This is one of the most harmonious combinations of mountain, vale, and river, to be found in America; we know not whether to call it more beautiful or grand. Fine as is all the scenery of this neighbourhood, however, it is not till very lately that the current of travel has turned thither, and but partially yet. Harper’s Ferry will soon be a resort for admirers of nature from all nations, and it may well share the honours of pilgrimage with Trenton Falls and Niagara. Steam navigation across the Atlantic will make our New World lions as tame as the Pyramids.
It is difficult, at least for me, to stand on any eminence commanding a landscape, wild, yet formed for a blest human residence, without seeing in it the forfeited inheritance of the red man. The unpicturesque new village of the white man, his mill, or his factory, does not convey to my imagination an image of happiness; and I regret the primitive rover of the wild, who neither blackened nature with smoke, nor violated her harmony with brick and shingle. The tide of sympathy seems turning of late against these oppressed tribes, and it is not amiss sometimes to remember our own atrocities as well as theirs. What will be thought hereafter of the massacre of the poor Conestogoes, as related in the history of these middle regions of our territory!
“On the first arrival of the English,” says the chronicler, “messengers from this tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with the first proprietary, William Penn, which was to last as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers.
“This treaty has been since frequently renewed, and the chain brightened, as they express it, from time to time. It has never been violated on their part, or ours, till now. As their lands by degrees were mostly purchased, and the settlement of the white people began to surround them, the proprietor assigned them lands on the manor of Conestogoe, which they might not part with; there they have lived many years in friendship with their white neighbours, who loved them for their peaceable inoffensive behaviour.
“It has always been observed, that Indians, settled in the neighbourhood of white people, do not increase, but diminish continually. This tribe accordingly went on diminishing, till there remained in their town on the manor but twenty persons, namely, seven men, five women, and eight children, boys and girls.
“Of these, Shehaes was a very old man, having assisted at the second treaty held with them by Mr. Penn, in 1701, and ever since continued a faithful friend to the English; he is said to have been an exceeding good man, considering his education, being naturally of a kind, benevolent temper.
“This little society continued the custom they had begun, when more numerous, of addressing every new governor, and every descendant of the first proprietary, welcoming him to the province, assuring him of their fidelity, and praying a continuance of that favour and protection which they had hitherto experienced. They had accordingly sent up an address of this kind to our present governor (John Penn, Esq.) on his arrival; but the same was scarcely delivered, when the unfortunate catastrophe happened which we are about to relate. On Wednesday, the 14th December, 1763, fifty-seven men from some of our frontier townships, who had projected the destruction of this little commonwealth, came all well mounted, and armed with firelocks, hangers, and hatchets, having travelled through the country in the night to Conestogoe manor. There they surrounded the small village of Indian huts, and just at break of day broke in upon them all at once. Only three men, two women, and a young boy, were found at home; the rest being out among the neighbouring white people—some to sell the baskets, brooms, and bowls, they manufactured, and others on other occasions. These poor defenceless creatures were immediately fired upon, stabbed, and hatcheted to death! the good Shehaes among the rest cut to pieces in his bed!—all of them were scalped, and otherwise horribly mangled. Then their huts were set on fire, and most of them burned down. The magistrates of Lancaster sent out to collect the remaining Indians, brought them into the town for their better security against any further attempt, and, it is said, condoled with them on the misfortune that had happened, took them by the hand, and promised them protection. They were put into the workhouse, a strong building, as the place of greatest safety. These cruel men again assembled themselves; and hearing that the remaining fourteen Indians were in the workhouse at Lancaster, they suddenly appeared before that town on the 27th December. Fifty of them, armed as before, dismounting, went directly to the workhouse, and, by violence, broke open the door, and entered with the utmost fury in their countenances. When the poor wretches saw they had no protection nigh, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weapon of defence, they divided their little families, the children clinging to their parents; they fell on their faces, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and that, in their whole lives, they had never done them injury; and in this posture they all received the hatchet! Men, women, and children, were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood!”
