The Massacre and Legend of Penn's Creek
October 16, 2024, marks the 269 th anniversary of the Penn’s Creek massacre. Twenty-six settlers living along Penn’s Creek, near Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania were attacked by members of the Lenape tribe. This attack left fourteen dead, one wounded, and eleven were taken captive. Of the eleven, three would later be released. The massacre was the result of growing tensions in the area, following a broken treaty and dishonest land sales. Prior to the slaughter, two deaths had already occurred, as documented in a letter from John Harris Jr., a local trader and ferryman, to the governor. I was informed last night by a Person that came down our River that there was a Dutch Woman who has made her escape to George Gabriel’s, and informs that last Friday Evening, on her way home from this Settlement to Mahanoy (or Penn’s Creek), where her family lived, she called at a Neighbour’s House and saw two persons laying by the Door of said House murdered and scalped, and there was some Dutch Fam...