Penn's Creek massacre facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Penn's Creek attack |
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| Part of the French and Indian War | |
Penn's Creek
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| Location | Central Pennsylvania |
| Coordinates | 40°48′49″N 76°51′22″W / 40.813649°N 76.856207°W |
| Date | October 16, 1755 |
| Target | The settlement at Penns Creek, Pennsylvania |
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Attack type
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Native American attack, capture |
| Deaths | 14 |
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Non-fatal injuries
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1 |
| Victims | Swiss and German settlers |
| Assailants | Lenape Native Americans |
The Penn's Creek attack happened on October 16, 1755. It was a raid by Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans. They attacked a small settlement along Penn's Creek in central Pennsylvania. Penn's Creek is a small river that flows into the Susquehanna River. This attack was the first of many deadly raids on Pennsylvania settlements. These attacks were carried out by Native Americans who were friends with the French during the French and Indian War.
The Lenape found 26 settlers living on Penn's Creek. They killed 14 people and took 11 people captive. One man was hurt but managed to get away. Three young girls who were taken captive later became free after many years. Their stories have been told in books for young adults and even a movie.
The Lenape people were angry because European settlers had been moving onto their land for many years. They had lost their traditional lands in the Lehigh Valley because of an unfair deal. This deal was known as the Walking Purchase. Many Lenape then moved into the Susquehanna Valley with permission from the Iroquois.
One year before the Penn's Creek attack, the Iroquois sold much of the Susquehanna Valley to Pennsylvania and Connecticut. They did this without asking the Lenape. So, the Lenape found themselves losing their homes again as new settlers arrived.
Because of the Penn's Creek attack and other raids, Benjamin Franklin helped change things. He was a leader in Pennsylvania. He convinced the governor and leaders to stop being completely peaceful. Before this, Pennsylvania was known for its Quaker beliefs against fighting. Franklin helped create an armed military force. They also built a line of forts to protect the settlements.
Franklin himself helped organize and train the first Pennsylvania soldiers. The Lenape and other Native Americans who had lost their land kept attacking settlers. They also fought with the Pennsylvania forces for three years. This fighting ended when the Treaty of Easton was signed in 1758. This treaty was between the Native American tribes and the British.
Contents
Why the Attack Happened
Land Deals and Unfairness
One year before the attack, leaders from seven colonies met with 150 Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy leaders. This meeting was called the 1754 Albany Congress. The main goal was to make sure the British and Iroquois stayed allies. This was important because France was trying to take control of the colonies.
During this meeting, the Iroquois sold a lot of the Susquehanna Valley to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania wanted this land for European settlers. This deal became known as the Albany Purchase. Benjamin Franklin and John Penn, William Penn's grandson, were part of this deal.
The Iroquois kept some parts of the Susquehanna Valley for themselves and their allies. This included the Wyoming Valley. But just days after the agreement, Connecticut leaders gave the Iroquois leaders alcohol. They then convinced them to sign over the Wyoming Valley too.
The governments of the colonies saw the Iroquois as the only owners of the land. However, the Lenape had been living in the Wyoming Valley. They had moved there 17 years earlier. This was after they were forced off their own lands in the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania. This happened because of the 1737 Walking Purchase.
In that event, John Penn's uncles used an old paper. It was probably a draft from 50 years before. It said the Lenape had sold William Penn as much land as a man could walk in a day and a half. The Lenape said the paper was not real. But the government told them it was legal.
Four Lenape chiefs felt they had no choice but to agree. Their stronger allies, the Iroquois, would not help them. The Iroquois and Lenape had an agreement where the Iroquois were the "men" and the Lenape the "women." The Penn brothers then hired the three fastest runners. They secretly cleared paths for them. Two runners gave up, but one, Edward Marshall, ran about 65 miles in 18 hours. This meant all the Lenape's land was taken.
In 1743, an Oneida chief named Shikellamy complained to Pennsylvania's governor. He said white settlers were moving into the Susquehanna Valley. Shikellamy said the Iroquois had given land near the Juniata River to the Lenape and Shawnee for hunting. But 11 years later, the Iroquois sold the land to Pennsylvania and Connecticut without asking the Lenape or Shawnee.
So, the Lenape found their current home sold to European settlers. This caused problems between the Lenape and the Iroquois. It also made the Lenape angry at the German and Swiss settlers moving into the Valley.
The French and Indian War
One year after the Albany Purchase, the French and Indian War began. Great Britain and France were fighting for control of North America. The Iroquois did not take sides for the first four years. They told their allied tribes to do the same. But the Lenape and Shawnee joined other tribes. These included the Huron, Ottawa, and Ojibwe. They became friends with the French.
On July 9, 1755, the French and their Native American allies won a big victory. They defeated British and colonial soldiers led by General Edward Braddock. This was at the Battle of the Monongahela in Pennsylvania. Three months later, a French and Native American army planned to march east. They wanted to control the Susquehanna River for supplies. They sent smaller groups of Lenape ahead. One of these groups found the settlement at Penn's Creek. This happened early in the morning on October 16, 1755.
The Attack at Penn's Creek
Before sunrise on October 16, eight Lenape warriors attacked the Penn's Creek settlement. Their names were Kech Kinnyperlin, Joseph Compass and young Joseph Compass, young Thomas Hickman, Kalasquay, Souchy, Machynego, and Katoochquay.
They first attacked a Swiss farmer named Jean Jacques Le Roy. They shot at his house and then set it on fire. His body was later found partly burned. Two tomahawks were still in his head. A spring near where his body was found is now called Le Roy's Spring. The small stream from it is called Sweitzer's Run.
Le Roy's son, also named Jean Jacques (or Jacob), fought the attackers. But he was captured. His 12-year-old sister Marie and another girl, Mary Ann Villars, were also taken. A neighbor named Bastian rode up on his horse and was shot.
Two Lenape then went to the Leininger family's house. It was about half a mile away. They asked for alcohol, but there was none. So they were given tobacco. After smoking, they said, "We are Allegheny Indians, and your enemies. You must all die!" They shot Sebastian Leininger. They also killed his 20-year-old son. Then they took his daughters, 12-year-old Barbara and 9-year-old Regina, captive. Mrs. Leininger and another son were away at a mill, so they were safe.
Some Lenape took the prisoners and stolen goods into the forest. There, they met the other warriors. Later, some Lenape went back to the settlement and kept killing. They returned that evening with five more prisoners. Hanna Breilinger's husband, Jacob, was killed. She and her two children were taken. A settler named Peter Lick was also captured with his two sons, John and William.
Of the 14 settlers who died at Penn's Creek, 13 were men and older women. One was a two-week-old baby. One man was hurt but escaped. He went to a nearby settlement to tell what happened.
What Happened Next
John Harris's Trip
When news of the attack spread, people in other settlements became very scared. John Harris Jr., who owned a trading post, wrote to the governor. He offered to lead a group up the river. He wanted to calm the Native Americans and learn what those at Shamokin (now Sunbury) were thinking. The Native Americans there were known to be friendly.
Harris gathered 40 or 50 men and left on October 22. At Shamokin, they found many Lenape painted all in black. These Lenape had come from the Ohio and Allegheny River Valleys. Andrew Montour, a Native American of mixed heritage, was among them. He knew Harris and often helped as an interpreter. He told Harris to go home right away, using the east side of the Susquehanna River.
Harris turned his group back. But he did not listen to Montour's warning to stay on the east side. As they went back along the west side of the Susquehanna on October 25, they were attacked. Twenty or thirty Lenape ambushed them near what is now Selinsgrove. Harris later said his men killed four attackers. But they lost three of their own. He also said "four or five" more of his group drowned in the river trying to escape. A doctor riding behind Harris was shot and killed. Harris's horse was shot, and he had to swim across the river to safety.
On the same day or the next, the Lenape crossed the Susquehanna. They attacked settlements at Hunter's Mill. When Seneca chief Belt of Wampum heard about the ambush, he gathered 30 men. He went after the attackers, but it is not known if he succeeded.
More Attacks
The Penn's Creek attack was the first of many. The Lenape and other tribes allied with the French continued to attack Pennsylvania settlements. Two weeks later, Lenape and Shawnee, led by the Lenape war chief Shingas, attacked settlements in what are now Fulton and Franklin counties. This was called the Great Cove Massacre. They killed or captured 47 out of 93 settlers in one area.
Next, the Lenape attacked settlers along Swatara Creek in Lebanon County. They also attacked along Tulpehocken Creek in Berks County.
In late November, a group of Lenape led by Chief Captain Jacobs attacked Gnadenhuetten (now Lehighton). This was a farming community for Christian Native Americans. Eleven settlers were killed or captured. From December 10 to 11, a few Lenape killed or captured members of five families. This happened along the Pohopoco Creek in Towamensing Township.
They then went to the area that is now Stroudsburg. On December 11, 1755, they attacked the Brodhead family's farm. The five Brodhead brothers and their youngest sister, 12-year-old Ann, hid inside. Other local settlers also took shelter there. They fought a gun battle for hours and held off the attackers. This was the first of several attacks on the Brodhead home. The family was praised for their bravery.
There were only about 200 Lenape warriors from the Susquehanna area. But their numbers grew when about 700 Ohio Lenape came to join them. By March 1756, they had killed about 200 settlers. They had also taken about 200 people captive. Settlers across eastern Pennsylvania left their homes. They fled to more crowded areas to the south and east, hoping to be safer.
The Treaty of Easton
Teedyuscung, a Lenape leader, became important around this time. He led Native Americans who had moved to the Wyoming Valley. This area is in northeastern Pennsylvania. Teedyuscung said he represented ten Native American tribes, including the Iroquois. He started talks with Pennsylvania leaders at meetings in Easton, beginning in 1756.
His main goal was to get the Wyoming Valley for the Lenape. He gave speeches saying the land deals made by the Penn family were unfair. Quakers who felt sympathy for the Native Americans helped him. But the Penn family and the Iroquois resisted him. The Iroquois said they had power over all Native American lands in Pennsylvania. They had not chosen Teedyuscung to represent them.
Teedyuscung was a strong speaker. But he was outsmarted by Pennsylvania's representative, Conrad Weiser, and the Iroquois. He did not get the rights to the Wyoming Valley for his people.
However, the talks he started led to the Treaty of Easton in October 1758. This treaty ended Pennsylvania's war with the Native Americans. It brought a difficult peace. Some disputed land was given back to the Native American tribes. This included three-quarters of the Susquehanna Valley land bought in the Albany Purchase. The British also promised not to build settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains after the French were defeated. In return, the Native Americans agreed to stop fighting for the French. They also agreed to stop raiding settlements. They had just been defeated by the British at the Battle of Fort Ligonier. They saw that the war was turning against the French.
The Captives' Stories
The final fates of Peter Lick and his two sons, Hanna Breilinger and one of her children, and Mary Ann Villars are not known. Jacob Le Roy survived being captured. His name appears on a later land deed. But there is no record of how or when he became free.
Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger
After the attack, the Lenape took their prisoners west. Twelve-year-old Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger were given to a Lenape warrior named Kalasquay. Barbara tried to escape but was quickly caught. She was going to be burned to death. She was given a Bible, and a fire was built. But a young Lenape begged for her life. She was saved if she promised not to run away again and to stop crying.
The Lenape took their prisoners through forests and swamps. They avoided roads where they might be found. The captives had to walk barefoot over rocks and tree stumps. Their feet were badly hurt. Their clothes tore on branches. Older children had to carry smaller ones on their backs. Marie Le Roy was separated from her brother Jacob. This happened when the group split up at a village called Chinklacamoose. Barbara Leininger was separated from her sister, Regina, at some point. This was about 400 miles from Penn's Creek.
Marie and Barbara arrived in Kittanning in December. Hanna Breilinger and her two children were with them. They stayed there for nine months, until September 1756. They had to work tanning leather, clearing land, and building huts. They also planted corn and made moccasins. There was little food. Sometimes they only had acorns, roots, grass, and tree bark to eat. One of Hanna Breilinger's children died from lack of food at Kittanning.
In September 1756, soldiers came to attack Kittanning. The prisoners were taken deep into the forest. They were warned not to try to escape. After the attack, they were brought back. Kittanning had been burned down. An Englishwoman held captive tried to escape with the soldiers. But she was caught and sentenced to death. Three days later, an Englishman who had escaped was also caught and killed.
The girls were then taken to Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh. They worked for the French soldiers, but their Lenape masters took their wages. They had more food at the fort than in Kittanning. The French soldiers tried to get them to stay. But the girls thought the Native Americans were more likely to make peace with the British. They also thought they would have more chances to escape in the forest than in a fort. So, they refused to stay.
Their captors moved them to several other villages in western Pennsylvania. These included Saucunk and Kuskusky.
Three years after the Penn's Creek attack, in October 1758, the British defeated a French-Native American army. This happened at the Battle of Fort Ligonier. This made the Native Americans in western Pennsylvania scared. They decided to sign the Treaty of Easton and stop fighting. They burned their crops and villages. Then they fled 150 miles west to a village in Ohio called Moschkingo.
Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger, now 15, were forced to go along. There, they met a young English captive named David Breckenridge. They made a plan to escape with him and another young Englishman, Owen Gibson. On March 16, 1759, most of the Lenape men were away selling animal furs. The four young people ran away, heading east on foot.
They faced many challenges on their 250-mile journey to Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh. They traveled over 100 miles in the first four days to reach the Ohio River. Leininger almost drowned crossing Little Beaver Creek. Owen Gibson was hurt by a bear he had shot. They ran out of food. Gibson lost his flint and steel, so they spent the last four nights sleeping in the snow without a fire. Still, all four made it to Fort Pitt and safety on the last night of March. A month later, Le Roy and Leininger were taken to Philadelphia. They told their story in a published paper called The Narrative of Marie le Roy and Barbara Leininger, for Three Years Captives Among the Indians.
At the end of this story, Barbara and Marie listed names of over 50 other captives. They included where they were captured and where they were last seen. This was so their families would know they were alive and have hope. They said they had met many other captives whose names they did not know or could not remember.
Regina Leininger
Nine-year-old Regina Leininger was separated from her sister Barbara early in their captivity. She was given as a slave to an old Lenape woman. A two-year-old girl captured from another settlement was also with them. The old woman treated the two girls very badly. She often beat them. She would send them into the woods to find roots and berries to eat. This happened when her son, who usually brought them food, was away. They lived with the woman for nine years. The story of Regina's freedom was told by Reverend Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. He was a very important leader of the Lutheran church in the United States.
The French and Indian War ended in 1763 with a British victory. After the war, many Native American tribes were unhappy with British rules. Settlers also kept moving into the Ohio Country, which broke the Treaty of Easton. So, the Lenape joined Pontiac's Rebellion from 1763 to 1764. This was an effort by many tribes to fight British control. The effort failed. As part of peace talks with British Colonel Henry Bouquet, the Native Americans had to give up all their captives.
About 200 captives were gathered and brought to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Word was sent out for families to come if they thought their loved ones were among them. Regina Leininger was 18 years old by this time. According to Muhlenberg, her mother arrived in Carlisle on December 31, 1764. She hoped to find Regina. But after looking at all the captives, she could not recognize her daughter and was crying.
Colonel Bouquet suggested she try something to help her children remember the past. Mrs. Leininger began to sing a German hymn she used to sing to her children. The hymn was "Allein, und doch nicht ganz allein." In English, the first lines are "Alone yet not alone am I, though in this solitude so drear, I feel my Savior always nigh." As she sang these words, a young woman began to sing along. She then hugged Mrs. Leininger. Regina had forgotten how to speak German, but she still remembered the hymn.
Reverend Muhlenberg did not give the family's last name in his story. Because of this, the captive girl was often wrongly identified as Regina Hartmann for many years. However, in 1905, a study by the Historical Society of Berks County showed she was definitely Regina Leininger. The description of her capture on October 16, 1755, with her sister Barbara, after their father and brother were killed, and while their mother and another brother were away, only fit the Leininger family.
Memorials
The Pennsylvania Historical Commission and the Snyder County Historical Society put up a memorial. It is dedicated to the Penn's Creek attack. This happened in October 1915, on the 160th anniversary of the attack. The memorial is next to Penn's Creek, north of Selinsgrove. It is near where John Harris's group was ambushed. It is a large piece of granite with two plaques.
The top plaque remembers the attack. The bottom plaque remembers Harris's trip. It says:
On October 25, 1755, John Harris, founder of Harrisburg, and a party of 40 men who came up the river to investigate the John Penn's Creek massacre were ambushed by a party of Indians near the mouth of this creek at the head of the Isle of Que about one third of a mile south of this spot.
There is also another stone block with a plaque at the Le Roy house site. This is where the attack began. The Historical Commission put it up in 1919. It says:
John Jacob LeRoy was killed by the Indians near this spot during the time of the Penns Creek Massacre, October 16, 1755. This was the first act of hostility by the Indians of this province following the defeat of General Edward Braddock, July 9, 1755. A daughter of John Jacob LeRoy, Marie, and Barbara Leininger were taken captive at this time and taken to Muskingum in Ohio, from which they escaped several years later and returned to Philadelphia
In Popular Culture
The stories of the three girls from Penn's Creek who became free have been made into fiction. They appear in three young adult novels and a film. Each girl's story is told in one of these works.
Books
- Craven, Tracy Leininger. Alone Yet Not Alone: The Story of Barbara and Regina Leininger (2003). This book is told from Barbara Leininger's point of view. It has strong Christian themes. The author is a distant relative of Barbara and Regina Leininger.
- Keehn, Sally M. I am Regina (1991). This book is based on Regina Leininger's nine years as a captive. It is told from her point of view.
- Loder, Michael Wescott. Taken Beyond the Ohio (2019). This book is told from Marie LeRoy's point of view.
Film
Alone yet Not Alone, Enthuse Entertainment (2013). This film was directed by Ray Bengston and George D. Escobar. The screenplay was by Escobar and James Richards. It is based on Tracy Leininger Craven's novel.
