USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 6
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 6
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 6
USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 6
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 6
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EARLY GLIMPSES OF THE INTERIOR.
Although this branch is laid down as entering the main river below the Susquehannock town, yet there can be no reasonable doubt that it was intended for the Juniata. Smith drew what he understood them to say, during his short interview, were the principal parts of the river and the distinctive tribes on the several branches. It is no objection to this interpreta- tion that it does not harmonize with the scale of leagues. Indians are very indefinite as to distances after they get far from home; and Smith may have neglected to adjust this exten- sion into an unseen region to the scale adopted in the map. That he had, however, no petty contracted view of this stream is evident from his own words, for he says this river " cometh three or four days' journey from the head of the bay." It was not characteristic of the man to confine his inquiries to narrow bounds; and his map, which is a marvel of accuracy, does not deal in small features, but gives the great out- lines of the country. Smith's publications make no reference to these tribes, but they were doubtless all Andasta tribes, using dialects of the throat-speaking Iroquois stock, and perhaps allied for defense in times of war. When we recall Smith's description of the language spoken by those he met, the " hellish voyce " " sounding from them as a voyce in a vault," and when we look on the picture he drew of the great chief, we may well conclude that we hear and see the " king" of Attaock on the Juniata, for no doubt, in language, dress, head-gear and mode of life, if not in tribal alliance, they were sub- stantially alike.
All along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay Smith found the natives in dread of the Mas- sawomekes (Great-water-men), who lived beyond the mountains on a lake, and harassed the coast tribes by their incursions, especially those re- siding on the rivers Potomac and Susquehanna, for they " had so many boats and so many men that they made war with all the world." Smith met seven canoes of these men at the head of the bay, but could not understand a word they said. The early Virginia historians " supposed " that. they were " possibly " and " probably" Mohawks, or ancestors of the Five Nations. Later writers assert this suggestion as a positive fact. The
conclusion is unwarranted and the historians are wrong. The interior of Pennsylvania was then full of hostile tribes, through whom such war-parties could not have traveled ; and Smith expressly asserts that they came from a great lake beyond the mountains at the head of the Potomac. Daniel Gookin, who was familiar with this country from Virginia to Massachu- setts, from 1621 to 1674, to whom the character, location and identity of the Five Nations were well known, at the latter date, asserts that Smith's Massawomekes were the Indians on a great interior lake. It is interesting to learn how our valleys were traversed by these war- riors in this early period.
In 1614 the Dutch established a trading post near Albany. Shortly afterwards three of their men wandered out into the interior along the Mohawk River and crossed the dividing water- shed to Otsego Lake, the very head of the Sus- quehanna River. They came down this river, and by the Lackawanna Creek and the Lehigh, passed over to the Delaware River, where, below the Trenton Falls, they were rescued from the Minequas, who held them in captivity, by Cap- tain Hendricksen, who happened to be there exploring the bay and river. These three Dutch- men were the first white men that ever set foot on Pennsylvania soil. A " paper map " found at the Hague in 1841 illustrates their travels, and beyond the Susquehanna River, in the region of the Juniata, gives an Indian tribe named "Iottecas," from information doubtless gained from Minequas then living across the river from Conestoga. Whether this word was an effort to write the name from which our word Juniata is derived, is a matter for speculation. The locality and the source of information seem to lead to that conclusion, but brevity here ex- cludes a full statement of the argument.
In September, 1615, Champlain made an expedition against the Onondagas in New York, starting from a point near Lake Simcoe, in Can- ada. He sent Stephen Brulé across the enemy's country to the borders of Pennsylvania for a rein- forcement of five hundred men of the "Carantow- annais," enemies of the New York tribes. He did not reach the fort in time to aid Champlain, who was wounded and forced to retreat. Brule re-
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JUNIATA AND SUSQUEHANNA VALLEYS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
turned and wintered at the chief town, which he said could muster eight hundred men ; and the tribe had two other towns, in one of which the three Dutchmen were taken prisoners, for he men- tions this fact, which fixes the date when Hen- drieksen rescued them with "kettles, beads and merchandise." The next spring Brule descended the Susquehanna .to its mouth, but has left us little of historic value; but the little that we do gain from these adventurers is exceedingly valu- able in that it proves that at this period the Pennsylvania tribes were abundantly able to take care of themselves, and even to loan large numbers of warriors to their friends in Canada.
In 1632 Captain Henry Fleet visited the head of tide on the Potomac, and had an inter- view with some natives called "Massomacks or Cannyda Indians," comprising four populous countries, who lived some five days' journey up the river. They were called Tonhoga, Mosticum, Shauntowa and Usserahak. While at the falls above Washington City there came there seven cannibals, lusty savages, of haughty language, with strange attire and red fringes, desiring use- ful goods rather than trinkets, who were called " Hirecheenes," who lived three days' journey beyond the Tohogaes, and "do drive a trade in Canada at the plantation," which is fifteen days' journey from this place, and they had such (Biscay) axes as Captain Kirk traded in Canada. From the direction, distance and language, we doubt not they came from the Susquehanna or its branches. We cannot here discuss the prob- able identity of these tribes, but the relation presents an interesting picture of Indian life affecting this whole interior at this very carly date.
In 1655 Visscher published a map, in Amster- dam, of New Netherland, in which the Susque- hanna is laid down with some degree of resem- blance to reality, but without any West Branch or Juniata, and having its head branches nearly identical with the "paper map " drawn by some one from the descriptions given by the three wandering Dutchmen. During the next half- century there were some fifteen different maps published, all having this same river outline; On all these maps, on the west side of the river just where the Juniata belongs, there is the name
of an Indian tribe called " Onojutta Haga "- a name which beyond all doubt contains the root of the word from which "Juniata " is de- rived. "Haga" is the Mohawk word for peo- ple, tribe or nation ; the first part means a pro- jecting stone.
In 1648 there was published " A Description of the Province of New Albion," etc., sometimes called the "Plantagenet Pamphlet." It says : "The Sasquehannocks' new town is also a rare, healthy and rich place ; with it a crystal, broad river, but some falls below hinder navigation," and further, " the Sasquehannocks are not now of the naturals left above 110, though with their forced auxiliaries, the Ihon a Does and Wicome- ses, they can make 250 ; these together are counted valiant and terrible to all.other cowardly, dull Indians." We are interested in these forced auxiliaries. The Wicomeses were a tribe in lower Maryland. The crude spelling " Ihona- does," or "Jhonadoes," in this crude pamphlet, is so nearly identical with the word Juniata, and no other name in all this region does resem- ble it, that we may safely conclude that at this period the Juniata people were either in vol- untary or forced alliance with the Susquehan- nocks.
Van der Donk, in 1655, published a history in which he says : " Many of the Netherlanders have been far into the country, more than sev- enty or eighty leagues from the river and sea- shore. We frequently trade with Indians who come more than ten and twenty days' journey from the interior." He says that half of the buffaloes have disappeared and left the country, and now " keep mostly to the southwest, where few people go." The beavers, of which eighty thousand are annually killed, are also " mostly taken far inland, there being few of them near the settlements." Unfortunately, no accounts have come down to us of these great journeys into the interior, which is described as abound- ing in lakes, rivers and creeks.
In 1670, Augustine Herman made a map of Maryland for Lord Baltimore. Herman lived at the head of the bay and knew the country well. The north line of Maryland is given as crossing ".Onestego R." (Conestoga Creek) near Lancaster, and " The present. Sasquahana In-
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EARLY GLIMPSES OF THE INTERIOR.
dian Fort," called "Canoge," was on the south side below " the greatest fal," near the two Con- ewago Creeks. The corner of the map back of Harrisburg is a cluster of mountain ranges, and at the eastern base is a lengthy note, from which we gather these facts : That beyond these moun- tains the streams run to the west, either into the Bay of Mexico or the South Sea ; that the first one discovered was a very great stream called the " Black Minquas " River (Ohio), on which lived the tribe of that name; that there was a branch of the " Black Minquas River" (Conemaugh) op- posite to a branch of the Susquehanna (Juniata), which entered at some leagues above the fort ; that formerly these " Black Minquas" came over along these branches as far as the Delaware river to trade, but that "the Sasquahana and Sinnicus Indians went over and destroyed that very great nation." The " Black Minquas " were not so called because they were black, but because they wore black badges on their breasts.
The following laconic message sent by the Susquehanna tribes to those in Canada proves how little they feared the Iroquois before they obtained fire-arms. It is taken from the "Jesuit Relations of 1642." " Our Fathers among the Hurons have informed us that the Indians of Andastohe, whom we believe to be neighbors of Virginia, and who formerly had important alli- ances with the Hurons in such a way that in the one country may still be found people of the other country-these Indians, I say, have trans- mitted these few following words to the Hurons: We are informed that you have enemies. All that you have to do is to lift the tomahawk, and we guarantee that either they will conclude peace, or that we shall make war with them."
About 1640 the Dutch began to sell fire-arms to the Five Nations, and in a few years they had furnished as high as four hundred of these deadly weapons, with ammunition, to the Mohawks.1 These equipments enabled the Five Nations to enter upon a high career of military conquest and glory. The thousands of the surrounding tribes, whom they hated, were as nothing before a few hundred armed Iroquois. They carried
their conquests over the Western States, even beyond the Mississippi ; they desolated all the cognate tribes in Canada and around Lake Erie, incorporating the captives into their own can- tons; they carried their conquests far down the Ohio Valley ; they entirely destroyed the An- dasta tribes in Pennsylvania, among whom were the "Scahentoar-ronon" (Great-flats-people), at Wyoming, the "Otzinachson," or Cave Devils, on the West Branch, and the Standing-stone tribe on the Juniata, until only the "Susque- hanna Minquays or Conestoga Indians " were left. These withstood their onslaught for many years, being also partly armed by the Swedes and assisted by the Marylanders. When the English superseded the Dutch, in 1664, one of the stipulations which the Iroquois made for the continuance of their good-will and trade was that the English do not assist "the Ondiakes," (Andastes), and with all these advantages they were so fearful of these tribes on the Susque- hanna that in 1666 ten Oneida chiefs went to Montreal and begged the French to come and erect forts in their country to protect them against the Andastae-ronnons. At length, in 1676, being deserted by their allies, the last of the Andastes were overcome, and their remnant left as a tributary outpost or stopping-place in their forays still further southward. When they gave these Susquehannocks the final blow the English felt sorry, but did not dare to aid them.
The Iroquois claimed all the lands on the Susquehanna and its branches, and sold them to William Penn and his heirs as their territory by right of conquest. As early as 1684, when Penn was trying to negotiate for some of these lands, the Iroquois spoke of this whole region as "the Susquehanne River, which we won with the sword;" and Governor Thomas Penn ex- pressly acknowledged this right in these words, in 1736: "The lands on Susquehanna, we be- lieve, belong to the Six Nations by the conquest of the Indians of that river." At the treaty in Lancaster, in 1744, they made these same con- quest claims to all the lands in Maryland and Virginia, from the Blue Ridge westward. These rights were enforced and acknowledged, and their " Shanandowa " lands paid for accordingly.
1 Pa. Arch., N. S., vol. v. p. 78.
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The whole Juniata region was a conquered, empty interior, used as an Iroquois hunting- ground from the time of these conquests up to the period when the Tuscaroras were allowed to settle there. Subsequently for a time the Delawares and Shawanese were allowed to occupy these deserted regions, At the time of its con- quest there were no white adventurers, or traders, or historians on the Juniata, nor anywhere in the interior. No Jesuit missionaries were there to relate the story of their extirpation; but their journals, written among the Hurons and Iro- quois, are full of references to expeditions to the southward, and relate the bringing of vast num- bers of prisoners into the New York towns from the south, mentioning as high as six hundred at a single time. Wherever history has lifted the veil and given us a glimpse of their operations, it tells the same story. By this analogy we can pretty well determine the fate of the Juniata and other Andasta tribes in Pennsylvania. The exact date of this extirpation is uncertain, but the fact is clear. Most of the relies found in this region are the remains of this anterior race. The for- est upon their corn-fields was only partly grown up when the white settlers first came, and they were sometimes mistaken for "barrens," because the trees were small ; and in other cases their cleared " meadow land" was eagerly seized upon by the pioneer settlers.
THE JUNIATA TRIBE -- THE ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE NAME. - We have already referred to certain words, used by writers and found on maps, denoting towns and tribes in the region of the Juniata River. They are Attaock, on Smith's map, 1608; Iottecas, on Hendricksen's paper map, 1616; Ihon a Does, in the New Albion pamphlet, 1648; Onojutta-Haga, on the Visscher maps, 1655 and later. Whatever may be thought of the former, we have in the last word, beyond all reasonable controversy, the oldest known form of the word which has ripened into Juniata. The latter part, haga, is the Mohawk word denoting tribe, people, nation, inhabitants of any place. The other part is the same word from which the term Oneida is derived. The 'reader knows that among Indians there were many dialectical variations, and even in the
same tribe different persons pronounced the same word with considerable variation, and where there is no standard it is hard to deter- mine which is correct. The Indian ear, moreover, did not distinguish between many of the sounds in use among us. In Iroquois words, "o" and " "" represent one sound, and "(" and " d" are variants, as are also " j," "}," " ch," etc. Hence, in the following words pronounce "o" as in "do ;' "ij" and "j" as "y." The languages and education of Europe, ignorance. and many other causes have helped to produce an almost interminable variation in the spelling of our Indian names during the period when the unwritten was first put in written form. The Iroquois used no lip sounds, but spoke from the throat with an open mouth. In cas- ing the organs of speech certain breathing sounds were used, especially in certain dialects, which some white men tried to indicate by letters and others omitted. The initial " J" in Juniata is only an introductory breathing- sound, and is without signification. In the name Oneida it did not take permanence ; in Juniata it did. Compare the French Onontio with the English Yonondio, meaning the Gov- ernor of Canada ; also the names Onondagas and Sonnontowans, Jenontowanos, Tsanandowans, (Senecas) both derived from onnon, a mountain. The name Juniata, like Oneida, is derived from onenhia, onenya or onia, a stone, and kaniote, to be upright or elevated, being a contraction and corruption of the compound. Onenniote is rendered " the projecting stone." Horatio Hale also translates, in the "Iroquois Book of Rites," the word onenyute or o nen yo del, as " the protruding stone," denoting the name of a town. Only the latter part of the second word has been retained in the compound. Zeisberger gives oneija as the Mohawk word for stone. Another form is oonoyah. In Onondaga the form onaja is given. The Tuscaroras seem to have prefixed a syllable and said owrunuay. Sir William Johnson says that the onoya, a stone, is the true symbol of the Oneidas, and that they hence called themselves onoyuts (Doc. His. N. Y., iv. 432). They desig- nated their village by a stone in the fork of a tree, and when on the war-path as a defiance to
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their enemies. The French forms of their name are Onneyouth, Onneyote, Onneiouts, Onoyauts. The Hurons would call them Onayotch-ronons. Bruyas wrote it Ounejoutas. Hennepin wrote Honnehiouts. In our pro- vincial records, May 9, 1704, it is given as Honoyoothacks. James Logan, in 1720, wrote it Oneyookces. Conrad Weiser, in 1742, wrote it Anagints. These variations, selected from over threescore, will prepare the mind of the reader for some differences in spelling Juniata before its orthography became fixed.
The Onojutta-Haga on the map is proof that the Dutch map-maker learned from the Mo- hawks that beyond the Susquehanna, in the region of the Juniata River, there was a tribe of Indians known as the projecting or standing stone people. The map material was probably collected prior to 1650. The name reappeared on many maps, and the close identity in form and signification suggested the idea that they were the same people, and that the Oneidas rame originally from the Juniata ; or at least that those on the Juniata at an early date were a part of the Oneidas. This idea was advanced long ago, and it did not die out very quickly. On a map made probably in the earlier part of the last century, and afterwards used to illus- trate missions, and also post-routes along the Atlantic towns, there appear these words on the undelineated interior of the Juniata region : Onoyuts Pars, that is, Part of the Oneidas. When the white people came to penetrate and explore this region, they found no resident tribe, and not knowing that the armed Iroquois had depopulated the whole country, they con- ceived the idea that these Indians must have removed to New York. Even as late as 1854 a township adjoining the borough of Hunting- don was named " Oneida " under the impres- sion that the word meant Standing Stone; and, strangely enough, Mr. Africa, in his history, says that Oneida is the Seneca Indian term for standing stone. There is, however, no reason why two cognate tribes, entirely separated by distance and organization, may not have had the same name, or one which had a shade of differ- ence then well understood by them, but now undetermined by us, which, in this case, was
most likely the fact. The Oneidas were cer- tainly never a resident tribe on the Juniata. The Onojutta-Haga were a defunet tribe before the white man visited their country, or came near enough to save an account of them. Their name, however, would not die with them. Mountains repeat and rivers murmur the voice of extirpated nations. Long as this stream flows down its gentle bed, its name shall remind us that once along its banks lived a people whose tribal insignia was the beacon stone.
Nationality with our Indian tribes is dated from the period of their assuming to build a separate council-fire. Surrounding circum- stances determined their name. Viewed in an historie light, a fact always present in the mind of an intelligent Indian, this name carries with it the story of their origin. We can best illus- trate by reference to the Oneidas, who were also a stone tribe. They lived on a highland between their lake and the Susquehanna River, near a sheltering hill, on the top of which was an orbic- ular boulder, at which they built their council- fire, and around which they assembled to delib- crate on national affairs. This was their beacon stone, and here the signal light and smoke, visible as far as the eye could carry, was the rallying sign for their kindred. In the course of time they looked upon this spot with super- stitious reverence. Here they had arisen. They were the red granite stone people, and their sacred legends taught them that when the Great Spirit made the world, he made their country first, and their ancestors came up out of the ground like the trees. Being first created, they looked upon themselves as the original Simon- pure Indians, superior to all others, having even the color of the ground from which they sprang. The projecting stone was the totem or sign-mark of the nation. Their name carried with it the whole story of their origin, superiority and sacred legends. The name thus became an epitome of their history.
The Juniata people, no doubt, had a similar story of their origin, varied to suit their par- ticular case. They had not come from a distant land, but were autochthons, sprung from the ground itself; as one of the Iroquois orators said at Lancaster, in 17 14, " our ancestors came out
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JUNIATA AND SUSQUEHANNA VALLEYS IN PENNSYLVANIA
of this very ground." The precise locality where they originated, and the particular kind of a stone tribe they were, can now only be determined by the lingering legends and tradi- tions. Fortunately, these have not all perished. Names are locally tenacious. Geographical vestiges assert the claims of extinct nations to an inheritance in the past. The Juniatas were of Iroquois stock, and their name belongs to that class of languages. When the Delawares came, they adopted the old name for the stream, pronouncing it Juchniada; but when they came up the river, and found it localized at Hunting- don, they translated it to Achsinnink. The white man followed, applied the old name to the river, and again translated it for the locality, rendering it Standing Stone. The old totem- post, it appears, remained. This, and the traveling Iroquois on their hunting and maraud- ing expeditions, kept alive the story of the ex- tirpated tribe. It was then handed down to the white people, who never saw or heard of the old maps, or if they did, they could not have recog- nized the root and meaning of the term. At this place the traditions had been kept alive for over one hundred years, but somewhat corrupted by explanatory innovations. The Delaware missionary, Heckewelder, says,-
" Juniata River .- This word is of the Six Nations. The Delawares say Yuchaiada or Chuchniada. The Iroquois had a path leading direct to a settlement of Shawanese residing somewhere on this river; I un- derstood where Bedford is. Juniata is an Iroquois word, unknown now. The Indians said that the river had the best hunting-ground for deer, elk and beaver.
"Standing Stone .- Achsinnink is the proper name for this place. The word alludes to large rocks standing separate and where no other is near. I know four places within 500 miles which have this name, two of which are large and high rocks in rivers. For noted places where a small rock is they give the nane Achsinnessink, the place of the small rocks."
Conrad Weiser has left us the oldest record of Standing Stone, August 18, 1748, then seemingly already a well-known name for the place. John Harris, in 1753, says it was "about fourteen feet high and six inches square." Rev. Philip Fithian, in 1775, says it was "a tall stonecolumn or pillar nearly square," and " seven
feet above the ground." A remnant of this stone is still preserved, having on it the name, "J. Lukens, 1768," then surveyor-general, and also other names, initials, and a great quan- tity of hieroglyphics. Sherman Day, in 1843, gathered the traditions of the oldest inhabitants. MeMurtrie told Day that the stone was eight feet high when he came there, in 1776. Day says : " Previous to that time (1767) the place had been noted as the site of an ancient Indian village called Standing Stone. (This was, of course, a translation of the Indian name.) A tall pillar of stone, four inches thick by eight inches wide, had been erected here by the resi- dent tribe many years since, perhaps as a sort of Ebenezer. The tribe regarded this stone with superstitious veneration, and a tradition is said to have existed among them that if the stone should be taken away the tribe would be dis- persed, but that so long as it should stand they would prosper. It is said that Dr. Barton, of Philadelphia, learned in some of his researches that Oneida meant Standing Stone, and that nation, while living in New York, is said to have had a tradition that their ancestors came originally from the south."
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