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 53
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"Silver Heels" set out immediately. At Shamokin he found no Indians, but upon going up to Nescopeck he saw there "140 Indians, all warriors, dancing the war-dance. They expressed great bitterness against the English, and were preparing for an expedition against them, and he thought they would go to the eastward." He then went on to the house of an uncle of his, between Nescopeck and Wyoming, where he was told that "the Delawares and Shawanese on the Ohio were per- suaded by the French to strike the English, and had put the hatchet into the hands of the Susquehanna Indians (a great many of whom had taken it greedily, and there was no persuading them to the contrary) ; and that they would do abundance of mischief to the people of Pennsyl- vania, against whom they were preparing to go to war."*
After the defection of Abraham (Schabash) and Teedyuscung from the ranks of the Moravian Indians at Gnadenhütten, and the withdrawal of themselves and their followers from that place to Wyoming, the Indians who remained were joined by the Christian Delawares from Meniolago- meka (mentioned on page 308). The land on the Mahoning having become impoverished, and other circumstances requiring a change, a new settlement was shortly afterwards made on the north or left bank of the Lehigh, where Weissport, in Carbon County, is now located. A new chapel was built there and the dwellings were removed from the banks of the Mahoning in June, 1754. The place was called "New Gnaden- hütten" and sometimes, also, "Gnadenhütten East," and the Delawares lived on one, and the Mohegans on the other, side of the one long street of the village. The Brethren at Bethlehem took upon themselves the culture of the old land on the Mahoning, made a plantation of it for the use of the Indian congregation, and converted the original chapel into a dwelling, to be occupied by the Brethren and Sisters who had the care of the plantations, and by missionaries passing on their visits to the Indians on the Susquehanna.
Early in the evening of November 24, 1755, when there were fifteen persons in the dwelling-house at Old Gnadenhütten in the valley of the Mahoning, the place was surprised by a band of hostile savages from Nescopeck, eleven of the inhabitants were murdered and all the build- ings of the settlement were burnt. Gnadenhütten East was deserted the same night, and the surviving missionaries and their Mohegan and Delaware converts-upwards of seventy men, women and children in number-fled to Bethlehem.
According to a manuscript of David Zeisberger's preserved in the Moravian Archivest "the party that made the assault on Gnadenhütten was composed of Monseys, and numbered twelve. It was led by Jacheapus, the chief of Assinnissink [a Monsey town in what is now Steuben County, New York]." Another of the Moravian diarists states that old King Nutimus (mentioned on page 225, ante) told the Brethren at Bethlehem how he had "advised these Monseys" not to attack the settlement on the Mahoning ; but as soon as they had left Nescopeck they took their way thither. It has been stated by several writers that Teedyuscung, on his way to attend a conference at Easton, Pennsyl- vania, in July, 1757, fell in with "the chief who had commanded the expedition against Gnadenhütten; high words arose between them,
* See Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, V : 288.
t See F. C. Johnson's Historical Record, II : 77.
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when the King raised his tomahawk and laid the chief dead at his feet." In a Moravian account of a conference held at Bethlehem August 27, 1757, between several of the Brethren and Teedyuscung, it is stated that the Delaware King said upon that occasion "that the Shawanese brave whom he had killed near Easton on the way to the treaty [of July, 1757], had led the attack on the Mahoning."* The Indian thus killed by Teedyuscung was probably one of the warriors who had aided in the destruction of the Gnadenhütten settlement, inasmuch as Jacheapus, the chief of the marauding band, died of small-pox in the Mohawk Valley, in 1765. He had taken part in Pontiac's uprising, and, being captured by the English, died a prisoner in their hands.
It was about the time of the gathering of the Delawares, Shawanese and other hostile Indians at Nescopeck (as previously related), followed by the incursion upon the Moravian settlement on the Mahoning, that Teedyuscung was chosen "King"-not of the Delaware nation, but, un- doubtedly, of the Unami, or Wanamie, clan of that nation. He may have been chosen King, or Sachem, of the eastern Delawares-King Beaver being at that time the undisputed head of the western Dela- wares ; but that seems improbable, inasmuch as the chiefs of the Mon- seys at Asserughney and elsewhere along the North Branch of the Sus- quehanna, and on the upper waters of the Delaware, did not recognize Teedyuscung's kingship and refused to join with him in formal mes- sages to and conferences with the Pennsylvania authorities. However, Heckewelder statest that the chief of the Unami clan of the Delawares was recognized as the head-chief of the nation, being chosen and in- stalled with great ceremony and rejoicing.#
Elated by the acquisition of a kingly name and kingly power and aroused by the fall of Gnadenhütten, Teedyuscung soon began to busy himself with his tongue and his tomahawk. Always a man of many words he now became a tireless talker about the woes and wrongs en- dured by the Delawares-all on account of the English. With "rage in each thought, by restless musing fed," he hastened not only to the vil- lages and solitary cabins of the Indians in Wyoming Valley, but to others at a distance, where he incited and encouraged the warriors to put on their war-paint, take up their hatchets and go out with him on the war-path. No longer was he spoken of as "Honest John" or "Gid- eon," but as "The War Trumpet " ! §
Along the northern line of the "Walking Purchase" (referred to on page 194), which had been "fraudulently surveyed so as to embrace a goodly portion of the Minisinks, or upper valley of the Delaware," were laid the first scenes of the relentless warfare carried on by Teedyuscung. It was there that the King, with his eastern Delawares, "mindful of the indignities that had been heaped upon him and his kinsmen of the 'Forks' by the imperious Canassatego at the treaty of 1742, wreaked his long cherished resentment on the whites who had planted in Long Valley, or who were trespassing within the Minisinks west of the Delaware. And thus, within a short month, fifty farms, with their houses, were plundered
* See Reichel's "Memorials," page 348
+ In "An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania" (ed. of 1818), pages 51 and 53.
# In this connection see note (|) on page 325.
¿ See Heckewelder's sketch of Teedyuscung in Rupp's "'History of Northampton County," page 477.
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and burned, and upward of one hundred persons were killed* on the fron- tiers of Northampton County, on both sides of the Kittatinny Mountains. * * From their lurking-places in the fastnesses of the Great Swampt the savage warriors, led by their King in person, would sally forth on their marauds, striking consternation into the hearts of the defenseless settlers, ruthlessly destroying with torch and tomahawk, and then re- treating with what booty and prisoners they had taken. *
* Plan- tation after plantation was pillaged, and before the close of December [1755] the enemy had overrun the greater part of Northampton." "Teedyuscung, at the head of a scouting party," states Pearce ("Annals of Luzerne County," pages 40 and 42), "fired into a company assembled at a funeral. He penetrated into New Jersey, and even approached within a few miles of Easton."
December 8, 1755, Governor Morris commissioned Charles Brod- head, Aaron De Pui and Benjamin Shoemaker (all previously mentioned) of Northampton County to carry a message to the Indians at Shamokin, Nescopeck and Wyoming, inviting them to a conference at Harris' Ferry on January 1st. The Commissioners were directed to proceed immediately to Wyoming and conduct to Harris' the Indians here who should be willing to go. The invitation was to be extended "to the In- dians and their families." "If they give you a cool reception," wrote the Governor in his letter of instructions, "then endeavor to discover their true sentiments and future designs. If you cannot get all, get as many of the chiefs as you can to come."§ Within three days after the issuing
* Capt. JACOB ARNDT, of the Provincial service, commandant of Fort Allen in 1756-'57, prepared a list of the inhabitants of Northampton County who had been killed and taken prisoners by the Indians front the beginning of hostilities till the middle of December, 1757, and according to this 114 men, women and children had been slain and fifty-two taken captive. Of the latter, seven were returned by the Indians, or effected their escape .- Egle's "History of Pennsylvania," p.[972.
+ The swamp here referred to covers a large extent of territory in the present township of Buck (formerly a part of the township of Wilkes-Barre). It lies between the Wyoming-Moosic and Pocono ranges of mountains described on page 45, and, "as the crow flies," is twelve miles south-east of the city of Wilkes-Barre, about twenty-four miles north of the site of Old Gnadenhütten, and about forty-two miles north-west of Bethlehem. It is noted on the map facing page 320, although placed too far north. The Pocono Mountains are thereon noted as the "Cushetunk Mountains." Nearly in the middle of the swamp is situated that part of it known as the "Shades of Death."
In April, 1756, Governor Morris referred in a letter to "the Great or Laurel Swamp, through which the Indians pass in their way to and from Wyoming and Nescopekon." The paths from Wyoming and Nes- copeck to the Minisinks on the Delaware (see note, page 189) ran through the Great Swamp, and it was probably over those paths that the hostile Indians traveled when they sallied forth from their various villages to cut off the settlers along the Delaware north of the Kittatinny Mountains. In 1779 a road was made through this swamp, over which General Sullivan's army marched from Easton to Wilkes-Barré (see Chapter XVIII, post), and the following extract is from the diary of the Rev. William Rogers, D. D., one of the Chaplains who accompanied the expedition. "This day we marched through the Great Swamp and Bear Swamp. The Great Swamp, which is eleven or twelve miles through, contains what is called in our maps the 'Shades of Death,' by reason of its darkness. Both swamps contain trees of amazing height-hemlock, birch, pine, ash, etc. * * * The road through the swamps is entirely new, being fitted for the passage of our wagons by Colonels Courtlandt and Spencer at the instance of the Commander- in-chief [Sullivan]-the way leading to Wyoming being before only a blind, narrow path. The new road does its projectors great credit, and must in a future day be of essential service to the inhabitants of Wyoming and Easton."
In January, 1787, Col. Timothy Pickering traveled this road on horseback, en route from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre, and concerning the swamps mentioned above he wrote as follows : "About - miles from Larner's you enter the Great Swamp. Then, after passing - miles of higher ground, you enter that part of the swamp which is called the 'Shades of Death,' and - miles farther you enter Bear Swamp, which is also a branch of the Great Swamp. The swamps are filled chiefly with white pine and hemlock; but there is a mixture of proper spruce, beech, maple, black birch and wild cherry trees. The high grounds between the swamps are but moderate risings, though pretty rocky. What is called the Great Swamp is generally hard ground; and all the miry parts on the present route (being what is called 'Sullivan's Road')-which is by no means deemed an eligible one-would not together exceed two miles."
Alexander Wilson thus refers to these swamps in "The Foresters," mentioned on page 66, ante : "The 'Shades of Death' is a place in the Great Swamp, usually so called, from its low, hollow situation, overgrown with pine and hemlock trees of an enormous size that almost shut out the light of day.
"But one deep solitude around prevails,
And scarce a cricket eye or ear assails. *
* *
* *
Below dark, drooping pines we onward tread, Where BEAR CREEK grumbles down his gloomy bed.
Through darksome gulfs, where bats forever skim, The haunts of howling wolves and panthers grim."
The Great Swamp to-day is a tangled mass of laurel, rhododendron, cranberry'and huckleberry bushes, scrub oaks, hemlock roots, fallen trees and bogs endlessly intermingled.
Į See Reichel's "Memorials," pages 194 and 221 ; also Egle's "History of Pennsylvania," pages 970-972. ¿ See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VI : 779.
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of this commission Teedyuscung and his marauders had attacked the Brodhead house (as noted on page 258), and some days later they were engaged in scalping or carrying away as prisoners the remaining inhab- itants of Smithfield Township and burning their buildings.
Messrs. Brodhead, De Pui and Shoemaker were prevented by the ravages of the savages in Northampton County from executing the com- mission entrusted to them by the Governor; while Scarooyady and Andrew Montour, who had been instructed, as agents and messengers of the Province, to set out from Philadelphia for the "Long House" of the Six Nations as expeditiously as possible (see page 326), did not start on their journey until early in December. At Shamokin they came across Jonathan Cayanquiloquoa and his wife, whom they took along with them. Jonathan, who was a friendly Six Nation Indian, was the "Jonathan" mentioned in Conrad Weiser's letter printed on page 295. He resided on the Susquehanna in the vicinity of Shamokin and had been employed frequently as a messenger by the Government; but for some time then had been missing from his usual haunts.
The messengers found all the Indians between Shamokin and Wyo- ming against the English. Arriving at Wyoming about the middle of December they found that Paxinosa, with a number of "fighting men of the Shawanese, Mohegans, Chickasaws and Six Nations, who were determined to adhere to the English," had separated from the rest of the Indians in the valley and retired to a secluded little valley some two miles north-east of Paxinosa's village, where they had erected their cabins .* Here Scarooyady and his party found, also, John Shikellimy, his wife, his children and his two brothers-one of them being James Logan, mentioned in the note on page 185.
At the time of the arrival of Scarooyady and his companions at Wyoming a party was being organized at Teedyuscung's town to go over the mountains to pillage the plantations of the white settlers along the Delaware River and procure a supply of provisions, of which the Indians at Wyoming were badly in need. John Shikellimy and his brothers had crossed the Susquehanna and joined this party, and they only awaited the arrival of a band of eighty Delawares, with whom they were to set out. Scarooyady took Shikellimy aside and upbraided him for his ingratitude to the Pennsylvania Government. The latter said that his agreeing to go on the pillaging expedition "was against his in -. clination, but he could not help it-they threatening to kill him if he did not go." Nevertheless, owing to the "Half King's" talk, he did not go.
Shikellimy stated that "when the Delawares from Ohio proclaimed war against the English they forewarned all the Indians to come away from the English, and desired them to move up the North Branch of the Susquehanna." A Council was called at Shamokin and it was agreed by the Indians there, chiefly Delawares, to remove to Nesco- peck for safety. Shikellimy and his relatives went thither, but after awhile found the Indians there to be in the French interest. "When the said Delawares began to bring in English scalps," stated Shikellimy to Scarooyady,t "we left the town and came to Wyoming, and here, on the west side, a few miles from the river, we gathered to the number of
* This locality was west of what is now known as Ross Hill-between Larksville and "Poke Hollow." + See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 48.
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thirty fighting men of such Indians as would not join the Delawares in murdering the English. Paxinosa, who is chief of the Shawanese of Wyoming, is very hearty in the English interest, and spoke very bold to the Delawares. They told him at last that if he said one word more they would knock him on the head. A certain chief of the Delawares, by name, used all his strength of reason to dissuade the Delawares from listening to the French, but to no purpose. The Dela- wares silenced him also."
In due time the eighty Delaware warriors arrived at Teedyuscung's town, where Scarooyady and Montour had a conference with them and the inhabitants of the town. The "Half King" sought in a speech, accompanied by a belt of wampum, to dissuade them from going to war against the English, but the Delawares pushed the belt aside with their pipe-stems and declared, "in plain terms, that they would pay no regard to what should be said to dissuade them from hostilities against the English." The "Half King," in giving an account of this confer- ence some time later, stated : "They are determined to fight the English as long as there is a man left. It was with mnuch difficulty we got through the settlement of the Delawares. I but just escaped with my life. I shall return to Philadelphia by way of Albany." According to the testimony of Shikellimy the "Half King" was "in the utmost danger of being killed by the Delawares. Whilst he was consulting with the eldest of them in the evening the rest, out of doors, cried out : 'Let us kill the rogue ! We will hear of no mediator, much less of a master ! Hold your tongue and begone ! We will do what we please !'"
Scarooyady and his company remained at Wyoming till the war- party had set out from Teedyuscung's town, and then they continued their journey up along the Susquehanna. Before starting, however, they took, in the language of the "Half King," "another step," which -together with their subsequent doings-he described as follows* :
"Seeing our friends Paxinosa and those thirty, that had retreated with him and lived by themselves, were surrounded with enemies and in great danger of receiving mischief from them, we took upon us (as we were members of the Council of the Six Nations and in the execution of a public trust from this Government) to order these friendly Indians to remove their council-fire to Owego. They objected to doing it dur- ing the severity of the Winter, and because they had sufficiency of corn to support them through it, but consented to remove in the Spring, and desired we would inform the people at Otsiningo of it, and speak to them to have canoes ready against that time and come and fetch them.
"From Wyoming we came to an Indian town called Asserughney, * where were about twenty Delawares-all violently against the English-to whom we said nothing, as we saw the badness of their disposition. From Asserughney we came to Chinkanning [Tunkhannock], an Indian town consisting of about thirty fighting men, distant from Wyoming about thirty miles. Here we saw a Dutch woman prisoner and a child with her. We likewise saw here the Delaware Teedyuscung, and with him we saw 'Joe,' the black haired Indian that speaks English, and was his interpreter. Teedy- uscung is made King, or Sachem. He told us that he had sent three English scalps with belts to the Senecas, and one belt to the Oneidas, desiring assistance, for he expected the English would destroy him, but had received no answer to either. He then took out a large belt of black wampum, of thirteen rows, 'which,' he says, 'I am now going to send to the Six Nations ; and as this is the third time, if they send an answer, well and good ; if they do not, I shall know what to do.' The first scalps were sent by a great warrior, Owistogo, or 'Cut-finger Peter,' whom they met in the way with twenty Indians.
* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 65.
+ JOE PEEPY, of whom Bishop Spangenberg spoke in 1755 as follows: "Having lived among the Presbyterians, and treacherously been gone from them, hath exasperated them in the highest degree." At Bethlehem, in June, 1756, Peepy declared openly that he was very sorry that he had taken "such a misstep as to leave his English brethren." Later he became a messenger, and then an assistant inter- preter, in the Provincial service. He was originally from Cranberry, New Jersey, and became one of Brainerd's Indian congregation. (See note, page 202.) Immediately before the Indian hostilities were begun Peepy resided among the Scots-Irish of the "Craig Settlement," near Lehigh Water Gap.
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"From Chinkanning we came to Diahogo [Tioga, mentioned on page 34], fifty miles higher up the Susquehanna, where were fifty cabins and about ninety grown men. We assure you, that all the way from Wyoming to Diahogo a day never passed without our meeting some warriors-six, eight or ten in a party, and twenty under 'Cut-finger Peter' -going after [to join] the eighty warriors whom we saw at Wyoming. All the Dela- wares who are settled at Wyoming and at Diahogo are in the French interest ; and these Delawares, with a party from Ohio, have lately done the mischief on the frontiers [of eastern Pennsylvania]. They have captivated twenty-six persons, mostly women and children, and there are five English captives now at Diahogo."
At Tioga, about January 1, 1756, Scarooyady met two sets of mes- sengers-one from the Oneidas and Cayugas and one from the Mohawks -despatched at the instance of Sir William Johnson to the Delawares, commanding them to desist from further hostilities and ordering them to attend on the Council then sitting at Fort Johnson .* They (the. Delawares) were informed that they "were drunk and did not know what they were doing, and should have their heads shaked till they became sober."} From Tioga Scarooyady's party went on to Oghwaga (mentioned in the note on page 257), which they reached January 4th. Thence they hastened, as directly as possible, to Fort Johnson, where the Council of the Six Nations was still sitting.
The Wyoming Delawares did not attend this Council, to which they had been summoned by messengers from the Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk tribes. Reference has been made (on page 303) to the fact that at this period the tribes of the Six Nations were divided in the matter of their allegiance to the whites-"some being for the English, and some for the French." The Senecas, particularly the western Senecas, were strongly inclined to the French. About this time the Delawares had drifted into a sort of alliance with the Senecas, and were largely if not wholly under the control of the latter.} Therefore, inas- much as no invitation or directions relative to the Council at Fort John- son were sent by the Senecas to the Delawares the latter did not put in an appearance there.
One day, during the meeting of this Council, there was an abrupt and unexpected reference to Col. John Henry Lydius and The Susque- hanna Company's land purchase, which was rather startling and discon- certing to at least two persons who were present. Conochguissa, an Oneida sachem, was speaking, and, turning to Sir William Johnson, he said :
"Brother, you promised you would keep this fire-place clear of all filth, and that no snake should come into the council-roon1. That man sitting there (pointing to Colonel Lydius) is a devil, and he stole our lands ; he takes an Indian slyly by the blanket, one at a time, and when they are drunk puts money into their bosoms and persuades them to sign deeds for our lands upon the Susquehanna, which we will not ratify, nor suffer to be settled by any means." *
Sir William, in his reply to the sachem, said :
"I did promise you I would keep this fire-place free from all filth, and I did desire that no snake should come into this council-room. As to Colonel Lydius, if his coming here is such an offense to you, I am sorry for it. He came of his own accord, without any invitation from me. If Colonel Lydius hath done as you represent-and which I am afraid is in a great measure true-I think he is very faulty."§
In the latter part of December, 1755, Daniel McMullen, a young man twenty-eight years of age, while at work in the woods at the Mini-
* See note, page 296. t See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VI : 697 ; VII : 47, 66.
Į In June, 1757, Sir William Johnson said to a deputation of Senecas, Cayugas and Onondagas at Fort Johnson : "I am well pleased that the Senecas, under whose directions the Delawares are, have, upon my application, interposed their influence upon these deluded people, to stop their hostilities."-"Pennsyl- vania Colonial Records," VII : 623.
¿ See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, II : 560.
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