[26] La Hontan.
[27] The Dutch called them Mahikanders; the French Mourigans, and Mahingans; the English, Mohiccons, Mohuccans, Mohegans, Muhheekanew, Schatikooks, River Indians.
[28] “Night’s encampment” is a halt of one year at a place.
[29] The Mississippi, or River of Fish; Namæs, a Fish; Sipu, a River.
[30] The Iroquois, or Five Nations.
[31] [Col. John Gibson, to whom Mr. Heckewelder frequently alludes, was born at Lancaster, Pa., in 1740. At the age of eighteen, he made his first campaign under Gen. Forbes, in the expedition which resulted in the acquisition of Fort Du Quesne from the French. At the peace of 1763 he settled at that post (Fort Pitt) as a trader. Some time after this, on the resumption of hostilities with the savages, he was captured by some Indians, among whom he lived several years, and thus became familiar with their language, manners, customs, and traditions. In the expedition against the Shawanese under Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, in 1774, Gibson played a conspicuous part. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he was appointed to the command of one of the Continental regiments raised in Virginia, and served with the army at New York and in the retreat through New Jersey. He was next employed in the Western department, serving under Gen. McIntosh in 1778, and under Gen. Irvine in 1782. At one time he was in command at Pittsburgh. In 1800 Col. Gibson was appointed Secretary and acting Governor of the territory of Indiana, a position which he filled for a second time between 1811 and 1813. Subsequently he was Associate Judge of Allegheny County, Pa. He died near Pittsburgh in 1822. He was an uncle of the late John B. Gibson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania between 1827 and 1851.]
[32] Loskiel’s History of the Mission of the United Brethren, Part I., ch. I.
[33] [In 1789 Mr. Heckewelder, accompanied by Abraham Steiner, (subsequently a missionary to the Cherokees of Georgia,) visited the mission at New Salem, on the Petquotting, (now the Huron,) in Erie County, Ohio, on business relating to the survey of a tract of land on the Tuscarawas, which Congress had conveyed to the Moravians in trust for their Indians. This was to indemnify them for losses incurred at their settlements during the border-war of the Revolution.]
[34] The Glades, that is to say that they crossed the mountains.
[35] Meaning the river Susquehannah, which they call “the great Bay River,” from where the west branch falls into the main stream.