USA > Pennsylvania > Historical register : notes and queries historical and genealogical, chiefly relating to interior Pennsylvania. Volume I > Part 4
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Anna Margaretha, born January 6, 1732; baptized January 13, 1732. Sponsors-Joh. Georg Marsteller and his wife Anna Margaretha.
Joh. Daniel, born February 6, 1733; baptized February 11, 1733. Sponsor-Joh. Daniel Warlich. -
Joh. Friederich, born August 5, 1734; baptized August 11, 1734. Sponsor-Joh. Friederich Weber.
George, born May 24, 1736; baptized June, 1736. Spousor-Johan Georg Crosman.
Valentin, born December 26, 1738; baptized December 28, 1738. Sponsor-Christian Borgen.
Philippus, born January 4, 1742; baptized January 6, 1742. Spon- sor-Philipp Crossmann.
Philip Marsteller, the youngest son, removed to that portion of Lancaster county afterwards included in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania. During the Revolutionary war he held a posi- tion of trust in the American service. None of the male de- scendants of Frederick Marsteller, it is believed, now reside in the neighborhood in which their worthy progenitor settled. Those of the name now living in that locality are supposed to be descendants of other branches of the family.
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FIRST SETTLERS OF THE "IRISH SETTLEMENT." BY JACOB FATZINGER, JR.
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The early settlers of this settlement were emigrants from the north of Ireland, and were chiefly Presbyterians. The territory now included in the limits of Allen, East Allen, and Hanover townships, Northampton county, was then called "Craig's Set- tlement," from the fact that Thomas Craig was the principal settler. The precise date of his arrival and place of settlement is, however, uncertain. Henry, on his map of Northampton county, compiled in 1850, states that the Irish settlement was organized in the year 1728. It is said that in the city of Lon- don. England, there is on record an entry for lands in this local- ity, dated 1728. Henry also says that the oldest title to lands in Northampton county is a grant by Richard Penn, in 1732, of a tract of land situated about a mile in a westerly direction from the village of Howertown, Allen township. The oldest written record we have seen in reference to a dwelling erected within the limits of the Irish settlement is a draft of a tract of land containing 1426 acres, surveyed for Joseph Turner by John Chapman, on the 9th day of the 8th month, 1735. The de- scriptive part states that the tract "begins at a post standing by a marked white oak, about a mile south west of a log-house, at a place called Hockoyonda," (evidently Hockendocque.) From our knowledge of the facts, we would place the site of this house in Allen township, about half ways between Sieg- fried's Bridge and the Slate Dam, a mile in an easterly direction from the Lehigh river.
Among the names of the early settlers we find the following :
Thomas Armstrong, who resided on the Lehigh river, a short distance below the town of Catasauqua. He served as an elder of the Presbyterian congregation organized by the first settlers ;
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was commissioned coroner of Northampton county, October 4, 1755, and at a late period moved out of the settlement.
James Allison lived on the tract of land now owned by Daniel Saeger. His remains are interred in the burying-ground of the Presbyterian congregation.
John Boyd, married to Elizabeth Young. He died during the year 1759, leaving issue four sons and three daughters. His residence was on the farm now owned by John Miller.
Thomas Boyd, died during the year 1758, leaving a widow, Jane, and issue Robert and Thomas. Of Robert we have no record. . Thomas lived in Allen township near the Lehigh river on lands now owned by the heirs of Aaron Hower, deceased. He died in 1782, leaving issue, Alexander, Elizabeth and Thomas.
Mary (Boyd) Dobbin, widow of Alexander Dobbin, died dur- ing the year 1762, leaving issue, Alexander, Leonard, William, James, Susannah m. John Neal, Elizabeth m. William Perry. At the time of her decease, Mary Dobbin resided upon a tract of land containing 279 acres, purchased in the year 1751 from William Allen and William Webb, attorneys for Evan Patterson, of Old Broad Street, London. This tract is now owned by Benjamin Shaden and George Deily.
James Craig resided in the immediate vicinity of the Presby- terian church. He lived to an advanced age, and although palsied, was always on the Sabbath carried to the sanctuary by his sons. The wife of James Craig died previous to the 16th of April, 1774. Of his family we know but little. He had sons, William, Thomas, and Robert. William married Elizabeth Brown, daughter of Samuel and Jane (Boyd) Brown, and sister to Gen. Robert Brown, of Revolutionary fame. He moved out of the settlement during the latter part of the last century ; died March 19, 1810, and is buried at Warrior Run grave-yard, Northumberland county. William and Elizabeth (Brown) Craig left issue Jane, Ann, James, Elizabeth, William, Sarah, Samuel, and Margaret, of whom Elizabeth married Johnson, and on the 25th of June, 1881, was still living at an advanced age, residing at Jerseytown, Pa. Her children are Ann, Elizabeth, Samuel, and William, all residing at Jersey-
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town, with the exception of William, who resides at Danville, Pa. Robert, son of James Craig. married Esther Brown, sister to the above-named Elizabeth Brown. He died March 19, 1818, leaving issue James, Jane, Mary, Samuel, Elizabeth, Wil- liam, John, Margaret, Robert, ail Joseph.
Thomas Craig, first, (original settler,) married Mary who died July 14, 1772, aged 75 years. He lived on a tract of land containing 500 acres and 96 perches. purchased from Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia, br deed dated March 28, 1739, and died during the year 1779 at an advanced age. We have always thought that he was the father of Gen. Thomas Craig, of Revolutionary fame. In his will. Thomas Craig (first) is called Thomas Craig, senior, but from the wording of the will it is doubtful whether he had any living issue at the time of his de- cease, since the only bequests are to Thomas Craig, son of my brother Daniel Craig, to his grand-son William Craig, to his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Craig, and to his son William's child- ren, viz: Thomas, Hugh. Charles, William, (above mentioned,) Mary, Sarah, Margaret, and Elizabeth.
David Chambers lived on the Lehigh river, at the present vil- lage of Siegfried's Bridge. On the 10th of March, 1776, he sold his tract of land to John Siegfried, afterwards Col. John Siegfried, of the Revolutionary army. Chambers moved out of the Province of Pennsylvania prior to March 25. 1776.
Robert and John Clendinen. The Clendinen family emigrated to Pequea, Lancaster county, from the north of Ireland. and soon after moved to the Irish settlement. Of Robert we have no record further than that he lived near the present town of Cata- sauqua. John was married to Jean - -; he died "the 7th day of July, 1778, at one o'clock in the morning," age unknown. Jean died "at three o'clock in the morning of the 6th of June, 1775," age unknown. John and Jean Clendinen had a son Adam, born in April, 1739, married Esther Hall, daughter of John Hall and Esther (Robison) Hall. of the city of Philadel- phia. Adam died June 17, 1817. aged 78 years. Esther (Hall) Clendinen was born October 6, 1754, and died May 11, 1816, aged 62 years. They had issue:
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i. Jean, b. April, 1779 : d. June 23, 1829 ; m. Andrew Heslet. ii. John, b. July 12, 1780 ; d. January 26, 1815.
iii. James, b. May 20, 1782; d. March 17, 1850.
iv. Margaret, b. April 1, 1784; d. June 30, 1827.
v. Ann, b. October 24, 1786 ; d. May 16, 1788.
vi. William, b. January 29, 1759 ; d. March 5, 1827.
vii. Esther, b. July 27, 1793; m. 1st. James H. Horner, d. October 28, 1823 ; m. 2d. James Vliet, d. 1881, aged about 76 years.
viii. Adam, b. July 27, 1793 ; d. October 15, 1839.
ix. Robert, b. January 27, 1795; d. October 3, 1853.
x. Thomas, b. December 1, 1799; d. February 27, 1879.
It will be seen that the family of Adam Clendinen and Esther Robison is extinct in the male line, as the sons died unmarried
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EARLY INDIAN HISTORY ON THE SUSQUEHANNA.
BY PROF. A. L. GUSS.
We design to present some sketches of early Indian history on the river Susquehanna and its branches. This region has a valuable and interesting history which has been generally overlooked by writers, and its condition has been largely mis- understood, although it has a most important relation to events of a later day. If there are any facts which are new, or which have been misunderstood, or which have been imperfectly elu- cidated, they should be eagerly sought for by our people. It is time, too, that our people cease being more familiar with the Indian history of New England, than with that of our own State. Our materials must, of course, be drawn from sketches, reports, letters, old maps, and scraps of state and private papers, which have survived the ravages of time and come down to us from the French, Dutch, Swedes, Spaniards, as well as from the English, as they came near, or entered the region here des- ignated. Before this interior was explored by white men, we may infer much concerning its condition from what we know of Indian affairs on the south, east and north of this region. We shall reach out, therefore, in every direction, for any facts that will give us light. Our glimpses will be such, that each one will, as far as possible, be complete in itself.
Before, however, we enter into details, it will be well to take a survey of the field in general, so that we may have some idea of the surrounding tribes, and know their location and linguis- tic associations. Language is the proper basis for ethnological classification. It tells the tale of a people's origin long after all traditions have ceased to be rehearsed at the fireside. The period of which we now speak is that extending from the time that Europeans first began to form an acquaintance with the
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Atlantic coast, until, by settlements and explorations, a general idea of its geography and inhabitants may be said to have been formed. Most of the Indians east of the Mississippi river at that time belonged to one of three classes, which differ radically in language, somewhat in physical appearance, and considerably in habits of life. We designate them as the Iroquois, the Al- gonquin and the Muscogee families. Each of these three gener- ic stocks had many subdivisions which will be named after we have given those that did not belong to either of these larger families.
The Winnebagoes. Puants or Stinkards, were in Wisconsin, but belonged to the Dacotahs, and had, at some former period, moved east of the Mississippi river. The Mitchigamias were a member of the Illinois confederacy, but were Arkansas, a tribe that either belonged, or had migrated, across the Missis- sippi river. In language and appearance both these tribes re- vealed their trans-Mississippi origin. . The Cherokees and Ca- tawbas, of upper Georgia and South Carolina and regions north- westward, were tribes of considerable size. and of languages re- garded as quite distinct from all others. The same may be said of the Uchees of Georgia and the Natchez on the Mississippi --- the latter erroneously regarded by some as sprung from the Tol- tecs of Mexico. Both these were, doubtless, remnants of once much more powerful tribes Below Vicksburg, on both sides of the river, were the Taensas, now extinct, whose language has no affinity to any other. The Tuteloes, in Virginia, strange as it may seem, have been identified as a migration of the trans- Mississippi-Dacotah stock, the separation being long anterior to that of the Winnebagoes. The Catawbas are also supposed by some to be a still older migration of the same stock-there be- ing a resemblance in words, but a great variation in structure. Some writers have attempted to classify these smaller southern tribes with the larger bodies already enumerated, but the efforts are by no means satisfactory. There seem, also, to be preserved in the Gulf States, remnants of other Indian tongues, such as the Timucua and others in Florida, which can not be grouped with any of those above named. We can, perhaps, count over a dozen distinct languages east of the Mississippi river, the origin
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of only a few of which can certainly be traced to those beyond the river. Other tribal remnants may also have perished, and their languages with them.
The Muscogees consisted of Yamassees, Appalaches, Hitchiti, Mikasuki, Seminoles, Creeks. Tuckabatches, Alabamas, Coassati, Kasichtas, Obikas, Choctas, Chicasas, Pascagoulas, and Ope- lousas. They occupied the Gulf States. As our investigations on the Susquehanna will be confined almost entirely to the members of the Algonquin and Iroquois families, we pass the others by, merely naming them.
The Algonquins were the most numerous, and scattered over the larger part of the territory east of the Mississippi. In form, their country may be said somewhat to have resembled the shape of a horse shoe; the one side extending from Carolina north- ward along the Atlantic coast; the other side extending from Tennessee northward by the great lakes; and the two sides meeting in the broad expanse south of Hudson's bay. The Iroquois occupied the country nearly enclosed by this horse shoe, and extending from Canada to Carolina.
The writer is well aware that all the ethnological maps and historians represent the Iroquois as "in the midst of an Algon- quin sea," and the Tuscaroras "an isolated body of the Iroquois family," and they color their maps so as to give a belt from the Atlantic to the Mississippi river, across Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, as Algonquin territory ; but none of them have ever attempted to locate and name any tribes in this immense region-and that for the simple reason that originally the Al- gonquins were not there ; and yet there are abundant evidences that this interior must have been also inhabited. When the writer, a few years since, first promulgated, before the Anthro- pological Society, of Washington, the idea that Iroquois-speak- ing tribes extended originally continuously from the Five Na- tions to the Tuscaroras, it was new to others, and a deduction of his own. Others have since adopted this view.
The Algonquins consisted chiefly of the following: the Pampticoughs, the Corees on Cape Fear river ; the Powhatan tribes in Virginia; the Nanticokes in eastern Maryland; the Ganawese or Conoys and other tribes near the Potomac; the
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Delawares on the river of the same name and eastward; the Montauks, the Wappingers, and the Mohicans on the Hudson river: the Pequods, the Narragansetts. and the Abenequis of New England; the various tribes south and north of the St. Lawrence, and north of the upper lakes: the Chippewas or Ojibwas on Lake Superior; the Menominees, the Saes and Foxes of Wisconsin; the Ottawas of Michigan; the Miamis or Twightwees of Ohio; the Potawatomies of Indiana; the Illinois and the Kickapoos of Illinois; the Shawanese of the. lower Ohio and its southern branches. There were generally several sub-divisions of each of the above tribes ; and there were also many smaller tribes no longer holding allegiance to the parent stock from which they had separated. It will be inter- esting also to know that the Blackfeet, Cheyennes, and Arrap- pahoes of the Rocky Mountains were also members of this wide- spread Algonquin stock, and their territories serve to illustrate how constant and extensive their migrations must have been.
The sub-divisions of the Delawares or Lenni Lenape were the following : 1. The Chichohoaki, Unamis or Turtle tribe; 2. the Wanami, Unalachtgo or Turkey tribe; 3. the Minsi, Minni- sinks, Monseys, Munsies, Fork Indians, Loups or Wolf tribe. The last named were the most fierce and cruel. They were much darker in color than their immediate or more remote cognate tribes ; and in dialect had varied considerably from the other two divisions. The Delawares were not originally upon the Susquehanna river, as asserted, or taken for granted, by many writers; but migrated there, and further westward, in the eighteenth century, after being pressed from their ancient seats by the great influx of European settlers. The Shawanese also had three sub-divisions, from one of which we have Pequea. They only began to come into this Province from the south, in the days of William Penn. After white men began to set- tle on the Susquehanna and its branches, the Delawares and Shawanese made a great part of the Indian history by their atrocious border warfare.
The names which we give these tribes are seldom the ones by which they designated themselves. Some of them are names of reproach given by enemies. The French and Dutch often
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had names for tribes that differed from those given by the Eng- lish. Moreover, men generally spelled the names according to their own fancy, thus producing in some cases from five to fifty variations. This causes great difficulty. Names which were once descriptive of a class or of a region, in course of time, had only a fixed application. Thus, Shawanee meant simply " South- erner ;" but after a time, designated a particular one of the many tribes, which may once have been so termed. The French called the Indians south of the Senecas, in the north-western corner of Pennsylvania, by the name Andastes, and so placed them on their maps; when they, and all other intervening tribes, disappeared by the havoc of the armed Five Nations, the Sus- quehannocks, even in the south-east corner of the State, were called Andastes. The Algonquins were naturally more no- madic, and some of them were especially great rovers, and hard to locate anywhere.
After the introduction of fire-arms among the Five Nations, in 1640, there were constant and great changes in location among their enemies, and especially after being once defeated, they became restless, uneasy, and perfidious. The Shawanese, above all others, became noted for a kind of gipsy life, and roamed in fragmentary bands over the greater part of the coun- try, dotting the land with their names of Shawanese towns and rivers.
The names Algonquin and Iroquois are here used generically, to denote all those tribes speaking dialects of a language, which was undoubtedly one common tongue at a comparatively recent period. Doubtless, far back in time, all the Indians had a com- mon tongue, and were one body; but it is so remote that the evidences of kinship in their languages are lost. These two terms were first used by the French to denote the tribes of dis- tinct speech with which they came in contact. Algonquin has long since ceased to mean any specific tribe; but Iroquois has long been used as synonymous with Five Nations; and the . term Huron-Iroquois has been used as a generic term for all that class of which those two tribes were the best known mem- bers. This compound term is so clumsy that we follow the ex- ample of some good writers, and shall call this family simply
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Iroquois; and designate the Five Nations by that old English name, though not intending that the word "Nation" shall con- vey the idea that they had anything like European civilization or government, or that they were very numerous.
The Iroquois family may be said to have consisted of the following; the Hurons. comprising four divisions; the Tionon- tates, or Dinondadies. of Upper Canada ; the Attiwandaronks, or Neuter Nation, of the Niagara river region : the Eries, or Cats, of the region south of the east part of Lake Erie. The most memorable member of this family was the Five Nations, consisting of Canningoes or Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onon- dagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas or Sonnontowans, who lived in a line as here named, in the central part of western New York, stretching from the Mohawk to the Genessee river. Before this they are said to have extended down the St. Law- rence river to Montreal. They made more history than all the other tribes put together. To relate the Indian history of the Susquehanna, or in fact of all Pennsylvania, is but to repeat some chapters in the annals of the Five Nations. They held the geographical key to the whole country, and by their course handed it over to the rule of the Anglo-Saxon races. Imme- diately south of the Five Nations were the Carantowans on the borders of Pennsylvania, and allied with the Hurons in wars against the Five Nations. At Wyoming were the Scahentoar- runon, or people of the Great Flats; on the West Branch were the Otzinachson, or people of the Demons' Dens ; on the Juniata were the Onojutta-Haga, or Standing Stone people ; below the mountains, on the river and branches, were the Susquehannocks, extending to the Potomac river. In Virginia, above the falls of the Rappahannock, according to Capt. John Smith, were the Mannahoacks in an alliance with the Monacans, whom Jefferson says were the Tuscaroras, then occupying the heads of the James river, and extending to the Neuse, Tar, and Roanoke rivers. The Chowanokes or Chowans, the Meherrins, and the Nottaways, on the rivers still bearing the same names, were also once mem- bers of this Iroquois family. Though once numerous they soon melted away through contagious diseases, intoxication, and wars, until they were obliterated, or their remnants were
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incorporated into surviving tribes. The Tuscaroras were further inland. In a war with the whites in 1711-14, some of them were driven out, and were protected on the Juniata river, for ten years, by the Five Nations, and then taken to New York and admitted as a sixth member of the confederacy, which after this was generally called the Six Nations. The remnants left in the south kept going north to join the main body, for fifty- five years afterwards.
In 1640 the Dutch at Albany and New York, began to fur- nish the Five Nations large quantities of fire-arms, but refused them to the other tribes. This was a wise stroke of policy as to the contiguous Indians, and the French settled beyond in Canada, and also as to securing the much-coveted fur trade. When, in 1665, the English superseded the Dutch, they con- tinued the same policy. These arms gave them a tremendous advantage over the other tribes, and enabled them to destroy their enemies, and commence a high career of conquest and military glory. They seemed especially severe upon the tribes of their own linguistic stock, whose conquered remnants were incorporated into their own towns, and served to augment their strength. They devastated the Hurons in 1649, the Neuter Nation in 1651, and the Eries in 1655. Remnants of Tionon- tates, called also Petuns, or Tobacco Nation, and some refugees from the above tribes, traveled westward as far as Wisconsin ; and, in later years, returned to the regions south of the western part of Lake Erie, where they were known as the Wyandots. Some of the Huron refugees sought protection under the French at Montreal, where their descendants still reside.
The various tribes of Pennsylvania, whom the French often generically termed Andastes, Gandastogues, &c., were also ex- tirpated, but the exact dates are unknown, as they were beyond the reach of the missionary and explorer. Some of them prob- ably were destroyed even prior to the Hurons. When, in 1663, the tribes on the upper branches having been disposed of, the Five Nations came to the Susquehannocks or Minquas, below the mountains; they found them able to withstand their assaults, for they had also been armed by the Swedes first, and after- wards by the Marylanders. However, in 1676, deserted by
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their white friends, they, too, succumbed to the New York con- querors ; and, part of their remnants being left upon the old ground as a tributary outpost. were long known as the Cones- togas. These conquests were also extended far down into Vir- ginia, and their conquest rights to these lands were paid for by Maryland and Virginia at the treaty in Lancaster, in 1744. The central part of Pennsylvania remained long an uninhabited in- terior, used as a hunting ground by the Five Nations, and as a shelter for their friends. After their conquests southward, their arms were turned westward to the Illinois, and other western tribes; and their rights to those immense regions, as far as the Mississippi river, by virtue of these conquests, were sold to the King of Great Britain, and placed under the Province of New York, and constituted the basis of the English claims, which culminated in the French and Indian war, and through it to the final relinquishment of all the French possessions east of the Mississippi river.
Between the Algonquins and the Iroquois there were many important differences. They should be carefully borne in mind. It is as important to discriminate between Indians as it is be- tween Europeans. The writer, to whom all natives are simply "Indians," can not, in this age, hope to entertain intelligent readers.
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