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 20
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The same Indians recaptured one May, a prisoner, whom they had cherished and adopted-they tied him to a tree, set a target on his breast, and shot him with many balls, and saying, "you not satisfied to live with us." This was the operation of their law, of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." If custom and usage sanction the acts of others, why not justify them also !
Indian Visits to the City.
From a very early period it was the practice of Indian companies occasionally to visit the city-not for any public business, but merely to buy and sell, and look on. On such occasions they usually found their shelter, for the two or three weeks which they remained, about the State-house yard .* There they would make up baskets, and sell them to the visiters, from the ash strips which they brought with them. Before the revolution such visits were frequent, and after that time they much diminished, so that now they are deemed a rarity.
Such of the Indians as came to the city on public service were always provided for in the east wing of the State-house, up-stairs, and at the same time, their necessary support there was provided for by the government.
Old people have told me that the visits of Indians were so frequent as to excite but little surprise ; their squaws and children generally accompanied them. On such occasions they went abroad much in the streets, and would any where stop to shoot at marks, of small coin, set on the tops of posts. They took what they could so hit with their arrows.
On the 6th of 6 mo., 1749, there was at the State-house an assem- blage of two hundred and sixty Indians, of eleven different tribes, assembled there with the governor to make a treaty. The place was extremely crowded; and Canaswetigo, a chief, made a long speech. There were other Indians about the city at the same time, making together probably four to five hundred Indians at one time. The same Indians remained several days at Logan's place, in his beech woods.
As the country increased in population, they changed their public assemblages to frontier towns-such as Pittsburg and Easton for Pennsylvania, and Albany for New York, &c.
They once hung an Indian at Pegg's run, at the junction of Cable lane. The crowd, assembled there, stood on the hill. He had
· There was a shed constructed for them along the western wall; under it was sheltered for some time, as old Thomas Bradford has told me, old King Hendricks and a party of his warriors, just before they went to join Sir William Johnson at Lake George.
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committed murder. Old Mrs. Shoemaker and John Brown told me of this fact, and said the place afterwards took the name of "Gallows- hill" for a long while. In my youthful days Callowhill street was often called " Gallows-hill street."
Indian Alarms and Massacre.
The defeat of Braddock's army in 1755, near Pittsburg, seems to have produced great excitement and much consternation among the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, even within a present day's journey from Philadelphia! £50,000 was voted by the legislature to raise additional troops. The people at and about Carlisle were in great alarm as frontier inhabitants; and Colonel Dunbar, who had the command of the retreating army, was earnestly besought to remain on the frontier, and not to come on to Philadelphia, as he soon after- wards did to seek for winter quarters. He was nick-named " Dun- par the tardy !"
To give an idea how thin the settlement of our country was at that time, it may serve to say, that such near counties as Northampton and Berks experienced the ravages of the scalping knife, by pre- datory parties. From Easton to fifty miles above it, the whole country was deserted, and many murders occurred. Easton town, and the Jerseys opposite, were filled with the terrified inhabitants. Some skulking Indians were seen about Nazareth and Bethlehem. The gazettes of the time have frequent extracts of letters from per- sons in the alarmed districts. Philadelphia itself was full of sympa- thetic excitement. The governor, for instance, communicates to the assembly that he has heard that as many as fifteen hundred French and Indians are actually encamped on the Susquehanna, only thirty miles above the present Harrisburg! Some were at Kittochtinny hills, eighty miles from Philadelphia. The burnings and scalpings at the Great Cove are general. At Tulpehocken the ravages were dreadful : one little girl, of six years of age, was found alive, with her scalp off! The Irish settlement at the Great Cove was entirely destroyed.
It may give some idea of the alarm which these events caused, even on the seaboard, to know, that such was the report received at Bohemia, in Cecil county, (received by an express from New Castle, and believed,) that 1500 French and Indians had reached Lancaster, and burnt it to the ground, and were proceeding onward! Three companies of infantry, and a troop of cavalry, immediately set off towards Lancaster, and actually reached the head of Elk before they heard any counter intelligence !- to wit, in November, 1755.
So sensitive as the frontier men must have felt, they became jea- lous, lest the Philadelphians and the assembly were too much under the pacific policy of the Friends to afford them in time the necessary defensive supplies. To move them to a livelier emotion, an expe dient of gross character was adopted-it was, to send on to Philadel
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phia the bodies of a murdered family ! These actually reached Philadelphia in the winter, like frozen venison from their mountains -were paraded through our city, and finally set down before the legislative hall-as ecce factum !
It seems much to diminish the idea of time to say there are now persons alive at Easton, Nazareth, &c., who once witnessed frontier ravages in their neighbourhood, or had their houses filled with refu- gees ; and also persons, still in Philadelphia, who saw that parade of bloody massacre. Thomas Bradford, Esq., lately alive, thus wrote to me, saying : " I saw, when a boy, in the State-house yard, the corpse of a German man, his wife, and grown-up son, who were all killed and scalped by the Indians in Shearman's valley, not many miles from the present seat of government. At that time the Indians marauded all around the Blockhouse at Harris' ferry"-(now Har- risburg.)
John Churchman, the public Friend, also saw those dead bodies, and has thus spoken of them : "The Indians having burnt several houses on the frontiers, and also at Gradenhutten in Northampton county, and murdered and scalped some of the inhabitants, two or three of the dead bodies were brought to Philadelphia in a wagon, in the time of the general meeting of Friends there in December, with intent to animate the people to unite in preparations for war on the Indians. They were carried along the streets-many people fol- lowing-cursing the Indians, and also the Quakers, because they would not join in war for their destruction. The sight of the dead bodies, and the outcry of the people, were very afflicting and shocking."
With the bodies came the " frontier inhabitants, and surrounding the assembly room, required immediate support."
The excitement in the assembly ran high, between those who resisted and those who advocated means for the emergency. Out- door interest too, at the same time, was great ; for the citizens of Philadelphia offer, by subscription and by proclamation, 700 dollars for the heads of Shingass and Captain Jacobs, Delaware chiefs-gone over to the interests of their enemies! Among the wonders of that day for us now to contemplate, but of little notoriety then, was the presence of " Colonel Washington," on a mission from Virginia, con- cerning the Indians. Little did he, or any of them of that colonial day, regard him as the future president of a new and great nation !*
In the next year the scourge fell heavy upon the Indians ; for Colonel Armstrong burnt their town, and destroyed their people at
* I heard one fact of the time, to be relied upon too :- Reese Meredith, a merchant of Philadelphia, seeing Washington at the Coffee-house, was so pleased with his personal demeanour as a genteel stranger, that he invited him home, to dine with him on fresh venison. It formed a lasting friendship. and caused afterwards, it is said, the appoint- ment of another Meredith of the family, to be his first treasurer of the union. As this acquaintance was formed without forinal introduction, it long remained a grateful recol- lection in Meredith's family, as a proof of his discernment. He was the father of the treasurer.
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Kittaning-a great affair in that day ! To commemorate it a meda was struck, and swords and plate were distributed at the expense of the city to the officers, &c.
In giving the preceding notices of Indian events, made so interest ing and stirring to the Philadelphians in that day, it will be appro priately followed by the history of an association formed in Phila- delphia, by leading members among Friends, for the avowed purpose of preserving the former friendly relations with the Indians, withcut the destructive intervention of war. It had, therefore, its warm abet- tors and fierce opponents, as may be discerned in the following brief history of that society, to wit :
Association for preserving Peace with the Indians- Year 1756.
In the spring of the year 1755, the Indians on the frontiers of Vir ginia having commenced ravages on the people there, excited great alarm at Philadelphia. The pacific principles of the Friends had so long preserved the peace of Pennsylvania, that it seemed but na- tural that they should feel peculiar reasons on such an occasion to prevent hostilities from extending to their frontier inhabitants. They therefore united, in 1756, under the denomination of " the Friendly Association for regaining and preserving Peace with the Indians," and by their private and individual subscriptions, raised several thou- sand pounds to enable them to execute their friendly designs. Be- nevolent as their disinterested designs were, they were reproached by some; and even the government, in some instances, repelled their proffered services to preserve peace. The Edinburgh Reviewers have said, " if princes would use Friends for prime ministers, uni- versal peace might be perpetuated," and the manner in which this association negotiated, both with the provincial rulers and the hostile Indians, seemed to verify their peculiar qualifications for such peace- ful offices.
The minutes of their proceedings, containing about two quires of MS. cap paper, as preserved by Israel Pemberton, having been in my possession, I made memoranda of incidents therein, which may be consulted by the curious or the interested, in my MS. Annals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, pages 181 to 184.
They begin by addressing a long letter, declarative of their designs, to Governor Robert H. Morris, on the 12th of the 4th mo., 1756, and beseeching him not to declare war against the Indians until pacific overtures should be made to them, and offering to aid the same by services and money. He and his council not according with their views, they proceeded forthwith to address a long letter to the general assembly. A declaration of war was, however, made. They then address letters to bespeak friendship for their designs, and for the Indians, by directing Israel Pemberton to write letters in their behalf to Sir William Johnson, and to Governor Sir C'. Hardy, at New York ; copies of which are preserved-also copies of Governor
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R. H. Morris' messages, conveyed by Indian agents to the Indians on the Susquehanna at Teaogon (Tioga.) With these agents the Friends made much interest ; and their remark on this interference is thus recorded-" From the time of the first messengers arriving at Teaogon, the hostilities on our northern frontiers ceased, and an ac- ceptable respite being obtained for our distressed fellow subjects, we enjoyed so much real pleasure and satisfaction in this happy event of our endeavours, as to engage us cheerfully to pursue the business we had begun, though many malicious calumnies and aspersions were cast upon us by persons from whom we had a right to expect encouragement and assistance."
They attended Indian treaties at Easton, at Lancaster, &c., and often made presents-measures which gave the Friends much as- cendency over the minds of the Indians, and inclined them to peace.
The Parton Boys, and Indian Massacre.
This was a story of deep interest and much excitement in its day -the year 1764. It long remained quite as stirring and affecting, as a tale of woe or of terror, as any of the recitals, in more modern times, of the recollections of that greater event-the war of Inde- pendence. The Indians, on whom the outrage was committed by those memorable outlaws, were friendly, unoffending, Christian In- dians, dwelling about the country in Lancaster county, and the rem- nant of a once greater race-even in that neighbourhood where they had been so cruelly afflicted. For instance, in 1701, a letter of Isaac Norris' (preserved in the Logan MSS.) speaks thus, to wit: " I have been to Susquehanna, where I met the governor ; we had a round-about journey, and well traversed the wilderness; we lived nobly at the king's palace in Conestogoe." "They once had there (says J. Logan) a considerable towne"-called Indian town.
The spirit which finally eventuated in the massacre, was discerned and regretted at a much earlier period-say as early as 1729-30 Then James Logan's letter to the proprietaries (vide Logan MSS.) says, " The Indians themselves are alarmed at the swarms of stran- gers, (Irish,) and we are afraid of a breach with them. The Irish are very rough to them." In 1730, J. Logan complains of the Scotch-Irish in a disorderly manner possessing themselves, about that time, of the whole of Conestoga manor of 15,000 acres-saying, as their justification, (the same as they did in effect at the massacre,) that " it was against the laws of God and nature that so much land should lie idle, while so many Christians wanted it to labour on," &c. In truth, they did not go off until dispossessed by the sheriff and his posse, and their cabins burnt down to the number of thirty. They rested chiefly in Donegal, as a frontier people, at an exemp- tion from rent, &c.
In 1764, under an alarm of intended massacre, fourteen being previously killed on Conestoga, the Indians took shelter in Lancas-
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ter, and for their better security they were placed under the bolts and bars of the prison ; but at mid-day a party on horseback, from the country, rode through the streets to the prison, and there forcibly en- tered and killed unresisting men and women on the spot! The citi- zens of Lancaster were much blamed for so tamely suffering such a breach of their peace. Nothing was there done to apprehend the perpetrators. In the mean time, other Indians in amity with us, hearing of the cruelty to their brethren, sought refuge in Philadel- phia, which when the Paxton boys knew, being excited to more daring and insolence by their former sufferance-like blood-hounds, stimulated to a passion for more blood by the previous taste-they forthwith resolved on marching down to Philadelphia to destroy the remainder of the afflicted race, and to take vengeance also on all their friends and abettors there. They were undoubtedly Christian professors-used Bible phrases-talked of God's commanded ven- geance on the heathen, and that the saints should inherit the earth, &c. They had even writers to plead their religious cause in Phila- delphia ! !!
The news of their approach, which outran them, was greatly magnified ; so that " every mother's son and child" was half crazed with fear, and even the men looked for a hard and obstinate strug- gle ; for even among their own citizens there were not wanting of those who, having been incensed by the late Indian war, thought almost any thing too good for an Indian. The Paxton boys, to the amount of several hundred, armed with rifles, and clothed with hunt- ing shirts, affecting the rudest and severest manners, came in two divisions as far as Germantown and the opposite bank of the Schuyl- kill, where they finally entered into affected negotiations with the citizens, headed by Benjamin Franklin, and returned home, terrify- ing the country as they went.
In the mean time the terrified Indians sought their refuge in Phila- delphia-having with them their Moravian minister. They were at first conducted to the barracks in the Northern Liberties, by the order of the Governor. But the Highlanders there refused them shelter; and the Indians stood several hours exposed to the revilings of scoff- ers. This was in the cold of December. They were thence sent to Province island, afterwards by boats to League island : then they were recalled and sent to New York. In returning through Phila- delphia they held their worship and took their breakfast in the Mo- ravian church in Bread street. William Logan and Joseph Fox, the barrack master, who gave them blankets, accompanied them as far as Trenton. A company of seventy Highlanders was their guard as far as Amboy, where they were stopped by orders from General Gage ; they then returned back to the Philadelphia barracks .* The alarm of the Paxton boys being near-at night too-the city is
* All these removals were measures of security, as fears were entertained from some of our own excited citizens, favourable to the Paxton boys.
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voluntarily illuminated !- alarm bells ring, and citizens run for arms, and haste to the barracks! Many young Quakers joined the de fenders at the barracks, where they quickly threw up intrenchments .* Dr. Franklin, and other gentlemen who went out to meet the leaders, brought them into the city, that they might point out among the In- dians the alleged guilty ; but they could show none. They, how- ever, perceived that the defence was too formidable, and they affected to depart satisfied.
The Indians remained there several months, and held regular Christian worship. In time they were greatly afflicted with small- pox, and fifty-six of their number now rest among the other dead, beneath the surface of the beautiful " Washington square."
In the spring, these Indians were conducted by Moravian mission- aries, via Bethlehem and Wyoming, and made their settlement on the Susquehanna, near to Wyalusing creek. There they ate wild potatoes in a time of scarcity.
The massacre of those Conestoga Indians was thus described by Susanna Wright, of Columbia, to wit: "The cruel murder of these poor Indians has affected and discomposed my mind beyond what I can express. We had known the greater part of them from child- ren ; had been always intimate with them. Three or four of the women were sensible and civilized, and the Indians' children used to play with ours and oblige them all they could. We had many endearing recollections of them, and the manner of effecting the brutal enormity so affected us, that we had to beg visiters to forbear to speak of it. But it was still the subject with every body."
No good succeeded to the actors. They were well remem- bered by old Mr. Wright, long a member in the assembly from Co- lumbia. He used to tell at Charles Norris', where he stayed in ses- sion time, that he had survived nearly the whole of them, and that they generally came to untimely or suffering deaths !
Present State and Refuge of the Delaware Indians.
The Indian nation of the Delawares-our proper Indians-was once one of the most numerous and powerful tribes ; but are now reduced to about four or five hundred souls, and scattered among other tribes. The chief place where they now hold any separate character and community is at the river Thames, in Upper Canada, about seventy miles from Detroit. There is there a placed called Moravian town-made memorable by being destroyed by our Ameri- cans in the last war, and by the death of Tecumseh, the celebrated Shawnee chief, in the battle of the "Long woods." This is at present the last and only Moravian missionary establishment among
* Among the most conspicuous of these were Edward Penington and William Lo gan, who were of course had under dealings by the society : but as their generous pur- poses were popular, thei sentence was mild-only an exclusion from service in affair: of discipline.
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the Indians of our country. There are there about one hundred and sixty souls under the mission of the Rev. Abram Luchenback, and his assistant, the Rev. Mr. Haman. They worship from printed books in the Delaware tongue.
The wanderings of the poor Delawares under the Moravian auspices are curious. They first collected on Mahony, a branch of the Lehigh, from whence they were driven by the French war. They then removed to near Bethlehem, where they remained till the war of the Revolution ; thence they removed to Tioga; thence to Alle- gheny and to Beaver creek, Ohio. Both of these settlements broke up and went to Muskingum, near New Philadelphia, where, in 1821, there were but about three families remaining ; these removed to the above mentioned settlement on the Thames, which was estab- lished about the year 1793.
In connexion with this renewed Moravian town, there is, higher up the Thames, a place called Bingham, occupied by Delawares; and not far from them dwell some Munsee and Chippewa Indians.
A small settlement of Delawares now reside near the mouth of Grand river, in Upper Canada, where they form a part of the Six Na- tions, who have a reserve of sixty miles in length on both sides of that river. Among some of these, the Methodist missionaries have wrought much civilization and moral improvement.
The Indians, formerly of Chester county, were of the Delaware or "Lenni Lenape." Of these was the tribe of the Nanticoke, which dwelt once, and lingered long along the whole region drained by the stream of the Brandywine-
" Their home for many an age was there !"
They removed from thence in the year 1757, to the valleys of the Wyoming and Wyalusing, on the Susquehanna. At the great treaty of St. Mary's, in 1820, there were then present about twenty chiefs and warriors, of the Nanticokes ; and among them was one who had withstood the storms of ninety winters, who, in most dra- matic pathos, told the commissioners, that he and his people had once roamed through their own domains along their favourite Bran dywine. A gentleman then present related this as fact. Ah, poor Indian ! what recollections and reflections he must have had, if duly sensible of the change to him, and even to us!
" A mighty chief, whose hundred hands Ranged freely o er those shaded lands ; But now there's scarcely left a trace, To mind one of that friendly race !"
Tedyuscung,
A Delaware chief, a frequent visiter to Philadelphia, from 1750 to '60 .- By this means, and his frequent intercourse with the whites, he had acquired a competent knowledge of our language; he was
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a tall, large figure of a man-always regarded himself as at home in the Norris family, where he was always welcomed; he generally had some retinue with him, and affected the character of something superior as a sovereign ; he was addicted to occasional excess in drinking. On one occasion, he went with a dozen of his train to Norris' country house at Fairhill-the male part of the family being absent, the females hid themselves from terror ; he, however, entered and blustered about; one of the hired girls fearing some mischief might be done to the property, for they were searching the closets for food and drink, she took up courage, and went in to restrain them ; Tedyuscung affected to frighten her, saying they would kill her if she did not provide them something good ; she vapoured in return- but to make the best of it, she laid them a table and refreshments, and by some finesse succeeded to hurry them off; they had much noisy mirth before going. Mr. Norris used to talk of this after- wards good-naturedly to the chief ; and he used to promise no more to take possession where there were none but women to receive him.
Governor Dickinson used to relate, that he attended a treaty at Albany, where Tedyuscung was a negotiator ; while there, at a time when the chief was making an ill-timed speech, being excited by a surplus of strong drink, his wife, who was present, was heard to speak in the most modest and silvery tones imaginable in the Indian tongue; the melody of her tones enchanted every ear; while she spoke, she looked steadfastly and with much humility to the ground ; every body was curious to inquire of the chief what she said ; he answered rudely --- " Ho! she's nothing but a poor weak woman! - she has just told me it was unworthy the dignity and the repu- tation of a great king, like me, to show myself drunken before the council of the nation."
Isaac Still
Was a celebrated Indian of good education, a leader of the last remains of the Delawares adjacent to Philadelphia. He was a Christian man of fine morals and much good sense; and was there- fore employed as agent and interpreter, in French as well as English, in many important missions to distant Indians ; he was said to have travelled further over the surface of our country to the unknown wilds of the west, than any other individual, and having seen, as he said, the Rocky mountains and the white Indians; his journal of obser- vations was deemed important, and was therefore taken down by some one for publication ; but where it now is, is not known .* For a considerable time he dwelt with his family, in wigwam style, on a part of Logan's place, now called the Indian field ; their only son,
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