USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume I > Part 6
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True, they were cruel, and in many instances fiendish, in their inhuman practices, but they did not meet the first settlers in this spirit. Honest, hospitable, religious in their belief, reverencing their Manitou, or Great Spirit, and willing to do anything to please their white brother-this is how they met their first white visitors; but when they had seen nearly all their vast domain appropriated by the invaders, when wicked white men had introduced into their midst the "wicked fire-water," which is to-day the cause of many an act of fiendish- ness perpetrated by those who are not un- tutored savages, then the Indian rebelled, all the savage in his breast was aroused, and he became pitiless and cruel in the extreme.
It is true that our broad domains were pur- chased and secured by treaty, but the odds were always on the side of the whites. The Colonial records give an account of the treaty of 1686, by which a deed for walking purchase was executed, by which the Indians sold as far as a man could walk in a day. But when the walk was to be made the most active white man available was obtained, and he ran from daylight until dark, as fast as he was able, without stopping to eat or drink. This much dissatisfied the Indians, who expected to walk leisurely, resting at noon to eat and shoot game, and one old chief expressed his dissatisfaction as follows: "Lun, lun, lun; no lay down to drink : no stop to shoot squirrel, but lun, lun. lun all day ; me no keep up; lun, lun for land." That deed, it is said, does not now exist, but was confirmed in 1737.
When the white man came the Indians were a temperate people, and their chiefs tried hard to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks among their tribes. When one Sylvester Gar- land, in 1701, introduced them to drink, at a council held in Philadelphia, Shemekenwhol, chief of the Shawnese, complained to Gover- nor William Penn, and at a council held on the 13th of October. 1701, this man was held in the sum of one hundred pounds never to deal rum to the Indians again ; and the bond and sentence were approved by Judge Shippen, of. Philadelphia. At the chief's suggestion the council enacted a law prohibiting the trade in rum with the Indians. Still later the ruling chiefs of the Six Nations opposed the use of rum, and Red Jacket, in a speech at Buffalo, wished that whisky would never be less than "a dollar a quart." He answered the mis- sionary's remarks on drunkenness thus: "Go to the white man with that." A council, held on the Allegheny river, deplored the murder of the Wigden family in Butler county by a
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Seneca' Indian while under the influence of whisky. approved the sentence of our law, and again passed prohibitory resolutions, and implored the white man not to give rum to the Indian.
In the legend of Noshaken, the white captive of the Delawares, in 1753, who was kept at a village supposed to have been Punxsutawney. occurs the following : "The scouts were on the track of the Indians, the time of burning of the captives was extended, and the whole band prepared to depart for Fort Venango with the prisoners. They continued on for twenty miles, and encamped by a beautiful spring, where the sand boiled up from the bottom near where two creeks unite. Here they passed the night, and the next morning again headed for Fort Venango." This spring was our sand spring at Brookville.
The Indian wampum, or money, was of two kinds, white and purple; the white is worked out of the inside of the great shells into the form of a bead, and perforated, to string on leather; the purple is taken out of the inside of the mussel shell. They are woven into strips as broad as one's hand and about two feet long ; these they call belts, which they give and receive at their treaties as the seals of friendship; for lesser matters a single string is given. Every bead is of known value. and a belt of a less number is made to equal one of a greater by fastening as many as are wanting to the belt by a string.
Punxsutawney was an Indian town for cen- turies, and, like all other towns of the Indian before the white man reached this continent with firearms, was stockaded. The entrances to the stockade were anciently contrived so that they could be defended from assault by a very few men.
The word "punxsu" means gnat. The land was a swamp, and alive with gnats, mosquitoes. turtles and other reptiles. For protection against the gnats the Indians anointed then- selves with oil and ointments made of fat and poisons. Centuries ago the Indians of Punx- sutawney dressed themselves in winter with a cloak made of buffalo, bear or beaver skins, with a leather girdle, and stockings or moc- casins of buckskin. It might be well to state here that the beavers were of all colors, white. yellow, spotted, gray, but mostly black.
Indians subsisted mostly on game, but when pressed for food ate acorns, nuts and the inside bark of the birchtree. As agriculturists each was apportioned a piece of land outside of the stockade, which was planted by the squaws in corn, squashes and tobacco. . \ hole was made
in the ground with a stick and a grain of corn put in each hole. Our first settlers found small patches of corn, one of which was planted where the Brookville fair grounds are now located, and another in the flat at Port Barnett. Indian corn, or maize as it was sometimes called, is an American product, be- ing first discovered on this continent in 1600. The Indians taught the pioneer settlers how to grow this grain, which is now one of the most important of our cereals. Early travel- ers all speak of it as an absolute necessity in the growing of live stock. Potatoes and tobacco also were unknown in the Old World until the discovery of America.
Indian corn was red and white flint. They ground it in mortars and sifted it in a basket. and then baked it in loaves an inch thick and about six inches in diameter. They had a way of charring corn so it would keep for years. They would pick ears while green, roast it, dry it in the sun, mix with about a third of maple sugar, and pound it into flour. This they carried with them on long trips.
Not knowing how to dig wells, they located their ga-no-sote and villages on the banks of ruins and creeks, or in the vicinity of springs. About the period of the formation of the league, when they were exposed to the inroads of hostile nations, and the warfare of migra- tory bands, their villages were compact and stockaded. Having run å trench several feet deep around five or ten acres of land, and thrown up the ground on the inside, they set a continuous row of stakes, burned at the ends. in this bank of earth, fixing them at such an angle that they inclined over the trench. Some- times a village was surrounded by a double or even triple row of stakes. Within this inclos- ure they constructed their bark houses and secured their stores. Around it was the village field, consisting oftentimes of several hundred acres of cultivated land, which was subdivided into planting lots, those belonging to different families being bounded by uncultivated ridges.
The Iroquois were accustomed to live largely in villages, and the stockades built about these villages protected them from sudden assaults and rendered it possible for the houses within to be built according to a method of construc- tion such that they might last for a long time. At the two ends of the houses were doors, either of bark hung on hinges of wood, or of deer or bear skins suspended before the open- ing, and however long the house, or whatever the number of fires, these were the only entrances. Over one of these doors was cut the tribal device of the head of the family.
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Within, upon the two sides, were arranged wide seats, also of bark boards, about two feet from the ground, well supported underneath, and reaching the entire length of the house. Upon these they spread their mats of skins, and also their blankets, using them as seats by day and couches at night. Similar berthis were constructed on each side, about five feet above these, and secured to the frame of the house, thus furnishing accommodations for the family. Upon crosspoles near the roof were hung in bunches, braided together by the husks, the winter supply of corn. Charred and dried corn and beans were generally stored in bark barrels and laid away in corners. The implements for the chase, domestic utensils, weapons, articles of apparel and miscellane- ous notions were stored away and hung up wherever an unoccupied place made it pos- sible. A house of this description would accommodate a family of eight, with the limited wants of the Indian, and afford shelter for their necessary stores, making a not un- . comfortable residence. After they had learned the use of the axe they began to substitute houses of logs, but they constructed them after the ancient model.
The Senecas had six yearly festivals, the maple, the planting, the strawberry, the green corn, the harvesting, and New Year or white dog sacrifice. These festivals consisted of dancing, singing and thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for his gifts. The New Year was an acknowledgment for the whole year, and the white dog was sent to the Great Spirit to take to him their messages. The dog was the only animal they could trust to carry their mes- sages.
The Indians had no Sunday. Our Indians called themselves Nun-ga-wah-gah, "The Great Ifill People," and their legend was that they sprang from the ground. The civil chiefs wore horns as an emblem of power.
The Indian was a great ball player and fond of games, swift in races; in truth, the Indian was built for fleetness and not for strength ; his life of pursuit educated him that way. Their feathers and warpaint were nothing else than crude heraldry. Paint spread upon the face and body indicated the tribe, prowess, honor, etc., of the individual and family, and the arbitrary methods employed by the squaws made their heraldry hard to understand. The facial heraldry was unique both in representation and subject. Every picture had its significanec. If a squaw was in love she daubed a ring around one of her eyes. This meant, I am ready for a proposal.
This symbol worn by a buck indicated he was in the market, too. When love matters were running smoothly with a squaw she painted her cheeks a cherry-red, and a straight mark on her forehead, which meant a happy road. A zig-zag mark on the forehead meant light- ning. In case of a death in the family the squaw painted her cheeks black. Before a battle each warrior had smeared on the upper part of his body a wolf, heron, snipe, etc., to indicate his tribe, so that if he was killed his tribe could recognize his body and come for it.
There was a village of Indians at Summer- ville, one at Brookville, at Port Barnett, at Reynoldsville, at Big Run, and a big one at Punxsutawney. . The county was thickly inhabited. especially what is now Warsaw. Their hominy mills can be seen yet about a mile north of the late Samuel Temple's barn, in Warsaw township. Their graveyards or burial places were always some distance from huts or villages. There was one on the Temple farm, in what is now Warsaw; one on Mill creek, at its junction with the Big Toby creek, in what was afterwards Ridgway township.
Population among the Indians did not in- crease rapidly. Mothers often nursed their papooses until they were five, six or seven years old.
In 1768, the six Indian nations having by . treaty sold the land from "under the feet" of the Wyalusing converts, the Rev. Mr. Zeis- berger was obliged to take measures for the removal of these Christian Indians, with their horses and cattle, to some other field. After many councils and much consideration, he determined to remove the entire body to a mission he had established on the Big Beaver, in what is now Lawrence county, Pa. Ac- cordingly, "on the rith of June, 1772, every- thing being in readiness, the congregation assembled for the last time in their church and took up their march toward the setting sun." They were divided into two companies. and each of these was subdivided. One of these companies went overland by the Wya- lusing path, up Sugar run, and down the Loyal Sock, via Dushore. This company was in charge of Ettwein, who had the care of the horses and cattle.
The other company was in charge of Rothe, and went by canoe down the Susquehanna and up the west branch. The place for the divisions to unite was the Great Island, now Lock Haven, and from there, under the lead of Rev. John Ettwein, they were to proceed up the west branch of the Susquehanna, and
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then cross the mountains over the Chinklaca- moose path, through what is now Clearfield and Punxsutawney, and from there to pro- ceed, via Kittanning, to the Big Beaver, now in Lawrence county, Pa. Reader, just think of two hundred and fifty people of all ages, with seventy head of oxen and a great number of horses, traversing these deep forests, over a small path sometimes scarcely discernible. under drenching rains, and through dismal swamps, and all this exposure contintted for days and weeks, wild beasts to the right and to the left of them, and the path alive with rattlesnakes in front of them, wading streams and overtaken by sickness, and then, dear reader, you will conchide with me that nothing bitt "praying all night" in the wilderness ever carried them successfully to their destination. This story of Rev. Mr. Ettwein is full of interest. I reprint a paragraph or two that applies to what is now Jefferson county, viz. : "Tuesday, July 14, 1772 .- Reached Clear- field creek, where the buffaloes formerly cleared large tracts of undergrowth, so as to give them the appearance of cleared fields. Ilence the Indians called the creek 'Clear- field.' Here we shot nine deer. On the route we shot one hundred and fifty deer and three bears." These people on their route lived on fish, venison, etc.
lowed out of small logs, which was then col- lected into a large trough, when it was boiled down into molasses and sugar by dipping hot stones into it, a process that must have called for a great deal of patience.
Then Indians woukl take the skins and hams of the game killed during the winter to Pittsburgh in the spring, where they would exchange them for tobacco, whisky, blankets, trinkets, etc. They generally made these trips on rafts constructed of dry poles withed to- gether.
An old Indian called Captain Hunt was the last Indian who resided in this county, having had his camp on what is yet known as "Hunt's Point," in the present borough limits of Brook- ville, and designated on the borough plot as lot No. 22, on what is Water street, south side of street and east of the foundry. It is said of him that he was a fugitive from his tribe, having killed a fellow Indian. Grandmother Graham, at whose house I visited in my child- hood for weeks at a time, gave a statement of her recollections of these Indians, and those of the tribes who were here after her family settled at Port Barnett, and it appears that it was a cousin of Captain Hunt who was the banished Indian. I give Mrs. Graham's ac- count of these Indians as nearly as possible in her own language :
"Friday, July 17 .- Advanced only four "When we came to Port Barnett, in the miles to a creek that comes down from the . spring of 1797, there were two Indian families northwest." This was and is Anderson creek, near Curwensville, Pa. there. One was Twenty Canoes, and Caturah, which means Tomahawk. The two Hunts "July 18 .- Moved on. were here, but they were alone. Jim Hunt "Sunday, July 19 .- As yesterday, but two families kept up with me, because of the rain, we had a quiet Sunday, but enough to do dry- ing our effects. In the evening all joined me. but we could hold no service as the ponkies were so excessively annoying that the cattle pressed toward and into our camp to escape their persecutors in the smoke of the fire. This vermin is a plague to man and beast by day and night, but in the swamp through which we are now passing, their name is legion. Hence the Indians call it the Ponse- tunik, i. e., the town of the ponkies." This swamp was in what we now call Punxsu- lawney. was on banishment for killing his cousin. Captain Hunt and Jim Hunt were cousins. Captain Hunt was an under-chief of the Mun- sey tribe. The Munseys were slaves to our Senecas, and 'captain' was the highest mili- tary title known to the Indians. In the fall other Indians came here to hunt. Caturah and Twenty Canoes stayed here for several years after we came. The Hunts were here most of the time until the commencement of the war in 1812. Jim dare not go back to his tribe until the year 1808 or 1809, when his friends stole a white boy in Westmoreland county and had him adopted into the tribe in place of the warrior Jim had slain. A great many per- We have mentioned that our first settlers found small patches of corn, one planted where the Brookville fair grounds are now located, and another in the flat at Port Bar- nett. sons think they know all about the hiding places of Hunt. One of them wa's a cave in the bank of Sandy Lick, at what is called the 'deep hole,' opposite the sand spring. The other was on the headwaters of Little Sandy The Indians also came here to make maple sugar in the spring. They would cut notches in the trees, and collect the sap in tronghis hol- creek. When danger threatened Hunt a run- ner from the reservation would warn him by a peculiar whoop from a certain place on the
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hill northwest from the port. At the com- mencement of the war of 1812 the Munsey tribe were banished from the Six Nations, and Jim Hunt never returned. Captain Hunt was back once or twice. Twenty Canoes and Sassy John were back once to see Joe Blan- net ; they could not pronounce the name of Barnett. The last visit of Caturah was in 1833, he being then over ninety years of age."
While it was known that Hunt had the hid- ing places mentioned by Mrs. Graham, they were never discovered until the year 1843, when the one at Sand Spring, in the borough of Brookville, was discovered by Mr. Thomas Graham, a son of the old lady whose narra- tive I have just given. It showed signs of having been used as a human habitation and was without doubt Jim Hunt's place of refuge. Jim Hunt was a great hunter, and in one winter is said to have killed seventy-eight bears, besides other smaller game. He was inordinately fond of whisky, and nearly all the skins of his game went for his favorite beverage. After he had traded these seventy- eight skins to Samuel Scott, receiving a pint of whisky for each skin, he was found crying in a maudlin way over his bankruptcy. When asked what was the matter, he replied : "Bearskins all gone; whisky all gone. No skins, no whisky, ugh !"
This story was told elsewhere of Captain Hunt.
Of two who came about 1800, I might men- tion John Jamison (Sassy John), who had seven sons, all named John; the other was Crow ; he was an Indian in name and in nature. He was feared by both the whites and Indians. He was a Mohawk, and a perfect savage.
Before the white man came to settle in this country a part of Warsaw, near Hazen, was "a barren" and thickly settled with Indians, and what is now called Seneca Hill, on the M. Hoffman farm, is where they met for their orgies. The late S. W. Temple has found a number of curious Indian relics from time to time on this farm.
CORNPLANTER
In the year 1784 the treaty to which Corn- planter (or Beautiful Lake) was a party was made at Fort Stanwix, ceding the whole of northwestern Pennsylvania to the Common- wealth, with the exception of a small individ- ual reserve to Cornplanter. The frontier, how- ever, was not at peace for some years after that, nor, indeed, until Wayne's treaty of 1795. 2
Notwithstanding his bitter hostility, while the war continued, he became the fast friend of the United States when once the hatchet was buried. His sagacious intellect compre- hended at a glance the growing power of the United States, and the abandonment with which Great Britain had requited the fidelity of the Senecas. He therefore threw all his
GY- MIT NA-KA
becky The Corque le
CORNPLANTER
influence at the treaty of Fort Stanwix (now Rome, N. Y.) and Fort Harmar in favor of peace. And notwithstanding the large con- cessions which he saw his people were neces- sitated to make, still, by his energy and prudence in the negotiation, he retained for them an ample and beautiful reservation. For the course which he took on those occasions the State of Pennsylvania granted him the fine
1
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reservation upon which he resided on the Allegheny. The Senecas, however, were never satisfied with his course in relation to those treaties, and Red Jacket, more artful and eloquent than his elder rival, but less frank and honest, seized upon this circumstance to pro- mote his own popularity at the expense of Cornplanter.
Having buried the hatchet. Cornplanter sought to make his talents useful to his people by conciliating the goodwill of the whites and securing from further encroachment the little remnant of his national domain. On more than one occasion, when some reckless and bloodthirsty whites on the frontier had massa- cred unoffending Indians in cold blood, did Cornplanter interfere to restrain the vengeance of his people. During all the Indian wars from 1791 to 1794, which terminated with Wayne's treaty, Cornplanter pledged himself that the Senecas should remain friendly to the United States. He often gave notice to the garrison at Fort Franklin of intended attacks from hostile parties, and even hazarded his life on a mediatorial mission to the western tribes.
In 1821-22 the commissioners of Warren county assumed the right to tax the private property of Cornplanter, and proceeded to enforce the collection of the tax. The old chief resisted it, conceiving it not only unlaw- ful, but a personal indignity. The sheriff appeared, with a small posse of armed men. Cornplanter took the deputation to a room around which were ranged about a hundred rifles, and, with the sententious brevity of an Indian, intimated that for each rifle a warrior would appear at his call. The sheriff and his men speedily withdrew, determined, however. to call out the militia. Several prudent citizens, fearing a sanguinary collision, sent for the old chief in a friendly way to come to Warren and compromise the matter. He came, and after some persuasion gave his note for the tax, amounting to forty-three dollars and seventy-nine cents. He addressed, however, a remonstrance to the governor of Pennsylvania, soliciting a return of his money and an exemp- tion from such demands against lands which the State itself had presented to him. The Legislature annulled the tax, and sent two commissioners to explain the affair to him. He met them at the courthouse in Warren, on which occasion he delivered the following speech, eminently characteristic of himself and his race :
"Brothers, yesterday was appointed for us all to meet here. The talk which the governor
sent us pleased us very much. I think that the Great Spirit is very much pleased that the white people have been induced so to assist the Indians as they have done, and that he is pleased also to see the great men of this State and of the United States so friendly to us. We are much pleased with what has been done.
"The Great Spirit first made the world, and next the flying animals, and found all things good and prosperous. He is immortal and everlasting. After finishing the flying animals, he came down on earth and there stood. Then he made different kinds of trees and weeds of all sort, and people of every kind. He made the spring and other seasons and the weather suitable for planting. These he did make. But stills to make whisky to be given to the Indians he did not make. The Great Spirit bids me tell the white people not to give In- dians this kind of liquor. When the Great Spirit had made the earth and its animals, he went into the great lakes, where he breathed as easily as anywhere else, and then made all the different kinds of fish. The Great Spirit looked back on all that he had made. The different kinds he had made to be separate and not to mix with or disturb each other. But the white people have broken his command by mixing their color with the Indians. The Indians have done better by not doing so. The Great Spirit wishes that all wars and fighting should cease.
"He next told us that there were three things for our people to attend to. First, we ought to take care of our wives and children. Secondly, the white people ought to attend to their farms and cattle. Thirdly, the Great Spirit has given the bears and deers to the Indians. He is the cause of all things that exist, and it is very wicked to go against his will. The Great Spirit wishes me to inform the people that they should quit drinking intox- icating drink, as being the cause of disease and death. He told us not to sell any more of our lands, for he never sold lands to any one. Some of us now keep the seventh day, but I wish to quit it, for the Great Spirit made it for others, but not for the Indians, who ought every day to attend to their business. He has ordered me to quit drinking intoxicating drink, and not to huist after any woman but my own, and informs me that by doing so I should live the longer. He made known to me that it is very wicked to tell lies. Let no one suppose that what I have said now is not true.
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