History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 1, Part 2

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904; Hungerford, Austin N., joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Richards
Number of Pages: 948

USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 1 > Part 2
USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 1 > Part 2

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Butz, T. F .facing 508 Chameleon Falls. 657

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Cooper, Thomas B

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Cortright, Nathan D facing 700

Packer, Hon, Il. E., late Residence of. faring 663

Packer, R. A

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Pretz, C. 1122

Rehrig, E 152

Romig, John 65

Rouse, Daniel 785

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Harleman, Samnel ..

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CHAPTER I.

THE RED RACE SUPPLANTED BY THE WHITE. 4

Treaties and Settlement-Condition of the Country prior to the Revolu- tion.

The Delaware or Lenni Lenape Indians .- When the emissaries of civilization-the explorers and pio- neers-first entered upon those noble rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware, the great wilderness region now comprised in the wealthy States of Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, and New York was occupied by Indian tribes comprehensively called. the Algon- quins. This great division embraced two groups of nations, the Iroquois and the Delawares. The lan- guage of both was the Algonquin, but it was spoken in various dialeets.

Very little friendship existed between the Iroquois . minder of the dispersed nation, was occupied by the

and the Delawares. The latter, who called them- selves the Leuni Lenape, or " the original people," in- dced, held themselves as superior to any other tribe or nation. They claimed to have existed from the be- ginning of time, and it is certain the Miamis, Wyan- dots, Shawanese, and more than twenty other tribes admitted their great antiquity and applied to them . the title of "grandfathers." One of their traditions was that, ages before their occupancy of what became Whether or not we believe as a whole this legend, it is a fact that the two nations were located as described when the first acenrate knowledge of them was obtained by the whites. The country of the Mengwe or Iroquois extended from the Hudson and Lake Champlain to the shores of Lake Erie, and from the head-waters of the Alleghany, Susque- hanna, and Delaware to the shores of Lake Ontario, and even across the St. Lawrence, thus embracing the whole of the State of New York and a portion of Canada. The Iroquois-usually called the Five Nations, because consisting of the confederated tribes Pennsylvania and its northern and eastern neigh- bors, their ancestors had dwelt in a far-away country beyond the Father of Waters, and near the wide sea in which the sun sank. They believed that for many moons they had traveled eastward, seeking a fairer country of which their prophets had told them, and as they neared the western shores of the great Mis- sissippi they had met another great nation of men, the very existence of which they had been in ignor- ance. These people, they say, were the Mengwe or . the Iroquois, and this was the first meeting of those two nations, destined to remain for centuries rivals . of the Mohawks, Senecas, Cayngas, Onondagas, and and enemies. They journeyed on together, neither in warfare nor friendship, but they presently fond 1 By many this tradition of the emigration of the Lenni Lempe is believed to have a solid foundation in fact, and the Allegwi are ro- garded na being the Mound-Builders, whose vast works tre unmorons along the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their tributaries. that they must unite their forces against a common enemy. East of the Father of Waters they discov-

ered a race ealled the Allegwi, occupying a vast do- main, and not only stronger in number than them- selves, but equally brave and more skilled in war. They had, indeed, fortified towns and numerous strongholds.1 The Allegwi permitted a part of the emigrating nations to pass the border of their country, and having thus caused a division of their antago- nists, fell upon them with great fury to annihilate them. But the main body of the allied Mengwe and Lenape rallying from the first shock, made resistance with such desperate energy that they defeated the Allegwi, and sweeping them forward as the wind does the dry leaves of the forest, they invaded the country, and during a long and bloody war won victory after victory, until they had not only entirely vangnished, but wellnigh exterminated them. Their country, in which their earth fortifications remained the only re- victors. After this both the Mengwe and the Lenape ranged castward, the former keeping to the north- ward, and the latter to the southward, until they reached respectively the Hudson and the Delaware, which they called the Lenape Wihittuck. Upon its banks, and in the wild region watered by its tribu- taries, they found the land they had journeyed in quest of from the setting sun.

HISTORY OF LEHIGH COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Oneidas, becoming about 1712, by the incorporation of the refugee Southern tribe of Tusearoras, the Six Nations-were almost constantly at war with their neighbors the Lenape or Delawares.

The Delawares were divided into nations in much the same manner as their northern enemies. Of these the most notable were the branches of the Turtle or Unamis, the Turkey or Unalachtgo, and the Wolf or Minsi (corrupted into Monsey). While the domain of the Delawares extended from the sea-coast between the Chesapeake and Long Island Sound back beyond the Susquehanna to the Alleghanies and nortli- ward to the hunting-grounds of the Iroquois, it seems not to have been regarded as the common country of the tribes, but to have been set apart for them in more or less distinctly-defined districts. The Unamis and Unalachtgo nations, subdivided into the tribes of Assunpinks, Matas, Chichequaas, Shackamaxons, Tuteloes, Nanticockes, and many others, occupied the lower country toward the coast, while the more war- like tribe of the Minsi or Wolf, as Heckewelder informs us, "had chosen to live back of the other tribes, and formed a kind of a bulwark for their pro- tection, watching the motions of the Mengwe, and being at hand to offer aid in case of a rupture with them."

"The Minsi," continues the authority from whom we have quoted, "extended their settlements from the Minisink, a place (on the Delaware, in Monroe County ) named after them, where they had their council-seat and fire, quite mp to the Hudson on the east, and to the west and south far beyond the Sus- quehanna ; their northern boundaries were supposed originally to be the heads of the great rivers Susque- hanna and Delaware, and their southern that ridge of hills known in New Jersey by the name of Mus- kanecum, and in Pennsylvania by those of Lehigh, Coghnewago, ete. Within this boundary were their principal settlements, and even as late as 1742 they had a town with a peach-orchard on the tract of land where Nazareth was afterwards built, another on the Lehigh, and others beyond the Blue Ridge, besides many family settlements here and there scattered."!

Thus it appears that the Minsi Delawares were the ancient owners of the territory now included in Le- high County, and that these hills and mountains and valleys were their hunting-ground, the Lehigh River and all of the sparkling tront-swarming lesser streams their fishing-places.

One of the earliest purchases of land from the In- dians in the Lehigh region was in the year 1684, the parties being William Penn and Manghaughsin, from whom (according to some authorities) came the name Macungie, applied to a township of Lehigh County. This personage was one of the leading chiefs of the Delawares.

On the 3d day of June, 1684, Maughanghsin, upon

1 " Ilistory, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once Inhabited Pennsylvania," by Rev. John Heckewelder.

his own desire and free offer, sold all his land upon Pahkehoma (Perkiomen) to William Penn, for the consideration of "2 Matchcoats, 4 pair of stockings, and 4 Bottles of Sider."

It may be interesting to give the deed in its original form, viz. :

"INDIAN DEED FOR LANDS TO WILLIAM PENN, 1684.

" Upon my own Desire and free Offer, I, Manghanghsin, in considera- tion of Two Malehcoals, four pair of Stockings, and four Bottles of Sider, do hereby graunt and make over all my land upon Pahkehomma, 1o W'm Penn, Propr und Governo of Pennsylvania and Territories, his heirs & Assignes forever, with which I own myself' satisfied, and promise never In molest any Christians so called yt shall sent thereon by his ordrs.

" Witness my hand and Seal at Philadelphia ye third day of ye fourth month, 1684.

"The mark of MAUGHAUGHSIN.

" Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of us. ". PHILIP THOMAS LEHMAN.

" THOMAS IlGIMLE. "JNO. DAVERS. " GEORGE EMLEN."

(From the " Pennsylvania Archives.")

Soon after the delivery of the above deed to Wil- liam Penn, Maughanghsin and most of his people left this region and moved over the Blue Mountains, only a few individuals remaining in their old homes, the valleys of the Milfords and the surrounding country.

The "Walking Purchase."-Among the various negotiations by which the Indians were led to surren- der their domain to the superior race was the famous " Walking Purchase" of 1737. No event in the his- tory of the region gave so mueh dissatisfaction to the Indians as the making of this alleged unjust bargain, and it was directly or indirectly productive of effects which we shall chronicle in the next chapter, as well as of others of which we shall present an account in the history of Carbon County.

The first release of Indian title effected in the prov- inee was brought about in 1682, before Penn's arrival, by his Deputy Governor, William Markham. This embraced all the territory between the Neshaminy and the Delaware as far up as Wrightstown and Upper Wakefield. In 1683 and 1684. Penn himself made other purchases. In 1686 it has been claimed that the Indians granted to him a traet of country com- . meneing on the line of the former purchases, and ex- tending as far northwesterly as a man could ride on horseback in two days. No copy of the treaty or deed was preserved, if any was made, and the extent of the averred purchase remained undecided. Settlers, however, began to throng into the lower part of the country which it was supposed had been purchased, and they soon pushed above the Forks of the Dela- ware (the confluence of that river with the Lehigh). The Indians believed that their lands were being en- croached upon, and they had several meetings with the proprietaries to carry out the measures of the treaty of 1686, and to definitely fix the limits of the

THE RED RACE SUPPLANTED BY THE WHITE.

ceded territory. The first was held at Durham, below Easton, in 1734; another was at Pennsbury, in May, 1735, and the negotiations were concluded at Phila- delphia, Aug. 25, 1737. The last meeting resulted in an agreement that the treaty of 1686 should be con- summated, and the extent of the purchase was decided in a novel manner. The proprietaries were to receive sueh portion of the Indian territory as should be in- cluded within a line drawn northwesterly from a point in or near Wrightstown as far as a man could walk in a day and a half, and a line drawn from his stopping-place straight to the Delaware, which was of course the eastern boundary.

While the treaty was in negotiation the proprie- taries caused a preliminary or trial walk to be made to aseertain what amount of ground could be seeured. It appears that this was undertaken as early as April, 1735, and that the trees along the route were blazed, so that the persons to be engaged in the walk decid- ing the ownership of land might have the advantage of a marked pathway. As soon as the treaty of Aug. 25, 1737, had been consummated, James Steel, receiver-general under Thomas Penn, took measures to secure for the performance of the purchase-walk the man who had " held out the best" in the prelim- inary walk. It was proposed that he should walk with two others, who were actively to engage in com- petition, and that Timothy Smith, sheriff of Bucks County, and John Chapman, surveyor, should accom- pany the trio, provide provisions, etc. The time fixed for the walk under the treaty was Sept. 12, 1737, but it was postponed until the 19th. The preliminaries were all arranged in advance, and Edward Marshall, James Yeates, and Solomon Jennings, all noted for their powers of endurance, and one of them undoubt- edly the champion of the trial walk, were employed by the proprietaries to make the deeisive effort. It was arranged that the Indians should send some of their young men along to see that the walk was fairly made. The walkers were promised five pounds in money and five hundred acres of land. The place of starting was fixed at a well-known point, a large chestnut-tree near the junction of the Pennsville and Durham roads, at the Wrightstown meeting-house, in Bucks County, very close to the northern boundary of the Markham purchase. Marshall, Yeates, and Jennings stood with their hands upon the tree, and as the sun rose above the horizon the signal was given by Sheriff Smith, and they started. Their route was as straight as the inequalities of the ground and the numerous obstructions would permit, and led for a number of miles along the Durham road (which was then a road in little more than name). It is said that Yeates led the way with a light step, and next came Jennings, with two of the Indian walkers, while Marshall was last, a considerable distance behind the others. Ile swung a hatchet in his hand, and walked with an easy and careless lope. The walkers reached Red Hill, in Bedminster, in two and a half hours,

took dinner with the Indian trader Wilson, on Dur- ham Creek, near where the old furnace stood, erossed the Lehigh a mile below Bethlehem, at what is now Jones Island, and passing the Blue Ridge at Smith's Gap (in what is now Moore township, Northampton Co.), slept at night on the northern slope. The walk was resumed at sunrise, and terminated at noon, when Marshall, who alone held out, threw himself at length upon the ground and grasped a sapling, which was marked as the end of the line. Jennings first gave out, about two miles north of the Tohickon, and then lagged behind with the followers until the party reached the Lehigh River. He then left for his home, in what is now Salisbury township,1 Lehigh Co.

Yeates fell at the foot of the mountain, on the morning of the second day, was quite blind when taken up, and died three days later. Marshall, the champion of the walk, was not in the least injured by his exertion, and lived to the age of seventy-nine, dying in Tinicum, Bucks Co.2

The walk is said to have followed an Indian path which led from the hunting-grounds of the Minsis down to Bristol, on the Delaware. The Indians showed their dissatisfaction at the manner in which the so-called "walk" was made, and left the party before it was concluded. It is said that they fre- quently called upon the walkers not to run. The dis- tance walked, according to the generally-accepted measurement, was sixty-one and one-fourth miles. Nicholas Seull says it was only fifty-five statute miles, while others estimate the distance as high as eighty- six miles.

When the walk had reached the extreme point in a northwesterly direction from the starting-place, it still remained to run the line to the Delaware, and here arose another ground for disagreement. The Indians had expected that a straight line would be drawn to the river at the nearest point, but instead it was run at right angles and reached the river at or near the Laxawaxen, taking in about twice as much territory as would have been included by the other arrangement. The lines embraced nearly all of the lands within the forks of the Delaware (that is, be-

1 Solomon Jennings had settled some years previous to the " Walking Purchase" on what is now the Geisinger larm, two miles nbove Beth - lebern, and, living on the extreme frontier, had become famous ns a hunter and woodsman, a fact which led to his being selected ns ono of the walkers. He is said to have been extremely fond of whiskey, und it has been uverred that it was because of thal weakness that he failed in the walk. This, however, may be an injustice to himt. , It is certain that he never recovered frotu the effects of his overexertion, though he lived for twenty years. His son, John Jennings, was elected sheriff of Northampton County in 1762, and again in 1768. It is traditionally as- serled that Solomon Jennings received what is now known as the Geis- inger farm as a reward for his Taking part in the walk, but there is no Tonudation for that theory of his ownership, and it is well known that lie resided upon the property for a umnber of years prior to 1737. The farm was sold to Jacob Geisinger at public sale in 1761.

2 The date of his denth wus Nov. 7, 1789. He was a native of Bustle- ton, Philadelphia Co., where he was born in 1710, llo was twice mar- ried, and the father of twenty-one children. Ho lived for a time on the I island in the Delaware opposito Tinieum which bears his nande.

HISTORY OF LEHIGH COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

tween the Delaware and the Lower Lehigh), the cele- brated Minisink flats, and in fact all of the valuable land south of the Blue Ridge. The quantity of land embraced in the purchase was about five hundred thousand acres. James Steel, writing to Letitia Au- brey in 1737, said that it required about four days to walk from the upper end of the day and a half's journey, and that " after they erossed the great ridge of mountains they saw very little good or even toler- able land fit for settlement."

This walk gave great dissatisfaction to the Indians, and was the principal cause of the council held at Easton in 1756, where it was elaborately discussed. The Indians complained that the walkers walked too fast, that they should have stopped to shoot game and to smoke; in short, should have walked as the In- dians usually did when engaged in the hunt. They also found fault with the manner in which the line was run from the stopping-place to the river, claim- ing that it should have been drawn to the nearest point. The proprietaries were accused of trickery and dishonesty, and whether justly or unjustly, the "walking purchase" drew upon them and their asso- ciates the bitter hatred of the Delawares. It was the smoldering fire of the feeling thus engendered which by the influence of men or events was fanned into an intense heat a generation later, and created great havoe in the region now comprised in Lehigh, North- ampton, and Carbon Counties.

Advent of the White Man as a Settler .-- Lchigh County was originally a portion of the great county of Bucks, established, with Philadelphia and Chester,- in 1682, and its earliest settlements were formed for the most part by the people who pushed northward from below the present boundaries of Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

White men found their way into the Lchigh region during the seventeenth century, but they came as traders rather than settlers, and do not deserve the honor of especial consideration by the historian, and indeed could not receive it, as they left no mark upon the country and only a meagre record of their adven- tures. In fact their action, confined principally to more or less questionable transactions with the li- dians, demands no chronicling.

As early as 1701 the Lehigh region was brought unpleasantly into the notice of the proprietaries by the presence of that class of white men to whom we have referred, and they also had reason to believe that Seneca Indians from the region which is now the State of New York had made a southern seout with a view to harassing the more peaceful Delawares and the few white settlers in the lower part of Bucks County.

Just at what time the first waves of that population which was eventually to fill Lehigh County and much of the territory beyond the Blue Ridge broke over the southern boundary cannot at this period be stated. It is fair, however, to infer from various facts that it

was as early as 1715. The "Irish settlement," just across the eastern border in Northampton County, is known to have been established in 1728, and a number of individual pioneers, according to reliable traditions and even well-attested records, had come into what is now Lehigh County by 1730. The lands in the Lehigh valley were not formally thrown open to settlement until 1734. It is fair to suppose that legal impediment being removed, the people newly arrived in this country from Germany and seeking homes thronged in quite rapidly considering the many disadvantages to be overcome and the not very assuring attitude of the Indians.

Upper Milford (comprising what is now ineluded in both Upper and Lower Milford ) appears to have been the most thickly-settled portion of the territory during the first few years, for its people were the first to eall for a separate township organization. Prior to 1737 they had been under the jurisdiction of the great township of Milford, of which the division in Bnieks County yet known by the name was a part, but in January of that year twenty-three of the inhabi- tants, whom we may take it for granted were among the most intelligent and enterprising, petitioned the county court for a distinct township. The names of those early settlers of the southern part of the county were Peter Walker, Ulrich Kirsten, A. Matthias Ochs, Johannes Meyer, Joseph Henckel, Daniel Rausch, Heinrich Willim, Heinrich Ris, William Bit, Cristian Bigli, Jacob Wetel, Johannes Betlzart, Duwalt Mach- ling, Johannes Hast, Melchoir Stuher, Michael Koh- ner, Felix Benner, Jacob Derry, Michael Zimmer- man, -- Longhurst, Mirwin Weihnacht, Johames Baugeoner, and Hannes Ord. The township was sur- veyed and laid out by John Chapman on March 13, 1738. At about the same time the township was formed, or a little later, old documents show that there were living there a number of other families, among them being those bearing the names of Dubbs, Eberhard, Hoover, Mumbauer, Roeder, Spinner, Stahl, and Weandt. Still later there came into the same territory the Dickenshieds, Hetricks, MeNuldies, Millers, Schelleys, Kuipers, Snyders, Rudolphs, Pret- zes, Heinbachs, Derrs, and many more. With very few exceptions these pioneers were Germans, princi- pally from the Palatinate.1

True in America to the religion for which they had been persecuted in Europe, one of the first acts of the Milford pioneers was to establish a church. It is probable that this was done prior to 1736, but the earliest record of baptism ocenrs under date of April 24th in that year. A patent was secured Sept. 27, 1738, for the tract of land which had been selected and built upon, and from that date the organization known as the "Swamp Church," originally estab-

1 A chapter upon the Germans, expressly prepared for this work by Rev. A. R. Horne, gives much interesting information, not only con. cerning the immigration of these perseented people, but their character, customiy, etc.

-------

TREATIES AND SETTLEMENT.

lished by the Lutheran and German Reformed ele- ments, has been of the latter denomination.1

The settlers on the sonth bank of the Lehigh had become so numerous by 1742 that they considered themselves entitled to a separate township organiza- tion, and accordingly a number of them, who de- scribed themselves as living "on and near Saueon," petitioned the court to confirm a survey which they had had made in April. Their prayer. was granted at the Mareh term following (1743), Saucon township then being established. The signers of the appli- cation were Christian Neweomb, Philip Kissenger, George Sobus, Henry Rinkard, John Yoder, John Reeser, Christian Smith, Henry Bowman, Samuel Neweomb, Benediet Koman, Felty Staymets, Henry Rinkard, Jr., George Troom, Adam Wanner, Owen Owen, Thomas Owen, John Williams, John Tool, John Thomas, Joseph Samuel, Isaac Samnel, Wil- liam Murry (Mori and Mory, according to other carly records), Michael Narer, John Apple, Jacob Gouner, Henry Keerer, George Bockman, George Marksteler, and Henry Rumfold."

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History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 1, Part 2

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904; Hungerford, Austin N., joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Richards Number of Pages: 948

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904; Hungerford, Austin N., joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Richards
Number of Pages: 948