History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 7

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Wyoming County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 7

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In the valley of the Susquehanna, and especially in the vicinity of the works spoken of, have been found many relics which seem to indicate that almost all portions of its area have at different times been occupied for en- campments or villages. Large collections of these relics have been made, as before stated, by Messrs. Jenkins and Hollister. Among these may be found a great number and every variety of flint arrow points. These are the most common relics of the stone period, for they are found on every sandy plain in America. They are of various sizes and fashions, to adapt them to different uses. They are usually manufactured from flint, agate, cornelian and other native pebbles, and are worked with such skill as to excite admiration and surprise. Recently Mr. F. H. Cushing, of the Smithsonian Institution, has demonstrated the method by which this work was ac- complished, and has been able to manufacture these weapons with all the peculiarities that those which are found in Europe or America possess.

The most common form of these arrow heads is that of an elongated triangle with a stem in the middle of the shortesi side, and a barb on each side of the stem. These could be thrown into a victim and withdrawn with the shaft, but those which were shaped like a myrtle leaf were attached to their shafts in such a way that on with- drawing the shiaft the stone point remained to prove a source of irritation and death. The varieties of this weapon are very great, but they can with propriety be placed in the two classes of peace and war arrow heads, or such as could and those which could not be withdrawn from the deep wounds which they made. The former were used in hunting. Some were delicately constructed and exquisitely finished for killing small game or fish. Some were serrated, barbed and stemmed. Sometimes they are found white as snow, but usually they are made of dark colored hornstone. Spear heads, some of which are eight inches in length, and of every size, color and finish, have, as well as arrow points, been accumulating in these collections during thirty or forty years. Bone, clay, shell and copper utensils are not found in these col- lections in abundance; but the stone implements used by the red men in peace or in war, such as tomahawks, death mauls, stone picks, hammers, hoes, axes, mortars, pestles, celts or hatchets, gouges, quoits, chunkee stones, sling stones, scalping stones, amulets, terra cotta and stone pipes, polished tubes, triune cups, triune pipes, beads, wampum, fictilia, whistles for signals in the forests, corn pounders, ornamented rings and other ornamental devices, highly polished stones for grinding war paint, stones for recording time, healing the sick and warding off diseases, stone implements for tilling the soil, and hundreds of other contrivances of Indian life have found a place in these collections. Many of these articles were broken while in use, but so complete are these collections in archaeological specimens, and so thoroughly do they represent this region, that the "impulse, religion and habits of the tribes once living here can be traced with almost the fidelity and interest of written history."

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

CHAPTER II.

OPENING OF THE HISTORIC PERIOD-THE INDIANS OF WYOMING.

HE history of the Indian residents of Wyoming and its vicinity, so far as known to us, fur- nishes but little of interest or importance. While we have, from the general history of the Indians of the country, glimpses of a tribe or nation that once had their seat of power in this locality, who were warred upon by sur- rounding tribes or nations until they were driven out, yet of their local history here but little or nothing is known. Writers upon the subject of Indian history have none of them given us more than a mere reference to them while treating of their neighbors. From what can be gathered it would seem that between the Five (and subsequently Six) Nations or confederate tribes of the north, called the Iroquois-the southern gate of whose territory was at Tioga Point-and the Susquehannocks, who ruled over the territory southeast of the Kittatinny or Blue Hills, the whole of that vast region was inhabited and ruled over by a nation of natives known as the Can- dastogas.

All of these nations were powerful and warlike, but the Iroquois were by far the most restless and enterprising. Governor Dongan in his report on the Province of New York in 1687 says: "The Five Nations are the most warlike people in America. They are a bulwark between us and the French and all other Indians. They go as far as the South Sea, the northwest passage and Florida to war. They are so considerable that all the Indians in those parts of America are tributary to them; " and he further speaks of them as "the nations that conquered the Susquehannas."

Still earlier than this we have sonie slight account of some Indians living possibly within the territory of old Wyoming-possibly not. It appears from an account given by Stephen Brule, a Frenchman, that he passed from Canada through the country of the Iroquois in 1615, and reached the principal town of a tribe of Indians, whom he calls Carantouans, where he and his party were received with kindness. He spent the winter with them in visiting neighboring tribes, and in the spring of 1616 descended the Susquehanna to the sea. His account says " he returned to Carantouan and attempted to re- turn to Canada, but was captured by the Iroquois, and was unable to meet Champlain, with whom he had set out from Canada, until in 1619." He made report of this tribe of Indians to Champlain, who, in his map of the country explored by himself and Brule, gives up the whole region of country south of the Iroquois to that people, but fails to fix the location of any of their towns at any point on the Susquehanna. Rev. Mr. Craft, author of the History of Bradford County, is well satisfied that their town, at least their chief town, if they had more

than one, was at the mouth of Sugar creek, in that county.

Champlain says: "The Antouhonorons are fifteen vil- lages near the River St. Lawrence. The Carantouanis is a nation south of the Antouhonorons, only three days distant. They formerly took prisoners from the Dutch, whom they sent back without injury, believing them to be French."

From this it would appear that the Carantouanis could hardly have lived as far south as Pennsylvania, and if in that State at all, must have been upon its extreme northern border. It appears clearly that they were no part of the Six Nations. Champlain, in his report on the explorations made by himself and the members of his party, attaches a map of the country explored, extended somewhat on the basis of information obtained from the Indians. In this map he further complicates the question of the location of the Carantouanis by placing their towns on both sides of the Delaware river, instead of on the Susquehanna. The latter river is entirely wanting in the map.

The fact is, that while the French early in the 17th century explored the whole region of the St. Lawrence and the lakes and on through to the Mississippi river, and the English surveyed the coast, the mouths of the rivers and the bays, very little or nothing was known by either the French or the English of the interior, the region of the Susquehanna and its tributaries, until a century later. No explorer had penetrated its mountain fastnesses, or threaded its rapid streams. The whole region was a terra incognita to white people, an uninhabited and un- broken wilderness, a hunting ground, or a vast forest waste, traversed by Indian braves in their predatory in- cursions for plunder or war. While it might be interest- ing to know more of the early history of the territory drained by the Susquehanna and its tributaries, as well as of the people who inhabited it, we must content our- selves with what we have. The question naturally arises, What more do we know of these Carantouanis? Were they a large and powerful nation, occupying the vast territory lying between the country of the Iroquois and the sea, or were they only a small remnant of some nation, taking their name from their town, location, or some incident connected therewith ? We have no method of solving these questions satisfactorily now. Conjecture is all that is-left us in the absence of that full and exact in- formation so much to be desired. There is no doubt that the name was neither national nor tribal, but a town or local one. The mention of "visiting neighboring tribes," would indicate that they occupied but a small ex- tent of territory; and their "going down to the sea " in winter, that they lived not far from it, a feat very difficult, if not impossible, by way of the Susquehanna, in winter. They may have been and most probably were a remnant of the great Candastoga nation.

It remains now to give some account of the Susque- hannocks, at as early a day as we can get any information of importance upon the subject. Alsop wrote of them in 1666 as follows:

INDIAN TRIBES OF THE SUSQUEHANNA.

" The Susquehannocks area people lookt upon by the Christian Inhab- itants as the most Noble and Heroic Nation of Indians that dwell upon the Confines of America. Also are so allowed and lookt upon by the rest of the Indians by a submissive and tributary acknowledgment, be- ing a people cast into the montd of a most large and warlike deport- ment, the men being for the most part seven foot high in lattitude, and in magnitude and bulk suitable to so high a pitch ; then voyce large and hollow, as ascending out of a Cave; their gate and behavior strait, stately and majestick, treading on the Earth with as much pride, contempt and disdain to so sordid a Center as can be imagined from a creature derived from the same mould and Earth.

" These Snsquehannock Indians are for the most part great Warriors, and seldom sleep one Summer in the quiet arines of a peaceable Rest, but keep, by their present power as well as by their former conquest, the several Nations of Indians round about thein in a forceable obedi- ence and subjection.

" Their government is an Anarchy. He that fights best carries it. *

* * They now and then feed on the carcasses of their enemies.

"They intomb the ruines of their deceased conquest in no other Sep- ulebre than their unsanctified maws.

" They are situated a hundred and odd miles distant from the Christian Plantations of Mary-Land, at the head [mouth?] of a river that runs into the Bay of Chesapike, ealled by their own name the Susquehannock River, where they remain and inhabit most part of the Summer time, and seldom remove far from it, unless it be to subdue any Forreign Rebellion.

" About November the best Hunters draw off to several remote places of the Woods, where they know the Deer, Bear and Elke useth. There they build several cottages, where they remain for the space of three months."

Smith, in his history of his voyage, speaks of the Sus- quehannocks as "giants," " their language sounding like a voyce in a vault." He says: "They can make near 600 able bodied men, and are palisadoed in their townes to defend them from the Massawomekes, their mortal enemies."

Campanius says: " They live on a high mountain, very steep and difficult to climb, where they have a fort, or square building surrounded with palisades. This fort or town is about twelve miles from New Sweden."

We have thus gone over the history of the Indian nations or tribes that inhabited or were found con- nected with the early history of Wyoming and the adja- cent country, and it remains for us now to come down to the period when the white man commenced to mingle his history with that of the Indian in that locality.

In 1737 Conrad Weiser, an Indian interpreter residing at Tulpehocken, in Pennsylvania, at the request of Gov- ernor Gooch, of Virginia, was sent by the provincial gov- ernment of Pennsylvania to meet a council of the Six Nations, to be held at Onondaga, for the purpose of "establishing peace between the allied Six Nations at the north and the so-called Cherikees and Cataubas at the south." He left home on his mission on the 27th of February, proceeded to the Susquehanna river, which he crossed at Shamokin, and thence by way of the west branch to his destination. After accomplishing his mis- sion he returned home by way of the east branch of the Susquehanna, and arrived at Wyoming on the 26th of April. His entry in his journal reads as follows:

" The 26th we reached Scahantowano, where a number of Indians live, Shawanos and Mahickanders. Found . there two traders from New York, and three men from the Maqua country, who were hunting land. Their names are Ludwig Rasselman, Martin Dillenbach and Pit de Niger. Here there is a large body of land, the like of which is not to be found on the river."

We are here introduced to two other tribes of Indians,

remnants of nations. The Shawanos, as described by Zinzendorf and Brainard, missionaries among them, were a " ferocious, untamable and vicious people, unmoved by either sympathy or affection, and constantly bent on mis- chief." They were a southern nation, whose early history is involved in the deepest obscurity, and whose language bore no affinity to that of any of the surrounding nations. They were warlike, brave and energetic, and have ever retained their national character and name, being to-day a distinct people among the Indians of America. They came from the Potomac, or near there, to Wyoming in 1728, where they seemed to live in independence, and preserve all their peculiar characteristics.

The Mahicans or Mohegans were the remnants of a great nation, which had their homes and seat of power on the Thames or Pequot river, in Connecticut. Those living on the east of the river were known by the name of Pequots; those on the west as Mohegans. Upon the advance of the whites in their progress westward, the In- dians were compelled to give way, and a part of this great nation sought a home at Stockbridge, Mass., a part at Shecomico, on the Hudson, and a part at Wyoming. They are described by Miss Calkins, the historian of New London, as "exceedingly fierce, warlike and crafty." The exact date of their advent into the valley of Wyo- ming is not known, but it is supposed they arrived there about the same time with the Shawanos, and may have been there a short time before them. They resided in the upper part of the valley, on the west side, while the Shawanos occupied the lower part of the valley, on the same side.

In 1742 the Delaware Indians, a vassal nation of the Iroquois, in consequence of their selling land and other- wise taking upon themselves the rights of a free and in- dependent nation, were called to an account by the Iro- quois, and on proof and confession of guilt were severely reprimanded and transferred from their former seat and planted at Wyoming. This was at one time one of the great nations into which the natives had been divided; but in consequence of their warlike spirit, and the inces- sant wars in which they were involved with surrounding nations, they became greatly reduced in numbers and strength, and were finally conquered by the Iroquois, and to keep thein in subjection were reduced to the con- dition of vassals or slaves to their conquerors; "made women of " as one of the orators expressed it.

In a few years after the planting of the Delawares a: Wyoming, in 1748, the Nanticokes, a tide water people, a small member of the Algonquin family, having their seat when the Europeans first met them on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, in Maryland, made their way to Wyoming, following the course of the Susquehanna. They located at the lower end of the valley, on the east side, princi- pally, and the place was called from them Nanticoke. There were about eighty of them, under a chief Ullunck- quam. A few of them went on up the river and settled on the Chenango, whither the others followed in 1757.

There were other tribes or reninants of tribes of In- dians neighbors to Wyoming, whose names are connected

- ----

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

with her history, but no organized body or considerable number of them ever inhabited there. . These were known as Mingoes, Ganaways or Conoys, Turkeys, Turtles or Tuteloes, and Minsies or Minisinks and Muncies.

It will thus be seen that from the time the Iroquois conquered and drove out the Candastogas, Wyoming and its region around about, particularly on the Susquehan- na, was used as a penal colony or place of banishment for the remnants of tribes which the Iroquois conquered in their raids upon neighboring and even distant tribes in their predatory excursions, and a place of refuge for those who sought their favor and protecting care. It was so used when the white man first trod its soil, and so con- tinued in part for many years.

No sooner had the white man become acquainted with Wyoming than it became the object of his deep solici- tude. While one saw in it a place of trade, with great profit, another saw in it a place to propagate the gospel free from the fetters and restraints that bind and control nations that already have fixed establishments of trade and religion. Trade was opened here in 1737 or sooner, and in 1741 Rev. John Sergeant, of the Indian inission school at Stockbridge, Mass., came to Wyoming, ac- companied by some Mohegans, to preach the gospel to the few of that nation and the Shawanos at that point. They were not favorably received, and after making known his mission and preaching a short sermon, " he offered to instruct them further in the Christian religion, but they rejected his offer with disdain. They reproached Christianity. They told him the traders would lie, cheat, and debauch their women, and even their wives, if their husbands were not at home. They said further that the Senecas had given them their country, but charged them withal never to receive Christianity from the English." Mr. Sergeant returned home without pressing the subject further upon their attention.

In the fall of the next year Nicholas Lewis, Count Von Zinzendorf, after he had been but nine months in the country, set out on a mission to the Indians at Shamokin, and particularly to the Shawanese at Wyoming, where he arrived on the 13th of October. His reception was any- thing but friendly. The Shawanese were suspicious of the object of his visit among them. He had pitched his tent at a point where it was said a mine of silver ore was located. They suspected that to be the true object of his mission, and as they had made known to Mr. Ser- geant the year before that they did not want to receive Christianity, they strongly suspected his purpose to be other than that which he professed. Painted with red and black, each with a large knife in his hand, which was brandished in a threatening manner, they came in crowds around the tent, again and again wakening fearful echoes with their wild whoops and halloos.

One fine sunny day, as the disciple sat on the ground within his tent, looking over his papers that lay scattered around him, and as the rest of his party were outside, Mack, his companion and attendant, observed two blow- ing or hissing adders basking at the edge of the tent. Fearing they might crawl in he moved toward them, in-

tending to dispatch them. They were, however, too quick for him. They slipped into the tent, and gliding over the disciple's thigh disappeared among his papers. On examination it was found that the count had been sit- ting near the mouth of their den. He wrote some verses in commemoration of this incident. The Indians, in all such cases over superstitious, saw a protecting power exercised in behalf of the disciple in this event, and be- came somewhat more tractable and disposed to have communication with him; but they had made up their mind that the white man was bad generally, and they did not want any of his religion. He left the valley in the early part of November, and arrived in Bethlehem, by way of Shamokin, on the 8th of the month. He did not feel sufficiently encouraged to repeat his visit.

On the 2nd of October, 1744, Rev. David Brainard, an Indian missionary, making his home about the forks of the Delaware, or just above, set out on a mission to the Indians on the Susquehanna. On the 5th of October he says: "We reached the Susquehanna river at a place called Opeholhaupung or Wapwallopen, and found there twelve Indian houses. After I had saluted the king in a friendly manner, I told him my business, and that my desire was to teach them Christianity. After some con- sultation the Indians gathered and I preached to them." They appeared willing to be taught and he preached to them several times. On the 9th of October he set out on his journey home. He preached to the Indians on the 5th, 6th and 8th. It is said by some that on this journey he made a call at Wyoming, but it is quite evi- dent from his journal, which does not mention that as having been the case, that he did not visit Wyoming, his time being fully taken up at Opeholhaupung. He after- ward visited Shamokin and the Juniata, but never visited Wyoming.

Nothing more is known of the Indians in Wyoming until in 1753. In that year about three hundred persons in Connecticut, " being desirous to enlarge his Majesty's English settlements in, North America, and further to spread Christianity-as also to promote their own tem. poral interests," agreed, through a committee, "to re- pair to a certain tract of land lying on the Susquehanna river, at or near a place called Chi-wau-muck, in order to view said tract of land and to purchase of the natives there inhabiting their title and interest to said tract of land," &c.

In pursuance of this agreement the committee ap- pointed proceeded to Wyoming in the fall of that year, examined the lands, and had a talk with the Indians in- habiting there. They learned from them that they were : not the owners of the land, but that it belonged to the Six Nations, and they were occupying it at the will and sufferance of those nations; and consequently the com- mittee returned without negotiating a purchase. About this time the British government, on account of the troubles existing and growing between them and France, were turning their attention to the Indians of this local- ity, but particularly the Six Nations. "At Albany, on the 19th day of June, 1754, assembled the memorable

TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS.

congress of commissioners from every colony north of the Potomac. The Virginia government, too, was repre- sented by the presiding officer, Delancey, the lieutenant- governor of New York. They met to concert measures of defence, and to treat with the Six Nations and the tribes in the alliance." It was at this council that the representatives of the promoters of a settlement at Wyo- ming, now numbering about nine hundred persons, on the IIth day of July, 1754, perfected a purchase and obtained from the Six Nations a deed for the coveted lands at Wyoming-the boundaries of which are thus set forth: " Beginning from the one and fortieth degree of north latitude, at ten miles east of the Susquehanna river, and from thence with a northward line ten miles east of the river to the end of the forty-second or beginning of the forty-third degree of north latitude; and so to extend west two degrees of longitude, one hundred and twenty miles, and from thence south to the beginning of the forty second degree, and from thence east to the above mentioned boundary, which is ten miles east of the Susquehanna river." The commissioners of Pennsylvania, while at Albany, succeeded on the 6th of July in getting the In- dians to execute a deed to them for a tract of land be- tween the Blue Mountain and the forks of the Susque- hanna river at Shamokin.

The Connecticut people in 1755, the next year after their purchase, sent a party of surveyors on under the charge of John Jenkins to make a survey of their pur chase. In consequence, however, of the war between the British and French, in which the Indians had been induced to take sides with the one party or the other, numerous parties of hostile Indians were passing and re- passing through the valley, up and down and to and fro, so that it was dangerous to pursue the work; and after taking the latitude and longitude, and making an exami- nation of the country, the party returned home to await the issue of the pending hostilities before proceeding with the project of settlement. So numerous were these parties that the attention of the authorities was directed toward their movements during this year, and a map of the country was made, on which were located the Indian paths and places of rendezvous through and from which they were supposed to sally forth on their work of blood and destruction; the following note, dated March 14th, 1756, accompanying the maps:

"Great Swamp lies about 40 miles W. S. W. from Cashuetunk, or Sta- tion Point ; from Bethlehetu about 45 miles N. N. W .; from Gnadenhut- ten about 23 miles N. something W. This swamp lies just over the mountains which Evans calls Cashuetunk Mountains, and is 25 miles from N. to S., and 15 from E. to W. The Bethlehem people say four or five hundred Indians keep in this swamp, and from thence 'tis imagined they send out parties to destroy the settlements. Shamokin lies on Sus- quehanna river, at the mouth of the east branch, on the east side of the branch. Nescopeek, the next Indian town on the east side of the same branch, is twenty-five miles from thenee. Opolopong is another, five iniles distant. Wyoming is on the west side of the same branch, ten miles from Opolopong. Matchastung is on the east side of the same branch, distant from Wyoming thirteen inites. Soloeka is six miles from thenee, on a creek that comes out of the Great Swamp, and this place is distant from the swamp eighteen miles; thenee to Canowdowsa, on the E. side of E. branch, is five mnlles. From thenee to Owegy, the next In- dian settlement, is forty-seven milos; from thenee to Osewingo is eigh- teen inites, and from thence there are no Indian towns on the E. branch of Susquehanna, according to Evans, until you come to Onochgerage [now Windsor, Broome coanty, N. Y.], distant fromn Osewingo twelve

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History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 7

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York Publication date: 1880 Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co. Number of Pages: 900

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900