USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Annals of Luzerne County; a record of interesting events, traditions, and anecdotes > Part 2
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In the West are found mounds and fortifications, which indicate an advancement in the arts, to which the Indians were utter strangers. Similar evidences have been found
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
on our own Susquehanna. A very slight examination will satisfy any one that there was once a people on these shores who defended themselves by regular fortifications, buried their dead in a peculiar manner, and worked mines of copper, and of other metals, which were not practised by the Red men, when the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth were planted. Rome, once stern and virtuous, became great and triumphant over a vanquished world. But with the introduction of the many arts and refine- ments of other lands came luxury and debauchery, which were followed by the flight of virtue and of valor. The hardy nations of the North, finding no longer virtuous courage to resist their onsets, poured down on the ener- vated empire, and barbarism covered refined and classic Italy. So, possibly, a similar scene may have been enacted in America. The original settlers, bringing with them the arts which flourished in Egypt, when the first Pharaohs were on the throne, may have eventually be- come luxurious and weak, and may thus have fallen an easy prey to barbarous but valorous hordes, who coveted their lands and possessions.
Our knowledge of the Indian race begins with the dis- covery of America. They were then, as the vast majority of them are at the present day, hunters, living in rude huts, clothing themselves in the skins of animals, and using the bow, stone hatchet, spear, and arrow-head, as their weapons of attack and defence. They, as a race, have been uninfluenced by anything of civilization, except its vices. The strong-water of the white man has made sad havoc among them, and they are rapidly disappearing from North America.
Kagegagahbowh, alias George Copway, an educated Indian of the Ojebwa tribe, informed the writer, that the Indians had a tradition that their ancestors came from
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THE INDIANS.
the West, and that when they die they go back towards the setting sun to the country whence they came, and on their passage cross the water. That a very bad Indian, when he returns, finds a sterile soil and poor hunting in the Fatherland; that a pretty good Indian passes on through the poor country to other and better hunting- grounds ; and a very good Indian goes still farther, to a land where excellent game is found in great abundance, amid the most attractive scenes of nature.
They have also a tradition that their forefathers were engaged in war with another race of people in this country, whom they exterminated, and drove out. This tradition of another people is corroborated by the fortifications and mounds before alluded to, also by heathen gods, imple- ments of husbandry, looking-glasses, and other articles found in Ohio and Western New York.
When the forty settlers arrived in Wyoming, in 1769, they found the remains of an ancient fortification, or enclosure, respecting which the Indians could give no information as to its origin or use. Within this enclosure large trees were found growing, one of which, when cut down, was ascertained to be seven hundred years old. This work was located on the west side of Toby's Creek, in Kingston township, a few rods above the present road leading from Kingston to Wilkesbarre, but is now entirely destroyed. It was visited by Mr. Chapman, in 1817, and is described by him, in his History of Wyoming, as being of " an oval or elliptical form, and having its longest diameter from the north-west to the south-east, at right angles to the creek, three hundred and thirty-seven feet, and its shortest diameter from the north-east to the south- west two hundred and seventy-two feet. On the south- west side appears to have been a gateway, about twelve feet wide, opening towards the great eddy of the river, 2
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
into which the creek falls. From present appearances, it consisted probably of only one mound, or rampart, which in height and thickness appears to have been the same on all sides, and was constructed of earth. On the outside of the rampart is an intrenchment, or ditch, formed pro- bably by removing the earth."
Mr. Miner, in his History of Wyoming, says, " An- other fortification existed on Jacob's Plains, or the upper flats in Wilkesbarre. Its situation is in the highest part of the low grounds, so that only in extraordinary floods is the spot covered with water. Looking over the flats, in ordinarily high freshets, the site of the fort presents to the eye an island in the vast sea of waters." It was of the same size as the one in Kingston, and also had large trees growing out of the embankment, when the first white settlers arrived in the valley. There was a well of water in the interior. Between this fortification and the river was a burying-ground, where graves were found, with the dead laid horizontally in regular rows. When the canal was excavated, in another direction from the fort, a second graveyard was discovered, in which the dead were buried in a sitting posture.
In 1814, Mr. Miner, in company with Chief Justice Gibson and Jacob Cist, Esq., visited the last-mentioned fortification, where they found a medal, bearing on one side the impress of King George I., dated 1714, the year in which he began his reign, and on the other side the likeness of an Indian chief. In 1839, the river washed out the remains of human skeletons near this fort, on the breast of one of which was found a picture of a lady pasted on an oval piece of glass, which had probably been worn as a locket. "Taken in connection with the medal of King George," says Miner, "I express the conviction that the picture must have been that of Queen Anne,
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THE INDIANS.
What greatly strengthens this opinion is the fact that, in 1710, in the reign of that queen, a deputation of chiefs of the Five Nations visited England." He (Mr. Miner) conjectures that the skeleton upon which the picture was found, was one of the two river chiefs, Elow-Oh-Koam, and Oh-Nee-Yeath-Ton-No-Prow, who were of this depu- tation, and were the heads of the Seneca and Oneida Indians. The one, he supposes, occupied the fortification at Kingston, and the other that on the Jacob Plains. But this conclusion is most probably incorrect. The indi- cations are decidedly in favor of the supposition that these fortifications were once occupied by a people very different from the Indians. The growth of large trees on the ramparts and within the enclosure, show that they must have been abandoned hundreds of years before the period when the deputation from the Five Nations visited England. The two populous graveyards, the different modes of burial, a large copper spear-head recently found on the site of the fortification at Kingston, point to two distinet people, who at different periods occupied these lands. The Indians never dug wells, erected forts, or used any other implements of warfare or husbandry than stone, wood, and elay, until after they became known to the whites.
The accompanying plate and explanations of Indian relics, collected chiefly within Luzerne county, and depo- sited in the rooms of the Wyoming Historical and Geolo- gical Society at Wilkesbarre, will not be, we trust, unin- teresting to the reader.1
According to the tables, charts, and paintings of the Aztecs, conquered by Cortes in Mexico, the Toltecs, whom the Aztecs said they subdued and exterminated A. D. 1100, arrived in Mexico from the North A. D. 554. It is not improbable these were the people who erected the ancient
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
fortifications found here as well as throughout the valley of the Mississippi.
When the first whites settled in New England, New York, and Canada, more than two hundred years ago, the oldest chiefs among the Iroquois, or Five Nations, had no knowledge of the carly history of their union as a people, other than the tradition that they sprang from five hand- fuls of red seeds, like the eggs of flies. These were sown on the fertile fields of Onondaga, by Manitta, and after nine moons, boys and girls grew up from the seeds, whom Manitta carefully instructed, assigning to each nation its particular duties. He enjoined upon all the remembrance that they were brethren, and should unitedly defend their country from invasion while the sun and moon gave light, and the waters ran in the rivers. The Five Nations were a powerful and warlike confederacy, which held an abso- lute supremacy over a large extent of country. Their domain extended from the head waters of the Allegheny, Susquehanna, and Delaware rivers to the Lakes Erie and Ontario, and on the east to the borders of Vermont; but they claimed authority over numerous tribes as far west- ward as the Wabash, and southward as Georgia. In 1712, the Tuscaroras being expelled from their homes in the south, were adopted into the confederacy, which was known thenceforth as the Six Nations. The Tuscaroras were an effeminate race, and deficient in courage. The Grand Council fire of the confederacy was kindled in the Onondaga Valley, in the state of New York. Their ter- ritory they styled their Long House. The Onondagas were the chief counsellors; they guarded the council fire, and to them belonged the duties of a civil character. The Senecas occupied the western portion of the Long House, the Mohawks the eastern, and the Cayugas the southern. Besides these were the Oneidas in the interior. Deputies
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THE INDIANS.
from the confederate tribes met in their great council to consider questions of peace or war, and their proceedings were marked by a decorum and dignity which certain representative assemblies of our day and nation might copy with credit to themselves and their country. They were physically superior to the neighboring tribes-they were brave, upright, but ferocious in battle. The admin- istration of their public affairs was marked by foresight and wisdom, and their eloquence will compare favorably with that of more civilized nations.
At an early period they formed an alliance with the Dutch on the Hudson, from whom they procured fire-arms. They conquered the Naragansetts and Mohegans in New England, the Hurons and Eries on the Great Lakes, and the Cherokees in the South. At one time they repelled the encroachments of the French, at another were united with the French in war against the English, and again were the allies of the English against the French. When the American Revolution broke out they took part with Great Britain, and desolated our frontiers with fire and the tomahawk. But when the English troops were with- drawn, after the proclamation of peace, they were no match for the arms and intelligence of the Americans. They have rapidly passed away before the advancement of civilization. A few remnants of these tribes remain on lands reserved for them by government in the state of New York, but their utter extinction is at hand. If they are susceptible of being taught the arts and manners of civilized life, they seem as a race to be wholly incapacitated to withstand its concomitant vices, which they greedily adopt and practice to an excess that entails speedy ruin.
The Indians who inhabited the territory within the present limits of Luzerne county, were the Delawares, Monseys, Shawanese, Nanticokes, Wanamies, and Mohi-
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
· cans. They were all subject to the Iroquois, or Six Nations, who had conquered them before the first settle- ments were made by the whites in Pennsylvania. They were allowed by their masters to retain their hunting- grounds, on condition of paying an annual tribute, but were liable to removal whenever the grand council at Onondaga so decreed.
THE SHAWANESE.
In 1608, when the French made their first permanent settlements in Canada, they found the Iroquois engaged in a bloody war with the Hurons and Eries, who dwelt in the region of the great lakes. The Iroquois, or con- federated tribes, proved victorious. The Eries, broken and subdued, divided and left their old hunting-grounds, the one portion, named the Kickapoos, going west of the Mississippi, and the other portion, or Shawanese, called by the French the Raccoon Indians, wandering south into Georgia and Florida.
Becoming involved in war with the Spaniards and the southern Indian tribes, the Shawanese emigrated north- ward, and about the year 1690 commenced building a town at the confluence of the Wabash and Ohio; but hearing of the mild and honorable character of William Penn, a number of them applied for permission to settle in Pennsylvania. The Conestoga Indians, who inhabited the country near Lancaster, became security for the good behavior of the Shawanese, who, by order of Penn's cousin and Lieutenant Governor, Colonel Markham, were located with their chief Gachgawatschiqua, on Pequea creek, below Lancaster, in the year 1697.
In 1701, William Penn made a treaty with the Susque- hanna Indians, in which the arrangement of Colonel
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THE INDIANS.
Markham was confirmed, and soon after this a number of the Shawanese, under their chief Kakowatchie, settled on the Delaware river, at Pechoquealin, while others took up their abode at Wyoming.
During several years prior to the breaking out of the French war, in 1754, there was a constant effort upon the part both of the French and of the English, to secure the aid of the Indians in the event of hostilities. French Jesuits baptized and clothed them in coats trimmed with glittering lace, while the English gave them presents of beautiful pipes, and good rum, &c. The French warned them against the English, whom they represented as desirous to rob the Indians of their lands; the English reiterated the same charge against the French. A vener- able chief, at a treaty held at Lancaster in 1744, said : " If the English and French have a quarrel, why don't they fight in their own countries beyond the water? Why do you come here to fight on our land ?" The Indians, untutored as they were, understood the question perfectly well, and being only desirous to secure the largest measure of profit for themselves, were at a loss to decide between the two. The tribes on the Ohio and its tributaries, being more immediately under the influence of the French, were disposed to espouse their cause, while the tribes in Pennsylvania, in the neighborhood of the English, united with them. In 1728, the Six Nations, at the instigation of the French, ordered a number of the Delawares and Shawanese to remove from their old homes to new localities. The Shawanese at Pechoquealin, on the Delaware, below the Durham Iron Works, received orders to remove to Wyoming, at which place they would be more immediately under the eye of the confederacy. This order was obeyed with such promptness that they departed without gathering their corn; and their sudden
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
exit was wholly inexplicable to the governor and council of Pennsylvania, until 1732, when Governor Gordon was informed, by four Shawanese chiefs, that the Six Nations had said to them, with reference to their removal, " We will take Pechoquealin and put it on Meheahowming (Wyoming), and we will take Meheahowming and put it on Ohiah, and Ohiah we'll put on Woabach, and that shall be the warrior's road for the future." They gave as a reason for the change that the Shawanese refused to fight the English. The Six Nations claimed authority over the Pennsylvania tribes by virtue of conquest, and removed them at will from one part of the territory to an- other, as policy dictated.
In 1731, the number of Delawares and Shawanese in Western Pennsylvania, on the Ohio, Allegheny, and Connemaugh rivers, was 131 families, containing 425 warriors. The Shawanese were those who had been removed from the Susquehanna at the command of the Six Nations. When Kakowatchie and his people arrived at Wyoming, they occupied the wigwams deserted by their brethren, who had gone to the Ohio. These were erected on the west side of the river, near where Plymouth now stands. Here Count Zinzendorf, accompanied by a missionary named Martin Mack and his wife, who spoke the Shawanese language, found them in the autumn of 1742.
, DELAWARES.
The Delawares called themselves Lenni Lenape, or the Original People, and when first found by the English were divided into three tribes, the Monsey, or Minsi, whose emblem was the wolf, the Wanamese or Turtle, and the Unalachitgoes, or Turkey tribe. The Monseys kindled their council fire in the Minisink above the
i
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THE INDIANS.
Delaware Water Gap. We learn that they had a villag in the Lackawanna Valley, near Scranton, in the yea 1728, and it is probable, for many years before. The other tribes occupied the country on the Delaware from the Water Gap eastward, through a portion of New Jersey, to the ocean.
On the 23d of June, 1683, William Penn held a treaty of peace and friendship with these Indians, under a large elm-tree in Kensington, now Philadelphia, which, says Voltaire, was the only treaty ever made without an oath, and the only one kept inviolate. The Indians called Penn Onas, signifying Good, which appellation, we regret to say, could not be given to his heirs, Thomas and John Penn, who deserted the faith and principles of their father, and defrauded the Indians of their lands. They gave the savages rum or fire water, for questionable purposes, and they offered bounties for the scalps of the Delawares.
From 1682 to 1686 several purchases of lands upon the Delaware were made from the Indians by William Penn and his agents, but from the want of a knowledge of the geography of the country, certain boundaries were defined in words such as, " as far as a horse can run in a day, or two days; or, as far as a man can walk in a day," &c. Only one of these boundaries was ever settled by William Penn himself, who, with his friends and a number of chiefs, walked slowly, halting to eat, drink, and smoke, and in this way passed over less than thirty miles in one day.
In 1718, a general deed of release was given by the Indians, making the Lehigh Hills the north-eastern boundary of the lands conveyed to the whites. Under this deed, all former instruments with walking boundaries should have been considered abrogated. After Penn's death, however, a copy of one of these walk deeds was
ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
ound among his papers, by Thomas and John Penn. They, in 1733, at a council, presented this deed to the indians, and received from them an acknowledgment of its validity, and under this, an arrangement was made for a walk of one day and a half. The Penns advertised for the fastest walkers in the province, offering five hun- dred acres of land and five pounds in money to the man who would walk farthest in one day and a half. The under-brush was cleared away, and refreshments were placed at proper intervals along the route, which was laid out in a straight line by the compass, contrary to the understanding of the Indians, who supposed it would lie along the Delaware.
The longest days, in September, 1737, arrived, and Edward Marshall, James Yeates, and Solomon Jenings, with three Indians, started at sunrise from a chestnut- tree below Wrightstown meeting-house. In two and a half hours they arrived at Red Hill, where Jenings and two of the Indians gave out. The other Indian continued on to the forks of the road near Easton, where he also gave out. Marshall and Yeates proceeded, and at sunset reached a point on the north side of the Blue Mountain. They started again next morning as the sun rose, and while crossing a stream at the foot of the mountain Yeates became faint and fell. Marshall continued on, and at noon arrived on a spur of the Broad Mountain, estimated to be eighty-six miles from the place of starting. From the point where Marshall stopped a line was run to the mouth of Shohola Creek, including within the purchase all the good land. The Indians were much dissatisfied, saying, Penn had got all of their good land, and that in the spring each of them would take him a buckskin and have their land back again, and Penn might go to the devil with his poor land. Under this purchase settle-
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THE INDIANS.
ments were made by the whites, but the Indians refusing to give up possession, the Penns applied to the Six Nations to compel them to a surrender. A council was held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1742, at which a large representation of chiefs from the united tribes was present, and also the injured Delawares. The governor, on the part of the proprietaries, opened the council in a speech, in which he set forth that they had purchased the lands in question and paid for them; and then, address- ing himself particularly to the chiefs of the Iroquois, said, " When the whites settle on your lands and you request us to remove them we do so, and now we expect you to act in the same good faith towards us." Canassa- tego, the great rator and chief of the Six Nations, then stood up, and addressing the Delawares said, "You de- serve to be taken by the hair of your heads and shaken till you recover your senses and become sober. We have seen a deed, signed by your chiefs above fifty years ago, for this very land. But how came you to take upon yourselves to sell lands at all ? We conquered you : we made women of you. You know you are women, and can no more sell lands than can women. Nor is it fit you should have the power of selling lands, since you would abuse it." After talking a considerable length of time, and charging them with many transgressions, he concluded by commanding them to remove from the land instantly, and gave them their choice to go to Shamokin, or Wyoming. He then gave them a belt of wampum, and ordered them to leave the council, as he had some- thing to say to the English.
Leaving their wigwams on the banks of their favorite Makeerikkitton (Delaware), the once powerful Lenni Lenape commenced their march westward. A portion went to Shamokin, a village belonging to the Six Nations,
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ANNALS OF LUZERNE COUNTY.
which stood on the present site of Sunbury. Here, Shi- kellimus, the great Cayuga chief, and father of Logan, resided, and was superintendent of all the Susquehanna tribes. A few of the Delawares settled on the Juniata, near Lewistown, but the greater number of them, under their chief, Tadame, went to .Wyoming, where they built a village (1742) on the flats below the present town of Wilkesbarre.
The Wanamese, under their chief, Jacob, resided on the east side of the Susquehanna, above Mill Creek, since known as Jacob's Plains; and the Monseys occupied the Lackawanna Valley, under their chief, Capouse.
THE MOHICANS.
The Mohicans were probably a branch of the Mohe- gans of New England, who at an early period settled on the head-waters of the Delaware river. They came to Wyoming with the Delawares, in 1742, and under their chief, Abram, built a village above Forty Fort, on the plain known as Abram's Plains.
THE NANTICOKES.
These Indians occupied the eastern shore of the Chesa- peake Bay. Difficulties arising between them and the whites, and a misunderstanding also existing between the Governors of Maryland and Virginia and the Six Nations, it was agreed to hold a council at Lancaster, and accord- ingly in June, 1744, the representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Six Nations, assembled at that place. After several days of deliberation they set- tled all matters in dispute respecting the lands. One object of this meeting was to brighten the chain of friendship, which, the Governor of Pennsylvania told the
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THE INDIANS.
Indians, had become rusted, and to warn them against the seductive influence of the French. At this treaty, Ullanckquam, alias Robert White, was present. He was Chief of the Nanticokes, and with eighty of his people, in accordance with arrangements made with the Six Nations, located on the east side of the Susquehanna in Wyoming, in 1748, near the present village of Nanticoke.
Besides these there were a few wigwams on Shick- shinny and Wapwallopen Creeks, and in Salem township, near Beach Grove. There was also a considerable Dela- ware village at Nescopeck, called by the Indians Nesco- pecken, and one on the east bank of the Susquehanna, about two miles above the mouth of the Lackawanna, called Asserughney. There was a Shawanese village west of Ross's Hill, between Plymouth and Kingston. These are all of the known locations of Indians within the limits of Luzerne. The Shawanese had a village at Fishing Creek, near Bloomsburg, and at Catawissa, Co- lumbia county, and also, a small settlement near Brier Creek below Berwick. The Delawares had a village on Taconick (Tunkhannock), Wyoming county, said to have been a very old town. It is referred to by Henry Hess, who was captured by Teedyuscung on the Delaware, in 1756, as containing at that time one hundred men, women, and children. At Wighalusui (Wyalusing), and at other points on the upper waters of the Susquehanna, there were many towns, which, with those already enumerated, formed a continuous chain from the country of the Six Nations to Shamokin (Sunbury).
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