Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced marches came to the shady banks of the Lehigh in three or four days. He was so excited that he swam the stream. He brought the first news of the great victory in the west to the surprised Michaelmas and his friends. But where was the prized wild pigeon, Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such a bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or shot down by some greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the way in which old Michaelmas explained its non-appearance.
The news spread to the white settlements and to the towns, and there was consternation among all sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a few Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the Indians, whose stoical natures alone kept them from disclosing the elation that was in their hearts.
A MAMMOTH SHORT-LEAF PINE
“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” said Michaelmas, boldly. “They drove the Moravians out of Schadikoke and from the Housatonic when they saw the progress they made with our people; were it not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they would have had no place to harbor; those of us who felt the need of these kind friends followed them in their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to leave the Connecticut country of our birth under such circumstances. I am glad that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.”[annihilated.”]
Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely Wulaha were married by one of the Moravian preachers, and started for the great lake country, which was to be their permanent home.
Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make the long journey, but they were happy in their garden of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons, the hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian renaissance. They lived many years afterwards, and are buried with the other Christian Indians at Bethlehem.
Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, overlooking old Derry Church, in the fertile Lebanon Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip trees, a strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different from anything that the mountain had known since prehistoric times. Instead of growing upward and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of the Anglo-Saxon prone beneath the heel of French and Indian, it was the symbol of the all diffusing power of the English speaking race, which has grafted its ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the entire American Continent. Nourished by the life’s blood of the travelling pigeon that bore it there, it had a flying start in the battle of existence, and today, after all these years, bids fair to last many years longer, to be the arboral marvel and wonder of the Keystone State.
Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel proud to be the honorary custodians of this unique tree with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart from its curious appearance and charm, it has within it memories of history and romance, of white men and red, that make it a veritable treasure trove for the historian and the folk-lorist, and all those who love the great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of ours!
