Mar 12, 2007

The Mingoes of Deer Creek


"The Mingoes of Deer Creek, as a body, left this locality in the year 1752. A few of them remained until, as is plausibly conjectured, the winter of 1763, and left immediately after the extermination of their kindred who had been living on Conestogoe Creek, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. These Indians were the remains of a tribe long settled at that place, and thence called Conestogoes.
... The Mingoes of Deer Creek, hearing of the massacre of their people, and fearing that their lives would not be secure even among the humane white inhabitants of their neighborhood, left to join their people in the West or South. Their fears were groundless. We have never heard that gentlemen of Maryland ever deported themselves toward defenceless women and innocent children as those Bayard-like representatives of the men of England who wore the red rose.
The Mingoes occasionally visited their former homes, but that for a few years only. In 1764, a year after their removal, a party visited a locality in the neighborhood of New Park, York County, Pennsylvania, ten miles distant from the Rocks. There was a wigwam still standing at that date on the farm now owned by Duncan Brown, Esq., then possessed by his paternal grandfather. They were seen walking around it, and seemingly viewing it with a curious interest. To Deer Creek and the Rocks a final adieu came."

From "The rocks of Deer Creek. Harford County, Maryland. Their legends and history." by Thomas Turner Wysong, published in 1880. You can read the whole book online, courtesy of the Library of Congress, here.

0 comments: