Administration of Sir William Keith as
Deputy-Governor. He Died
November 17, 1749
During the administration of Sir William Keith, Deputy-Governor of the Province, July, 1718, to July, 1726, a difficulty arose between the Southern Indians upon the Shenandoah, and those resident upon the Susquehanna in the Province of Pennsylvania, respecting the limits of their hunting grounds. Hostilities between them seemed imminent. It was necessary to settle these difficulties amicably or the peace of the Province was seriously threatened.
To avert this, says Proud, Governor Keith paid a visit to the Governor of Virginia, with whom he framed a convention, confining the Indians on the North and South of the Potomac to their respective side of that river. A conference was held with the Pennsylvania Indians and the Five Nations, at Conestoga, July 6, 1721, when this convention was fully ratified.
Governor Keith made this visit in state. He was attended by seventy horsemen, many of them were armed. He was welcomed upon his return at the upper ferry on the Schuylkill, by Mayor William Fishbourne and the Aldermen of Philadelphia, accompanied by two hundred of the most respectable citizens, who conducted him through the streets after the manner of a hero returned from a conquest.
Trouble over the boundary arose when the Governor of Maryland proposed making a survey on the Susquehanna, within the limits of the present York County.
Governor Keith resolved to resist this attempt by force, and ordered out a militia company from New Castle. The Provincial Council discouraged this show of violence.
The Indians became alarmed at the encroachments of the Marylanders and conveyed to Governor Keith a large tract of land, that he might have a better title to resist them. This land was given for the use of Springett Penn, the grandson of William Penn, and was afterwards known by the name of Springettsbury Manor.
The fears of the Province were soon after awakened by a quarrel between two brothers named Cartlidge and an Indian near Conestoga, in which the Indian was killed, with many evidences of cruelty. The known principles of revenge professed by the Indians gave reason to apprehend severe retaliation. Policy and justice required a rigid inquiry and punishment of the murderers.
Governor Keith took prompt measures for their apprehension and the Assembly ordered a coroner’s inquest, though the body had been buried two months, and the arrest of the Cartlidge brothers.