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 early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 25
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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-tha. 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 amiong 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 Pikoweu, 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 "Canoodagtoh, 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- som'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
* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 338.
+ Their town on Pequea Creek, some five or six miles from Conestoga.
# "History of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Indians in North America," Livonia, 1788. ¿ Relative to the Shawanese who remained behind at Pequehan the following interesting items may be appropriately introduced here.
In June, 1707, Governor Evans of Pennsylvania, attended by interpreters and others, paid a visit to Pequehan and held a conference with the Shawanese and some "Mingoes," or Five Nation Indians, belonging to a Mingo town not far from Conestoga. Opessah, or Wo-path-tha, King of the Shawanese, speaking in behalf of the youth of Pequehan, said : "We are happy to live in a country at peace, and not as in those parts where we formerly lived; for then, upon our return from hunting, we found our town surprised and our women and children taken prisoners by our enemies."
During Governor Evans' stay at Pequehan several Shawanese "from the southward" came to settle there under Opessah, with the Governor's consent ; and at the same time "an Indian from a Shanois [Shawanese] town near Carolina came in and gave an account that 450 of the fflatt-headed Indians had beseiged them, and that in all probability the same was taken." It seems that some of the Shawanese of Carolina-presumably South Carolina-had killed several "Christians" (white people), whereupon the Provincial authorities raised a force of whites and "Flat-head" Indians and beseiged the principal town of the Shawanese.
In October, 1714, the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania was notified that "Opessah, the late King of the Shawanois, having absented himself from his people for about three years-living in the woods at a considerable distance from the tribe ; and, upon divers messages sent to him, still refused to return to them, they have at length thought it necessary to appoint another in his stead, and presented the person chosen to the Board as the new elected King of the Shawanois-desiring the approbation of the Govern- ment." In June, 1715, Opessah, the "late King," attended a Council at Philadelphia with certain Dela- ware Indians from the Schuylkill. In 1719 "Savannah" was chief, or King, of the Shawanese in the locality of Conestoga. (See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," II : 388, 389 and 574, and III : 149.
VIEW UP THE SUSQUEHANNA FROM NEAR THE SITE OF THE ORIGINAL SHAWANESE VILLAGE IN WHAT IS NOW PLYMOUTH. From a photograph taken in July. 1904.
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coal-mining operations) this creek ran very near to Garrison Hill and then flowed due south clear across the Flats, parallel with their eastern margin, to the river.
Col. H. B. Wright, in his "Historical Sketches of Plymouth," writ- ten in 1872, states (on page 90) with reference to "Garrison Hill" :
"This spot is at the turn of the 'Flat' road, and some seventy rods from the main traveled road through the town, and not far from the location of the old 'swing gate.' It was years ago, and within my recollection, the field where we went in search of Indian curiosities-arrow-heads, pipes, stone hatchets, pots, etc., and sometimes we would find leaden bullets and pieces of broken muskets."
Notwithstanding the fact that the "Shawnee" Flats have been diligently cultivated for the past century and a quarter, and that during this period they have been overflowed by the waters of the Susque- hanna at least once, but oftener twice, in each year, in times of freshets, yet, by the practised eye of the archæologist, many evidences of early Indian occupation may still be seen on and near the site of the old Shaw- anese village. After the big freshet of 1902 (which, at different points in the locality mentioned, stripped off the topmost stratum of soil) quite a number of interesting "finds" were made by Mr. Christopher Wren of Plymouth, who has a greater practical understanding of the early Indian remains discovered in Wyoming Valley, and has made a larger and more varied collection of them, than any other man now living.
For twenty odd years following the coming of the Shawanese to Wyoming little or nothing that is reliable is known with respect to affairs or conditions in the valley. Then occurred the second recorded visit of the white man to the valley. In the Spring of 1723 thirty families of Palatines from Schoharie County, New York, passed down the North Branch of the Susquehanna on their way as emigrants to the valley of the Tulpehocken, in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania. It is more than probable that these voyagers stopped, for one reason or another, at some or all of the few Indian villages that lay in their long and lonely course ; and as, at that time, the Shawanese village was the only settlement of human beings in Wyoming Valley-so far as now known-it may be presumed that the Palatines tarried there, if only for a few hours.
These Palatines-natives of the Palatinate of the Rhine, or the Pfalz, in Germany-had been settled since 1714 at what is now Middle- burg, Schoharie County. After years of patient toil they had become involved in trouble about the lands which they were occupying and cultivating. Lieutenant Governor Keith of Pennsylvania learned of their unhappy situation while he was in Albany on a visit, and he offered them a home in Pennsylvania. "The people got news of lands on the Swatara and Tulpehocken ; " the tidings proved attractive and a migration was begun. The Rev. Sanford H. Cobb, in "The Story of the Palatines" (page 282), says :
"The leader of the first company was Hartman Vinedecker [or Windecker],
whom almost his entire village followed into Pennsylvania. The emigrants ascended the Schoharie for a few miles, and then, under the conduct of an Indian guide, crossed the mountains southwestwardly to the upper waters of the Susquehanna. On the bank of this river they constructed canoes for the carriage of the most of their number, with the women, children and furniture. In these canoes, while some of the men drove the horses and cattle on the land, the majority of the party floated down the Susquehanna so far as to the mouth of the Swatara. Turning into this stream they followed its upward course, until in the region of hills and vales and fertile meadow-lands, in which both the Swatara and Tulpehocken* have their rise, they found at last the object of their journey and a
* See maps on pages 188 and 191.
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place of permanent habitation. To their first settlement they gave the name of Heidel- berg, and thence sent back word to their friends at Schoharie of the prosperous issue of the journey."
In the Summer of 1725 fifty other Palatine families from Schoharie passed through Wyoming on their way to the valley of the Tulpehocken ; and in the Spring of 1729 a third-and probably the smallest-company of Palatines passed down the Susquehanna to join their countrymen in the new Deutschland. Prominent among those who composed this company was Conrad Weiser,* who said concerning it: "There was want of leadership-each man did as he pleased." Not satisfied with being themselves removed from New York, these happily-settled Penn- sylvania Palatines "wrote to their friends and relatives, if ever they in- tended to come to America not to go to New York. This advice had such influence that the Germans, who afterwards went in such numbers to America, constantly avoided New York and went to Pennsylvania. It sometimes happened that they were forced to take ships bound for New York, but they were scarce got on shore when they hastened to Pennsylvania, in sight of all the inhabitants of New York."t
The great influx of Germans into Pennsylvania, which had begun sonne years before the first company of Schoharie Palatines journeyed down the Susquehanna, was very disquieting to some of the officials of the Province. As early as 1717 James Logan (previously mentioned), then Secretary of the Province, wrote :
"We have of late great numbers of Palatines poured in among us, without recom- mendation or notice, which gives the country some uneasiness, for foreigners do not so well among us as our own English people."
* CONRAD WEISER, the son of John Conrad Weiser, was born near Würteniberg, Germany, November 2, 1696, and in 1710 accompanied his parents to America with a colony of Palatines, who settled on Livingston Manor in Columbia County, New York. In 1714 the Weisers removed to Schoharie, which was in the Mohawk Indian country. When Conrad was seventeen years old he spent, at his father's request, eight months in the family of a prominent Mohawk chief. Returning home he did good service as interpreter between "the high-mettled Dutch and the tawny nation. There was plenty of business and no pay." Later he left his father's home, and during the greater part of the time for a period of fifteen years lived among the Mohawk Indians; in this manner becoming familiar with their habits, customs and language, and fitting himself to render the invaluable services which he afterwards performed for the Government of Pennsylvania. His father was one of the leaders of his countrymen in resisting the encroachments of the Albany landholders, who eventually forced the Palatines to vacate their farms and emigrate to Pennsylvania, as described above.
Conrad Weiser settled near Womelsdorf, in Heidelberg Township, not far from Tulpehocken Creek and about fourteen miles west of the present city of Reading. Here he lived until within a few years before his death, when he removed to Reading. In 1732, by special request of certain deputies of the Six Nations, he was appointed by Lieutenant Governor Gordon of Pennsylvania Interpreter for the Iroquois Confederacy. From this time until his death he was identified with the history of the Province in all its relations with the Indians. He was referred to by chiefs of the Six Nations as a "Councillor" of their Confederacy. His Indian name was "Tharachiawagon." His popularity and his influence were great among the Indians of all nations witli whom he had dealings. In 1734 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace by the Pennsylvania Government, and in the old French War was commissioned Colonel and appointed to the command of all forces raised west of the Susquehanna. The Provincial Council testified in 1736 "that they had found Conrad faithful and honest, that he is a true, good man and had spoke their [the Indians'] words and our words, and not his own."
At an important council held by the Provincial Government with a large number of Six Nation Indians at Philadelphia in July, 1742, the chief speaker of the Six Nations said concerning Weiser : "The business the Five Nations transact with you is of great consequence, and requires a skillful and honest person to go between us-one in whom both you and we can place confidence. We esteem our present Interpreter to be such a person, equally faithful in the interpretation of whatever is said to him by either of us-equally allied to both. He is of our nation and a member of our Council as well as of yours. When we adopted him we divided him into two equal parts-one we kept for ourselves, and one we left for you. He has had a great deal of trouble with us, wore out his shoes in our messages, and dirtied his clothes by being amongst us, so that he is as nasty as an Indian. In return for these services we recom- mend him to your generosity, and on our own behalf we give him five skins to buy him clothes and shoes with." (See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 581.)
"Weiser's Iroquois alliances, his skill in preventing Maryland and Virginia from becoming involved in an Indian war, his ability in securing the friendship of the Six Nation allies on the Maumee and Wabash, stimulated the fur trade in Pennsylvania. The exports of peltries from Philadelphia at this time exceeded those of New York and Baltimore. The protection offered by Weiser's Logstown treaty of 1748 revealed to Virginia the wealth of trade in territory which she had always claimed. The Ohio Land Company was formed, and the Virginia traders pushed rapidly into this Eldorado. * * * After the death of Weiser, Pennsylvania figured no longer in Indian affairs."
Weiser died July 13, 1760, while on a visit to his farm near Womelsdorf, and was buried there. It is said that Washington, standing at the grave of Weiser in 1794, remarked that the services of the latter to the Government had been of great importance and had been rendered in a difficult period and posterity would not forget him.
+ Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, X : 388.
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LOOKING UP WYOMING VALLEY FROM INMAN HILL, HANOVER TOWNSHIP. From a photograph taken in July, 1904.
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This "uneasiness" concerning the German immigration into Penn- sylvania continued for a number of years, and at one time Secretary Logan expressed a "fear lest the Colony be lost to the Crown" by reason of these immigrants. In January, 1742, Lieutenant Governor Thomas, in a message to the Pennsylvania Assembly, said* :
"I am not insensible that some look with jealous eyes upon the yearly concourse of Germans to this Province, but the Parliament of Great Britain see it in a different light, and have therefore given great encouragement by a late Act to all such foreign Protestants as shall settle in his Majesty's dominions. And indeed every man who well considers this matter must allow that every industrious laborer from Europe is a real addition to the wealth of this Province ; and that the labor of every foreigner in particular is almost so much clear gain to our mother country."
Nearly 200,000 Palatines came to America previously to the Revo- lutionary War, and their descendants-among whom to-day are some of the most solid and eminent men of the country-number now not far from four or five millions. Cobb states that so large was the Palatine element-particularly after the year 1710-in the immigrations into Pennsylvania, that "all the natives of other German States coming with them were called by the same name. Thus, though the Palatinate covered but a small portion of the German Empire, yet for forty years in Pennsylvania nomenclature all Germans were Palatines." Mainly, if not wholly, from those Palatines who settled in Pennsylvania in Colonial times are descended the "Pennsylvania Dutchmen" of to-day. The Palatine immigrants were generally taken to be of the same country as the Hollanders, or Dutch, who played an important part among the earliest settlers on the Atlantic coast, and accordingly the former were called "Dutch," or "Dutchinen." Two centuries and more have hardly been sufficient to teach the difference between the two nationalities.
The first German settlements on this continent were made in Penn- sylvania-the first colonists arriving in the Province in October, 1683. Their leader was Francis Daniel Pastorious, probably the most widely learned man in America in the seventeenth century, and one of the first who raised a written protest against slavery. These Germans, from the Palatinate and elsewhere-these "Pennsylvania Dutchinen"-made the forests of Penn blossom like gardens, and in later Colonial times formed, as their descendants form now, the brain, sinew and muscle of several Pennsylvania counties. The Bible was printed three times and the Testament seven times in German in this country before it came fortlı in English from an American press. The greatest publication of Colonial times was the "Martyr Book," which came from the press at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in 1748. About half the books published by Benjamin Franklin were in German for the Germans. The first paper- mill in America was erected by a "Pennsylvania Dutchman." The first type-founder in the country was a "Pennsylvania Dutchman," as was also the American to first attain eminence as an astronomer and measure for the first time the distance from the earth to the sun.
Retracing our steps, now, to Wyoming, we will continue the story of the valley with the events of 1728-the year preceding Conrad Weiser's removal from New York to Pennsylvania.
The exodus of the Schoharie Palatines to Tulpehocken Valley seems to have first opened the eyes of the Six Nation Indians to the important value of their land claims in Pennsylvania, says Waltont ;
* "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 508.
+ In "Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania," pages 11 and 16.
.
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and after that time they denied to the Delaware Indians the privilege to sell any territory in that Province, and pressed their own claims and rights with diplomatic skill. As previously noted (on page 113) the Iroquois claimed sovereignty over the Delawares and other Pennsylvania Indians, but they had not insisted on exercising the sole right to dis- pose of lands lying in Pennsylvania. The Delawares, in particular, had been selling the lands occupied by themselves to William Penn and his sons, liis successors, at various times, apparently without any objections being raised by the Six Nations. However, early in 1728 the "Great Council" of the Six Nations at Onondaga Castle sent Shikellimy,* an Oneida sachem, to Pennsylvania to guard the interests of the Six Nations in that Province. He took up his residence at the mouth of Sinking Run, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, about three miles north of the present borough of Lewisburg, Union County, and in June, 1728, attended a council at Philadelphia for the first tiine in his official capacity. In the following October he attended a second council held at the same place.
Shikellimy had general oversight of the Shawanese, Conestoga and Delaware Indians in Pennsylvania. "These tribes were soon given to understand that in their future dealings with the Proprietary Govern- ment it would be necessary to consult him ; that all their business would be done in the future in the same manner as the affairs of the Six Nations were accomplished." The grounds upon which were based tlie claims of the Six Nations to the "lands along the Susquehanna," at this time as well as in later years, were forcibly set forth by Canas- satego (mentioned on page 81) in a speech made at a council held by the Provincial authorities with certain Six Nation Indians at Philadelphia
* SHIKELLIMY was the name given this sachem by the Shawanese. His Iroquois name was Sawatane. He was of the Oneida nation, of the Bear clan, and was born about 1680, presumably in New York. Having located on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, he continued at the place mentioned above for a number of years. The locality was called for a long time "Shikellimy's Town" and then "Shikellimy's Old 'Town," aud the stream there was known as "Shikellimy's Run." Between 1738 and 1742 Shikellimy removed to Shamokin (now Sunbury), near the confluence of the West Branch with the North Branch of the Susquehanna, as that place was recognized as a more central and.accessible spot. (See maps on pages 18s and 191.) That he was living at Shamokin as early as 1742 is proved by statements in Zinzendorf's "Narrative," in Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church," page 84, et seq.
On account of its commanding position-being the converging point of the great trails north and south-Shamokin was the most populous and important Indian town in the Province at this time. When first visited by the whites in 1727 it contained upwards of 300 Indians, occupying about fifty lodges scattered over considerable territory. Here the Iroquois warriors, on their return from predatory expe- ditions against the southern tribes, would tarry for awhile and indulge in a final carouse before returning to their homes. Martin Mack, the missionary, described the town in 1745 as "the very seat of the Prince of Darkness" ; and another missionary, David Brainerd, who was there in the same year, wrote of it : "The Indians of this place are accounted the mnost drunken, mischievous and ruffian-like fellows of any in these parts, and Satan seems to have his seat in this town in an eminent manner. About one-half are Delawares, the others Senecas and Tuteloes." Shamokiu lay south-west of Wyoming Valley, distant from its center (the present site of Wilkes-Barré) fifty-seven miles in a bee-line, or sixty-five miles follow- ing the course of the river.
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