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 56
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Near the end of October Governor Denny was notified that "Tee- dyuscung the Indian King," John Pompshire and some twenty-five or thirty more Indians-including one Mohawk and two Cayuga chiefs- had arrived at Easton, and that one hundred inore Indians, forming a part of the King's retinue, had remained behind, "at a little distance from Fort Allen, with design to see what reception their chief met with." The Governor sent Colonel Weiser to Easton, who met and greeted the Indians in behalf of the Governor, saying, among other things, as he presented Teedyuscung with a string of wampum: "By this he [the Governor] ordered me to wipe off the sweat from your body, occasioned by your long journey, and that it should serve you as a dose of physic, which will act as a vomit to clear your body from that distemper usually occasioned from eating poisoned herbs or roots, and which causes the overflowing of the gall." Weiser concluded by inviting Teedyuscung to proceed to Philadelphia to meet the Governor, but the King refused to go and sent this message :
"Brother, you remember very well that in time of darkness and danger I came in here at your invitation. At Easton we kindled a small council-fire. * * If you should put out this little fire our enemies will call it only a Jack-a-lantern, kindled on purpose to deceive those who approach it. Brother, I think it by no means advisable to put out this little fire, but rather to put more sticks upon it ; and I desire that you will come to it as soon as possible, bringing your old and wise men along with you, and I shall be very glad to see you here."
"The Governor was highly incensed over Teedyuscung's attitude and declared to his Council that it was ridiculous to humor the Indians, and that no treaty should be held outside of Philadelphia. Weiser's con- fidential letters about this time were in no way complimentary to the
* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 284.
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Governor. The Friends sent a memorial to Denny, begging him to finish the peace which Governor Morris had commenced, and offering to furnish a liberal present and asking permission to attend the treaty. The Governor, on condition that a heavy guard [should] attend him and be constantly around him at Easton, concluded to go. He accepted the Indian present from the Friends, and granted them permission to attend the treaty. Just before the Governor reached Easton it was rumored that the Indians whom Teedyuscung had left near Fort Allen were bent on some treachery. Israel Pemberton, the leader of the Quaker delega- tion at Easton, went out immediately to investigate the report and allay the Governor's fears."*
The treaty was formally opened at Easton on Monday, November 8th. At three o'clock in the afternoon the Governor marched from his lodgings to the place of conference, attended by the members of the Council and by the Commissioners, and "guarded by a party of the 'Royal Americans't in front and on the flanks, and a detachment of Colonel Weiser's Provincials in subdivisions in the rear-with colors fly- ing, drums beating and music playing ; which order was always observed in going to and returning from the place of conference." Besides the Gov- ernor, Secretary Richard Peters, Commissioners Benjamin Franklin and John Hughes, and other officials of the Province, there were present at the opening conference : Colonel Weiser, Major Parsons and three other officers of the Provincial forces, Lieutenant McAlpin and Ensign Jeff- reys, recruiting officers of the "Royal Americans," Teedyuscung, four chiefs of the Six Nations, sixteen Delawares, two Shawanese and six Mohegans. John Pompshire, the Jersey Delaware, acted as interpreter for Teedyuscung, who opened the conference by stating that he had kept the promise made by him at the last treaty, having since then in- formed all the Indian nations of the disposition of the English for peace. On being asked by the Governor whether he, the Governor, or the Province had ever wronged him, and why he and his Indians had struck the English, Teedyuscung proceeded to state that the false-hearted French King had tampered with the foolish young men of his people ; but they had taken
* Walton's "Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania," page 340.
+ In the Spring of 1756 King George II of England, enabled by Act of Parlia- ment, appointed a number of German, Swiss and Dutch Protestants, who had served as officers or engineers, to be officers of a regiment which was to be called the "Royal American Regiment." These officers embarked for America, to assist in enlisting and commanding such of the "foreign Protestants in North America as should be able and willing to serve with the rest of the forces-it being repre- 'sented that a number of the foreign settlers in America might be more willing to enter the service if they were commanded by officers of their own country."
The original "Colonel-commandant of the First Battalion" of this regiment was JOHN STANWIX. He was born about 1690, and entering the English army at the age of sixteen years soon became Adjutant of his regiment. In January, 1741, he was commissioned Major in one of the new "marine" regiments. October 4, 1745, he was promoted Lieutenant Colonel of a regiment raised by Lord Granby on account of the Jacobite insurrection. In 1749 he was appointed Equerry to Frederick, Prince of Wales (father of him who was later King George III of England). In 1754 (the Prince of Wales having died) Colonel Stanwix was ap- pointed Deputy Quartermaster General. His commission as Colonel of the "Royal Americans" (designated on the Register of the War Office first as the 62d Foot, afterwards the 60th Foot, and now "The King's Royal Rifle Corps") was dated January 1, 1756, and later in that year he was ordered to America. He was then about sixty-six years of age.
During the year 1757 Colonel Stanwix was on duty with his command at various points in Pennsylvania. In January, 1758, he was promoted Brigadier General and sent to Albany; later being ordered to "Oneida Portage," where, under his directions, Fort Stanwix (see post) was built and named. In June, 1759, he was promoted Major General. In August, 1760, he returned to England, and in the following January was promoted Lieutenant General. In May. 1763, he was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight, and in October, 1766, while on his way to London, the vessel on which he was a passenger was lost at sea.
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up the hatchet chiefly because the English had defrauded them of their lands. He continued :
"I have not far to go for an instance. This very ground that is under me (striking it with his foot) was my land and inheritance, and is taken from me by fraud. When I say this ground, I mean all the land lying between Tohiccon Creek* and Wyoming on the River Susquehanna. I have not only been served so in this Government, but the . same thing has been done to me as to several tracts in New Jersey, over the river. Two years ago, moreover, the Governor went to Albany to buy some land of the Six Nations, and described the purchase by points of the compass (which the Indians did not under- stand), including lands both upon the Juniata and the Susquehanna, which they did not intend to sell. When all these things were known to the Indians they declared they would no longer be friends to the English, who were trying to get all their country away from them."
Teedyuscung assured the Governor, however, that the Delawares were nevertheless glad to meet again their old friends the English, and to smoke the pipe of peace with them. He also hoped that justice would be done them for all the injuries they had received. The Gov- ernor thereupon offering him redress, Teedyuscung closed the confer- ence by stating that he was not empowered to accept of it, but that he would meet the Governor at some future time, when he would lay be- fore him the extent of the grievances of the Delawares and they could treat for a settlement of all their disagreements and for a lasting peace. The council continued nine days, and Governor Denny appears to have conducted himself with so much tact and judgment as greatly to con- ciliate the good-will of the Indians. By his candid and ingenuous treat- ment of them he "put his hand into Teedyuscung's bosom, and was so successful as to draw out the secret which neither Sir William Johnson nor the Six Nations could do"-as some of the Mohawks afterwards expressed it; and "from that time it was generally known that one cause of the alienation of their [the Delawares] friendship was some injustice they had received, or supposed to be done them, in the purchase of their lands." Relative to the speeches made by Teedyuscung dur- ing this conference Moses Tatemy said to Conrad Weisert :
"Everything had been agreed upon in the Indian council what should have been said. Teedyuscung had everything in his heart, what to say, before he came to Easton, and there his memory was refreshed ; but being too often overcome with strong liquor he spoke confused, though nothing that was wrong or false. He should have given an account of the differences that arose some time ago between the Delaware Minising Indians and the Mingoes [Six Nations], and should have told the Governor how the lat- ter have cheated the former out of a good deal of land on the River Delaware ; and that the Mingoes had abused the Delawares greatly in Philadelphia, some years before, as if the Delawares and Minising Indians were their dogs, etc."§
Early in December accounts were received by the Government which led to the belief that some of the Indians who had been at the Easton treaty had, on their way home therefrom, murdered certain white settlers on the frontiers-thus making it appear that Teedyus- cung's authority over those Indians was very doubtful. About the middle of January, 1757, George Croghan|| sent Joe Peepy and Lewis
* This was not the Tohiccon, or Tioga, River mentioned on page 34 and noted on the map facing page 320, but a small stream heading near the present Quakertown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and empty- ing into the Delaware fifteen miles east of that place.
+ See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 645.
Į See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 432.
§ See page 198.
| GEORGE CROGHAN (previously mentioned in the notes on pages 207 and 214) was, next to Sir William Johnson, the most prominent figure among British Indian Agents during the period of the later French wars and the conspiracy of Pontiac. He was born in Ireland and educated at Dublin, and immigrated to America in 1741. Then, or a year or two later, he settled in Pennsylvania near John Harris' Ferry on the Susquehanna. For several years he was an Indian trader, and at the saine time was employed in public services for the Province. In 1753 he settled at Aughwick, in what is now Huntingdon County. In 1755 he was commissioned Captain in the Provincial service. This office he resigned in 1756, and there- upon retired from the service of Pennsylvania. He then went to New York, where Sir William Johnson appointed him one of his deputies in the Indian service, with the rank of Colonel. "When he pre-
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Montour, previously mentioned, with a message to the Susquehanna Indians inviting them to attend a council, or treaty, at Lancaster, Penn- sylvania. Peepy and Montour delivered the message to the Indians assembled in council at Tioga, and immediately two messengers were despatched thence to the Ohio to inform the Delawares and Shawanese there of the proposed Lancaster meeting, and to desire some of them to come to it; but if none should choose to come, then these messengers were to insist that none of the Ohio Delawares and Shawanese should. come to war against the English till this meeting was over. Upon their return from Tioga Peepy and Montour reported to Croghan "that all the Susquehanna Indians were disposed for peace except the Monseys, or Minisink Indians"; although the messengers believed that a number of those Indians would come down to the treaty with Teedyuscung.
On the 18th of February, 1757, Zaccheus, a Delaware Indian for- merly of Gnadenhütten, arrived at Fort Allen, and on the following day seven Indian women and three children arrived there, all sent as mes- sengers from Tioga by Teedyuscung to announce to Governor Denny that he intended to come the next month to Easton to hold a treaty. Early in March Teedyuscung, with a large number of Delaware, Six Nation and Nanticoke Indians, who had come down the river from Tioga and beyond, arrived in the valley of Wyoming. After tarrying here a few days two of Teedyuscung's sons, his half-brothers Captain Harris and Sam Evans and several squaws and children-in all number- ing about fifty-set out for Fort Allen, where they arrived a few days later. Captain Arndt, the commandant of the fort, wrote Major Parsons under date of March 31st that these Indians had "built cabins about sixty perches from the fort, where they live and intend to stay till the King comes."* About the same time that the abovementioned band de- parted from the valley for Fort Allen, all the Six Nation Indians, the Nanticokes and a few Delawares of the company that had arrived in Wyoming with Teedyuscung, as previously mentioned, proceeded down the river to Fort Augusta, at Shamokin. On March 21st Governor Denny received informationt from Maj. James Burd, commanding the fort, that 150 Six Nation Indians had arrived there. These were mostly, wrote Major Burd, "Indians sent by Sir William Johnson to oblige the Dela- wares to lay down the hatchet, and to be present at the treaty proposed to be held between the Government and the Delawares." Teedyuscung,. with a few of his retinue, remained at Wyoming for a time-as is shown by the following extract from a letter written to Colonel Croghan by
sented himself to the Governor's Council in Philadelphia in December, 1756, the Council, knowing Mr. Croghan's circumstances, was not a little surprised at the appointment, and desired to see his credentials."
Late in 1763 Colonel Croghan sailed for England on private business, but being shipwrecked off the coast of France did not reach his destination until February, 1764. Among the "Penn Manuscripts" men- tioned on page 30, ante, is the original draft of an affidavit prepared by Colonel Croghan some time after his arrival in England. It is, in part, as follows: "George Croghan of Cumberland County, Pennsyl- vania, Deputy Agent for Indian Affairs under Sir William Johnson, * * now residing in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, county of Middlesex, maketh oath : That he hath been resident in North America for twenty-three years next before his. arrival in England, which was in the month of February last. That upon his first arrival in America he traded with the Six Nations and the other Indian tribes depend- ent upon and tributary to them, and was in such favor and confidence with the Council of the Six Nations that he was, in the year 1746, * * admitted by them to sit as a councilor in the Onondaga Council then sitting in Philadelphia-which is the Supreme Council of the Six Nations. * * That he understands the language of the Six Nations and of several other of the Indian Nations, and is acquainted with the inanner in which the Six Nations dispose of their country and tracts of land." * *
Colonel Croghan returned to America in 1765. At the beginning of the Revolution he appears to have embarked in the patriot cause, but later he became an object of suspicion. In 1778 he was declared by Penn- sylvania a public enemy, and his office of Indian Agent was conferred upon Col. George Morgan. He continued, however, to reside in Pennsylvania, and died at Passyunk in 1782. For copies of several of Croghan's journals, and for a sketch of his life, see "Early Western Travels," Vol. I.
* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 462.
+ See ibid., page 453.
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Governor Denny on April 16th *- and then retraced his path up the river.
'I enclose two messages from Teedyuscung, which were delivered to Major Parsons at Easton. You will see by these that there is such a scarcity of provisions at Wyoming that the Chief desires some may be sent to help those who are with him on their journey. I have ordered a supply sent from Bethlehem to Fort Allen, to be carried thence on horse- back to Wyoming by the Indians who are already come in."
The Indians, who, as previously noted, had arrived at Fort Augusta, proceeded without much delay down the river to John Harris', where they were met on March 29th by Colonel Croghan, who reported to the Governor that there were "about 160 of them-men, women and chil- dren-part of eight tribes." A day or two later they were joined by a few Conestoga Indians, whose village was not many miles distant, and on April 1st a formal conference between Croghan and the Indians was begun. Among the white men present besides Croghan were the Rev. John Elder, Capt. Thomas McKee, John Harris and Hugh Crawford. All the tribes of the Six Nations were well represented with the excep- tion of the Seneca tribe, only a few members of which, and none of its principal chiefs, were present. Robert White, formerly of Wyoming, chief of the Nanticokes, was there with a delegation of his tribe. Tyan- hasare, or Abraham Peters (mentioned on page 277), Johannis Soge- howane, one of the signers of the deed to The Susquehanna Company (see page 276) and "Little Abe" (mentioned on page 278) were there among the Mohawks. Thomas King and Scarooyady were among the Oneidas, and Tapescawen, or Samuel (Teedyuscung's counselor), Thomas Evans (Teedyuscung's half-brother) and Joe Peepy were among the Delawares. Scarooyady was the principal speaker for the Indians. On April 6th it was decided to remove the council-fire to Lancaster, and the next day the entire company marched thither, being mnet on the out- skirts of the town by a number of the principal inhabitants, who came out to formally welcome the Indians to their midst.
About this time news came down the Susquehanna that up near Tioga there was a band of Shawanese Indians who were minded to descend the river and do mischief. "One of Paxinosa's sons is amongst them," said the bearer of the news, "yet all the Indians agree that Pax- inosa himself is a true friend of the English." Almost contempor- aneously with the receipt of this news at Lancaster Peter Spelman (a German, who had resided seven years among the Shawanese on one of the western branches of the Susquehanna, where he had married a Shaw- anese wife) arrived at Fort Johnson, in the Mohawk Valley, and reported to Sir William Johnson that deputies from the "League of the Three Nations" would visit him in a short time, with a body of more than 200 Indians ; that, in fact, they were then on the road. Their object was to smoke a friendly pipe with Sir William, after the manner of their fathers, and to offer him assistance in the war against the French. Spelman presented two strings of wampum from the chiefs as the cre- dentials of his authority, and informed the Baronet that the confederacy which he represented was composed of the Nanticokes and Conoys (then one nation), t the Shawanese and the Mohegans, and that their head- quarters were at Otsiningo. On the 19th of April these Indians arrived at the south bank of the Mohawk (which was then swollen by the Spring flood), opposite Fort Johnson. The Shawanese were represented
* See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 479.
+ See note, page 219.
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by Paxinosa and 52 warriors; the Mohegans by Mammatsican, their King, with 147 of his tribe, and the Nanticokes by a chief and 8 war- riors. The chiefs having crossed the river in canoes were admitted to a council. Having been addressed in favorable and congratulatory terms by Sir William, who explained to them the true position of the English -as contrasted with that of the French-respecting the Indians, the chiefs, two days subsequently, replied, accepting the offer of the Chain of Friendship, and promising to keep "fast hold of it, and not quit it, so long as the world endured." In this address allusion was incident- ally made to a belt sent the previous year to the unfriendly Indians on the Ohio near Fort Duquesne ; and also to a similar belt sent to Tee- dyuscung, then residing near Tioga. The chiefs formally apprized Sir William of the League formed by their nations, and also that they had concentrated at Otsiningo, where messages were directed to be sent to them in the future .*
The end of April came on, and the Indians who had arrived at Lancaster some three weeks previously were still there awaiting the coming of Governor Denny to open the conference to which they had been invited. Finally the Governor was notifiedt by the Board of Indian Commissioners that they had been informed that the Indians at Lancaster were very uneasy, and complained of their long detention from their habitations, that their planting season was advancing fast, and that sundry of their warriors were ill of the small-pox. They stated, also, that some of the Indians then at Lancaster had offered not to return to their respective towns; but to settle at Wyoming and Shamokin. At length the Governor reached Lancaster, attended by members of the Provincial Council, members of the Assembly, the Indian Commissioners of the Province, Colonel Stanwix of the "Royal Americans," and by a number of private citizens. Three days later (May 12, 1757) the con- ference was formally opened at the Lancaster County Court House. "Little Abe" and Thomas King were the chief talkers for the Indians, and the principal speech delivered by "Little Abe" was, in part, as follows :
"Brothers, you desired us to open our hearts and inform you of everything we know that might have given rise to the quarrel between you and our nephews and brothers. In former times our forefathers conquered the Delawares and put petticoats on them. A long time after that they lived among you, our brothers ; but upon some difference be- tween you and then we thought proper to remove them, § giving them lands to plant and to hunt on at Wyoming and Juniata on the Susquehanna. But you, covetous of land, made plantations there and spoiled their hunting grounds. They then complained to us, and we looked over those lands and found their complaints to be true."
The chief thereupon referred to the acts of hostility then recently committed by the Delawares, and to the fact that the Senecas had neglected to put forth any efforts to establish peace and tranquillity ; and next, stating the well-understood fact that the Mohawks were the keepers of the "Eastern Door" of the Iroquois Confederacy, he continued :
"We [the Mohawks] took the affair in hand and sent messengers to Otsiningo, and there a council was held, and the deputies we sent charged the Delawares to get sober, as we looked on their actions as the actions of drunken men. They [the deputies ] received for answer that they [the Delawares] looked upon themselves as men, and would acknowl- edge no superiority that any other nation had over them. 'We are men, and determined not to be ruled any longer as women by you ; and we are determined to cut off all the English except those that may make their escape from us in ships. So, say no more to
* See Schoolcraft's "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," page 132.
¡ See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VII : 485, 498 and 499.
¿ See page 198.
Į See ibid., 521.
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us on that head, lest we cut off your private parts and make women of you, as you have done of us.' The Delawares said further, that in the meantime, though they did not any longer acknowledge the Six Nations as their uncles, yet they would listen to what the Senecas should say to them."*
"Little Abe" then advised that messengers should be sent by the Governor to the Senecas to invite them to a meeting with the Dela- wares and Shawanese at Lancaster or elsewhere. This was done, and messengers were sent to Teedyuscung, also, to inquire as to the reasons for his absence from the Lancaster conference-which was then, on the 21st of May, brought to a close. On May 23d all the Indians (save Tapescawen and Joe Peepy) who had been at the conference set out on foot from "the. Indian camp at Lancaster" in charge of Capt. Thomas McKee, and reached Fort Augusta about June 1st. On the 5th of June these Indians, with the exception of the Delawares, left the fort "in canoes, with plenty of flour, rum, etc., sufficient to carry them home."+ The Delawares loitered around Fort Augusta a few days and then started across the country to Bethlehem, whither Tapescawen and Peepy had gone on horseback from Lancaster-having been selected to con- vey the Governor's message to Teedyuscung.
"The Cherokee Indians who were serving in the [English] army near Fort Loudon and Fort Cumberland were stoutly opposed to any peace with the Delaware Indians. As a consequence, while the confer- ence was in progress at Lancaster, a number of Indian outrages took place within a few miles of that town. This exasperated the people to such an extent that in one instance they brought the mutilated body of a woman whom the Indians had scalped, and left it on the Court House steps, 'a silent witness,' as they said, 'of the fruits of an Indian peace.' These things, with the absence of Teedyuscung, made it im- possible to accomplish anything at Lancaster. Presents were given, and the principles of peace expounded among the Indians. This was done by the Friends, who attended in large numbers. The Governor, writing to the Proprietaries, said : 'I did not expect such a body of Friends would have attended at Lancaster, where the Secretary counted above 100 in the Court House at one of the conferences, and some one told me there were 140.'"} Relative to the activity and in- fluence of the Pennsylvania Quakers at this period Stone has this to say ("Poetry and History of Wyoming," page 119) :
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