belonged to their mother's clan and bore her family name, and, as she was a Seneca, all were likewise Senecas. It is said that she carefully educated all her children. These children were : (I) MMargaret, (II) Jean, (III) André, (IV) Henry and (V) Lewis.

(I) Margaret Montour, commonly known as "French Margaret." was married before 1733 to Kata- rioniecha, or "Peter Quebec," of the Mohawk tribe. In the year mentioned they are referred to in the Provincial records as living near Shamokin. A year or two later they removed to the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania, where they remained until 1745 and then returned to Shamokin. Shortly after- wards they settled on the West Branch of the Susquehanna at the mouth of Lycoming Creek, and on Scull's map of 1759 their village is noted as "French Margaret's Town." The site of this village is within the present limits of the Seventh Ward of the city of Williamsport. From this village, in the Winter of 1752, one of the sons and one of the sons-in-law of French Margaret went with a war-party to fight the southern tribe of Creeks, and both were killed. At this saine village the Moravian missionaries Mack and Grubé were visitors in the Summer of 1753, and the former recorded in his journal (see Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church," I : 330, and Meginness' "History of the West Branch Valley," I : 135) that Margaret's brother Andrew was then "absent, to bring Margaret's relatives, who live in French Canada, to her." Mack wrote further : "She gave us a refreshing draught of milk, * * and speaking of her husband Peter Quebec said he had not drunk rum within six years. She has prohibited its use in her town, and yet, although she has initiated other reformatory measures within her little realm, she enjoys the respect and confidence of her subjects. Margaret's children understand French, but are averse to speaking it."

"In July, 1754," says Reichel, "French Margaret and her Mohawk husband and two grand-children, traveling in semi-barbaric state, with an Irish groom and six relay and pack-horses, halted a few days at Bethlehem on their way to New York [State, presumably via Wyoming]. During her stay she attended divine worship, and expressed much gratification at the music and singing." In May, 1755, shortly after war had been declared against France by England, and matters among the Indians in Pennsylvania were very unsettled, Conrad Weiser wrote to Secretary Richard Peters of Pennsylvania : "French Margaret, with some of her family, is gone to the English camp in Virginia, and her son Niklans is gone to Ohio, to the French Fort. I suppose they want to join the strongest party, and are gone for information." Later in this year, when numerous depredations were about to be committed in south-eastern Penn- sylvania by the Indians, Margaret and some of her family removed up to Tioga Point (see page 34). They were still there in 1757, when, in August, Margaret attended a treaty at Easton, Pennsylvania. In 1760 Margaret, her daughter Catharine and others of her family were living at "Margaret Town" in New York. (See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VIII : 499.) This was, without doubt, the village that some years later-say after the death of Margaret-was known as "Catharine's Town." [See (i) Catharine, post.] The children of "French Margaret" were : (i) Catharine, (ii) Nicholas, (iii) son, name unknown, (iv) Esther and (v) Mary, or Molly. All were Senecas, and all bore the surname "Montour."

(II) Jean, or John, Montour, second child of "Madame" Montour, was born about 1715, according to Colonel Buell. He spent all, or nearly all, his life in New York, and according to Buell was "conspic- uous in the old French War, in Pontiac's Rebellion and in the Revolution," and was a good warrior and a hard fighter. Prior to 1751 he had married a wife from the Onondaga nation. He was at that time a chief of the Seneca nation, was generally known as "Captain" Montour, had great influence with the Six Nation Indians and was a warm friend of Sir William Johnson. In a speech made at Albany in 1751 Captain Montour referred to himself as being "a French half-breed." (See Buell's "Sir William John- son," pages 78 and 79.) In the campaign of 1759, ending in the capture of Fort Niagara by the forces under Sir William Johnson, the whole contingent of Senecas and Cayugas, some 400 strong, was under the command of Hi-o-ka-to and Captain Montour. Relative to the services of the latter in 1760, see page 164, ante. In 1763 and '64 Captain Montour, at the head of a company of Seneca warriors, was actively engaged under the orders of Sir William Johnson in subduing the recalcitrant Senecas (see page 121) and pursuing the warring Shawanese and other Indians.

(III) André, or Andrew, Montour, whose Indian name was "Sattelihu," was born according to Buell about 1720. His services in behalf of the English were considerable. He was an expert interpreter, speaking the languages of the various Ohio Indians, as well as the Mohawk tongue. In April, 1743. he served as interpreter for the Delawares at a conference with the Provincial authorities, and from that time until the treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768 he assisted at nearly all the important Indian treaties and con- ferences. In 1745 he was living on an island in the Susquehanna near Shamokin. In 1752 Lieutenant Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania authorized him to take up his residence in what is now Cumberland County, "to prevent others from settling there or from trading with the Indians." In 1755 he was still residing on this grant (ten miles north-west of Carlisle) and was Captain of a company of Indians in the English service. He rose to the rank of Major. J. M. Mack, the inissionary previously mentioned, wrote in his journal in the Summer of 1753 concerning Andrew Montour : "He is now interpreter for Virginia and receives a salary of $300 and has been twice this Summer to Onondaga. The Governor of Virginia lias also appointed him a Colonel. The French have set £100 on his head. The Six Nations have expressed

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learned that he had come to preach the gospel, the truths of which she had almost forgotten. Zinzendorf wrote* of "Madame" Montour and her half-breed son Andrew Montour, or Sattelihu :

"Andrew's cast of countenance is decidedly European, and had not his face been encircled with a broad band of paint, applied with bear's fat, I would certainly have taken him for one. He wore a brown broadcloth coat, a scarlet damasken lappel-waistcoat, breeches over which his shirt hung, a black Cordovan neckerchief decked with silver bugles, shoes and stockings and a hat. His ears were hung with pendants of brass and other wires plaited together like the handle of a basket. He was very cordial, but on addressing him in French he, to my surprise, replied in English. * 'Madame'

Montour brought two children to me and asked mne to baptize them. She was very confidential with Anna [Nitschmann] and told her, among other things, that she was weary of Indian life. * I was surprised at the woman's ignorance, considering she had been born and brought up a Christian."

The Count and his companions remained in their camp at French Town until October 9th, and during this time held two or three religious services which were attended by the Montours and some of the Indians. Zinzendorf thought lie "observed signs of grace in Andrew." It was expected that Shikellimy would guide the missionary party through the wilderness to Wyoming, but for some reason it was finally decided that Andrew Montour-who was "proficient in various Indian lan- guages"-should go instead ; therefore, under his guidance, the mis- sionaries (Zinzendorf, Anna Nitschmann, John Martin Mack and Jean- nette, his wife) began their journey to what Zinzendorf described, later,

themselves to this effect, that whatever nation should kill him, they would at once begin war-he is held in such high esteem among them." He was with Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity in 1754. In 1756 he acted as interpreter for the Indian Commissioners in New York, and sang war-songs before Sir William Johnson at Fort Johnson. Several times he warned the settlements of impending raids-among other services bringing word of Pontiac's outbreak. In March, 1764, he commanded an expedition of Indians and white men sent out by Sir William Johnson against the recalcitrant Delawares on the upper Susquehanna. Captain Montour's party destroyed several Indian villages-among them, Canisteo, on a branch of the Chemung River (see page 34), some forty or fifty miles north-west of Tioga Point, in what is now Steuben County, New York. This village consisted of sixty houses, and from it Montour's party took away horses, corn and implements. (See Halsey's "Old New York Frontier," page 75.) At the close of this short campaign Montour presented to Sir William Johnson at Johnson Hall a number of Indian scalps.

(IV) Henry Montour, or "Enishshera," known about 1770 as "Captain" Henry Montour, or "Moun- tare," described himself in the year mentioned as one of the deputies of the Six Nations. In February of that year he joined in executing to one Garrett Pendergrass, Sr., of Bedford, Pennsylvania, a deed for the land upon which Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now stands.

(V) Lewis Montour went to the Ohio River region probably about the time his sister "French Margaret" removed thither. He was there until 1753, in which year, as messenger of the Shawanese on the Ohio, he bore to the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania a document containing an offer from those Indians to resign all their right to land east of the Ohio in liquidation of their debts to the traders. Montour, how- ever, was reported to be a spy in the French interest. Nevertheless in 1754 he settled near Aughwick (now Shirleysburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania). There were then living there, under the superintend- ence of George Croghan, quite a number of Indians who had left the Ohio and put themselves under the protection of the Pennsylvania Government. Not long after Montour had taken up his abode at this place Conrad Weiser complained to the Government that "Lewis Montour, Andrew's brother, disturbs them [the Indians at Aughwick] often by bringing strong liquor to them. They cannot help buying and drinking it, when it is so near, and Lewis sells it very dear to them and pretends that his wife, who is an ugly Indian squaw, does it." In January, 1757, Lewis was sent by George Croghan (then Deputy Indian Agent under Sir William Johnson) to bear a message to certain Indians in New York.

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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 29

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