The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-08-31
A Massacre of Indians.
HORRIBLE CRIME OF SOME OF The WHITE
SETTLERS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The Paxton church is about three
miles east of Harrisburg, and is an
edifce of small, rough blocks of lime
stone. Joined by the lime which that
stone can make when burned, and over
the doors aud windows are limestone
arches holding out wonderfully well.
The church is perhaps sixty feet long
by thirty-6ve or forty feet wide, and
only one story high, with a slate roof
recently added, and with two chimneys
down at the bottom of the slope on
each side of the roof, showing that it
must have been warmed on the inside
by iron fireplaces or old-tashioned
stoves with their long pipes. The
South Mountain, which has come down
to be mere rolling succession of hills,
draws very near this church, and there
fore the North Irish of Scotch extrac-
tion who people the neighborhood set
tied thereabout, for they were a people
of the hills. They had learned in Ire
land rough, individual retalisting hab-
its, and when they found themselves in
Pennsylvania they soon began to hate
both the Quakers of English stock and
the new Dutch. Some years before
the American revolution they resolved
to kill the Christian Indians on the east
side of the Susquehanna river, chiefly
because they were Indians, and some
other Indians, acting under the stimu-
lus of the civilized states of Europe,
like France, had come into that region
and killed some white people. Taking
the view now generally accepted by
violent folks that all negroes are black,
and therefore of the same moral com
position, and that all Indians are of the
same family, and that one deserves to
die for another, these men of the Pax
ton meeting who prayed to God and
asked for mercy resolved to go and kill
the Indians at the mouth of the Cones
toga creek, which runs into the Susque-
hanna below Lancaster. They went
there and killed all the Indians they
could 6nd-children, women and men.
The Pennsylvania authorities had a
shibboleth regarding Indians and with
drew the remnant of these Indians to
Lancaster Jail. Thereupon the Paxton
youths resolved TO go down to Lsncas-
ter and kill the Indians in the Jail.
The preacher at Paxton church came
ont with his horse and tried in vain to
make these young people stay at home,
They asked him to lead them to the
massacre and told him to get out of the
road anyway or they might shoot him
So they went down to Lancaster and
sent in some spies TO get into the jai
and find what Indians were there
Tue next morning, Sund1y, while tn,
people were going to church in Ian
caster, these lads broke into the prison
and there, in cold lood, dispatched al
these poor Indians, who were calling
upon the name of Jesus They wer,
tomahawked, shot or dubbed to death
without any questioning or seruple
When the province arose in indigna
ton, Philadelphia being its capita
Paxton men resolved TO march upol
that city, which they understood to b
inhabitated chiefly by Quakers, VIII
did not fight, and they thought the
would take the town and bring a ue'
era into the world. They did actuall
, march to the very environs of the cit.
which is about one hundred miles di
tant from Harrisburg. There, betwee
persuasion and show of opposition
they were stopped and great DANCE
averted. All this happened about us
|, twenty years before the battle {
, Brapdywine, which happened on tn
soil of Pennsylvania.