Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

Down in the wilds of the Fourth Gap, latterly used as an artery of travel between Sugar Valley and White Deer Hole Valley, commonly known as “White Deer Valley,” a forest ranger’s cabin stands on the site of an ancient Indian encampment, the only clearing in the now dreary drive from the “Dutch End” to the famous Stone Church. Until a dozen years ago much of the primeval forest remained, clumps of huge, original white pines stood here and there, in the hollows were hemlock and rhododendron jungles, while in the fall the flickers chased one another among the gorgeous red foliage of the gum trees.

Now much is changed; between “Tom” Harter and “Charley” Steele, and other lumbermen, including some gum tree contractors, little remains but brush and slash; forest fires have sacrificed the remaining timber, and only among the rocks, near the mouth of the gap, can be seen a few original yellow pines, shaggy topped in isolated grandeur. Some day the tragic Indian history of White Deer Hole Valley will come to its own, and present one of the most tragic pages in the narrative of the passing of the red man.

It was into this isolated valley, that terminates in Black Hole Valley, and the Susquehanna River, near Montgomery, that numbers of the Monsey Tribe of the Lenni-Lenape, called by some the Delaware Indians, retreated after events subsequent to the Walking Purchase, made them outcasts on the face of the earth. It was not long afterwards that warlike parties of their cruel Nemesis, the Senecas, appeared on the scene, informing the Monseys that they had sold the country to the whites, and if they stayed, it was at their peril.

Even at that early day white men were not wholly absent; they came in great numbers after the Senecas had sold the lands of the Lenni-Lenape to the “Wunnux,” but even coincident with the arrival of the Delawares, a few white traders and adventurers inhabited the most inaccessible valleys.

Alexander Dunbar, a Scotchman, married to a Monsey woman, arrived in White Deer Hole Valley with the first contingent of his wife’s tribes-people, settling near the confluence of White Deer Hole Creek and South Creek. Whether he was any relation to the Dunbar family, who have long been so prominent in this valley is unknown, as his family moved further west, and the last heard of them was when his widow died and was buried in the vicinity of Dark Shade Creek, Somerset County.

Dunbar was a dark, swarthy complexioned man, more like an Indian than a Celt, and dressed in the tribal garb, could easily have passed off as one of the aboriginies. At one time he evidently intended to remain in the Fourth Gap, as in the centre of the greensward[greensward] which contained the Indian encampment, he erected a log fortress, with four bastions, the most permanent looking structure west of Fort Augusta. In it he aimed to live like a Scottish Laird, with his great hall, the earthen floor, covered with the skins of panthers, wolves and bears, elk and deer antlers hanging about, and a huge, open fireplace that burned logs of colossal size, and would have delighted an outlaw like Rob Roy MacGregor.

When the Seneca Indians penetrated into the valley they were at a loss at first to ascertain Alexander Dunbar’s true status. If he was related to the prominent Scotch families identified with the Penn Government, he would be let alone, but if a mere friendless adventurer, he would be driven out the same as any one of the “Original People.”

Dunbar was a silent man, and by his taciturnity won toleration for a time, as he never revealed his true position. When the Senecas became reasonably convinced that, no matter who he had been in the Highlands of Scotland, he was a person of no importance in the mountains of Pennsylvania, they began a series of prosecutions that finally ended with his murder. This took its first form by capturing all members of the Lenni-Lenape tribe who ventured into the lower end of the valley, for those who had settled further down, and on the banks of the Susquehanna and Monsey Creek had moved westward when they learned that they had been “sold out.” However, the residents of Dunbar’s encampment occasionally ventured down South Creek on hunting and fishing expeditions. When the heads of half a dozen families, and several squaws, young girls and children had been captured, over a dozen in all, and put into a stockade near the present village of Spring Garden, and rumor had it that they were being ill-treated, Alexander Dunbar, carrying a flag of truce, set off to treat with the Seneca Council, at what is now Allenwood, with a view to having them paroled.

The unfortunate man never reached the Senecas’ headquarters, being shot from ambush, and left to die like a dog on the trail, not far from the Panther Spring, above the present John E. Person residence.

While the surviving, able bodied Monseys could have risen and started a warfare, they deemed it prudence to remain where they were, and to make Sugar Valley, and the valleys adjacent to White Deer Creek, their principal hunting grounds.