[18] There were two Indian towns called by this name—one at the mouth of Chartier’s Creek, Allegheny County, three miles below Pittsburg; the other opposite the mouth of Chartier’s Run, which falls into the Allegheny in Westmoreland County. Weiser refers to the latter of these. Chartier was a French-Shawnee half-breed that had much influence with his tribe. In 1745, he induced most of them to remove to the neighborhood of Detroit, on the orders of the governor of New France. See [Croghan’s Journals, post].—Ed.
[19] The other edition of the journal adds, that the horses were “all scalled on their backs.”
The importance of “wampum” in all Indian transactions cannot be overestimated. It was used for money, as a much-prized ornament, to enforce a request (as at this time), to accredit a messenger, to ransom a prisoner, to atone for a crime. No council could be held, no treaty drawn up, without a liberal use of wampum. It was used also to record treaties, as the one described by Weiser between the Wyandots, Iroquois, and governor of New York. Hale—“Indian Wampum Records,” Popular Science Monthly, February, 1897—thinks that it was a comparatively late invention in Indian development, and took its rise among the Iroquois. Weiser’s list of the wampum used and received in this journey is to be found in Pennsylvania Archives, ii, p. 17.—Ed.
[20] The French had retained the Iroquois deputies in order to secure from them the French prisoners in their hands. La Galissonière, the governor wrote to his home government in 1748, that he should persist in retaining their (the Iroquois) people, until he recovered the French. The governor of New York demanded the Mohawks, on the ground of their being British subjects, a claim the French refused to admit. The matter was finally adjusted without an Indian war, although it caused much irritation. See O’Callaghan (ed.), New York Colonial Documents (Albany, 1858), x, p. 185.—Ed.
[21] Kuskuskis was an important centre for the Delaware Indians, on the Mahoning Branch of Beaver Creek, in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. It consisted of separate villages scattered along the creek, one of which, called “Old Kuskuskis,” was at the forks, where New Castle now stands. See [Post’s Journal, post].—Ed.
[22] The Indian town at the mouth of Beaver Creek, where the town of Beaver now stands, was known indifferently as King Beaver’s, or Shingas’s Old Town (from two noted Delaware chiefs), or Sohkon (signifying “at the mouth of a stream”). This was a noted fur-trading station, and after the building of Fort Duquesne, the French erected houses here, for the Indians. It was the starting place for many a border raid, that made Shingas’s name “a terror to the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania.” See Post’s experiences at this place in 1758, [post].—Ed.
[23] Andrew Montour was the son of a noted French half-breed, Madame Montour, who being captured by the Iroquois in her youth married an Oneida chief and was a firm adherent of the English. Montour’s services for the English were considerable. He was an expert interpreter, speaking the languages of the various Ohio Indians, as well as Iroquois. First mentioned by Weiser in 1744, when he interpreted Delaware for his Iroquois, he assisted in nearly all the important Indian negotiations from that time until the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, being employed in turn by the Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York governments, and the Ohio Company. In 1754, he was with Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity. Several times he warned the settlements of impending raids, among other services bringing word of Pontiac’s outbreak. He accompanied Major Rogers as captain of the Indian forces, when the latter went to take possession of Detroit; and in 1764 commanded a party against the recalcitrant Delawares. He received for his services several grants of land in Western Pennsylvania, as well as money. For a detailed biography see Darlington’s Gist, pp. 159-175.—Ed.
[24] Twigtwees was the English name for the Miamis, a large nation of Algonquian Indians, that were first met by the seventeenth century explorers in Northern Illinois. But later, they moved eastward into the present state of Indiana, and settled on the Maumee and Wabash rivers, also on St. Josephs River in Michigan. The French had had posts among them for two generations, but from 1723 the English traders had been seeking a foothold in their midst. Their adherence to the English in 1748 was a blow to the French trade.—Ed.
[25] Scarroyahy was an Oneida chief of great influence with the Ohio Indians, especially at Logstown. He remained firm in the English interest, and in 1754 moved to Aughwick Creek, to get away from the French influence, and to protect the settlements. His death the same year, was imputed by his friends to French witchcraft.—Ed.
[26] The Wyandots, or Tobacco Hurons, or Petuns, were of Iroquois stock, but nearly destroyed by that nation in the seventeenth century. Fleeing westward, they placed themselves under French protection, and, after its founding in 1701, were settled chiefly about Detroit. In the early eighteenth century they straggled eastward along the south shore of Lake Erie, and began to open communication with their ancient enemies, the Iroquois. In 1747, occurred the rebellion of their chief Nicholas, who built a fort in the marshes of the Sandusky, and defied the French soldiers. The chiefs whom Weiser met, were deputies from this party of rebels.