Penn's Treaty 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 INDIANS. 
 
 CHARLES S. K.EYSEB. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 DAVID McKAY, 
 
 No, 23 South Ninth Street. 
 
 1882. 
 
" 'm. 
 
 A.3^n55' 
 
 Copyright by Charles S. Keyser, 1882. 
 
 FERQU50N BROS. & CO., 
 
 PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
TO 
 
 Horace J. Smith, 
 
 OF 
 
 George's Hill 
 A Descendant of James Logan, 
 
 THE 
 
 Friend and Companion 
 
 OF 
 
 William Penn. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028655375 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In this book is narrated, as our fathers transmitted it to their chil- 
 dren, the story of the Treaty, the Founder of our State made with the 
 Aborigines, at Shackamaxon. To its pledges his children and his fol- 
 lowers were true ; unbrokenly for generations. We preserve its mem- 
 ory, sacred in act and spirit in our generation, "so that his and our 
 posterity will be as a long chain of which he was the first link, and 
 when one link ends another succeeds and then another, being all 
 firmly bound together in one strong chain to endure for ever.'" 
 
 Two Centuries have passed away since it was made, "but these are 
 but a few years and like as yesterday in the life of a nation ; never- 
 theless, following that Great Man's peaceable Councils, this govern- 
 ment has now become wealthy and powerful in Great Numbers of 
 People." 
 
 Philadelphia, 1882. 
 
 (vii) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication v 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 In Memoriam ix 
 
 Penn's Treaty i 
 
 The Links in the Chain of the Tradition 15 
 
 The Land Titles 22 
 
 The Great Treaty .' 35 
 
 The Tradition among the Indians 68 
 
 Statements of the Writers 70 
 
 The Treaty Tree 88 
 
 The Founder's Work and Worth 94 
 
 Postface 100 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Design, Penn's Treaty {(o face Title) 
 
 West's Treaty 8 
 
 Tawarah's Signature 14 
 
 The Portrait in Armor 16 
 
 A String of Wampum 21 
 
 Tamanen's Signature 22 
 
 A String of Wampum 34 
 
 The Wampum Belt 35 
 
 The National Museum Portrait 36 
 
 Lasse Cock's Signature 56 
 
 The Treaty Tree 57 
 
 A String of Wampum 67 
 
 The Wampum Belt 68 
 
 Thomas Clarkson 82 
 
 Malebone's Signature 85 
 
 The Proprietary Arms 87 
 
 The Penn Monument 92 
 
 An Elm Branch 93 
 
 The Penn Arms 99 
 
 viii 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 "When WE commemorate the many benefits bestowed on the inhabi 
 
 TANTS OF this COLONY, THE RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WE POSSESS, AND TO 
 WHOM THESE VALUABLE PRIVILEDGES ARE OWING, WE SHOULD BE WANTING TO 
 OURSELVES AND THEM WE REPRESENT DID WE NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE MEMORY 
 OP OUR WORTHY ANCESTOR, A MAN OF PRINCIPLES TRULY HUMANE, AN ADVOCATK 
 FOR RELIGION AND LIBERTY." — A. HAMILTON, I734. 
 
 (ix) 
 
PENN'S TREATY. 
 
 IHIS memorable treaty" was made in the latter part 
 of the month of November, in the year 1682. 
 The place was Shackamaxon "^ on the Delaware River, 
 now a portion of one of the wards of the City of Phila- 
 delphia. It was then the site of an Indian village. An 
 Elm Tree stood there, which for its relation to the event 
 ■was preserved thereafter by the Colonists, ;and British 
 Soldiers, through the Revolution ; it was still standing 
 there until the early part of the present century, when 
 it fell during a heavy storms Three nations of the 
 
 ^ " The great Treaty was not for the purchase of lands but confirming what Penn 
 had written, and Markham covenanted, its sublime purpose was the recognition of 
 the equal rights of humanity." — Bancroft, Vol. II., p. 383. 
 
 2 " Sakima — the place of Kings ; ' Sakima ' means a King in the Delaware 
 language — ' ing,' is the Indian termination indicating locality, or the place where 
 ■Chiefs meet, or resort for conferences or treaties." — H. S. of Pa., Vol. III., p. 11, 
 
 p. 113- 
 
 ' Midnight, March 5-6, 1810. "The Register," March 7, 1810. Merc. Library. 
 
 The daughter of the last owner of this tree married a chief of the Cherokee 
 Nation, Lewis Downing, who served during the rebellion in the Union army; they 
 are both (1882) deceased. 
 
 A coarse piece of Indian pottery was found embedded in the roots when it was 
 Wow.i down. — Martin's Chester, p. 53. 
 
 (I) 
 
Aborigines had their representatives in the Assemblage, 
 the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, the Mengwe, or Six 
 Nations, and the Shawanese Nation, which had gone 
 Northward from the South to the Susquehanna; the 
 tribes of the Gawanese and the Conestogas, had also 
 their representatives'. Tradition assures us that the 
 Founder was accompanied by members of his Council ; 
 also by his Interpreter^ ; by members of his persuasion,, 
 and by Dutch and Swedes — the first settlers, drawn 
 there, by their interest, or their curiosity^ In the' 
 changed condition of the locality by the wharves, and 
 by the streets and houses, its original character, is )'et 
 
 1 " Lenni Lenape is synonyniious wiih the Delawares; Mingoes or Mengwe, with 
 the Iroquois, and five and six nations." — Heckewelder, p. xxxiv. 
 
 The name Iroquois was given by the French. — La Trobe's Loskiel, p. 2. 
 
 The name I^enni Lenape means original people; "a I'ace of human beings who- 
 are the same that they were in the beginning, unchanged and unmixed; " the name 
 has also been defined as " Indians of the same nation." — Heckewelder, p. xii. 
 
 The Lenni Lenape are never heard to say, " the six nations," and it is a rare 
 thing to hear these people named by them otherwise than Mengwe. — lb. 
 
 The Shawnese and Shawanese were the same nation, the Conestogas were- 
 Mingoes, the Gawanese was a tribe of one or the other of these nations. 
 
 ^" The Swedes acted as his interpreters, especially Capt. Lasse Cock." — Acreli'us 
 M. H. of Pa., Vol. XI., p. 114. "He spelled his name also Lass Cock. His. 
 house was near the place." — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 48. The name is a contraction 
 of Lawrence. 
 
 " He feared there might be some fault in the Interpreter, being neither Indian nor 
 English." — Penn to Soc. of Free Traders, Aug. 6, 1683. 
 
 ° Swedes and Dutch. — Dixon, p. 199. 
 
 "The first Dutch Colonies settled on the Delaware in 1630; the Swedes arrived' 
 in 1631 ; Friends were settled on the Western side of the river before the City was- 
 laidout, at Shackamaxon, where they held meetings; the titles of several Swedes in 
 thai neighborhood are as early as 1665-6. Jurian Hartzfe"lder in March, 1676, took 
 up 350 acres in Campington, Northern Liberties." 
 
readily and certainly, traceable. It was a sloping bank 
 extending down to the sandy margin of the river. The 
 river bordering on one side, and the surrounding forests, 
 forming the enclosure of a wide amphitheatre of green 
 sward, reaching up to, and around the Elm ; the Tree was 
 one of the largest of its species, and even then vener-" 
 able in years'. The forest trees which covered the 
 City's site when the Founder landed, and which were 
 described at the time, extended over this locality and far 
 beyond. They were Walnuts, clumps of Chestnuts, stately 
 Oaks, other Elms, Beech trees. Cedars, Cypress and 
 Pines % reaching backward toward the Western horizon 
 — the forest walls of this wide amphitheatre ; they have 
 long since fallen under the axe and time ; the open river 
 yet flows, as it flowed there, centuries agone. The 
 season was November ^ — the Indian Summer; on the 
 
 lAt its fall, the circles of annual growth which its bark exhibited, then indicated 
 an age of 283 years. — M. H. S. of Pa., Vol. VI., p. 240. It was twenty-four feet 
 in circumference. — lb.. Vol. I., p. 96. 
 
 At the time of the treaty, the ever memorable Elm Tree, was a veteran of the 
 forest, one hundred and fifty years old.— Samuel Breck in H. S. of Pa., Vol. VI., 
 p. 213. 
 
 ''■ " The trees of most note are the Black Walnut, Cypress, Chestnut, Cedars — the 
 fruit I find in the woods are white and black mulberries, plums — ^grapes of various 
 sorts— the woods are adorned with lovely flowers." — Penn to the Soc. of Free 
 Traders. William Penn, said they, when he treated with them adopted this ancieiu 
 mode of their ancestors, convened them under a grove of shady trees." — Hecke- 
 welder, \>. 185. 
 
 '" Near the close of November." — Janney, p. 203. 
 
4 
 
 river near the shore lay the Governor's Barge', its 
 broad pennant lifting and dipping, only with the motion 
 of the waves. Near the great Elm the Council fire 
 was blazing ; its pillar of cloud rising through the hazy 
 slumberous atmosphere, a witness between the heaven 
 and the earth of the unbroken faith pledged there, and 
 to endure. Beneath the wide spreading shadows of the 
 Elm the leaders of the Tribes were gathered ; no war- 
 like weapons were in their hands ". In front, the old chiefs 
 and their Counsellors ; behind them the younger Braves, 
 circle after circle, widening outward towards the West; 
 with them aged matrons, and children 3. In the assem- 
 blage, as was long believed, was Tamanen'', Sachem of 
 
 ' " His favorite mode of travelling was by water ; he kept a Barge furnished with 
 a sail and manned by a cockswain and six oarsmen." — J. F. Fisher in Mem. of H. 
 S. of Pa., Vol. III., p. II. 
 
 " Forthis barge he always showed much solicitude, he mentions it in his letters to 
 James Logan frequently, and in one says, 'But above all dead things my barge; I 
 hope nobody uses it on any account, and that she is kept in a dry dock, or at least 
 covered from the weather.' " — Penn and Logan Correspondence. 
 
 "The condition of the roads made travel by boat necessary." — lb. 
 
 ' " Nor would they even permit any war-like weapons to remain within the 
 limits of their council fire, when assembled together about the ordinary business of 
 government." — Heckewelder. 
 
 ^ " Their order is thus : The King sits in the middle of an half moon, and has 
 his council, the old and wise on each hand. Behind them or at a little distance sit 
 the younger fry in the same figure." — Penn to the Soc. of the Free Traders, 1683. 
 Hist. Soc. Lib. 
 
 * " Tamanend was an ancient Delaware chief, he was in the highest degree 
 endowed with wisdom, virtue, prudence, charity, affability, meekness, hospitality, in 
 short with every good and noble qualification that a human being may possess. He 
 was supposed to have had an intercourse with the great and good Spirit ; for he was 
 a stranger to everything that is bad." — Heckewelder, p. 300. 
 
5 
 
 the Delawares. The savages, dark to blackness, by 
 their ruder intercourse with the weather, gorgeous with 
 various dyes upon their persons, feathers of the forest 
 birds upon their foreheads, shimmering in the Autumn 
 sun. The Dutch in the well-worn clothes of their 
 voyage, or the more homely leggings and shoes made 
 by the Indians themselves, to which the first landers 
 ultimately came ; the Swedes in their Frocks and 
 Trousers, and moccasins of Deer skins, contrasting with 
 the capped and heavy Dutchmen, with their pipes, and 
 imperturbable repose. The immediate followers of the 
 Founder in the quaint costumes of their time — coats 
 reaching to the knees, covered with buttons, most ample 
 vests, trousers slashed at the sides, and tied with strings 
 or ribbons, perukes and low shoes — the one, as the 
 other, except in the more or less expensive material, 
 befitting his circumstances. In the midst the Founder, 
 his hair, parting in many ringlets, over his broad forehead 
 and shoulders ; the ruffles of the time, falling over his fair 
 hands, and breast as clear; in his costume distinguished 
 from the others, by his blue silken knit sash, only'. 
 Himself, the cause and force of that event, which should 
 survive by his faith and confidence in humanity, to the 
 latest generations. Near him Markham, his trusty 
 
 ^ " He was distinguished only by wearing a sky blue sash made of sillc net worl<, 
 and which was of no larger apparent dimensions than an ofificer's military sash, and 
 much like it except in color." — Clarkson, Vol. II., p. 265. 
 
 The sash is now (1813) in the possession of Thomas Kelt, Esq., of Seething 
 Hall near Norwich. — lb., p. 265. 
 
Secretary, in the rich costume of the English Service ; 
 Holmes, his Surveyor-General; Symcox, Haigne, Taylor, 
 and Pierson \ So they stood together, the passing and 
 the coming race ; the race that should perish, and the 
 race that should survive — upon this carpeting of the 
 fallen leaves, whose crimson green and gold arabesques 
 were fading into the sombre dyes of these November 
 days — beneath that Tree whose vast embrace and 
 century growing arms was yielding insensibly as them- 
 selves, to inevitable decay : The waning year, the dying 
 leaves, presaging the future of all their forest strength, 
 and painted glories. Yet not here as elsewhere by the 
 deadlier passions of advancing civilization, but for the 
 good faith of the savages, and to the eternal glory of 
 the Founder of Pennsylvania, by the inevitable law of 
 change and dissolution only. Of all these Penn alone 
 survives, in common memory. In stature, tall and 
 athletic; in manner courteous; in disposition most 
 resolute; tender of every person and thing, that had 
 simplicity of truth or honesty for a foundation ^ 
 
 He advances toward the Council fire with kindly, 
 courtly dignity; his attendants precede him bearing 
 presents which they lay upon the ground. That vener- 
 able Sachem, Taminen, or it may be another as venerable, 
 and distinguished for his wisdom and courage, rises, 
 
 1 Clarkson, Vol. I., p. 265. Janney, p. 203. Dixon, p. 109. 
 
 ^ " Tender of every person and thing that had simplicity of truth or honesty for a 
 foundation." The testimonial of the Philadelphia Meeting, 16, 1st Mo., 1718-19, 
 following his death. — Friend's Library, Vol. V., p. 328. 
 
advances a few paces, puts on his head a chaplet ', into 
 which is twisted a small horn, the symbol of his 
 authority. By this custom of the Delawares the spot 
 has become sacred, the person of every one there, 
 inviolable. He then devoutly turns his Calumet^ to the 
 heavens and the earth, seats himself on the ground and 
 smokes a while in silence. The Interpreter announces 
 that he will hear the words of the White Father 3. Penn 
 addresses them in these sentences, some repeated as 
 
 ' " One of the Sachems who was the chief of them, then put upon his own head 
 a kind of chaplet in which appeared a small horn. — This, as among the primitive 
 Eastern Nations and according to the Scripture language was an emblem of kingly 
 power; and whenever the chief who had a right to wear it, put it; on, it was under- 
 stood that the place was made sacred and the persons of all present inviolable." — • 
 Clarkson, Vol. II., p. ,265. 
 
 2 " The meeting is opened by the head Chief or President who smokes for a short 
 time out of the pipe of Peace after it has been devoutly turned to the Heavens and 
 the Earth. The ceremony is of such importance that no European Governor or 
 Ambassador can make p;ace with the Indians without it. Afterwards the pipe is 
 handed about among all the Ambassadors and Members of the Council, when each 
 of them takes it up very cautiously and smokes for a short time." — La Trobe^s 
 Loikiel, P. l.,Ch. X., p. 156. 
 
 "The Pipe of Peace (Calumet, fr.) has a large head of red marble three inches 
 deep and six or eight inches wide, but the red color being the color of war, it is 
 daubed over with white clay or chalk. The pipe is made of hard black wood 
 wound with a fine ribbon neatly decorated with white corals by the women. Some- 
 times ornaments are added made of Porcupine quills with green, yellow and white 
 feathers."— Za Trobe's Loskiel, P. I., Ch. X., p. 156. 
 
 ' Miquon was the name which the Lenni Lenape gave to William Penn. The 
 Iroquois called him Onas. Both of these words in their respective languages sig- 
 nify a quill or pen." — Duponceau, Ann. of Pe:in's landing, 1824, note. F. Ins. 
 Library. 
 
 " The true signification of WiUi.im Penn's name belongs to the Welsh or Celtic 
 language from which it is derived. In that tongue the word Penn means head, and 
 metaphorically a leader or chief." — Hugh's Penn, p. 90. 
 
his language long after by the savages themselves, 
 some as they appear in the stories of his life, as his 
 words on the occasion. 
 
 " The Great Spirit rules in the Heavens, and the 
 Earth. He knows the innermost thoughts of men. He 
 knows that we have come here with a hearty desire to live 
 with you in peace. We use no hostile weapons against 
 our enemies — good faith and good will towards men are 
 our defences. We believe you will deal kindly and 
 justly by us, as we will deal kindly and justly by you." 
 He then read them the conditions of the league, which 
 were preserved by his successors, and forty years after 
 read to the successors of these representatives of their 
 tribes and nations, article by article. 
 
 He then continued: "We will not be to you as 
 brothers — brothers sometimes contend with brothers. 
 We will not be to you as fathers with children — fathers 
 sometimes punish their children. Nor shall our friend- 
 ship be as the chain that rust may weaken, that the tree 
 may fall upon and sunder. We will be as one heart, 
 one head, one body ; that if one suffers, the other suf- 
 fers; that if anything changes the one, it changes the 
 other'. 
 
 " We will go along the broad pathway of good will to 
 each other together." 
 
 They listen to the words in silence as was their cus- 
 tom, they consult among themselves, they deliberate. 
 
 ' Clarkson, Vol. I., p. 266, followed by the other liiographers. 
 
lO 
 
 Taminen orders one of his chiefs to answer ; this one 
 rises and advances toward the Founder and salutes him 
 in the King's name. He takes him by the hand ' and 
 pledges him kindness and good will, that it was the 
 King's mind that these pledges should be accepted and 
 kept by them forever; that the Indians and the 
 Christians shall live in love together as long as the sun 
 gave light in the heavens. He delivers into the 
 Founder's hands that Wampum belt'' which was there- 
 after transmitted as an heirloom to his family, and which 
 was given by the last survivor of that family into the 
 keeping of our State Society. One of these belts when 
 given, sealed a single sentence, or the silence of a 
 pledge which should remain sacred forever. This 
 
 ,1 " Having consulted and resolved their business the King ordered one of them to 
 speak to me. He stood up, came to me and in the name of his King saluted me, then 
 took me by the hand and told me he was ordered by his King to speak to me, and 
 that now it was not he, but the King who spoke, because what he should say was 
 the King's mind." — Penn to the Soc. of Free Traders, 1683. H. S. of Pa. Library. 
 
 2 " It is a belt of the largest size, and made with the neatest workmanship, which is 
 generally found in such as are known to have been used in Councils, or in making 
 treaties with the Indians. Its length is twenty-six inches, its breadth is nine inches, 
 and it consists of eighteen strings woven together ; it is formed entirely of small 
 beads strung in rows, and made from pieces of clam or muscle shells. These form 
 an entirely white ground : in the centre there is a rude but striking representation, 
 worked in dark violet beads, of two men — the one, somewhat the stouter, wearing 
 a hat; the other, rather thinner, having an uncovered' head ; they stand erect, with 
 their hands clasped together; there are three bands, also worked in dark violet 
 beads, one at either end, the other about one-third the distance from one end, which 
 may have reference to the parties to the treaty, or to the rivers Delaware, Schuylkill, 
 and Susquehanna. 
 
 " It was presented to the Historical .Society of Pennsylvania, on the 25th day 
 •of May, 1857, by Granville John Penn, a descendant of the Founder. It is framed 
 
II 
 
 •done, another speaks to the tribes in the name of all 
 the Sachamakers and Kings repeating to them, this that 
 was done ; then commanding them by the words of 
 these Kings that they should live with the Founder and 
 his people in peace forever — the great Assemblage ' of 
 these Kings and braves standing among their women 
 and children, at each sentence of these pledges, re- 
 peated in their langyage, shouted, and in their way said 
 Amen ^ 
 
 The conditions of the league — the pledges of that 
 memorable treaty — the links of the enduring chain, that 
 the falling tree broke not, nor time nor change weakened, 
 as they were preserved in the archives of our State, and 
 as they were read forty years after for the last time to 
 
 between glass plates and hangs from the ceiling of a fire-proof room built within the 
 Hall of the Society. The copy was made in exact fac-simile of the original bell. 
 
 ' " They were seen in the woods as far as the eye could carry, so that dismay and 
 terror had come upon them, had they not confided in the righteousness of their 
 •cause." — Clarkson, Vol. I., p. 264. 
 
 "Nineteen Indian Nations (tribes)." — Oldmixon,'Lxmion, 1708, p. 171. First 
 ■edition Hist. Soc. Library. 
 
 '' " Which done another made a speech to the Indians in the name of all the Sacha- 
 inachers or Kings ; first to tell what was done : next to charge and command them 
 to love the Christians and particularly to live in peace with me and the people un- 
 ■der my government ; that they should never do mine or me any wrong. At every 
 sentence of which they shouted, and in their way said, Amen." — Penn to the So- 
 ciety of Free- Traders. " These ceremonies are always attended with dancing." — 
 Xa Trobe's Loskiel, P. I., p. 155. 
 
 " It is .said that the Founder, who inherited some portion of his wholesome Dutch 
 mother's exuberance of spirits, as well as the more stable qualities of her blood, 
 took part in the dancing on his first reception by the Indians ' and excelled Ihem 
 all ' but unless, as one of the necessities of the assemblage, it would here seem be- 
 jieath the gravity of the occasion." — See Watson, p. 131. 
 
12 
 
 the representatives of these tribes — the Ganawese, the 
 Conestogas, and the nations, of the Delawares and of 
 the Shavvanese, were these : 
 
 "We will be brethren, my people and your people, as- 
 the children of one father. 
 
 "All the paths shall be open to the Christian and the 
 Indian. The doors of the Christian shall be open to the 
 Indian, and the wigwam of the Indian, shall be open to 
 the Christian. 
 
 "The Christian shall believe no false stories, the 
 Indian shall believe no false stories, they shall first come- 
 together as brethren and inquire of each other ; when 
 they hear such false stories they shall bury them in the 
 bottomless pit. 
 
 " The Christian hearing news that may hurt the 
 Indian, or the Indian hearing news that may hurt the 
 Christian, shall make it known the one to the other, as 
 speedily as possible, as true friends and brethren. 
 
 "The Indian shall not harm the Christian, nor his 
 friend; the Christian shall not harm the Indian, nor his 
 friend; but they shall live together as brethren. As 
 there are wicked people in all Nations; if the Indian or 
 the Christian shall harm the one or the other, complaint 
 shall be made by the sufferer, that right may be done; 
 and when right is done, the wrong shall be forgotten, 
 and buried in the bottomless pit. 
 
 " The Indian shall help the Christian, and the Chris- 
 
13 
 
 tian shall help the Indian, against all evil men, who 
 would molest them'." 
 
 The words in which the final pledge was given follow- 
 ing their custom and in its language were: 
 
 "We will transmit this League between us to our 
 children. It shall be made stronger and stronger, and 
 be kept bright and clean without rust or spot, between 
 our children and our children's children, while the 
 creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and 
 stars endure^" 
 
 And so this Treaty was made, and has become a part 
 of our first inheritance of freedom; a part of the Chris- 
 tianity of the world. And very truly to the faith 
 pledged there, as no other people; have the Founder's 
 followers proved during the last two centuries since 
 that Treaty's Pledge, in season and out of season, stead- 
 fast; wherever the Indian has called out from the suf- 
 fering of his endless march, the Quakers of the Found- 
 er's City have answered the enduring "Yea." 
 
 Yet there have not been wanting men even here, 
 where he walked, when on earth, and where the river 
 
 1 Cited by Governor Gordon at the Council at Conestoga, May 26, 1728, H. S. of 
 Pa., Vol. III., p. 2, page 202. 
 
 ■^ " Great promises passed between us of kindness and good neighborhood, and 
 that the English and Indians must live in love as long as the sun gave light." — 
 Penn to the Society of Free- Traders, 1683, Aug. 16. 
 
 " At the concluding speech, the Indians generally make use of this expression, 
 that their friendship shall last as long as the sun and moon give light, rise and set; 
 as long as the stars shine in the firmament, and the rivers flow with water." — La 
 Trobe's Loskiel, P. 1., p. 159. 
 
H 
 
 flows, and the faith endured unbroken to the end, who 
 have questioned the precious story. They have said as 
 was said before, even of the Divine Master, that hu- 
 manity in its credulity and dependence upon such noble 
 examples, had created out of its own imagination this 
 story of "The Man and the Sorrowless Tree" — the sal- 
 vation of our Commonwealth from the universal wrone 
 to that unfortunate race; more incredulous than the 
 unbelievers themselves, they have sought to set aside 
 the simple truth of the tradition, and its lesson most 
 valuable for our example and instruction, was lost to 
 their narrower scrutinies; but none the less therefore, 
 has the story been repeated from generation to genera- 
 tion and preserved in that secure treasure-house of 
 Earth's most valuable possession — "the credence of our 
 common Humanity." 
 
THE LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 The treaty at Shackamaxon, the beacon spot in the History of Pennsylvania, still 
 "ests after more than one hundred and seventy years, on an unbroken and unvarying 
 tradition ; the incidents in relation to it from time to time, successively developed, 
 verify and never contradict it. — Memoirs Hist. Soc. of Pa. 
 
 ^^^HEN WILLIAM PENN came here, he had six 
 ^Za) objects principally in view, and to which his 
 
 first attention was to be directed. 
 
 They were : To organize his government. To visit 
 his co-religionists on the shores of the Delaware in 
 Pennsylvania and New Jersey. To conciliate the Indians. 
 To pay his respects to the Governors of New York, 
 who had had the command over Pennsylvania. To fix 
 upon a proper spot to build his capital city. To visit 
 Lord Baltimore, with whom he had differences respect- 
 ing the limits of his province.' 
 
 The conciliation of the Indians was a leading object. 
 The evidence of this is found first in the conditions or 
 concessions, as they were called, to the purchasers and 
 settlers of his lands in Pennsylvania; they bear date the 
 II th of July, 1 68 1 . To these he not only bound himself, 
 
 1 H. S. of Pa., Vol. III., pp. 193-4 . 
 (IS) 
 
^wi^L^^V'i>'t^4^'K^ '" M^i'i V' ' M '■ ' : ^-' "^' J 
 
 ^5^"^^f#'f» 
 
 Ohj 
 
 'This he put aside foe the Armor of Righteousness." 
 (i6) 
 
I? 
 
 but all who chose to follow him, who were not permitted 
 to come as settlers to Pennsylvania, unless they sub- 
 scribed to those conditions. The Sections relating to 
 the Indians are : 
 
 XI. There shall be no buying and selling, be it with 
 Indian, or one among another, of any goods to be ex- 
 ported, but what shall be performed in public market, 
 when such places shall be set apart, or erected, where 
 they shall pass the public stamp or mark ; if bad ware, 
 and prized as good, or deceitful in proportion or weight, 
 to forfeit the value, as if good and full weight and pro- 
 portion, to the Public Treasury of this Province, whether 
 it be the merchandise of the Indian, or that of the 
 Planters. 
 
 XII. And forasmuch, as it is usual with the planters 
 to overreach the poor natives of the country, in trade, 
 by goods not being good of the kind, or debased with 
 mixtures, with which they are sensibly aggrieved, it is 
 agreed whatever is sold to the Indians, in consideration 
 of their furs, shall be sold in the market place, and there 
 suffer the test, whether good or bad; if good, to pass ; 
 if not good, not to be sold for good, that the natives 
 
 ~^may not be abused nor provoked. 
 
 XIII. That no man shall by any ways or means, in 
 word or deed, affront or wrong any Indian, but shall in- 
 cur the same penalty of the law as if he had committed 
 it against his fellow planter; and if any Indian shall 
 abuse, in word or deed, any planter of his province, that 
 
he shall not be his own judge upon the Indians, but he 
 shall make his complaint to the governor of the province^ 
 or his lieutenant, or deputy, or some inferior magistrate 
 near him, who shall, at the utmost of his power, take 
 care with the king of the said Indians that all reasonable 
 satisfaction be made to the said injured planter. 
 
 XIV. That all differences, between the planter and 
 the natives shall also be ended by twelve men, that is, by 
 six planters and six natives, that so we may live friendly 
 together as much as in us lieth, preventing all occasions- 
 of heart-burning and mischief. 
 
 XV. That the Indians shall have liberty to do all 
 things relating to improvement of their ground, and 
 providing sustenance for their families, that any of the 
 planters shall enjoy.' 
 
 Two months after the date of these concessions, he- 
 sent three commissioners to manage his affairs in his- 
 Colony, namely: William Crispin, John Bezar, and Na- 
 thaniel Allen, and requested them to make a league of 
 peace with the Indians in conformity with the conces- 
 sions. 
 
 His instructions to them were dated 30th of Sep-^ 
 tember, 1681, and are in these words: "Be tender of 
 offending the Indians, let them know that you are come 
 to sit down lovingly among them. Let my letter and 
 conditions with my purchasers about just dealing with. 
 
 1 M. H. S. of Pa., Vol. III., P. II., p. 153. 
 
19 
 
 them, be read in their tongue, that they may see we have 
 their good in our eye, equal with our interest; and after 
 reading my letter and the said conditions, then present 
 their kings with what I send them, and make a friend- 
 ship AND LEAGUE with them according to these condi- 
 tions, which carefully observe." ' 
 
 Following these instructions he wrote personally to 
 the Indians, informing them of his intentions, and his 
 direction to his commissioners to treat with them about 
 their lands, and the league of peace. He wrote first, 
 October i8th, 1681, as follows: 
 
 " My Friends : There is one great God and power 
 that hath made the world and all things therein, to whom 
 you and I, and all people owe their being, and well- 
 being, and to whom you and I must one day give an ac- 
 count for all that we do in the world. Now this great 
 God hath been pleased to make me concerned in your 
 parts of the world, and the king of the country where I 
 live hath given unto me a great province; but I desire to 
 enjoy it with your love and consent, that we may always 
 live together as neighbors and friends : else what would 
 the great God say to us, who hath made us not to de- 
 vour and destroy one another, but to live soberly and 
 kindly together in the world. Now I would have you 
 well observe that I am very sensible of the unkindness 
 and unjustice that hath b«en too much exercised to- 
 
 ^M. B. S. of Pa., Vol. III., P. II., p. 155. 
 
20 
 
 wards you, by the people of these parts of the world, 
 who sought themselves and to make great advantages 
 by you, rather than be examples of justice and goodness 
 unto you, which I hear hath been matter of trouble to 
 you, and caused great grudgings and animosities, some- 
 times to the shedding of blood, which hath made the 
 great God angry. But I am not such a man, as is well 
 known in my own country. I shall shortly come to see 
 you myself, at which time we may more largely and 
 freely confer and discourse of these matters. In the 
 meantime I have sent my commissioners to treat with 
 you about land and a firm league of peace." 
 
 He wrote to them again, 21st April, 1682, to assure 
 them of his love toward them : 
 
 " The great God who is the power and wisdom that 
 made you and me, incline your hearts to righteousness, 
 love and peace. This I send to assure you of my love, 
 and to desire your love of my friends, and when the 
 great God brings me among you, I intend to order all 
 things in such manner that we may all live in love and 
 peace with one another, which I hope the great God will 
 incline both me and you to do. I seek nothing but the 
 honors of his name, and that we who are his workman- 
 ship may do that which is well pleasing to him." 
 
 He wrote again, 21st June, 1682, that he would only 
 enjoy his land upon friendly terms with them, notwith- 
 standing his grant of their country: 
 
 "The great God that made thee and me, and all the 
 
21 
 
 world, incline our hearts to love peace and justice, that 
 we may live friendly together, as becomes the workman- 
 ship of the great God. The King of England, who is a 
 great prince, hath, for divers reasons, granted to me a 
 large country in America, which, however, I am willing 
 to enjoy upon friendly terms with thee; and this I will 
 say, that the people who come with me are a just, plain, 
 and honest people, that neither make war upon others, 
 nor fear war from others, because they will be just." 
 
 His object, therefore, was to purchase their lands, and 
 make with them a firm league of peace; that he fulfilled 
 both of these intentions the evidence remains. 
 
Tamanen, June 23. 1P83, 
 
 THE LAND TITLES. 
 
 tHE land titles which were found recorded and un- 
 recorded in ,the State Archives some years ago 
 and collated are as follows : 
 
 Idquahon, Merkekowon and others, Indyan Sacha- 
 makers, 1 5th July, 1 682, to William Penn, Esq., Chief Pro- 
 prietor of the Province of Pennsylvania for lands at the 
 Falls of the Delaware along the Neshammony, and the 
 Islands in the River Delaware. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 
 
 47- 
 
 Tamanen, 23d 4th month, 1683, ^ his Lands Lying 
 
 betwixt Pemmapecka and Nessaminehs Creeks, to Wil- 
 liam Penn Propriet' and Govern' of Pennsylvania. — Pa. 
 Arch., Vol. I., p. 62. 
 
 Essepenaike, Swanpees, Okettarickon and Wessapoat, 
 23d 4th month, 1683, their Lands "lying betwixt Pem- 
 mapecka and Nesheminck Creeks, all along upon 
 Nesheminck Creek and backward of same, and to Run 
 Two days Journey with an Horse up into ye Country as 
 ye s*^ River doeth goe," To William Penn, Propriet' and 
 
 (22) 
 
23 
 
 Govern"' of ye Province of Pensilvania. — Pa. Arch., Vol. 
 I-, p. 63. 
 
 Wingebone, 25th 4th month, 1683, ^ his Lands Ly- 
 ing on ye west side of ye Skolkill River begining from 
 ye Falls of ye same all along upon ye s"* River and 
 Backward of ye same, so farr as my right goeth, to Wil- 
 liam Penn, Proprief and Govern' of Pennsilvania. — Pa. 
 Arch.yoX. I., p. 65. 
 
 Secane & Icquoquehan, 14th 5th mo., 1683, Lands 
 Lying between Manaiunk als Schulkill and Macopanack- 
 han, als Chester Rivers, begining on ye West side of 
 Manaiunk, thence to ye s"^ River Macopanackhan, unto 
 William Penn, Proprief Sz; Govern' of ye Province of 
 Pennsilvania. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 65. 
 
 Neneshickan, Malebore, 14th 5th mo., 1683, Lands 
 betwixt Manaiunk and Pemmapecka, So farr as ye hill 
 called Consohockin, on ye sayd River Manaiunk, from 
 thence by a Northwest Line to ye River of Pemma- 
 pecka unto William Penn, Proprief and Govern' of ye 
 Province of Pennsilvania. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 66. 
 
 Kekelappan, of Opasiskunk, loth 7th mo., 1683, unto 
 William Penn, Proprietary & Govern' of ye Province of 
 Pennsilvania, &c., that half of all my Lands betwixt Sus- 
 quahanna & Delaware, which lyeth on ye Susquehanna 
 side. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 67. 
 
 Machaloha, i8th Oct., 1683, Lands on Delaware River, 
 Chesapeek Bay, and up to ye Falls of Sussquahana 
 River unto William Penn Proprietary & Govern' of ye 
 [Province] of Pennsilvania. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 67. 
 
24 
 
 Deed from Manghongsin, June 3d, 1684, for all his 
 land upon Pahkehoma, (Perkeomink, now Perkioming. 
 This deed is not recorded.) — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 1 1 1. 
 
 June 7th, 1684. Richard Mettamicont, calling him- 
 self owner of the land on both sides of Pemmapecka 
 creek, on the river Delaware, releases to William Penn. 
 Not recorded. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. iii. 
 
 Shakhoppoh, Secane, Malibor, Tangoras, 30th 5th 
 mo., 1685, Lands lying between Macopanackan, als Up- 
 land, now called Chester River or Creek, and the River 
 or Creek of Pemapecka, North -Westerly back into ye 
 Woods, to make up Two full Dales Journey, as far as a 
 man can go in Two Dayes, from the said Station. — Pa. 
 Arch., Vol. I., p. 92-3. . 
 
 Lare, Packenah, Tareekham, 2nd 8th mo., 1685, Lands 
 from Quing Quingus Called Duck Creek unto Upland 
 Called Chester Creek all along by the West Side of 
 Delaware River and So betweene the Said Creeks Back- 
 wards as far as a man can Ride in two days with a 
 horse, unto Cap' Thomas Holme ye use of William 
 Penn Esq' Proprietary & Govern'^ of ye afores"* Province 
 & Territories. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 95. 
 
 In this place should follow a deed alleged to have 
 existed, dated August 20th, 1686, for the walking pur- 
 chase, and which occasioned much controversy, and dis- 
 satisfaction among the Indians; it is, however, referred 
 to, included in, and confirmed by the deed of August, 
 1737. It is certain no such original deed was in exist- 
 
25 
 
 ence at the treaty of Easton, in 1757. — Laws of Pa., Voi, 
 II., p. III. 
 
 The 15th day of June 1692. King Taminent, Tan- 
 gorus, Swampes, Hickoqueon. Tract lying betweea 
 Neshaminah & Poquessing upon the River Delaware, 
 backwards to the utmost bounds of the said province. — 
 Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 11 6-1 7. 
 
 Thos. Dongan to William Penn, 12th January, 1696, 
 consideration, of one hundred Pounds. Tract Lyeing, on 
 both sides the Susquehanah River and the Lakes adja- 
 cent, which the said Thomas Dongan, purchased of or 
 had given by the Sinneca Susquehanah Indians, for the 
 end and term of One Thousand years, paying unto the 
 said Thomas Dongan, every year on the Feast day of 
 St. Michaell, the Arch Angell, the rent of a pepper 
 Corn. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 121-2. 
 
 Thos. Dongan to Wm. Penn, 13th January, 1696, for 
 One Hundred Pounds, tract on both sides of the Sus- 
 quehanah river, beginning at the head of the said River, 
 and running as farr, into the Bay of Chesapeake, pur- 
 chased of, or had given him by the Sinnica Susquehanah 
 Indians.-T-/h;. Arch., Vol. I., p. 122-3. 
 
 Taminy, Sachimack, Weheeland, and Weheequeckhon,. 
 who is to be king after my death, Yaqueekhon, and 
 Quenameckquid, my Sonns, 5th July, 1697, unto William 
 Penn, Lands, Between the Creek called Pemopeck, and 
 the Creek called Neshaminy, in the said Province from 
 the River Delaware, so farr as a horse can Travel in 
 Two Summer dayes. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 124-5. 
 
26 
 
 Widaagh, Andaggy-junkquagh, Kings, of the Susque- 
 hannagh Indians, 13th Sep., 1700, unto William Penn, 
 the River Susquehannagh, and all the Islands therein, 
 and all the Lands lying upon both sides of the River, 
 next adjoyning to ye same, extending to the utmost con- 
 fines of the Lands. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 133. 
 
 Articles of agreement between William Penn, and the 
 Susquehanna, Shawona, Potowmack, and Conestogoe 
 Indians, dated April 23d, 1701. (Recorded in Book F, 
 Vol. in., page 43.) Among other things they ratify and 
 confirm Governor Dongan's deed of January, 1696, and 
 the above deed of the Susquehanna Indians, of Sep- 
 tember, 1700. 
 
 A deed of release, 17th of September, 1718, from 
 sundry Delaware Indian Chiefs, viz. : Sassoonah, Meet- 
 ashechay, Ghettypeneeman, Pokehais, Ayamackan, Ope- 
 kasset, and Pepawmamam, for all the lands situate be- 
 tween the two rivers, Delaware and Susquehanna, from 
 Duck creek to the mountains on this side Lechay. This 
 deed is recorded. May 13th, 1728, in Book A, Vol. VI., 
 
 page 59- 
 
 Sasooaam, Sachem of the Schuylkill Indians, in Pensil- 
 vania; Elalapis, Ohopamen, Pesqueetomen, Mayeenrol, 
 Partridge, Tepakoaset alias Joe, on behalf of our Selves 
 and all the other Indians of the said Nation, 7th Sep., 
 1 732, unto John Penn, Thomas Penn & Richard Penn, land 
 lying on the River Schuylkill, between the Lechaig Hills 
 and Keekachtanemin Hills, which cross the R'ver Thirty 
 
27 
 
 Miles above the Lechaig Hills, all Land whatsoever 
 lying writhin the said bounds and between the bran hes 
 of Delaware River on the Eastern side of said Land, 
 and the streams running into the Susquehannah on the 
 Western side of the said Land. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 
 347- 
 
 Previous, however, to this treaty, there appears to 
 have been a release, but not recorded, from sundry In- 
 dians, for all the land on both sides of the Brandywine 
 creek. This release is dated May 31st, 1726. Ratified 
 by Lingahonoa, a Schuylkill Indian, who was not present 
 at signing the foregoing deed, 12th July, 1742. Con- 
 firmed by deed of release, 20th of August, 1733, for the 
 consideration of said lands received by them. This re- 
 lease is also confirmed by Lingahonoa, 12th July, 1742, 
 acknowledging that he had received his portion of the 
 consideration. These deeds and releases have never 
 been recorded. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 114. 
 
 Chiefs of the Nations of ye Onondagoes ; Senekaes ; 
 Cayoogoes; and Tuskaroras; nth Oct., 1736, release 
 to John Penn, Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, all the 
 River Susquehannah, with the Lands lying on both sides 
 thereof, to Extend Eastward as far as the heads of the 
 Branches or Springs, which run into the said Susque- 
 hannah, And on the west side of the River, to the set- 
 ting of the Sun, to extend from the mouth of the said 
 River Northward, the same to the hills or mountains 
 called the Tyanuntasacta, or Endless hills. — Pa. Arch., 
 Vol. I., p. 494-5. 
 
28 
 
 The Indian chiefs on their return, staid several days- 
 with Conrad Weiser, at Tulpehocken, and there exe- 
 cuted the following deed, dated October 25th, 1736, 
 which is proved and recorded in Book C, Vol. II., p. 350, 
 May 22d, 1741. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 115. 
 
 The Chiefs of the Six Nations, the Onandagoes,. 
 Isanundowans or Sinnekas, Cayoogoes, Oneydas, Tusca- 
 roras, (in behalf also of ye Canyingoes or Mohacks,) 
 nth Oct., 1736, release to John Penn, Thomas Penn,. 
 and Richard Penn, Propriettors of Pennsylvania, and to- 
 their Heirs and successors. All their Right, to the Lands 
 on both sides of the River Sasquehannah. — Pa. Arch.,. 
 Vol. I., p. 498. 
 
 There is an indorsement of ratification on this deed, 
 dated 9th of July, 1754, signed by nine Indians. 
 
 August 25th, 1737. Teshakomen, alias Tishekunk, 
 and Nootamis alias Nutimus, two of the sachemas, or 
 chiefs of the Delaware Indians, several tracts of land, 
 which their forefathers had more than fifty years ago, 
 bargained and sold unto their good friend and brother 
 William Penn, the father of the said John and Thomas 
 Penn, and in particular one deed from the chiefs or kings 
 of the northern Indians on Delaware, release to the pro- 
 prietors and desire it may be walked, travelled, or gone- 
 over by persons appointed for that purpose. Recorded; 
 May 8th, 1741, in book G., Vol. I., p. 282. 
 
 The sachems of the Indian nation called Onontagers,. 
 Sinickers, Mohocks; or Oneyders, Cayiukers, Tuscor- 
 
29 
 
 rorow, Shomoken, the Delawares, Shawanes; the 22d 
 •day of August, 1 749, consideration of ^500, that tract 
 or parcel of land, called in the language of the Five 
 Nation Indians Tyanuntasachta, or endless hills, and by 
 the Delaware Indians Kekactany hills, east side of the 
 river Susquenna, and from thence running up the said 
 river to the nearest mountain, to the north side of the 
 creek called Cantaguy, and from thence to the main 
 branch of Delaware river, at the creek Lechawachsein, 
 and from thence down the river Delaware to the Ke- 
 kachtany hills aforesaid, and from thence to the place 
 of beginning. Recorded May 6th, 1752, in book H, 
 Vol. II., p. 204. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 119. 
 
 Deed dated July 6th, 1754, from the sachems, of the 
 Mohock nation, the Oneydo, Onondago, Cayuga, Seneca 
 and Tuscarora Indians, in consideration of ^400 to 
 Thomas and Richard Penn, the lands beginning at the 
 Kittochtinny or Blue hills, on the west branch of Sus- 
 quehanna river, and thence by the said, a mile above the 
 mouth of a certain creek, called Kayarondinhagh ; thence 
 far as the province of Pennsylvania extends its western 
 lines or boundaries; thence along said western line to 
 the south line of said province ; thence to the south side 
 of the said Kittochtinny hills; thence to the place of 
 beginning. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 120. 
 
 Deed of October 23d, 1758, from the chiefs of the 
 Mohock nation, Onondago nation, Seneca nation, the 
 Oneyda nation, Cayuga nation, & Tuscarora nation, re- 
 
citing a deed poll, bearing date, the 6th day of July,. 
 1754; a treaty held at Easton, on the 23d October, & 
 the amicable settlement of boundaries between the afore- 
 said sachems and chiefs and Richard Peters and Conrad 
 Weiser, esqs., &c., for the Proprietors. Recorded in 
 book I, Vol. IV., p. 488, September 5th, 1768. — Law& 
 of Pa., Vol. II., p. 121. 
 
 The last purchase of the proprietaries from the Indians, 
 was made at Fort Stanwix, November 5th, 1768, Re- 
 corded at Philadelphia, in the Roll's Office in book of 
 deeds. No. 3, p. 23, July 12th, 1781. — Laws of Pa., Vol. 
 II., p. 122. 
 
 At the treatyat Fort Stanwixon October 23, 1784, a pur- 
 chase was made of the residue of the Indian land within 
 the limits of Pennsylvania, and the deed signed by the 
 chiefs of the Six Nations. 
 
 At a treaty held at Fort M'Intosh, with the Wyandott 
 and Delaware Indians, by the same commissioners, Jan- 
 uary, 1785, a deed was executed by those nations, for 
 the same lands, in the same words, with the same boun- 
 daries, which deed is dated January 21st, 1785. Both 
 these deeds, with the treaties, or conferences, are printed 
 at large, in the journals of the assembly, in the appendix 
 to the journal of the session of February — April, 1785. 
 
 Thus, in a period of about one hundred and two years 
 the whole right of soil of the Indians, within the charter 
 bounds of Pennsylvania, was extinguished, by purchase 
 from them. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 123. 
 
The founder's intention was therefore carriea out as 
 far as the purchase of the Ind'an titles ; and it must be 
 remembered in this conmction that he alone with but 
 rare exceptions, among all, whether Governments, nations 
 or individuals who took possession of the Continent 
 recognized the Indian Title. It must be further remem- 
 bered that he made not one purchase, nor from one 
 tribe, nor for the whole State at any one time, but from 
 every tribe which claimed possession, and that the con- 
 
 On the 3d of October, 1788, an act was passed entitled, an act to authorize the 
 supreme executive council to draw on the state treasurer for a sum of money, for 
 defraying the expense of purchasing of the Indians, lands on lake Erie (chap. 
 '355') By which act a sum of ;^I200 was granted to purchase the Indian rights, 
 in the lake Erie tract, bargained to be sold by the United States of Pennsylvania, 
 and a further grant-was added for the same purpose, by an act of the 28th of Sep- 
 tember, 1789, (chap. 1439.) 
 
 The Indian cession of the Presque Isle lands, is dated January 9th, 1789, and is in 
 these words. — The signing chiefs do acknowledge the right of soil, and jurisdiction 
 to, and over that tract of country bounded on the south by the north line of the 
 State of Pennsylvania, on the east by the west boundary of the State of New York, 
 agreeable to the cession of that State and Massachusetts to the United States, and 
 on the north by the margin of lake Erie, including Presque Isle; and all the bays 
 and harbours along the margin of lake Erie, from the west boundary of Pennsyl- 
 vania, to where the west boundary of the State of New York may cross or intersect 
 the south margin of the said lake Erie, to be vested in the said State of Pennsylvania, 
 agreeable to an act of Congress dated the 6th of June last, (1788.) 
 
 By an act of the 13th of April, 1791, (chap. 1556) the governor was authorized 
 to complete the purchase from the United States, which, according to a communica- 
 tion from him to the legislature, was done in March, 1792; and the consideration 
 money, amounting to 151,640 dollars and twenty-five cents, paid in continental 
 certificates, of various descriptions. The deed of confirmation from the United 
 States is dated March 3d, 1792, which is recorded in the Roll's Office in deed book 
 No. 31, p. 107, April 25, 1792. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. 123-4. 
 
■sideration aggregated a large amount altogether' — with 
 what he paid in every way from first to last exhausting 
 his inheritance from his father and his whole available 
 possessions ; and that he continued his policy in his 
 successors. Many strings of beads which was their 
 only money, many fathoms of Stroud waters which was 
 their better clothing, many hoes and axes which were 
 their first implements for less toilsome labor for their 
 women ; in a word, whatever had value for their pur 
 poses in very adequate quantities. The deeds from the 
 Indian Aborigines cited above and which were rescued 
 from the unrecorded waste in our State Archives years 
 afterwards were by no means the whole number f the 
 
 ^ " My profit by the Indians was never sixpence, but my known perpetual bounties 
 to them have cost me many hundreds of pounds, if not some thousands first and 
 last." — Penn's Ansiuer P. &^ L. Corr., Vol. I., p. 27. 
 
 He sometimes repurchased the same property from another tribe — of which tlie 
 following was a notable instance : 
 
 At his first coming over late in November, 1682 {40 years prior to 1722), he 
 went to New York and got some persons to purchase the lands on the Susquehanna 
 from the five nations who claimed them by right of conquest — for which he sent a 
 great many goods in a vessel to New York, yet such was his sense of equity that 
 when he found those living on the lands " were sorry," he lay the parchments on 
 the ground before them to signify that the ground was again free to all once more 
 .as l:iefore, and then entered into a new agreement and repurchased from them the 
 same land. — An Enquiry, London, 1759. 
 
 The Indian deed to Colonel Dongan is not known to exist, nor is there any trace 
 of it in the public offices. It is known, however, that he was the agent of William 
 ■Penn to make the purchase. — Laws of Pa., Vol. II., p. iii. 
 
 * A list of Indian purchases, in which these deeds appear, was made out before 
 1759 byCharles Thomson as follows: 
 
 Second October, 1683, lands on Duck Creek; 12th January, 1696, on the Susque- 
 hanna; 13th September, 1700, on the Susquehanna; 5th July, 1697, on the Penne- 
 pack; 23rd April, 1701, which were Articles of Friendship and agreement with 
 
33 
 
 most important paper described in this volume among 
 very many others and having no representation but 
 the envelope in which it was enclosed. It must also 
 be considered that the Founder was obliged to release 
 his father's large claim on the British Government, for 
 the British title which was more valueless than that of 
 the Aborigines ; a tide neither based on conquest, nor 
 occupancy, nor discovery, and which was made wholly 
 worthless within a Century by the Settlers themselves ; 
 that the title of the Indians was neither initiated by the 
 exclusive occupancy of one tribe, nor completed by the 
 expenditure of labor upon the ground, but existed only 
 in the vagrant holding of whatever tribe held temporary 
 advantage over another. That the land itself was with- 
 out value until made valuable by the labor of his fol- 
 lowers, to which heart, spirit and purpose was given by 
 the wise and humane direction of the Founder. From 
 which facts result, as it does always in the most valuable 
 work for humanity, that every one received compensa- 
 tory advantages, except the Founder, who was himself 
 
 William Penn; 17th September, 1718, Duck Creek to Lechay; nth October, 1736, 
 Release of Susquehanna lands; 25th October, 1 736, Lands South of Kittocktanny 
 Hills ; 25th Aug., 1737, Deed from Pitcocks falls west; 23rd July, 1748, Articles 
 of Friendship between the chiefs of the Tweghtwees and the government of Pennsyl- 
 vania; 22nd Aug., 1749, Release of land between Kictocktinny and Maghoinpy; 
 6th July, 1754, Release of lands west side of the Susquehanna; 9th July, 1754, In- 
 dorsement on Deed. 
 
 At the time this list was made, "there was a considerable number of other Indian 
 deeds in the hands of the Secretary for lands purchased at several times particular!) 
 in 1732-3, but which they would never record nor would they produce." — An 
 Enquiry, London, 1759. H. S. Lib. 
 
34 
 
 brought to ruin by his wise and honest endeavor, and 
 his whole establishment finally lost to his family/ 
 
 1 In a letter in 1684 he says : And thou Philadelphia, the Virgin settlement named 
 before thou wert born, what love, what care, what service, and what travail, has 
 there been to bring thee forth, and preserve thee, from such as would defile thee. 
 
 In a letter to James Logan, 8th 6th mo., 1704, he says : O Pennsylvania what hast 
 thou cost me? Above _;^30,ooo more than I ever got by it; two hazardous and 
 most fatiguing voyages ; my straights and slavery here. 
 
 Another letter, 14th 7th mo., 1705, on the account of settling and maintaining the 
 colony I spent ;^lo,ooo the first two years as appears by my accounts here, £2,ooa 
 overspent in King James' time and no supply coming from Pennsylvania. The vast 
 mm of money also I have melted away here in London. — Gordon's History, 607-8, 
 
 The survey of Mason and Dixon in 1762 cost the Penn Family ^100,000. — Hist 
 of Erie Co., p. 58. 
 
THE GREAT TREATY. 
 
 illL: WaiiipUlU Belt. 
 
 vC^UCH was the execution of his first object in coming 
 ;^ to the province — to treat with them about land. 
 
 The evidence that he executed his second purpose 
 — " to Hve on friendly terms with thee " — to make 
 "the firm league of peace" — is no less conclusive. We 
 might reason a priori, that he would the more certainly 
 have executed' this latter purpose. 
 
 He who placed the true and loving lives of all hu- 
 manity above money considerations, would not have been 
 satisfied with the simple barter of beads, few or many, 
 of litde value to him, for ground, whether measured by 
 inches or strode over by day's journeys, for men or 
 horses, of as little value to them, but would have 
 sought these Aboriginese as he did the poor and 
 humble everywhere, and made peace between God and 
 him and them in this only way— the pledge of, and the 
 living of, true lives to each other. 
 
 What was of the most real importance to hjm was 
 that brotherly love should condnue between them and 
 him, and every one. Lands and money and tides were 
 his by his inheritance, but he preferred to walk the Lon- 
 
 (35) 
 
37 
 
 don streets breadless, to go to the tower and to death, if 
 thereby he might keep his protest on his head, against 
 cant,' and war, and the inhumanity of men to each other. 
 
 But the assurance that he carried out the second pur- 
 pose rests neither on its probabilides, nor tradidon only 
 — but the records of the history of his worlc, which we 
 now cite here. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, i6th June, 1718. 
 
 The Chief of the Conestogoa Indians, the Shawnois 
 The old League abovc Conestogoc, Ganawais & Delawares, 
 
 of friendship re- . 
 
 newed. Waited On the Governr. & Council ; the Cap- 
 
 tain of the Conestogoes, said they were on a ffriendly 
 visit to Renew the old League of ffriendship that had 
 hitherto been between us and them. 
 
 Post Meridiem, 
 
 The Governr. Ordered the Interpreters to Deliver 
 them what follows in writing. 
 
 That their ffriendly visit on a Design to Brighten & 
 Strengthen the Chain which had for so many years 
 bound & united them & this Governmt. together as one 
 People, was very acceptable. They were sensible that 
 William Penn, Lord of this Country, had been as a Com- 
 mon ffather to them ; he had Given it in Charge to all 
 those who Governed in his stead, to treat them in the 
 same ffriendly manner he had Done himself. — Col. Rec, 
 Vol. III., page 38. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, July the 12th, 1720. 
 
 James Logan, Secretary, reported to the Board, That 
 
38 
 
 the Governour had desired him to proceed to Sasque- 
 hannah, and their discourse the Indians. That he went; 
 That the Chiefs of the Mingoes, the Shawanese, the 
 Ganawese, and some of the Delawares, met him; the 
 Mingoes spoke as follows, 
 
 That when Governour Penn first held Councils with 
 William Penn's them, he proHiised them so much Love and 
 Lit Treaty. Friendship that he would not call them 
 Brothers, because Brothers might differ, nor Children 
 because these might offend and require Correction, but 
 he would reckon them as one Body, and Blood, one 
 Heart and one Head; But few of the old men who were 
 at those Councils were living; These were removed, 
 and those who were then very young are now grown up 
 to succeed, but they transmitted it to their Children, and 
 they and all theirs should remember it forever ; 
 
 The Ganawese say. That their present Chief was once 
 at Council with William Penn before they removed into 
 this province, and that since they came into it, they have 
 always lived quiet and in Peace, When the Sun sets they 
 sleep in Peace and in Peace they rise with him, and so 
 continue while he continues his course, and think them- 
 selves happy in their Friendship, which they shall take 
 Care to have continued from Generation to Generation. 
 
 The Conestogoes say, That William Penn made a 
 William Penn League wlth them to last for three or four 
 
 made a league . 
 
 with them tc. host Generations; That he is now dead, and most 
 
 for three or tour ' 
 
 generations. ^f jj^gjj. an^ients are also dead, but the League 
 
39 
 
 still remains, and they take this Opportunity to renew 
 and strengthen it with their ffriend. One Generation 
 may die, and another may die, but the League of Friend- 
 ship continues strong and shall forever continue. 
 
 The Indians being met again the Secretary spoke to 
 them as follows : It must be a great Satisfaction to all 
 honest and good men, to find that the measures that 
 great man Wm. Penn, took to establish a firm Friend- 
 ship with you has had such excellent Success. You on 
 your parts have been faithful and true unto us, the Chain 
 was still preserved strong and bright. You never 
 violated it. 
 
 We have lived in perfect Peace and Unity above any 
 other Government in America; you renewing the Chain 
 at this time upon the Decease of your great Friend, 
 with us who remain alive, is so affectionate and kind 
 that I shall not fail to represent it duly to the Governour 
 made^'ne7r''4o ^nd your good FHends in Philadelphia. This 
 
 years before 1720 /-^i • i 1 j r . 
 
 (1682). Cham has been made near torty years agoe ; 
 
 It is at this time strong and bright as ever, and I hope 
 will continue so between our Children and your Children, 
 .and their Children's Children to all Generations, while 
 the water flows or the sun shines in the Heavens. — Col. 
 Rec, Vol. III., page 88. 
 
 A Council at Philadelphia, July the 19th, 1720. 
 
 William Keith Esqr., The Governour presented the 
 Draught of a Letter to the President of New York, as 
 follows : 
 
40 
 
 Philadelphia, July 19th, 1720. When Governour 
 Penn first settled this Country, he made it his Chief Care 
 to cultivate a strict Alliance and Friendship with all the 
 Indians ; when he came to treat with the Indians settled 
 upon the River Sasquehannah, finding that they ac- 
 counted themselves a Branch of the Mingoes or fifive 
 Nations, he prevailed with Colonel Dongan, the Gov- 
 ernour of New York, to treat with those Nations in his 
 behalf, and to purchase from them all their claim of 
 Right to the Lands on both sides of Sasquehannah,, 
 which Colonel Dongan did accordingly; and for a valu- 
 able consideration paid in Sterling money. Colonel Don- 
 gan, by good Deeds transferr'd or convey'd his said 
 Right purchased from the Five Nations to Governour 
 Penn & his Heirs, in due Form of Law. 
 
 Upon Governour Penn's last arrival here, about 
 Another Treaty twenty years agoe, he held a Treaty with the 
 
 made 20 years n • 
 
 prior to 1720. Mingoes or Conestogoe Indians settled on 
 Sasquehannah; their Chiefs, did then not only acknowl- 
 edge the Sale of those Lands made to Colonel Dongan 
 as above, but as much as in them lay did also renew and 
 confirm the same to Governour Penn. — Col. Rec, Vol. 
 III., page 95. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, March the 21st, 1721.. 
 
 Sir William Keith, Bart., Governour. ' James Logan & 
 
 A reference to Colouel John French report they met with the 
 
 Chiefs of the Mingoe or Conestogoe Indians,. 
 
 of the Shawanese & Ganawese, and some of the Dela- 
 
41 
 
 wares in Council, and spoke to them in the following 
 Words ; William Penn our and your Father, when he 
 first settled this Country with English Subjects, made a 
 firm League of Friendship and Brotherhood with all the 
 Indians then in these parts, and agreed that both you 
 and his People should be all as one Flesh and Blood. 
 The same League has often been renewed by himself 
 and other Governours under him, with their Councils, 
 held as well in this place where we now are as at 
 Philadia. and other places. His People and yours have 
 hitherto inviolably observed these Leagues. 
 
 And to the Messenger we delivered the following 
 Words as the signification of the Belt we sent with him, 
 viz: Deliver this Belt from the Governour and Govern- 
 ment of'Pennsilvania to the King or Chief of the Sinne- 
 wiUiamPenn Icaes, aud say that the words it brings are 
 near 40 years thcsc. William Pcnu made a firm Peace and 
 
 prior to 1721 
 
 (i68=). League with the Indians in these parts near 
 
 forty years agoe, which League has often been renewed 
 and never broken. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., page 152. 
 
 Council at Conestogoe, July the 7th, 1721. Sir 
 WilHam Keith, Bart., Governour. Ghesaont, on the be- 
 half of all the fifive Nations delivered himself as follows: 
 They were glad to see the Governour and his Council 
 at this place, they find him to be their Friend and Brother, 
 and the same as if William Penn was still amongst them. 
 They assure the Governour and Council that they had 
 not foreot WiUiam Penn's Treaties with them, and that 
 
42 
 
 his advice to them was still fresh in their memories. 
 Though they cannot write, yet they retain every thing 
 said in their Councils with all the Nations they treat 
 with, and preserve it as carefully in their memories as if 
 it was committed in our method to Writing. — Col. Rec, 
 Vol. III., page 1 19. 
 
 Council at Conestogoe, July the 8th, 1721. 
 
 Sir William Keith Bart., Governour spoke to them in 
 these Words. 
 
 I am glad to find that you remember what William 
 Penn formerly said to you ; He was a great and a good 
 man, his own People loved him ; He loved the Indians, 
 and they also loved him, Though he is now removed 
 from us, yet his children and people following his Ex- 
 ample will always take the same measures, So that his 
 and our posterity will be as a long chain of which He 
 was the first Link, and when one link ends another suc- 
 ceeds, and then another, being all firmly bound together 
 in one strong chain to endure for ever. — Col. Rec, Vol. 
 III., page 122. 
 
 Council at the Indian Town of Conestogoe, May 
 26th, 1728. 
 
 Chiefs of the Conestogoe Indians, some of the Dela- 
 wares on Brandywine, Ganawese Indians & Shawanese. 
 Patrick Gordon, The Govr. Spoke as follows : My 
 Friends and Brethren : You are sensible that the Great 
 William Penn, the Father of this Country, when he first 
 brought his People with him over the broad Sea, took 
 
43 
 
 all the Indians the old Inhabitants by the hand, & be- 
 cause he found them to be a sincere honest People he 
 took them to his heart & loved them as his own. He 
 Hemadeaieague ^hcn made a strong League & Chain of Friend- 
 brought^hirpeo- ship with them, by which it was agreed that 
 the Indians & the English, with all the Chris- 
 tians, should be as one People. Your Friend & Father 
 William Penn still retained a warm Affectioq for all the 
 Indians, & strictly commanded those whom he sent to 
 govern this People to treat the Indians as their Children, 
 & continued in this kind love for them until his Death. 
 
 His Sons have now sent me over in their Stead, & 
 they gave me strict Charge to love all the Indians as 
 their Brethren, & as their Father William Penn loved 
 you. 
 
 I am now come to see you, and to renew the ancient 
 Friendship which has been between William Penn's 
 People and you, the Conestogoes, Delawares, Ganawese 
 and Shawanese Indians upon Sasquehannah. 
 
 My Brethren : 
 
 You have been faithful to your Leagues with us, your 
 Hearts have been clean, & you have preserved the 
 Chain from Spotts or Rust, or if there are any you have 
 been carefuU to wipe them away; your Leagues with 
 you Father William Penn, & with his Governours are in 
 Writing on Record, that our Children & our Childrens 
 Children may have them in everlasting Remembrance. 
 And we know that you preserve the memory of those 
 
44 
 
 things amongst you by telling them to your Children, & 
 they again to the next Generation, so that they remain 
 stamp'd on your Minds never to be forgott. 
 
 The Chief Heads or strongest Links of this Chain I 
 The Chief heads find are these Nine, vizt.: 
 
 of the Treaty he iittt-ii' t^ t-^ 
 
 then made were j gt. "That all William Pcnns People or 
 Christians, and all the Indians should be brethren, as 
 the Children of one Father, joyned together as with one 
 Heart, one Head & one Body. 
 
 2nd. "That all Paths should be open and free to both 
 Christians and Indians. 
 
 3rd. "That the Doors of the Christians Houses 
 should be open to the Indians & the Houses of the In- 
 dians open to the Christians, & that they should make 
 each other welcome as their Friends. 
 
 4th. "That the Christians should not believe any false 
 Rumours or Reports of the Indians, nor the Indians 
 believe any such Rumors or Reports of the Christians, 
 but should first come as Brethren to enquire of each 
 other; And that both Christians & Indians, when they 
 hear any such false Reports of their Brethren, they 
 should bury them as in a bottomless Pitt. 
 
 5th. "That if the Christians heard any ill news that 
 may be to the Hurt of the Indians, or the Indians hear 
 any such ill news that may be to the Injury of the 
 Christians, they should acquaint each other with it 
 speedily as true Friends & Brethren. 
 
 6th. "That the Indians should do no manner of Harm 
 
45 
 
 to the Christians nor their Creatures, nor the Christians 
 do any Hurt to any Indians, but each treat the other as 
 their Brethren. 
 
 7th. "But as there are wicked People in all Nations, 
 if either Indians or Christians should do any harm to 
 each other, Complaint should be made of it by the Per- 
 sons Suffering that Right may be done, & when Satis- 
 faction is made, the Injury or Wrong should be forgott 
 ■& be buried as in a bottomless Pitt. 
 
 8th. "That the Indians should in all things assist the 
 Christians, & the Christians assist the Indians against 
 .all wicked People that would disturb them. 
 
 9th. "And lastly, that both Christians & Indians should 
 acquaint their Children with this League & firm Chain 
 of Friendship made between them, & that it should 
 always be made stronger & stronger & be kept bright 
 & clean, withouc Rust or Spott between our Children 
 and Childrens Children, while the Creeks and Rivers 
 run, and while the Sun, Moon & Stars endure. 
 
 " My Brethren : 
 
 "I have now spoke to the League and Chain of 
 Friendship, first made by your Father William Penn 
 ■with your Fathers, which is confirmed." — Col. Rec, Vol. 
 III., pages 329-30. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, June 4th, 1728. 
 
 Patrick Gordon, Esqn, Lieut. Governr. and the King 
 •of the Delawares, five Nations & a Shawanese. The 
 Governour spoke as follows : 
 
46 
 
 When your Great Father William Penn's Children 
 sent me hither, they commanded me to love & be kind 
 to the Indians as their Brethren, I appointed a Meeting, 
 at which I desired the other Chiefs might be present, 
 that we might all together, as Friends and Brethren, 
 renew and strengthen the Chain of Friendship which 
 .„ , , ,. your Father William Penn made with all the 
 
 All the Indians J 
 
 «!eS°r''p "filmed Indlans of this Province, that it may be kept 
 
 at the Treaty. i • ^ ^ r 
 
 bright forever. 
 
 About ten days since I mett the Indians of Conestogoe,. 
 the Shawanese, Ganawese, & divers of the Delawares. 
 at Conestogoe town, we then opened our Hearts, we 
 spoke as Brethren & Friends, we brightened the Chain 
 & made it strong, that it might last & continue firm, 
 while the Sun & Moon endure. 
 
 We then went over all the Heads, the strong Links, 
 of the Chain made between your Father William Penn 
 & the Indians, we keep them in writing, that they may 
 be had in everlasting Remembrance, the Indians also, 
 keep them in their Memory & in their Hearts, they tell 
 them to their Children, & these tell them again to their 
 Children, that from Generation to Generation they may 
 be remembered forever. These are the Chief Points, 
 of those Treaties that were first made by William Penn 
 with your Fathers, & have since from time to time been 
 confirmed. 
 
 (The nine Heads or Links mentioned in the Treaty 
 of Conestogoe were repeated.) — Col Rec, Vol. III.„ 
 page 334-5. 
 
47 
 
 At the courtho. of Philadia., October loth, 1728. 
 
 Patrick Gordon, Esqr., Lieut. Governr. present, also 
 Sassoonan & Chiefs of the Delawares, five Nations, 
 Brandywine Indians, with several others. 
 
 Sassoonan, spoke as follows : That when their Father, 
 William Penn, was in this country, it was agreed that 
 both Christians and Indians should joyn in removing all 
 Difficulties, & if any Stone or Stump should ly in the 
 Way, that both should joyn their Hands together & 
 help to remove it, that old men & Children might walk 
 safely. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., page 353. 
 
 October i ith. 
 
 The Governour spoke to them in these Words: As 
 The links of the Y^u are now come, tho' few in Number Yet 
 andgoneTvef in the Name of all the Delawares, Shawanese, 
 
 again by Cover- o T\;r- '11 
 
 nor Gordon. & Mmgoes, amongst us, to declare your 
 Friendship, & their resolution to live in Peace unto the 
 Christians forever, I will again goe over the Links of the 
 Chain made between William Penn and you, which I re- 
 peated to my Brethren at Conestogoe in the Summer, 
 that they may be the more fresh in your Minds, because 
 you have no Writing amongst you, & I desire that you 
 may repeat them over and over again to your Children, 
 & to all your People, & to all the Indians that live 
 amongst you, that you may have them at all times 
 stamp'd on your Hearts and fixed in your View." 
 
 (Here the nine Articles or Links of the Chain, as in 
 the Treaty held at Conestogoe, were repeated.)— G?/. 
 Rec, Vol. III., pages 255-6. 
 
48 
 
 Council at Philadia., May 26th, 1729. 
 
 Tawenna stood up & said : He never spoke since 
 
 William Penn was here till last Spring, & he now speaks 
 
 the same again to the Governour, That William Penn 
 
 , in his house in this town, told them they must 
 
 Fairman or Lass ' •' 
 
 Shere'theTdting be One Body & he now says the same ; they 
 was signed. ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 1^^ ^g People bound together to 
 
 each other, tho' the Bonds were ever so strong, tho' they 
 were of Iron, for even in that case the one may suffer 
 & the other escape, but they & we, as William Penn 
 said, must be as the same Body, half the one & half the 
 other, that cannot be divided, that each may both have 
 Joy & Pain alike, as the same Body without any Divi- 
 sion. William Penn said that as both Nations were to 
 be the same Body, so if by any stroke that Body were 
 to be divided down the middle into two parts so that 
 they fell assunder, This should be looked upon as the 
 act of Providence, which neither could help or be blamed 
 for. 
 
 William Penn further said, that if all the People around 
 us should differ one with another, yet we must not differ 
 but continue the same in Love and Peace ; that the In- 
 dians ought not hastily to goe out to War but rather 
 should study Peace, & that if they were attacked he & 
 his People would be ready to defend them, for that we 
 are all as one People. WilHam Penn told the Indians 
 that he loved them all, their Men, Women & Children, 
 and that he held Councils with them to perpetuate the 
 
49 
 
 Remembrance of his Affection towards them, that the 
 Friendship he had established with them was to last for 
 many Generations ; that their old Men die & others 
 come in their Room, who likewise die, but that the Love 
 & Friendship between the English & Indians ought to 
 remain forever. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., pages 383-85. 
 
 That William Penn is dead, but he now repeats all 
 these things to the Governour whom he looks upon as 
 in his stead, & as if William Penn himself were alive ; 
 that he remembers all these things which were then 
 said, and He has now spoke in the Name of the Cones- 
 togoe, Ganawese, Delaware, & Shawanese Indians. — 
 Col. Rec, Vol. III., page 386. 
 
 Council at Philadia., May 27th, 1729. 
 
 Patrick Gordon, Esqr., Lieut. Governr. And the same 
 CovernorGordon Indlatts as beforc. The Governour spoke in 
 ^Soffhe°first these words : I am glad to find by your Dis- 
 
 Treaty which _ . i i t 
 
 they remember, course, that you uot ouly remember what 1 
 said to you last Spring, but also there are some yet liv- 
 ing amongst you who can remember what your Father 
 William Penn said to your People when he was in the 
 Countrey, from thence you see that His Words & mine 
 are the same. He agreed with all the Indians whom he 
 treated with in the several Points that I laid before you 
 at Conestogoe : they were his Words, tho' spoken by 
 me, & as I observe the old Men well remember them ; 
 so now I desire you again to repeat them over to your 
 Children & require them to remember them & to repeat 
 
50 
 
 them again to their Children, that the same may be con- 
 tinued not only to your Children but through all Genera- 
 tions & to all Ages. 
 
 By this means we shall truely continue not only 
 Friends & Brothers, but one People, of one Body, one 
 Mind & one Heart. We shall rejoyce together & be 
 sorrowfuU together, & we shall all be the same. — Col. 
 Rec, Vol. III., pages 386-87. 
 
 Letter of Gov. Gordon to Delaware Indians, 1731, at 
 Alleghening : 
 
 I find that when your father William Penn first came 
 fcurea'tyaga^' into thls Couutty hc callcd all the Indians to- 
 gether and made a strong chain & league of friendship 
 with them, which was that He and his People and they 
 and their People & their Children and Children's Chil- 
 dren & their Children and so forward to all ages and 
 generations, should be one people as of the same flesh 
 and blood and the same body as long as the Waters 
 should flow and the Sun, Moon and Stars endure. And 
 William Penn gave it always in Charge to all his Gov- 
 ernours whom he sent into this Country in his stead to 
 be kind to all the Indians as his Brethren and Children, 
 and accordingly all the Governours of this place have 
 from time to time renew'd the same Treaty and 
 brightned the Chain with all the Indians and we have 
 lived and doe live as true friends and brethren. If any 
 white man hurt an Indian he is punished for it, and you 
 have heard that some of our people have been hang' (3 
 
51 
 
 on a Gallows for being wicked to the Indians. I wrote 
 the Order for it and they were putt to death because 
 they had abused our brethren. — Pa. Arch., Vol. I., p. 
 303- 
 
 COUNCIL HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, AugUSt 23d, I 732. 
 
 Thomas Penn, Esqr., Proprietary. James Logan, 
 Thomas Penn re- ^^aac NorHs, Samucl PrestoH, Samuel Hasell, 
 firsTmidebyllis Thomas Laurcnce, Esq'rs. Present also: 
 Chiefs of the Tsanandowas : Chiefs of the 
 Cayooges, & Oneidas ; The Proprietor, spoke as fol- 
 lows ; 
 
 I need not inform you that when my Father, William 
 Penn, was Sent by the Great King of England to bring 
 over large Numbers of his People to settle in this Coun- 
 try, he made it his first and principal Care to convince 
 all the Indians inhabiting it, that he came with a full 
 Design to be their Friend and Benefactor. 
 
 And he entered into the Strictest League of Amity 
 with them, not only between himself and his People and 
 the Indians then living, but to continue between his 
 Children and their Children and their Posterity to all 
 Generations, & for this Purpose he made with them a 
 Chain of Friendship, to be kept Strong and bright for- 
 ever. And when his Affairs in England obliged him 
 to leave this Country, he gave it strictly in Charge to 
 all his Governors and People in Power under him, that 
 they should in the same manner treat all the Indians 
 as he had done; That they should be as Fathers to 
 
52 
 
 them, & that all his People should live in perfect Peace 
 and Brotherhood with all the Indians, as if they were 
 of one Blood and one Body, without distinction. 
 
 I am but young, and having been bred in England 
 could not see those things with my own Eyes, but I Con- 
 stantly had Accounts in writing of all that was done 
 here, as if I had been myself in the Place, and by read- 
 ing these over again I now know them better than if I 
 had been present, and were to be informed by Memory 
 only, so that I can fully speak to them. 
 
 And now, since I am here with you my Self, I do 
 assure you that the Friendship & strict Union which 
 my Father began with all our Friends, the Indians, and 
 his Governors after him have cultivated, I shall take 
 Care to improve and strengthen. My Father made a 
 Chain and Covenant for himself and his Children, and 
 I his Son, will to the best of my Power make that Chain 
 yet stronger and brighter on our Parts ; that it may 
 continue so to all Generations. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., p. 
 466. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, the Great Meeting house, 
 Theiinksofthe ^ugust 3 1 st, 1732. Thomas Penn, Esqr., 
 ed^^ThomL' Proprietary. A very great Audience, that 
 crowded the House and all its Gallaries. The 
 Chiefs of the Indians all their People who accompanied 
 them in their Journey — The clerk of the Council said, 
 " as we have had several Treaties of Friendship with the 
 Six Nations, & you have always found us steady & 
 
53 
 
 constant to you in all we have professed, & we have 
 now upon the Arrival of the Son of their great Friend, 
 William Penn, who first began the Settlement of this 
 Province, a fuller Opportunity than Ever, of freely open- 
 ing our Hearts to each other. His Son, who has just 
 on his Arrival so happily mett you here, with the Lieu- 
 tenant Governor and Council, for all the People of this 
 Province, not only renew & confirm all former Treaties, 
 but enter into the most strict & closest League of Friend- 
 ship, Love & Union with all the Six Nations at first 
 named, desiring that the same Friendship may be ex- 
 tended to all the other Nations," with whom you are or 
 shall be in Alliance, of which these Heads that we are 
 now to mention, are the Chief & ever to be kept in Re- 
 membrance : 
 
 1st. We shall consider the Six Nations as ourselves, 
 and you shall consider all our inhabitants as your own 
 people. 
 
 2d. You shall not believe any false or idle Rumours 
 concerning you, but each shall Enquire of the other 
 into the Truth of what they hear. 
 
 3d. If you know or learn any thing that may hurt us, 
 you shall carefully inform us of it,, and if we hear any 
 thing that may hurt you, we shall in like manner acquaint 
 you. 
 
 4th. If any evil minded Person amongst us should 
 hurt any of your People, they shall be punished as if 
 they had done it to an English Subject, in which you 
 
54 
 
 have known some Instances of our Care, and if any of 
 your People hurt any of ours, we shall expect the like 
 justice. 
 
 5th. We will constantly keep a Fire for you at Phila- 
 delphia, that when any of the Chiefs of your Nations 
 come hither, we may sitt down together round it, and 
 advise and consult of such Affairs as may be for the 
 general interest of both you and us. On this Article 
 was delivered a Belt of Wampum. 
 
 6th. And we now desire, there may be an open Road 
 between Philadelphia and the towns of the Six Nations, 
 which we will on our parts, clear from every Grub, 
 Stump & Log, that it may be straight, smooth & free 
 for us and you. 
 
 7th. This League and Chain of Friendship & Brother- 
 hood, we now make with all the Six Nations, vizt : the 
 Tsanandowans, Onandagoes, Ganyingoes, Cayoogoes, 
 Oneidas & Tuscarores, for us and our People, and for 
 our Children and Children's Children with you for all 
 your Nations, and for your Children & Children's Chil- 
 dren to all Generations, to continue so long as the 
 Heavens, Sun, Moon, Stars, & the Earth shall Endure. 
 And we desire that the same may at your return be 
 ratified & confirmed at your great Fire by all your Peo- 
 ple, and be kept in perpetual Remembrance, and that all 
 our Indians & all the Nations of Indians in Alliance with 
 you, may be comprehended within the same. 
 
 And for the Confirmation hereof, we now make you 
 this Present 
 
55 
 
 Then were delivered the Goods which, by order of 
 the Board were provided by the Treasurer. 
 
 The Proprietor was pleased to add to the Present, 
 Six fine jappaned & guilt Guns, which he brought over 
 with him, to be delivered one to the Chief of Each of 
 the Six Nations. 
 
 The Indians, on receiving the Belts of Wampum & 
 the Present, expressed their Thankfullness by a harmo- 
 nious Sound peculiar to them, in which those of each 
 Nation now present joyned alternately, & they repeated 
 the same with great Seeming Satisfaction. — Col. Rec, 
 Vol. III., p. 481. 
 
 Directions being given for their Entertainment while 
 they remained in Town, & for providing some neces- 
 saries for their Journey, the Indians taking the Pro- 
 prietor, Governor, & Members of Council by the hand^ 
 departed, & thus the Treaty ended. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., 
 pages 482-83. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, Septr. 30th, 1732. 
 
 Thomas Penn Esqr., Proprietary. Shawanese Chiefs. 
 The Treaty of They Were then acquainted that a great Treaty 
 fSedM!""^ had lately been held with the Six Nations, that 
 a considerable Number of their Nation, about thirty-four 
 years since, (as the Govr. told them in his Letter,) com- 
 ing with their Wives & Families to Settle at Conestogoe, 
 they then entered into a League of Friendship with this 
 Government ; first with Coll. Markham, the then Lieu- 
 tenant Governor, and in about three years after, with 
 
56 
 
 William Penn, himself, who was a Father to all the In- 
 dians: that from tiat time the Shawanese became as 
 Brothers to the English, as all our other Indians are. — 
 Col. Rec, Vol. III., pages 491-93. 
 
 Council at Philadelphia, October i6th, 1734. 
 
 Honourable Proprietaries John & Thomas Penn Esqr. 
 
 John Penn, Esqr., spoke as follows. I am well pleased 
 Thomas Penn with the Opportunity your visit gives me, so 
 strengthen the soou after mv Arrival here, to see my gfood 
 
 league made with •' .^ o 
 
 his father. friends Hetaquantagechty and Shekallamy, 
 of both whom I have received so favourable a Character 
 that you shall always be welcome to me, and I desire 
 you to assure all the Indians, and particularly my good 
 friends of the Six Nations, that it shall be my constant 
 care to strengthen that firm League and Chain of Friend- 
 ship which my Father first began, and has since been 
 carefully preserved between the Indians and all the 
 People within this Government. — Col. Rec, Vol. III., 
 pages 626-27. 
 
 ecoe 
 
58 
 
 July 29, 1735. Several Indians of Conestogoe and 
 Susquehannah, to the number of Thirty in all, Men, 
 Women & Children, coming to town on a friendly visit, 
 a council was held. 
 
 Council at Philadia., August ist, 1735. Thomas 
 Penn, Esqr. Proprietary. 
 
 Civility, by the Interpreter, said : 
 
 That there are now present three different Nations of 
 the Indians, to witt: the Conestogoes, Ganawese, and 
 Shawanese, who are come down to visit the Proprietors, 
 and to renew with them the League & Chain of Friend- 
 ship. 
 
 These Indians at a Council held at Philadia., August 2, 
 1 735, ratified the second and last Great Treaty of Amity. 
 
 The Treaty. — Articles of Agreement Indented, Made, 
 • ^^ ^^^ Concluded, & Agreed upon at Philadelphia, 
 Jh?'^oSndTrTnd thc twenty- third day of the second Month 
 called April, in the year One thousand seven 
 hundred and one, between William Penn,' Proprietary 
 and Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania and Ter- 
 ritories thereunto belonging, on the one Part, And Con- 
 noodaghtoh. King of the Indians inhabiting upon and 
 about the River Susquehannah in the said Province, And 
 
 ' It was the Founder's intention to locate a second Philadelphia on the Susque- 
 hanna. "And I do also intend that every one who shall be a purchaser in the pro- 
 posed Settlement shall have a proportionable lot in the Said City to build a house 
 or houses upon, which town ground and the shares of land that shall be bought by 
 me shall be delivered clear of all Indian pretentions, for it has heen my way from 
 the first to purchase their title from them and so settle with their consent." Pro- 
 posals of William Penn, 1690. — Hnzaru''s Rep., Vol. I,, p. 400. 
 
59 
 
 Widgh (alias Orytyagh), Koqueash and Andaggy-junk- 
 quagh, Chiefs of the said Nations of Indians/ And 
 Wopaththa King, & Lenroytungh, & PenroyajooagU 
 Chiefs of the Nations of the Shawonnah Indians, And 
 Ahookassoongh, Brother to the Emperor, for & in Be- 
 half of the Emperor (& Weewhinjough, Cheequittagh 
 Takyewsan & Woapatkoa, Chiefs), of the Nations of 
 the Indians inhabiting in & about the Northern part of 
 the River Potomock, in the said Province, for and 
 in Behalf of themselves and successors, and their 
 several Nations and People, on the other part, as fol- 
 loweth : 
 
 That as hitherto there hath always been a Good Un- 
 derstanding & Neighbourhood between the said William 
 Penn and his Lieutenant since his first Arrival in the 
 said Province, and the several Nations of Indians inhab- 
 iting in & about the same, so there shall be for ever 
 hereafter, a firm and everlasting Peace continued between 
 the said William Penn, his Heirs and Successors, & all 
 the English and other Christian Inhabitants of the said 
 Province, & the said Kings & Chiefs & their Successors, 
 & all the several People of the Nations of Indians afore- 
 said, and that they shall for ever hereafter be as one 
 As one head and head & one heart, & live in true Friendship 
 
 one heart to- _ 
 
 gether. and Amity as One Pcople. Item, that the said 
 
 Kings and Chiefs (each for himself & his People En- 
 
 ' The Conestogas were the remains of a tribe of the six nations settled at Cones- 
 togoe, and thence called Conestogoe Indians. On the first arrival of the English 
 
6o 
 
 gaging) shall at no time hurt, injure or Defraud, or suffer 
 to be hurt. Injured or Defrauded, by any of their Indians, 
 an Inhabitant or Inhabitants of the said Province, 
 either in their Persons or Estates. And that the said 
 William Penn, his heirs and successors, shall not suffer 
 to be Done or Committed by any of the Subjects of 
 England within the said Province, any act of Hostilities 
 or Violence, Wrong or Injury to or against any of the 
 said Indians, but shall on both sides at all times readily 
 do Justice & perform all Acts and Offices of Friendship 
 & Good Will, to oblige Each other to a lasting Peace as 
 aforesaid. Item that all & every the said Kings and 
 Chiefs & all & every particular of the Nations under 
 them, shall at all times behave themselves Regularly 
 and Soberly, according to the Laws of this Government, 
 while they live near or amongst the Christian Inhabitants 
 thereof. And that the said Indians shall have the full 
 & free privileges & Immunities of all the said Laws as 
 any other Inhabitants, they duly Owning and Acknowl- 
 edgg. the Authority of the Crown of England and 
 
 in Pennsylvania, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them with presents of 
 venison, corn and skins, and the whole tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with 
 the first proprietor, William Penn, which was to last as long as the sun should shine 
 or the water run in the rivers. This treaty has been since frequently renewed and 
 the chain brightened, as they expressed, from time to time. It has never been vio- 
 lated on their part or ours till now. A narrative, etc., printed in the year MDCCLXIV. 
 (written and printed by Benjamin Franklin). — Hist. Sac. Lib. 
 
 Of these Indians, in the year 1764, but twenty remained, of these one Shehaw 
 was a very old man, having assisted at the second treaty held with them by William 
 Penn in 1701. — 11/. [4.] 
 
6i 
 
 Government of this Province. Item, that none of the 
 said Indians shall at any time be Aiding, Assisting, or 
 Abetting to any other Nation, whether of Indians or 
 others that shall not at such time be in Amity with the 
 said Crown of England & of this Government. Item, 
 that if at any time any o^ the Indians, by means of Evil 
 minded Persons & Sowers of Sedition should hear any 
 unkind or Disadvantageous Reports of the English as 
 if they had Evil Designs agst. any of the said Indians, 
 in such case such Indians shall send notice thereof to 
 the said William Penn, his heirs or successors, or their 
 Lieutenants, and shall not give Credence to the said 
 Reports, till by that means they shall be fully satisfied 
 concerning the Truth thereof, and that the said William 
 Penn, his heirs and successors or their Lieutenants shall 
 at all times in such cases do the Like by them. Item, 
 that the said Kings & Chiefs & their successors & 
 People, shall not suffer any strange Nation of Indians to 
 settle or plant on the further side of Susquehannah, or 
 about Potomock River, but such as are there already 
 seated, nor bring any other Indians into any part of this 
 Province, without the special Approbation & Permis- 
 sion of the said William Penn, his heirs & successors. 
 
 Item, That for the prevention of Abuses that are too 
 frequently put upon the said Indians in trade ; that the 
 said William Penn, his heirs & Successors, shall not 
 suffer or permit any Person to trade or commerce with 
 any of the said Indians, but such as shall be first allowed 
 
62 
 
 or approved of by an Instrument under the hand & 
 seal of him, the said William Penn, or his heirs, or Suc- 
 cessors, or their Lieutenants, and that the said Indians 
 shall suffer no Person whatsoever to buy or sell or have 
 commerce with any of them the said Indians, but such 
 as shall first be approved as aforesaid. 
 
 Item, that the said Indians shall not Sell or Dispose 
 of any of their Skins, Peltry or Furs, or any other Ef- 
 fects of their hunting, to any Person or Persons what- 
 soever out of the Province, nor to any other Person but 
 such as shall be authorized' to trade with them as afore- 
 said, and that for their Encouragement the said William 
 Penn, his heirs & Successors, shall take care to have 
 them the said Indians, duly furnished with all sorts of 
 necessary goods for their use at Reasonable Rates. 
 
 Item, that the Potomock Indians aforesaid, with their 
 Colony, shall have free leave of the said William Penn, 
 to settle upon any part of Potomock River within the 
 Bounds of this Province, they strictly observing & 
 practising all & singular the Articles aforesaid, to them 
 relating. 
 
 Item, the Indians of Conestogoe and upon and about 
 the River Susquehannah, and more especially the said 
 Connoodaghtah their King, doth fully agree to, and by 
 these presents absolutely Ratifie the Bargain & Sale of 
 Land lying near & about the said River formerly made 
 the said William Penn, his heirs & Successors, and 
 since by Orytyagh & Andaggy-junkquagh, parties to 
 
63 
 
 these presents confirmed to the said William Penn, 
 his heirs & Successors, by a Deed bearing date the 
 thirteenth day of September last, under their hands & 
 Seals, duly Executed ; and the said Connoodaghtah doth 
 for himself and his Nation, covenant and agree that he 
 will at all times be ready further to confirm and make 
 good the said Sale according to the Tenour of the same, 
 and that the said Indians of Susquehannah shall answer 
 to the said William Penn, his heirs & Successors, for the 
 good Behaviour and Conduct of the said Potomock In- 
 dians, and for their performance of the several Articles 
 herein expressed. 
 
 Item, the said William Penn doth hereby promise for 
 himself, his heirs & Successors, that he and they will at 
 br«heri°"'^ ^"'' ^11 tlmcs show themselves true Friends and 
 Brothers, to all & every of the said Indians, by assisting 
 them with the best of their Advices, Directions, & 
 Councils, and will in all things Just and Reasonable 
 Befriend them, they behaving themselves as aforesaid, 
 and submitting to the Laws of this Province in all things 
 as the English and other Christians therein Doe, to 
 which they the said Indians hereby agree and obliedge 
 themselves and their Posterity for ever. In Witnesse 
 whereof the said Parties have, as a Confirmation, made 
 mutual Presents to each other ; the Indians in five Par- 
 cells of Skins, and the said William Penn in several 
 English Goods and Merchandize, as a binding pledge 
 of the premises, never to be Broken or Violated, and as 
 
64 
 
 a further Testimony thereof, have also to these presents 
 Interchangeably sett their hands and seals the Day and 
 Year above written : 
 
 Connoodaghtah, 
 
 "l. s. 
 
 Wopaththa, [l. s.] 
 
 Andaggy-junkquagh, 
 
 [L. S.] 
 
 Ahookassoough, [l. s.] 
 
 Penroyajooagh, 
 
 [L. S.] 
 
 Takyewsan, [l. s.] 
 
 Cheequittagh, 
 
 [L. S.] 
 
 Koqueeash, [l. s." 
 
 Widaagh, 
 
 
 Lernoytung, [l. s.] 
 
 als. 
 
 
 Weewhinjough, [l. s.] 
 
 Orytyagh 
 
 [L. S.] 
 
 Woapatkoa, [l s.] 
 
 Signed, Sealed & Delivered In the presence of 
 Edward Shippen, John Sanders, 
 
 Nathan Stanbury, his 
 
 Alaxander Paxton, Penroquenichchan, [xl 
 
 Caleb Pusey, """'' 
 
 James Streater, i^i^ 
 
 J. Le Tort, Passaquessay, 
 
 Jut Hans Stellman, 
 James Logan, 
 Indian Harry, alias Showydoohungh, Interpreter, 
 
 mark 
 
 his 
 
 X 
 
 mark 
 
 On the occasion of the ratification of this treaty in 
 1735 Thomas Penn said: And you also see tha:t the 
 great Treaty of Friendship then made, was not for three 
 Generations only but forever, that is as long as the Sun 
 & Moon shall endure, or Water to flow in the Rivers 
 
65 
 
 which is the Language that has always been used on 
 This writing also these Occasions. And as vou now see this, 
 
 preserved by the ^ 
 
 Indians. ^^^ havc oue of the Writings in your own 
 
 hands, you should always, in some Number of years, get 
 some honest English Man to read that Paper to you, 
 that the Contents of it may be kept in Remembrance. 
 
 These Articles you see were made principally with the 
 Susquehannah Indians, who then mostly lived at Conest- 
 ogoe : And the Shawanese, as their friends, came also, 
 under our Father's Protection, and entered into the same 
 League. It were to be wished that their whole Nation 
 were made sensible of this, and those of that Nation 
 who were now here are desired very carefully to ac- 
 quaint the rest with what they have seen & heard here. 
 And now on And now on these heads there remains no 
 
 these heads there 
 
 remains no more, niore, that we- should hcrc most solemnly 
 Ratify & Confirm all these Articles so far as they relate 
 to Friendship and Union, to be observed not only by us 
 but our Posterity to all Generations. 
 
 At the conclusion of this Council the governor pre- 
 sented a large belt of Wampum. — Co/. Rec, Vol. III., 
 pages 654-5. 
 
 The following presents were brought by the Indians: 
 
 107 Fall Deer skins at 1-9 each £ 9.7.3 
 
 21 Ordinary " I " l.i.o 
 
 35 Indian Drest " 3-6 " 6.2.6 
 
 4 Raccoons " 1-6 " 0.6.0 
 
 2 Bear skins " 4 " 0.8.0 
 
 I7-4.9 
 
66 
 
 And the following goods valued at £^0 were procured 
 for and presented to them : 
 
 4 fine guns 20 pounds powder 
 
 8 Shawls 40 pounds lead 
 
 8 Blankets 30 Knives 
 
 8 Shirts 50 Flints 
 
 4 Hats 
 with some rum, pipes, tobacco, and bread, which the Indians received with great 
 
 thankfulness, together with the charges of their entertainment provided by the Pro- 
 prietary's treasurer. 
 
 With this we close the citations confirmatory of the 
 first treaty with the Indians — the establishment of a 
 lasting confidence and unity of interest which was a 
 chief object of his coming ; and to which the land 
 purchases were subsidiary. ' 
 
 These citations from letters, councils, proclamations, 
 and other writings establish the fact that there was 
 executed by the Founder at his first coming in 1682 a 
 great Treaty of Amity with the Indian tribes ; and that 
 at his second coming in pursuance of the same purpose 
 he entered into a second great Treaty of Amity. 
 
 That both treaties were committed to writing in a 
 formal manner ; that the chief heads of the first treaty 
 and the whole body of the writing of the second are 
 still extant in our colonial retords, and that these 
 treaties were renewed from time to time by his sons 
 and governors. 
 
67 
 
 The policy then inaugurated has never been departed 
 from by our State. 
 
 Through that poHcy the hand of violence against the 
 Indian has been stayed, and the chain brightened and 
 kept clean and without rust even to these years. 
 
 It is therefore that the Founder has received homage 
 from men of all opinions — and that that first treaty — 
 renewed and confirmed by himself, his sons and 
 his governors from year to year and made part of the 
 very structure of our State, still survives, and will for- 
 ever live in the world's common memory. 
 
THE TRADITION AMONG THE INDIANS. 
 
 ^ETWEEN the years 1770 and 1780, they could 
 relate very minutely what had passed between 
 William Penn and their forefathers, at their first 
 meeting and afterwards, and also the transactions 
 
 lln" iiimTmrm 
 
 which took place with the governors who succeeded 
 him. — Heckewelder, p. 107. 
 
 In the year 1781 there were still some very aged 
 Indians living on the banks of the Muskingum who were 
 present when the first houses were built in Philadelphia. 
 They related that the white people treated them with 
 the greatest kindness, so that they appeared to be but 
 one nation. — Lo^kiel La Trobe, p. i., Ch. X., p. 124. 
 
 Thus we find that the lapse of one*hundred years had 
 
 (68) 
 
69 
 
 not obliterated in the minds of the Indians the tender 
 feeUngs which the kindness and upright conduct of their 
 brother Mignon (so the Delawares called William Penn) 
 had inspired, and, no doubt, in the dreary solitudes be- 
 yond the Mississippi, to which their miserable remnants 
 have been driven by a policy to which history will give 
 its true name, those poor exiles from the land of their 
 ancestors still teach their children to lisp the name of 
 
 their friend Mignon, with far different feelings from 
 those with which they refer to names of more modern 
 date.—//: M. S. of Pa., Vol. III., P. II., p. 148. 
 
 And still he has not forgotten the great treaty, and 
 among the scattered remnants of those once powerful 
 tribes, now seated by the clear lakes of Canada or wan- 
 dering on the banks of the turbid Missouri, the name 
 of the great and the good Onas continues to be held in 
 grateful remembrance. — Janney, p. 209. 
 
THE STATEMENTS OF THE WRITERS AS TO THE 
 TREATY ARE AS FOLLOWS 
 
 l^LDMIXON.— "The British Empire in America," 
 was written about twenty-five years after the first 
 arrival of William Penn in this country. In it he states 
 that "the proprietary, upon his arrival in his Colony, 
 entered into treaties with the Indians to buy lands." 
 Afterwards, however, speaking of Penn's removal to 
 England, in 1684, he particularly mentions the treaties 
 of friendship that he made with the Aborigines. Mr. 
 Penn, he says, stayed in Pennsylvania two years, and 
 having made a league of amity with nineteen Indian 
 nations, betweeij them and all the English in America; 
 having established good laws, he returned to England. 
 — Oldmixon, 1708, London, p. 171. 
 
 Proud. — Mr. Proud's history of Pennsylvania was 
 published in the year 1797. In it he mentions the pur- 
 chases of land by William Penn, but after having spoken 
 of these, he writes: "It was at this time (1682) when he 
 (William Penn) first entered personally into that lasting 
 friendship with the Indians, which ever after continued 
 between them. 
 
 "Again he says a firm peace was thereupon concluded 
 
 (70) 
 
71 
 
 between William Penn and the Indians, and both parties 
 mutually promised to live together as brethren, without 
 doing the least injury to each other. This treaty was 
 solemnly ratified by the mutual token of a chain of 
 friendship, a covenant indelible, never to be broken as 
 long as the sun and moon endure." — Proud's Histoiy, 
 
 Vol. I., p. 212. 
 
 GoRBON finally writes in his history it has been doubted 
 whether the conference between William Penn and the 
 Indians was holden under the great Elm at Shackamaxon, 
 and whether it was accompanied by a formal treaty. If 
 we suffer ourselves to doubt these facts, historical tradi- 
 tion is unworthy of acceptance, and little credence can 
 be given to ordinary historical testimony. — Gordon's 
 Pennsylvania, p. 603. 
 
 Raynal. — ^The Abbe Raynal, in his Continent embrac- 
 ing work, wrote : " He (William Penn) signalized his 
 arrival by' an act of equity by which he endeared his 
 person and made his principles acceptable." — Raynal's 
 Hist. Philos. 
 
 Voltaire. — Voltaire, who was without faith in any- 
 thing human or divine save Pennsylvania and the pur- 
 poses of its founder, gave in his credence by the yet 
 more often quoted passage : 
 
 "The only treaty which has not been sworn to, and 
 which has not been broken." It appears in every notice 
 of the Founder's life. The whole passage reads : " He 
 began by making a league with the American Indians 
 
72 
 
 which were his neighbors. This is the only treaty be- 
 tween those persons and the Christians which has not 
 been sworn to, and which has not been broken." 
 
 "C'est le seul traite entre ces peuples et les Chretiens 
 qui n'ait point ete jure et qui n'ait point ete rompu." — 
 Did. Philos., 7, 17-18. 
 
 Armistead, who drew from original sources, repeats 
 the story. "In 1682 Penn first entered into that lasting 
 friendship with the Indians which ever afterwards con- 
 tinued between them." — Armistead' s Life of y antes Logan, 
 p. 85. 
 
 The fact that a treaty at his first coming was made, 
 was committed to writing kept for many years, and cited 
 again and again by its heads, having been established 
 by these records with the concurrence of all who have 
 written upon it, without any exception ; there only re- 
 mains the question of the place, the season, and the year 
 in which it was held, and the attending circumstances; 
 these rest on tradition, but tradition of the most reliable 
 character, both in certainty of statement and the persons 
 by whom It was made. 
 
 This is fortified by its acceptance by historians of the 
 highest reliability, and by the patient researches of the 
 Historical Society of the State, where it was alleged to 
 have taken place, on two occasions, in which all that 
 then existed was examined, and the conclusion reached 
 to which this writer has also come. 
 
 The Place of the' Treaty. — But it is almost indis- 
 
73 
 
 putably probable, said the venerable Judge Peters, if gen- 
 eral tradition did not confirm the fact, that William Penn 
 chose to hold this treaty beyond the reach of any jealousy 
 about the neighborhood of fortified places and within 
 the lines of his province far from such places ; and at a 
 spot (Shackamaxon) which had been an Indian settlement 
 familiar to and esteemed by the natives, and where 
 neither Dutch nor Swedes could be supposed to have 
 influence, for with them the Indians had bickerings. 
 This view of the subject gives the strongest confirma- 
 tion to the tradition of the Treaty being held at Kensing- 
 ton.' 
 
 Shackamaxon was a place of resort for the Indians of 
 ■different Nations, no doubt to consult together and settle 
 iheir mutual concerns, and while it comes in aid of our 
 etymology of that name, it accounts for its having been 
 chosen by Markham and William Penn after him, as the 
 place for holding their successive treaties. It adds also 
 no little importance to the locality of the great treaty 
 under the Elm Tree." 
 
 The tradition rests on the following direct testimony, 
 says Judge Peters. I have always understood and be- 
 lieved that the treaty in 1682 was held at Shackamaxon. 
 When a boy I have resorted to the great Elm Tree, and 
 have always confided in the then uncontradicted tradi- 
 tion that under that tree the treaty was held. The place 
 had been an Indian Village 57 years ago. 
 
 1 Richard Peters to Roberts Vaux, Belmont, Sep. 6, 1825. 
 ■iMem. H. S. of Pa., Vol. III., p. 2, p. 184. 
 
74 
 
 Both David Conyngham and myself remember when 
 boys, bathing on the sandy beach near the famous Elm. 
 No person then disputed the fact that this Elm was the 
 tree under which Penn's treaty was held. Mr. Conyng- 
 ham remembers distinctly, the friendly visitation of 
 Benjamin Lay to the scene of our sports. He must 
 have betin known to some of the contemporaries of 
 Penn. After dilating on the worth and virtues of that 
 good man, and particularly as they applied to the treat- 
 ment of the natives, he would call on the boys ; point 
 out the Elm Tree and enjoin on them to bear in mind, 
 and teach to their children that under that tree Penn's 
 treaty was held and they should respect it accordingly. 
 
 Strength is added to this by the general acceptance 
 of the tradition, so that during the revolutionary war the 
 British General Simcoe, who was quartered at Kensing 
 ton so regarded it that whilst his soldiers were felling 
 the trees of the vicinity for fuel, he placed a sentinel 
 under this tree that not a branch of it might be touched. 
 Statement by General Simcoe to Sir B. West. — Memoirs- 
 of H. S. ofVa., 1825, p. 97. 
 
 That this treaty, therefore, says the Society, was held, 
 at Shackamaxon shortly after the arrival of William Penn 
 in 1682 we think that the least doubt cannot at present 
 be entertained.' 
 
 'Richard Peters, Belniom, November 3, 1825. 
 2//. 5. of Pa., Vol. VI., p. 94. 
 
75 
 
 The season of the year. — As to this the Society says : 
 We consider ourselves at Hberty to fix the epoch of 
 the great treaty at such time as we shall think most con- 
 sistent with probability, and we believe that to be about 
 the latter end of November. The season was then 
 beautiful, as is generally the fall season in our country. 
 His journey lasted about a month, and he had sufficient 
 time to go to New York and Long Island, visit his 
 friends on the way in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 
 and treat with the Indians on his return. On his de- 
 parture from New Castle, his friend Markham had full 
 time to give notice to the Chiefs to meet him at Shacka- 
 maxon ; in short, by adopting this period we find our- 
 selves free from the objections that meet us at every 
 step in choosing any other.' 
 
 The speeches on the occasion. — As to these the 
 Society further says : What he (Clarkson) relates of the 
 speech of William Penn, appears to us conformable tO' 
 the best traditions, and to agree in substance, with the 
 information that v^e have been able to collect elsewhere, 
 from various sources. It was natural that he should ex- 
 plain to the Indians the principles of the Society of 
 Friends on the subject of bearing arms, and we may well 
 suppose that he began his speech as Mr. Clarkson relates.. 
 Also that he should tell them that the land which they 
 liad sold, or should sell to the Whites, was to be held in 
 common between them, and that both nations should be 
 
 1 Mem. H. S. of Pa., Vol. HI., p. 2, 150, 185. 
 
76 
 
 at liberty to occupy it for their lawful purposes. It is en- 
 tirely in accordance with what we have said of the opin- 
 ions of the Indians respecting property ; and that this 
 language was held by the proprietor, is fully ascertained 
 by the speeches of the Governor of the Colony and those 
 of the Indians in subsequent treaties. — Mem. H. S. of 
 Pa., Vol. III., P. II., p. 166-189. Clarksons Life. 
 
 The tradition does not rest upon the words or writings 
 of inconsiderate men, it has come down to us from the 
 lips of men, one with whom falsehood was impossible, 
 another taught by a life of judicial training to disbelieve 
 except upon the clearest evidence, another incredulous 
 from his nature, another exhaustive in researches, an- 
 other the friend and companion of the Founder; with 
 these that body of men who devote their lives to these 
 investigations, and who lived as it were on the very 
 ground. 
 
 The conservators of the tradition 
 
 James Logan was born in Ireland in 1674 or '75, em- 
 barked with Penn for Pennsylvania 7th mo. (Sep.), 1699. 
 Arrived loth mo. (Dec.) ; when Penn returned to Eng- 
 land 3rd, 9ber., 1701, he then 25, was made Secretary 
 of the Province by Penn, and had general charge of the 
 Government and property. "I have left thee," wrote 
 Penn, " in an uncommon trust with a singular dependence 
 on thy justice and care." He discharged his duties with 
 fidelity and friendship ; he was long Chief Justice of the 
 Province and held the Office of Commissioner of Prop- 
 
11 
 
 erty. He was two years President of the Council and 
 ex-ofificio Governor of the Province. In 1738 he retired 
 from the Presidency. The Indians visited and sometimes 
 remained under his hospitahty until his death. At a 
 treaty held with the Six Nations at Philadelphia, July, 
 1742, which he could not attend by reason of a bodily 
 infirmity, they brought him a present of a bundle of 
 skins, and Conasatego, Chief of the Onondagoes speak- 
 ing for the chiefs, said of him to Governor Thomas : 
 " James Logan is a wise man and a fast friend of the 
 Indians, and we desire when his soul goes to God you 
 may choose in his room just such another person." He 
 died 31st, 10 mo., 1751, aet. T] . The Loganian Library 
 then his private library the collection of 50 years was 
 his bequest to the City of Philadelphia. — Armistead's 
 Logan, passim, and p. 86. Hugli s Penn, p. 91. 
 
 Benjamin Lay was born in England in 1677; as a 
 sailor he voyaged to Syria ; there he sought out where 
 the Saviour conversed with the woman of Samaria, and 
 refreshed him with water from Jacob's Well. He was 
 one of those men who come into the world exciting 
 consternation and disquiet. In 17 18 he was in business 
 in Barbadoes, where the horrors of slavery and the 
 hatred of the owners of the slaves forced him to leave. 
 He came to Philadelphia in 1731. His form and 
 features were very ungainly, but his countenance lighted 
 with a lofty and calm benignity : in his new home he 
 fought alone his solitary idea. His kindly heart finally 
 
78 
 
 breaking down into misantiiropy, he made himself a 
 cave near the city, weaving his own clothes and living 
 on the fruits of his orchard. He would eat no flesh, 
 and nothing that came from the labor of slaves. So 
 qualified he went forth to preach his doctrine. In 1737 
 he wrote his book, "All Slavekeepers that keep the in- 
 nocent in bondage, apostates." Richard Penn and 
 Franklin visited him in his cave, the latter corresponded 
 with him through his life : he wrote also for prisoners 
 and visited the children in the schools. From his cave 
 hung down evergreens : it contained a library of 200 
 volumes. His hatred of money accumulation was ex- 
 treme. These lines were written on the blank leaves of 
 one of his books found after the war: 
 
 "O, the blessed doctrine and practice of the first 
 Christians which kept out luxury, pride, and cursed 
 covetousness." He died on 3rd, 2nd Mo. (Feb.) 1759, 
 -anno aetatis 82. He lived twenty-eight years of his 
 life in Pennsylvania. — Vaux's Life (1815). 
 
 Benjamin West was born at Springfield, Chester 
 •county, in Pennsylvania, October 10, 1738. His father 
 was an English Quaker who came over with Penn on 
 his second voyage in 1699. He was taught to mix 
 colors by a party of Indians who visited his father's 
 house. At nine years he was painting portraits of real 
 worth, and which, in his estimation, were in some 
 features of handling never surpassed by him. He was 
 brought to Philadelphia and studied classical literature 
 
79 
 
 under Dr. Smith, of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 His reputation finally reached over all Europe and 
 America. The treaty was an early production, in the 
 opinion of John Sartain, rendered certain by his mode 
 of laying on the color which was abandoned in his later 
 years. There existed an early picture of the Treaty by 
 him which the family prized very highly but which was 
 lost. He therefore a second time and on a large can- 
 vass determined to perpetuate his credence in the tradi- 
 tion.' No one of all the authorities was situated as 
 favorably as himself to know the verity of the tradition. 
 His family, fellow-voyagers of the Founder, Quakers 
 and residents of an adjoining county ; his first instructors, 
 the Indians themselves ; his own residence in his early 
 years in Philadelphia, his associations English ; and his 
 second picture painted for, or coming into the possession 
 of the Founder's family. With this, his entire credibility. 
 He was unmoved by the applause of the world or the 
 
 1 Hall's engraving of the second picture, now in the Museum, Philadelphia, the 
 gift of the late Joseph Harrison's family, was made prior to 1775. — Encyc. West 
 Edinb. Encyc. West. 
 
 A letter to the Rev. William Smith, Stoke, May 30, 1775, by Juliana Penn, wife 
 of the Governor, John Penn, states : 
 
 "I can send nothing from here but which some friend will take privately, which 
 prevents me sending at the same time a print from a painting of Mr. West's on the 
 subject of the settlement of your province, but shall take the first opportunity to send 
 you one of them likewise." — Rev. William Smith's Life and Correspondence, Vol. 
 I., p. 503. 
 
 Mr. Clarkson, who wrote the biography of William Penn, in 1813, told J. Francis 
 Fisher, of Philadelphia, that he was indebted for his information on the subject of 
 this Treaty to our celebrated painter, Benjamin West. — Hist. Trans. A. P. S. 176. 
 
8o 
 
 smiles of the great, and there was not in all his life a 
 spot or blemish on his character. He died March, 
 1820, and was buried in St. Paul's, London. 
 
 John Oldmixon was born in 1673 ; of him Macaulay 
 says, what certainly applies to that writer in equal 
 measure, " His assertions unsupported by evidence are 
 of no weight whatever." "The British Empire" was 
 published in 1708. The writer was contemporaneous 
 with the Founder, and his assertions as to the Treaty 
 were very probably supported by the Founder : much 
 of his information he alleges came from Penn himself, 
 and, unlike the assertions of the other, is supported by 
 the Founder's whole life and character. 
 
 Richard Peters was born at Belmont, now in the 
 Park of Philadelphia, in 1 744. He was the nephew of 
 Richard Peters who was Secretary of the land office in 
 the years 1737 to 1747. He filled the office of Secre- 
 tary of the Board of War during the Revolution; was 
 a representative in Congress, and was a Judge of the 
 United States District Court thirty-nine years. He died 
 August 22, 1828, aet. 84. 
 
 Samuel Breck was born in Boston, July 17, 1771; 
 lived at Sweet Briar, now in the Park of Philadelphia, 
 thirty-eight years. He was four years a State Senator, 
 where he made his name memorable by his bill for the 
 final emancipation of the slaves in Pennsylvania. He 
 was a member of the i8th Congress, and again served 
 in the State Senate, when he drew the bill to establish 
 
the Common School System of Pennsylvania. He was 
 one of the founders of the Institution for the Blind in 
 Philadelphia; he lived through every event in the foun 
 dation of our National Government from the first battle 
 for our independence, which he witnessed, a child in his 
 nurse's arms, and through the first seventy battles of the 
 war for the emancipation of the slaves. His last words 
 were: "What of my Country?" He died August 22, 
 1862. 
 
 The writers also remain accredited and standard to 
 this day. 
 
 Robert Proud was born May 10, 1728 ; he was closely 
 associated with the Friends as a teacher of their chil- 
 dren : his work was commenced in 1791 ; its merit is in 
 the value and reliability of its material, and the honesty 
 of the chronicler. He came from England and got to 
 Philadelphia January 6, 1759. He died 7th of July, 
 1 81 3, aged eighty-six years. He was a quaint but reli- 
 able relic of the old rule, wearing a curled gray wig, 
 cocked patriarchal hat, and long ivory-headed cane ; he 
 was in person tall, with a great Roman nose extending 
 out from under a most impending brow. He began his 
 work in 1791, when the remembrance of the story of the 
 event was still fresh in the minds of the living genera- 
 tion who had heard it from their fathers. 
 
 The Abbe Raynal's Histoire Philosophique et poli- 
 tique appeared in 1770 in 4 volumes ; it was reprinted 
 in 20 successive editions to 1820, when it appeared in 
 
 6 
 

 52) 
 
83 
 
 the Paris edition of 12 volumes. It has been translated 
 into all the languages of modern literature, assailed, 
 approved, condemned, criticized, annotated, illustrated 
 in almost every mode possible to literature, yet I can 
 find, in no accessible volume of these, in our own libraries 
 any attack on the credibility of his statement relating to 
 the treaty ; in his estimation it stands the sole relief 
 in modern civilization's black horrors of crimes ; yet its 
 credibility remains unassailed by the regiments of 
 volumes of criticism against every other part of his work, 
 speaking all the languages of modern times. 
 
 GuiLLAUME Thomas Raynal was born in 1 71 1, and died 
 March 6th, 1 796 ; the generation following the founder. 
 
 Thomas Clarkson, the Biographer of the Founder, 
 was one of that despised band of men who a hundred 
 years later trod in the footsteps of his pacific intentions 
 to the human race ; and like the Founder was a man of 
 great determination and ceaseless endeavor. His life 
 consumed itself in one object ; his first writings and his 
 last were for the deliverance of the negro slaves. In 
 1785 he took the first prize among the senior bachelors 
 of the University of Cambridge as a Latin essayist,; 
 his subject was An ne liceat invitos in servitute dare (Is 
 it right to make Men slaves against their will'). He 
 
 ' In the preface to the English translation of his first essay he i-efers to Las Casas 
 as the first of those who humanely exerted themselves to abolish Indian slavery in 
 the Western colonies, and says this amiable man was so sensibly affected at the treat- 
 ment which the miserable Indians underwent, that he made a remonstrance before 
 the celebrated Emperor Charles the V., declaring that heaven would one day call him 
 to account for those cruelties. An Essay by T. Clarkson, Phila., 1810, p. iii-vii. 
 
84 
 
 wrote continuously on this single theme, first a transla- 
 tion of this essay & other essays in 1783-87-89-91- 
 1807, and other indefatigable work until slavery was 
 abolished in the British Enipire. He then sought to 
 make the objects of the Founder, of which this was one, 
 & which he understood & lived so thoroughly, as well 
 understood by others ; he wrote for this purpose his 
 portraiture of quakerism in 1809; and he crowned his 
 literary career with "The public and private life of Wil- 
 liam Penn," in 1813; it is in this work he wrote the 
 description of "The Treaty" which is made almost 
 impregnable by the documents cited in this Volume. It 
 is most evident that there must have existed at some 
 time in the West or other quaker family of Pennsylvania 
 a written account of the treaty and the speeches on the 
 occasion ; the verification of the incidents and language 
 as given to Clarkson being so exactly maintained by 
 the documents now in our possession but inaccessible 
 to either West or himself; except the reference to the 
 laying the parchment on the ground which did occur 
 later in the purchase of the Conestogoes' title and proba- 
 bly also the casting down their arms, there is everything 
 confirmatory of the action and even the language used. 
 In the memoirs of William Penn he spared no pains nor 
 labor to inform himself of every circumstance relative to 
 Penn, whether contained in well known or obscure works 
 [Land. Eclec. Review). He performed his undertaking 
 with the zeal of an affectionate admirer and with taste, 
 
85 
 
 judgment and accuracy {London Chris. Adv.) Few- 
 men of far reaching- intentions have attained the goal for 
 ■which they set out in their lives ; it -was otherwise with 
 this good as well as illustrious man ; he lived to see the 
 heavily burthened, overtaxed people of England ip the 
 most honourable manner, and in the most strict con- 
 formity with the founder's example purchase the slaves 
 of the British colonies at a fair valuation — a title of a 
 more baseless character than that of the aborigines, 
 and which this Country considered of as little value and 
 finally settled in the same manner as they had done 
 the English titles themselves. 
 
 He was born on the 28th March, 1760, and died in 
 1846, aged 86 years. 
 
86 
 
 to this weight of testimony the only answer has been 
 the silence about the treaty at the time, and this 
 equally applies to all the leagues of amity then and there- 
 after made, but to this the answer with which we conclude ; 
 what most distinguishes such characters as the founder, 
 in the eyes of posterity, seems the least worthy of record 
 to them in their lives or in the opinion of their con- 
 temporaries. Sales of lands, exchanges of trade and 
 other matter.s having present interest, and use, create 
 their certain records everywhere ; events that change 
 the destinies of after ages, are without present value, 
 and gain them real importance only in the later ages 
 when the results of these events, eventuate. Sentiments 
 do not get into the statutes of legislatures, unless they are 
 written at the time with a sword. 
 
 It is therefore that they endure the longer ; the records 
 of trade perish with its merchandise ; the work of the 
 sword rusts away with the sword ; these wiser, kindlier 
 purposes survive the grave itself, which consumes all 
 else. 
 
 This tradition is as the tree was with which it is associ- 
 ated ; time which gave it strength and value was power- 
 less to change its form and character, or excise its be- 
 ginning from the place where it took root in the credence 
 of our forefathers ; its existence there, in their lives, was 
 the unanswerable argument of its past existence there> 
 
«7 
 
 and the concentric rings within its core did not count 
 backward more certainly, than the tradition itself does, 
 to the very year when the bounteous shoot from which 
 it grew to be the glory of our State, was set there by 
 the pious hand of our founder. 
 
THE TREATY TREE. 
 
 " Tho' time has devoted our tree to decay, 
 The sag*! lessons it witness'd survive to our day. 
 May our trustworthT statesmen when called to the helm, ' 
 Ne'er forget the wise treaty held under our Elm." — Richard Peters. 
 
 fT fell during a storm on the night of the 5th of March, 
 t8io. "After a blow from the northeast on Mon- 
 day last (5th) about 1 1 o'clock at night the wind shifted 
 to the west and blew a tremendous gale the whole night. 
 A great number of trees in and about the city were 
 blown up by the roots as was also the large tree at 
 Kensington, under which William Penn, the founder of 
 Pennsylvania, signed his first treaty with the Aborigines. 
 This noted tree having stood the blasts of a hundred or 
 more winters since that event, has at last crumbled to 
 the dust. 'True American,' copied into the Register, 
 March 7th, 18 ic (Wednesday). After the tree was up- 
 rooted it measured 24 feet in circumference."' 
 
 " The circles of annual growth which its trunk exhib- 
 ited, then indicated an age of two hundred and eighty- 
 three years."^ 
 
 ^H. S. of Pa.,No\. I., p. 96. 
 '^Ibid., Vol. I., p. 240. 
 
 (88) 
 
89 
 
 " Samuel Breck visited it as it lay in ruins, and took 
 from it a limb, which he gave to Captain Watson, of the 
 British Navy, to deposit it in the Museum of Exeter, in 
 England."' 
 
 After its fall in a more unpoetical, but more substan- 
 tial manner than the ashes of Wickliffe, it passed away 
 from the Delaware to the ocean, and has been distributed 
 in canes, boxes, desks and all manner of other forms to 
 other countries. 
 
 On the occasion of Lafayette's visit (1824-5) John F. 
 Watson presented him with a box composed of pieces 
 of wood among which was a piece of the Treaty Elm ; 
 " a branch of the old tree was then growing in the 
 garden of the hospital under which our fellow-citizens 
 delighted to recount the story of its origin while pro- 
 tected by its shade."^ One stood in the centre of 
 Clinton street near Ninth, in Mr. Armstrong's memory. 
 A large piece was sent to John Penn of Stoke Park, 
 England, on which he had inscribed : "A remnant of the 
 great Elm Tree under which the treaty was held be- 
 tween William Penn and the Indians soon after his land- 
 ing in America, in 1682, and which grew at Kensington, 
 near Philadelphia, till the autumn of the year 18 10, when 
 it fell during a storm : was presented to his grandson, 
 John Penn."3 
 
 'Samuel Breck, Mem. H. S. of Pa., Vol. VI., p. 213. 
 ^Levasseur's Lafayette,'^ o\. II., p. 232. 
 ^ Hugh'' 5 Penn, p. 95. 
 
90 
 
 Dr. Rush had an arm-chair made from the wood of 
 the then far-famed Elm Tree, and sent an ink-stand made 
 of it to Dr. Roscoe, of Liverpool.' 
 
 On receiving from Dr. Rush, this piece of the tree 
 under which William Penn made his Treaty with the 
 Indians, he wrote the following lines : 
 
 " From clime to clime, from shore to shore, 
 The War fiend raised his horrid yell. 
 And midst the storm which realms deplore, 
 Penn's honored tree of Concord fell. 
 
 "And of that tree that ne'er again 
 
 Shall Spring's reviving influence know, 
 A relic o'er the Atlantic main 
 Was sent, the gift of foe to foe.^ 
 
 " But though no more its ample shades 
 Wave green beneath Columbia's sky, 
 Though every branch be now decayed, 
 And all its scattered leaves be dry, 
 
 " Yet midst the relic's sainted space, 
 A health-restoring flood shall spring. 
 In which the angel form of peace 
 
 May stoop to dip her dove-like wing. 
 
 " So once that staff the prophet bore. 
 By wondering eyes again was seen 
 To swell with life through every pore. 
 And bud afresh with foliage green. 
 
 "The withered branch again shall grow. 
 Till o'er the earth its shade extend ; 
 And this, the gift of foe to foe. 
 
 Becomes the gift of friend to friend. 
 
 ^ Wakefield'' s Penn. Preface. 
 
 ' Alluding to the state of hostilities between the two countries (1812). 
 
91 
 
 At the Anniversary of the Landing in 1824, two arm- 
 chairs made of the wood of the Elm Tree under which 
 William Penn held his Treaty with the Indians in 1682 
 were presented by John F. Watson. 
 
 The centre of the table was ornamented with a model 
 of the monument made by Haviland, of part of the 
 treaty tree.' 
 
 Thomas Birch, the marine painter, by whom the draw- 
 ing of the treaty tree in this volume was made in 1801, 
 was the son of WiUiam Birch, who published the print ; 
 he told John Sartain that he might rely on it that he 
 drew the tree for his father and that every branch and 
 twig as he saw it there, was delineated by him in this 
 drawing." His son, the present Thomas Birch, of Phil- 
 adelphia, said that he told him he had bestowed on the 
 drawing that same care that he would have done on a 
 portrait, that every branch and twig was delineated by 
 him.^ Mr. Birch has also preserved a frame made of the 
 wood of the old tree presented by Mr. Franklin Eyre, 
 its last owner. 
 
 In 1848 " the County Commissioners of Philadelphia County were vested with 
 power and authority to purchase and hold for public use the lot or piece of ground 
 described as the site of Penn's Treaty with the Indians as authorized and requested 
 by the Philadelphia County Board in the year 1848, the cost not to exceed the 
 amount appropriated by the said County Board for the purchase thereof. 4 
 
 ' Proceedings of the meetiiig. Franklin Inst. Library. 
 2 Relation of John Sartain to the author, 1882. 
 ' Relation of Thomas Birch to the author, 1882. 
 ' Ap. 9, 1849. Laws of Pa., 1849, P- 540- 
 
.92 
 
 In 1827 the Penn Society erected a monument there. 
 It bears the following inscription : 
 
 Treaty Ground 
 
 of 
 William Penn 
 
 and the 
 Indian Nations 
 
 1682 
 Unbroken Faith. 
 
 William Penn 
 Born 1644. 
 Died 1718. 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 founded 
 
 1681 
 
 By Deeds of Peace. 
 
 Raised by the 
 
 Penn Society 
 
 A. D. 1827 
 
 to mark the 
 
 site of the 
 
 Great Elm Tree. 
 
BRANCH FROM AN ELM NOW GROWINO 
 ON THE TREATY GROUND. 
 
 (93) 
 
THE FOUNDER'S WORK AND WORTH. 
 
 TESTIMONY of Friends in Pennsylvania con- 
 cerning their deceased friend and Governor, 
 William Penn. 
 
 " Yet it becomes us particularly to say, that as he was 
 our Governor, he merited from us love and true honor, 
 and we cannot but have the same regard to his mem- 
 ory, when we consider the blessings and ease we have 
 enjoyed under his government; and are rightly sensible 
 of his care, affection and regard, always shown with 
 anxious concern for the safety and prosperity of the 
 people, who many of them, removed from comfortable 
 livings to be adventurers with him, not so much with 
 views of better acquisitions, or greater riches, but the 
 laudable prospect of retired, quiet habitations for them- 
 selves and posterity, and the promotion of truth and 
 virtue in the earth. And as his love was great and en- 
 deavors constant for the happiness of his friends, coun 
 trymen and fellow-subjects, so was his great tenderness, 
 justice and love towards the Indians, from first to last, 
 always conspicuous and remarkable. 
 
 " More might be truly said of him as he was the pro- 
 prietary and Governor of this Province; and we now 
 
 (94) 
 
95 
 
 find it our duty (incited thereto by the love of our Hea- 
 venly Father in our souls), to add a few lines concerning 
 him, as he was our worthy elder, friend and brother in 
 the blessed Truth; many of us having been often com- 
 forted, edified and solaced with him in the enjoyment 
 thereof. As was his testimony, so was his conversation, 
 edifyin ; and lovely, administering grace and knowledge. 
 His behaviour was sweet and engaging, and his conde- 
 scension great, even to the weakest and meanest; affable 
 and of easy access, tender of every person and thing 
 that had simplicity of truth, or honesty for a foundation. 
 "If William Penn did not accomplish, in the settlement 
 of Pennsylvania, all that his ardent and comprehensive 
 mind originally anticipated, he unquestionably effected 
 more towards establishing the practicability of support- 
 ing a government upon strictly Christian principles, than 
 ever was effected by any other man; To disarm by 
 lenient means the wild and untutored ii^habitants of the 
 woods ; to obtain possession by fair and honorable pur- 
 chase of such an extensive tract of country, without ex- 
 citing a murmur amongst its original occupants ; to bring 
 so many discordant tribes into treaties of friendship and 
 peace; and to establish an intercourse with them, which 
 w.as maintained on friendly terms as long as the author- 
 ities of Pennsylvania adhered to the principles of the 
 Founder, was certainly to set an important example to 
 succeeding ages. If we judge from the history of the 
 ■early settlers in New England and Virginia, we shall 
 
96 
 
 probably adopt the conclusion that there is quite as 
 much difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace 
 with such people as those who occupied the forests of 
 North America, as with the civilized nations of Europe; 
 yet from the experience of William Penn's settlement 
 here, we have ample reason to believe that if the whole 
 continent of North America had been colonized upon 
 the same Christian principles, and the system been 
 steadily maintained, we might at this day have pointed 
 to the Western world for a verification of the prophetic 
 declaration, that 'nation should not lift up sword against 
 nation, or the people learn war any more.' 
 
 "Signed at the time of our general meeting held in 
 Philadelphia, the i6th of the first month, 171 8-19." — 
 Friend's Library, Vol. V., p. 328. 
 
 The Testimony of Reading Meeting in England,, 
 cited by J. Francis Fisher : 
 
 "He was a man of great abilities; of an excellent 
 sweetness of disposition ; quick of thought and ready 
 of utterance, full of the qualifications of true discipleship^ 
 even love without dissimulation; as extensive in charity^ 
 as comprehensive in knowledge, and to whom malice 
 and ingratitude were utter strangers; so ready to forgive 
 enemies, that the ungrateful were not excepted. 
 
 "In fine, he was learned without vanity; apt without 
 forwardness; facetious in conversation, yet weighty and 
 serious. Of an extraordinary greatness of mind, yet 
 void of the stain of ambition; as free from rigid gravity^ 
 
97 
 
 as he was clear of unseemly levity; a man, a scholar, a 
 friend, a minister, surpassing in speculative endowments, 
 whose memory will be valued with the wise, and blessed 
 with the just."— Mem. H. S. of Pa., Vol. Ill, P. II., p. 102. 
 
 The Abbe Raynal's Testimony: "His arrival in the 
 New World was made notable by an Act of Equity, by 
 which he endeared his person and made his principles 
 acceptable. Little satisfied with the right that the ces- 
 sion from the British Ministry had given to his establish- 
 ment, he determined to purchase from the natives the 
 vast territory he proposed to colonize. He legitimated 
 his possession as much as was in his power; in fine he 
 supplied by the use he made of it, what was wanting in 
 the right of possession. The Americans entertained as 
 much affection for his new colony as they had conceived 
 of estrangement for all those which had been founded 
 in their neighborhood, without consulting their rights or 
 their wishes. Hence a confidence was established between 
 the two peoples, of which nothing could alter the har- 
 mony. A mutual good faith bound them more and 
 more closely together. 
 
 "The humanity of Penn was not confined to the 
 savages; it extended itself to all those who wished to 
 inhabit his Empire. As the happiness of men depends 
 upon the character of their legislation, he founded his 
 Empire on two principles ; the splendor of the State and 
 the happiness of the individual — liberty and property. 
 If it be permitted to use the language of fable for an 
 
98 
 
 event which seems fabulous, I would say, that Astraea 
 ascended to heaven since so long a time, had re-de- 
 scended to earth again, and that the reign of peace and 
 innocence had begun once more among men. 
 
 "It is here that the writer and his reader breathe once 
 more; it is here that they find relief from the disgust,, 
 the horror and grief which modern history, and espe- 
 cially of the European settlements in America, inspire. 
 
 "Until this event possession had meant depopulation; 
 civilization, destruction of the hemisphere, which yet 
 smokes with the blood of its peoples, civilized and 
 savage. 
 
 "This virtuous legislator established his Society on 
 the basis of toleration ; it was his desire that every man 
 who recognized a Deity, should participate in the rights 
 of citizenship, and every Christian be eligible to State 
 employments. But he left every one at Hberty to in- 
 voke the Supreme Being as he thought proper. He 
 would not admit a reigning church in Pennsylvania, nor 
 force contributions for building places of public worship,^ 
 nor compel any person to attend them. 
 
 "Penn, attached to his name, was desirous that the 
 propriety of the settlement which he had formed should 
 remain perpetually in his family ; but he deprived it of 
 any decisive influence in public resolutions, and ordained 
 that it should not exercise any act of authority without 
 the concurrence of the deputies of the people. Every 
 citizen having an interest in the law by having any in the 
 
99 
 
 object of it, was eligible as elector, and might be 
 chosen. To avoid as much as possible every kind of 
 corruption, it was ordained that representatives should 
 be chosen by suffrages secretly given. 
 
 "Never perhaps had virtue inspired legislation more 
 conducive to human happiness. Opinions, sentiments 
 and manners corrected what was defective and supplied 
 what was imperfect. 
 
 "The prosperity of Pennsylvania was therefore very 
 notable. That Republic without wars, without conquests, 
 without effort, without any of those revolutions which 
 astonish the eyes of the inquiet and passionate, became 
 a spectacle for the entire universe. 
 
 " His neighbors, in spite of their barbarity, were en- 
 chained by the sweetness of his manners, and strangers, 
 in spite of their corruption, rendered homage to his vir- 
 tues. Every nation wondered to see realized and re- 
 newed the heroic age of antiquity, that the manners and 
 laws of Europe had made seem fabulous." — Histoire 
 Philosophique. A Geneve, mdcclxxx. Tome Quat. 
 272-345. Merc. Lib. 
 
NEITHER TO MY FATHER, THE DUKE, NOR THE KING. 
 
 Therefore, to the people of Pennsylvania, THE HAT OF THE 
 FOUNDER, EXPRESSES authority more absolutely than any diadem 
 
 GLITTERING WITH THE SLAVERY OF THE MINES; SYMBOLIZES FREEDOM MORE 
 ENDURINGLY THAN THE CAP OF THE PHRYGIAN, RED WITH THE REVOLU- 
 TIONS OF centuries; illustrates Christianity more truly than the 
 
 MITRE OF WHATEVER PRIESTHOOD, OF WHATEVER THEOLOGY. It QUIETLY 
 AND PREVAILINGLY ASSERTED, AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS, AND 
 THINGS PRESENT AND THINGS TO COME, THE ULTIMATE EQUALITY, AND DIG- 
 NITY OF OUR COMMON HUMANITY. 
 
 (ICO) 
 
DAVID McKAY, 
 
 SUCCESSOR TO 
 
 REES WELSH & CO.'S 
 
 MIISGEIiI.ANE:oiriS BUSUriiSS. 
 
 puMi^hei'^, Boo^^ellBi'^ and Iniporterg, 
 
 33 SOUTH NINTH STREET, 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 New or Old Books of every description Bought and Sold. 
 Rare old editions of desirable Books a spe- 
 cialty. Orders solicited. 
 
 I find, however, that the greatest difficulty lies, not in 
 the selling, but in the procuring of good books, and will 
 esteem it a great favor if any one having a library or any 
 collection of books to dispose of will advise through mail 
 or otherwise. 
 
 Above request is made, knowing that I have every 
 facility for using, and therefore can offer terms more sat- 
 isfactory than houses where books are bought and stored 
 away to await accidental customers. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 DAVID McKAY.