About Manuscripts Profiles Maps Map Gallery Credits

Jacob Lindley's Account, 1793

SW_JL1793_Page_109

tence or two of Latin, over and over, all the way.Indeed the whole of this religious parade, appearedto have more of Jewish ceremony, or Gentile super-stition in it, than Christian simplicity or gravity. —They deposited the poor tabernacle under the floor, rung the bells, sung aloud, made their sanctum sanc-torum resound, and then departed. Numbers of themcome to mass on first-day, eight or ten miles, just step in, and (they say) rhyme over their paternoster,dip their finger into the font, cross themselves, andout again, to drink and frolic. 2nd. I went on board the Ottoway, Capt. Cowan, just arrived from Fort Erie, in hopes of hearing fromhome; in which I was disappointed. I found eigh-teen Oneida Indians on board, with whom I had some conversation. The captain informed me, he had put sixty on shore at the mouth of the Miami, on their way to the Rapids, where, we are inform-ed, twelve hundred Indians are assembled. Thisday we received a letter from Colonel McKee, con-taining friendly sentiments, and an assurance thatwe should have timely notice of the opening of thetreaty. We also received one from a young man onboard the Chipaway, informing that Colonel Butler, who was passenger with his Indians on board Capt. Cowan's vessel, came on board their vessel, and inconversation in a select company, where he had no suspicion, expressed, that if the commissioners shouldpropose, or even hint any other terms than whatwere concluded upon by the Indians, he would notthink it strange, if every person from the colonies,comissioners, Quakers, and all, should be sacrificedon the spot; for they know no distinction, but theirown people. This, the young man communicated to