Shamokin (; Saponi Algonquian Schahamokink: "place of crawfish") (Lenape: Shahëmokink) was a multi-ethnic Native American trading village on the Susquehanna River, located partially within the limits of the modern cities of Sunbury and Shamokin Dam, Pennsylvania. It should not be confused with present-day Shamokin, Pennsylvania, located to the east. The village was the focus of missionary efforts, and then was the staging area for raids on English settlements in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War. It was burned and abandoned by the Lenape in May 1756. A few months later, Fort Augusta was constructed on the site of the village.
Etymology
"Shamokin" is usually described as derived from Schahamokink or Shahëmokink, ("place of crawfish") but it may be also a variant of the Lenape term Shackamaxon,Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 2, Putnam's sons, 1911 from the Lenape term Sakimauchheen Ing which means "to make a chief or king place"The Lenape/English Dictionary - S, gilwell.com referring to the residence of the foremost Lenape sachem (sakima) on the Delaware River.Malcolm B. Brown, "Is It Not Our Land?" An Ethnohistory of the Susquehanna-Ohio Indian Alliance, 1701-1754," Ph. D. thesis, University of Oklahoma, December 1996
The community is also sometimes referred to by the Iroquois name Otzinachson, which was according to Count Zinzendorf, the name the Iroquois gave to a "large cave, in a rocky hill in the wilderness...From it, the surrounding country and the West Branch of the Susquehanna are called Otzinachon, i. e., The Demon's Den, for here the evil spirits, say the Indians, have their seats and hold their revels."Graf von Zinzendorf, Nicolaus Ludwig., Mack, John Martin. Memorials of the Moravian Church. J.B. Lippincott & Company, 1870.
Establishment and population
The date of first human settlement is not known. Stone tools and cord-marked pottery dating to between nine thousand and fifteen hundred years ago have been found in the area. A village definitely existed by 1711, when the Shawnee chief Opessa Straight Tail reportedly fled to Shamokin after being accused of complicity in the death of Francis Le Tort, an indentured servant who had fled into the forest with several escaped slaves that he was apparently trying to help. Le Tort was indentured to the Swedish-American trader, John Hansson Steelman (1655–1749) (also referred to as Stelman or Tillmann), and after Steelman offered bounty to some Shawnee warriors of Opessa's tribe to bring him back dead or alive, Francis was killed.Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 1, Putnam's sons, 1911 Opessa took refuge in Shamokin and while there, he married Polly, Sassoonan's daughter.
At least one source states that the Delaware chief Sassoonan (Allumapees) was living at Shamokin as early as 1718. However, historian C. A. Weslager indicates that it was probably Shawnee migrants who first settled there.Weslager, Clinton Alfred. The Delaware Indians: A History. Rutgers University Press, 1989. Delaware Indians displaced by German immigrants in Tulpehocken Creek Valley relocated to Shamokin in 1728.Sipe, Chester Hale. The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania: An Account of the Indian Events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian War, Pontiac's War, Lord Dunmore's War, the Revolutionary War and the Indian Uprising from 1789 to 1795; Tragedies of the Pennsylvania Frontier Based Primarily on the Penna. Archives and Colonial Records. Telegraph Press, 1931. A large population of Delaware Indians was also forcibly resettled there after 1737 when they lost rights to their land in the Walking Purchase. Canasatego of the Six Nations, enforcing the Walking Purchase on behalf of George Thomas, Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, ordered the Delaware Indians to go to two places on the Susquehanna River, Wyomink and Shamokin. Early in the eighteenth century, the village consisted of Iroquois migrants from the north, as well as Shawnee and Lenape settlers moving away from expanding white settlements in Pennsylvania, and also some Saponi and Tutelo from Virginia.Merrell, James H, "Shamokin, 'the very seat of the Prince of Darkness': Unsettling the Early American Frontier." In Andrew Cayton and Fredrika J. Teute, eds., Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750–1830. University of North Carolina Press, 1998, 16–59.
A 1727 map by John Taylor, of the forks of the Susquehanna River, shows Shamokin on both north and south banks of the west branch, with James Le Tort's store to the east.Egle, William Henry. History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon: In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Biographical and Genealogical. Everts & Peck, 1883. John Scull's store is marked on the east bank of the Susquehanna.
The Shamokin Traders
From 1727 to 1756, Shamokin was one of the largest and most influential Indian settlements in Pennsylvania. Traders John Petty and Henry Smith had a trading post at Shamokin as early as 1728,John W. Jordan, ed. A History of the Juniata Valley and Its People. Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913. as did Samuel Cozzens, John Hart, John Fisher, Timothy Higgins, Jonah Davenport, Alexander and Jack Armstrong, Woodworth Arnold, James Smith, John Scull and his brother Nicholas Scull II, and Anthony Sadowski. James Le Tort established a trading post at Chillisquaque Creek (known at the time by colonists as "Chenastry") about six miles north of Shamokin. These early traders are sometimes referred to as "the Shamokin Traders."
Life as an Indian trader was dangerous and unpredictable. Anthony Sadowski wrote to John Petty in August 1728 that "the Sauanos [Shawnees] have hanged Timothy Higgins upon a pole of their cabin," although he does not say why. Petty wrote back that, while on their way to Shamokin, they had met Higgins, who "was thought to be hanged, escapt his life very narrowly...We dare not take him [back to Shamokin]." John Hart and John Fisher were accidentally shot and killed during a hunting expedition with a group of Lenapes in the fall of 1729. Jack Armstrong and his servants Woodworth Arnold and James Smith were killed in 1744 by Lenape Indians over a stolen horse. Jonah Davenport lost much of his property during violence with Indians and died in poverty near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
A later arrival was Thomas McKee (1695–1769), father of Indian agent Alexander McKee (1735–1799). He arrived in the area before 1735, when Alexander was born, and had two posts on the left bank of the Susquehanna, near Shamokin. He quickly became fluent in the Delaware language. The Moravian Bishop John F. Cammerhoff and David Zeisberger visited McKee's trading post on 13 January 1748. In his journal the bishop wrote: At nine-o'clock we reached Thomas McKee's, the last white settlement on the river, below Shamokin. McKee holds a captain's commission under the government; is an extensive Indian Trader; bears a good name among them; and drives a brisk trade with the Allegheny country. His wife, who was brought up among the Indians, speaks but little English. They received us with much kindness and hospitality.
Leadership
In August 1736, Chief Allumapees (Sassoonan) visited Philadelphia and reported that "some of the Six Nations had been lately at Shamokin and had enquired kindly touching their Brethren there, towards whom they shewed much Love and Friendship."Samuel Hazard, ed., The Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, Vol. 4, Harrisburg, 1851. Hathitrust edition. On 18 September, The Pennsylvania Provincial Council was informed by Conrad Weiser that "there was a large number of those People with many of their Chiefs arrived at Shamokin, on Sasquehanna." This was a diplomatic visit intended to confirm the dominance of the Iroquois Confederacy over the Delaware. In October over a hundred of these Iroquois met with Pennsylvania authorities at Stenton, James Logan's country home in Logan, Philadelphia, to affirm friendship and to encourage trade. The Delawares were major suppliers of furs and skins as part of the growing fur trade in Pennsylvania.
The Oneida chief Shikellamy moved to Shamokin in 1737, where he served as a representative of the Iroquois, supervising Lenape affairs. He was visited there in March of that year by Conrad Weiser.John, J. J., and Bell, Herbert Charles. History of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.Brown, Runk & Company, 1891. Shikellamy was there when Sassoonan died at Shamokin in 1747. Shikellamy died at Shamokin on 6 December 1748, after which a faction of Delawares left and founded Tioga, Pennsylvania. Chief Shingas may have been born at Shamokin.
Visit by Count Zinzendorf, 1742
Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf visited Shamokin together with Conrad Weiser and Anna Nitschmann in September 1742, and met there with Shikellamy. The Count believed that Shikellamy, who had converted to Christianity, could serve as a vital agent of change in converting all Indians to Christianity. Shikellamy permitted the Moravians to establish a mission at Shamokin, and he served as an emissary between the Moravians and Madame Montour's village of Otstonwakin at the mouth of Loyalsock Creek and French Margaret's village at the mouth of Lycoming Creek. Shikellamy permitted the Moravians to stay in his home, lent them horses for work, and helped them build their homes. He formally converted to Christianity in November 1748 at the Moravian city of Bethlehem. On his return journey Shikellamy became ill and died in Shamokin on December 6, 1748.
Peace negotiations, 1743
After a series of violent conflicts between Indians and white settlers, Meshemethequater, Sassoonan and other chiefs from the Six Nations (including Shikellamy), the Tuscaroras, and the Lenape met with Conrad Weiser and Andrew Montour at Shamokin on 4 February 1743, and received wampum from Weiser, who was trying to persuade the Shawnees not to attack English traders living on the Allegheny, to prevent war from erupting. Ultimately, the negotiations were successful.Walton, Joseph Solomon. Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania. George W. Jacobs & Company, 1900.
Visit by Bartram and Evans, 1743
John Bartram and Lewis Evans visited Shamokin in July 1743. Bartram wrote in his journal: July 8: We crossed the creek and rode along a rich bottom near the river for two miles...beyond which, two miles good oak land brought us to the town of Shamokin. It contains eight cabbins near the river's bank...It is by means of this neighborhood that we may reasonably hope...that a very beneficial trade may be extended...I quartered in a trader's cabbin, and about midnight the Indians came and called up him and his squaw...She sold the Indians rum, with which being quickly intoxicated, men and women began first to sing and then dance around the fire; then the women would run out to other cabbins and soon return, leaving the men singing and dancing the war dance, which continued all the next day...As soon as we alighted they shewed us where to lay our baggage, and then brought us a bowl of boiled squashes cold...I had learnt not to despise good Indian food. July 9: After breakfast Lewis Evans and myself went to the point of the mountain...and having taken a pleasant view of the mountains and of the charming plain of Shamokin, 2 miles long and above one broad, skirted on the west and north by the river, and encompassed east and partly south with lofty hills...we returned to the town and dined.