The Friends addressed the Legislature, setting forth their religious faith and practice with respect to bearing arms, and claiming exemption from military service by virtue of laws agreed upon in England and the Charter of William Penn. The Mennonites and German Baptists also remonstrated, praying exemption, but willing to contribute pecuniary aid.
Assembly resolved that “all persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty capable of bearing arms, who do not associate for the defense of the Province, ought to contribute an equivalent for the time spent by the associators in acquiring military discipline; ministers of the gospel of all denominations and servants purchased bona fide for valuable consideration only excepted.”
Returns were required from the assessors of all persons within military age, and the captains of the companies of the Associators were directed to furnish to their colonels and the colonels to the County Commissioners lists of such persons as had joined the Associators. The commissioners were empowered to assess those not associated £2 10s annually, in addition to the ordinary tax.
The Assembly also adopted rules and regulations for the better government of the military association, the thirty-fifth article of which provided “that if any associator called into actual service should leave a family not of ability to maintain themselves in his absence, the justices of the peace of the proper city or county, with the overseer of the poor, should make provisions for their maintenance.”
Captain Thomas McKee, Indian Trader,
Makes Deposition Before Governor
January 24, 1743
Thomas McKee was the most noted of the later Shamokin Traders, and we have records of his trading expeditions as far west as the Ohio.
His career was highly romantic, and a consideration of the same will enable us to understand his son, Captain Alexander McKee, who afterwards became well-known at Fort Pitt, and rendered himself notorious in border history by deserting to the British during the time of the Revolutionary War, carrying over to that interest a great many Indians whom he had befriended during his service as Deputy Indian Agent under the Crown. We will then know better why he should seek more congenial company among the Ohio Indians and in the service of the King, than he had found among the American forces at Fort Pitt, who were enemies of both.
Dr. W. H. Egle has stated that Thomas McKee was a son of Patrick, but it is quite possible that he was the son of one Alexander McKee who died in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, in May, 1740, leaving a son, Thomas, who was the executor of his will.