[70] A string of wampum beads. Nothing of importance is said, or proposed without wampum.—[C. T.?]
[71] The Indians, having learned drunkenness of the white people, do not reckon it among the vices. They all, without exception, and without shame, practice it when they can get strong liquor. It does not, among them, hurt the character of the greatest warrior, the greatest counsellor, or the modestest matron. It is not so much an offence, as an excuse for other offences; the injuries they do each other in their drink being charged, not upon the man, but upon the rum.—[C. T.?]
[72] The Ohio.—[C. T.?]
[73] An Indian trader, John Harris, built a log house on the Susquehanna in 1705, and later established an inn and a ferry at the spot called Harris’s Ferry, which was maintained for three-quarters of a century. His son laid out the present town of Harrisburg.—Ed.
[74] They were afraid of going where our people were all in arms, lest some of the indiscreet soldiers might kill them.—[C. T.?]
[75] Carlisle, the seat of Cumberland County (erected in 1750), was originally settled by Scotch-Irish immigrants, who in the decade between 1720 and 1730 formed the “back settlements” of Pennsylvania. The Indian title was extinguished by a treaty in 1736; but when Fort Lowther was built at this site in 1753, there were but five houses in the place. Later it became the eastern terminus of the Pennsylvania highroad, and the centre of an extensive overland trade.—Ed.
[76] The town of Shippensburg was one of the oldest west of the Susquehanna, having been laid out in 1749, by Edward Shippen—later chief-justice of Pennsylvania—on land of which he was proprietor. It was the site of two frontier forts—Franklin, built before Braddock’s defeat; and Morris, erected after that disaster. Shippensburg became an important station on the Pennsylvania state road; and until the opening of the nineteenth century was the end of the stage-route from Lancaster westward.—Ed.
[77] Chambers’s Fort was a private stockade erected (1756) on the Conococheague Creek, by a Scotch-Irishman, Benjamin Chambers, who for some time had had a mill and settlement here. The fort was a large stone building, protected by cannon, and considered one of the strongest defenses in that region. The government attempted to take possession of the guns in 1757, lest they should be captured and turned against the other forts; but the Scotch-Irish settlers stoutly resisted this attempt, and it was abandoned. The present city of Chambersburg occupies the site.—Ed.
[78] This should not be confused with the more famous Fort Loudoun, built the same year (1756) in Tennessee as a check upon the Cherokees. The Pennsylvania fort was on the road between Shippensburg and Fort Lyttleton, about a mile east of the present village of Loudon, Franklin County, being erected by Armstrong after Braddock’s defeat. This was the scene of the plundering of the Indian goods, dispatched to the Ohio (1765) for Croghan’s use on his journey to the Illinois.
The Cherokees were employed by the English as auxiliaries in this campaign. Their presence had caused much concern among the Northern Indians, and Post had been sent to Wyoming the previous spring, with reassuring messages on this account.