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 70
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"The twelfth day of the sixth month, and first of the week [Sunday, June 12th], it being a rainy day, we continued in our tent. Our guide's horse, though hoppled, went away in the night, and after finding our own, and searching some time for him, his foot- steps were discovered in the path going back again ; whereupon my kind companion [Parvin] went off in the rain, and after about seven hours returned with him. Here we lodged again, tying up our horses before we went to bed, and loosing them to feed about break of day. On the thirteenth day, the sun appearing, we set forward. * * *
We reached the Indian settlement at Wioming, and here we were told that an Indian runner had been at that place a day or two beforet us, and brought news of the Indians taking an English fort westward and destroying the people, and that they were endeavoring to Historical Society of Pennsylvania, has been published two or three times, but, so far as we are aware, the sketches have never been reproduced heretofore.
· Through the courtesy of the Historical Society we are enabled to present herein reduced photo-repro- ductions of several of Colonel Hubley's sketches-one of which, shown on this page, represents "The Trees painted by the Indians, between Oswegy and Chukunut, on the head-waters of Susquehannah, with their characters." By "Oswegy" Colonel Hubley referred to Owegy (see map facing page 320), now Owego, Tioga County, New York ; and by "Chukunut" he referred to Choconut, or Chugnuts (signifying "The Place of Tamaracks"), a large Indian village on the south side of Their Feet fast the Susquehanna, where the village of Vestal, Broome County, New York, now stands. Certain Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Shawanese and Chug- Characters - nuts settled at that place in 1756, and when the village was destroyed by the American forces in 1779 it consisted of fifty houses. Colonel Hubley's notes written on the . HA .... . . sketch, between the trunks of the two trees, are: "Representations. 1-Holding a death maul. 2-Num- 3.1 ber of scalps taken. 3-Onondaga nation represented by ye pipe. 5- An Indian returning successful from his expedition."
In November, 1800, Charles - 5. 10 Miner, of Wilkes-Barré (later the author of a "History of Wyoming"), made a tour on horseback up along the Susquehanna, Chemung and Cohocton Rivers to Bath, New York. Writing in 1859 about this journey he said (see Record of the Times, June 8, 1859): "From Bath I passed west to Hornell's, the limit of my journey. Returning down the Can- isteo my path lay twelve miles with- out a house, but passed through a numerous lodge of Indians who were there encamped for hunting. It is matter of surprise to me that I had no fear, for these were the very fellows who, twenty-two years before, had committed the dreadful massacre at Wyoming, and might not have lost their thirst for blood and plunder. * * Their main lodges were made by placing two long poles in the ground, ten or twelve feet apart, and, bringing the tops together, fastening them with withes. At suitable distances other sets of poles were put up, extending in a regular line perhaps sixty feet. These were covered with blankets and skins, so that, in fact, they had a house sixty feet long and twelve feet wide, running up to a sharp roof. Game in abundance lay at the door-among the rest the porcupine, the first I had ever seen. The Indians-old and young, the squaws and children-came out to gaze, looking squalid and dirty ; but they were not uncivil. So rapidly was that beautiful country then settling, that it is probable this was the last Indian hunting encampment ever erected there-the place of their proper residence, or home, being, I take it, considerably farther north.
"Descending the Canisteo seven or eight miles-seeing occasionally a hunter-I passed [over] the stream, and my attention was forcibly and agreeably arrested by paintings upon several trees (the bark of which had been smoothed for the purpose) of the heads and necks of ten or twelve animals, admirably drawn ; done so that the doe with her smooth forehead, the young buck with his spike-horns, or the old with his formidable antlers, the old and the young bear-not only distinguishable by size, but by expres- sion-and various smaller animals, were all portrayed with more than skill. * * I learned afterwards that this was the [Indians'] mode of giving information to their fellow-hunters as to how many animals they had taken."
These painted trees stood, without doubt, on the north bank of the Canisteo River, in what is now the township of Cameron, Steuben County, New York-about midway between the sites of the former Indian towns Canisteo (mentioned on pages 206, 207 and 341) and Assinnissink (mentioned on pages 327 and 389). Dr. Beauchamp says (in "Aboriginal Occupation of New York," page 147) that as late as 1804 there were temporary Indian camps in the locality last mentioned.
* This was DAVID ZEISBERGER, who was again on his way to Wyalusing, having left Bethlehem on the 10th of June. He arrived at his destination (having passed through Wyoming) in the evening of June 16th, and was welcomed by Papoonhank and his people. He remained there, preaching to the Indians and baptizing a few converts (Papoonhank among the number), until June 30th, when he was re- called to Bethlehem by the Brethren, on account of Pontiac's War.
+ At the time Colonel Burd and Captain McKee were in the valley, as previously mentioned.
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take another. Also, that another Indian runner came there about the middle of the night before we got there, who came from a town about ten miles above Wehaloosing, and brought news that some Indian warriors from distant parts came to that town with two English scalps, and told the people that it was 'War with the English !'
"Our guides took us to the house of a very antient man,* and soon after we had put in our baggage there came a man from another Indian house some distance off, and I, perceiving there was a man near the door, went out; and he, having a tomahawk wrapped under his matchcoat, out of sight, as I approached him took it in his hand. I, however, went forward, and speaking to him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My companion then coming out, we had some talk with him concerning the nature of our visit in these parts ; and then he going into the house with us, and talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly and sat down and smoaked his pipe. Tho' his taking his hatchet in his hand at the instant I drew near to him had a disagree- able appearance, I believe he had no other intent than to be in readiness in case any violence was offered to him.
"Hearing the news brought by these Indian runners, and being told by the Indians where we lodged that what Indians were about Wioming expected, in a few days, to move to some larger towns, I thought that, to all outward appearance, it was dangerous traveling at this time. * * * In this great distress I grew jealous of myself, lest the desire of reputation-as a man firmly settled to persevere through dangers-or the fear of disgrace arising on my returning without performing the visit, might have some place in me. Thus I lay, full of thoughts, the great part of the night, while my beloved com- panion lay and slept by me. *
* * On the fourteenth we sought out and visited all the Indians hereabouts that we could meet with-they being chiefly in one place, tabout a mile from where we lodged-in all, perhaps twenty. Here I expressed the care I had on my mind for their good, and told them that true love had made me willing thus to leave my family to come and see the Indians and speak with them in their houses. Some of them appeared kind and friendly.
"So we took our leave of these Indians, and went up the river Susquehannah about three miles to the house of an Indian called 'Jacob January,'{ who had killed his hog, and the women were making a store of bread and preparing to move up the river. Here our pilots had left their canoe when they came down in the Spring, which, lying dry, was leaky, so that we, being detained some hours, had a good deal of friendly conversa- tion with the family ; and, eating dinner with them, we inade them some small presents. Then putting our baggage in the canoe, some of them pulled slowly up the stream, and the rest of us rode our horses, and, swimming them over a creek called Lahawahamunk [Lackawanna River], we pitched our tent a little above it. On the 15th day of the month we proceeded forward till the afternoon, when a storm appearing, we met our canoe at an appointed place, and the rain continuing we stayed all night. * * We
seldom saw our canoe but at appointed places, by reason of the path going off from the river. This afternoon [June 16th] Job Chillaway,§ an Indian from Wehaloosing, who talks good English, and is acquainted with several people in and about Philadelphia, met our people on the river, and, understanding where we expected to lodge, pushed back about six miles and came to us after night ; and in a while our own canoe came, it being hard work pushing up stream. Job told us that an Indian came in haste to their town yesterday and told them that three warriors, coming from some distance, lodged in a town above Wehaloosing a few nights past, and that these three men were going against the English at Juniata. Job was going down the river to the Province store at Shamokin."
Woolman and his companions arrived at Wyalusing in the after- noon of June 17th, and Woolman and Parvin remained there, teaching and preaching, until the 21st, when they set out on their homeward journey. Woolman wrote in his journal :
"We expected only two Indians to be our company, but when we were ready to go we found many of them were going to Bethlehem with skins and furs, who chose to go in company with us. So they loaded two canoes, which they desired us to go in, telling us that the waters were so raised with the rains that the horses should be taken by such as were better acquainted with the fording places. So we, with several Indians, went in
the canoes, and others went on the horses-there being seven besides ours. * * On the 22d day [of June] we reached Wioming before night, and understood the Indians were mostly gone from this place. Here we went up a small creek|| into the woods with our canoes, and, pitching our tent, carried out our baggage. Before dark our horses came to us. On the 23d day, in the morning, our horses were loaded and we prepared our baggage, and so set forward, being in all fourteen ; and with diligent traveling were
* Presumably this was old Moses, the Mohegan, who lived about a mile below the village of Wyo- ming, near the mouth of what was at one time known as Moses' Creek, and is now Solomon's, or Button- wood, Creek. See pages 312 and 373.
+ The village of Wyoming-Teedyuscung's old town.
Į This was the Indian from whom "Jacob's Plains," previously described, received their name.
§ See page 364. | Either Buttonwood Creek or Sugar Notch Creek.
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favored to get near half way to Fort Allen-the land on this road from Wioming to our frontier being mostly poor, and good grass scarce. On the 24th day we passed Fort Allen, and lodged near it in the woods. * * Between the English inhabitants [at Bethlehem and thereabout] and Wehaloosing, we had only a narrow path, which in many places is much grown up with bushes and interrupted by abundance of trees lying across it. These, together with the mountains, swamps and rough stones make it a diffi- cult road to travel ; and the more so for that rattlesnakes abound there-of which we killed four."
June 23, 1763, Governor Hamilton at Philadelphia wrote to Timothy Horsfield (previously mentioned) at Bethlehem :
"Understanding that David Zeisberger is now, or hath been lately, in the Indian country on the Susquehanna, I should be obliged to you for communicating to me any intelligence he has brought or may bring from there."
June 27th Justice Horsfield forwarded to the Governor an extract from a letter just brought by an Indian messenger to the Brethren at Bethlehem from Zeisberger, who had written the letter at Wyalusing on June 18th. The extract was, in part, as follows *:
"This is to let you know that I and my companion arrived here safe on the 16th of this month. At Wyomick we found the Indians in motion to leave the place, for the same night we arrived there they received many frightful relations concerning war being begun again, viz .: That the western Indians, together with the Six Nations, had taken Fort Detroit and several other forts. * * They have planted there [at Wyoming], but leave everything behind them." * *
With the departure of the Indians from Wyoming, as noted by Woolman and Zeisberger, the red men's occupancy of the valley came to an end. From time to time during the ensuing nineteen years Indians of various tribes, in large companies, in small bands or singly, came into the valley in the course of their journeys to other sections of the country, or with the object of trading or holding conferences with the white inhabitants of Wyoming, or for the purpose of destroying life and property here ; but never again was there a village established or occupied by Indians in this locality. From the close of Pontiac's War until 1775-a period of about eleven years-there were several Indians who, at different times, singly or with their families, occupied cabins in various parts of the valley. After the whites had gained a settlement here these Indians lived on peaceable and friendly terms with them.t
Although the proprietors of The Susquehanna Company heard of "wars and rumors of wars" in the Spring and Summer of 1763, yet, seemingly, they were not dismayed; nor did they appear to be much cast down by the announcement that King George, on an ex parte state-
* For a copy of this letter see "The Horsfield Papers," mentioned in the note on page 233.
t With the exception of those Delawares who (like Papoonhank and his people) were under the peace- inspiring influence of the Moravian Brethren, all the members of that tribe who had been living for some time along the North Branch of the Susquehanna departed for the Ohio region by the middle of July, 1763, when Pontiac's War was well under way. They emigrated with embittered feelings against the English colonists generally, and they lost no time in making preparations to go out on the war-path. In November, 1763, Sir William Johnson made to the Board of Trade in England a carefully prepared report -based on statistics gathered some months earlier-on the then "present state of the northern Indians." Relative to the Delawares he stated that it was estimated that they numbered 600 warriors (which would indicate a total of 3,000 persons), dwelling "in several villages on and about the Susquehanna, Muskin- gum, etc., and thence to Lake Erie. These people are greatly influenced by the Senecas, and reside on land allotted them by the permission of the Six Nations. They are now at war with the English." (See "Documentary History of the State of New York," I : 26.)
In 1764 the Delawares "accepted the treaty of peace offered them, in rather a vaunting spirit, by Colonel Bradstreet, on Lake Erie ; but subsequently renewed their hostile inroads, and, in the Autunin of the same year, on the banks of the Muskingum, again submitted to the army (under Colonel Bouquet), delivering up, as a test of their sincerity, a very large number of prisoners-men, women and children. The surrender of these prisoners forms the most remarkable instance of the kind on record, both on account of the number of persons liberated, and the affecting circumstances attending it." (Schoolcraft's "History of the Indian Tribes of the United States," VI : 299.)
"The years 1765-1795 are the true period of the power and importance of the Delawares," wrote Albert Gallatin in 1836. In January, 1772, Sir William Johnson wrote to Governor Penn of Pennsylvania : "The Delawares, Munsees, etc., have been and are to be considered as dependents on the Five Nations, and having nothing to do with the western Indians further than in an intercourse common with all Indians in time of peace." At that period the Monsey, or Minsi, clan of the Delaware tribe had conie to be con- sidered and treated as a distinct tribe, known as the "Munsee." (In this connection see note ||, on page 325.) This distinction is preserved to this day. At the beginning of the Revolution there were no Dela- wares east of the Alleghenies. "Although a portion of the nation adhered to the Americans during the
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War of Independence, the main body, together with all the western nations, made common cause with the British." The Delawares were cruel enemies during the war. As noted on page 156, the first formal treaty made by the United States with Indians was entered into with the Delawares in 1778. After the short truce which followed the treaty of 1783 the Delawares were again at the head of the western con- federacy in their last struggle for independence. The decisive victory of General Wayne in 1794 dissolved that confederacy, and the Delawares were the greatest sufferers by the Greenville treaty of 1795.
In 1809, and later, numbers of Delawares were living among the Senecas on the reservations of the latter at Cattaraugus and Tonawanda, New York, while a band of Delawares was located near Cape Girardeau (mentioned on page 383); but since 1789 the greater part of the nation had been settled in what is now Ohio-between the rivers Miami and Cuyahoga, and on the Muskingum. In 1811 many Delawares went from Ohio to Indiana and joined the Shawanese in the battle of Tippecanoe, mentioned on page 382. In 1816 there were about 1,700 Delawares living on White River in Indiana, in five villages, within a compass of thirty-six miles. In 1818 these Delawares ceded all their lands to the United States Govern- ment and, to the number of 1,800, removed to south-eastern Missouri, where they settled between Current River and the bend of White River. At that time the only Delawares (about 80 in number) living in Ohio were located at Upper Sandusky on the Sandusky River. Those who went to Missouri joined a band of Cherokees there and overcame the Osages, who were on the west- ern boundaries of Arkansas and Indian Territory. In 1829 the Missouri Delawares sold their lands and made a treaty for lands in what is now north-eastern Kansas; but some of the tribe did not want to go there, saying that the junction of the rivers Kaw (now the Kansas) and Missouri-near which the new lands were located -reminded them too forcibly of a white man's trousers !
In 1831-'32 George Catlin visited the Delawares at their reserva- tion on the Kaw, and wrote that they numbered only 824 persons- many having died from small-pox. While there he painted the portraits of several of their principal chiefs, and the illustrations on this page are reduced facsimiles of drawings made by Catlin him- self from two of the portraits which he then painted. Nicóman, represented with bow and arrows in his hand, was the "second chief" of the tribe. Nonondágon, represented wearing a ring in his nose, was a chief of distinction, "whose history," wrote Catlin, "I admired very much ; and to whom, for his gentlemanly attentions to me, I became very much attached. Their [Nicóman's and Non- ondágon's] dresses were principally of stuffs of civilized manufac- ture, and their heads were bound with vari-colored handkerchiefs or shawls, which were tastefully put on like a Turkish turban." About that time Catlin wrote concerning the Delawares as follows : "The very sound of this name (Delawares) has carried terror wherever it has been heard in the Indian wilderness; and it has traveled and been known, as well as the people, over a very great part of the continent. No other tribe has been so much moved and jostled about by civilized invasions ; and none have retreated so far, NI-CO-MAN ("The Answer"). or fought their way so desperately, as they have honorably and bravely contended for every foot of the ground they have passed over. From the banks of the Delaware to the lovely Susquehanna and my native valley -. to the base of and over the Allegheny Moun- tains-to the Ohio River-to the Illinois and the Mississippi-and at last to the west of the Missouri, they have been moved by treaties after treaties with the Government, who have now assigned to the mere handful that are left a tract of land (as has been done a dozen times before) in fee simple, forever! In every move the poor fellows have made they have been thrust against their wills from the graves of their fathers and their children and planted, as they now are, on the borders of new enemies, where their first occupation has been to take up their weapons in self-defense, and fight for the ground they have been planted on. There is no tribe, perhaps, amongst which greater and more continued exertions have been made for their conversion to Christianity-and that, ever since the zealous efforts of the Moravian missionaries, who first began with them ; nor any amongst whom those pious and zealous efforts have been squandered more in vain -which has, probably, been owing to the bad faith with which they have so often and so continually been treated by white people. which has excited prejudices that have stood in the way of their mental improvement.
"This scattered and reduced tribe, which once contained some 10,000 or 15,000. numbers at this time but 824; and the greater part of them have been, for the past fifty or sixty years, residing in Ohio and Indiana. In those States their reservations became surrounded by white people (whom they dislike for neighbors) and their lands too valuable for Indians, and the certain consequence has been that they have sold out and taken lands west of the Mississippi, to which they have moved and on which it is and always will be almost impossible to find them, owing to their desperate disposition for roaming about and indulging in the chase and in wars with their enemies. The wild frontier on which they are now placed affords them so fine an opportunity to indulge both of these pro- pensities, that they will be continually wandering in little and desperate parties over the vast buffalo plains, exposed to their enemies, till at last the new country, which is given to them in "fee simple, forever," and which is destitute of game, will be deserted, and they, like the most of the removed remnants of tribes, will be destroyed.
"In my travels on the Upper Missouri and in the Rocky Moun- tains I learned, to my utter astonishment, that little parties-of only NON-ON-DA-GON. six or eight in number-of these adventurous Delawares had visited those remote tribes, at 2,000 miles distance, and in several instances-after having cajoled a whole tribe, having been feasted in their villages, having solemnized articles of everlasting peace with them and received many presents at their hands and taken affectionate leave-have brought away six or eight scalps with them and, moreover, braved their way and defended themselves as they retreated in safety out of their enemies' country and through the regions of other hostile tribes, where they managed to receive the same honors and come off with similar trophies. Amongst this tribe there are some renowned chiefs whose lives, if correctly written, would be matter of the most extraordinary kind for the reading world." (See "Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution," 1885, Part II, page 198.)
When the Delawares got to Kansas they had trouble with the Pawnees, Comanchees, Sioux and other tribes. Their war with the Pawnees and Sioux began in 1835 and lasted till 1837. They were led in most of their battles by a Delaware brave named Thomas Hill, who was also noted for his bravery in the Mexican War, in which he served as Captain of a company of United States soldiers. In 1853 the Kansas
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ment of the situation of affairs made to his Ministers, had formally dis- approved of the project of The Susquehanna Company to establish a colony of its members at Wyoming. The dozen families of settlers who had arrived in the valley about the middle of May, 1763, were joined here in the course of two or three weeks by other families; but early in July-after it had become pretty generally known throughout Connecticut that The Susquehanna Company had procured from certain chiefs of the Six Nations a new deed for the Wyoming lands* (confirm- ing the original sale made in 1754), and that, at about the same time, the Indians had forsaken the valley, and that Colonel Dyer was soon to make a voyage to England in order to fix up matters with the King- a large number of settlers arrived on the ground. Stone,t referring to these settlers of 1763, says : "The pioneers, who in the Summer of 1762 had commenced their operations in Wyoming, returned to the valley to resume their labors early in the ensuing Spring, accompanied by their families, and with augmented numbers of settlers. They were fur- nished with an adequate supply of provisions, and took with them a quantity of live stock-black cattle, horses and pigs. Thus provided, and calculating to draw largely from the teeming soil in the course of the season, they resumed their labors with light hearts and vigorous arms. The forests rapidly retreated before their well-directed blows, and in the course of the Summer they commenced bringing the lands into cultivation on the west side of the river." Parshall Terry, refer- ring to these settlers (of whom he was one) in his affidavit previously mentioned, deposed :
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