Paxtang is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,640. The borough is a suburb of Harrisburg and is one of the earliest colonial settlements in South Central Pennsylvania.
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the best known Native American of his generation, he met many of the most significant American and British people of the age, including both United States President George Washington and King George III of Great Britain.
Pontiac's War was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans who were dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous nations joined in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many indigenous leaders in the conflict.
The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing of 96 pacifist Moravian Christian Indians by U.S. militiamen from Pennsylvania, under the command of David Williamson, on March 8, 1782, at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio Country, during the American Revolutionary War.
White Eyes, named Koquethagechton, was Chief Sachem of the Lenape (Delaware) people in the Ohio Country during the era of the American Revolution. Sometimes known as George White Eyes, or Captain Grey Eyes al. Sir William, his given name in Lenape was rendered in many spelling variations in colonial records.
The Kittanning Expedition, also known as the Armstrong Expedition or the Battle of Kittanning, was a raid during the French and Indian War that led to the destruction of the American Indian village of Kittanning, which had served as a staging point for attacks by Lenape warriors against colonists in the British Province of Pennsylvania. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong Sr., this raid deep into hostile territory was the only major expedition carried out by Pennsylvanian provincial troops during a brutal backcountry war. Early on September 8, 1756, they launched a surprise attack on the Indian village.
The Paxton Boys, also known as the Paxtang Boys or the Paxton Rangers, were a mob of settlers that murdered 20 unarmed Conestoga in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in December 1763. This group of vigilantes from Lancaster and Cumberland counties formed in 1763 to defend themselves from Indigenous attacks during Pontiac's War. The Paxton Boys justified their actions by claiming that the Conestoga were colluding with the Lenape and Shawnee who were attacking Pennsylvania's frontier settlements. According to historian Kevin Kenny, the Paxton Boys were Pennsylvania's most aggressive colonists.
Mary Campbell was an American colonial settler who was known for her abduction by Native Americans during the French and Indian War being the first white child to travel to the Western Reserve. Born in 1747 or 1748, Campbell was taken captive by the Lenape tribe at the age of ten in 1758. It is believed that she lived with the Lenape, possibly under the care of their chief Netawatwees, in locations near Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and Newcomerstown, eastern Ohio. Campbell's return to her family in Pennsylvania in 1764 was facilitated by British military pressure on the Native Americans. She was among a group of captives released to British forces and transported to Fort Pitt.
Captain Lazarus Stewart was an 18th-century Pennsylvanian frontiersman, a leader of the Paxton Boys, and a prominent commander on the Yankee side in the Pennamite–Yankee War. He met his death during the Revolutionary War in battle with Loyalists and Iroquois at the Battle of Wyoming.
Custaloga was a chief of the Wolf Clan of the Delaware (Lenape) tribe in the mid-18th century. He initially supported the French at the beginning of the French and Indian War, but after Pontiac's War he participated in peace negotiations. He opposed the presence of Catholic missionaries, but later in life he became favorable to the Moravians. Captain Pipe was his nephew and succeeded him as chief.
Captain Pipe (Lenape), called Konieschquanoheel and also known as Hopocan in Lenape, was an 18th-century Head Peace chief of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape (Delaware) and War Chief 1778+. He succeeded his maternal uncle Custaloga as chief by 1773. Likely born in present-day Pennsylvania, he later migrated with his people into eastern Ohio.
Tewea, better known by his English name Captain Jacobs, was a Lenape chief during the French and Indian War. Jacobs received his English name from a Pennsylvanian settler named Arthur Buchanan, who thought the chief resembled a "burly German in Cumberland County."
Netawatwees or King Newcomer was Sachem and spiritual leader of the Delaware. His name, meaning "skilled advisor" or "first in council," is spelled in a variety of ways including Netaut Twelement, Na-taut-whale-mund, Neattawatways, Netahutquemaled, and Netodwehement.
The Light in the Forest is a 1958 American Western historical fiction drama film based on a novel of the same name first published in 1953 by American author Conrad Richter. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and stars Fess Parker, Joanne Dru, James MacArthur and Wendell Corey. Though it is a work of fiction and primarily features fictional characters, the novel incorporates several real people and facts from American history.
The Penn's Creek massacre was an October 16, 1755 raid by Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans on a settlement along Penn's Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania. It was the first of a series of deadly raids on Pennsylvania settlements by Native Americans allied with the French in the French and Indian War.
The Hochstetler massacre was an attack on a farmstead at the Northkill Amish Settlement in September or October 1757, in which three Amish settlers were killed and three others taken into captivity. The attack was one of many assaults by French-allied Native American warriors on Pennsylvania settlements during the French and Indian War. For religious reasons, the Amish settlers refused to defend themselves, and everyone in the homestead was either killed or captured. One of the captives, 45-year-old Jacob Hochstetler, escaped captivity after about eight months, and his two sons were later returned through a peace agreement brokered in 1763.
Muskingum was a Wyandot village in southeastern Ohio from 1747 to 1755. It was an important trade center in the early 1750s, until it was devastated by smallpox in the winter of 1752. The town was repopulated for a short time afterwards, then abandoned again as a new community was established by Netawatwees a few miles to the east at Gekelukpechink. The city of Coshocton, Ohio was founded close to the site of the village in 1802.
Tamaqua or Tamaque, also known as The Beaver and King Beaver, was a leading man of the Unalachtigo (Turkey) phratry of the Lenape people. Although the Haudenosaunee in 1752 had appointed Shingas chief of the Lenape at the Treaty of Logstown, after the French and Indian War Tamaqua rose in prominence through his active role as peace negotiator, and was acknowledged by many Lenape as their "king" or chief spokesman. He was among the first to hand over English captives at the end of the French and Indian War and was active in peace negotiations at the conclusion of Pontiac's War. By 1758, he was recognized as one of three principal leaders of the Lenape, being the primary spokesman for the western Lenape in the Ohio Country. He founded the town of Tuscarawas, Ohio, in 1756 and died there in 1769 or 1771.
Hugh Gibson was an American pioneer and a Pennsylvania frontiersman. In 1756, when he was 14 years old, his farm was attacked by Lenape Indians and he was taken prisoner. He was adopted as a brother by Pisquetomen, a Lenape chief, and lived for three years with the Lenape, moving to several different communities. In 1759 he escaped, together with three other captives.
Fort Bigham was a privately built stockaded blockhouse fort constructed in 1754 near present-day Honey Grove in Tuscarora Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania. It was built by Samuel Bigham on his land to protect his family and neighbors from Indians. In June, 1756 the fort was attacked and the people in it, mostly women and children, were all captured or killed. The fort was largely destroyed. It was rebuilt in 1760 and abandoned in 1763.
