Madison County Genealogical Society

Minutes of the Meeting - April 13, 2017

The April 2017 meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday, April 13, at 7:00 pm.

President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.

The following is the Treasurer's report for the month of March:

GIFT MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE

Do you have a family member that is interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.

The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Life Membership $300.00

Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at [email protected], about a gift membership.

April Meeting

 

On April 13, 2017, a program titled The 1763 Massacre of the Conestoga was presented by Sharon Kilzer. Sharon is a retired Computer Operator from Graybar Electric in St. Louis, Missouri, who is actively involved in Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Collinsville, Illinois. She has been the Secretary for the Troy Genealogy Society for the past five years and an active member of the D.A.R. Silver Creek Chapter in Highland, Illinois, since June 2015. She has submitted an application to the U. S. Daughters of 1812 and is awaiting acceptance.

 

Back when we were young we read in books, heard on TV, or from older family members stories of Indians such as Cherokee, Apache, Cheyenne, Mohawk — but never Conestoga Indians.

 

A year ago, I read a book called “The Amish Seamstress.” It told the story of the 1763 Massacre of Conestoga Indians. I did not know if this was fact or fiction, so I decided to investigate. I inquired at the Troy Tri-Township Library; but they had nothing in regards to the Conestoga. At the Edwardsville Public Library, I asked if they had any books on Conestoga Indians. The lady at the desk said there were only three listed in their database.

 

One was in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in a museum and was uncirculated. The second was in Washington, D.C., in the library and was uncirculated. The third I was able to request and had it sent to the Troy Tri-Township Library. It was called “Peaceable Kingdom Lost” by Kevin Kenny. I also checked online and found information on the Conestoga and the 1763 massacre. I found articles “The Ethnic Cleansing in Pennsylvania: The 1763 Massacre of the Conestoga” by Rick Kearns, “Massacre of the Conestoga” by Jack Brubaker, and “Facing East from Indian Country” by Daniel Richter.

 

The Conestoga, also known as the Susquehanna, lived along the Susquehanna River and its tributaries. At 464 miles long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean. The Susquehanna rises and flows through New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

 

The Susquehanna established their towns along the branches of the Susquehanna because the waters facilitated travel and trade in the region and provided the Indians with a constant supply of water and fish. The Susquehanna were an Iroquois speaking people.

 

In 1600, at best guess, the tribe numbered from 5,000-7,000 and was a regional power capable of holding off the Iroquois Confederacy. But, following the zenith of their tribal power in the 1670’s, the Susquehanna suffered an extremely rapid decline — presumably from infectious diseases such as smallpox, carried by Eurasian fur traders, followed by warfare. Their numbers in their Susquehanna Valley homeland may have diminished to as few as 300 in 1700. The infectious diseases also decimated the Mohawk, Iroquois, and other Native American tribes.

 

In 1700, William Penn promised the Conestoga Indians that they would be treated fairly and equally in his colony and that he and his heirs would always “show themselves (to be) true Friends and Brothers” to them. The Conestoga took Penn at his word; and, for many years, their town served as a center for trade and diplomacy between colonial Pennsylvania and Indians of the Susquehanna Valley.

 

Even after Conestoga Indian Town’s population and significance had declined in Pennsylvania’s Indian affairs, its residents still claimed to possess a special relationship with their colonial neighbors rooted in Penn’s promise. The Conestoga Indian Town was one of the many communities of Indian refugees that took root in Pennsylvania during the first half of the eighteenth century. It was formed in the lower Susquehanna Valley by Susquehanna, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, and Conoy Indians on land reserved for them by treaties with the Penn Family. Over the years, this diverse population became known collectively as the “Conestoga Indians.”

 

During the 1740’s, the Pennsylvania fur trade shifted out of the Susquehanna Valley into the Ohio Country causing the Conestoga’s population and influence to diminish considerably. Pressured by the growing colonial population of Lancaster County, many residents of the town chose to move west with the fur trade. The few Indian families that remained at Conestoga Town earned a hardscrabble living by farming, hunting, and making brooms and baskets that they sold to their colonial neighbors.

 

The remnants of the Susquehanna lived under the protection of the provincial Pennsylvania government, but their population declined steadily. In 1763, a census counted twenty-two people in Conestoga Town.

 

The village of Paxton, a few miles east of Harrisburg in eastern Pennsylvania, became a hotbed of racial and political unrest during Pontiac’s Rebellion. Still part of the frontier in the 1760’s, the area was populated by many rough-and-tumble Scots-Irish immigrants who had grown weary of the colonial assembly’s inattention to their vulnerability to attack. Requests for soldiers — or guns, powder and lead at the very least — were ignored by the legislators, many of whom were Quakers with strong pacifist convictions.

 

It all started when these Presbyterian frontiersmen of Scot-Irish descent who went into the Paxton township in central Pennsylvania, decided to band together and form a vigilante group to respond to the fear and hatred of American Indians that slowly crept throughout the land. These men were known as the Paxton boys.

 

On December 14, 1763, this group of men took the matter into their own hands, and raided the neighboring Conestoga Indians in Lancaster County. Their actions were totally misplaced as the natives had not participated in anything that had to do with the uprising of Pontiac’s Rebellion. It resulted in six Indians dead. Lancaster authorities moved the 14 Conestoga survivors to a workhouse in the city for their protection. On December 17, 1763, the Paxton Boys followed them there and laid siege to the workhouse. The local sheriff, being threatened, got out of the way and the Paxtons brutally slaughtered the 14 Conestoga men, women, and children. None of the Paxton Boys were ever punished for any of this.

 

The malcontents next singled out a settlement of Moravian Indians who lived near the town of Bethlehem. Fortunately for these peaceful Christianized natives, they managed to flee from their homes for protection in Philadelphia, which was then capital of Pennsylvania and the headquarters of a contingent of British soldiers. The Paxton Boys were outraged that the government would spend tax monies on protecting Indians, but would provide nothing for the defense of its citizenry. The Moravian Indians remained in protective custody in Philadelphia for more than a year.

 

In January 1764, a group of Paxton Boys began a march on the capital; the number of participants has been estimated to be between 500 and 1,500. As the mob neared Philadelphia, panic reigned. The strange spectacle of pacifists arming themselves with muskets and rolling cannon into public squares was observed. Church bells tolled the alarm. A possible disaster was averted in early February, when Benjamin Franklin and other civic leaders ventured out to consult with the mob’s leaders. An accommodation was reached in which the march was disbanded in return for the arrangement of a meeting between Paxton leaders and colonial officials. This airing of grievances occurred, but little was done for the plight of the frontiersmen.

 

The adventure of the Paxton Boys was important for two reasons. First, it was a measure of the hostility that had developed between frontiersman and Indian; many white settlers concluded during Pontiac’s Rebellion that the races could not live together. Removal and extinction were the only solutions. Second, the march on Philadelphia was an early example of regional and social tension. Later American history would reflect further cases of the strain between the urban and rural, the haves versus the have-nots and the newcomers against the establishment.

 

Sadly, there is not much left by which to remember the Conestoga Indians. With no written records and no living descendants, the history of the native’s culture becomes blurrier with each passing year. A plaque commemorating the passing of the Conestoga rests at the site of the old jailhouse, which has long since been torn down and replaced by an opera house. Money for the plaque was raised by Jesse Nighthawk, a Cherokee from Oklahoma. The plaque’s inscription was written by Johnny Tiger, Jr., a Seminole. There is no one who can tell the story of the Conestogas from their perspective.

This presentation was well received and provoked many questions.

 

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