SUNBURY - In the mid-1700s, a tribe of Saponi Native Americans, traveling from North Carolina to evade attacks from neighboring tribes, found safety at a "multi-ethnic settlement" located at the confluence of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna River.
The village, known as Shamokin and located within the limits of present-day Sunbury, was known as the "Indian capital" of the province of Pennsylvania, until relationships with the English soured during the French and Indian War.
The Saponois later fled further north to New York state, their trip complete by 1775.
Information detailing the Saponi's stay in "Shamokin" is scarce, but a group of historians from North Carolina are looking to fill in the gaps by searching for descendents of the Saponis who are living in the greater Sunbury area.
The Historical Museum Foundation, an incorporated nonprofit based in Yadkin, Rowan County, would use the information about the tribe's stay in the area in a museum that is planned as part of an effort to revive the former mill town. Gary Hauze, a member of the organization, said the museum will focus on the Yadkin River Valley and Yadkin, from where the Saponi's began their trip north more than 250 years ago.
"We are hoping to find decedents of Saponi to find out if they passed any oral knowledge," Hauze said. "Indians sometimes did not have a written history. They often passed their history orally from one generation to the next."
Historical confusion
The group is attempting to determine how many Saponis moved to the original Shamokin and what exactly caused them to move on to New York. Hauze said tribal traditions dictate how history is told, which may explain why there's so little information about the Saponi's stay locally.
Another reason history is sometimes scarce, he said, is because ancestors of Native Americans are afraid to talk about their family's past for a variety of reasons.
Hauze said certain websites about Native Americans can confuse readers by providing false or partial histories. In fact, the lack of information about the Shamokin settlement led Hauze, who grew up in Pottstown, to initially believe the City of Shamokin is the same location as the settlement, although they are separated by 16 miles. Another common misconception is that the borough of Shamokin Dam is directly related to the city. These inconsistencies demonstrate why it's important to interview descendents.
The museum is still in the planning stages, but a plot of land has been picked across from the Yadkin United Church, once a church of the United Methodist Church until it was de-commissioned at the end of 2013. Directors of the foundation are concentrating on researching Yadkin, which, like the settlement of Shamokin in what is present-day Sunbury, was home to at least three tribes.
"Sachem-Okhe"
Long before the first white man traversed the woods of the Susquehanna Valley, generations of Indians had lived in the settlement at the river. According to Sunbury's Bicentennial book published in 1972, the earliest known map of this area was made by Isaac Taylor in 1725. (That was more than 100 years before the City of Shamokin was even laid out.) It shows a town marked "Mikquar Town." It also shows "Chimasky" and "Shamokin," names for a stream in the Iroquoian and Delaware languages.
The book states that Chimasky is most likely a deviation of the abbreviation of the Iroquoian name for the stream, while Shamokin is possibly of the same derivation from the Delaware words "Sachem," meaning chief or king, and "okhe," meaning the town where the chief lives. Two prominent chiefs lived in the settlement: Allummapees, who ruled the Delaware nation in 1728 and had removed the council fire of the Delaware nation from the forks of the Delaware to the Susquehanna, and Chief Shikellamy, an Oneida chief who originally was dispatched to the settlement by The Long House of the council of Five Nations at Onondaga (a union of Native Americans) to govern affairs of the Delawares, Shawnee and other tribes.
Shikellamy and Conrad Weiser (Pennsylvania's Indian agent) would meet in the settlement during negotiations between the Pennsylvania colonists and Native Americans. The Chief, who died in 1748 and is buried in the outskirts of Sunbury, was well-respected among the English and his people, and the school district in Sunbury and state park on Packer Island were named in his honor.
Various forms of the word Shamokin were used as a name for the settlement at Sunbury, according to the City of Shamokin Centennial book published in 1964. It was first called "Schachamoki," meaning "the place of eels," and the creek was referred to as "Schachamekhan," meaning "eel stream." The Delaware tribe later wrote the name as "Schamoki," "Sha-ho-mo-kong," "Shaumokin" and, lastly, "Shamokin."
Hauze said the name Shamokin might also be Saponi-based since the Saponis joined the Iroquois Nation when they moved to Pennsylvania. In the Saponi language, the word "Shumounk" means "place of the horn," which is what is stamped on a keystone marker along Route 61 at the western end of the City of Shamokin.
"Often times, different groups will claim that certain words came from them rather than from another," Hauze said. "Some languages have a common ancestor. Tribes have relationships going back centuries because of their common language."
End of 'Shamokin'
Most of the information pertaining to the settlement comes from the journals of the first travelers to the area. The Rev. David Brainerd, who visited the settlement in 1745 and 1746, described the town "Shaumoking," having 50 houses and nearly 300 people consisting of three different tribes of Indians speaking three different languages. The settlement consisted of Delawares, Senecas and Tutelas.
In 1754, during a conference with the Six Nations in Albany, the Penns purchased land to the west of the Susquehanna River up and to one mile north of Penn's Creek, in what is known as the Albany purchase. The Delawares took offense to this deal and sided with the French, who had established themselves long the Allegheny, according the Sunbury book.
Relationships between the English and Indians began to deteriorate July 9, 1755, when Gen. Edward Braddock, a British officer, and his army were killed during an ambush along the Monongahela River. On Oct. 16, a party of Western Delawares killed 15 men and boys and carried off children and women prisoners near present-day New Berlin. On May 15, 1756, the Eastern Delawares, who still resided at the settlement, feared retribution and decided to burn their houses and flee. The last people to leave were Moravian missionaries and a blacksmith. In that same year, the Quaker Assembly decided to protect outlying settlements of local Indians who remained friendly to the English by recruiting a battalion of 400 men, known as the Augusta Regiment. Soon after, Fort Augusta was built.
In 1772, Northumberland County was formed and the City of Sunbury was laid out.
'Shamokin' artifacts
The Northumberland County Historical Society, located in the Hunter House on the site of Fort Augusta, along Front Street in Sunbury, has a collection of Native American artifacts - many of which were found at the Shamokin settlement. Two digs were conducted, one in the 1930s and another in the 1990s, according to John Lindermuth, a local historian and librarian of the society. Jewelry, arrowheads and pottery found in the 1930s are among the items on display.
The collection and information about Chief Shikellamy and the Shamokin settlement can be viewed from 1 to 4 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from March through December at the society.
For more information about the future museum in Yadkin, visit http://yadkinmuseum.org. Hauze can be contacted directly at gchauze@yahoo.com.
