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 Family’s that lived near left their places immediately, not thinking it safe to stay any longer. It’s the opinion of the people up the River that the Families on Penn’s Creek being but scattered, that few in number are killed or carried off except the above said Woman, the certainty of which will soon be known as there is some then gone out to buy the Dead. By report this Evening I was likewise informed by the Belt of Wampum and these Indians here that there was seen near Shamokin about Six days ago two French Indians of the Conawago Tribe. I a little Doubted the truth of the Report at first, but the Indians here seemed so afraid that they dispatched Messengers immediately to the Mountain above my House to bring in some of their Women that were gathering Chestnuts for fear of their being killed.

• A Letter to the Governor from Mr. John Harris at Paxton. “PAXTON, October 20^th, 1755.

George Gabriel was one of the unintentional (maybe) instigators of the deteriorating situation, having settled in the area despite protests from the native population dating back to 1753. One cannot say for sure why Gabriel made his decisions to go past the treaty line. Perhaps he did not know, did not care, or did not consider how dire the situation could become in time.

Shortly after John Harris penned the above in a letter, he received additional information.

P.S. – BY a person just arrived down our River we have a Confirmation of two Men being murdered within five Miles of George Gabriel’s, four women carried off, & there is one man wounded in three places escaped to Gabriel’s, and its imagined that all the Inhabitants on Mr. Penn’s Creek & little Mahanoy are killed or carried off, as most of them lives much higher up than where the first Murder was discover’d….

I shall use my Endeavour to get a number of my Neighbours to go out as far as the Murder has been committed, and perhaps to Shamokin, to know the minds of the Indians and their opinion of these times, and to get what Intelligence I can from them, and to encourage some of their Young men to Scout about back of our Frontiers to give us notice of the enemy’s approach if possible at any time hereafter. I heartily wish your Honour and the Assembly would please to agree on some method at this time towards protecting this Province, as this part of it seems actually in Danger now, for should but a company of Indians come & Murder but a few Families hereabouts, which id daily expected, the situation we are in would oblige numbers to abandon their places, and our Cattle and Provisions, which we have plenty of, must then fall a prey to the Enemy. Our Indians here seems much Discouraged at the large numbers of Families passing by here every day on account of the late Murders done on Potomack, & will be much more so if it should happen to be our case.

John Harris and his congregation of neighbors were also ambushed near George Gabriel’s House. Harris did survive. These attacks led the early American settlers to abandon the area for the rest of the 1750s. A new treaty would be signed in Albany on July 6, 1764, agreeing that settlers would stay east of the Susquehanna River.

Haunting tales have come from the massacre, covering the violent nature of the deaths of the Penn’s Creek residents, to seeing the ghosts of the deceased at night. The spirits do not show themselves to anyone in particular, it is said that one has to be in a car, passing through the area at night, with the headlights on. Sometimes spirits do care about safety.

Despite the violent event, the local folklore has not grown out of that tragedy. I shall not dwell upon the names in this particular legend, because they do not match to history. That part withstanding, it is still a good story. It is a tale that begins with a murder…. or maybe two.

It is a tale of everlasting love between members of two Pennsylvanian linked tribes. The woman belonged to the Oneida tribe, and the man to the Lenni-Lenape. Before the pair could be wed, the lovely young woman died suddenly. Her lover always believed that she had been poisoned by a jealous woman. Daily, the man would visit her grave until he too met a terrible fate. While fishing along the Susquehanna, he was attacked by a group of Scotch-Irishmen. * His body stripped of all its furs and beads and tossed unceremoniously into the river.

Now, as a spirit, the man returned again to his beloveds’ grave, only to find that she was not also a spirit. Her body was certainly dead and had been for a time. She did not have a ghost. Here the man found himself unable to continue on his journey to the afterlife without her.

For over a century he waited. The names of the characters cannot be identified in history; therefore, I have left them out. Based on the events that relate to the ghostly tale, the two lovers would have likely died somewhere around the mid-1700s. When this story ends, it occurs twenty years prior to the election of William McKinley to the President of the United States. Since McKinley was elected in the year 1896, that puts the story at approximately 1876, if the person who originally told the tale had the year right.

In that year of 1876, the apparition found assistance in an English coal miner. This particular miner is the narrator of the tale, and he went by the name Jack Carter. Through his mother, he had inherited knowledge of old English witchcraft. Not much, just enough to be able to raise the spirit of someone who was dead. Exactly the type of spell work needed to reunite the lost lovers. There was no better night for such antics, than All Hallows’ Eve.

Late in the evening, on that spooky night, the ghost appeared to the miner, and he asked the living man to follow his apparition to the burial mound of the woman. Curiously, the man did follow him. Along the way, the spirit relayed his tale of death and lost love, until they reached the gravesite near Penn’s Creek.

Deep inside of him, the miner knew what he must do to raise the dead, at least, just in spirit. He took a gourd, filled it with water, and breathed on it. Then carefully, he went back to the mound and breathed on the water again, before ever so slowly pouring it out onto the grave.

A peculiar mist arose from the grave, enveloping the man and the spirit as they stood nearby. Until the mist spiraled into the form of a beautiful young woman. The two ghostly lovers embraced each other passionately. The young miner left them in peace and made his way home.

• While some prefer the term Scots-Irish to denote Scottish people who once inhabited Ulster, noting that Scotch is a type of drink. It is a fairly common way to see it presented in older texts. To keep with the contemporary documentation, I left it as the “Scotch-Irish.”