CHAPTER VI. THE NARRATIVE OF REV. CHARLES BEATTY.
In a "Journal of a Two Months' Tour," written by Rev. Charles Beatty, A.M., and dedicated to the Earl of Dartmouth, London, 1768, the author presents a sketch of a visit to some of the inland parts of North America during the year 1766. He was accompanied by a Mr. Duffield. Mr. Beatty was a missionary from New York, and travelled several hundred miles in a southwest direction from that city. During his tour he met several persons who had been among the Indians from their youth, or who had been taken captives by them and lived with them several years.
When at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains, Pennsylvania, he stopped at the house of Mr. John Miller, where he met with one Benjamin Sutton, who had been taken captive by the Indians, had been in different nations, and had lived many years among them. He informed Mr. Beatty and his companion that "when he was with the Choctaw nation or tribe of Indians, at the Mississippi, he went to an Indian town a very considerable distance from New Orleans, whose inhabitants were of different complexions,—not so tawny as those of the other Indians,—and who spoke Welsh. He said that he saw a book among them, which he supposed was a Bible, which they kept carefully wrapped up in a skin, but they could not read it; and that he heard some of these Indians afterwards in the lower Shawanese town speak Welsh with one Lewis, a Welshman, who was a captive there. This Welsh tribe now live on the west side of the Mississippi, a great way above New Orleans."
At Tuscarora Valley—a name, be it remembered, the same as that of the tribe among which Rev. Morgan Jones found those speaking Welsh—Mr. Beatty met with another man, named Levi Hicks, who had been a captive from his youth. He said that he "was once attending an embassy at an Indian town on the west side of the Mississippi, where the inhabitants spoke Welsh (as he was told, for he did not understand them); and our Indian interpreter, Joseph Peepy, said he once saw some Indians, whom he supposed to be of the same tribe, who talked Welsh. He was sure that it was Welsh, for he had been acquainted with Welsh people and understood some words.
"Mr. Sutton farther told us that he had often heard the following traditions among them; that of old time their people were divided by a river, and one part tarrying behind; that they knew not for certainty how they first came to this continent, but account for their coming into these parts near where they are now settled; that a king of their nation left his kingdom to his two sons; that the one son making war upon the other the latter thereupon determined to depart and seek some new habitation; that accordingly he set out accompanied by a number of his people, and that after wandering to and fro for the space of forty years they at length came to the Delaware River, where they settled, three hundred and seventy years ago. The way, he says, they keep an account of this is by putting a black bead of wampum every year since on a belt they had for that purpose. He farther added that the king of that country from whence they came, some years ago, when the French were in possession of Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), sent out some of his people in order, if possible, to find out that part of their nation that departed to seek a new country, and that these men, after seeking six years, came at length to the Pickt Town, on the Ouabache River, and there happened to meet with a Delaware Indian named Jack, after the English, whose language they could understand; and that by him they were conducted to the Delaware towns, where they tarried one year, and returned; that the French sent a white man with them, properly furnished, to bring back an account of their country, who, the Indians said, could not return in less than fourteen years, for they lived a great way toward the setting sun. It is now, Sutton says, about ten or twelve years since they went away."
Dr. Williams, who wrote upon this subject, thought that these traditions referred to the unsettled state of North Wales, the departure of Madoc, and his travels before he finally settled.
It would not be surprising if Mr. Beatty's Indian interpreter, Joseph Peepy, had been among Welsh people in Pennsylvania, for large colonies of Welsh settled, in early colonial days, in and around Philadelphia. "The Welsh Tract" is still well known. William Penn and his family were of Welsh extraction. A large number of his followers were Welshmen. Philadelphia contains a larger proportion of Welsh descendants than any other city in the United States. The first mayor of the city, Anthony Morris, and the first Governor of the colony of Pennsylvania, Thomas Lloyd, were both Welshmen.
These colonies extended more and more into the interior, and came in contact with the nearest tribes. Traffic was carried on between them, and in this way Mr. Beatty's interpreter became somewhat acquainted with the Welsh tongue. Afterwards, penetrating far into the interior, where he spent many years, he found, as he informed Mr. Beatty, Indians speaking the same language he had heard among the Welsh people of Pennsylvania. To his testimony is added that of Benjamin Sutton and Levi Hicks, each independent of and consistent with the other. By means of these, and others, the residents of Pennsylvania were made acquainted with the existence of Welsh Indians. It is not at all likely that all, if indeed any, of them then knew of the historical records in Wales relating to Madoc; it was afterwards that they found out there were such.