The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1892-12-09
ABORIGINAL TAMMANY.
A cANoNIzED INDIAN CHIEF OF THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Ne Conveyed Tract OF Land in Pennsyi-
vania TO william Penn and Was Highly
Esteemed by the Whites During the
Revolutionary Period.
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 tho
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 ofPennsylvania. Thus
he was far less known to the colonists-
less observed by them than was his fol-
lower in the line of succession, Teedy-
uscung. Perhaps his reputation for
ability and virtue rests more upon the
white mans ignorance than his knowl-
edge of him, and the fact that he was
held to be so good and great an Indian
may be explained by that other fact that
he was long time and thoroughly dead
Indian at the time public attention was
called to him. His fame rested upon
Indian tradition rather than extensive
acquaintance of the whites with him,
but, nevertheless, the pioneers of Penn
sylvania, among them the Proprietor of
the Province, actually saw and con-
versed with him.
In 1858 Tammany and lesser chief
affixed 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 elements of probability, because in
the time of his early life at least, that
was the region of the greatest Lenni
Lenape population. There seems rea-
son 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
Township, Wayne County, Pa, to
which portion of the valley. together
with the opposite bottoms where is now
Cochecton, N. Y, the Indians had given
the name Cushutunk.
1t was round about the site of tho
present village of Damascus upon the
bank of the Delaware that the first Con-
nscticut settlers in Pennsylvania located
themselves in 1857 (antedating Wyom-
ing by several years. 1t is significant
that to this locality the Yankee settlers
who were destined to make much
trouble for the Pennamites, gave the
name st. Tsmmany Flats and that
some years later the name of the famous
chief, in its canonized form. to Ma
sonic lodge which they organized.
Tammany is not only claimed by
Pennsylvania 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 a
common Indian custom), three or four
miles west of Doylestown.
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
own people, and by some process be-
came almost revered by the whites DUR
ing the Revolutionary period. After he
had been half facetiously and half in
earnest canonized, his name became a
synonym for "good Indian" and for
much that is admirable in ideal man
hood The Indians revered him and
when they were visited by Colonel
George Morgan, of Princeton, they be-
came such enthusiastic admirers of his
that as the highest possible compliment
they bestowed upon him with beftting
ceremony, the name of the venerated
Tammany. His name was for many
years printed in the calendars, and fig
ures in the pages of Coopers Last of
the Mohicans, chapters XVIII,
xxx.
Tammany was according to the tra-
dition of his people (and the limited
knowledge of his white contemporaries)
remarkably wise and just ruler, an
eloquent orator, and mighty warrior,
though he exerted himself chiefly for
peace and was warm friend of the
whites. His favorite motto was Unite
in peace for happiness, in war for de-
fence. Heckwelder, who simply sums
up the Indian traditions of his charac.
ter, says He was in the highest de.
gree endowed with wisdom, virtue,
prudence, charity, ailability, meekness,
hospitality-in short, with every good
and noble qualification that human
being may possess. -