FOOTNOTES
[1] Pennsylvania Colonial Records (Harrisburg, 1851), iv, p. 88.
[2] Ibid., pp. 660-669, for journal of this tour.
[3] Pennsylvania Colonial Records, v, p. 72.
[4] Ibid., pp. 121, 140, 145-152, 189, 190, 257.
[5] Ibid., pp. 286-290, 307-319.
[6] Ibid., pp. 290-293, 304.
[7] There appear to have been two copies of this journal prepared, one as the official report to the president and council of Pennsylvania, which was published in the Pennsylvania Colonial Records, v, pp. 348-358. A reprint from the same manuscript appeared in Early History of Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburg and Harrisburg, 1846), appendix, pp. 13-23. The other copy seems to have been preserved among the family papers; and was edited and published by a descendant of Weiser—Heister M. Muhlenberg, M.D., of Reading, Pennsylvania—in Pennsylvania Historical Society Collections (Philadelphia, 1851), i, pp. 23-33. We have followed the official copy, indicating by footnotes variations in the other account.—Ed.
[8] Weiser’s house was about one mile east of Womelsdorf, now in Berks County, Pennsylvania. James Galbreath was a prominent Indian trader, one of those licensed by the government of Pennsylvania.—Ed.
[9] Croghan lived at this time just west of Harrisburg in Pennsboro Township, Cumberland County.—Ed.
[10] There were three great Indian paths from east to west through Western Pennsylvania. The southern led from Fort Cumberland on the Potomac, westward through the valleys of Youghiogheny and Monongahela, to the Forks of the Ohio, and was the route taken by Washington in 1753, later by Braddock’s expedition, and was substantially the line of the great Cumberland National Road of the early nineteenth century.
The central trail, passing through Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Bedford, over Laurel Mountain, through Fort Ligonier, over Chestnut Ridge, to Shannopin’s Town at the Forks of the Ohio, was the most direct, and became the basis of General Forbes’s road, and later of the Pennsylvania wagon road to the Ohio. Gist took this trail in 1750.—See Hulbert, Old Glade Road (Cleveland, 1903).
The northern, or Kittanning trail, was the oldest, and that most used by Indian traders. It is this route that Weiser followed. From Croghan’s, he passed over into the valley of Sherman’s Creek (in Perry County), crossed the Tuscarora Mountains at what was later known as Sterritt’s Gap, and reached the Black Log sleeping place near Shade Valley in the southeastern part of Huntingdon County. This was a digression to the south, for in an extract from his journal in Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 13, Weiser says: “The Black Log is 8 or 10 miles South East of the Three Springs and Frank’s Town lies to yᵉ North, so that there must be a deduction of at least twenty miles.” From here, following the valley of Aughwick Creek, he crossed the Juniata River, and approached the “Standing Stone.” This was a prominent landmark of the region, and stood on the right bank of a creek of the same name, near the present town of Huntingdon. It was about 14 feet high, and six inches square, and served as a kind of Indian guidepost for that region. From this point, the trail followed the Juniata Valley, coinciding for a short distance with the line of the Pennsylvania Central Railway, but turning off on the Frankstown branch of the Juniata at the present town of Petersburg.
There was also a fourth trail, still farther north, by way of Sunbury and the west branch of the Susquehanna to Venango. This was Post’s route in 1758.—Ed.
[11] Frankstown was an important Indian village in the county of Blair, near Hollidaysburg. The present town of this name lies on the north side of the river, whereas the Indian town appears to have been on the south bank. Remains of the native village were in existence in the early part of the nineteenth century. The Indian name was “Assunepachla,” the title “Frankstown” being given in honor of Stephen Franks, a German trader who lived at this place.—See Jones, History of Juniata Valley (Harrisburg, 1889, 2nd ed.), pp. 298-303. The cause of its desertion when Weiser passed, is not known. The other edition of the journal says, “Here we overtook one half the goods,” which seems more correct in view of the succeeding account.—Ed.
[12] Of the place where the Kittanning trail crosses the Allegheny Range, Jones writes (op. cit.), that the path is still visible, although filled with weeds in the summer. “In some places where the ground was marshy, close to the run, the path is at least twelve inches deep, and the very stones along the road bear the marks of the iron-shod horses of the Indian traders. Two years ago we picked up, at the edge of the run, a mile up the gorge, two gun-flints,—now rated as relics of a past age.” Clear fields was at the head waters of Clearfield Creek, a branch of the Susquehanna River, in Clearfield Township, Cambria County. This is not to be confused with Clearfield (Chinklacamoos), an important Indian town farther north. See [Post’s Journal, post].—Ed.
[13] The Shawnees (Fr., Chaouanons), when first known, appear to have been living in Western Kentucky; they were greatly harassed by the Iroquois, and made frequent migrations which are difficult to trace. In 1692, they made peace with the Iroquois and the English, and portions of the tribe settled in the Ohio country and Western Pennsylvania. Intriguing with both English and French, they were treacherous toward both nations. The location of the cabins mentioned here by Weiser is not positively known—it was in the northern part of Indiana County; somewhere on the Kittanning trail.—Ed.
[14] Weiser turned aside from the regular trail that ended at the Delaware Indians’ town of Kittanning, and followed a branch of the path that turned southwest; crossed the Kiskiminitas Creek at the ford where the town of Saltzburg, Indiana County, now stands; and reached the Allegheny River (then called the Ohio) at Chartier’s Old Town, now Chartier’s Station, Westmoreland County. It was at this point that in 1749, the French explorer, Céloron de Blainville, met six traders with fifty horses laden with peltries, by these sending his famous message to the governor of Pennsylvania to keep his traders from that country, which was owned by the French. Weiser calculated the distance of his journey by land as one hundred and seventy miles, and by deducting twenty miles for the detour at Black Log, made the distance from the settlements one hundred and fifty miles.—Ed.
[15] This was the Delaware village known as Shannopin’s Town, from a chief of that name, who died in 1749. It was situated on the Allegheny River in the present city of Pittsburg, and contained about twenty wigwams, and fifty or sixty natives. See Darlington, Gist’s Journals (Pittsburg, 1893), pp. 92, 93.—Ed.
[16] The reference is to Queen Aliquippa, whose town, directly at the Forks of the Ohio, was called by Céloron “the written rock village.” The writings proved on examination to be but names of English traders scrawled in charcoal on the rocks. See Father Bonnécamps’s Relation, Jesuit Relations (Thwaites’s ed., Cleveland, 1896-1902), lxix, p. 175. Céloron says of the Seneca queen: “She regards herself as a sovereign, and is entirely devoted to the English.” Upon the advent of the French, she removed her village to the forks of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, where she told Gist in 1753 she would never go back to the Allegheny to live, unless the English built a fort. Céloron says of the site of her first village: “This place is one of the most beautiful I have seen on the Beautiful River [la Belle Rivière, the French name for the Ohio].”—Ed.
[17] Logstown (French, Chinnigné, Shenango) was the most important Indian trading village in that part of the country. It was a mixed village composed of Indians of several tribes—chiefly Iroquois, Mohican, and Shawnee. When Céloron visited it a year after Weiser’s sojourn, he spoke of it as “a very bad village, seduced by the desire for the cheap goods of the English.” He was near being attacked here, being saved by discovering the plot, and displaying the strength of his forces. Like Weiser, he was received with a salute of guns, but feared it was more a sign of enmity than amity. Later, the Indians of this village returned to the French alliance, and after the founding of Fort Duquesne, houses were built by the French for its inhabitants. With the restoration of English interest, the importance of the place diminished, and by 1784 it is spoken of as a “former settlement.” The site of Logstown is about eighteen miles down the river from Pittsburg, just below the present town of Economy, Pennsylvania. It was on a high bluff on the north shore. For the history of this place, see Darlington’s Gist, pp. 95-100.—Ed.
[18] There were two Indian towns called by this name—one at the mouth of Chartier’s Creek, Allegheny County, three miles below Pittsburg; the other opposite the mouth of Chartier’s Run, which falls into the Allegheny in Westmoreland County. Weiser refers to the latter of these. Chartier was a French-Shawnee half-breed that had much influence with his tribe. In 1745, he induced most of them to remove to the neighborhood of Detroit, on the orders of the governor of New France. See [Croghan’s Journals, post].—Ed.
[19] The other edition of the journal adds, that the horses were “all scalled on their backs.”
The importance of “wampum” in all Indian transactions cannot be overestimated. It was used for money, as a much-prized ornament, to enforce a request (as at this time), to accredit a messenger, to ransom a prisoner, to atone for a crime. No council could be held, no treaty drawn up, without a liberal use of wampum. It was used also to record treaties, as the one described by Weiser between the Wyandots, Iroquois, and governor of New York. Hale—“Indian Wampum Records,” Popular Science Monthly, February, 1897—thinks that it was a comparatively late invention in Indian development, and took its rise among the Iroquois. Weiser’s list of the wampum used and received in this journey is to be found in Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 17.—Ed.
[20] The French had retained the Iroquois deputies in order to secure from them the French prisoners in their hands. La Galissonière, the governor wrote to his home government in 1748, that he should persist in retaining their (the Iroquois) people, until he recovered the French. The governor of New York demanded the Mohawks, on the ground of their being British subjects, a claim the French refused to admit. The matter was finally adjusted without an Indian war, although it caused much irritation. See O’Callaghan (ed.), New York Colonial Documents (Albany, 1858), x, p. 185.—Ed.
[21] Kuskuskis was an important centre for the Delaware Indians, on the Mahoning Branch of Beaver Creek, in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. It consisted of separate villages scattered along the creek, one of which, called “Old Kuskuskis,” was at the forks, where New Castle now stands. See [Post’s Journal, post].—Ed.
[22] The Indian town at the mouth of Beaver Creek, where the town of Beaver now stands, was known indifferently as King Beaver’s, or Shingas’s Old Town (from two noted Delaware chiefs), or Sohkon (signifying “at the mouth of a stream”). This was a noted fur-trading station, and after the building of Fort Duquesne, the French erected houses here, for the Indians. It was the starting place for many a border raid, that made Shingas’s name “a terror to the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania.” See Post’s experiences at this place in 1758, [post].—Ed.
[23] Andrew Montour was the son of a noted French half-breed, Madame Montour, who being captured by the Iroquois in her youth married an Oneida chief and was a firm adherent of the English. Montour’s services for the English were considerable. He was an expert interpreter, speaking the languages of the various Ohio Indians, as well as Iroquois. First mentioned by Weiser in 1744, when he interpreted Delaware for his Iroquois, 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 Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York governments, and the Ohio Company. In 1754, he was with Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity. Several times he warned the settlements of impending raids, among other services bringing word of Pontiac’s outbreak. He accompanied Major Rogers as captain of the Indian 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 Pennsylvania, as well as money. For a detailed biography see Darlington’s Gist, pp. 159-175.—Ed.
[24] Twigtwees was the English name for the Miamis, a large nation of Algonquian Indians, that were first met by the seventeenth century explorers in Northern Illinois. But later, they moved eastward into the present state of Indiana, and settled on the Maumee and Wabash rivers, also on St. Josephs River in Michigan. The French had had posts among them for two generations, but from 1723 the English traders had been seeking a foothold in their midst. Their adherence to the English in 1748 was a blow to the French trade.—Ed.
[25] Scarroyahy was an Oneida chief of great influence with the Ohio Indians, especially at Logstown. He remained firm in the English interest, and in 1754 moved to Aughwick Creek, to get away from the French influence, and to protect the settlements. His death the same year, was imputed by his friends to French witchcraft.—Ed.
[26] The Wyandots, or Tobacco Hurons, or Petuns, were of Iroquois stock, but nearly destroyed by that nation in the seventeenth century. Fleeing westward, they placed themselves under French protection, and, after its founding in 1701, were settled chiefly about Detroit. In the early eighteenth century they straggled eastward along the south shore of Lake Erie, and began to open communication with their ancient enemies, the Iroquois. In 1747, occurred the rebellion of their chief Nicholas, who built a fort in the marshes of the Sandusky, and defied the French soldiers. The chiefs whom Weiser met, were deputies from this party of rebels.
The other edition of Weiser’s journal does not mention the “Wondats” until September 7; and has the following entry for September 6: “One canoe with goods arrived, the rest did not come to the river. The Indians that brought the goods found our casks of whiskey hid by some of the traders; they had drunk two and brought two to the town. The Indians all got drunk to-night, and some of the traders along with them. The weather cleared up.”—Ed.
[27] The Tisagechroanu were “a numerous Nation to the North of Lake Frontenac; they don’t come by Niagara in their way to Oswego, but right across the Lake.”—Pennsylvania Colonial Records, v, p. 85. Probably they were a party of the Neutral Hurons.
The other edition adds after the Mohawks, “among whom there were 27 French Mohawks.” The Mohicans were a wandering tribe, whose original home was on the banks of the Hudson, and in the Connecticut Valley. Charlevoix found them in the far West in 1721. These on the Ohio were called “Loups” by the French.—Ed.
[28] Stroud was a kind of coarse, warm cloth made for the use of the Indian trade. A match-coat was a large loose coat worn by the Indians, originally made of skins, later of match-cloth.—Ed.
[29] The other edition adds, “coming down the river.”—Ed.
[30] His name is given in the other edition as Robert Callender. He accompanied Croghan and Gist on their journey to the Ohio in 1750-51.—Ed.
[31] “Onas” was the Indian term for the governor of Pennsylvania—first used for Penn in his treaty with the Delawares, in 1682.—Ed.
[32] Apparently this was a lad named William Brown, whom Croghan sent to the settlements, October 20, 1748.—Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 17.—Ed.
[33] The Catawbas were a powerful Indian tribe of South Carolina, thought by Powell—“Indian Linguistic Families of North America,” in U. S. Bureau of Ethnology Report, 1885-86—to be of Siouan stock. They inhabited the western portion of the Carolinas, and were traditional enemies of the Iroquois. The Cherokees were a settled tribe in North Carolina and Tennessee, and at this time in the English interest.—Ed.
[34] “Jonontady Hagas” was the Iroquois phrase for the Wyandot or Huron Indians.—Ed.
[35] “Onontio” was the Indian term for the governor of Canada.—Ed.
[36] Olumpias was principal chief of the Delawares. He had formerly lived in the Schuylkill Valley, and signed the treaty of purchase by which the Germans came into possession of their lands in that region (1732). He died in the autumn of 1747, the president and council of Pennsylvania being asked to name his successor. The Delawares considered themselves the aborigines of Pennsylvania, and spoke of the Shawnees, whom they had permitted to come among them, as “grandchildren.”—Ed.
[37] These names are given in the other edition as “Shawanapon and Achamantama.”—Ed.
[38] This was Weiser’s Indian name.—Ed.
[39] The Virginians were called by the Indians “Long Knives,” or more literally “Big Knives.” Ash-a-le-co-a is the Indian form of this word, which Weiser spells phonetically. He means that the present was sent by both Pennsylvania and Virginia.—Ed.
[40] For this proclamation against the sale of liquor to Indians, see Pennsylvania Colonial Records, v, pp. 194-196.—Ed.
[41] One of those who accompanied Weiser was William, son of Benjamin Franklin, who later became governor of New Jersey. See Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 15.—Ed.
[42] Here occurs the following, in the other edition: “The old Sinicker Queen from above, already mentioned, came to inform me some time ago that she had sent a string of wampum of three fathoms to Philadelphia by James Dunnings, to desire her brethren would send her up a cask of powder and some small shot to enable her to send out the Indian boys to kill turkeys and other fowls for her, whilst the men are gone to war against the French, that they may not be starved. I told her I had heard nothing of her message, but if she had told me of it before I had parted with all the powder and lead, I could have let her have some, and promised I would make inquiry; perhaps her messenger had lost it on the way to Philadelphia. I gave her a shirt, a Dutch wooden pipe and some tobacco. She seemed to have taken a little affront because I took not sufficient notice of her in coming down. I told her she acted very imprudently not to let me know by some of her friends who she was, as she knew very well I could not know by myself. She was satisfied, and went away with a deal of kind expressions. The same day I gave a stroud, a shirt, and a pair of stockings to the young Shawano, King Capechque, and a pipe and some tobacco.”—Ed.
[43] The following description of the homeward journey is contained in the other edition:
“The 20th, left a horse behind that we could not find. Came to the river; had a great rain; the river not rideable [fordable].
“The 21st, sent for a canoe about 6 miles up the river to a Delaware town. An Indian brought one, we paid him a blanket, got over the river about 12 o’clock. Crossed Kiskaminity creek, and came that night to the round hole, about twelve miles from the river.
“The 22d, the weather cleared up; we travelled this day about 35 miles, came by the place where we had buried the body of John Quen, but found the bears had pulled him out and left nothing of him but a few naked bones and some old rags.
“The 23rd, crossed the head of the West Branch of the Susquehanna; about noon came to the Cheasts [Chest creek, Cambria County]. This night we had a great frost, our kettle standing about four or five feet from the fire, was frozen over with ice thicker than a brass penny.
“The 24th, got over Allegheny hill, otherwise called mountains, to Frankstown, about 20 miles.
“The 25th, came to the Standing Stone; slept three miles at this side; about 31 miles.
“The 26th, to the forks of the wood about 30 miles; left my man’s horse behind as he was tired.
“The 27th, it rained very fast; travelled in the rain all day; came about 25 miles.
“The 28th, rain continued; came to a place where white people now begin to settle, and arrived at George Croghan’s in Pennsbury, about an hour after dark; came about 35 miles that day, but we left our baggage behind.
“The 29th and 30th, I rested myself at George Croghan’s, in the mean time our baggage was sent for, which arrived.
“The 1st of October reached the heads of the Tulpenhocken.
“The 2nd I arrived safe at my house.”—Ed.
II
A Selection of George Croghan’s Letters and Journals Relating to Tours into the Western Country—November 16, 1750-November, 1765.
Sources: Pennsylvania Colonial Records, v, pp. 496-498, 530-536, 539, 540, 731-735; vi, pp. 642, 643, 781, 782; vii, pp. 267-271. Massachusetts Historical Collections, 4 series, ix, pp. 362-379. Butler’s History of Kentucky (Cincinnati and Louisville, 1836), appendix, with variations from other sources. New York Colonial Documents, vii, pp. 781-788.