Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

“July 13. We found an opportunity to speak to our host of the Saviour. He had heard somewhat of God, and said he believed what we had told him was good and true. He then gave us some dried venison and we in turn some needles and thread to his wife.

“Set out on our return down the Susquehanna. At night camped on a large flat by a creek, ate some mouldy bread, the last of our stock and built four fires to keep off the vermin.”

In the year 1758 Christian Frederic Post, another Moravian missionary, was sent by the Government of Pennsylvania to the Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo Indians settled on the Ohio. In his journal under the date of July 29 we find the following entry:

“29th. We crossed the Susquehanna over the Big Island. My companions were now very fearful and this night went a great way out of the road, to sleep without fire, but could not sleep on account of the mosquitoes and vermin.”

On his return from his mission under the date of September 18, he records:

“Came to the Big Island, where having nothing to live on, we were obliged to stay and hunt.

“19th. We met twenty warriors, who were returning from the habitations with five prisoners and one scalp; six of them were Delaware and the rest Mingo. We sat down all in one ring together. I informed them where I had been and what was done; they asked me to go back a little and so I did, and slept all night with them. I informed them of the particulars of the peace proposed; they said if they had known so much before they would not have gone to war. They killed two deer and gave us one.”

Post’s mission had been undertaken with the object of making peace with the Indians, for, following Braddock’s disastrous campaign against Fort Duquesne, the Indians had attacked the settlements, and the entire West Branch Valley as far down as Sunbury was in complete control of the French and their Indian allies.

In 1755 Andrew Montour, who had been employed on various occasions as interpreter for the province, and who at this time was captain of a company of Indians in the English service, following an attack upon settlers on Penn’s Creek, in which a number of the settlers were killed, was summoned to the Great Island by the friendly Delaware living there. Here he was informed that the French had made overtures to the Indians to go on the war path against the English settlers in Pennsylvania.

In November these Indians also sent word that two messengers had come from Ohio to Great Island; and seeing an Englishman who happened to be there at the time, said “Kill him.” “No,” said the Indians of the Great Island, “we will not kill him nor suffer him to be killed. We have lived in peace many years with the English; if you are so bloodthirsty go somewhere else for blood. We will have no blood spilt here.”