Albrecht, Paxinosa, Great Island, 1752 and 1754: New Information

[Shreckmeister]

Steve Troutman wrote a nice book about the history of the Tulpehicken Path. It’s worth a read. Thanks Scott

[DaveM]

Scott - the last map you posted, is very interesting and very easy to read.  Could you possibly either post or email to me the portion of that map that covers Berks County / reading area?  Looks like Reading is caught at the edge of the image you posted as "Reddingstown".  Hate to ask you to go to the trouble but I'd love to be able to save an image of the berks county portion of that map!

[spgordon]

Here's the whole map (original at Moravian Archives). I think if you click a couple of times, it'll open a quite large version (in the photo hosting site)--and then by right-clicking and choosing "View Image," you can get a high-resolution image that you can zoom in on.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Scott, do you know when that map was drawn?

[spgordon]

The “clean” version typically is dated 1752 and associated with Matthew Hehl. Nobody has ever used the rougher version (the first I posted) but I guess it was the earlier version. That rougher one is definitely pre-1756, since Lititz isn’t on it. Looks like Lititz has been added to the clean version.

[DaveM]

Thanks for posting this map!  With it showing Reading as a town, probably dates it to after 1751 or 1752.  Interesting that the next place shown northeast of Reading is the Moravian School House in Oley ("Oleyer Shulhaus") - that was established in 1745.  I believe this is the only early map I have ever seen that labels that school house.

[blienemann]

We used this map in the first Moravian Gun Making book to illustrate the regular travel from Bethlehem to North Carolina and these many points between, with their Wachovia Wagons.  Obviously arms design, components and the men and boys who stocked them moved around, making attribution more interesting.  The early names of some of these locations tie to early records.  bob

[Eric Kettenburg]

I find it interesting that the location of - or very nearly - what became Allentown is noted as Maguntsche / Macungie.  Now there also was a larger area or region that later became upper and lower Macungie and that area is also noted as Maguntsche on the map, but there appears to be an actual town symbol noted as Maguntsche somewhat incorporated with Emmaus, which as best I can tell should essentially be Allentown / Allen's Town / Northampton.  It's why I asked re: the date of the map, because I have documented accounts of Northampton town being commonly noted as Allen's Town or Allentown as early as the late 1740s, so it's particularly interesting to see these common names (Allen's Town or Northampton) completely absent on this map.  Very interesting.

[spgordon]

Eric--Are these early references to Allen's Town on your website? (If so, I will look for them there!) I ask because I've also come across one or two of these in documents--letters being written from "Allen's Town" or (below) "Allenstown"--and was very puzzled, since there was no settlement called that at what is now Allentown until the 1760s. Here's one of them, interesting, in part, because it discusses a shipment of guns going awry.



It turns out this letter, though it says "Allentown," was written from "Allen's Township" (which the writer had abbreviated). There was an Allen's Township in what is now Northampton County as early as 1748, if I remember correctly.

[Eric Kettenburg]

I believe the terms "Allen's Township" and "Allen's Town Township" were used a bit interchangeably initially, while at the same time Northampton was also used to refer to the town itself (probably not prior to the mid 1760s).  Of course William Allen commissioned or drew up the well-known map of 1762 and there was a road petition mentioning 'Northampton' town of the same year - there is ample mention of this in the old county history.  HSP has a map somewhere (I can't find the specific file reference at the moment) that is dated 1760 and contains a notation of "Allen's town" and the 1758 Horse and Wagon Census also notes "Allen's town."  I don't believe these were abbreviations for Allen's township although I may be wrong and perhaps they are.  I don't remember off the top of my head how it may be noted in the little publication the WPA put out in the 1930s of the 1761 county-wide tax lists but the Easton library should still have a copy of that.   

The PA gazette has a notation from July 17, 1755 that mentions Allen's Town township:  "Whereas there was a note of hand given the 11th day of November, 1754, by Joseph Brown, Blacksmith, of Allens Town township, Northampton County...". This seems a pretty clear reference to a location at least regionally referenced as Allen's Town, even if it is within a marginally larger locality of a township?  That's my interpretation of it, anyway.  Otherwise, why the redundancy?

I'm not clear on how to interpret the letter you posted - it reads "Allenstown" with no visible break.  I can see it referring to Allen/Allens township or it could refer to a town location within the broader township, perhaps?  In light of the PA Gazette reference I wonder if the two terms were being used interchangeably?

When I was rapidly posting stuff to my site I know I came across references to the actual location of what would become the town being inhabited by a small cluster of houses ca. 1739/1740 and growing from there.  Unfortunately I don't know exactly where I found those references and I only briefly noted it on my site.  It certainly was not being called Allen's Town at that point in time.  This is one of the things I find so interesting about this map, however, because it clearly displays a symbol which appears representative of a cluster or settlement (judging by the use of the same symbol all over the map) and it seems clearly marked "Maguntsche" immediately above Emaus, although I can't quite decipher the black ink marked word or abbreviation between the two.  This is the first time I have seen any representation of Macungie as a village or town around the location for later Allentown - I always viewed the Macungie area being further west, where it is also marked "Maguntsche" vertically on the map.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Actually now that I look at the map again in more detail, the black ink additions may have been added later?  Possibly, the settlement noted as "Maguntsche" may be representative of Emmaus and someone later on is noting this on the map itself.  This might make sense in light of some of the other black ink additions, i.e. "Lynn" added in a bit up the Lehigh etc.

[spgordon]

I am not sure about any of this stuff, either. But the local historians who I asked out of confusion when I was working with this 1755 letter pointed out that Allen's Township (now East Allen Township), which was erected in 1748 from part of the Allen Tract (then part of Bucks County), included the Irish Settlement--and a Captain Hays led a company of men from there at this time. So it is very, very likely that this letter, however the letter-writer abbreviated things, does not refer to a settlement where present-day Allentown is. He's talking about a shipment of arms that went to Easton instead of to the Irish Settlement.

Allen's Township is not near the current-day Allentown.

The area that the Moravians referred to as "Macungie" (various spellings) became Emmaus. So not at present-day Allentown. The black ink on the map (I think) indicates a later name for the place--in this case, somebody has added Emaus. They are two names for the same place, not one place north of another. Any settlement at the spot that later became Allentown or Northampton-town would have been marked closer to the bend of the Lehigh River, I would think?

[spgordon]

Ah, sorry, our posts overlapped!

I believe the German-word there is "jetzt" (with an "i" for the "j"), which means "now." So it's "Maguntsche now Emaus."

A key issue here (which doesn't resolve any particular reference) is that the Allen's Township from which the letter I posted came and that is "active" during the 1755 period is not where present-day Allentown is. So they aren't interchangeable names for the same place. It could be that two places were called roughly the same thing--but some of the references, at least, to Allenstown refer to an Allen's Township that included Craig's Settlement (near present-day Weaversville, maybe 7 or 8 miles northeast of Allentown).

[Eric Kettenburg]

Well that is extremely interesting!  That may clear up my confusion here, although I still find it odd that Emaus was referenced as Macungie and at the same time further west there is a broader region on the same map referenced as Macungie, which *appears* about right for what did become the Macungie townships.

I agree very much about the bend in the river comment although I have no idea just how accurate or to scale this map actually is.

How do you view the 1754/1755 explicit notation of "Allens Town township?"  I can't see how that references anything else but what would become the town of Northampton/Allentown, although I'm always open to other interpretations!

[spgordon]

How do you view the 1754/1755 explicit notation of "Allens Town township?"  I can't see how that references anything else but what would become the town of Northampton/Allentown, although I'm always open to other interpretations!

I don't know. That's a puzzling one. I just have never come across any references to any folks settled at the area that would become Allentown in 1754 and definitely no reference to any settlement being called that at that time. That's why when I came across this 1755 letter I was so confused by the "Allenstown" (which I now believe means Allen's Township). So, yeah, just puzzled.

[spgordon]

To offer one more map--and return the topic to question of the Shawnee Chief who arrived in Shamokin in April 1754 (and who had his rifle restocked by Albrecht two years earlier)--here is a detail from a spectacular and enormous 1756 map of the Susquehanna that Joseph Shippen had made. You can see Fort Augusta (where Shamokin had been a few years earlier) and the path along the west branch of the Susquehanna to "Great Island," where the Shawnee chief (unidentified at present) had traveled from.

The map is on four large pieces of paper--a student at Bucknell digitally stitched them together and added the labels.

The part of the river above Muncy Creek runs in a westerly direction (although it seems to run north here, due to the constraints of the paper).

For best viewing, click on it so it opens in the image hoster--and then click again for a large, high-resolution version.

[DaveM]

Interesting again Scott with this other map!  I have been there - a number of years ago I was at Shikellamy Park which is on the north side of the fork between rivers.  Shikellamy was the major indian chief there.  Looking him up just now Shikellamy was chief of both Oneida and Shawnee at this location till he died in 1748.  Here is a picture of him with his rifle (painting was around 1820 so likely just a fanciful rendition of the artist's concept of a gun):

[DaveM]

So Scott, getting back to your original question about the Shawnee chief who had his gun stocked in 1752 and then stopped there in 1754  - could it have been John Shikellamy?  I just read he was the son of Shikellamy (Sr.) who died in 1748, and that he is the person who succeeded Shikellamy (Senior) when he died in 1748.  Reading further the Senior Shikellamy sounds like a key figure in dealing with both Conrad Weiser as well as the Moravians.  Interesting also is that some claimed the senior Shikellamy was originally French, and captured by indians as a boy.

[spgordon]

DaveM, I have had a good amount of trouble finding out much about which Shawnees lived at Great Island in the mid 1750s. As at other Indian towns, both Shawnee and Delawares lived there. 

Apparently when William Dunn showed up there in the late 1760s he found both a Delaware chief, Newhaleeka, and a Shawnees chief, "Shawnee Ben," there. But earlier in the 1760s the settlement at Great Island was deserted when Pennsylvania militiamen showed up there--convinced that some Indian raids had been organized and launched from Great Island. But I have not been able to find a source (based on some quick internet research) the identifies the Shawnees who lived there in the mid 1750s.

There's a book called "Shawnee Heritage" (searchable online) but the only "hit" in it for Pennsylvania's Great Island points to Shawnee Ben, but he seems to have been elsewhere before 1768. I haven't followed up on the references (see entry below for him) that would indicate where he was when.

I always thought Shikellamy, with whom the Moravians had very close relations (he was the one who urged them for several years to set up a smith at Shamokin), was Oneida (i.e., Iroquois): he was the Iroquois representative at Shamokin, placed there to oversee other Indian groups that the Iroquois thought of as their subordinates. So I don't know that Shikellamy's son would have been identified as a Shawnee chief, though honestly I just don't know. I don't know anything about Shikellamy's son--but was he stationed, like his father, at Shamokin or would he have "arrived" there from somewhere else, as the Shawnee chief did?

[DaveM]

Scott, I read a bit more of what I could find about about the senior Shikellamy - it was noted that he lived prior to there in another Shawnee village till 1742 near modern day Milton Pa.  Then it said he moved to Shamokin in 1742.  He was noted as the chief of the six nations which included the Shawnee.  Apparently the first any of the European settlers had any record of the senior Shikellamy was when he just kind of showed up in Philadelphia in 1728.  John Shikellamy, Senior Shikellamy's son, was also known as John Logan, or just "Logan".  I read that John Logan moved from Pennsylvania in 1760 or so, perhaps that is why in the early 1760's there was a void in indian leadership there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_(Iroquois_leader)

[spgordon]

Given how familiar the Moravians were with Shikellamy, I would think that if his son arrived in Shamokin in 1754 Kliest would have identified him by name. The Iroquois league was a confederation of five (and later six) Indian nations--but the Shawnee were not part of the confederation (Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk ... couple of others and then the Tuscarowas were added to make six). They claimed sovereignty over other Indian groups, including the Delawares and, I think, the Shawnee, and Pennsylvania's government encouraged Iroquois supremacy because it gave them a clear entity to deal with (and then expected the Iroquois to police other Indian groups). But Shikellemy was not Shawnee (he was Oneida).

More generally, I think it's okay to not know who this Shawnee chief was (for now)--because the mystery might lead people to do research to find out which Shawnees were at Great Island, etc. The problem with the Paxinosa identification (besides that it was wrong) was that it was made so definitively that it told people: no need to look further, we know the answer here, etc. So not knowing for a while might lead to new and more accurate information ....

But I will admit to being stumped at present. I wonder if the local historical society at Lock Haven would have good information about the Native Americans who lived at Great Island?

[ranger1759]

   Greetings All; I may be opening a big can of worms, or maybe I will just need to learn to enjoy the flavor of crow;-) I was a friend of Ernie Cowan's over the years, and I have only recently become a member here. Late to the party as always. I cannot say with certainty (can anyone?) who RCA 19 was made for. I will stick my neck out though, and say that I did have the opportunity to personally examine the "short rifle" in Ernie's shop in August of 2017. I will admit that the signature on top of the barrel is very weak, but it DID look like it added up to "Albrecht Bethlehem" or something very close to that. I have been looking at early rifles for many years, always with the "missing link" in the back of my mind. The short rifle seems to be just that missing link; a German rifle, made "right off the boat".
   
   Also a note to Rich Pierce. On another thread, you mentioned a gun that George Shumway published in Muzzle Blasts. You wrote that it was the November of 82' issue. I want to thank you, as I am still the owner of that gun, and was at the time of that article. I was never able to retrieve my copy, as it was lost in the shuffle, but I DID have my Muzzle Blasts in chronological order! When I saw you mention the description of the gun, I knew it had to be mine! I found my copy, and now have gun and article together again. If you would like the opportunity to examine it at some point, let me know.

[rich pierce]

Ranger, I’d love to see that rifle someday, thanks.

[120RIR]

Welcome to the forum Ranger1759.  It's been a learning experience here and I've eaten some crow myself but that's all a part of a healthy debate.  I had the pleasure of seeing the mysterious short rifle myself a couple of times- most notably in September of 2017 when I picked up one of Ernie's bench copies.  Sad to say I didn't have any reading glasses, magnification, etc., nor did I thoroughly examine the reported signature location in anything other than overhead fluorescent shop lighting.  Hopefully someday it'll be available for a more detailed examination.  Regardless, although I posted these photos on another thread a while back, here they are again for your viewing pleasure.  The original, and then one of Ernie's five copies.  Sorry for the mediocre shots - not exactly taken under ideal conditions.

[ranger1759]

    120RIR, thanks for the photos. We are (I am), so cavalier about things sometimes. When I was at Ernie's in August of 2017, I should have asked if I could photograph the guns. When I was there, if I am remembering correctly, the short rifle AND RCA 19 were both there! In the moment, you just think, oh, there will be another opportunity...not necessarily so! Anyway, my last visit to Ernie was in mid July of 2018. While he was stressed with moving and the breakup with Rick he still seemed in pretty good spirits, and I was shocked to learn at Lewisburg of his passing. Anyway I hope that rifle is somewhere safe, and will be available for future study. ALL these early guns are important artifacts, REGARDLESS of where they lead us!
     
     Anytime Rich, and I could probably "update"photos of the gun if you would like.