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 31
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Collection-one of twenty-one and the other of three stanzas, and each entitled "Wayomik Im November 1742." This literary work was, without doubt, the first ever performed by any person in Wyoming Valley, and therefore Count Zinzendorf stands at the head of a long line of literary laborers in this locality-some of more and others of less account-extending through sixteen decades and beyond. The Count's poetry is not of a very high order of merit, but perhaps it will stand comparison with some of that turned out in Wyoming by more modern versifiers.
April 9, 1743, an Indian Council was held at Shamokin, which was attended by Conrad Weiser in behalf of the Provincial Government. Shikellimy the vicegerent had just returned from Onondaga, bringing messages, or "speeches," from the Six Nations to the Governor* of Penn- sylvania and to the Delawares and Shawanese within the jurisdiction of the vicegerent. These "speeches" were formally communicated by Shi- kellimy in open Council. In that addressed to the Delawares occurred this passage :
"Cousins, we [the Six Nations] are informed you can talk a little English, by which you pretend to have heard many things amongst white people, and you frequently bring lies amongst the Indians, and you have very little regard for treaties of friendship. You give your tongues too much liberty."
The message delivered by Shikellimy to the Shawanese on this occasion contained references to "Cachawatsiky [Kackawatcheky] the Shawanese chief at Wyomink," and the following pithy and pertinent passaget :
"Brethren the Shawanese, you believe too many lies, and are too froward in action. We [the Six Nations] are the chief of all the Indians ! Let your ears and eyes be open towards us, and order your warriors to stay at home."
At this time trouble was brewing between the English and the French, and the latter were endeavoring to seduce to their support various Indian tribes-particularly the Shawanese and the Delaware.
Kackawatcheky was not in attendance at this Council, but Sachsi- dowa, a chief who had accompanied Shikellimy to Onondaga, arose and spoke in behalf of the Shawanese King, saying, among other things : "The place where I live has been overshadowed of late by a very dark cloud." The "cloud" referred to was an epidemic-called "dysentery" by the Moravian diarists-which was then prevailing in Wyoming Valley. The Wanamies, at their village within the present limits of Wilkes-Barré (see page 201), were particularly affected by the disease, and a large number of the clan died.# In consequence, the survivors, later in the year, removed entirely from that particular locality to a
* The Province of Pennsylvania under the proprietorship of the Penns (who were usually referred to as the "Proprietaries") had its affairs administered by a Governor, a Council and a Legislature. The Proprietaries were the hereditary Governors of the Province, as was stated in an official report made about 1753 (see "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 452), and "they have a noble support [income] in the quit-rents. They ought, therefore, to govern the Province in person, but they live in England, make private estate of the quit-rents, and send Deputies to govern in their stead ; but the Deputy is so restrained that he cannot use his own judgment." The Deputy, or "Governor" as he was called for convenience, was appointed and commissioned by the Proprietaries-which appointment was "allowed and approved" by the King and his Privy Council. The full and legal title of the Deputy was "Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sus- sex on Delaware," and he held office during the pleasure of the Proprietaries.
The Council, known as the Provincial Council, was composed of ten members (personal friends and supporters of the Proprietaries), four of whom made a quorum. They were appointed by the Proprie- taries, and were empowered "to consult and assist, with the best of their advice, the Proprietary, or Pro- prietaries, or their Deputies, in all public affairs and matters relating to the Government." The members of the Council were removable at the will of the Proprietaries, who might increase their number at pleasure.
The Legislature, called the "Assembly," or the "House," was the law-making body, and was com- posed of a certain number of Representatives from each of the several Counties, elected by the freeholders.
+ See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 648. Į See page 224.
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point some six miles farther up and on the same side of the Susque- hanna, in the region later known as Jacob's Plains .* The spot chosen for their settlement was not far from the site of the ancient earthwork described on page 174, and was on the bank of a little creek which flowed for some distance through the plain in a south-westerly direction, and emptied into the river about a mile north of the mouth of Mill Creek. The course of this stream is shown on some of the MS. maps of the region drawn about 1771-'75, but the stream itself has long since dis- appeared.
Here they established a new village, which then, or a few years later, received the name "Matchasaung"-as noted on the map of 1756 reproduced in Chapter V. Dr. Beauchamp has informed the writer that this name is without doubt a Delaware word. "The first part of the word," he writes, "may have been 'michi,' or 'mecheek,' meaning 'great' ; but as a word, 'Majauchsowoagan,' or 'union,' comes nearest it of any I know. Zeisberger gives 'Mejauchsin' as 'united,' and this name might mean where different nations were united in living." It is very probable that, while the majority of the Delawares in this village belonged to the Wanamie clan, yet there were some of the Monsey clan among them-as we have before intimated. Hence the propriety of naming this a "union" village, or a village of "united" clans.
To some it may appear strange that this village is not noted on the maps of 1748 and 1749, reproduced on pages 188 and 191. In explana- tion we would say that the former map was drawn from data chiefly obtained a number of years prior to the publication of the map, and derived then not from surveyors and explorers, but from missionaries and traders ; and therefore neither complete nor accurate. The second map (Evans') was based, as previously explained, on data gathered in the Summer of 1743. The tour which Evans then made-and in which he was accompanied by Conrad Weiser and the famous botanist John Bartram of Philadelphia-did not take in the valley of Wyoming. The "path to Wiöming" is indicated on the map, but the route traveled by Evans and his companions (also indicated on the map) lay in a different direction. Therefore, Evans' knowledge of the Wyoming region at that time was derived from Weiser and others who had been there.
Early in 1744 the public affairs of France and England had been brought to such a pass that a rupture between the two nations was im- minent. Finally, on March 29th, war was formally declared by Eng- land. About that time King Kackawatcheky and his followers-with probably a very few exceptions-abandoned their Wyoming village (in what is now Plymouth Borough) and set out for western Pennsylvania. A few months later, at a Council held by the Government in Philadel- phia, Shikellimy stated that "the Shawanese on the Ohio had invited Cacawichiky and the Shawanese Indians at his town to Ohio, and that they had removed thither." These emigrants from Plymouth settled at Logstown, which stood on a high bluff on the right bank of the Ohio River, near where the present town of Economy is located, and about fourteen miles north-west of Pittsburg. It is noted on the Pennsylvania map of 1756 in Chapter V-the site of Pittsburg being indicated by "Ft. DuQuesne." At that time Logstown was the most important Indian trading village in western Pennsylvania. Its population was
* See pages 50 and 234.
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composed chiefly of Mohegans, Shawanese, and Six Nation Indians of several different tribes .*
April 6, 1744, John Martin Mack (who had been with Zinzendorf at Wyoming in 1742) and Christian Fröhlich, another Moravian Brother, set out on foot from Bethlehem for Wyoming. The weather was very unseasonable, and the travelers had some unusual and uncomfortable experiences, all of which are detailed in a very full and interesting man- ner in the diary written by Mack at the time. A number of extracts from this diary appear for the first time in print in Dr. F. C. Johnson's entertaining and valuable paper mentioned on page 204, and from them we learn that the missionaries traveled up along the left bank of the Lehigh to and through Lehigh Gap (mentioned on page 45), a few miles beyond which they forded the river. Thence, traveling in a north- westerly direction, they crossed over the mountains to the Susquehanna. Having described their experiences in crossing the Lehigh, Mack states :
"When we had gone about twelve miles we made a little fire, but could not make it burn because it snowed so hard. The cold pierced us a little because we were through and through wet. We cut wood all night long to prevent our being frozen to death. It snowed all night. April 8th-The snow lay on the ground a foot and a-half deep, and before us we had great rocks and mountains to climb. * * After dinner we came to an old hut where some Indians were, who were going to Wyoming. We lodged with them. * * We spent our time in making fire and trying to keep warm. 9th-We and the
Indians set out together. * * We were obliged to wade two creeks. They were extremely cold. Brother Christian carried me through one because it was deep and I was not very well. I felt the cold in my limbs much. * * *
"10th-Early in the morning we set forward and came to Hallobanck [Wapwal- lopen].t We went into the King's house, but he was not very friendly. Nevertheless he would not bid us begone. * We were soon visited by ten Indians, who were all painted but were very friendly towards us, and some of them gave us their hands. * *
* In August, 1739, King Kackawatcheky visited Philadelphia, and, with certain Shawanese chiefs, "for themselves and the whole body of said nation on the Susquehanna River and the Allegheny or Ohio River," confirmed and renewed the treaty of April 23, 1701. (See page 179, ante; also "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," IV : 346.) In September, 1748, Conrad Weiser was at Logstown on official business for the Province, and he wrote in his journal : "This day [10th] I made a present to the old Shawonese chief Cackawatcheky of a stroud, a blanket, a match-coat, a shirt, a pair of stockings and a large twist of tobacco, and told him that the President and Council at Philadelphia remembered their love to him as to their old and true friend, and would clothe his body once more, and wished he might wear them out so as to give them an opportunity to clothe him again. Catchawat- cheky returned thanks, and some of the Six Nations did the same, and expressed their satisfaction to see a true man taken notice of, although he was now grown childish."
In May, 1751, Col. George Croghan, in the service of the Province, attended a con- ference held with Six Nation, Delaware and Shawanese Indians at Logstown, previously mentioned. In his journal he made this entry : "I paid Cochawitchake the old Shaw- onese king a visit, as he was rendered incap- able of attending the council by his great age, and let him know that his Brother the Governor of Pennsylvania was glad to hear that he was still alive and retained his senses, and had ordered me to clothe him and to acquaint him that he had not forgot his strict attachment to the English interest." A Conference with Indians on the Ohio. In August, 1758, the Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post was at Logstown, where he met four Shawanese who had lived at Wyoming during his sojourn there some years previously. They received him kindly and granted him certain privileges. (See "Early Western Travels," I : 31, 60, 193, 201.)
+ This was near the mouth of Wapwallopen Creek, five miles east of Nescopeck, mentioned on page 201. The Indian village here had been established sometime in 1743 by Delawares from either Shamokin or the "Forks" of the Delaware. On October 5, 1744, six months after the visit of Mack and Fröhlich, the missionary David Brainerd visited this village. He wrote : "We reached the Susquehanna River at a place called Opeholhaupung, and found there twelve Indian houses. After I had saluted the King in a friendly manner I told him my business, and that my desire was to teach them Christianity." Brainerd preached to these Indians three times, and on the 9th of October set out on his return journey to the "Forks" of the Delaware.
Pearce, writing in 1860, says (see "Annals," page 201) that "numerous aboriginal graves have been found" near the mouth of Wapwallopen Creek.
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The Indians with whom we traveled and left behind this morning, came about two hours after us and brought three kegs of ruin. They soon began to prepare for dancing and drinking. There came also an old Indian with a keg in the cabin where we were. The Indian with whom we had been a little acquainted on the way came to us and said there would be nothing but drinking and revelry all night in the cabin, and we should be dis- turbed by it. If we wished, we might lodge in his hut, about half a mile from thence. We accepted with many thanks. His wife is a clever woman, and has a love for us also. 11th-We were visited in the cabin by the drunken Indians, who looked very dangerous, and endeavored by many ways to trouble us. Our Indian host, though drunk himself, would not permit them to injure us. There was a great noise and disturbance among us all night long, and they would take no rest until they had drunk all the rum which had been brought over the mountain.
"12th-Towards morning they all laid themselves down to sleep away their drunken- ness, but we prepared for setting forward to Wayomick. Our hostess had baked a few cakes for us to take on our way. *
* * Came in good time opposite to Wayomick,* but could not cross the Susquehanna that night because there was no canoe there. 13th -Early we crossed over to Wayomick. We were received in a very friendly manner. We immediately found the Chickasaw Indian, Chikasi, with whom we had been ac- quainted two years before.t * * He was very friendly toward us, and gave us some-
thing to eat. * * We lodged with his cousin, who received us in much love and friend- ship and gave us of the best he had. We found very few Indians there, and those who remained there looked much dejected. They were in number only seven men. There has been a surprising change in Wayomick since two years ago. *
* About six or seven cabins are left ; the others are all pulled to pieces. How often did I call to mind how Brother Lewis [Zinzendorf] said at that time : 'The Shawanese Indians will all remove in a short time, and our Savior will bring another people here who shall be acquainted with His wounds, and they shall build a City of Grace here to the honor of the Lamb.' * * *
"We stayed there four days. The Indians loved us. * * They could heartily believe and realize that we had not come amongst them for our own advantage. * *
I asked the Indians with whom we were acquainted if they would like a Brother whom they loved much to come and live amongst them. *
* They answered yes, they should be very glad, but they themselves could not decide it, because the land belonged to the Five Nations, and they only lived thereon by permission.
The Indians who are still here are, as it were, prisoners. They dare not go far away. *
* * 16th-We prepared for returning. The woman made us again some little cakes to take with us on the way. Our host prayed that if ever we should come this way again we should certainly lodge with him, saying he was an excellent huntsman and shot many deer and bears, and he would give us meat enough to eat. We took leave, and one of them set us over the river. After dinner we came again to Hallobanck and went to our old hosts again. Our hostess set victuals immediately before us, and we were hungry.
"17th-We visited all the Indians. They were very cool and shy towards us. * 18th-We visited them again. We visited the king also, thinking we might have opportunity to speak something with him concerning the end of our coming to him ; but we found he had no ears, and therefore desisted. 19th -* * We took leave of them and set forward. The woods were on fire all around us, so that in many places it looked very terrible, and many times we scarce knew how to get through. * * After dinner we came between two great mountains, and the fire burnt all around us and made a pro- digious crackling. * 20th- * * In the evening we reached Bethlehem, where the Brethren and Sisters were met together."
In July, 1740, Christian Henry Rauch, a Moravian Brother who had then recently arrived from Europe, met on the streets of New York a company of drunken Indians, who invited the missionary to accompany them to their village, Shekomeko. This was located in the north- eastern corner of Dutchess County, New York (at what is now Pine Plains), not far from the New York-Connecticut boundary and less than twenty miles west of the valley of the Housatonic previously mentioned. The Indians dwelling there seem to have been a heterogeneous collec- tion, but chiefly Mohegans. Thither missionary Rauch went and spent some time in preaching the gospel. He soon met with considerable success, and some converts were baptized. By 1742 Shekomeko had become one of the regular mission-stations of the Moravians-in fact, it was "the seat of the first Moravian Indian mission in this country."
* By this is meant the old Shawanese town on Plymouth, or "Shawnee," Flats.
t See page 209. Į Unquestionably these were not Shawanese. See page 209.
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Zinzendorf spent eight days there in August, 1742, and concerning the Mohegans of the village he wrote: "They are Mohicans, a confess- edly worthless tribe of Indians. Although naturally fierce and vindic- tive and given to excessive drinking, they are tender-hearted and sus- ceptible of good impressions. When our pale-faced Brother Rauch first came among them, they regarded him as a fool, and threatened his life." A year later Zinzendorf wrote (see Reichel, page 128) : "Among these Mahikans-a desperate and furious people-our Savior has given us a whole congregation within the space of two years. Our Brother Rauch has been the instrument in this work, who spent the greatest part of the first year among them in manifest danger of his life, for they are the most savage people among all the Indians ; who not only have been excessive drunkards, but have been exceedingly given to fighting and murder." Conrad Weiser, who visited Shekomeko in May, 1743, "expressed himself in terms of unqualified astonishment at the change wrought in this ferocious people through the instrumentality of the Brethren." He wrote: "As I saw their old men seated on rude benches and on the ground listening with decorous gravity and rapt attention to Post,* I fancied I saw before me a congregation of primitive Christians."
The work at Shekomeko spread to neighboring Indian villages in Connecticut, and missionary Post-mentioned above-was assigned to labor in some of those villages. In 1743 he was married to a converted Indian woman, and endeared himself to all the Indians. "But perse- cutions began to assail the humble Brethren and their converts; they were accused of being papists, arrested and haled before local magistrates, by whom they were no sooner released than a mob of those whose gain in pampering to Indian vices was endangered by Moravian success, set upon them and rendered their lives and those of their new converts intol- erable. Post, who had been on a journey to the Iroquois country (1745), was arrested at Albany and sent to New York, where he was imprisoned for seven weeks on a trumped-up charge of abetting Indian raids."t
About this time the Moravians decided to make an endeavor to remove the Christian Indians and the Indian mission at Shekomeko to some place outside the Province of New York. Loskiel says that "the plan was, first, to place them in the neighborhood of Bethlehem, and then to remove them to Wajomick on the Susquehanna, where they might have enjoyed perfect liberty of conscience, and been less exposed
* CHRISTIAN FREDERICK POST, who has been denominated "the great Moravian peace-maker," was a simple, uneducated missionary of the Moravian Church. He was born in Polish Prussia in 1710, and at an early age came under the influence of the Moravians. He immigrated to this country as a member of the "Sea Congregation" (see Reichel, pages 185 and 187), which arrived on the Catharine at New London, Connecticut, May 30, 1742. Post, with the other members of this company, joined the Congregation at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, three weeks later.
Post was not only employed for several years as a Moravian missionary, but later performed import- ant services for the Province of Pennsylvania in its dealings with the Indians. In 1761 he proceeded to the Muskingum and built the first white man's house within the present limits of Ohio. Prior to that time he had journeyed several times to the Ohio country and succeeded in persuading the Shawanese and the Delawares to "bury the hatchet" and desert the French. "He did this with a heavy reward upon his scalp, and while his every foot-step was surrounded with danger."
Some of the journals of Post (for the years 1758-'59) have recently been republished in Volume II of "Early Western Travels," and the editor of the publication has written as follows concerning the mis- sionary and mediator : "Antiquarians and historians have alike admired the sublime courage of the man, and the heroic patriotism which made him capable of advancing into the heart of a hostile territory, into the very hands of a cruel and treacherous foe. But aside from Post's supreme religious faith, he had a shrewd knowledge of Indian customs, and knew that in the character of an ambassador requested by the western tribes, his mission would be a source of protection. Therefore, even under the very walls of Fort Duquesne, he trusted not in vain to Indian good faith."
In 1762 Heckewelder (mentioned on page 42) was an assistant to Post for awhile. Toward the close of his life Post retired from the Moravian sect and entered the Protestant Episcopal Church. He died at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1785.
+ See "Early Western Travels," I : 178.
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to the seductions of the white people. But, that no difficulty might be made on the part of the Iroquois to whom this country belonged, the Brethren resolved to send an embassy to the Great Council at Onondaga." Therefore, in the latter part of May, 1745, Conrad Weiser, Bishop Span- genberg,* David Zeisberger, Jr., John Joseph Bull (a Moravian Brother whom the Indians called Shebosh, or "Running Water"), Shikellimy, his son Tachnechdorus and Andrew Montour set out on their journey up the Susquehanna, to the "Long House" of the Six Nations. They suffered many hardships by the way. At Tioga Point a messenger was sent ahead to apprise the red inen of the coming of this "mixed com- mission."
It appears that just at this time there was a general stir among the natives at Onondaga, inasmuch as they were arranging to meet at Oswego and go to Canada to hold a treaty with the French Governor. Indians from all the Six Nations except the Mohawk assembled to hear what the ambassadors from Pennsylvania had to say. In a general conference of the latter with the Great Council the situation of affairs with reference to the Indians and the French was fully discussed ; also the acts of hostility which had been committed some time previously by the Six Nations against the Catawba nation in South Carolina. The proposal of the Brethren to remove the mission and the congregation of believing Indians at Shekomeko to Wyoming was well received by the Confederacy, and the covenant made in 1742 between Count Zinzen- dorf and the Six Nations (see page 204) was renewed with great cere- mony. Spangenberg, Zeisberger and Bull were adopted into the Iro- quois Confederacy, says Loskiel, "each receiving a peculiar name." The chief Iroquois speaker at this council was an Indian known as the "Black Prince of Onondaga." (In 1742 Zinzendorf referred to him as "a terrible savage.") After the council was over the "Black Prince" invited all the deputies and chiefs at Onondaga and the embassy from Pennsylvania to a dinner. Weiser wrote afterwards: "We all went directly to his house. He entertained us plentifully with hoininy, dried venison and fish, and after dinner we were served with a dram around."+
From Onondaga the Pennsylvania party went to Shekomeko, but, contrary to all expectation, the Indians there refused to entertain the proposition of removal. The most vigorous opposer of the project was a Mohegan of Shekomeko named Schabash, or "Abraham," who was one of Rauch's earliest converts and had been taken by the latter (with two other converts) in February, 1742, to Oley, Pennsylvania, where he was baptized "Abraham"-being the first Indian to have the rite of baptism administered to him by the Moravians.} "Abraham,"
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