It may be proper here to give some account of the Deed of 1736, and the Province spoken of.It was "For all the said river Susquehanna 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 Susquehanna, "and all the lands on the West side of the said "river to the setting of the sun and to extend "from the mouth of said river up to the mountains "called in the language of the Six Nations, Tay"amentasatchta, and by the Delaware Indians, "the Kakatchlanamin hills.” These hills are what are now called the Blue Mountains, and they formed the northern boundary of this purchase. The Deed is signed by twenty-three chiefs of the Onondago, Seneca, Oneida and Tuscarora Nations.

A promise is annexed that they will never sell any lands within the "Government of Pennsylvania," to any persons but the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania. It appears however by the speeches of various Indian chiefs at subsequent treaties, that the Government of Pennsylvania was supposed to extend no further North than those mountains, and the Indians, as Gov. Morris observed, had absolutely refused to sell the Wyoming lands; they were to be reserved as Hendrick remarked "for the Western Indians to live upon."

The Commissioners of Pennsylvania were aware that such was understood by the Indians to be the limits of the Government of Pennsylvania; and at the treaty at Albany on the 9th day of July, after the meeting of council that day, they drew a Deed F

of promise which was endorsed on the Deed of Jan. 13, 1696, from Col. Dungan formerly Governor of New York to William Penn, and made part of a supplement to that Deed, by which instrument the Indians who signed it promised never to sell any lands in Pennsylvania, as the same is bounded by New York, except to the Proprietaries. To this promise they procured the signatures of nine of the Indians then present at the treaty.

Mr. Armstrong made a report to Gov. Morris on the 11th. of December, 1754, containing a particular statement of the information which he had collected during his tour to Connecticut, by which it appears that the Susquehanna company must have increased in numbers after the purchase. He says: "There were formerly five hundred subscribers at seven dollars each, to which are now added three hundred at nine dollars each."

After having concluded the negociation with the Six Nations, and become organised in a regular manner, the Susquehanna company made application to the Legislature of Connecticut requesting the concurrence of that body in an application to the King of Great Britain for a new Charter giving them authority to establish a new Colonial Government within the limits of their purchase. The Legislature received their petition very favorably and on the second Thursday in May 1755 passed a reselution approving of the measures of the company and recommended them to his Majesty's favor.*

*These proceedings at large in Secretary's office,

In the summer of 1755 the company having pro cured the consent of the Colony of Connecticut for the establishment of a settlement, and if his majes ty should consent, of a separate Government within the limits of their purchase, sent out a number of persons to Wyoming, accompanied by their surveyors and agents, to commence a settlement.--. On their arrival, they found the Indians in a state of war with the English Colonies; and the news of the defeat of Gen. Braddock having been received at Wyoming, produced such an animating effect upon the Nanticoke tribe of Indians, that the members of the new Colony would probably have been retained as prisoners had it not been for the interference of some of the principal chieftains of the Delaware Indians, and particularly of Tedeuscund who retained their attachment to their christian brethren of the Moravian Church, and their friendship in some degree for the English. The members of the Colony consequently returned to Connecticut, and the attempt to form a settlement at Wyo ming was abandoned until a more favorable opportunity. The Nanticokes, having during the summer removed from Wyoming, united with their more powerful neighbors in persuading the Delaware Indians who alone remained in the Valley, tu unite in the war against the English Colonies. To this measure the Delawares were already much inclined and the capture of Fort Oswego, which took place in August 1756, induced thein to declare more openly their hostility against the English which had in some degree made its appearance af

ter the defeat of Gen. Braddock. The Govern ment of Pennsylvania seeing the necessity of negociating a peace with the Shawanese and Delaware Indians invited them to a treaty which was held at Easton in November, where a peace was concluded between those tribes and the English Colonies, an account of which is given in the preceding Chapter.

In the summer of 1757, the Delaware Company commenced a settlement at Coshutunk on the Delaware river which appears to have been the first settlement established within the limits of the Connecticut Charter West of the Province of New York; for although there appears to have been a small fort built at the Minisinks on the same river in 1670,* yet that fort was soon afterwards abandoned in consequence of some difficulties with the Indians, who refused to sell the lands.

A general peace having been effected with the Indians in 1758, the Susquehanna company resumed their intentions of forming a settlement at Wyoming, but the various events of the war between England and France which was at this time carried on with considerable vigor by their respective American Colonies, contributed to retard their measures for this purpose until the year 1762, when in the month of August about two hundred prisoners from the Colony of Connecticut arrived at Wyoming and commenced the first settlement there under the authority of the Company. On

*Trumbull.

the left bank of the river a short distance above the mouth of a fine stream which came in from the East, a spot was selected for cultivation. It was sufficiently distant from either of the Indian towns to prevent any interference in their agricultural pursuits, and here the settlers began their first improvements. A small house was built of logs at the mouth of the creek,* surrounded by several small cabins which formed the residence of the whole Colony, and here they were visited during their hours of relaxation by the Indians with whom they lived on terms of the utmost friendship and hospitality. They found the Valley covered with woods, except a few acres in the immediate vicinity of the Shawanese and Wyoming towns which had been improved by the Indians in the cultivation of their corn, and which was still in part occupied by them. The summer was so far advanced when the new Colony arrived, that they could onły prepare a few acres for wheat, and as provisions for their sustenance during the winter could not be procured from the Indians, they concealed their tools and implements of husbandry, and in November departed for their former habitations in New England.

While the Susquehanna company were projecting and pursuing these measures, the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, foreseeing that important difficulties would arise in the settlement of the controversy with the people of Connecticut, and

*Since called "Mill-creek."

F*