USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 20
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Particularly in Indian affairs, Gordon was largely guided by Logan, who may be called the brains of the new government, and of whom its coming into power was a great personal triumph. Logan had faithfully served William Penn and Hannah Penn, and was con- tinuing to serve her sons. From the embarrassed Founder, this agent and steward had received little pay and scarcely any thanks, although, in the matter of pay, he says in his autobiographical memoir (printed in
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Albert Cook Myers's Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania 1682-1750), that the first Proprie- tary in 1711, when settling for ten years' service, was willing to give whatever Logan would ask, but that, in view of Penn's melancholy financial condition, he, Logan, fixed the compensation at the lump sum of 10001. Penna. money with 10/. per annum for eight years as rent of house affording office for property. After Logan had been the most unpopular person in the col- ony, somewhat from a disagreeable manner, but mainly because he was clearsightedly and uncompromisingly devoted to the first Proprietary, the last letter which Logan received from him betokened mistrust. It was written, however, in an interval between the attacks which incapacitated Penn. In the course of a reply, dated 12, 6, 1712-3 (Pa. Archives, 2nd Series, Vol. VII), Logan told Penn: "I can very safely say I have gen- erally had a much greater regard to thy interest than my own;" but, he added, it had pleased God in his Divine Providence to let him make some money, "tho' far short of what some will imagine." In partnership with William Penn or others, Logan engaged in various shipping adventures, and might have been classified as following the calling of a merchant. In 1714, he retired from much of the detail work of the Land Office, con- fiding the same to James Steel. Well enough off to take a wife without a fortune, Logan married, 10, 9, 1714, Sarah, daughter of Charles Read of Philadelphia, merchant, who had been a Keithian Quaker, and after- wards a Churchman, and also made one of the Alder- men at the City's incorporation in 1701, and also an Assemblyman in 1704. Sarah and her mother had re- mained in the Society of Friends. Rachel, Sarah's sister, married Israel Pemberton. Charles Read, to be spoken of elsewhere, was a half-brother, and was a Churchman. Logan, after marriage until retirement
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to his plantation, lived in Delaware 2nd Street above Walnut.
Fond of study, and having supplemented his school- teaching with the companionship of so learned a man as William Penn, Logan took advantage of the books which Penn or some others brought, but he himself began collecting books at an early date, and, as his means in- creased, his collection became a large one, including one hundred Greek folios. To perusing his books, and to observing the phenomena of nature, he devoted his leisure. In 1722, on reading in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Græca the article on the geographer Ptolemy, Logan wrote to Fabricius to inquire where a copy of Ptolemy's "Almagest" could be procured. Fabricius sent his own copy as a present.
Sir William Keith made insinuations against Logan's financial integrity or disinterestedness, advising Han- nah Penn to be wary of trusting so much in his hands. Upon Logan's arrival in England in 1723, his accounts in connection with the Penns were carefully gone over, as we learn from Hannah Penn's letter of instructions. which he brought back to Sir William; and, in the same letter, she wrote that Logan had saved the exchange, worth many hundred pounds sterling, and that there was no room to suspect his integrity, and that it would be wrong to look upon him as other than a very honest and capable man and a true and faithful friend. Long after wishing to be relieved of the American business of the family, Logan was obliged by his sense of obli- gation to exercise a general superintendence over it. He received for his services after 1711 a certain amount of remuneration, and Thomas Penn, later in Gordon's time, thought that the Founder had done a very good thing to Logan in giving him a career by which, as was supposed, he was worth 60000l .; but he, not having half that much, thought that he might have doubled
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his fortune if he had left the Founder's employ about 1701.
In the 54th year of his age, having recently had a "violent fever," he felt his constitution much broken, and decided to prepare for retirement to the country five miles from Philadelphia, with only one day a week in town, and he began, or had begun, to build his large country house, the best of that time now preserved (near 18th and Courtland Streets, in the present city of Philadelphia). During its erection, he met with an accident which lamed him for the rest of his life, has- tened his retirement, and perhaps brought on palsy or something similar, from which he suffered in his later years. He raised the roof of the house in December, 1728. He gave to the plantation, which contained over 500 acres, the name of Stenton, after the parish in Scot- land in which his father had been born.
While the conclusion of a peace between the Penns' representatives and Lloyd, and the departure of Sir William Keith, had left the popular party without a leader, the discontent lingered some time, as the coali- tion seemed disposed to press advantages, and lay under the suspicion-unjust, to be sure-of disloyalty to paper money. A very unfair action by the majority in the Assembly, and a false notion as to the conduct of Indian affairs, aggravated this feeling.
When Sir William departed, he left a letter announc- ing his intention not to return before the expiration of his term in the Assembly, and desiring that some one be chosen in his place. For this, the Keithian party decided to vote for his nephew, James Græme (letters spell it Graham), whom, although a lawyer, his enemies described as an ignorant, as well as a hare-brained, hot headed, young fellow. He was probably son of Sir William's sister Ann, and came to Pennsylvania in or before 1720, when Sir William sent him on a voyage to Rome and back. One of the remaining members for the
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County moved for a warrant for the holding of the election. The majority of the Assemblymen voted this down, adopting, probably at Lloyd's suggestion, the ex- pedient of excusing Sir William from attendance. Daniel Williamson, from Chester, had died. Being more sanguine how Chester would vote, the majority ordered a warrant for filling that vacancy. Thereupon the following members, deeming the privileges of the People of the chief county broken, withdrew, viz: Dr. John Kearsley and Thomas Tresse (who were from the City) and Edward Horne, William Monington, Ludo- wick Christian Sprogell, Thomas Rutter Jr., John Swift, and Job Goodson (these being all the represen- tatives then in America of Philadelphia County except Morris Morris). As Christopher Vanhorn of Bucks was ill, there were only fifteen attending, instead of the two thirds required to make laws. The fifteen tried to force the others to return, but, failing, asked the Lieu- tenant-Governor to settle all questions by summoning a new session. He did so, with the approval of his Council, but, when the day arrived, the eight had not changed their mind. The new member in Williamson's place, Philip Taylor, however, soon qualified. The eight remained absent until the end of the term, and there was a failure of legislation. The Proprietaries had hoped for a law to hinder the immigration of aliens, owing to the trespassing by the Palatinates at Tulpe- hocken.
The frontiersmen in the iron region along the Schuyl- kill were sympathizers with Sir William Keith; and the vindication of Logan's character by Hannah Penn did not discredit among them, or prevent their communi- cating to their Indian visitors, a notion, which, although honestly conceived, may have been circulated as a "campaign lie," viz: that William Penn had sent over to Logan a quantity of goods as a present for the Indians, but that Logan had converted them to his own
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use in trade. In the endeavor of Gordon's party to hunt down all opponents, old Thomas Rutter, once preacher and since 1716 or 1717 ironmaster at Mana- tawny, who was in friendly intercourse with the Indians up the Schuylkill, was accused of starting the talk, which was considerable in 1728 on the Manatawny Creek, and in New Hanover, and at Colebrookdale, that the aboriginal owners had not received pay for their lands. There was also a thought, spreading elsewhere as well, and among Quakers as well as others who were solicitous as to their exact rights, that the public money spent in entertaining Indians, and renewing friendship with them, was mostly for the benefit of the Penn fam- ily, preparing for, or part of the consideration in, the purchase of land.
In April, 1728, the Shawnee Indians murdered a man and woman of the Conestogas. That tribe demanding the surrender of the murderers, some Shawnees brought them as far as Peter Chartier's house, but, drinking some rum there, let them escape. This so incensed the Conestogas, that, according to a report, they threatened to cut off the whole nation of the Shawnees, and a war party passed by John Wright's at Hempfield on May 1. The influence of the Pennsylvania government was strong enough to appease this quarrel.
Almost contemporary with it, however, the whites along the Schuylkill had their safety threatened from another quarter. Kakowwatchy, head of the Shawnees at Pechoquealon, claimed to have heard that the Flat- heads had entered the province to strike the Pennsyl- vania Indians. The name "Flatheads" is generally applied to the Catawbas, is supposed to be the origin of Choctaw as a corruption of the Spanish word chato, and could be as well applied to the Chickasaws. Prob- ably Kakowwatchy was confident that the Lenni Len- ape up the Schuylkill would not be induced to forsake the English, threatened by Manawkyhickon and Twight-
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wees, and would be in danger if the Southern Indians penetrated the region controlled by the Six Nations. He sent eleven warriors, for the purpose, he said, of inquir- ing, and of assisting the Pennsylvania Indians. Com- ing to the neighourhood of the iron works at Mana- tawny, these warriors, their own provisions failing, forced the people to give them victuals and drink. The people not knowing them, and the leader of the band looking like a Spanish Indian,-natural in a tribe for- merly on the Savannah River,-there was great alarm; an invasion by Spanish or French Indians seemed to have begun. Families left their plantations with what- ever could be carried, even women from childbed risk- ing death by exposure to the cold. About twenty white men took arms, and approached the band, and shots were fired. The whites said that the Indians, refusing a parley, fired first, wounding several whites. The red men, making off, were not seen again. Their leader was wounded, but escaped. Their identity was not known until May 20, when messengers from Kakow- watchy arrived at Philadelphia to explain, to express regrets, and to ask for the gun which the wounded leader had lost. The Lieutenant-Governor with Hamil- ton and other citizens meanwhile went to the troubled district, and persuaded those who had fled from their homes to return. So excited were the whites that they seemed ready to kill any red man or woman. On May 10, Indians, who appear to have been Delawares,-a man, two women, one of whom was pregnant, and two girls,-had come to John Roberts's at Cucussea, then in Chester County. A couple of neighbours summoned for defence, hurried thither with guns, and, being joined by two others with guns, shot the man and one of the women, beat out the brains of the other woman, and wounded the girls. The excuse made was that the Indian, whom we may suppose to have thought himself
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and family in danger, was putting an arrow into his bow. The officials fearing that revenge upon the people of the frontier might be attempted, the two neighbours were arrested, and sent to Chester for trial, and notice of the affair was sent to Sassoonan, Opekasset, and Manawkyhickon, with a request that they bring their people to a treaty, arranged to be held at Conestoga with Civility and the Indians there. Sassoonan, or Allummapees, was the head of the Delawares up the Schuylkill, and it had been arranged that his nephews Opekasset and Sam, otherwise Shackatawlin, son of Penn's acquaintance Essepenaike, were to succeed Sassoonan. The Pennsylvania government did not leave all to diplomacy. John Pawling, Marcus Huling, and Mordecai Lincoln (a relative of President Abraham Lincoln) were commissioned to gather the inhabitants, and to put them in a posture to defend themselves. The Lieutenant-Governor issued a proclamation on May 16, warning all the King's subjects, the Europeans of whatsoever nation who were residing in the Province or Territories, not on any pretence to abuse any Indian native demeaning himself peaceably, also to avoid showing "weak unhandsome fears, by which they greatly expose themselves to remarks that are dishon- ourable." The proclamation at its end was military, such as we are surprised to find approved of by five Quaker Councillors. It directed and required "all his Majesty's liege subjects" to be "at all times duly fur- nished with suitable Arms and Ammunition for their Defence, to be used in case of real Necessity by the order and Direction of proper officers, who shall be duly appointed for that Purpose, and that they fail not to appear with them in proper Time and Place, if there should be Occasion to use them in Defence of them- selves, their Families, and Country."
Having forwarded to Kakowwatchy the matchcoat, belt, and hatchet dropped by the eleven warriors, and
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having sent to him three matchcoats as a present to ask him to warn his party of Indians to be more cau- tious in future, and having promised to look for the leader's gun, and expressed the wish to see Kakow- watchy at Durham in the course of the year, Gordon went to Conestoga, and met Civility, Tawenna, and other Conestogas, some Delawares from the Brandy- wine, some Ganawese, and three Shawnee chiefs. Gor- don began by reminding the Indians of the links in the chain of friendship, and, among said links, that neither they nor the Christians would believe ill reports of each other until they inquired of the other, and that, on in- juries being done, they would complain, and, when satisfaction were made, would bury the matter in a bottomless pit. Then Gordon presented 20 stroud matchcoats, 20 duffels, 20 blankets, 20 shirts, also gun- powder, lead, flints, and knives. Gordon then told of the recent murders, of the imprisonment and intended trial of those who had killed the Indians, and of the intention to punish Burt, if found, for provoking those who had murdered Thomas Wright; and Gordon ex- pressed the expectation that the Indians would punish those who had committed that deed. Tawenna, the Conestoga, replied that the four nations represented had never received any wrong from William Penn or any of his people, but had always met with justice and kindness from him and all the Governors he had sent. The other Indians, being questioned, said that they had no cause of complaint. The murderers of Wright be- longing to another nation, the Lieutenant-Governor said that he would look to that nation for justice. His proclamation being translated to the Indians, they were pleased with it, and all shook hands. Sassoonan and Opekasset and Manawkyhickon did not appear; but, with friendly messages, Sassoonan and Opekasset offered to meet Gordon at Molatton, and Manawky-
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hickon promised to come to Philadelphia with the dele- gates from the Five Nations.
Sassoonan and Opekasset and some chiefs who ac- companied them to Molatton, were invited down to Philadelphia with some relations of the Indians recently killed, and with Shikallima of the Five Nations, and Squicksey, a Shawnee. On June 4, the Lieutenant- Governor repeated to them what he had said at Cones- toga, and gave presents of matchcoats, blankets, shirts, powder, lead, looking glasses, &ct., and then to those present who were relations of the murdered, as a mark of grief, 3 strouds, 3 blankets, 3 duffels, and 3 shirts "to cover the dead bodies again," and "6 handkerchiefs to wipe away tears." The Indians' answer was given on the next day, the Council holding a public meeting in the large Quaker Meeting House before "a vast audi- ence," the minutes say, "that filled the house and all its galleries." After expressing satisfaction at Gor- don's wish that no misunderstanding result from the late "accident," Sassoonan said that he was troubled to see Christians settling on lands that had never been paid for, even his own land, for which he had received nothing. Logan produced the deed of Sassoonan and others of Sep. 17, 1718, acknowledging that the former kings and chiefs of the Delawares had received full satisfaction, and quit claiming all the land between the Delaware and Susquehanna from Duck Creek to the mountains below Lechay. Sassoonan and Opekasset recognized their marks to the deed, but the former said, that, those mountains being only a few miles above Oley, the Tulpehocken creek, on which Europeans had settled, was beyond them. Logan then showed that it was by Keith's permission, and without authority from the Commissioners of Property, that Palatinates had settled on the creek. The Commissioners had al- ways been careful not to grant any land until it had been purchased from the Indians, and, even after the
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purchase of a tract, not to let the Indians be put off of it until they voluntarily retired. He asked the Indians now not to molest the people at Tulpehocken, but to wait until the matter were adjusted. Although there was a request made that those in the audience who had formerly spoken of injustice to the Indians say what they had to say, they were silent, old Thomas Rutter, whom Sassoonan had asked to sit by him, denying that he had said that the Indians were not satisfied for their lands. Gordon gave bread, tobacco, and five gallons of rum to the visitors, and, providing six pairs of shoes and stockings, asked that messengers go among the neighbouring Indians, and, if possible, to the Five Na- tions, to tell what had passed. The two actual mur- derers of the three Indians were hung, but one who was convicted as an aider and abettor, from being with the principals, was reprieved. Sassoonan came in Octo- ber with Oholykon, of the Brandywine Indians, and Shikallima and Robert Hunter, of the Five Nations, and hoped that all difference with the Province was ended. Sassoonan mentioned that the Five Nations had often told those whom he represented that they were women only, and should leave alone what related to peace and war, which sounds as though he had in mind the recent remark of that kind which the Shawnees reported.
Shikallima, an Oneida, or, it is said, a Frenchman born in Montreal, but captured and adopted by the Oneidas, had been set over the Shawnees and perhaps other tributaries by the Five Nations. He made his residence near the junction of the two branches of the Susquehanna. He so much admired Logan that he gave the latter's name to his own son, otherwise called John Shikallima, but who became famous under the name of Logan.
The removal of the Shawnees to the Ohio, reported by them to have been ordered by the Five Nations, appears to have begun in the Summer of 1728. The
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movement was not confined to those about the Susque- hanna. A number of those in the Pechoquealon region were gathering their present for the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, and were about to send a messenger to ask him to meet them at the Durham iron works, when an Indian messenger from the Susquehanna arrived, and, in haste, leaving the corn ungathered, the Indians and their wives and children departed from Pechoquealon. Kakowwatchy had already gone to Shamokin. Subse- quently, he made his home at Woyumoth (Wyoming), until, in 1744, he removed to the Ohio. The Shawnees on the Ohio, for some years prior to his removal thither, had recognized him as their head. Some Shawnees, perhaps those from Paxtung, followed what is now called the Raystown Branch of the Juniata, and a num- ber of them settled on this side of the Alleghany Moun- tains, forming villages in what is now Bedford County. The main body of the Pennsylvania Shawnees, by locating on the Conemaugh, went within easy reach of the Ohio River. Although Shikallima came to meetings with the Lieutenant-Governor, and Civility professed to speak for the Shawnees, as well as for other Indians, yet for a number of years none of the tribe came to a treaty. In 1729 the absence was explained by Civility saying that the Shawnees had spent their provisions on rum, and were obliged to stay at home to gain sub- sistence for their families by hunting. Nevertheless, as appeared afterwards, the Shawnees of the Ohio-at Al- leghening, or Allegheney,-were looking to the French for protection from the Six Nations, and before long probably formally applied to the Governor at Montreal.
At the election in October, 1728, notwithstanding great efforts by Gordon's party to have the eight seceders defeated, all except Goodson were reelected, and, in place of him and Sir William, there were two sympathizers with them chosen. Morris Morris was not returned. The new members from Philadelphia
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County were John Warder, David Potts, and Edward Farmer. Gordon took comfort in Bucks reelecting Hamilton, who was also sent again to the Assembly of the Lower Counties, and became Speaker of that body.
When the Assemblymen chosen in 1728 arrived in Philadelphia to organize, some of them, doubtless those thought inimical to paper money, met with considerable rudeness from a small mob. Lloyd was again elected Speaker. It was usual for the person elected to beg the Governor to excuse him, and for the Governor, in some complimentary words, to decline to do so. Lloyd, however, expressed this time his desire from the heart to be excused: but Gordon politely insisted upon Lloyd's serving. The House, the next day, adjourning until Dec. 16, asked the Governor and Council to fix a safer place of meeting than Philadelphia. The Council thought that it would be best for the Assembly to try to stay in the town where the offices were kept, but, if experience should prove a removal necessary, the next most convenient place would be Chester. The Assem- blymen later unanimously decided to adhere to Phila- delphia as the place of meeting, and, in the Act for issuing paper money, besides lending 1000l. to the City for establishing an almshouse, gave 2000l. to Thomas Lawrence, Andrew Hamilton, and Dr. John Kearsley for the erection in Philadelphia of a house for the sit- tings of the representatives of the People. This appro- priation was inserted after a petition, presented in February, 1728-9, designating as the location, more- over, High Street near the prison, and adding "in con- nection with a market;" a location different from that contemplated by William Penn, viz : the Centre Squares at Broad and High. As nothing much was done within two years to carry out the Assembly's order, this sub- ject may be left for a later page.
Popular tumults to coerce this Assembly, chosen in 1728, to issue paper money, recurred through the Win-
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ter. When, in March, 1728-9, the House sent to Gordon a proposition for issuing 50000l., he felt, that, while an addition to the circulating medium was desired by everybody, the measure must be a very conservative one: it must not increase the total amount outstanding to more than 60000l., the money must be repaid in a small number of years, instead of in sixteen years, as proposed, and must bear interest at the rate fixed in the first Act on the subject, and must not be payable for debts contracted to be paid in sterling, nor for the Proprietary quit rents, and there should be no issue of bills until the Crown had an opportunity to disallow the Act. The House at last agreed to make the issue 300001:, and the interest 5 per cent., but declined further to amend as Gordon suggested. In view of the general cry, Gordon, by advice of his Council, signed the bill on May 10, 1729, saying that there was no man in the Province more sincerely a friend of the currency than he was, nor was there any member of his Council who was not a hearty friend, or craved anything more than to keep the money up to near its value. At this time, the exchange between Pennsylvania paper money and sterling was about 50 per cent., so that an English shil- ling would be worth 18d. in bills of credit. This law, in its general terms, seemed to require the acceptance of a paper shilling for a sterling shilling of quit rent. To guard against Proprietary efforts for that reason to have such a law disallowed by the King, an address, unanimously adopted, was sent by the Assembly to the Proprietaries, explaining, that, as the quit rents were to be paid in English money or the value thereof in coin current, it must always be understood that an English shilling, the common quit rent for 100 acres, could only be paid by such a shilling or the real value of it in the current coin then passing. It is probable that the politicians were afraid that their constituents would be angry at such a declaration in the Proprie-
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