Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: January 1940 Volume 3 Number 1, Pages 2–12

Aboriginal archeological sites in Chester County

J. Alden Mason

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In 1924 the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society of Wilkes- Barre, an organization that has always taken great interest in the Indian inhabitants of Pennsylvania, decided to conduct a "paper" archeological survey of the State east of the mountains. They were impelled to this by the relative lack of knowledge of Pennsylvania archeology as compared with that of the surrounding states, especially of Ohio and New York in which archeological groups had long been active. Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, of the National Museum in Washington, had written

"A comprehensive archaeological survey and exploration of Pennsylvania is a scientific necessity We actually know less about the pre-history of Pennsylvania than about that of almost any State in the Union."

This lamentable situation was and is doubtless due to the fact that the aboriginal population of the State was of relatively low culture, except for those groups west of the mountains where an attenuated form of the so-called "Mound-Builder" cultures of Ohio is found. Few Indian objects from the State are of intrinsic beauty, and for this reason relatively few excavations have been attempted in the State, with the result that the scientific data on the development and sequence of cultures and tribes, as important here as in "richer" regions for their bearing on prehistoric migrations, were neglected. Unfortunately the situation is but little improved today.

The prime mover in this project was Miss Frances Dorrance of Wilkes-Barre and Kingston. With great labor and expense for secretarial help and postage, 13,000 letters were sent to postmasters, organizations, institutions and individuals in the forty-seven counties of the State on the Atlantic watershed. While originally begun as an "Archeological Survey of the Susquehanna Watershed", the Delaware watershed was also included. A form sheet was enclosed with each letter, inquiring whether the recipient knew of any Indian forts, village-sites, burial-grounds, camp-sites or trails, of any place where Indian relics, pottery or graves had been found, of persons with such knowledge, owners of archeological collections from the State, or persons interested in the subject.

A large number of replies were received and their contents noted, and as a result 1900 sites were located in the region in question. Practically none of these has been scientifically investigated and probably the great majority are of very slight importance. The answers were classified and filed according to county. Naturally many of the correspondents referred to persons and localities in other counties than their own. These files were later transferred to the office of the State Archeologist in Harrisburg where they are available for reference. Nothing from them has ever been published. Recently, in connection with the archeological work done last summer in this region, I borrowed the files for Montgomery and Chester Counties, from which the following notes have been culled Before going on to a digest of the Chester County file I should like to recount briefly the further results of this Survey. Desiring to continue the survey to include the western part of the State, and to commence actual archaelogical research, Miss Dorrance launched the Pennsylvania Indian Survey, under the auspices of the State Historical Commission and the Federation of Historical Societies.

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The objects of this Survey were announced as to dig up all evidences of Indian life in the region, to place the relics in the care of some organization in the locality where they are found, to search all records and books, and to publish an authoritative and complete history of the Pennsylvania Indians". This was a most laudable but possibly too ambitious a project. In the "boom" days of 1923 the prospects were fair for securing large gifts for the prosecution of this work, but with the depression hopes faded which have never been revived. However there were two tangible and, let us hope, permanent results of this interest and activity. The Historical Commission became archeology-conscious and employed an archeologist on its staff. Mr. Donald A. Cadzow has held this position most capably ever since its inception and has conducted or supervised many excavations, both prehistoric and colonial, such as those at Pennsbury, Tinicum, and in the western part of the State. Another result was the formation of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology of which I had the honor to be President for the first two years. This is now a flourishing organization of over three hundred members. Like our club, we began by publishing a mimeographed Quarterly, but now, mainly due to the enthusiastic interest of our Editor, Dr. Frederic A. Godcharles, the Quarterly is printed, and generally contains some reports of archeological work in the State, either advance reports of the work of the Historical Commission, or reports of the work of other persons and institutions.

The following persons replied to this questionnaire with some items of interest in Chester County. The mere reply indicated that they had an interest in the Indian. Persons whose names are preceded by * offered considerable information; those preceded by # possess small or large archeological collections from this region. In the intervening fifteen years naturally many of them have died or moved; this remark of course applies equally to names mentioned under other categories.

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Mr. Barr's collection is mainly in Valley Forge Chapel; some of the objects are cemented in his fireplace.

In addition to the above, the following persons or institutions were reported to have possessed archeological collections from Chester County:

By personal acquaintance or information I add these collectors in Chester County to the above list:

Irvin W. Allot, Phoenixville
L. E. Davis, Strafford
C. V. Davis, Drexel Hill
C. W. Latch, Berwyn
J. Elwood Thomas, Morstein

The collection of Mr. Isaac S. Kirk of Fremont, near Oxford, was sold about 1910 to Ward's Natural History firm of Rochester, N.Y. Mr. Chrisman presented a collection from his farm at Black Rock, near Phoenixville, to the National Museum in Washington.

As authorities upon the Indians of Chester County, or persons who could give information on definite sites, the following were named by the correspondents. Those marked with an asterisk were mentioned several times.

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TRAILS

Though there must have been many Indian trails in Chester County in prehistoric days, (one correspondent says six) apparently only two are of any importance. These were mentioned by a number of correspondents. Though some of the data are said to be traditional, I suspect that much was learned from published sources. One of these trails evidently ran from the Chesapeake north. Elkton is mentioned as the southern terminus, the Welsh Mountains, the headwaters of the Susquehanna, and the Great Lakes as various northern Termini. There seems to be general consensus that this followed the ridge between the Susquehanna and the Delaware (Brandywine Creek) watersheds, and seldom crossed streams. Much of it was later incorporated in what is called the "Limestone Road" (possibly present Route 122) with Oxford and Parkesburg frequently mentioned as points on it. Other places mentioned on it are Atglen, and West Sadsbury, Highland, West Fallowfield, Upper Oxford, Lower Oxford, and Nottingham Township. One correspondent terms this the "Nanticoke" Trail. Another gives details of the trail at Parkesburg, writing "In some places It has been changed. In Parkesburg about a mile crossing the P.R.R., and up to the Catholic Church has been abandoned, and a part of Main Street and the Strasburg Road leads to the Old trail".

One informant differentiates two trails in the southwestern part of the County. In addition to the one on the Brandywine- Susquehanna watershed he mentions the "Pequoa and Chesapeake path which extended through West Sadsbury Township and the southwestern part of the County to the Chesapeake Bay". From this description it is difficult to see how these two supposedly different trails can be differentiated.

Another trail apparently ran east and west; this may have been the famous Beversrede. Parts of it are probably referred to by correspondents who speak of trails or a trail "in Willistown Township, "In the Westtown Woods, Westtown Township", "westward from Marshallton," "just south of West Chester". One informant reports that it crossed the forks of the Brandywine above Lenape, and passed through Sconneltown, Westtown, Willistown, Okehocking Reservation and Devon to the Delaware River.

I have not looked into the question of published data on trails, but in an article entitled "Some Traces of a Vanishing People", Dr. Bird T. Baldwin, who read this paper before the Chester County Historical Society on February 20, 1908, speaks of six long Indian

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trails or paths in Chester County, and says that one had not been outlined in any book or map other than a thesis written by himself. This, he says, may be seen just east of West Chester near the railroad, across Goose Creek and continues its course southwest near the Normal School and across the Friends' burial ground to a point about seventy yards south of Sconneltown Schoolhouse where it extends to a point north of the forks of the Brandywine. Evidently this is the same trail as that mentioned above. Another correspondent states that a trail crossed the West (East?) Branch of the Brandywine near Jeffries' Bridge.

Apparently another east-west trail, or a branch of the above-named, is one mentioned by another informant who reports that a trail later known as the Springton and Manor trail crossed the West Branch of the Brandywine a quarter mile north of Brandamore.

MOUNDS AND FORTS

Despite popular belief, there are no artificial Indian mounds, for dwellings, fortifications or burials, in or east of the mountains, and only two informants mentioned such. One reported a hill of unusual shape that seemed to him artificial "in a field to the south of the West Chester-Paoli Road about five miles to the east of West Chester". He reports a depression in the center. Another correspondent writes that an old Quaker told him that there was an Indian fort at Seeds' Rock on the Brandywine, about two miles north of Lenape on the Mowen Worth farm, but the writer seemed to doubt it himself. The only other report is to the effect that the Hodgsons had a fort on the west side of Big Elk Creek between Pleasant Garden Forge and Pleasant Garden Paper Mill. This is in Elk Township on land now owned by Mr. Wimmer. The deduction is that a white trading fort or fortified dwelling is meant.

Mr. Franklin L. Burns informs me that he has noticed and examined this queer hill on the West Chester-Paoli Road, and that it is certainly of natural origin.

CEMETERIES AND GRAVES

Indian burials of the pre-contact period are extremely rare in this region. Practically all known Indian graves are of the Colonial period, as evidenced by the glass beads, metal, and similar objects found in them, and all reported Indian burials or cemeteries may be presumed to be of the Colonial period. On the Susquehanna, and of course in the Mississippi Valley, earlier graves are found with pottery vessels and other mortuary furniture, but not in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Mortuary customs are probably among the first to be changed by the missionaries of a new religion, on account of their religious nature, especially if earlier customs seem disgusting and the refore (sic) intolerable. Possibly the aboriginal Lenape burial customs were changed by the first Swedish missionaries even before the first accounts of the native customs were compiled. Most of these accounts were written by missionaries of a somewhat later period, and these speak of interment of the body, accompanied by native ceremonies. We must remember also that the digging of a grave with stone and wooden

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implements was a most laborious task, impossible in the winter. Most Indian graves in other regions are rather shallow., the body generally doubled up to lessen the space necessary. With the securing of metal spades the digging of graves became easy.

In fact we are not certain of the pre-contact burial customs of the Lenape, but Brinton says that it seems likely that each gens (sic) had a great ossuary where the bones of the members of that group were deposited. It is known that the Nanticokes of southern Delaware and Maryland had such a custom, and that when they moved they carried the bones from their ossuaries with them. One such great, ossuary was discovered on the Choptank River in Maryland, and the discovery of another on the York River, Virginia, has been announced within the last few weeks. The latter is supposed to have belonged to the tribe of the famous chief Powhatan. It is probable that the Unalachtigo or Turkey clan, who had their center near Wilmington, and their northern neighbors, the Unami or Turtle clan, had similar customs. These were the two groups with whom Penn negotiated. A great cemetery of the Munsi clan, the third of the Lenape divisions, has been discovered near Minisink in northwestern New Jersey, but as this also evidently dates from the colonial period it is likely that all the Lenape had the same custom. Therefore it would seem rather hopeless to look for precolonial Indian graves in this region.

Also the native population in this neighborhood was very small in Penn's time. Diseases such as measles and smallpox, to which the Indian had achieved no immunity, wiped out or decimated bands, and the incursions of the Susquehannocks, who journeyed up to the Octoraro and Conestoga, and down the Christiana and Brandywine Creeks, had almost depopulated the west bank of the Delaware by 1634, as the remnants of the population told the first Swedes.

The Indian burial ground most frequently mentioned by informants is of course that at Indian Deep, one mile above Northbrook, six miles west of West Chester on the West Branch of the Brandywine in Newlin Township. These graves have been marked by the Chester County Historical Society. The owners of the lands are given as Abram Marshall, Sarah M. Cochran, and Mr. Penezer. According to a report in the "Village Record" for 1824 the graves had not been disturbed until that time. In 1878 four graves were opened by Mr. H. Rush Kervey who found in one a skeleton on its back with the head to the east, accompanied by glass beads and clay pipes. The human remains in the other graves were less complete and contained two "flintlocks". In 1899 Drs. Spencer Trotter and Bird T. Baldwin of Swarthmore College opened another grave; the latter reported upon this excavation to the Chester County Historical Society on February 20, 1908. In this report he gave a technical description of the skeleton, which he judged to be that of an Indian six feet, one inch tall. The remains were at a depth of four feet, seven inches, on a stone floor with the head pointing to the east, and were accompanied by glass beads, copper objects, and the remains of cloth, clearly indicating that it belonged to a post-contact period. These remains and objects are said to be still in Swarthmore College.

The grave of Indian Hannah, the last of the Lenapes, who died at the Chester County Alms House in 1803 at the age of ninety, is marked there by a large rock with inscription. The burial ground on the Okehocking Reservation, six miles east of West Chester on the West Chester Pike, Willistown Township, on a hill overlooking Ridley Creek

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(see also under "Villages and Camps"), was mentioned by several informants, as were the marked graves in the cemetery of Old St. Peters Church at Pikeland, six miles west of Phoenixville. All these, of course, are known as graves of the Colonial period.

Other graves and cemeteries, presumed to be Indian, but the period of which is not suggested, are given as:

Farm of T. G. Ashton, Delchester Farm, Ridley Creek.
Adjoining farms of Harry H. and John E. Pratt, 2 miles from Okehocking, at the source of Ridley Creek, East Goshen.
Rennard Farm, beneath J. F. Lewis's barn, East Goshen.
Oakland Road School, West Goshen.
Lambert Farm, between Pocopson and Wawaset on the West Branch of the Brandywine (Stated to be untouched).
Land of Dr. Marshall, Embreeville, West Bradford
The John Kratz, and especially the adjoining Mortz farms, St. Peters, Pikeland.
Manor Church.
Wallace Township.
Henderson Tract, Marsh, East Nantmeal. (See also under "Villages and Camps")
London Grove. "The former London Grove Friends' School yard in London Grove, now the property of E. B. Walton, was at one time a cemetery. It is rumored that it was originally an Indian burial ground."
Near Black Horse (West Sadsbury?)

Mr. Franklin L. Burns of Berwyn has afforded me the following information which he secured from Mr. Lewis Brownback, who was born about 1837. The graveyard of Brownback's Church in East Coventry Township was long used as a burial ground by the Indians. A group of about six hundred Lenape resided for some time nearby.

"They buried like hogs, 18 inches below ground. The ground contains the remains of far more red than white men. When the game failed they stole the nearby farmers' corn and potatoes until the State Government removed them to the west."

As the graveyard is free of stone for a considerable depth it may have been used for this purpose before any church was established there. When Mr. Brownback excavated for the foundations of his present building he found many human bones. Mr. Burns also reports that, according to tradition, there was an Indian cemetery near Signal Hill at the northwest corner of Waterloo and Sugartown Roads, Easttown; it was later used as a burial ground in Colonial days.

VILLAGE AND CAMP SITES

Although it is to be presumed that every site where Indian artifacts are found in any quantity was a settlement of some type, nevertheless the correspondents of the Survey were asked to report separately upon Village Sites, Camp Sites, places where they had personally found Indian artifacts, where relics had been found in any quantity, and where pottery had been found. Quite a number reported village and camp sites apart from the others. As the distinction between a village and a camp site is one which even a professional archeologist would hesitate to make after excavation they are here consolidated, with the sign (V) or (C) after them according to whether the correspondent considered them villages or camps. The sites are as follows:

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Willistown Barrens (V)
Bush Farm at East Goshen (V)
Jackson Farm, southeast of present barn, East Goshen. (C)
Near Lenape (C, V) and Pocopson (V)
Along Brandywine Creek, East Bradford (C)
Henderson Tract, Indian Grove, Wallace (V)
Farm of Charles Hatfield, east of Brandywine Creek, West Brandywine (C)
Near Manor Church (V)
Madden Farm, West Marlboro (C)
Farm of George Baldwin, Highland (C)
Farm of S. W. Hodgson, West Fallowfield (V)
John B. Kinsey Far, Upper Oxford (V)
Octoraro Creek on Chester-Lancaster Counties Line (Site)
Christiana, Lancaster Co. (V)
On White Clay Creek, 2 miles south of Strickersville, London Britain, called Minguannan (C)
Near Baptist Church, London Britain (V)
Indiantown, London Britain (V)
Valley Forge. Beneath the Valley Forge Springs Museum (V and Workshop Along Perkiomen, French, Pickering, and Manatauney Creeks. (C)

Regarding three of the above, an informant writes in some detail;

"Some 2 1/2 or 3 miles from here (Marsh, East Nantmeal) tradition tells us that at one time an Indian Village was located. It was composed of a band of Delaware Indians; it was located on a tract of land known as the Henderson Tract. They remained there until 1733 and consisted of a village of some 30 wigwams. They sold to the Hendersons who promised then that their burial place would not be disturbed, but in after years the property changed hands and the burial ground was at that time between 1/2 and 1/4 acre is not part of a cultivated field (Sic). History tells us that there were but three villages in this county, this one at Indian Grove, Wallace Twp., and another on the John B. Kinsey Farm in Upper Oxford Township, and another near the present site of the Baptist Church in Little (London?) Britain Twp."

Mr. Franklin L. Burns has kindly supplied the following additional information: About 1700 Richard Thomas settled near an Indian Village called Catamoonskink (Hazlenut Grove) in West Whiteland. The selection of the original site for his dwelling was owing to the fact that the Indian dogs offered protection against the wild animals.

We should probably mention the late, Colonial villages at Indian Deep and on the Okehocking Reservation. Regarding the latter one informant writes that William Penn deeded five hundred acres to the Okehocking Indians who moved there from Chester and lived there 29 years. The land extended north of the West Chester Pike to the east branch of Ridley Creek. This is in Willistown Township, about six miles east of West Chester. Brinton writes that the Okehoki were a band who lived on Ridley and Crum Creeks and the land between them until 1703 when they were removed to the reservation in Willistown Township.

POTTERY

Of all primitive human manufactures pottery is of the maximum interest to the archeologist. It is nearly as imperishable as stone,

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unlike many stone objects there is no question of its human manufacture, the endless possible modifications of texture, shape and decoration make it a criterion of people and period, and the quantity is generally so great and the esthetic appeal so slight that collectors seldom bother with pottery fragments (potsherds). It is moreover a sure criterion of a camp or village site, whereas arrowheads may be found anywhere. Naturally, therefore, the Survey sheets inquired where pottery had been found.

In this region the pottery was unpainted and rude, of an earthen odor, and generally undecorated. The poor fragile quality, and the length of period of cultivation of the land, have reduced the potsherds to small fragments, It is not surprising, therefore, that very few of the correspondents had ever found potsherds or heard of their discovery. Only seven gave an affirmative answer, and it may be suspected that in some of those cases the finds were of pottery of the Colonial Period. The localities mentioned are:

Okehocking Reservation, Willistown.
Along the Brandywine, near Lenape, Pocopson and Wawaset.
Norman Gawthrop Farm, Northbrook, Nowlin.
C. T. Mitchell Farm, west of Brandywine Creek, a quarter mile south of Brandamore, West Brandywine, Catholic Protectory at the mouth of the Perkiomen Creek, Montgomery Co.
Black Horse, West Sadsbury.
Horseshoe Farm, near Rising Sun, Md. Now the Chester Co. Boy Scout Camp.
Christiana, Lancaster Co.

I may add that Indian potsherds are also found on the hill at Black Rock near the Phoenixville city reservoir. We failed to find any potsherds in our digging at the Catholic Protectory grounds.

STONE ARTIFACT SITES

Informants reported the following places or sites where Indian objects, presumably mainly arrowheads, have been found:

Willistown Township
Property of Dr. T. G. Ashton, Delchester Farms, Ridley Creek.
Near Lenape, on a bluff facing south, close to a stream tributary to the Brandywine.
Carter Farm, half mile from Lenape.
Mathers Farm, Pocopson, on Brandywine, 1 mile south of Lenape.
J. W. Funk and W. J. Jones farms, Newlin.
Everywhere in vicinity of Northbrook, especially in small gully along south side of P & R (Wilmington-Reading Branch), 3/4 mile west of Northbrook.
Near Marshallton, West Bradford.
Doe Run, Unionville, Willowdale, East Marlboro.
Property of Willowdale Nurseries, 1 1/2 miles from Kennett Square, East Marlboro.
Mary V. Baldwin farm, West Marlboro.
Hayes Taylor and Carter farms, near Upland, West Marlboro.
Near Reeds Road Station, East Brandywine.
West Branch of Brandywine, 7 miles above Lenape.
Pleasant Garden, New London.

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Farms of R. E. Wherry and V. T. Wimmer, Elk
East Nottingham Twp.
Farm of J. Edwin Brown, on a sand hill between Nottingham and Fremont, West Nottingham, Mainly around "Indian Spring"
Farm of Joseph D. Crowl, Big Elk Creek, Oxford (?)
Farm of Noble Ray, Oxford
Farm of S. R. Dickey, Lower Oxford
Upper Oxford Township,
Farm of Jacob Bair and environs, Cochranville, West Fallowfield
Farm of Robert Thompson, Atglen, Head of Octoraro Creek, West Sadsbury Near Black Horse, West Sadsbury
Along Chester-Lancaster Counties line, south of New Holland Branch of P.R.R., Honey Brook
Valley Forge Springs; beneath the Museum building
Along Schuylkill fron Phoenixville to Pottstown
Reinhardt Farm, 1 1/2 mile west of Parkerford, East Coventry
Farm of Richard M. Rennard, Charlestown
Along French Creek, near Phoenixville and Kimberton, East Pikeland
Farm of J. L. Cloud, near Anselma, West Pikeland
Birchrunvllle, West Vincent
Peach Bottom, Lancaster Co.
Red Hill, Speeceville, Pa.
Haldeman's Island, west end of bridge, Clark's Ferry, Pa.
Farm of E. A. Coates, east side of town, north side of N.Y.C. tracks, North Girard, Pa.

I am also informed of a site on a farm near the golf links at Gladwyn, and have visited several on the south side cf the Schuylkill between Valley Forge and the mouth of Pickering Creek. The "richest" site that I have investigated is near Black Rock, near the Phoenixville Reservoir on the western outskirts of that city.

MISCELLANEOUS

One informant mentions an Indian fish-trap, made in a form of a V, extending from shore to shore and made of stones, in the Schuylkill below the bend at Linfield, one mile above Royersford. Another mentions the "Indian Dam" near Indian Hannah's hut on the West Branch of the Brandywine, near Northbrook. He says that the breast is made of large round "flint" stones which have not been disturbed since the Marshall family bought the farm in 1703. A fine ledge of "flint" rock is mentioned near Oxford, and the soapstone quarries at Christiana, Lancaster County, are well known. As dams are not a characteristic Indian manufacture we may presume that the one on the Brandywine was either made by whites in early Colonial days, or by the Indians in imitation of European example. As regards the fish-trap, it may have been made by the Indians, but as considerable fishing was done by the early settlers in the Phoenixville region, and as a number of such traps may be soon today at low water, probably made in imitation of earlier Indian examples, it is of course impossible to determine the makers.

One informant mentions Deborah's Rock and the legend connected with it.

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REMARKS

Since questionnaires were sent to all parts of the county the replies may afford a more or less fair cross-section of the archeology. Two regions seem to preponderate (sic) in these replies, the Valley of the Brandywine, and the southwestern part of the county. The latter, on the Susquehanna watershed, may probably be ascribed to the Conestogas, Susquehannocks or Andastes, a people of Iroquoian linguistic affinities, enemies of the Lenape. The last of the Lenape lived in the Valley of the Brandywine, and historical records and traditions may account for the greater number of references to this region. The sparseness of traditional or archeological sites in the rest of the county indicates a surprisingly small population. Especially is this true of the Schuylkill River Valley, which would seen naturally well suited for Indian occupation. Last summer a project of the Montgomery County National Youth Administration and the State Historical Commission investigated this region, "both Montgomery and "Chester Counties. Though local collectors claim that sites are "richer" on the Chester County than the Montgomery County side, in no place did we find any site worth more than a few days' investigation. Our conclusions are that the immediate Valley of the Schuylkill had a very small permanent population in Indian days.

In the University Museum the archeological objects from Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties are surprisingly few, while those from Bucks County and from New Jersey are great. This may be largely due to the interests of two of our early curators, Dr. Henry C. Mercer of Doylestown, and Dr. C. C. Abbott of Trenton. But the great discrepancy is probably due to actual conditions more than to personal interests. In further proof I may add that in our local investigations we were for some time assisted by Dr. Nathaniel Knowles who recently became Director of the New Jersey Archeological Survey. He says that the difference between the quantity of archeological sites in the Schuylkill Valley and on the New Jersey side of the Delaware is most remarkable. We may therefore conclude with some evidence that the aboriginal population of our local region for some reason was relatively very small.