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 70
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"Understanding that David Zeisberger is now, or hath been lately, in the Indian country on the Susquehanna, I should be obliged to you for communicating to me any intelligence he has brought or may bring from there."
June 27th Justice Horsfield forwarded to the Governor an extract from a letter just brought by an Indian messenger to the Brethren at Betlilelien from Zeisberger, who had written the letter at Wyalusing on June 1Stlı. The extract was, in part, as follows *:
"This is to let you know that I and my companion arrived here safe on the 16th of this month. At Wyomick we found the Indians in motion to leave the place, for the same night we arrived there they received many frightful relations concerning war being begun again, viz .: That the western Indians, together with the Six Nations, had taken Fort Detroit and several other forts. * They have planted there [at Wyoming], but leave everything behind them."
With the departure of the Indians from Wyoming, as noted by Woolman and Zeisberger, the red men's occupancy of the valley came to an end. From time to time during the ensuing nineteen years Indians of various tribes, in large companies, in small bands or singly, came into the valley in the course of their journeys to other sections of the country, or with the object of trading or holding conferences with the white inhabitants of Wyoming, or for the purpose of destroying life and property here ; but never again was there a village established or occupied by Indians in this locality. From the close of Pontiac's War until 1775-a period of about eleven years-there were several Indians who, at different times, singly or with their families, occupied cabins in various parts of the valley. After the whites had gained a settlement here these Indians lived on peaceable and friendly terms with them. t
Although the proprietors of The Susquehanna Company heard of "wars and rumors of wars" in the Spring and Summer of 1763, yet, seemingly, they were not dismayed ; nor did they appear to be much cast down by the announcement that King George, on an ex parte state-
* For a copy of this letter see "The Horsfield Papers," mentioned in the note on page 233.
+ With the exception of those Delawares who (like Papoon hank and his people) were under the peace- inspiring influence of the Moravian Brethren, all the members of that tribe who had been living for some time along the North Branch of the Susquehanna departed for the Ohio region by the middle of July, 1763, when Pontiac's War was well under way. They emigrated with embittered feelings against the English colonists generally, and they lost no time in making preparations to go out on the war-path. In November, 1763, Sir William Johnson made to the Board of Trade in England a carefully prepared report -based on statistics gathered some months earlier-on the then "present state of the northern Indians." Relative to the Delawares he stated that it was estimated that they numbered 600 warriors (which would indicate a total of 3,000 persons), dwelling "in several villages on and about the Susquehanna, Muskin- gum, etc., and thence to Lake Erie. These people are greatly influenced by the Senecas, and reside on land allotted them by the permission of the Six Nations. They are now at war with the English." (See "Documentary History of the State of New York," I : 26.)
In 1764 thie Delawares "accepted the treaty of peace offered them, in rather a vaunting spirit, by Colonel Bradstreet, on Lake Erie : but subsequently renewed their hostile inroads, and, in the Autumn of the same year, on the banks of the Muskingum, again submitted to the army (under Colonel Bouquet), delivering np, as a test of their sincerity, a very large number of prisoners-men, women and children. The surrender of these prisoners forms the most remarkable instance of the kind on record, both on account of the number of persons liberated, and the affecting circumstances attending it." (Schoolcraft's "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," VI : 299.)
"The years 1765-1795 are the true period of the power and importance of the Delawares," wrote Albert Gallatin in 1836. In January, 1772, Sir William Johnson wrote to Governor Penn of Pennsylvania : "The Delawares, Munsees, etc., have been and are to be considered as dependents on the Five Nations, and having nothing to do with the western Indians further than in an intercourse common with all Indians in time of peace." At that period the Monsey, or Minsi, clan of the Delaware tribe had come to be con- sidered and treated as a distinct tribe, known as the "Munsee." (In this connection see note I, on page 325.) This distinction is preserved to this day. At the beginning of the Revolution there were no Dela- wares east of the Alleghenies. "Although a portion of the nation adhered to the Americans during the
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War of Independence, the main body, together with all the western nations, made common cause with the British." The Delawares were cruel enemies during the war. As noted on page 156, the first formal treaty made by the United States with Indians was entered into with the Delawares in 1778. After the short truce which followed the treaty of 1783 the Delawares were again at the head of the western con- federacy in their last struggle for independence. The decisive victory of General Wayne in 1794 dissolved that confederacy, and the Delawares were the greatest sufferers by the Greenville treaty of 1795.
In 1809, and later, numbers of Delawares were living among the Senecas on the reservations of the latter at Cattaraugus and Tonawanda, New York, while a band of Delawares was located near Cape Girardeau (mentioned on page 383); but since 1789 the greater part of the nation had been settled in what is now Ohio-between the rivers Miami and Cuyahoga, and on the Muskingum. In 1811 many Delawares went from Ohio to Indiana and joined the Shawanese in the battle of Tippecanoe, mentioned on page 382. In 1816 there were about 1,700 Delawares living on White River in Indiana, in five villages, within a compass of thirty-six miles. In 1818 these Delawares ceded all their lands to the United States Govern- ment and, to the number of 1,800, removed to south-eastern Missouri, where they settled between Current River and the bend of White River. At that time the only Delawares (about 80 in number) living in Ohio were located at Upper Sandusky on the Sandusky River. Those who went to Missouri joined a band of Cherokees there and overcame the Osages, who were on the west- ern boundaries of Arkansas and Indian Territory. In 1829 the Missouri Delawares sold their lands and made a treaty for lands in what is now north-eastern Kansas; but some of the tribe did not want to go there, saying that the junction of the rivers Kaw (now the Kansas) and Missouri-near which the new lands were located -reminded them too forcibly of a white man's trousers !
In 1831-'32 George Catlin visited the Delawares at their reserva- tion on the Kaw, and wrote that they numbered only 824 persons- many having died from small-pox. While there he painted the portraits of several of their principal chiefs, and the illustrations on this page are reduced facsimiles of drawings made by Catlin him- self from two of the portraits which he then painted. Nicoman, represented with bow and arrows in his hand, was the "second chief" of the tribe. Nonondagon, represented wearing a ring in his nose, was a chief of distinction, "whose history," wrote Catlin, "I admired very much ; and to whom, for his gentlemanly attentions to me, I became very much attached. Their [Nicoman's and Non- ondágon's] dresses were principally of stuffs of civilized manufac- ture, and their heads were bound with vari-colored handkerchiefs or shawls, which were tastefully put on like a Turkish turban." About that time Catlin wrote concerning the Delawares as follows :
"The very sound of this name (Delawares) has carried terror wherever it has been heard in the Indian wilderness; and it has traveled and been known, as well as the people, over a very great part of the continent. No other tribe has been so much moved and jostled about by civilized invasions ; and none have retreated so far, NI-CO-MAN ("The Answer"). or fought their way so desperately, as they have honorably and bravely contended for every foot of the ground they have passed over. From the banks of the Delaware to the lovely Susquehanna and my native valley-to the base of and over the Allegheny Moun- tains -- to the Ohio River-to the Illinois and the Mississippi-and at last to the west of the Missouri, they have been moved by treaties after treaties with the Government, who have now assigned to the mere handful that are left a tract of land (as has been done a dozen times before) in fee simple, forever! In every move the poor fellows have made they have been thrust against their wills from the graves of their fathers and their children and planted, as they now are, on the borders of new enemies, where their first occupation has been to take up their weapons in self-defense, and fight for the ground they have been planted on. There is no tribe, perhaps, amongst which greater and more continued exertions have been made for their conversion to Christianity-and that, ever since the zealous efforts of the Moravian missionaries, who first began with them ; nor any amongst whom those pious and zealous efforts have been squandered more in vain -which has, probably, been owing to the bad faith with which they have so often and so continually been treated by white people. which has excited prejudices that have stood in the way of their mental improvement.
"This scattered and reduced tribe, which once contained some 10,000 or 15,000, numbers at this time but 824; and the greater part of them have been, for the past fifty or sixty years, residing in Ohio and Indiana. In those States their reservations became surrounded by white people (whom they dislike for neighbors) and their lands too valuable for Indians, and the certain consequence has been that they have sold out and taken lands west of the Mississippi, to which they have moved and on which it is and always will be almost impossible to find them, owing to their desperate disposition for roaming about and indulging in the chase and in wars with their enemies. The wild frontier on which they are now placed affords them so fine an opportunity to indulge both of these pro- pensities, that they will be continually wandering in little and desperate parties over the vast buffalo plains, exposed to their enemies, till at last the new country, which is given to them in "fee simple, forever," and which is destitute of game, will be deserted, and they, like the most of the removed remnants of tribes, will be destroyed.
"In my travels on the Upper Missouri and in the Rocky Moun- tains I learned, to my utter astonishment, that little parties-of only NON-ON-DA-GON. six or eight in number-of these adventurous Delawares had visited those remote tribes, at 2,000 miles distance, and in several instances-after having cajoled a whole tribe, having been feasted in their villages, having solemnized articles of everlasting peace with them and received many presents at their hands and taken affectionate leave-have brought away six or eight scalps with them and, moreover, braved their way and defended themselves as they retreated in safety out of their enemies' country and through the regions of other hostile tribes, where they managed to receive the same honors and come off with similar trophies. Amongst this tribe there are some renowned chiefs whose lives, if correctly written, would be matter of the most extraordinary kind for the reading world." (See "Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution," 1885, Part II, page 198.)
When the Delawares got to Kansas they had trouble with the Pawnees, Comanchees, Sioux and other tribes. Their war with the Pawnees and Sioux began in 1835 and lasted till 1837. They were led in most of their battles by a Delaware brave named Thomas Hill, who was also noted for his bravery in the Mexican War, in which he served as Captain of a company of United States soldiers. In 1853 the Kansas
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ment of the situation of affairs made to his Ministers, had formally dis- approved of the project of The Susquehanna Company to establish a colony of its members at Wyoming. The dozen families of settlers who had arrived in the valley about the middle of May, 1763, were joined here in the course of two or three weeks by other families ; but early in July-after it had become pretty generally known throughout Connecticut that The Susquehanna Company had procured from certain chiefs of the Six Nations a new deed for the Wyoming lands* (confirm- ing the original sale made in 1754), and that, at about the same time, the Indians had forsaken the valley, and that Colonel Dyer was soon to make a voyage to England in order to fix up matters with the King- a large number of settlers arrived on the ground. Stone, referring to these settlers of 1763, says : "The pioneers, who in the Summer of 1762 had commenced their operations in Wyoming, returned to the valley to resume their labors early in the ensuing Spring, accompanied by their families, and with augmented numbers of settlers. They were fur- nished with an adequate supply of provisions, and took with them a quantity of live stock-black cattle, ¿ horses and pigs. Thus provided, and calculating to draw largely from the teeming soil in the course of the season, they resumed their labors with light hearts and vigorous arms. The forests rapidly retreated before their well-directed blows, and in the course of the Summer they commenced bringing the lands into cultivation on the west side of the river." Parshall Terry, refer- ring to these settlers (of whom he was one) in his affidavit previously mentioned, deposed :
"That they were soon joined by a large number, being mostly those who had been on the preceding year; that they took on with them horses, oxen, cows and farmning utensils ; that they proceeded to plowing, planting corn and sowing grain of different kinds, building houses and fences and [doing] all kinds of farmer's business ; that they
Delawares numbered 1,132, they having been joined some years previously by the small band of their nation from Upper Sandusky, Ohio. In 1854 the Hon. Andrew H. Reeder (for many years a resident of Easton, Pennsylvania, in the "Forks of the Delaware," but then serving as the first Governor of the newly organized Territory of Kansas) visited the Delawares at their reservation on the Kansas River. Their Chief at that time was "Captain Ketchum," considerably more than eighty years of age, who told the Governor that he was born in Wyoming Valley, but, being very young when his people removed to the West, he remembered nothing of the valley. In the American Civil War the Delawares, out of an able-bodied male population of 201, furnished 170 soldiers to the Union cause. In 1866 the Delawares sold their lands in Kansas to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and 1,064 of them bought lands and citizen- ship in the Cherokee Nation (mentioned 011 pages 163 and 165) under a contract executed with that Nation in April, 1867. The remainder of the Kansas Delawares (114 in number), forming a part of "Black Beaver's" band, moved south to Red River, where they settled among the Kiowas and Wichitas in what was formerly Indian Territory and is now Oklahoma. "Black Beaver" was a leader among all western Indians from 1857 till his death, and was an orator as well as a statesman. He was a Captain in a Kansas regiment during the American Civil War, and served with honor and distinction. As a guide he had few equals, and was much sought for by army officers. His memory was tenacions and his word as good as a bond. The Oklahoma Delawares numbered forty-one in 1885 and ninety-five in 1890.
According to the "Report on Indians in the United States at the Eleventh Census" (1890) there were then 754 Delawares in the Cherokee Nation. Abont 175 of these were full-blooded-95 of whom did not speak English. All were, and are, citizens of the Nation. They reside in a compact body by themselves in two districts, and "are in much better circumstances than many of the white people in several adjoin- ing States. Among the Delawares nearly every farmer of any pretensions has an orchard. Among them we find some of the best merchants, and there are mills of various kinds owned by them in the different settlements. Their houses are for the most part well built and substantial. No one who has visited the Delaware settlements could fail to note that they are among the most thrifty and intelligent Indians in the entire Indian country. The Delawares are the traders and business men of the North American Indians. The census of 1890 showed that some of them were in almost all of the western tribes, and that all of them were men of shrewdness and ability."
The Delawares in the Cherokee Nation have 110 separate government, but send representatives to the Cherokee National Council. However, they preserve their autonomy and are largely governed by their own tribal laws and traditions. They have a Chief, who either inherits his chieftancy or is elected by the tribe for some act of bravery he has done, and who serves for life. In 1890 the Rev. Charles Journeycake was their Chief. In December, 1862, while living in Kansas, the Delawares adopted a code of laws by which, in many particulars, they are still controlled-the criminal sections, and some other details, being now superseded by the Cherokee laws. This code, written by a full-blooded Delaware, was formerly administered by the chiefs and councilors.
In 1853 there were small numbers of Monseys, or Munsees, living with the Stockbridge Indiants on their reservations in Indian Territory and Wisconsin ; and there are now a few settled with the Stock- bridges at the Green Bay Agency in Wisconsin, and with the Chippewas in Brown County, Kansas. In 1890 there were 553 Delawares, including 136 Munsees on the River Thames, living in Canada.
* See page 417.
" In "The Poetry and History of Wyoming," page 144.
# Oxen and their congeners, of whatever color.
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made large improvements in Wilkes-Barré, Kingston, Plymouth and Hanover (as they are now [in 1794] called); that they improved several hundred acres of land with corn and other grain and procured a large quantity of hay ; * * that during their residence at Wyoming this season, according to his best recollection, there were about 150 settlers who made improvements-though not so great a number on the ground at any one time ; that he also well recollects lands being laid out and lotted on the Susquehanna River the same year, and that he, the deponent, drew a lot at that time in Wilkes-Barré (as it is now called)."
A substantial log block-house, which had been begun in the previous Autumn, was completed, and several log cabins were erected adjacent to it. All these buildings stood just north of Beaver Brook, near its confluence with the Susquehanna; and on the north bank of the brook (where the plant of the Wyoming Valley Electric Light, Heat and Power Company now stands) a small saw-mill was erected- in consequence of which that streamn has ever since borne the name "Mill Creek." Pearce makes the erroneous stateinent* that these build- ings were erected "a short distance below the present site of Wilkes- Barré"; and some other `writers following him have erred similarly. All the settlers lived together, compactly, at Mill Creek, going thence to the flats, at different points in the valley, to carry on their simple agricultural operations. According to the affidavit (previously referred to) of Parshall Terry "Timothy Hollister, t a surveyor from Connecticut, laid out" certain lots in the Summer of 1763-some of them being in what was afterwards the township of Wilkes-Barré. So far as known there are no records now in existence to show just where those lots were located. It is probable, however, that no more than the two "gratuity" townships (see pages 401 and 402) were surveyed and allotted. In the ineantime the settlers worked earnestly and harmoniously to establish themselves in their new homes, apparently either unacquainted with or unconcerned about the perilous conditions which then existed west of the Allegheny Mountains and in what is now southern-central Penn- sylvania.
About the 8th of July, 1763, information was brought to Phila- delphia by a special messenger that Presqu' Isle, Le Bœuf and Venango had been captured by the Indians (see page 417), and that the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were being over- run by scalping parties, who, wherever they went, marked their way with blood and devastation. The situation of the frontiers was, indeed, most alarming. Therefore, on the 11th of July, Governor Hamilton issued military commissions to Col. John Armstrong (previously inen- tioned) of Cumberland County, the Rev John Eldert of Lancaster County, Jonas Seeley, Esq., of Berks County and Timothy Horsfield, Esq., of Bethlehem, with directions to enlist certain volunteers forthwith- as mentioned in the note on page 233, ante. Through the Rev. Mr. Elder's exertions the able-bodied inen of the Paxtang region in Lancas- ter County were soon organized into a mounted military battalion of several companies, under the name of the "Paxtang Rangers," or "Pax- tang Boys," with Elder as Colonel in command. "Swift on foot, excel- lent horsemen, good shots, skillful in pursuit or in escape, dexterous as
* In "Annals of Luzerne County," pages 61 and 277.
f He was Capt. Timothy Hollister, who had purchased one "right" in The Susquehanna Company in May, 1762, from Z. Clark, of Stratford, Connecticut, an agent of the Company.
# JOHN ELDER was born January 26, 1706, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. He was graduated at the University of Edinburgh, and then, having studied divinity, was licensed to preach in 1732. A few years later he immigrated to America-whither his parents had preceded him in1 1730. November 22, 1738, he was ordained and installed pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Paxtang, and until his death (July 17, 1792) he continued the faithful minister of that Church.
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scouts and expert in maneuvering," the "Rangers" became the terror of the Indians. And yet, during the Summer and early Autumn of that year, numerous depredations and murders were committed by Indians in the counties of Lancaster and Northampton.
On Sunday, August 7th, Capt. Andrew Montour* arrived at Fort Augusta from up the West Branch and informed Colonel Burd that Forts Pitt and Ligonier had been captured by the Indians. Later this news was learned to be false. In the latter part of August a party of over one hundred volunteers set out from the counties of Cumberland and Lancaster for Great Island (mentioned in the note on page 226), to attack the Indian village there. Under date of September 1, 1763, Governor Hamilton wrotet to Timothy Horsfield concerning this expe- dition. After referring to "the unbridled and undistinguishing rage of the people of Cumberland," the Governor wrote :
"Those are the inost unaccountable, headstrong people, and have no authority from mne for what they are doing ; on the contrary, had I known of their intentions sooner I would have endeavored to put it [the expedition] under the direction of some person on whose prudence I could have relied; * * but I understand those people were actually set off before I had any intelligence of it. They are certainly doing a very illegal and unjustifiable thing, and what, in more quiet and settled times, would subject them to grievous punishment."
About the middle of September Colonel Armstrong collected a force of some 300 volunteers-chiefly inhabitants of Cumberland County -for the purpose of attacking the Indian settlements at Muncy and Great Island, where the hostile Indians were in the habit of rendez- vousing previous to making forays on the settlements below. This little army left Fort Shirley, at Aughwick, in what is now Huntingdon County, on the 30th of September. Arriving at their destination they found that the Indians had deserted their settlements and moved rapidly westward some days previously. Armstrong then directed his force against, and destroyed, some small Indian settlements at the mouth of Kettle Creek and at Monseytown (west of the present Lock Haven). Then, states Meginness, in his "History of the West Branch Valley" (Edition of 1889), I: 302, 303, some dispute arising between Colonel Armstrong and five Captains of his command the latter, with their 200 men, separated from Armstrong above Fort Augusta, and he went on to Carlisle with the residue of his force. This expedition of Armstrong's was, states Meginness, "the largest that had invaded the West Branch Valley up to that time ; but, instead of wiping out the savages and ren- dering them powerless, it only tended to still further enrage and cause them to commit greater deeds of blood."
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