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The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784

Note 8 — CHAPTER ONE

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John F. Meginness, Otzinachson: A History of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna (Williamsport, 1889), p. 106. The full passage from the Bethlehem Diary (now in the Moravian Archives) was translated by the late Dr. William N. Schwarze for Dr. Paul A. W. Wallace, historian of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, as follows: "In the afternoon [June 8, New Style] our brethren left that place [beyond Montoursville] and came in the evening to the Limping Messenger on the Tiadachton Creek, where they spent the night." In the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, II (1878), 432 (hereafter cited as PMHB), Zeisberger's account is translated in this manner: "In the afternoon we proceeded on our journey, and at dusk came to the 'Limping Messenger,' or Diadachton Creek [a note identifies this as Lycoming], and encamped for the night." Here the error is in identifying the Limping Messenger with the stream. Meginness, of course, repeated the error in his Otzinachson (1889), p. 106. Referring the passage to Vernon H. Nelson of the Moravian Archives, through Dr. Wallace, resulted in a clarification of the translation and the affirmation of the "Limping Messenger" as a camp on the stream. In the Bethlehem Diary, under June 8, 1754, the sentence appears as follows: "des Nachm. reissten unsre Brr Wieder von da weg u kamen Abends zum hinckenden Boten an der Tiatachton Creek, u lagen da uber Nacht." In the original travel journal the passage reads: "des Nachm. reissten wir wieder von da weg, u kamen Abends zum hinckenden Boten an der Tiatachton Crick u lagen da uber Nacht." De Schweinitz in his Zeisberger further confused the issue in his description of the journey. He takes the adventurers (Zeisberger, Spangenburg, Conrad Weiser, Shickellamy, and Andrew Montour) through the valley of the Tiadaghton Creek on the Sheshequin Path to Onondaga (Syracuse). There was an Indian path up Pine Creek, but it led to Niagara, not Onondaga.

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