Note 31 — Western Indians

"Monday, June 21, 1779.—This day we marched through the Great Swamp, and Bear Swamp. The Great Swamp, which is eleven or twelve miles through, contains what is called on our maps "shades of death," by reason of its darkness; both swamps contain trees of amazing height, viz., hemlock, birch, pine, sugar maple, ash, locust, etc. The roads in some places are tolerable, but in other places exceeding bad, by reason of which, and a long though necessary march, three of our wagons and the carriages of two field pieces were broken down. This day we proceeded twenty miles and encamped late in the evening at a spot which the commander named Camp Fatigue. The troops were tired and hungry. The road through the Swamps is entirely new, being fitted for the passage of our wagons by Colonels Cortlandt and Spencer at the instance of the commander-in-chief; the way to Wyoming, being before only a blind, narrow path. The new road does its projectors great credit, and must in a future day be of essential service to the inhabitants of Wyoming and Easton. In the Great Swamp is Locust Hill, where we discovered evident marks of a destroyed Indian village. Tobyhanna and Middle creeks empty into the Tunkhanunk; the Tunkhanunk empties into the head branch of the Lehigh, which at Easton, empties into the Delaware. The Moosick mountain, through a gap of which we passed in the Great Swamp, is the dividing ridge which separates the Delaware from the Susquehanna."—[Rev. William Rogers' Journal.]