The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-05-13

Ii0 HOSJ popular ldSlllOHdUlS COsInOpoll-
tan resort in the city, patronized by the
congressman and federal dignitaries, the
most prominent citizens, merchants, sea
captains, The military-inf fact by men of
every walk in life, especially the better
ones-and rural locality, out upon the
Schuylkill, which was called the "Wig
wam." Heckwelder, the Moravian
chronicler, says that on May LIST, ''hu-
morous societies of his (Tammany's) vo-
taries walked together in procession on
the streets of Philadelphia, their hats
decorated with bucktails, and proceeded
to handsome rural place out of town
(sic) which they called the Wigwam,
where, after long talk or Indian speech
had been delivered and the calumet of
peace and friendship had been smoked,
they spent the day in festivity and
mirth,'
Such was the old-time Philadelphia
Tammany-a little festival of Momus, an
aboriginal allusion to annual enliven the
staid Quaker City of century ago; its
object simply benevolence and pleasure
quaint but innocent diversion. But it
died young. Wouldn't it have been bet
ter if the New York Tammany had died
too, while young and innocent, instead
of growing up to lead life of sin.
1t was appropriate enough that Phila-
delphia should have had the old Tam
many Society, for the famous character
whose virtues were extolled by the
whites, and whose name was appropri-
ated by the society, was Pennsylvania
Indian.
AS TO THE ABORIGINAL TAMMANY
The chief whose name has been thus
queerly canonized by, and perpetuated
among the race which supplanted his
own, was the most celebrated and illus
trious in the whole history of the Della
wares, though less is definitely known of
him than of Teedyuscung, who was their
great man in the middle of the eighteenth
century, at the time of the French and
Indian war and the various troubles in
Pennsylvania consequent upon it.
Tammany or Tamanend, lived in the
middle of the seventeenth century, and
well toward its close but that was the
period merely of the beginning of the
white occupation of Pennsylvania. Thus
he was far less known to the colonists-
less observed by them than was his fol-
lower in the line of succession, Teedyu-
scung. Perhaps his reputation for abili-
ty and virtue rests more upon the white
mans ignorance than his knowledge of
him, and the fact that he was held to be
so good and great an Indian may be ex-
planned by that other fact that he was a
long time and thoroughly dead Indian at
the time public attention was called to
him. His fame rested upon Indian ira
dition rather than extensive acquaint-
ance of the whites with him, but, never
theless, the pioneers of Pennsylvania,
among them the proprietor of the Prov
ince, actually saw and conversed with
him.
In 1868 Tammany and lesser chief af-
fixed their hieroglyphical signatures to
a deed conveying to William Penn
tract of land in Bucks county, between
the Pennypack and the Neshaminy
creeks.
1t is additionally asserted that the
greater part of his life was spent in the
territory now constituting the State of
Delaware, and that assumption contains
the element of probability, because in
the time of his early life at least, that
was the region of the greatest Lenni Lee
nape population. There seems reason
to believe also that at later period he
had his home in the lonely region of the
Upper Delaware, on the west bank of the
river IN what is now Damascus town.
ship, Wayne county, Pa, to which por-
ton of the valley, together with ...J D.
posite bottoms where is now Cochocton,
N. Y, the Indians had given the name
Cushutunk. 1t was round about the
site of the present village of Damascus
upon the bank of the Delaware that the
first Connecticut settlers in Pennsylva-
located themselves in 1857, (antedating
Wyoming by several years. 1t is sig
nificant that to this locality the Yankee
settlers who were destined to make
much trouble for the Romantics, gave
the name "St. Tammany Flats" and that
some years later the name of the famous
chief in its canOnized form, to Masonic
lodge which they organized.
Tammany is not only claimed by Penn
sylvania in life but in death, for there is
made with some support the statement
that the grand sachem was buried not
far from spring las was common In
dian custom), three or four miles west
of DOylestown.
CHARACTER OF THE INDIAN SAINT"
While some of these matters are in
volved in obscurity the general fact re-
mains clear and unanswerable that he
was great man in the estimation of his
people, and by some process became al
most revered by the whites during the
revolutionary period. After he had beer
half facetiously and half in earnest can
onized, his name became synonym of
good Indian" and for much that is adj