Tamaqua, Pennsylvania - Anatomy of a Name

One way to unravel the meaning of the name Tamaqua is to review the historical documents. The area in which Tamaqua is located officially became part of the colony of Pennsylvania in 1749. The lands between the "Mahonoy" (River), on the east side of the Susquehanna, and the Delaware (River) north of the Blue Mountains, were obtained in the Purchase of 1749, which would extend the northern extremity of the Pennsylvania Colony from the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain to a line beginning at the western extremity of Mahanoy Mountain (twelve miles below the forks of the Susquehanna River) and running North 60 degrees East (about one hundred and ten miles) to the confluence of Lackawaxon Creek and the Delaware River. This land added to the colonial land of existing Lancaster (already created from Chester County), Bucks and Philadelphia counties. 

Pennsylvania shortly after created four new counties. In 1749 York County was created from western Lancaster County.  In 1750 Cumberland County was created from lands west and north of new York County (acquired in the Treaties of 1736).  Then in 1752 Berks was created from north and west Philadelphia and north and east Lancaster counties.  In that same year Northampton County was created from Upper Bucks County. The land where Tamaqua would eventually be located was then part Northampton County.

First Historical References

So what are valid historical documents? From the first Portuguese expeditions down the West African coast and Columbus's voyage, the European nations considered cartographic information to be critical to establishment, the maintenance and expansion of their empires. In their early maps of the Americas, the Spanish, French, British and other Europeans also relied on native American maps and knowledge of the interior, but as the Europeans explored more extensively, the Indian information and place names gradually disappeared from American maps. [See Cartography in the Colonial Americas.] So we begin here with maps. 

The 1759 Scull Map shows a very good depiction of what was then called the Tamaguay Creek (now the Little Schuylkill River), shown named for probably the first time, although an earlier map (1756) by Thomas Kitchin, showed the river without a name.  This first large-scale map of Pennsylvania and an important eighteenth-century map was engraved in what is now the United States (by Streeter). The mapmaker, Nicholas Scull (1700-1762), was Surveyor General of Pennsylvania from 1748 to 1761, and was the first member of a North American family to engage in mapmaking as a business. 

1759 Scull Map showing the Tamaguay Creek

Unrest in the colonies during the French and Indian War and afterwards during the colonists' disputes with the British government and the eventual independence of the United Staes of America, persisted. These conditions slowed migration above the Blue Mountain.  Mapmakers, however, (particularly Scull's successor William Scull – his grandson) continued to produce quality maps of these isolated areas:

• Scull map of the province of Pennsylvania showing the Tamaguay Creek, 1770, published by James Nevil in Philadelphia, PA
• Scull’s 1775 map showing the Tamaguay Creek published by Robert Sayer and John Bennett in London
• A map (creator unknown) depicting Berks County in 1776.  The stream is now identified using both names – Little Schuylkill and Tamaquon (Tamaguan), different from the previous but recognizable as the Tamaguay.
• A map by Sauthier published in 1776 showing the "Tamauguay" Creek, from a Map of The Provinces of New-York and New-Jersey, with a part of Pennsylvania and the Province of Quebec, published in Germany in 1777.

Claude Joseph Sauthier was the official surveyor of the province of New York from 1773 to 1776, a period that witnessed numerous boundary disputes both within the colony and with neighboring Quebec, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. These disputes fostered a wealth of new survey information and encouraged a careful re-examination of older survey work. 

Note Sauthier's accurate depiction of the Tamauguay Creek. Ft Allen is present day Weissport. Sauthier or his survey crews predated Burkhardt Moser by 25 years in walking in the Tamaqua area.

The earliest explorers/cartographers in the present-day Tamaqua area, clearly knew the area as "Tamaqua" or one of the Anglicized variations of that name - Tamaguay, Tamauguay or Tamaquon/Tamaguan, and all because of the river. These people relied on native American knowledge of the interior and as they explored more extensively, the Indian information and place names were used and published.

So Which Indians Provided the Information and What Does "Tamaqua" Mean

Immediately before the appearance of the Europeans, eastern Pennsylvania was inhabited principally by native groups belonging linguistically to Algonquian speakers. An important tribe within this group was the Lenni-Lenape (now known as the Delaware). However, the Delaware were not the sole inhabitants of the area. When the Europeans (Dutch) arrived (1609), the Iroquois tribes (of southern New York) were in the midst of exercising hegemony over the various tribes located in Pennsylvania. These Five Nation Iroquois had defeated and practically eliminated the Susquehannock tribe (who were also Iroquoian speakers, linguistically) who lived near the Susquehanna River and were familiar with the Schuylkill area ay there eastern borders. The Five Nation Iroquois (under the stewardship of the Seneca tribe) also controlled the Delaware tribes and claimed responsibility for the administrative control of the land upon which the Delaware lived (although it is important to know that the upper Schuylkill Valley contained no permanent Indian settlements but was an area used for hunting and fishing). Even though the Iroquois controlled the Delaware, it was the Delaware who utilized this land as their homelands.

Drawing of a Lenni Lenape family near the colony of New Sweden) near Pennsylvanis, from a Swedish artist published in a book in 1703

Pennsylvania is filled of water bodies and places named with Native American origin, or they are places with a Native American connection historically. As noted above, during the early European historic period, predominantly Algonquian speaking tribes inhabited eastern Pennsylvania. Credit for originally documenting and recording Algonquian place names goes to three Moravian missionaries who lived among the Delaware during the 18th and early 19th Centuries - John Gottlieb Ernst Heckewelder, David Zeisberger, and Count Nickolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf. 

 

Heckewelder who interacted extensively with the Delaware, as depicted (age 63) in an 1807 sketch by Henry Howe

One thing stands out from the above cartographic and native history.  The early name of the Little Schuylkill River was the Tamaguay (or Tamauguay) or Tamaqua Creek (or river). In 1822, Heckewelder (and Ponceau [see Heckewelder, John, and Peter S. Du Ponceau. “Names Which the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, Who Once Inhabited This Country, Had Given to Rivers, Streams, Places, &c. &c. within the Now States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia: And Also Names of Chieftains and Distinguished Men of That Nation; With the Significations of Those Names, and Biographical Sketches of Some of Those Men. By the Late Rev. John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Communicated to the American Philosophical Society April 5, 1822, and Now Published by Their Order; Revised and Prepared for the Press by Peter S. Du Ponceau.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 4, 1834, pp. 351–396]) published a list of names which the Delaware Indians used. Because of Tamaqua’s potential vast mineral deposits its name was included in the list, as follows:

Tamaquon 

Tamaquehanne or (short) Tamakhanne, the Indian name, as it stands on record, of Little Schuylkill. The word signifies beaver stream, a stream on which the beavers were numerous, where they built dams and mud houses to dwell in. [Emphasis added]

In this same book it is instructive to see what Little Beaver Creek is called:

Little Beaver Creek. . . Tankamochque and Tankamockh'anne. Both these names are proper, and signify the small beaver stream or creek. 

It is unknown why the name of the place was not simply Tamaqua or even Tamauguay but this is likely as Heckewelder himself notes that, “These facts have not always been attended to in the English spelling of those names. Most of the faults which exist in the common spelling of Indian names are owing to the want of an Indian ear. I have in the spelling of Indian names (where I do not copy them from books, maps or records) adopted the German orthography, conceiving that the powers of the German alphabet are better calculated than those of the English to convey the true sounds of a foreign idiom.”  

In fact, the Lenape/Delaware language itself has the word, “tëmakwe”, which means beaver. Lenape is an eastern Algonquian language originally spoken in eastern Pennsylvania, southeastern New York, all of New Jersey, and northern Delaware in three various dialects. The dominant modern version of the Southern Unami dialect called "Lenape" is being taught by the Delaware Tribe of Indians, headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, under the Lenape Language Preservation Project. So the Delaware Indian word - tëmakwe - became the name of the creek or river. AND "tëmakwe" means, without further context, the animal, beaver.

From the Delaware Tribe online language dictionary

To gain further context, from the Ohio Journal of Science (59:6), November 1959, PRACTICAL REASONS  FOR  ALGONKIAN INDIAN STREAM  AND PLACE NAMES, comes this finding from August C. Mahr, a professor of German at Ohio State University, who expanded Heckewelder's understanding of Delaware Indian place names:

Whether on the march or at home, the Delaware Indians, men, women, and children, mainly subsisted on meat. Plentiful hunting, therefore, was not a luxury but a constant necessity. Hence, it was an advantage to the tribe to be familiar with names for localities where the   Thus, it happened that in the entire Delaware terrain, from the Atlantic into Ohio, there exist, less in the original Indian than in English adaptations, innumerable rivers, creeks, runs, etc., named after bear, beaver, deer, fawn, elk, and other game animals: 'hunters' hints,' if there ever were any. Very much the same is true for the former hunting grounds of other Indians, especially Algonkians such as the Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, Menominee, etc., both in the United States and Canada.

It appears that in Pennsylvania, that is, in the eastern portion of the Delaware Indian domain, such 'hunters' hints' have better persisted in their original Delaware versions or, at least, semblances of such, than west of Pennsylvania. On modern maps, for example, there occurs Moshannon as the name of a southern tributary to the Susquehanna's West Branch, in Clearfield Co., Pennsylvania; an older version, Moshannock, is mentioned by the Moravian missionary Rev. John Ettwein, who in 1772, when leading a migration of Delaware and Mohican mission converts westward, made camp at that river (Jordan, 1901: 213; Mahr, 1953: 263). Moshannock exactly reflects Del. moos/hdnlk, a compound from moos- 'an elk,' and -hanxk (-hana, -hane) 'a stream (in compounds),' meaning 'Elk Creek.' Farther toward the SE, in Berks Co., on U. S. Rd. 222 between Reading and Allentown, we find a place name, Maxatawny, and not far from it, on Pa. St. Rd. 100, Macungie. Roughly fifty miles NW of it, in Schuylkill Co., on the Tamaqua river, there occurs another place name, Tamaqua. All three names indicate that, formerly, they had been Delaware 'hunters' hints.' …

Heckewelder likewise listed the true Delaware name form for present Tamaque (Heckewelder, 1834: 361). He wrote Tamaquon and stated that its correct Delaware version was Tamaquehanne "or (short) Tamakhanne, the Indian name, as it stands on record, for Little Schuylkill." His interpretation is "beaver stream." The Delaware term is a compound of t*machkw} -  (also amochk, Zeisberger 1887: 20)  'a beaver,' and -hane  (-han]k, -hana) 'stream, creek, river  (in compounds)'; comp.,  Zeisberger,  (1887: 160).

Thus the Delaware word tëmakwe means not only beaver (the animal) but is a hunter's hint that "hunters were most likely to find enough game animals [in this case beavers] to supply the common need."  Marh confirms Heckewalder's conclusion that, "The word signifies beaver stream, ... on which the beavers were numerous, where they built dams and mud houses to dwell in." 

For the avoidance of doubt, "beaver" in the Iroquoian language of the Seneca is "nagarriaki", a word bearing no resemblance to “tëmakwe”. Clearly, Tamaqua derives from a Delaware word.

After the Revolutionary War 

Settlement really opened up above the Blue Mountain after the Revolution. Examining the Warrant Register for Northampton County, several properties are identified as located in the location of the "Tamaqua [or Tamoqua] Creek". This further supports the derivation of the Tamaqua name for the creek and the evrntual settlement.

Moreover, several Commonwealth Legislative Reports indicate the investigation of the Tamauguay Creek or River in 1790.  Further evidence of the historic “Tamauguay” Creek or river name comes from The Journal of the Twenty-sixth House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, December 5, 1815:

1. Report of the Commissioners appointed to view and explore the river Schuylkill & c. by John Adlum and Benjamin Rittenhouse to Thomas Mifflin, President of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Appendix II), pp. 6-7 of Appendices, 1790 – “We further observe that … the Legislature to declare them public highways, if not already done; more particularly that branch called the Tamauguay, as we are credibly informed it opens a communication, with a very short distance of land carriage to the Nescopeck Creek which empties into the north-east branch of the Susquehannah river.”
2. Report of the Commissioners appointed to view and explore the head-waters of the rivers Delaware, Lehigh and Schuylkill and the north-east branch of Susquehanna by Reading Howell, W. Dean and Frederick Antes to Thomas Mifflin, President of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Appendix IV), p. 25 of Appendices, November 27, 1790 – “[W]e … proceeded by road to over the Broad mountain into Quacake valley, and up the same to Little Schuylkill or Tamauguay creek, at a place where a horse road crosses it leading from the settled parts of the Schuylkill below into Quacake valley thence leading to Berwick, &c.”

Thus all the early historical evidence shows that the Little Schuylkill River was called the Tamaqua (or some variation thereof) by the native-Americans and the early mapmakers or residents who relied initially on the identification of the original dwellers of the land for the description. That being said, by the dawn of the 19th century, the name of the Tamaqua Creek was losing its usage and becoming instead the Little Schuylkill River, as shown in the below analysis of the name usage by mapmakers (in the 80-year period between the first acquisition of the land from the Delaware until the incorporation of the town):

Year	Tamaqua (or Variation)	Little Schuylkill
1759	Yes
1770	Yes
1775	Yes
1776	Yes	Yes
1777	Yes
1790	Yes	Yes
1792		Yes
1830	Yes	Yes
1838		Yes

The area of the town was initially settled in 1799 when Burkhardt Moser and others arrived and built a saw mill near the junction of the Panther Creek and the Little Schuylkill River (Tamauguay/Tamaqua).  What was to become the town lay in original West Penn Township, then Rush Township by 1807. The village grew slowly because it was limited to the sawmill and lumbering business.  Moser himself did not appear to live permanently there. In the 1800, 1810 and 1820 censuses Moser’s address was still Lynn Township, below the Blue Mountain.

The fact that changed the course of history for Tamaqua was the discovery by Moser and others of large deposits of coal around the small hamlet. In 1817 developers became interested in the town and soon an expanded town and regional center for coal mining and support industries was planned for development by the Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad and Coal Company chartered in 1826.  By 1829, the Little Schuylkill Railroad had secured large tracts of land, and the community of Tamaqua was laid out with individual lots being sold or prescribed for. A c. 1830 lithograph, "Plan of the Town of Tamaqua," shows Tamaqua lots, rivers and planned rail lines as well as regional coal communities, rail roads, proposed railroads [See original nomination document for Tamaqua Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.]

Tamaqua Becomes a Regional Center for Coal and Railroads and Tamaqua Loses its True Meaning, Getting Lost in Improper Translation

An 1830 map of Schuylkill County shows the Little Schuylkill River (still also) called Tamaqua River. In 1838, Thomas G. Bradford created and published a map of Pennsylvania. For the first time (or one of the first times) in a large scale Pennsylvania map, the settlement of Tamaqua is shown. 

In 1874, Sarah Ann McCool, who wrote Historical Gleanings for the Shenandoah Weekly Herald from February 7, 1874 to November 27, 1875, penned this:

Tamaqua was laid out in the year 1829, by Mr. Edward Smith, the first superintendent and engineer employed by the Little Schuylkill Navigation Company. It is located in a narrow dell between Sharp mountain in the south and Locust mountain, a branch of Broad mountain, on the north, on both banks of the Little Schuylkill River. This stream was called Tamaqua creek by the Aborigines, and from the circumstance the town derives its name…

According to Munsell’s History [HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, PA, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, New York: W. W. Munsell & Co., 36 Vesey Street, 1881, Press of George Macnamara, 36 Vesey Street, N.Y.], published in 1881 the name began losing its actual true meaning:  

For the space of twenty-five years from the first settlement in 1799 but few dwellings were erected.  The town was laid out from parts of West Penn and Schuylkill townships in 1829, at which time the population was about 150.  As the waters of the Tamaqua, rechristened Wabash, the west branch of the Little Schuylkill, passed through the tract, it was decided to name the infant with the name of the creek, Tamaqua, which is Indian for running water. In 1832 the town was incorporated.

According to this document, the town name was adopted from the River running through it (although the editor confuses the River naming the Wabash, being a separate, third river within the Tamaqua limits) BUT the true meaning if the Delaware word "tëmakwe" was incorrectly translated and stated. This was not unsurprising since in 1881 practically all remnants of the native Americans was a distant eight-decade memory. Furthermore, in the Delaware language the phrase for running water is pempehelak (flowing water). In Iroquoian the water for water is ochnecanos (in Onandaga), so it would be some variation of that.  In Tuscaroran the word for water is À:we. Thus none of the explanations of running water are based upon a word in any of the subject native languages.

Another twist was added in the early 20th century. In 1907, another Schuylkill County history was published, History of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania ... including a genealogical and biographical record of many families and persons in the county; edited by Adolf W. Schalck and D. C. Henning, where at p. 299 the following is noted:

Under the provisions of a law passed in 1851 [probably meaning 1831] a charter was granted creating the borough of Tamaqua. The name of the town is of Indian derivation, meaning "running water." There was also an Indian chief named "Tamaquay" who signed many of the early deeds to Indian lands.

This was a wholly new hypothesis for the name, but presented over 100 years after its original founding, and with no documented support. Although research reveals there is no Tamaquay on any early or later Pennsylvania deeds (but see below for New Jersey). One Delaware chief who did sign treaties with Penn was Tamanend.  The name is similar and may have caused confusion to Schalck and the Pottsville Republican reporter (below) who presented these origins of the name Tamaqua.

In 1916 the Pottsville Republican newspaper of June 20, featured a story describing Tamaqua’s history, taking a cue from the Schalck History:

The word “Tamaqua” is of Indian derivation and means “running water” one of the many Indian chiefs was named “Tamaquay” and he signed many of the early deeds for lands owned by the Indians.

However, another historical document A History of the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania by George P. Donehoo (1929) goes back to the Heckewelder explanation in 1822:

The name is derived from that of the stream Tamaqua, or Little Schuylkill. Tamaque or Tamaqua is a corruption of Tankamochk, “little beaver,” and with the suffix hanna, meaning “little beaver stream.”  The stream is referred to in 1790 as “Tamagaay or little Schuylkill” (Archives XI. 678). …

Tamagaay – Lloyd (1790), Archives XI. 678. Tamaqua. - Morris, map, 1848, also Little Schuylkill.  Tamauguay. - Scull, map, 1770 (large map), little Schuylkill. – Howells, map 1792

From the 1933 history of Pennsylvania by Frederic A. Godchales, Pennsylvania: Political, Governmental, Military, and Civil. Complete in Five Volumes, including Military Volume, Political and Civil History Volume, Physical, Economic, and Social Volume, Governmental Volume, and an Additional Biographical Volume:

TAMAQUA — Incorporated from Rahn Township in 1832, and named for Tamaqua Creek ...

However, note that Rahn Township from West Penn, was not erected until 1860.

In the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency, records collection noted the following:

Tamaqua, roughly translated from the Iroquois as “land wherein the dwells the animal that lives in the water” or beaver …

There is no word “Tamaqua” or similar in the Iroquoian language.  Moreover, no Iroquois groups lived in or hunted in the Upper Schuylkill Valley, although many traveled on the Indian paths which run through Schuylkill and Carbon Counties.

In the Allentown Morning Call of August 22, 1999:

The area was named Tamaqua by local American Indian tribes. Loosely translated, the name means "land where the beaver dwells in the water."

From NATIVE  AMERICAN  WATERBODY AND  PLACE  NAMES  WITHIN  THE SUSQUEHANNA  RIVER  BASIN AND  SURROUNDING  SUBBASINS by Stephen A. Runkle in 2003 a totally new and unrelated origin for the name as follows:

Tamaqua                      

"Little beaver" - town in Schuylkill County, Pa., named for the famous Delaware Turkey Clan (Unalachtigo) chief, King Beaver.

King Tamaqua (Beaver) was an actual historical figure who died in Western Pennsylvania in 1769.  His origins were from the lower Schuylkill Valley near Reading (Tulpehocken).  Before the French and Indian Wars began, he and his family (Pisquetomen and Shingas) and most of the tribe had moved to western Pennsylvania as their homelands were sold to the Pennsylvania proprietors. This chief Tamaqua had no interactions with settlers in eastern Pennsylvania. And while he lived in Reading he was not a "chief", which was actually his uncle - Sassoonan or Allumapees. There is no evidence that this distant mid-18th century person would have anything but a passing connection with the Tamaqua area in the mid-19th century when the town was incorporated.

On June 27, 2013, nearly 100 years later than the newspaper's story above, the Pottsville Republican again printed a story on Tamaqua.  In this story the origin of the name was completely different from its 1916 version and combining two theories:

…the Tuscarora which had a saying, “Tah-mah-mochk-hanna”, meaning “land where the beaver dwells in the water.”  From that and the Indian chief “Tankamochk” or “Tam-a-kwah,” a new town earned its name.  

Now a different Indian tribe is invoked. The Tuscarora were a transient Indian tribe that spent several decades traveling through the Schuylkill area. They are also Iroquoian speakers who would not be "saying" the word tëmakwe or something like for "beaver", which would be closer to nagarriaki in their dialect.

From 2014, BEYOND MANHATTAN: A GAZETTEER OF DELAWARE INDIAN HISTORY REFLECTED IN MODERN-DAY PLACE NAMES by Robert S. Grumet, Munsee and Northern Unami Interpretations by Ray Whitenour, New York State Museum Record 5:

TAMAQUES (Union County). Nora Thompson Dean (in Kraft and Kraft 1985:45) thought that Tamaque sounded much like a Southern Unami word, tëmakwe, “beaver.” Today, the 106-acre Tamaques Park and its focal point, Tamaques Pond, are located on land acquired during the early 1960s by Westfield Township. The name first appeared in the area as Tamaques, the Indian name of the place “called by the English the Great Swamp,” in a deed to land in the area signed on September 14, 1677 (New Jersey Archives, Liber 1:251[88]-250[89] on verso).  

An Indian man variously identified as Tamack and Tamage signed deeds to lands at and around the Great Swamp between 1668 and 1677 (New Jersey Archives, Liber 1:42-43, 121-122; Liber A:328). 

Places bearing the name of the eighteenth-century Delaware Indian sachem Tamaqua, also known as Beaver or the Beaver King (McConnell 1995), are located farther west in Pennsylvania (see Beaver in Pennsylvania West and Tamaqua in Pennsylvania Central in Part 2)

TAMAQUA (Monroe and Schuylkill counties). Similar in appearance and meaning to Tamaques (see in New Jersey North above), Tamaque Lake in the Monroe County Township of Tobyhanna and the Borough of Tamaqua in Schuylkill County commemorate the memory of eighteenth-century Ohio Valley Delaware leader King Beaver (see Beaver in Pennsylvania West in Part 2 below).

Again there is no research in this book that links the distant and 18th century King Beaver with 19th century Tamaqua. It does support the " beaver" (tëmakwe) animal connection.

However, this book does establish an Indian with a name similar to Tamaqua - Tamack or Tamage signing a treaty more than two centuries before the village of Tamaqua was established (and 250 years until it was named). This is a very unlikely scenario again given the distance and the time between events. [NOTE: Another Indian signer of treaty in New Jersey was Tantaqua whose mark appears on three deeds - 1668, 1671 and 1686. See PERSONAL NAMES OF INDIANS OF NEW JERSEY..., by WILLIAM NELSON, THE PATERSON HISTORY CLUB, PATERSON, NJ, 1904. The lands were near a creek was called "Tantaqua" (Overpeck) and was the site of a Hackensack village.]

Conclusion

The overwhelming evidence from historical documents is that name of the town of Tamaqua comes from the river that flows through it, now known as the Little Schuylkill before the late 18th century as the Tamaguay or one of many variations of that form.

Tamaqua is a variation or Anglicization of the Delaware Indian word tëmakwe, meaning beaver but more than just the animal, it is a hunter's hint that in context means place where the beavers live and can be found in great quantity or alternatively a "beaver stream". 

Little Schuylkill River, formerly the Tamaguay, near Tamaqua

The name shares nothing with "running or flowing water" and in fact connotes an opposite meaning, hindered in flowing by the profusion of beaver dams.

The name is not related to any other native language - Iroquoian, whether Susquehannock, Tuscaroran or of the Five Nation confederation in New York.

The name has nothing to do with Chief Tamaqua a Delaware leader in western Pennsylvania or Ohio, other than his name means "beaver". The differences in distance and time are too great.

The name has nothing to do w ith signers of early Indian treaties and land sales, such as Tamanend. Tamack or Tamage. Again the differences in time and place are even greater.

Mahr puts ir best stating, "in Schuylkill Co., on the Tamaqua river, there occurs another place name, Tamaqua. [A]...Delaware 'hunters' hints.' … Heckewelder likewise listed the true Delaware name form for present Tamaque (Heckewelder, 1834: 361). He wrote Tamaquon and stated that its correct Delaware version was Tamaquehanne "or (short) Tamdkhanne, the Indian name, as it stands on record, for Little Schuylkill." His interpretation is "beaver stream." The Delaware term is a compound of t*machkw} -  (also amochk, Zeisberger 1887: 20)  'a beaver,' and -hane  (-han]k, -hana) 'stream, creek, river  (in compounds)'; comp.,  Zeisberger,  (1887: 160)."

The Methodist Church in Mutignano and Protestantism in Italy

Mutignano is a small village close to Atri, in Teramo Province in Abruzzo Italy. Due to its territorial contiguity with Atri and the defense of the port of Cerrano, in 1326, ir was one of the thirteen villages subject to the Acquaviva family.  It shared some medieval history being chosen as a meeting place between some powerful players of the late Middle Ages, thanks to the Bishop of Monopoli, Nicolò Acciapacci, under Queen Giovanna II, the Queen of Naples. Later, some aristocratic families from Atri moved there, such as the Filiani, whose villa stands near the Pineto train station. Train building moved the focus of the government administration from the interior hill country to the coast and in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mutignano lost its importance and became a frazione of the new commine of Pineto.

Mutignano is also very important to me personally being the ancestral home of my father and almost all paternal ancestors. One of the unknown historical points of interest in the town is the former Methodist Church at 78 Corso Umberto. A Methodist Church?? Yes, a Protestant church in Italy and in some out of the way backwater. Who woulda thunk it??

Protestants in Italy

According to Italian Wikipedia, Protestants in Italy today are estimated at 750,000 (435,000 Italian citizens) who are divided into numerous denominations, which can be divided into 1) "historical" Protestant Churches, i.e. “storiche” (Waldensians, Lutherans, Calvinists/Reformed, Anglican, Baptists, Methodists), and 2) “restorationist” i.e. “restaurazioniste” denominations like the Churches of Christ, the Free, Pentecostals, "Holiness Movement" i.e. “Movimento di Santità” and many minor churches.

The most numerous Protestant congregations in Italy are Pentecostals, with approximately 300,000 adherents in numerous churches, and the Assemblies of God with about 250,000 members. In contrast the largest "historical" Protestant denomination populations are the Waldensians with about 21,000 members, the Evangelical Christian Brethren Church (with its ties to the Risorgimento) with 15,000, the Baptists with 6,000, the Lutherans with 4,500, the Methodist (including a union with the Waldensians) with 3,000, the Anglican Church, also with about 3,000, and the United Protestant Church (Italian-speaking Lutherans) with several hundred members.

The brief history of the reformation and protestants in Italy

Church reform in Italy began BEFORE Martin Luther. During the 11th through the 15th centuries a variety of religious dissidents appeared in Northwestern Italy and in Rome (like the patarini, the dulcinians, Arnaldo da Brescia, fraticelli, Albigensians or Cathars); however, all were unsuccessful (executed or murdered) except for the Waldensians, who settled in the inaccessible valleys of the western Alps in Piemonte. The Waldensians could be seen as proto-Protestants, but they mostly did not raise the doctrinal objections characteristic of sixteenth-century Protestant leaders during the Reformation.

Arnaldo da Brescia, from Lombardy, who called on the Church to renounce property-ownership and participated in the failed Commune of Rome of 1144–1193

Later in the 15th century, an Italian priest, Girolamo Savonarola who is regarded as a predecessor of Martin Luther in Italy, stigmatized the abuses of the Catholic clergy, as well as demanding a "moral revival" and the destruction of statues and images at churches. However, unlike Luther, Savonarola did not gain the protection of influential patrons, and he was limited to Florence, and soon executed.

Naples was also an important center of the Reformation. At the end of the 15th century, a Spirituali circle (proto-evangelists) was formed, concentrated around Spanish immigrant Juan de Valdés. Then in the 16th century after Luther, Venice and its possession Padua were temporarily places of refuge for Italian Protestants. These cities, along with Lucca, were important centers of the Italian Reformation because they were easily reached by new religious ideas spreading from the North. However, Protestantism there was quickly quashed by the Inquisition (influenced by Spain-controlled southern Italy and Milan, and influencing much of the remainder of Italy). Italian Protestants then fled mainly to German duchies and to Switzerland.

In the 1520s, soon after publication of the first letters of Luther, the first few Italian Lutherans appeared. However, the effect of Lutheranism was minimal because Luther wrote in German and directed his mission mainly at Germans, and the Church censorship in Italy was very effective. Waldensianism was, however, revitalized with the Protestant Reformation, and aligned itself to Calvinism by becoming a part of it in 1532. Also by 1550, Pope Julius III affirmed that 1,000 Venetians might be counted as belonging to the Anabaptist sect.

The Italian Reformation then collapsed after only about 70 years of existence because of the quick and strong reaction of the Roman Church. In the summer of 1542 the Italian Inquisition had organized itself in order to fight Protestants in all Italian states more effectively.

As a result of this Roman threat, the majority of Italian reformers escaped to countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, including Poland, where an influential group of Italian Unitarians came into existence, supported unofficially by the Queen of Poland, the Italian-born Bona Sforza. By about 1600, almost all Protestantism ceased to exist in Italy, with Catholicism remaining the religion of the Italian states, except for the Waldensians, limited to their inaccessible mountain retreats.

Another cause of the Italian Reformation's collapse was the aggressive politics of the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Spanish Hapsburgs) toward Italian states. Italian princes soon identified the Reformation a threat to their rule and joined in the persecutions.

Freedom of Religion in the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of Italy

It was not until 1848 when Charles Albert, king of Sardinia (and Piemonte), granted religious freedom and civic emancipation to the Waldensians. Freedom of worship and equality of civic and political rights were later extended to Jews and into the other Italian states that were progressively annexed to Sardinia during the process of unification of Italy. Newer Waldensian congregations sprang up as well such as the Free Christian Church (which lasted from 1852 to 1904) and the Evangelical Christian Church of the Brethren. Meanwhile British and American missionaries began to preach and establish Anglican, Methodist and Baptist churches.

The second largest “storiche” church, the evangelical Christian Church of the Brothers (or Assembly of Brothers) is attributable to the Anglican Church and was organized in Tuscany by Count Piero Guicciardini, of an aristocratic Florentine family in 1806. Protestants became hopeful that the Risorgimento would be accompanied by religious reform but they constituted a very small minority in the peninsula (32,684, according to the 1861 census). The influence that Protestantism exercised over the Risorgimento culture was actually remarkable. Several protagonists of the Risorgimento (from Cavour to Lambruschini, from Terenzio Mamiani to Ricasoli, and from Carlo Cattaneo to Ferrari) had close contacts with the Protestant world and some were of Protestant faith. At the end of the Risorgimento with the capture of Rome in 1870, all the evangelical churches opened places of worship in various cities. Subsequently, an evangelical organization was structured and under Piero Guicciardini and Theodoric Pietrocola Rossetti, the assemblies of the Brothers took root.

In the early 20th century, missionaries spread the Pentecostal gospel throughout Italy which became the dominant Protestant sects (see numbers above).

The Methodists of Italy

Methodism appeared on the scene of Italian history in 1859 with the arrival of William Arthur, secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society of London. He toured Italy to better understand the social and political developments of the Risorgimento. In his report "Italy in transition" he affirmed the need to open a missionary field not to found a Methodist Church, but to support the evangelicals already present (Waldensians and Free Church) in the commitment to religious reform in an evangelical sense that would provide the necessary spiritual support to ferment political and cultural reform.

In 1860 the Wesleyan Society of England sent Richard Green, who initially stopped in Florence, where he came into contact with exponents of the "free" churches (Gavazzi and Guicciardini); then pushing on to Naples, recently liberated by Garibaldi. In 1861, Green repatriated for health reasons, and Henry J. Piggott was sent to Italy. The organization of the mission in the South, a territory who Piggott understood with great acuity, was entrusted to Thomas W. Jones. In 1870, Leroy M. Vernon, sent by the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America, also arrived in Italy (replaced after a few years by William Burt).

Henry J. Pigott

Piggott and Vernon began to organize their respective denominational churches: first the Wesleyan Methodist Church and second the Methodist Episcopal Church, agreeing however to carry out a complementary, non-competitive enterprise.  Churches were opened in large cities as well as in rural areas. These efforts were also popular with the lowest strata of the population: e.g. in the area of ​​Mezzano in Emilia, for example, as in the industrial suburbs of Genoa; in the towns of Maiella, as among the laborers of Ragusa (in Sicily) or the workers for the construction of the Sempione tunnel. It was joined by day and evening schools, professional training and job placement institutes, mutual aid organizations, in Padua, Venice, La Spezia, Villa San Sebastiano, Intra, Scicli, Naples, Mezzani, Mutignano and Portici.

In the center of Bassignana, a town in the province of Alessandria, a large Methodist church was built, after the citizens found themselves in complete disagreement with the parish priest and therefore decided to embrace Methodism. The Evangelical Church of Gorizia, founded in the 19th century as a German-speaking Lutheran church after the First World War, and the city increasingly acquired the characteristics of an Italian community of Methodist identity, until, after the Second World War, it became a local Methodist church.

The two branches of Methodism, the English and the American, united in 1946 founding the Evangelical Methodist Church of Italy. In 1975 the Methodist Church integrated with the Waldensian Church, subscribing to a common doctrine. Currently in Italy the Methodist Church has 39 communities and churches, about 5,000 church members.  

Methodist Mutignano

In the heart of the historic center there is the Methodist Church. It lies on the site of a Catholic church first built in the early 1800s. Initially this small chapel was dedicated to St. Ilario, patron saint of Mutignano since 1682 (he was replaced S. Silvestro to whom the parish church is still dedicated). The replacement of saints was due to relics which had arrived from Rome, (as in Atri, in 1605, those relics of S. Reparata had arrived, thanks to the interest of Claudio Acquaviva, uncle of Rodolfo). Following a building collapse due to a landslide the church was completely rebuilt in 1881 in neo-Gothic style for Methodist worship.  

In 1932 the church was completed/renovated by some local families (Sfredda, De Stephanis, Leonzi). But it could only enter into operation in 1944 after the end of the fascist dictatorship. It functioned as a place of worship until 1996. 

I share a name on the dedication plaque of the church in 1929. I don't know if I am related

The Methodist church was erected, thanks to emigrants from Mutignano who had fled to the north and found hospitality in the transalpine countries. As a thank you for the hospitality, conversion to the new faith took place. A similar case occurred in the Valle Siciliana in Teramo. The money earned in the north allowed in addition to the return home, the construction of a sacred building. 

The church presents itself with the physiognomy of a Catholic building, with the neo-Gothic facade and the bell gable. On the portal the writing, motto of the faith "My parish is the world" and this is the first sign of a non-Catholic church, because such cartouches usually read in Latin, the language of Catholicism. The building, bordered by private homes, is located a stone's throw from the eighteenth-century church of S. Antonio di Padova, now utilized as an auditorium. The interior, in the shape of a hall, with some neo-Gothic features, such as the pointed arch single-lancet window, has the pulpit, the most important sacred furniture of the bare liturgy of the reform, in wood.

 

Mutignano had a small community of Reformed people, about forty adherents. The church philosophy, different from the Catholic one, linked to the current Parish of S. Silvestro, did not create problems. The people of Mutignano accepted their reformation brothers and sisters.

The Reformed community was active in Mutignano until 1996, when the decreasing number of faithful led to the closure of the now valuable neo-Gothic building. Since 2010, the church has been a private building, purchased by an English-speaking descendant of the Protestants.

PART 3 - One Son's Father - My Father's Battles, Monte San Michele, World War 1, La Grande Guerra

Prelude: The Strafexpedition

On March 19, 1916 the Macerata Brigade was relieved from the front during the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo and returned behind the front lines for rest, training and other work details.  They were encamped at Campolongo (al Torre), Armellino and Aiello del Frulio, until May 8. On May 15 the Austrians attacked in the Trentino area (the Strafexpedition). General Cadorna had to move many troops from the Isonzo (those in reserve and behind the lines) as the attack produced significant Austrian movement and Italian losses. The Italians, however, turned the tide by June 3. 

Moreover, the Russian Brusilov offensive that June would produce the largest Entente victory of the war to date, crippling the Dual Monarchy in part because of Austria's decision to move men to the Italian Trentino front.  Unable to maintain the Italian offensive after having lost 100,000 in the battle, and pressured in the East, the Strafexpedition ran out of steam.  200,000 out of remaining 300,000 Austro-Hungarians would quickly be shuffled to the Eastern Front, leaving the few troops who remained under a withering Italian counterattack.  At the loss of 140,000 troops, including 50,000 prisoners, the Italians rolled back large chunks of the Austrian gains. 

But the Italian hopes for a war of conquest lay in tatters. Popular support for the war cooled. The military emergency also triggered a political crisis in Rome: Prime Minister, Antonio Salandra, resigned and was replaced by Paolo Boselli, who set up a “national government” along the lines of the French Union Sacrée. Cadorna himself feared he would be replaced. Now he needed a clear victory to strengthen his own position and began to plan another Isonzo offensive

Battle of Monte San Michele. GAS

Meanwhile back at the Isonzo, as a new offensive was in the works, the situation was relatively calm. During the spring months, little progress had been made around Gorizia, Monte Sabotino and Monte San Michele. However, as the fighting in Trentino abated, the tempo of operations at the Isonzo intensified.  Beginning in the second week in June Italian patrols grew larger and more aggressive.  On Monte San Michele, the work of weakening the enemy defenses by the 3rd Italian army continued: by now the two front lines were in close contact, and the Italian superiority of armament had been achieved creating an untenable situation for Austro-Hungarians of the 5th army of General Boroevic.  The soldiers of the Italian IX Army Corps had succeeded in advancing up to a few tens of meters from the first Austro-Hungarian line, building new trenches and safe positions for the bomb launchers.

On June 14 the Italian III Army began a limited but powerful raid on the Carso’s southern flank.  After several hours of intense shelling at Monte Sei Busi, two Italian divisions advanced towards the Austrian 106th Militia Division trenches. An intense firefight between the Italian Infantry and the Czech riflemen of the 11th Austrian Militia Regiment erupted for control of the trenches around Hill (Sector) 118.  

The fight dragged on into the first week in July. The Austrians managed to hold their positions (despite losing 1,400 men) in the fighting which lasted three days.  After a few days the Italians continued their heavy harassment in this area.  Again the Austrians held their ground but lost another 4,700 casualties. Italian losses were higher in this minor offensive.

Meanwhile, Boroevic had been preparing for a surprise offensive attack by his troops at Monte San Michele.  Boroevic wanted to retake positions around San Martino and San Michele especially Hill (Sector) 197 believing that these areas were going to be used by the Italians in an effort to seize the

Hill 197 at Monte San Michele

heights at Monte San Michele in anticipation (correctly as it turns out) of another Cadorna offensive.  A division sized offensive was planned for the last week in June.  This was to be similar to smaller skirmishes that had been ongoing in these areas between the major assaults at Isonzo for the past year.  But the planning for this attack was dramatically different because it would include the use of chemical (gas) warfare. Previously in March (and only once) at San Martino del Carso, a small village on the western slopes of Monte San Michele, the Austro-Hungarians had counterattacked with success using tear gas. 

Other than that, neither the Austrians nor Italians had used gas before despite its use on the western front in the prior year by the Germans. Both armies had small units of chemical warfare specialists but they had been sitting idle. Two Sappeurbattaillonen – the 61st and 62nd - provided the nucleus for the new Spezialformationen der k.u.k Sappeurtruppe (Special Sapper Units), in February 1916, Sappeur-Spezial-Battailon, which later reverted to k.u.k. Sappeurbatailon 62nd.

The Austrian idea to use chemicals first arose during November 1915 when the Italians had threatened to break through the Carso, but it was believed to be impracticable. But the chemical specialists had now changed their minds and Boroevic seized upon the idea of their use to give his surprise attack a decided advantage.

In the first week of June the VII Corps readied its assault force from elements of the 17th (aimed at Hill 197) and 20th Divisions (aimed at San Michele).  Although the units were ready on June 10, the operation had to wait for two weeks favorable weather conditions.  The Special Sapper Battalion was ready with over 6,000 canisters in the forward trenches of San Michele Sector. The weather was cleared on June 28 and the order (personally cleared by Emperor Franz Josef) was obtained after mid-night.  By 04:15 the canisters were in place and the release of poison gases – phosgene - were launched at 05:15 of June 29, 1916 from the trenches in the town of San Martino del Carso, preceded by an intense artillery fire.  The attack lasted for over one-half hour as the gas cloud was blown westward over and into the front-line trenches of the 21st and 22nd divisions (mainly belonging to the "Regina" and "Pisa" brigades) of the Italian XI Corps.  

Italian Soldiers in the aftermath of gas attacks, perhaps a scene witnessed by my father

The Austrian columns, after the launch of the gases, easily penetrated the first Italian lines, finding only corpses or soldiers dazed by the gases, while the soldiers (from the second lines) still conscious were taken by panic and retreated. The 8th brigade of the 20th (Hungarian) division began the attack. Also in this sector thick clouds hit the first and second lines, the shelters and the walkways, extending their effect up to Peteano and Sdraussina. The attack was particularly violent against the troops that held the positions just below the peaks of San Michele; some battalions of the 19th and 20th regiments (Brescia) were almost completely destroyed, while the survivors were overwhelmed by enemy troops. 

The intervention of Colonel Gandolfo, commander of the Italian 10th regiment, was able to stop part of the unorganized and panicked retreat of the affected, while Major General Sailer with the rest of the Brigata Regina, supported by the artillery and the troops deployed in the Bosco Lancia, began the counterattack.  The Hungarian troops began to experience stiff resistance from the rear-stationed Italian infantry who battled with resolve as they realized the use of poisonous gas by the Imperial Army.  In the afternoon, thanks to a sudden change in the direction of the wind that made the gas disperse to the Austrians coming down, and to the tenacious reorganization effort made by the Italian troops, the lost ground had been entirely reconquered.

Bosco Cappuccio where the 121st Infantry of my father was positioned on June 29, 1916

Between June 29 and 30, in the sector of the San Michele-San Martino del Carso front, from the gases and the contemporaneous enemy attack resulted in 100 deaths among the officers and 2,600 deaths among the soldiers; 98 officers and 3,900 troops were seriously poisoned; altogether about 200 officers and 6,500 troops were put out of action. Among the Austrians, the losses amounted to 23 officers and 1,549 soldiers.

On June 29 the 121st Regiment was occupying the trenches near Cappuccio close-by the Regina Brigade.  One of my father’s fellow infantrymen of the 121st Regiment, Pietro Storari wrote in his diary that day:

On June 29, 1916, … the enemy, after a sudden and intense bombardment, attacked with asphyxiating gases on the line held by the Regina Brigade (Monte Cappuccio) and part of the section occupied by the 121st Regg. Infantry. This was accomplished in a moment and immediately the assault began. Given the almost total losses of the men of the Regina Brigade, the enemy managed to temporarily occupy the 121st Monte Cappuccio trench. On the line held by the 121st [the attack] did not succeed because [we were] well equipped with means of defense against the asphyxiating gases. 

In fact immediately, fires were lit with firewood and other specially prepared Nicolaidi equipment [anti-gas devices], succeeding at the same time in dispelling the gas barbarously launched on the morning of June 29th. However, [the unit] immediately had to leave Monte Cappuccio (position taken at the Regina Brigade) and return to the starting position because our artillery was massacred by the barrage. The 9th and 10th Infantry members of the aforementioned Brigade lost almost all those present.

The corpses were mostly greenish from the powerful gas that had suddenly struck them, those that were stunned, among which a Major was barbarously slaughtered with iron maces, one of which I possess, which I keep as a memory of war.

The military trucks continued for two days to transport the corpses to the nearby military cemetery located in Sagrado at the foot of the Monte San Michele. So I passed my 24th birthday in view of death and in the midst of a painful massacre. The attacks continued on both sides but without success.

What happened next is reported in the tragic testimonies of soldiers and officers shocked by the sight of the Italian trenches. Corporal Valentino Righetti (19th Brescia Brigade) said he reached the trench at night thinking it was completely deserted given the total silence surrounding the area. To his surprise, the soldiers were all in their place, but strangely asleep. At dawn the corporal made the gruesome discovery: hundreds of men had died within minutes the previous day.

For a period of time the Austro-Hungarian soldiers in these areas, were in great danger from the revenge minded Italians.  Imperial Army soldiers who surrendered to become prisoners learned to do so in large groups.  If they were part of a small group they were likely to be shot and killed so was the disdain for the troops that had used poison in battle.

Aftermath

Notwithstanding the use of gas in Italy, Cadorna pressed on with a plan to attack in August 1916. The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo also called the Battle of Gorizia grew out of the Italian defense at Asiago in the Strafexpedition. This brought the heretofore lagging Italian spirit to a new high and united to bring the war into Austria.  Cadorno believed that the Imperials were discouraged by their experience in the Trentino and the fact that many troops had been removed to the eastern front to defend against the Brusilov offensive.  The Imperial command would likely not expect a rapid offensive to be launched so soon after the Asiago defense. Moreover, the western front was also bringing pressure to bear on the German allies at Verdun (where the French had turned the German offensive of the spring around) and at the Somme by the British. These actions would keep the Germans from supporting its Austrian ally.  In these beliefs Cadorna would be proven correct.

Mesingw - Schuylkill County's Link to its Lenni Lenape Past

Schuylkill County was once a territory within the homelands of the Lenni Lenape and Susquehannock native tribes. neither of these tribes had permanent settlements in this territory but traversed the area as a place to mostly hunt and trap. The territory was also crossed by documented Indian trails were the native peoples in the northeastern part of what was to become the United States traveled between their homes and other tribes (for trade or occasional wars) or for access to the bountiful game for food and other necessities (furs for clothing and blankets). The Schuylkill County of today have some evidence of these links to its native past - Indian fields, place names, even evidence if the old Indian trails, if you look closely enough. But this article is about a truly unusual artifact that attests a link to Schuylkill County that is tangible and conclusive.

Spirit Mesingw as found in Schuylkill County. The dimensional reference is a 12-inch ruler.

The discovery of the Mesingw petroglyph

On May 10, 1968, a fascinating discovery was made on a hillside of West West Mountain along the west branch of the Gordon Nagle Trail (State Route 901) about two miles from Llewellyn in Branch Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Francis P. Burke of Mar Lin was traveling near the west branch of the Schuylkill River looking for Native American sites. He saw a dark area in the hill and, thinking it indicated a rock shelf, followed a path into the mountain to investigate. The path led to a small clearing, but after following a small stream that ran through the area he realized he had gone too far but hadn’t yet seen anything.

Going back from where he came, he now observed a niche and then an area opened up. He saw a little part of a sandstone boulder. The rest was covered over with brush and a laurel bush. Working to remove the debris and he first saw a mouth, then a nose, then two eyes. Burke said, “I got the thrill of my life.” He had happened upon a petroglyph, a rock (sandstone) carving, dating back to the 17th century and thought to be a representation of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indian) spirit Mesingw and now located in The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. [See Richardson, Leslie, Locally discovered petroglyph replica on display at county historical society, The Pottsville Republican, October 19, 2009] 

Mesingw is an important Lenni Lenape spirit being who rode through the forest on the back of a large deer; Mesingw is believed to have made sure that all the animals were healthy and fed. Lenape hunts were believed likely to be more successful if Mesingw was remembered and commemorated. 

Schuylkill County was once within the homelands of the Lenni Lenape (known as the Delaware by the settlers) people. The Lenape were part of the Unami- and Munsee-speaking (Algonquian dialects) peoples of the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and New Jersey and lower Hudson (New York/New England) River valleys. At the time of the coming of the Europeans, the entire area occupied by the Lenape was known as Lenapehoking. Schuylkill County was located (mostly) in Unami territory (the Schuylkill and Delaware - below the Lehigh - river areas).

Lenapehoking

Surrounding Lenapehoking, were other unrelated native people groups. To the west, beyond the Schuylkill River, were the Susquehannock who occupied most of the Susquehanna valley down to the Cheasapeake Bay and west into the Allegheny Mountains. The Susquehannock were Iroquois speakers, a distinctly different native language group. Part of the homelands of the Susquehannock also encompassed the western parts of Schuylkill County.

However, neither the Lenape nor Susquehannock had permanent or semi-permanent communities within the future borders of Schuylkill County. Both indigenous groups lived in semi-permanent villages exclusively all near larger rivers – the Delaware, the lower Lehigh and lower Schuylkill – and in the case of the Susquehannock – the Susquehanna, where the inhabitants lived for ten to twenty years and then moved on to new areas as the land became exhausted from farming. Schuylkill county, was mostly a place where the groups of each tribe would travel to several times each year to hunt, fish and trap.

Mesingw and the Indian path to the hunting grounds

Moreover, Schuylkill County was the locus of four “Indian trails,” the interstate highways of early native and then European North America. These four paths began in the present-day Reading area, where they connected to other paths to the east and south. Reading lies on the Schuylkill River upstream (about 60 miles from from Philadelphia). It became a center of the Indian population as settlers moved into the Bucks, Philadelphia and Chester County areas that had been purchased by William Penn in the 1680s. These four paths themselves led to other trails into the deeper interior of Pennsylvania and also to New York (home of the Five Nations Iroquois) or to the west in Pennsylvania, further and deeper into Indian territory towards the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley west of Pittsburgh. These four paths are:

    • Tulpehocken Path between Wolmelsdorf (west of Reading) and Shamokin (present day Sunbury),

    • Schuylkill Path between Reading and Shamokin,

    • Catawissa Path (east) between Reading and Catawissa, and

    • Nanticoke Path (north) between Reading and Nanticoke.

Of interest here is the Schuylkill Path because that appears to be where Burke discovered the Mesingw petroglyph. This path was also a forerunner to the Kings‘s Highway (1770) and of the Centre Turnpike (1809).

In the earlier Indian Era it appears that this path was a route that intersected with the Maxatawney Path from from Lechauwekink (Easton) at the Forks of the Lehigh River and thus provided a route from Easton to Sunbury that may have been faster that from Easton to Sunbury using portions of the Maxatawny Path, Lehigh Path, Nescopeck Path and Great Warriors Path.

The petroglyph when it was discovered in its natural state somewhere near the Schuylkill Path

There was also an Indian settlement at Maxatawny (Kutztown and vicinity) to Maiden Creek and Reading. The area now comprised in Maxatawny Township was much desired by the Lenape Indians, who remained here for some time after white settlers surrounded them from the east and south, maintaining relations with the newcomers, until about 1736, when these lands were purchased by Penn’s proprietors. There is a lack of explicit evidence for this traditional Indian path. But the known presence of so many natives in Maxatawny presupposes connections with the Forks of the Delaware and the Indian paths radiating from it, as also with Reading, where the Allegheny Path from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh crossed the Schuylkill River. There is also reason to believe that hunting, trapping and fishing in the Upper Schuylkill was an attraction that drew Indians from Easton, Philadelphia and the Susquehanna areas into the headwaters of the Schuylkill River. As noted this area was devoid of permanent Indian settlements so likely a good place for Indians from all regions to visit for these reasons. 

The presence of Indian fields in the Upper Schuylkill area also supports this theory as does the use of “hunter’s hints” in place names in this area. According to Mahr [Mahr, August C., PRACTICAL REASONS FOR ALGONKIAN INDIAN STREAM AND PLACE NAMES, THE OHIO JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 59(6): 365, November, 1959, p. 368], whether on the go or at home, the Lenape Indians, men, women, and children, mainly subsisted on meat. Plentiful hunting, therefore, was not a luxury but a necessity. Hence, it was an advantage to the tribe to be familiar with names for localities where the hunters were most likely to find enough game animals to supply the common need. On modern maps, for example, there occurs place names such as Tamaqua, Maxatawny, Macungie. Heckewelder [John Heckewelder was a Moravian missionary to Pennsylvania from 1754. See Heckewelder, J. 1834. [On Indian names.] Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, n.s. 4: 351-396. 1881. History, manners, and customs of the Indian nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring states. 450 pp. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia] listed the true Delaware name form for present Tamaqua, referring to the Little Schuylkill River (Heckewelder, 1834: 361). He wrote Tamaquon and stated that its correct Delaware version was Tamaquehanne "or (short) Tamakhanne, the Indian name, as it stands on record, for Little Schuylkill." His interpretation is "beaver stream." Similarly Heckewelder established Maxatawny as Machksithanne and interpreted it as "bears' path creek or the stream on which the bears have a path" (Heckewelder, 1834: 360), and another such hint at good bear-hunting was Macungie. Heckewelder gave its Delaware form as Machkunshi (spelling modified), which he rendered as "the harboring or feeding place of bears" (Heckewelder, 1834: 357). 

Finally, a great many “hunters'-hints” names, however, made no such special mention of the game which they promised. Their hints were broader. It was well known, for instance, among the Delaware that there was good hunting of all sorts of game near any natural outcropping of salt, be it a salt lick or a saline spring which equally attracted the animals. That is why in the whole Lenapehoking the Lenape hunters formed numerous names for big and small water courses with their term m’honi, “a salt lick,” usually adding to it their locative final -’nk: m’honink, “where there is a salt lick.” Because of salt licks in their head waters, several such streams were called m’honink siipunk, or m’honink/ hdnna, “river where there is a salt lick.” And so it is along this Indian Path. In Schuylkill County, there is the Mahanoy Creek and (Mahanoy Township and City). 

The path starts near Saconk, an Indian village at the confluence of the Schuylkill River and the Maiden (Ontaulanee) Creek (Berkley), which was the terminus of the Maxatawny Path. The path runs along side the Schuylkill River through Leesport, Hamburg to Port Clinton. The Path crossed the Little Schuylkill River south of Molino and then to Deer Lake and Schuylkill Haven. Then the path followed the West Branch of the Schuylkill River to Yorkville and Minersville and then turning west [this describes Route 61 and then Route 901] towards Beury’s Lake past Deep Creek headwaters. [The bold text describes the area where Mesingw was discovered - Llewellen.] The path continues to the north to Taylorsville to cross the Mahanoy Creek and then the Shamokin Creek in Mt. Carmel.  The path continued west re-crossing the Shamokin Creek at Paxinos and then to Stonington, Oaklyn and Sunbury (Shamokin). [This latter part describes Route 54 and then Route 61, again.] (See Wallace, Paul A., HISTORIC INDIAN PATHS OF PENNSYLVANIA, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1952, drawing between pp. 438 and 439)

The Schuylkill Path – Saconk to Shamokin, following the Schuylkill River and where Mesingw was carved

Mesingw (probably pronounced MUH-seeng-wah) means "living solid face" or "masked being" and he was the protector of all animals of the forest, but is most strongly associated with deer. Some Lenape people describe him as taking humanoid form and riding through the woods on the back of a deer, helping respectful hunters and punishing those who despoil the forest.  His purpose was to reconcile the native's need for meat with the resentments of the animals who were the game. 

The Lenape nation today considers Mesingw important enough to place a likeness on their official seal.  The Mesingw face is in the center of the seal as the Keeper of the Game Animals on which the Lenape depended for food. The face was carved on the center post of the Big House Church ("Xingwekaown”), a wooden structure which held the tribe’s historic religious ceremony in Oklahoma (where the tribe was forced to live over the 19th century). To the right of the mask is the fire drill traditionally used to start sacred fires. Mesingw was so important that the Lenape would have a large gathering to celebrate its spirit. During this celebration, the mask painted 1/2 red and 1/2 black along with a fur skin was worn by a tribe-member to invoke the Mesingw's spirit. In that attire, he would then go through the forest.

The seal of the Lenape (Delaware) tribe adopted in 2012. Mesingw was however also on the previous versions.

This Mesingw petroglyph really exemplifies a connection between native Americans and Schuylkill County. It weaves Lenape traditions – religion, way of life (hunting, trapping and fishing), place-naming conventions, travel - with an artifact created in the county centuries ago.