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AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A CONFRONTATION WITH "THE

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AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A CONFRONTATION WITH "THE
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A CONFRONTATION WITH "THE
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AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A CONFRONTATION WITH "THE PAXTON BOYS"
Fascinating content manuscript document, 3pp. folio, [n.p.], Jan. 24, 1766, a contemporary copy of an affidavit given before WILLIAM ALLEN (1704-1780), Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania, by Jacob Whisler, a Mennonite yeoman charged with administering unsold land at Conestoga Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The affidavit describes an angry confrontation between Whisler and the Paxton Boys, a group of Scots-Irish frontiersmen who formed a vigilante group to retaliate against American Indians in the aftermath of the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion, over land in what was then referred to as "Indian Town". In part: "...on Friday last the 17th day of this Instant January in the Morning [Whisler] having occasion to go to Abraham Hare's Mill ... saw there Robert Poke (who came to live on part of the said Indian Town Land soon after the said Indians were destroyed by the Company of People commonly Called the Paxton Men as was generally reported and understood) and saw the said Robert Poke get from the said Abraham Hare, a kegg of Spiritous Liquor which this Affirmant afterwards understood and believes was for the use of a Company of the said People called Paxton Men, who met that day at the House on the said Indian Town land which was built by the said Poke, and the said Paxton Men at or near the Site of the Cabin late belonging to the Indian called Jo Hayes who was killed there ... that this affirmant on his return from the said Mill in the afternoon was told by his wife that Thomas Fisher ... had been at this Affirmant's house ... that a great Company of the Paxton Men were ... at Poke's and that the said Fisher wanted this affirmant to come to his House ... [Whisler] there found a large Company of Men with Horses being about 25 or 30 as this affirmant computed, many of them having Powder Horns and Pouches and several of them Guns ... one of them, a young Man, who called himself the Captain of Leader of the said Company demanded of this Affirmant in a very angry, outrageous, &menacing manner to know what authority he had to place the said Thomas Fisher on the said Indian Land or to meddle therewith, to which he answered that he had the Governor's Commission or Written Orders to oversee and take Care of the said land, whereupon the said Young Man and several others of the said Company in the like angry and menacing Manner insisted on his shewing them his said Commission or Orders, to which he replied that he had them not with him and that he did not choose to shew them to all that Company least they should take or destroy them but that if they would send 2 or 3 of their Company with him to his house, he would there shew them his Orders; and thereupon the said Young Man and an Elderly Man ... joining the said two others went with this Affirmant to his House, & he there produced to them his said Commission or Orders, which when they had read they all said and insisted that the said Commission or Orders were good for nothing & that the Governor had no power to give any such orders, and that he nor the Proprietors had any [rights] to that Land, but that it belonged to the Indians ... killed there, and that they (meaning the said Company) ... the best right to it & would have and keep it in Spite of the Governor and Proprietors, and insisted in the like angry & menacing manner that this Affirmant should give up and concern himself no further with the said Land and not let the Governor or the Prop.rs Agents know any thing of their the said Company's proceedings respecting the same ... and that on their returning to this Affirmant his said papers the said elderly man called him aside and in a pretended friendly manner advised him by all means to have nothing more to do with the said Land, but quit it entirely for that if he did concern himself any farther with it ... he might depend upon it that they would do him great Mischief ... And [Whisler] saith that the said Young Man and elderly Man who called themselves the heads or Leaders of the said Company then told this Affirmant that all the said Company then told this Affirmant that all the said Company had sworn to obey and stand by them, and would approve of every thing which they the said Leaders should do about the said Lands..." The affidavit was likely executed by a court clerk, and bears the facsimile signatures of Whisler and Allen at the conclusion. Long split along the center fold, damp stains obliterating some of the text, with minor paper loss at the left edge, else very good. The Paxton Boys, organized by the "Fighting Parson" JOHN ELDER (1706-1792), are best known for murdering 21 Susquehannock Indians, known as the Conestoga, in a reign of terror which would come to be known as the Conestoga Massacre. After the group attacked a Conestoga settlement in December 1763, killing six, the remaining Indians were given sanctuary in Lancaster. The Paxton Boys raided the town and killed, scalped and dismembered six adults and eight children. In January 1764, the Paxton Boys marched toward Philadelphia with about 250 men to challenge the government for failing to protect them. Benjamin Franklin led a group of civic leaders to meet them in Germantown, then a separate settlement northwest of the city, and hear their grievances. After the leaders agreed to read the men's pamphlet of issues before the colonial legislature, the mob agreed to disperse. Many colonists were outraged about the December killings of innocent Conestoga, describing the murders as more savage than those committed by Indians. Benjamin Franklin's "Narrative of the Late Massacres" concluded with noting that the Conestoga would have been safe among any other people on earth, no matter how primitive, except "'white savages' from Peckstang and Donegall!"
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AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A CONFRONTATION WITH "THE

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