History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men, Part 16

Author: Hain, Harry Harrison, 1873- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Harrisburg, Pa., Hain-Moore company
Number of Pages: 1102


USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men > Part 16


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CONRAD WEISER, THE DIPLOMATIC INTERPRETER.


Conrad Weiser, of all the Indian interpreters who were inter- ested in this territory, was the most prominent. In fact, he was the most prominent in the provincial annals of Pennsylvania. That he crossed and recrossed the county's territory via the old Indian trail past Gibson's Rock there is evidence. He kept a diary, and in August, 1754, he stopped at Andrew Montour's, the fol- lowing entry being dated September I of that year :


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"Crossed the Kittatinny Mountains at George Croghan's (now Ster- rett's) Gap and Sherman's Creek, and arrived that day at Andrew Mon- tour's, accompanied (from Harris' Ferry) by himself, the half-king, an- other Indian and my son. I found at Andrew Montour's about fifteen In- dians, men, women and children, and more had been there, but had gone.


"Andrew's wife had killed a sheep for these some days ago. She com- plained that the Indians had done great damage to the Indian corn, which was now ready to roast."


Weiser had much to do with the Indian affairs which attended the early settlement of Perry County soil. Three different pro- vincial governors had entrusted him with manifold Indian affairs where diplomacy was required and Weiser, the peacemaker, had succeeded. What William Penn preached about treating the In- dians squarely Conrad Weiser practiced. Had he not induced the Five Nations to remain neutral, and had they cast their lot with the French the chances are that to-day we would be a French de- pendency, as the occasion for the Revolution might not have arisen. and we would have likely remained a more or less weak French dependency instead of a virile English-speaking nation which soon became independent. When George Washington came to Berks County in 1760 to attend the funeral of Conrad Weiser, the future father of his country stood at the open grave and made the re- mark, "Here lies a man whom posterity will never forget." Weiser was a farmer, an interpreter, a trader and a merchant, having a store in Reading. As he was so great a factor in the In- dian negotiations relating to the Perry County territory it is deemed expedient to give this concise account in this book.


He was born in Germany in 1696, and came to America with his parents during the reign of Queen Anne, when fourteen years of age. His father was a blacksmith and lived on the Mohawk River, near a settlement of the Mohawk Indians. Conrad was sent by his father to reside with an Indian named Tajuajanont, that he might learn the Indian tongue. He became popular with the Indians and obtained great influence over them even as a boy. When twenty- six he was adopted by the family of the Turtles, a distinctive caste. In 1729 he came to Pennsylvania, and for the remaining thirty years of his life he was connected with the provincial government of Pennsylvania as an interpreter. He made his home-but he was seldom there-at Heidelberg, in Lancaster (now Berks) County. His duties kept him continually going to the most distant localities, and sometimes farther than the boundaries of the prov- ince, to attend conferences with the Indians, principally the Six Nations. As a man of honor and trust he had the implicit confi- , dence of both the settlers and the Indians. He was withal, adroit, skillful and diplomatic.


In March, 1748, instructions were given to Weiser for a pro- jected trip to the Ohio, the object being to cement further the good-


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will of the Indians for the English. As he was ready for depar- ture the Provincial Council sent for him and delayed the trip. George Croghan was ready with twenty pack horses laden with goods for the Indians and, on learning of Weiser's detention, went alone, but returned in time to accompany him later in the summer on his mission. It was Angust II before Weiser finally got started from Heidelberg, and he undertook the trip with misgivings, as he considered it a perilous journey, and only the necessity caused him to go at all. On this trip he passed over the famous "Allegheny


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Photo by W'm. A. Eberly.


A WINTER SCENE AT SHERMAN'S CREEK AND GIBSON'S ROCK. This road is on the old "Allegheny Path" of Indian Days. The part shown is within a quarter-mile of the historic Gibson Mill, where Chief Justice John Bannister Gibson was born.


Path," that old Indian trail which crossed Perry County territory to the great West. In a letter to Richard Peters, secretary of the province, dated "Tuscarora Path, August 15, 1748," he says, among other things: "I may be obliged to pay the debt of human nature before I get home," which shows that his duties must have been of a telling nature, as he was then but fifty-two years of age. However, he escaped such misfortune and lived over a decade, dying in 1760. While traders crossed this "path" before, yet Con- rad Weiser is the first white man to visit Perry County soil who has left a record of it.


For his first employment as an interpreter, in 1731, he was al- loted forty shillings as payment. When Reading, Pennsylvania. was laid out, in 1748, Conrad Weiser was appointed one of the


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commissioners for that purpose, and built a house and store there which stood until recent years. One of the men who accompanied Weiser on one of these trips through Perry County territory is named as William Franklin, a son of Benjamin Franklin, and who later became governor of New Jersey.


GEORGE CROGHAN, TRADER AND INTERPRETER.


Of the men who had much to do with Indian affairs in what is now Perry County, next in importance to Conrad Weiser stood George Croghan, the trader and interpreter. He was an Irishman by birth and came to this country in 1742, stopping at the Harris Ferry (now Harrisburg) for a while. Soon after becoming an Indian trader he located in Cumberland County, near what is now Hogestown, and about eight miles from Harris' Ferry. He first traded in a rather restricted district, the limits of which were to Aughwick (near Mt. Union) and Path Valley, later going as far as the Ohio River. As early as June, 1747, he is mentioned "as a considerable trader." His long residence among Indians enabled him to become thoroughly familiar with both the life and the habits of the Delaware and Shawanese tribes. For that reason he became invaluable to the province. Later on he is supposed to have lived at Sterrett's Gap for a time, as the gap was long known as Cro- ghan's. Afterwards he removed to Aughwick.


His first letter while in the employ of the province is dated "May 26th, 1747," and is addressed to Richard Peters, secretary of the province. With it he enclosed a letter from the Six Nations, some wampum and a French scalp taken along Lake Erie.


Governor Hamilton, in a letter to Governor Hardy, dated July 5. 1756, in speaking of Croghan, who was at one time suspected of being a spy in the pay of the French, says:


"There are many Indian traders with Braddock-Croghan among others, who acted as a captain of the Indians under a warrant from General Braddock, and I never heard of any objections to his conduct in that capacity. For many years he had been very largely concerned in the Ohio trade, was upon that river frequently, and had a considerable influence among the Indians, speaking the language of several nations, and being very liberal, or rather, profuse, in his gifts to them, which, with the losses he sustained by the French, who seized great quantities of his goods, and by not getting the debts due him from the Indians, he became bankrupt, and since has lived at a place called Aughwick, in the back parts of the province, where he generally had a number of the Indians with him, for the maintenance of whom the province allowed him sums of money from time to time, but not to his satisfaction. After this he went, by my order, with these Indians, and joined General Braddock, who gave the warrant I have mentioned.


"Since Braddock's defeat, he returned to Aughwick, where he remained till an act of assembly was passed here granting him a freedom of arrest for ten years. This was done that the province might have the benefit of his knowledge of the woods and his influence among the Indians; and


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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA


immediately thereupon, while I was last at York, a captain's commission was given to him, and he was ordered to raise men for the defense of the western frontier, which he did in a very expeditious manner, but not so frugally as the commissioners for disposing of the public money thought he might have done. He continued in the command of one of the com- panies he had raised, and of Fort Shirley, on the western frontier, about three months; during which time he sent by my direction Indian messen- gers to the Ohio for intelligence, but never produced me any that was very material; and having a dispute with the commissioners about some ac- counts between them, in which he thought himself ill-used, he resigned his commission, and about a month ago informed me that he had not re- ceived pay upon General Braddock's warrant, and desired my recommen- dation to General Shirley, which I gave him, and he set off directly for Albany; and I hear he is now at Onondago with Sir William Johnston."


On his return from the Johnston conference he bore a commis- sion as a deputy agent of Indian affairs.


Croghan had settled permanently at Aughwick in 1754 and had built the fort and stockade there. Ile was appointed by the prov- ince, in 1755, to locate three forts in what was then Cumberland County-one at Patterson's, on the Juniata; one at or near Lewis- town, to be known as Fort Granville, and one at Sideling Hill, now Bedford County. He recruited men and garrisoned them very quickly. In December of 1754 he had written Secretary Peters, asking that no one sell liquor to the Indians on account of the bad consequences, but admitting that he gave them a keg once a month for a frolic. As an official he was noted for promptness. After the evacuation of Fort Pitt we find Croghan there for a while. On a trip down the Ohio the French captured him and took him to Detroit. When liberated he returned to New York. He died in 1782. In March, 1749, he was appointed a justice of the peace of Lancaster County, to which the soil of Cumberland yet belonged. In 1748 there is record of him having a trading house on the Ohio. Croghan and Andrew Montour were largely associated in business.


France claimed the vast country west of the Alleghenies, watered by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and was attempting to estab- lish her claim by locating military posts from the great lakes to the Mississippi and along the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers. The Indian tribes were numerous and war-like. Croghan saw the im- portance of detaching them from the French by means of presents and the most favorable trading terms. His suggestions were wisely heeded by the Provincial Council. He had a thorough knowledge of all the Indian trails and the territory of the tribes between the Susquehanna and the Ohio. At Carlisle, on April 4. 1756, he filed an account of his "losses occasioned by the French and Indians driving the English traders off the Ohio." While two of the items of probable great value have no actual valuation named, those which do total 881 pounds.


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On June 27, 1767. Croghan and two kinsmen petitioned the New York Council, on behalf of themselves and others, to purchase 40,000 acres of land between Otsego Lake and "Caniadcuagy" Lake, and between the head branches of the Susquehanna. On November 25, 1767, a return was made of a survey for him and his associates for 100,000 acres.


In fact, the journals of George Croghan are an epitome of the Indian history of the period. In 1750, according to it, he was on the Ohio, enroute to the Shawnee towns; the next season he out- witted Joincaire on the Allegheny. In 1754 he was on the Ohio, after Washington had passed, and in 1760-61 he was on a trip to Detroit, via Lake Erie, in the company of Roger's Rangers. In 1765 he toured down the Ohio towards Illinois and was captured by Quiatanon, later making peace with Pontiac and returning.


Next to Sir William Johnson, George Croghan was the most prominent figure among the British Indian agents during the pe- riod .of the later French wars and Pontiac's conspiracy. A pio- neer trader, traveler and government agent, no other man of his time knew as much of the coming great West and the counter cur- rents, intrigues, etc., connected therewith. It was as deputy of Sir William Johnson that he conducted the difficult negotiations at Fort Pitt and Detroit in 1758-61 and those in Illinois in 1765, by which Pontiac was brought to terms. His winning adherents for the English among the wavering allies of the French, beyond the bounds of the province, at Sandusky and Lake Erie, was but one of his diplomatic feats. He first won the attention of Conrad Weiser, who recommended him to the provincial authorities, where his first service began in 1747, continuing through the active years of his life. At the beginning of the Revolution he appeared as a patriot, but later became the object of suspicion, and in 1778 he was proclaimed officially by the colony as a public enemy.


ANDREW MONTOUR, FIRST AUTHORIZED SETTLER.


Andrew Montour was the first authorized settler of the lands which now comprise Perry County. He was a half-breed, the old- est son of Madame Montour, and the brother of the celebrated Catharine Montour. There was a conference held at George Cro- ghan's (Sterrett's Gap) in May, 1750, and among those present were Richard Peters, secretary of the province: Conrad Weiser, James Galbreath. George Stevenson, William Wilson, Hermanus Alricks, George Croghan, Andrew Montour, three Indian delegates from the Five Nations, and one from the Mohawks, when the ef- fort was made to drive from the lands north of the Kittatinny Mountain those who had settled there, the territory not having as yet been purchased from the Indians.


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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA


They were driven from the lands on which they had settled, and on April 18, 1752, Andrew Montour was commissioned by the governor to settle and reside upon these Indian lands, the Indians on July 2, 1750, having petitioned for such occupation, and ar- rangements having been made with them for such occupation, at a place considered most central, to see that the lands were not set- tled upon and to warn off any who had presumed to settle there. Hle was also to report the names of any who did settle there that they might be prosecuted. He chose to settle on a stream which to this day bears his name, Montour's run, flowing through Tyrone Township. Just how honest Montour was in fulfilling this respon- sible position is a matter of conjecture, but there is evidence that the Indians were still protesting a year later at a Carlisle council about encroachments. In fact, Montour was not only suspected by the provincial authorities of neglecting his duty here. but he was on more than one occasion suspected of double dealing with the Indians of the West and the province.


He was present at the conference at George Croghan's probably in the capacity of an interpreter for Tohonady Huntho, the repre- sentatives of the Mohawks from Ohio, for he was an expert in- terpreter, speaking the language of the various Ohio tribes as well as the Iroquois. His name will be found in our Indian chapters. He was an interpreter and later a trader. Hanna, in The Wilder- ness Trail, says: "Madame Montour and her son, Andrew Mon- tour, were the most picturesque characters in the colonial history of Pennsylvania."


There is evidence that William Patterson, John and Joseph Scott, James Kennedy, Alexander Roddy, Thomas Wilson and others had located in Sherman's Valley during 1753. not a great distance from the Montour place, but whether he notified the au- thorities is not known, but it is a fact that he brought in his brother-in-law, William Dason, and allowed him to locate a claim, according to an affidavit of William Patterson some years there- after.


His mother, the famous Madame Montour, was not a daughter of a governor of Canada, as sometimes stated. Her father, Pierre Couc, a Frenchman, emigrated to Canada. By an Indian wife he had a number of children, some of whom took the name of Montour. In 1694 his son, Lewis Couc, or Montour, was se- verely wounded by the Mohawks, near Fort Lamotte, on Lake Champlain. Madame Montour (a daughter of Lewis), then a ten-year-old girl, is supposed to have been captured at this time by the Five Nations and adopted. Her first appearance in history is at an Albany conference, August 24, 1711, where she acted as interpreter. She seems to have been educated. She married Carondowana, or the "Big Tree," who had adopted the name of


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Robert Hunter, governor of New York. He was of the Oneida tribe, a great captain of the Five Nations, and fell at the hands of the Catawbas in 1729. When a treaty was made in Philadelphia in 1734 the proprietess of the province publicly condoled with the widow-a rather belated function, as viewed in our day. She was handsome and spoke French, being the object of some social activity while in Philadelphia. Her duplicity later became apparent to the provincial authorities.


The settlement of Andrew Montour on Montour's run was never surveyed to him, although he took out a warrant for 143 acres adjoining the site of Landisburg. By a warrant dated July II, 1761, he was granted 1,500 acres of land on the Juniata River in what is now Mifflin County. He took it in two separate tracts, the aggregate of which was over 2,500 acres. His Indian name was Sattelihu. In 1753 the French had set a price of fioo on his head. In the French and Indian War he was a captain of a con- pany of Indians on the English side. He accompanied Conrad Weiser on his mission to the settlements of the Six Nations. He was for almost forty years in the service of Pennsylvania, Vir- ginia, and under Sir William Johnson. He often accompanied the Moravian missionaries, Count Zinzendorf and Bishop Spangen- burg, to the Indian towns. To Count Zinzendorf posterity is in- debted for a pen picture of Andrew Montour. His description : "His face is like that of a European, but marked with a broad Indian ring of bear's grease and paint drawn completely around it. He wears a coat of fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles, a red satin vest, pantaloons, over which hangs his shirt ; shoes and stockings, a hat and brass ornaments, some- thing like the handle of a basket, suspended from his ears." He died prior to 1775.


Andrew Montour's first wife was a daughter of Allumoppies, King of the Delawares. The Province of Pennsylvania educated his children in Philadelphia as proteges of Governor Robert Hunter Morris. These were the first children to be sent away to school from the soil which now comprises Perry County. Even in that day the call for an education was in the atmosphere of these lands.


Hle is first mentioned by Conrad Weiser in 1744 when he inter- preted his Iroquois into Delaware. He assisted in nearly all the important Indian negotiations from that time until the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, being employed in turn by the Pennsyl- vania, Virginia, and New York governments and the Ohio Com- pany. In 1754 he was with George Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity. Several times he warned the settlers of im- pending raids, among other services bringing word of the Pontiac outbreak. He accompanied Major Rogers as captain of Indian


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forces, when the latter went. to take possession of Detroit, and in 1764 commanded a party against the recalcitrant Delawares. He received for his services several grants of land in western Penn- sylvania, as well as money.


In the autumn of 1750 Conrad Weiser reported to the governor of the province that the French agent Joincaire was on his way to the Ohio with a present of goods and orders from the governor of Canada to drive out all English traders. Governor Hamilton detailed George Croghan and Andrew Montour to hasten thither and by use of a small present and promise of more to try and counteract the intrigues of the French and retain the Indians in the English interest.


At a meeting of the commissioners of the province at Carlisle, October 1, 1753, Montour was associated with such illustrious lights as Richard Peters, Isaac Norris, and Benjamin Franklin. Conrad Weiser said of Montour "that he was faithful, knowing and prudent." He operated among the more western Indians and was rewarded financially for keeping track of their movements.


While Andrew Montour was sometimes under suspicion of double dealing he always maintained his position with the provin- cial government in one capacity or another. In proof of his con- nection at the time of the French and Indian troubles, also of his actual residence in what is now Perry County before the Albany treaty of July 6, 1754, as the authorized representative of the provincial authorities, the following letter is here reproduced :


SHERMAN'S CREEK, 16th May, 1754.


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Sir: I once more take upon me the liberty of informing you that our Indians at Ohio are expecting every day the armed forces of this province against the French, who, by their late encroachments, is likely to prevent their planting, and thereby render them impossible of supporting their families. And you may depend upon it as a certainty, that our Indians will not strike the French, unless this province (or New York) engage with them; and that by sending some number of men to their immediate assistance. The reasons are plain; to wit: that they don't look upon their late friendship with Virginia, sufficient to engage them with a war with the French; I therefor think, with submission, that to preserve our Indian allies this province ought instantly to send out some men, either less or more, which I have good reason to hope, would have the desired effect; otherwise, I doubt there will, in a little time, be an entire separa- tion; the consequences of which you are best able to judge, &c. I am in- formed by my brother, who has lately come from the Lakes, that there is at that place a great number of French Indians, preparing to come down to the assistance of the French, at Ohio. I am likewise informed, by a young Indian man (who, by my brother's directions, spent some days with the French at Monongahela), that they expect a great number of French down the river very soon. I have delayed my journey to Ohio and waited with great impatience for advice from Philadelphia, but have not yet re- ceived any. I am now obliged to go to Colonel Washington, who has sent for me many days ago, to go with him to meet the half-king, Monacatootha, and others, that are coming to meet the Virginia companies; and, as they


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think, some from Pennsylvania-and would have been glad to have known the design of this province, in these matters, before I had gone.


I am, sir, your very humble servant, ANDREW MONTOUR.


To Gov. H. R. Morris.


He had correspondence with the governor and council, and this letter to the governor was copied from Montour's autograph letter on file in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth at the State Capitol in Harrisburg.


As early as 1744 we find that "Andrew Montour, Madame Mon- tour's son, interpreted an Indian message from the Mohawk lan- guage to that of the Delawares." During the same year he was also the interpreter in the Jack Armstrong murder case, which ap- pears earlier in this book. In that year we also find him as captain of a party of Iroquois warriors, marching against the Catawbas, of Carolina. He fell sick and was obliged to return to Shamokin. In May, 1745, he accompanied Weiser and Shikellamy to Onon- daga with a message and instructions from the governor of the province. In June, 1748, he was introduced by Weiser to the president of the council of the province, at Philadelphia, and rec- ommended as "faithful and prudent." During 1754 George Wash- ington sent for Montour to meet him at Ohio, and he ( Montour) wrote to Secretary Peters, of the province, from his residence on Sherman's Creek, the above letter, urging the immediate necessity of sending men and arms to resist the impending French invasion. Montour and George Croghan proceeded to Monongahela and there, on June 9, found Washington. He commanded a mixed company of whites and Indians under Washington.


At a conference, October 24, 1759, at Pittsburgh, Montour and George Croghan met General Stanwix, and Montour lit the "pipe of peace." In 1761, May 22, at a conference at the State House in Philadelphia, Montour was the official interpreter. In 1768, at a conference at Fort Pitt, between George Croghan, deputy agent Indian affairs, and the Six Nations, Delawares and Shawnees, Montour was the interpreter. He filled the same position October 24, 1768, at a great congress with the Indians at Fort Stanwix.




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