USA > Pennsylvania > Bradford County > Athens > A history of old Tioga Point and early Athens, Pennsylvania > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89
8 Some of the Loups were called Mahikanders or River Indians; they were Delawares, not Mohawks.
9 This was doubtless Cayuga, as the Iroquois houses were built very long, somewhat in the style of an arched arbor, intended for many families or members of a clan; fires were built at intervals through the center, the bunks, etc., being on each side.
73
CAMMERHOFF'S DIARY
ed, degenerate race; they gradually became extinct, doubtless from their own excesses. Cammerhoff found the Tuteloes in the Wyoming Valley in 1750. They also lived for a time in southern New York.10 Very little is known about the Saponies.
Cammerhoff was another Moravian, who, with Zeisberger and several Indians, journed from Bethlehem to Onondoga in the spring of 175011, the Moravians always hoping to establish a mission at Onon- doga. This trip was made in canoes, with a Cayuga Indian as guide. At the outlet of the Wyoming Valley Cammerhoff's diary says :
"On the heights passed the great path to Tioga. Saw peach trees in an old Indian town. Met several Delawares of Tioga. * Passed Meshoppen as last town before Tioga. * * Near Wysaukin met a Delaware from Tioga on the way to hunt. Later came to a hunting camp of Residents of Tioga (evi- dently at mouth of Sugar Creek) ; passed the site of an old plantation (Oscolui), near which the Indians told us is the path through the great wilderness to Ots- tonwocken-Thursday May 17."
Having passed Ulster, Cammerhoff says :
"On this side of the Susquehanna (the East) is a tolerably large flat which looks charming (Sheshequin Flats). To my great joy we had a view of Tioga several miles distant from us. As it was towards evening we selected a spot for a camp just where the great path comes down to the river's edge and built us a hut. (This was opposite Queen Esther's flats at head of narrows.) The whole morning it stormed violently, we kept in camp and named it Camp Neces- sity.12 Our Indians began to paint and otherwise deck themselves, expecting soon to be among their own people. The rain ceasing, we took to the river and came to the branch called Tioga. This stream we now entered and passed In- dian huts at intervals on the banks. Passed rapids in abundance in which the water poured as through sluices and we had to work hard to stem the current. In fact the Tioga is one continuous rapid and tearing current-A little higher up we came to their Delaware huts. No one but women and children at home, they asked us to shore and gave us food. Reentering canoes we again passed huts at intervals and several ugly rapids. (This has been erroneously translated "falls" by some, thus making locality dubious.) At last reached a beautiful flat (between Spanish hill and river) on which stands the Indian town Gana- tockerat, inhabited by Cayugas, the end of our journey by water .- As soon as we landed we were surrounded by a crowd of men, women and children."
Cammerhoff remained here several days on his return from Onon- doga, but does not mention visiting Diahoga. In 1753 Zeisberger and Frey traveled to Onondoga ; their diary has this record:
"Thursday May 17 We set out early this morning and soon got out of the mountains reaching Tioga, We landed and entered several huts, inhabited al- together by Delawares, Hence we could have but very little conversation. Some Cayugas lived in the neighborhood," etc.
In 1754 Zeisberger made the journey again, remaining nearly a year at Onondoga.
In 1732-34 and '36 councils, more or less informal, were held at Philadelphia, in which no Indian was more prominent than the Oneida
10 Prof. Guss says the Tuteloes were a Virginia tribe identified as a transmigration of Mississippi Dacotah stock.
11 A recent examination of the Craft collection revealed translations of many Moravian Journals made thirty years or more ago for Dr. Craft by Rev. W. C. Reichel from the or- iginal German Mss. in the Bethlehem Archives, the same from which Dr. Beauchamp had kindly furnished us with extracts. Their introduction here may make the narrative dis- connected.
12 "It was the custom of the Moravian Missionaries when passing through a wilderness to give their camps names, the initials of which were carved on the trees as landmarks for other evangelists. In the course of time the valley of the Susquehanna was full of these memories of pious zeal."-Life and Times of Zeisberger.
.
74
OLD TIOGA POINT AND EARLY ATHENS
chief Swatana, best known by the name given him by the Delawares, "Shikellimy." He was a trusty and good man, and a great lover of the English, who always coveted his favor, and with whom he became very influential. At his death his son said of him:
"My father who, it is well known was all his life a hearty and steady friend to the English, charged his children to follow his steps, and remain al- way true to the English who had always been kind to him and his family."
In 1728 he was appointed vice-regent by the Five Nations and sent to reside at Shamokin13 and look after all the Susquehanna In- dians; in this capacity he administered affairs within the Province of Pennsylvania ; was responsible for the good behavior of all the tribes tributary to the Iroquois, and was present at every council, which were so frequent between 1728 and 1748, respecting purchases of land. By his moderate counsels he aided in many amicable solutions of the intri- cate questions arising in these conferences. He was a good Christian, much esteemed by Zeisberger and other Moravians; a great friend of Conrad Weiser's, being appointed agent or interpreter with him in 1732. He was his companion in 1737 to Onondoga, stopping with him at Diahogo, and later in the journey, by his simple faith in God, inspiring courage in Weiser when the latter succumbed to fatigue and starvation.14 He also accompanied Weiser to Onondoga in 1743 and 1745. He had three sons, one of whom became the famous chief Logan. He died at Shamokin December 17, 1748. Probably no In- dian chief ever did more to conciliate the red men and the white men than Shikellimy.
"He was in many respects the most remarkable aborigine of whom there is any record; had a great love for truth and never violated his word, consid- ered it a crime."
At the time of his death there was much ill feeling among the Pennsylvania Indians, largely due to the dissatisfaction which arose from the transaction known as the "Walking Purchase."
Probably no action of the English settlers was more exasperating to the Delawares than the so-called "Walking Purchase." In 1682 the agent of William Penn made a purchase from the Indians of land bounded by the Delaware on the northeast, the Neshaming on the northwest, and to extend as far back as a man could walk in three days. Egle states that Penn and the Indians began to walk out this land, and stopped in a day and a-half, Penn concluding that was as much land as he would want at present. From this period, however, the whites kept establishing themselves a little further north until the Indians became uneasy, and desired to have a limit placed on these encroachments in 1734, and it was agreed in 1737 that the walk should be performed. The Indians seem to expect the walk to end at the Lehigh Hills, but the Proprietary planned to take in as much land as possible. They employed three men, noted for their agility and ability as fast walkers, and instead of going up the river, as Penn had, and
13 Shamokin, now Sunbury, was held as a strategic point by the Iroquois at an early day, being made the seat of a viceroy who ruled the tributary tribes of the Susquehanna. The missionaries called it the very seat of the Prince of Darkness, in 1745, when its inhab- itants were half Delawares, the others Senecas and Tuteloes.
14 See "Memorials Moravian Church," p. 90.
75
WALKING PURCHASE, TEEDYUSCUNG
the Indians expected, they went across the country, using a compass to secure a straight path. It was an exciting walk or run, as the In- dians soon complained. Two of the three white men succumbed to fatigue, one dying three days later. Only Edward Marshall continued, and at the close of time he had covered 634 miles.
Not content with this, the lines were so run as to include many thousands of acres far up the Delaware River. The Delaware Indians both saw and complained of the fraud, nor would they relinquish the land until compelled to do so in 1742 by the Six Nations.
As to this "Walking Purchase," Parkman says, the white men were put in training for the walk, and that a smooth road was laid out that no obstructions should mar their speed. The Iroquois met the Delawares at council in Philadelphia in 1742, and thus addressed them, by the chief Canassatego :
"You ought to be taken by the hair of the head and shaken soundly till you recover your senses. You don't know what you are doing,-How came you to take upon you to sell land at all? We conquered you, we made women of you, you can no more sell land than women-We charge you to remove in- stantly-We assign you two places to go, either to Wyoming or Shamokin-We shall then have you more under our eye, and shall see how you behave. Dont deliberate, but take this belt of wampum, and go at once." 15
Parkman says the Delawares dared not disobey. They left their ancient homes and removed to the Susquehanna, some settling at Sha- mokin and some at Wyoming. But, naturally, they had a very hostile feeling toward the whites, and this was doubtless the principal cause of their engaging against the English; even the Iroquois resented the aggressive acts of the white settlers in Pennsylvania, and became allies of their own former foes, the French.
War had been declared between France and Great Britain in 1744, and it was speedily carried into the colonies, where the English had already resolved to put a stop to French aggression, but it was not until 1755 that Pennsylvania became the theatre of the contest. Con- spicuous among the Indians during the French War was Teedyuscung, the man who led the Delawares and their allies against the English. Reichel, in "The Crown Inn," thus describes him :
"July 17, 1756, appeared a lusty, rawboned man, haughty and very desirous of respect and command; dressed in a fine dark brown cloth coat laced with gold given him by the French at Niagara. *
* Tadeuskundt, the Delaware King attended by a wild company of adherents, the women wearing skirts of Dutch tablecloths," etc. The next year 1757, the following gorgeous parade dress was furnished by Col. James Burd from the store at Fort Augusta : "1 reg- imental coat, 1 gold laced hat, 1 ruffled shirt, 1 yd. scarlett shallown for collars, 1 pr buckles, besides a great variety of miscellaneous articles suitable to the vanity of this 'big Indian.' According to his own statement, he was born about 1700 in New Jersey in which neighborhood his ancestors of the Lenni Lenape stock had been seated from time immemorial. His father was Old Captain Harris, a noted Delaware of the Turtle clan. They were a high-spirited family, moody and resentful; not in good repute with white neighbors, and when their lands passed from them, they migrated with threats and reluctance. Teedyuscung was convicted of sin under the preaching of Moravian Brethren, but, as, he was con- sidered as unstable as water, he was put on probation when he sought admission to Christian fellowship. He renewed the request, and was finally baptized as
15 See N. Y. Museum Bulletin, No. 78, p. 282, for meaning of wampum.
76
OLD TIOGA POINT AND EARLY ATHENS
Gideon and received, but he failed to become a Christian, chafing under restraint and resisting the influence of the Spirit."
Incensed at the oppression of the Iroquois, and the injuries of the whites, and being urged by his untamed brethren to be their king and leader, he trafficked his peace of mind for the unrest of ambition and was chosen king of the Delawares in place of Tademé, who was friendly to the whites, and had been treacherously murdered. Teedy- uscung was a large, muscular man, haughty in his bearing, witty, fond of admiration, a bold warrior, and a sagacious counsellor, but, unfortunately, very fond of rum, which proved his undoing. It was largely due to his influence that the great body of the Indians in Penn- sylvania were arrayed against the English settlers or on the side of the French (though he claimed the French seduced them), for the Pennsylvania settlers were of all nationalities and could hardly be called English.
When Teedyuscung held a council of war with the Delaware, Shawanese and Nanticokes in December, 1755, it was determined to make the settlers along the Delaware pay the price of the "Walking Purchase" in blood. Nearly the whole of the family of Marshall (the man who successfully achieved the walk) were put to death, and soon the whole valley of the Delaware was devastated. There was another reason for the defection of the Indians as follows. March 1, 1755, Conrad Weiser wrote to Governor Morris, saying :
"When Tachnechdorus16 the Chief of Shamokin, of the Cayucker nation was down here in the beginning of winter, he told me the Indians had been Informed that a lot of people from New England had formed themselves into a Body to Sitle the lands on the Susquehanna, and Especially Seahoantowano (Wyoming)-The said Chief then desired to make it known 'that whosoever of the whites should venture to Setle any land on Wyonuck or thereabout, belong- ing hitherto to the Indians will have his Creatures Killed first, and then If they do not desist they themself would be Killed, without distinction, let the Conse- quence be what it would.' I found he had intelligence that some of the New England people had been up the river Spying the lands."
Weiser suggests that this was the second warning, and that inat- tention to the matter might lead the Indians to array themselves on the side of the French (Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. II, page 260). The warning was disregarded and, as Weiser thought, incensed by the English occupation of more lands than they had ceded, the Indians favored the French, and many of them engaged against the English. Until this time the Iroquois were friends of the English, and for nearly sixty years there had been few depredations.
There were, however, a few Indians of good repute who remained friendly to Pennsylvania. Paxinosa, an aged Shawanese chief, a res- ident at Wyoming, and later at Diahoga; Scarooyady, Andrew Mon- tour,17 son of Madame Montour, and some others. Some friendly Indians were also reported at Diahoga.
soon
16 Tachnechdorus was Shikellimy's son, who ruled for awhile in his father's place, but forgot his father's teachings.
17 The boys will enjoy reading Zinzendorf's description of Andrew Montour and his dress: "Andrew's cast of countenance is decidedly European, and I would have taken him for one, had not his face been enriched with a broad band of paint applied with bear's grease. He wore a brown broadcloth coat, a scarlet damasken lappel waistcoat, breeches over which his shirt hung, a black handkerchief decked with silver bugles, shoes, stockings and hat. His ears were hung with pendants of brass and other wires plaited together."
77
TIOGA IN THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
But with the defeat of Braddock, July, 1755, the whole country was ablaze, the Indians losing confidence in the English. And now, Pennsylvania, for the first time, felt the scourge of Indian wars. Through the autumn of 1755 the storm raged with devastating fury ; so much so that early in 1756 Governor Morris offered that most hideous of rewards, a scalp bounty. His proclamation gave great offence to the Assembly, and it is claimed no Indian was wantonly killed for the reward. In this proclamation the following paragraph shows the location of Diahoga, and refers to it:
"And whereas sundry of our good friends and Allies; the Six Nations and other friendly Indians are seated upon and do inhabit the Country to the North- ward of the Mouth of a River falling into the Sasquehannah, called Cayuga Branch, and those of the Six Nations have desired that our Hostilities might not be carried on more Northerly than a line extending from the mouth of the said Cayuga Branch at an Indian Town called Diahoga or Tohiccon-to the In- dian Town called Cashetunk upon Delaware, I do declare that the Indians living northward are not included in the declaration of war."
From the very inception of this struggle Te-a-o-ga, or as it was now most frequently called, Diahoga, was a centre of activity. Mid- way between Shamokin and the Long House of the Iroquois, it was a rendezvous for council, and almost invariably the place to which the captives were taken. We have given 1755 as a date for Teedyuscung's operation, forgetting that Reichel tells us that his apostacy and fiendish raids began in 1754, and in November of that year he was the leader or participant in an attack upon the Moravians themselves in the wild, sequestered valley of Mahoning. It was here that Susanna Nitchs- man, a young Moravian girl, was first disabled by a shot and then taken prisoner, bound and handed over to an attending Indian, "to grace his triumph on his return to Diahoga." She was first taken to Wyoming, where she saw Sisters Abigail and Sarah and piteously im- plored their aid; thence she was conveyed to Diahoga where, after having been subjected to the horrors of Indian captivity in its most revolting form, she sunk into deep melancholy, death releasing her from suffering in May, 1756.18 We think this is the first white pris- oner of whom there is any record as detained at Diahoga; surely the first recorded death.
The French had a fort at Niagara, to which prisoners were gen- erally taken after a sojourn at Diahoga. January 4, 1756, the Rev. Gideon Hawley, who was a missionary at Onohquoge (now Wind- sor ), wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania tliat the Governor's mes- sengers had found all the Delawares along the Susquehanna were in the French interest, and that there were five English captives at Dia- hoga, and that the Delawares were so thick they dare not return by way of the river. They reported fifty cabins at Diahoga and about ninety grown men. In the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. III, is the deposition of Henry Hess, who was made prisoner by Indians led by Teedyuscung, January 1, 1756, that when they came to Wyomick they found no Indians there, all having started up the river to settle at Diahoga, which now became the stronghold of Teedyuscung and the
18 From "Memorials of the Moravian Church."
78
OLD TIOGA POINT AND EARLY ATHENS
Delawares.19 Hess says that the Indians stayed at Diahoga, "situate at the mouth of the Cayuga Branch," until planting time, then some of them went up to a place near the head of the Cayuga Branch, where they planted corn and lived for awhile. There were not only Dela- wares, but Shawanese, Nanticokes and Mahicans, now living at Diahoga.
It is said that the Iroquois, after the complaint of Tachnechdorus, told the Delawares they were not fit to live among white people, and commanded them to remove from Wyoming to Diahoga. Beauchamp says that Sir William Johnson had a long council with the Indians about this time. That a treaty was made with the Delawares and Shawnees, and the former were fixed at Tioga Point by the Six Na- tions, where some Iroquois then lived. Also, evidently for conciliation, that Johnson declared the Delawares were no longer women but men, and this was with the consent of the Six Nations.
At the Easton council, soon after this, Teedyuscung tells that though previously called woman, having a right to hold only a pestle, he had now a tomahawk, given by "his Uncles."
Later investigation shows that in 1754, alarmed at the French depredations, the Delawares asked the Six Nations to take off their petticoats so they could fight for themselves and their families.
Another deposition in the Archives states that the Wyoming In- dians moved first to Tunkhannock, and when the weather was milder to Diahoga.
Samuel Clifford, who was taken prisoner near Oswego in 1755 or '56, escaped, and was recaptured near Diahoga, relates he was after- wards taken about forty miles up the Cayuga Branch, and later, with Henry Hess and others, to Wyomink, escorted by Teedyuscung and, he thinks, one hundred warriors. That twelve or thirteen English prisoners were left at Diahoga and vicinity by Teedyuscung-six men, four young women and three or four Dutch children ; that "the children were painted black like themselves, and often cruelly beat and treated worse than the rest."
Leonard Weiser was taken prisoner and carried to Diahoga De- cember 31, 1755. He said that at planting time they went to Little Passeeca, an Indian town on the Cayuga Branch, probably the same town mentioned by other prisoners. Weiser reports the Delawares as saying that the country was all theirs, and they were never paid for it, and this they frequently gave as a reason for their bad conduct. This examinant saw at Diahoga about twenty prisoners, nearly all of whom were women and children, whom he knew, whose husbands and fathers had been killed by the war parties of Teedyuscung, and their homes and stock destroyed. Provisions were very scarce; how sadly these poor prisoners must have fared! They were expected to provide their own food, and it was chiefly berries and fish ; they were sometimes
19 It is a curious fact that the various writers of the Wyoming Valley ignore so much concerning Tioga Point. For instance, the Archives show that from 1756 to 1758 Wyoming was abandoned by the Indians, all of whom moved up to Diahoga early in the spring of 1756, and for those two years Diahoga was the headquarters of Teedyuscung. Paxinosa also lived there and in that vicinity for some years before removing to Ohio. Historians, as a rule, ignore this and write of Teedyuscung and Paxinosa as living only at Wyoming.
79
DIAHOGA THE INDIAN STRONGHOLD
given a share of the trophies of the chase, but never bread or salt. They reported the Indians as cultivating much ground and having old apple and peach trees. They were generally forced to run the gaunt- let, a fiendish ordeal, thus described by Mrs. Whittaker, an eye witness :
"The Indian women and children formed two lines with clubs stones & whips in their hands. The prisoners would be started at the head of the lines & made to run through the whole length-the women and children pelting them as they ran with their clubs & stones & striking them with their whips."
April 19, 1756, Edward Shippen reported to Governor Morris20 that it had been told him by Johnny Shekallimy that there were about four hundred Indian warriors at Tiaogo, of the Six Nations, Dela- wares, Munsies and Shawanese, and about forty more at Wyoming, Mohicans, Mingoes and Shawanese; and that if an attempt was made to build a fort at Shamokin, as desired, they might expect to be at- tacked by five hundred Indians. At this time a long line of block houses and forts were erected from the Delaware River to the Kit- etchiny Hills, and one at Shamokin was in contemplation.
Just previous to this report, April 5th, one McKee had written to Shippen saying it was reported that the Delawares were moving from the Susquehanna to the Ohio, and wanted the Shawanese to go along, but that the latter declined and were "going up to a town called Teaoga, where there is a body of the Six Nations." (Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. II, page 615.) It was also reported that many canoes were being built, by which they hoped to reach the Ohio. They re- moved their families over the New York State line, probably to the towns known as Choconut (Vestal) and Owege. Or, as Mr. Craft puts it, "The Monseys (Wolf clan of Delawares) removed their fam- ilies to the Iroquois country, where they would be beyond the reach of provincial scouting parties."
Diahoga being now the recognized stronghold of the Indian forces, in April, 1756, the Governor decided to send some friendly Indians as messengers to attempt to conciliate Teedyuscung and his followers ; meanwhile suspending the declaration of war for thirty days, and ap- pointing a day of fasting and prayer to Almighty God for peace, har- mony, etc. Sir William Johnson exerted his influence to induce Teedy- uscung to meet in this council, and Captain Newcastle,21 Jagrea and William Laquis started early in May with an invitation to the chief :
"To come down and meet his friends, the children of William Penn and tell them the causes of an alienation as unexpected as it was calamitous; if you lay down the hatchet and come to terms, we, the English will no further prosecute the war."
This was a hazardous mission, especially as the suspension of hos- tilities was not fully known, and scalping parties were abroad. Their experiences can best be told in Newcastle's report to the Governor, which was transcribed by Conrad Weiser May 31st, and read in council
20 Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. II, p. 634.
21 Cashiowaya or Kannksusy was a Six Nation Indian who, when a child, was formally presented by his parents to William Penn at Newcastle. He rendered eminent service as a messenger to the disaffected Indians at the commencement of the French War, and Governor Morris gave him, in 1755, the name of Newcastle, saying: "In token of our affection for your parents, and in expectation of your being a useful man in these perilous times, I do in the most solemn manner adopt you by the name of Newcastle, and order you hereafter to be called by that name."-From Reichel's "Memorials of the Moravian Church," p. 233.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.