USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 18
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therefrom. Along with this company were one or more cows, which furnished them milk morning and evening. When arrived at the great mountains, the roads became extremely difficult of passage, being often along precipices, with a narrow path, where, if the horse stumbled or lost his balance, himself and burthen might be rolled down some hundreds of feet. Such paths were often crossed by many streams raised by melting snow and spring rains, and running in rapid current, in deep ravines. To these there were no bridges : great exposures and happy escapes were often occurring! When ar- rived, eventually, at their destination, and located in their log cabin and hastily made small clearing, they had to encounter the alarms and perils of Indian aggressions. Their men were occasionally shot, their horses stolen, and their children, if captured, were borne off and sold at Detroit, or in other cases, adopted.
Although pack horses have thus been named as the most in use, there were instances of horses and oxen being taken over these mountains drawing wagons. The people who went from New England in 1788, to settle at and near Muskingum, used in several cases such modes of conveyance. The " American Pioneer," an ex- cellent work published at Cincinnati, gives several examples of such cases. Horses, four to a wagon, would progress about twenty-five miles a day ; and six oxen, yoked two and two, would make a jour- ney of twenty miles. The roads on the mountain sides were often cut into deep gullies on one side by rains, while the other was filled with blocks of sandstone. The descents were abrupt, and often not unlike the breaks in a flight of stone stairs. Some few wagons were provided with lock-chains for the wheels, but in most cases, the downward force was to be checked by heavy logs tied to the wagon, and trailing on the ground. On other occasions the road was so sideling, that it required the service of all the men, by the use of side stay ropes attached to the wagons, to keep them from turning over and falling down the mountain side. When they at last at- tained the Ohio, they were then to procure flat-boats in which to place their wagons and stores, and to lead their horses and oxen on- ward by land ; going at the same time in continual watch and fear of hostile Indian surprises from the Ohio side of the river. When finally arrived, they had to depend for their safety upon log fort de- fences, into which they might run in cases of alarm.
In making such journeys to the west, of seven or eight weeks, they took as few articles of beds, bedding, and cooking utensils, as they could possibly do with. Their clothing and other goods were packed in wooden boxes fitted to the wagon,-the women, girls and children, would be placed inside and ride, except when they came to bad roads and mountains,-sometimes they would get scattered and create anxieties,-sometimes the horses, and sometimes the people were borne down with the current of water. None now can imagine with what dread such a long and arduous journey was then at- tempted from New England, and few now can have a just concep
NEDOWAWAY LEAVES THE SUSQUEHANNA .- Page 181.
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tion of how much they feared the ravages of wolves upon their few sheep, then held necessary for producing their clothing. The skins of the deer were often used for the wear of the men. These were arduous times for the women: they had every morning to go through wet woods and grass, sometimes a mile distant, to find their cows, by the tinkling of their bells, and to get them home for milk- ing, for the subsistence of the family. In the mean time, the men had often to be off in considerable journeys after their straying horses, which continually showed a propensity to leave the wild country, and to find their way back from whence they came! This was a curious fact, but it was so. It might be mentioned, as a part of the scenes of western travel, that it was a common incident to meet, or to be overtaken by long strings of pack horses; those from the west bearing peltry and ginseng-the others going west, with kegs of spirits, salt, and packs of dry goods. This carrying salt, without which white people would have deemed any place uninha- bitable, was an affair of great expense and concern, and which they have since overcome by their own inventions of making salt, nearer their own homes.
All these references to things past, and so fast receding from the contemplation and the view, are matters to be treasured up and kept before the people, for the same reasons that Virgil has inscribed the incidents in the voyage of Aneas from Troy to Italy-they were the founders of a new state ! We must contemplate their hardihood and hardships with admiration and applause. They were a race of most daring energy of character and of fortitude-a race in every respect different from those who now occupy the same regions in opulence, ease, and splendour. Now, instead of the log house and wigwam, fine mansions exist-instead of the bark canoe, the tomahawk and scalping knife, steamboats and all the implements of comfort and convenience abound. Instead of the savage yell, the litera . lecture, and the songs of Zion echo through the land. We have dwelt in a wonderful era, and have beheld amazing changes for good. Was ever people so blessed whose God is the Lord ?
Frontier Towns .- Lancaster, Bethlehem, g.c.
These now conspicuous and large inland towns, were long regarded n the early days of the province, as far remote in the Indian ranges and hunting grounds. The first inhabitants, who made "clearings and settlements" in those regions, were generally tolerated squatters, living rent free, for the purpose of forming a cordon, or defensive barrier, against any Indian surprise.
The earliest settlement in Lancaster, as a town, was induced by the expected advantages of the iron works near by. The first esta- blishment of them commenced in 1726, under the enterprise of Mr Kurtz. In 1728, the family of the Grubbs, as iron-masters, began their career; but the most extensive and successful . all was the
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late Robert Coleman, who amassed a great fortune thereby. Th. place was for many years pre-eminent for making and furnishing rifles for the western settlers and Indians. They also made and furnished pack-saddles for the carriers westward.
Where Lancaster now stands was once an Indian wigwam town; a hickory tree stood in its centre, not far from a spring ; under this tree the councils met, and from one of these councils a deputation was once sent to confer with William Penn at Philadelphia. The Indian nation was called Hickory, as well as their town. When the whites began to build there, they still called it by the same name , and Gibson, at his inn, about the year 1722, had a hickory tree painted upon his sign. It was situated near where Slaymaker's hotel is now built, and the spring was in its cellar. The town, under the name of Lancaster, was not laid out until 1730; and the courts were not taken to it from Postlewaite, until the year 1734. In excavating the canal at the north side of the town, they came across the bones of the Indians massacred at the prisons, by the Paxton boys.
An Indian town once stood on a flat of land north-east of Hard. wiche, the seat of William Coleman, Esq. A poplar tree was the emblem of the tribe, from whence their name was derived. Its location, and that of the town, was near the bank of the Conestoga. The Conestoga Indians were once numerous and influential. As early as 1701, we read of an embassy from Philadelphia "round about through the woods," to the "palace of the king," "where they were cordially received and well entertained at a considerable town." In the year 1721, Sir W. Keith, and his council and thirty gentlemen, went to Conestoga, to hold there a treaty with the heads of the Five Nations. An original deed from Wiggoneeheenah, of 1725, to Ed- mund Cartlidge, grants, " in behalf of the Delaware Indians con- cerned," the tract of land formerly his plantation, " lying in a turn of Conestoga creek, called Indian Point." Those Indians, under the general name of Conestogoes, continued to dwell along the Conestoga creek, until the year 1764, when fourteen of their number having been maliciously killed by the Irish settlers, the rest took shelter in Lancaster, and for their better security were placed under the bolts and bars of the prison ; where, however, they were after- wards assailed and massacred-men, women and children-at mid- day, by an armed band of lawless ruffians, calling themselves the " Paxton boys !" The Roman Catholics, under the Jesuits, were the first who opened religious worship among the people.
In the year 1754, Lancaster had so much increased as to have then contained five hundred houses and two thousand inhabitants. A great proportion of them, then, were of German origin. The best lands of Lancaster county, and deemed, in general, the finest farms in the state, are those possessed by the German families.
Reading is of much later origin, and had, when it began, a ver) rapid progress-having, for instance, but one house there in 174%
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and in 1752 in contained one hundred and thirty dwellings! It was raised into alluring repute by the agents of the Penn family, calling for settlers in it, as "a new town of great natural advantages of loca- tion, and destined to be a prosperous place."
The first hotel there was that of Conrad Weiser, seen in 1833, as the little white store of General Keim, on the corner of Callowhill and Penn streets, and since replaced by a great new house of fashion. It was at that place that Conrad Weiser, as Indian agent, used to deliver the Indian presents-there the war-song of the savage was sung, the war dance wound down, and the calamet of peace was smoked. The house was built earlier than the town. Lively and business like as is the present Pottsville, the man is now living there, in 1842, John Boyer by name, an old revolutionary soldier, now in. his eighty-seventh year-born and reared at the present Schuylkill Haven, in which neighbourhood, he had often been engaged in resisting the predatory invasions of the Indians. The country around him was long a wilderness, and was often the scene of bloody massacres, much of which he had seen with his own eyes.
An old Indian war-path leading from the tribes north of the Sus- quehanna, crossed the mountains at Pottsville, and the few settlers who had braved all danger, and had pitched their cabins in the midst of such perils, were forced to struggle desperately at times, to save the scalps of their families from the knife. Fort Henry once stood at the head of the Swatara, at the foot of Kittatiny.
Bethlehem and Easton, formed the frontier towns on the north. 'The former was begun in 1743, under Count Zinzendorf, by form- ing there his Moravian town. As late as the year 1755, the inha- bitants of the neighbouring country were driven in from their farms to the towns of Bethlehem and Easton, filled with panic and dread from marauding Indians! It was near to Lehighton, that there then stood Fort Allen, fronting on the Lehigh opposite to the mouth of Mahony creek, where the garrison was surprised and massacred by Indians. About the same time, Captain Wetherhold, who com. manded a scouting party, and who used to make Allentown and Bethlehem his places of rendezvous, was surprised about six miles from the latter place, and he and his whole party were shot and scalped. On the same day a party, with one Henry Jenks, was also surprised and cut off. There was a fort there, made of logs-in command of Colonel Burd, who built his house opposite to it-the same now held by Peter Newhard, Esq., member of congress. The main street, on which it stands, now runs over the site of that fort. About the year, 1765, there used to be several skirmishes thereabout with the Indians. Mr. Newhard's father had told P. N. of these things. As late as the year 1755, the year of Braddock's defeat and alarm, there was a block-house at Harris' ferry, the present Harris- burg, and hostile Indians prowled about Shearman's valley, not far off, committing sundry depredations. Since the war of the revolu- tion. such is the march of improvement, that Harrisburg is made the
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seat of government, other towns are erected in every direction, and distant places are made nigh to us in effect, by numerous turnpikes, rail-roads, and canals !
It strongly marks the rapid progress of inland improvement, to say, that several members of a family of the name of Gilbert are now living, who dwelt near the Lehigh, on this side of the present cele- brated Mauch Chunk coal mines, who were captured in open day by a band of hostile Indians, in the year 1778, and borne off un- molested to the Niagara frontier. One of the females so captured, I have seen and conversed with only a few months before the present writing. She is a Friend, dwelling in Byberry. They then travelled through a wilderness country, unperceived by any white inhabitants, five hundred miles in twenty-six days. Now splendid stage-coaches roll over graded turnpikes, and pass through numerous prosperous towns and villages, through all the intermediate space !
A MS. journal, which I have seen, of C. F. Post, an Indian interpreter and agent, who died at Germantown, in 1785, and who made an excursion from that place, in 1758, to the Susquehanna river with sundry Indians, shows incidentally how very wild and Indian-like the intermediate country must then have been. His first stage of one day from Bethlehem was to Hay's ; the next day to Fort Allen, where he met Indians from Wyoming ; thence he went to Fort Augusta, on the Susquehanna, where he met sundry Indians from Diehogo, now called Tioga, at the head of the same river, and saw also some Indians from Shamokin. Coursing along the river, he came to Wekeeponall, and at night rested at Queenashawakee. The next day they crossed the river at the Big island, above Williamsport. In the region on the opposite side, westward, they came to several places where they saw two poles, painted red, set up as pillars, to which the Indians tied their prisoners for the night. Now how different are all those regions, brought about in a term of sixty years? Persons were lately alive in Tulpehocken, near Womelsdorf, who saw in that country the dreadful Indian massacre in 1755. 1 saw myself some that had been captured then
For further facts, see Appendix, p. 528.
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INDIANS.
" A swarthy tribe- Slipped from the secret hand of Providence, They come, we see not how, nor know we whence : That seem'd created on the spot-though born, In transatlantic climes, and thither brought,
By paths as covert as the birth of thought!"
THERE is in the fate of these unfortunate beings much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment much in their characters to incite our involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history ! By a law of their na- ture, they seem destined to a slow but sure extinction. Every where, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn; and themselves, like " the sear and yellow leaf," are gone for ever !
Once the smoke of their wigwams, and the fires of their councils. rose in every valley, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the moun tains and the glades. The light arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forest; and the hunter's trace, and the dark encampment, startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. Braver men never lived -~ truer men never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude, and sagacity and perseverance, beyond most of the human race. They were inured, and capable of sustaining every peril, and sur- mounting every obstacle for sweet country and home. But with all this, inveterate destiny has unceasingly driven them hence !
"Forced from the land that gave them birth, They dwindle from the face of earth !"
If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends and their homes. If they forgave not injury under misconceptions of duty, neither did they forget kindness-
" Faithful alike to friendship or to hate."
If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side the grave. But where are they now ? Perished ! consumed !
"The glen or hill,
Their cheerful whoop has ceased to thrill !"
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The wasting pestilence has not alone done this mighty work ; no, nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power-a moral canker which hath eaten into their vitals-a plague which the touch of the baser part of our white men has communicated-a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their long cherished homes ; " few and faint, yet fearless still," they turn to take a last look of their deserted village, a last look at the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which surpasses speech ; there is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both-which chokes all utterance- which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair .*
If such be the traces we may draw of Indian character, being ourselves the judges, what might it not be, if told by themselves, had they but our art of letters and the aid of an eloquent press ! Few or none among themselves can tell their tale of "wrong and outrage." Yet a solitary case does exist, which, while it shows their capability of mental improvement, shows also, in affecting terms, their just claims to our generosity and kindness.
The beautiful and energetic letter, of April, 1824, to the people and congress of the United States, by the Cherokee natives and re- presentatives at Washington city, has some fine touches of refined eloquence to this effect-saying, of their communications, they have been " the lonely and unassisted efforts of the poor Indian ; for we are not so fortunate as to have such help-wherefore this letter and every other letter was not only written but dictated by an Indian. The white man seldom comes forth in our defence. Our rights are in our own keeping, and the proofs of our loneliness, of our be- reaved and helpless state, unknown to the eye of prejudice, having set us upon our resources, is known to those benevolent white brothers who came to our help with letters, and the lights of civili- zation and Christianity. Our letters (we repeat it) are our own, and if they are thought too refined for 'savages,' let the white man take it for proof, that, with proper assistance, Indians can think and write for themselves." Signed-John Ross, and three others.
The Indians were always the friends of Miquon, of Onas-of our forefathers ! It was their greatest pleasure to cultivate mutual good w.ll and kindness .- "None ever entered the cabin of Logan hungry, and he gave him no meat ; or cold, or naked, and he gave him no clothes !" Grateful hearts must cherish kindly recollections of a too often injured race. We are therefore disposed, as Pennsylvanians, to treasure up some few of the facts least known of them, in the times by-gone of our annals.
We begin with their primitive character and habits as seen by
. These introductory sentiments are generally from the leading ideas of Judge Story
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William Penn, and told in his letter of August, 1683, to the Free Society of Traders.
" The natives I shall consider in their persons, language, manners, religion and government, with my sense of their original. For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well-built, and of singular proportion ; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin. Of complexion, black, but by design ; as the Gypsies in England. They grease themselves with bear's fat clarified ; and using no defence against sun, or weather, their skins must needs be swarthy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a straight-looked Jew. The thick lip, and flat nose, so frequent with the East In- dians and blacks, are not common to them : for I have seen as comely European-like faces among them, of both sexes, as on your side the sea; and truly an Italian complexion hath not much more of the white, and the noses of several of them have as much of the Roman.
" Their language is lofty, yet narrow; but, like the Hebrew, in signification full ; like short-hand, in writing, one word serveth in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the understanding of the hearer: imperfect in their tenses, wanting in their moods, participles, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections. I have made it my business to understand it, that I might not want an interpreter, on any occasion ; and I must say, that I know not a language spoker in Europe, that hath words of more sweetness, or greatness in accent and emphasis, than theirs.
" Of their customs and manners, there is much to be said ; I will begin with children ; so soon as they are born, they wash them in water; and while very young, and in cold weather, they plunge them in the rivers, to harden and embolden them. The children will go very young, at nine months commonly ; if boys, they go a fishing till ripe for the woods; which is about fifteen ; then they hunt, and after having given some proofs of their manhood, by a good return of skins, they may marry ; else it is a shame to think of a wife. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the ground, plant corn, and carry burdens; and they do well to use them to that young, which they must do when they are old ; for the wives are the true servants of the husbands ; otherwise the men are very affectionate to them.
" When the young women are fit for marriage, they wear some- thing upon their heads, for an advertisement, but so as their faces are hardly to be seen, but when they please. The age they marry at if women, is about thirteen and fourteen ; if men, seventeen and eighteen ; they are rarely elder.
" Their houses are mats, or barks of trees, set on poles, in the fashion of an English barn; but out of the power of the winds ; for they are hardly higher than a man ; they lie on reeds, or grass. In travel they lodge in the woods, about a great fire, with the mantle VOL. II .- U
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of duffils they wear by day wrapt about them, and a few bought stuck round them
" Their diet is maize, or Indian corn, divers ways prepared ; sometimes roasted in the ashes ; sometimes beaten and boiled with water; which they call homine ; they also make cakes, not unplea- sant to eat. They have likewise several sorts of beans and pease, that are good nourishment; and the woods and rivers are their larder.
" If a European comes to see them, or calls for lodging at their house or wigwam, they give him the best place and first cut. If they come to visit us, they salute us with an Itah; which is as much as to say, Good be to you, and set them down; which is mostly on the ground, close to their heels, their legs upright ; it may be they speak not a word, but observe all passages. If you give them any thing to eat or drink, well ; for they will not ask ; and be it little or much, if it be with kindness, they are well pleased, else they go away sullen, but say nothing.
" They are great concealers of their own resentments; brought to it, I believe, by the revenge that hath been practised among them.
" But in liberality they excel ; nothing is too good for their friend : give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks; light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent. The most merry creatures that live, feast and dance perpetually ; they never have much, nor want much : wealth circulateth like the blood ; all parts partake ; and though none shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property. They care for little; because they want but little ; and the reason is, a little contents them. In this they are sufficiently revenged on us: if they are ignorant of our pleasures, they are also free from our pains. We sweat and toil to live ; their pleasure feeds them ; I mean their hunting, fishing and fowling ; and this table is spread every where. They eat twice a day, morning and evening ; their seats and table are the ground.
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