[63] The Indian name of this town, in Jefferson County, on the Mahoning Creek, is usually given as Punxatawny.—Ed.
[64] Probably this was the town called “Calamaweshink” or “Chinklemoose,” Clearfield.—Ed.
[65] The proprietors of Pennsylvania chose William Denny lieutenant-governor (1756), because they wished a “military man with a ready pen.” He had been captain in the British army, and his experience in Pennsylvania gave opportunity for military talents. But bound by instructions from his principals, and hampered by the hostility of the provincial assembly, he made no headway in his government. Accused of accepting bribes to betray the proprietors’ interests, he was removed in October, 1759. Returning to England, he was given a high position in the army, and died about 1766.—Ed.
[66] Captain Bull and Lieutenant Hays were militia officers, the latter of Northampton County, where was an Irish settlement between Bethlehem and Fort Allen, known as “Hays’s.” Captain John Bull commanded at Fort Allen in the summer of 1758. They both volunteered to undertake this hazardous mission of a visit to the Ohio Indians. For the instructions given them, see Pennsylvania Archives, iii, p. 556.—Ed.
[67] Thomas Hickman was an Indian who had taken an English name, and was much employed by the province of Pennsylvania as an interpreter. A brutal white man murdered Hickman in the Tuscarora Valley in 1761.
Totiniontenna was a Cayuga chieftain who with Shickalamy was deputed by the Six Nations to undertake this embassy to the Ohio Indians.
The chief here called Shickalamy was the youngest son, of the famous Oneida of that name, who dwelt so long at the forks of the Susquehanna, and was friendly to the whites, especially the Moravians. The elder chief died in 1749, his most famous son being Logan.
Isaac Still was a Moravian Christian Indian, frequently employed as a messenger and interpreter.—Ed.
[68] Shamokin was an Indian town at the forks of the Susquehanna, the abode of Shickalamy, “vice-king” of the Indians of that region. It was first visited by the whites in 1728. Weiser built a house at this village by request of the chief, in 1744. Frequent visits of the Moravians led to the establishment here of a blacksmith’s shop, and a quasi-mission. Fort Augusta was built there in 1756; but on the proclamation of war against the Delawares in the same year, the Indians abandoned the place and destroyed the settlement.—Ed.
[69] The general here referred to was John Forbes, a Scotchman who in 1757 was appointed brigadier-general for the war in America. His first service was at Louisburg. In 1758, he was appointed to organize the expedition against Fort Duquesne. After the French, on the approach of Forbes’s army, had abandoned that stronghold, the general, suffering from a serious disease, was carried by slow stages to Philadelphia, where he died in March, 1760. He was a man of iron purpose, and great strength of character, being popular alike with his soldiers and Indian allies.—Ed.